Keep off the grass!

This story from Cold Spring Shops about students refusing to use footpaths which didn't take the shortest route from A to B reminds me of a similar story from my own student days.

Our hall of Residence (Bridges Hall at Reading University) took the form of a quadrangle with doors on the middle of three of the four sides. They were linked by a T-shaped footpath which linked the wings filled with student accomodation with the dining hall. Of course a minority of students insisted in taking a diagonal short cut across the grass.

This annoyed the rather stuffy warden of the hall no end, and after a failed poster campaign, we were presented with the final deterrent; a diagonal wooden fence running across the quadrangle at 90 degrees to the shortcut.

We students were not to be deterred. Two people who shall remain nameless even after 20 years were members of the University Drama Society, and found a doorway as a leftover prop from a recent production. In the middle of one night, this doorway appeared in the middle of the fence, restoring the shortcut.

You're only young once, after all.