My Graduation, 19/10/21
8 minutes read time
Me with my friend and course mate, James. Wonder if you can guess which country he is from?
It’s the night before my graduation and all through the house, everyone was stirring, even the mice living in the loft, really must get that sorted out...
11PM, and I say to mum, “What will I say to Alan?” (Titchmarsh, our chancellor). “I tell you what you could say...”, she said, “what about, it’s a long day for you Alan”. We laughed for a moment, as my sister, Elisa, agreed that it was a great idea. “Let’s practise this”, I said, as the performer in me is keen to turn any situation into a theatre show. My mum stood in the middle of the kitchen, like Alan would be the following day, (except not in our kitchen, it would be in the middle of Winchester cathedral). I walked up to her, my mum bowed and I said, “it’s a long day for you Alan”, and then walked off towards the back door. My mum, sister and me all laughing, as we rehearsed. We hoped Alan would appreciate that, as it was a long day for him, there would be four separate graduation ceremonies everyday for the next week! Mum has always been great at coming up with perfect lines or phrases, she’s written some cracking jokes for me over the years, and she’s responsible for 90% of my stand-up show titles. I knew with my mum’s line; Alan would surely react in some way.
At Winchester, the arts department are always the first to graduate, this is because, students graduate according to the alphabet. Mine was at midday, the second of the four ceremonies that day, this was quite early because we were the arts (A), and our course was Comedy: Performance and Production (C). Yes, I know it’s a strange degree, can you tell me a joke? Why on earth would you study that? Have you considered becoming a teacher? Blah, blah, blah, I’ve heard it all before. I did it because I love comedy and I want to be a comedian, and I think I’m mildly amusing. All these reasons were circling my head as we drove up the very straight A30, towards Winchester at 8AM. We say the same thing every time we drive up this road, “this must be a Roman road, look how straight it is”. “Just imagine the soldiers and chariots that came up here once”. These non-important thoughts stabilise me, and prevent me from going down a darker spiral in my mind, as I frequently do.
In June 2021, in a therapy session, I was diagnosed with anxiety, caused by obsessive compulsions, as a result of something called, intrusive thoughts. The sufferer will have an intrusive thought, and they are usually violent, sexual or blasphemous and most “normal” people will think, “that was a bit strange, but oh well”, and move on. These people understand, that the thoughts are not a reflection of them, they are instead just the mind producing anything it thinks is of importance to the person. However, people like me, think these thoughts are a terrible reflection of your personality, and work to get rid of the thoughts at all costs, by repeating phrases, avoiding triggering situations and thinking irrationally. These behaviours are the mental obsessive compulsions, that only make the thoughts come back more aggressively. It’s a horrible circle. The only way I can describe the feeling is, it’s like waking up and suddenly not trusting your own mind anymore.
So, facts about Roman roads help me to focus on something more in line with my personality. Another mental health technique is to look around your environment and note things you can hear, smell or see, thus anchoring you in the moment, rather than in your thoughts. I was doing this a lot when we arrived at the cathedral. This was a positive day, not a negative one, and I wasn’t going to let these thoughts ruin it. As we arrived on site, I noted the colours of the gowns, the smell of everyone’s perfume rolled into one expensive cocktail. (Mine was, “Bold for men” a cheap Superdrug brand we had bought the previous day, well why pay more?). I noted the might of Winchester cathedral, and the excited faces of all my fellow arts graduates, standing below its main window. My next mission was to retrieve my gown. It cost £46 to hire the gown for about four hours. “They must be making it today”, my dad wittily remarked as he noticed all the other students who had also paid £46. As the gown man handed me mine, I thought, “what am I doing?” “How is this possible?” I was suffering from severe anxiety, but somehow got a degree. During my studies it had, kept me up all night, made me avoid social settings, affected relationships, cast major doubts over my ability to make people laugh, and at its worst completely destroyed my faith and confidence. But here I was graduating with a 1st class degree in comedy. My mum was in tears.
As I began walking back towards the cathedral in my gown, (which I’m pretty convinced I could pull off on a day-to-day basis), I began picking up other members of my course, creating a kind of comedy walking tour and we all congregated in front of the cathedral, ready to graduate.
We’ve sat down, family and friends at the back, and the graduates at the front in their courses. As we were the second to graduate in the ceremony, we were right at the very front. We had a great view of Alan! “When your name is called”, he said, “don’t be afraid to shake my hand, I’m wearing gloves”. The audience chuckled. As students got their degrees, you could tell it wasn’t just me who had rehearsed a walk-up act the night before. We were all performance students, what else do you think was going to happen? Some people had interesting bows, fancy fashion style walks, poses to the camera, waves to the audience, and of course lines for Alan Titchmarsh. Our course lined up for our graduation, one of my lecturers, Olu, showed us the way to Alan. My name was called, “Jacob Roger Hulland, with 1st class honours”. I waved to the audience (come on, I was enjoying it), and shook Alan’s hand, “well done” he said, (three, two, one...) “it’s a long day for you Alan”, “Yes”, he said, “it’s a long week”. I strode off, was given my degree by a member of staff, and scene.
As I went back to my seat, waving to my family, and holding my degree defiantly, I was suddenly reminded of something. My very first stand-up show at The Shaftesbury Fringe in 2016, was called, It’s Been a Long week, and Alan had just said to me, “it’s a long week”. I mean come on. It reminded me of my journey from comedian wannabe to doing a degree in the ruddy thing! It was so accidently fitting. “I’d like to go round again”, I said to my friends. It really was a short exchange. If I was to do it again, I certainly would have done the Morecambe and Wise dance.
As we walked out, I waved to my family, and shook the hands of some of my lecturers as I left the cathedral, into the wide world, with a degree in comedy! As me and my course family chatted, took photos, threw our mortarboards into the air and did the High School Musical jump, I thought, “this is great”. I love my course mates, they are all great friends, and I will look forward to working and laughing with them in the future. We were the last year of comedy at Winchester University, our course was cancelled half-way through Year 2, but we made some great comedy and we will continue to make great comedy!
Finally, well done to all of those who suffered with mental health conditions, whilst studying a degree. As if just studying a degree on its own wasn’t hard enough! You did it! You did the impossible!
The final Winchester uni comedy alumni. From left to right. Holly Foskett, Jack Gallagher, Ryan Riley, James Crampton, Emily-Grace Sainsbury, Jack Rodgers, me, Robbie Scott, Michael Swales and Carl Shears.
