I tell people I did a double degree: psychology and alcohol consumption. But that was back in the days before student loans, so life at varsity was a lot more relaxed. We did a fair bit of goofing off.

I got sucked into KAOS straight away. I’d been role-playing at high school, and I joined up with a role-playing club and met a couple of university people there. It turned out that they were members of KAOS, but they were also members of this little proto-SCA group.

A couple of them were doing the first bits of fighting happening in New Zealand. Really primitive armour, really nasty stuff. And we didn’t know squat about anything. I look at some of the costumes I had from back then, and I just think oh, how could I? — Oh no!