"It changed my life”: 90-year-old former Trinity English student recalls university in the 1950s

Posted on: 20 October 2025

In 1953, a young woman called Maryette Watson started studying Modern Literature (English and French) at Trinity.  She left before graduation to get married, in line with social norms at that time. 

Last week, at the age of 90 and a great-grandmother, Maryette McFarland (her married name), graduated with a first class BA honours degree in English Literature from the Open University. She has credited her multi-generational family with helping her manage her online studies.  

Technically this was Maryette’s third university. In 2020 when her husband died, Maryette enrolled at Coleraine University, but was unable to keep attending after being involved in a car accident.   She then completed her final two years online. 

Maryette has warm memories of Trinity, where she was a resident at Trinity Halls in her first year. 

“I loved it,” she told us in an interview. “It changed my life at that age. I went there straight from a very strict English boarding school so the freedom was just wonderful. We just talked and talked and talked.” 

It was a formal time at Trinity, she reflects, when she herself would have been called “Miss Watson” and “would never have dreamed of calling a tutor by their Christian name”.  

She has especially strong memories of the poet Donald Davie, who was her tutor over this time. “He was so wonderful,” she says. “He wanted to hear all our thoughts”. 

Overall, Maryette reflects ruefully that she did not work very hard at that time but had great fun. The rules dictated that women couldn’t enter the men’s rooms, she said. “Well, we went, but we weren’t allowed to!”. 

She worked hard when she studied for her Open University degree, which she found challenging but very interesting. 

“I didn’t even think I’d get a BA when I started. I just loved reading, and I had a bit more time to do it.” 

* Image Credit: Open University

ENDS 

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