Arts and Culture Editor Ella Guy interviews Matt Wilson on his time at John’s and life after Durham.
Matt Wilson, a John’s student, left Durham University in 2002. His appearance at the recent law formal was his first time back at John’s since 2015, when he was visiting a friend from John’s in Newcastle and stopped at the college, bringing along his young children for lunch and photos on the steps to the main entrance. Friendships became a recurring theme as Matt and I spoke about the college, and the relationships he formed during his time at John’s have played an impactful part in shaping his life. He reaffirmed throughout our conversation that he met friends for life at John’s, who he still sees often, meeting up for sports matches, theatre trips and family get-togethers, and who, in twenty-five years of friendship, have supported each other through good times and bad, whether that’s getting married, starting families, illness, bereavement, or career successes or failures.
On telling me about his experience of John’s throughout the years, Matt explained how his friendships changed and strengthened. His best memories are those from his third year when he lived in a large room in Cruddas, nearby to friends, which he described as like living in an apartment. He has a multitude of fond memories, but his last John’s Day is one that stands out, a day full of joyful atmosphere and bungee football on the lawn. There was a sense of will life be this good again? He told me that his third year was so enjoyable for him because by that time, students have better figured out what kind of people they want to be and who their closest friends are but at the same time recognise the strengths and values in everyone. He spent second year living out of college and remembers the lead up to signing a house being highly political, but in the end everyone was always in and out of others’ houses anyway, and that as university goes on, and afterwards when you start work and mix in slightly different groups, people that you weren’t especially close to ‘suddenly become best mates over time’. He found this certainly to be the case when moving back into college for his final year and then to London after Durham.
It was also in his third year that Matt met his wife, Amy. I was surprised to learn that Klute was still the esteemed establishment we know it to be, and that this was where the pair met. Matt had been sitting in the now non-existent TV room outside the bar with a lime and lemonade after a day of playing football for John’s, with absolutely no intention of going out for the night, but he was convinced by a friend, and they hopped down the Bailey to the nightclub. Ten minutes later, two girls walked in, one of whom caught Matt’s eye, and hours later Amy’s friend introduced her to him. It turned out that Matt and Amy had a lot in common: they were both third years, had grown up in nearby areas, and had worked in the same Sainsbury’s. Their first date was a week later at the Court Inn, and they went to the theatre in Sunderland for Valentine’s Day (Matt commented that Amy can’t have been all too impressed, but things seem to have worked out).
Matt studied Economics and Politics at Durham, and for most of his degree was not sure of which career path he wanted to take, but there was an amazing four-week period in which he both met Amy and landed a job at a global law firm, Baker McKenzie, as a trainee lawyer in London. He then worked for O2 and Arsenal Football Club. He joined Uber as their first lawyer in the UK, later becoming their General Counsel for EMEA and APAC, leading Uber’s legal teams across those regions. Matt is now Chief Legal Officer for Fremantle, a global content production company which makes TV shows and movies like Britain’s Got Talent and The Apprentice. Amy, a Trevelyan student, studied Biology and Biochemistry. She went on to work as a patent attorney in London, and then at a pharmaceutical company. During their last Easter holidays of university, Matt and Amy went to Paris for a few days and after graduating travelled to Mexico, Guatamala and Belize, stopping in New York on the way back. They were engaged a few years later, married in 2008 and had three daughters, Evelyn, Grace and Clara. While Matt was at Uber, the whole family moved to Amsterdam for four years where they lived a very different life from the one they had in the UK. Able to bike everywhere and living in each other’s pockets, they had lots of adventures, including driving 11,000 km in a month around Europe when Clara was 12 months old. While the family was in Amsterdam, Amy focused on the children and expanding the family’s social lives, then took a job working at the children’s school in the science department when they returned to England. The pair have been immensely successful, much of the events of their lives stemming from their time at Durham, and surely with many more exciting things to come.
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