CAMPhotography by Megan Taylor
Y43, Christ’s My room, your room
Sathnam Sanghera and Law student Rocio Leyva Thomas.
The posters may have changed, but the air of excitement, possibility and pride is as strong as ever, say author Sathnam Sanghera and Law student Rocio Leyva Thomas.
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14 July 2026
The posters may have changed, but the air of excitement, possibility and pride is as strong as ever, say author Sathnam Sanghera and Law student Rocio Leyva Thomas.
Sathnam Sanghera (Christ’s 1995) and third year Law student Rocio Leyva Thomas are discussing that student room staple, the slightly pretentious poster.
Thomas proudly displays one for Camel cigarettes featuring a sexy blonde peering over the corner of a pool table, waving a Camel and – rather impressively – a pool cue in the same hand. But, she is keen to assure him: “I am not a fan of Camel cigarettes and I don’t smoke!”
“Don’t worry,” says Sanghera, whose own entry to the pretentious poster list is a Salman Rushdie poster he finagled from Waterstones.
“I went through a cigar phase in this very room.” He ponders the strangeness of a time that allowed smoking in rooms but not TVs: a rule which he flagrantly ignored. “I had a secret black and white TV.
On Saturday nights, my best friend and I would sit in this room and watch Blind Date with Cilla Black while eating macaroni cheese.”
Returning to Y43 brings up complex feelings for Sanghera, who arrived at Christ’s as the first in his family to go to university, the child of Punjabi parents who had come to the UK in the late 60s.
“My father couldn’t read or write, and my mother didn’t speak any English.” His teacher at Wolverhampton Grammar School, Robin Roberts, dropped him off. “She got me my place here, more or less,” says Sanghera.
“Things were going wrong at home. My sister had just been committed, because she had schizophrenia. My parents decided to go to India, I think because they were dreading dropping me off.
As a boy, you’re supposed to stay at home. There was a real feeling that I was betraying them somehow. The first thing my dad said when I got my place at Cambridge was: ‘Why can’t you go to Wolverhampton University?’” Walking in now, he says, sparks the exact same feelings he had on that first day.
“A mixture of excitement and possibility, but also homesickness.” Perhaps that’s because Y43’s furniture and layout have barely changed since the 90s: he’s sure the chairs are still the same, as are, of course, the two vast windows looking out over Third Court.
“I still have a lot of memories of sitting and looking out those windows,” says Sanghera. “The light and the sound of the birds is amazing.” “I’m quite nosy, so I like watching the people walk along outside,” agrees Thomas.
“That’s the College life thing. You know everyone, at least by sight. You can look at someone and think oh yes, they’re from Christ’s.” They fall to discussing how life in Y43 has – and hasn’t – changed. “I have conflicting feelings: pride and regret at the same time,” says Sanghera.
“I think it’s important to acknowledge the sadness. Although I was very socially confident at school and after I left Cambridge, I did not understand what was going on socially at university
"I never imagined I would ever write a book. Books were written by other people, superhuman people. It’s hard to see beyond. It’s hard to dream beyond what you’ve seen."
There were all these cliques. The posh clique. The nerds. I became very close to three of my fellow English students. But we all felt disconnected.”
Thomas’s social landscape 30 years later is very different.
“We’re all from varying backgrounds, but we just gel.
My friends who visit from other universities do find some things strange, though.
Like how it’s only in Cambridge that it’s cool to go to a jazz night rather than go clubbing.” But she, too, is part of a close-knit group of four friends on the floor.
“I love the serendipity of us just leaving our doors open, walking in, having a chat.
I don’t really host in this room: it’s the spontaneous wandering around between rooms that I love, especially in the digital age where everything is planned.”
They both agree: their time in Y43 was and is special – but it’s hard to recognise just how special that time is until you’ve closed that door for the last time.
“I’ve tried to throw myself into Cambridge life,” says Thomas.
“When I go home, I do think: ‘I could have done this, I could have done that.’ But when my two little sisters hear about it, they think it’s cool that I’m here and you realise: ‘Oh, I did make the most of it.’”
“You can’t imagine what you’re going to become,” says Sanghera.
“When I was in this room, I never imagined I would ever write a book. Books were written by other people, superhuman people. It’s hard to see beyond. It’s hard to dream beyond what you’ve seen.”
Photography by Megan Taylor
Sathnam Sanghera is a journalist and author of a critically acclaimed memoir and novel, and bestselling works of history for adults and children. Third year Law student Rocio Leyva Thomas is Captain of Boats and has received a job offer from a commercial law firm on graduation.
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