The Anonymous Widower

Which Is The Best UK University For Students With Coeliac Disease?

When I went to Liverpool University in the 1960s, I hadn’t been diagnosed with coeliac disease, but this article from the BBC web site about students with nut allergies got me thinking.

In my travels around the country, I find cities and towns vary with their knowledge of the disease. For instance, London, Brighton, Cambridge and Liverpool are easy cities for a coeliac and others like Ipswich, Blackpool and Middlesbrough  are difficult.

I think drinking could be the biggest problem, as it is only in a few places you can drink a pint of something gluten-free, like real cider. At least these days, there is a wide availability of microwaveable meals from the major supermarkets that are gluten free and there are now reliable Indian restaurants, who cook with gram flour everywhere. And you can usually find a Pizza Express.  Who’d have thought that good gluten-free pizza would be available nearly everywhere, a few years ago?

I think in the 1960s, being a coeliac, would have been a real problem at university and I probably would have taken an easy option to stay in London with my aunt.  I couldn’t have lived with my parents in Felixstowe, as there was no University in the county.

So my life as a coeliac would have been totally different.  I certainly wouldn’t have met my wife and would have missed out on forty very happy years.

September 16, 2013 - Posted by AnonW | Food, World | Coeliac/Gluten-Free, Education, University