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SARAH & LEWIS
23.8.2025
The Sarah and Lewis Eras Tour
We've been together for a while! Here's a Taylor Swift-esque eras tour of our relationship (use the arrows!)
Era #1 : West Midlands (2012-2015)
We met in late 2012, while Sarah was in her first year at University of Birmingham and Lewis was at Warwick. We bonded over a shared love of heavy music and wearing black clothes.
Don't let the innocent smiles fool you, you're looking at the two of West Midlands Railways most prolific fare dodgers from 2012-2014.
We spent a lot of our undergraduate years going to and also organizing gigs in Birmingham, Coventry, Leamington Spa and the North-East. Sometimes the attendances were good (thanks Martha and Water Torture!), but more often not they weren't...
We also occasionally got dressed up for Halloween. This was us as Robert Smith + a Lovecat for a night out in Nottingham.
We moved in together in Coventry in 2014, after which Sarah made a lot of trips to the local IKEA
Here's a sketch of us from around that time by the punk illustrator Mitch Clem. He's been pretty generous to Lewis' jawline...
Also in 2014, we took a 2 week trip to Chicago and Bloomington, Indiana, partly to explore but also (obviously) to see some punk bands. I hope this trip doesn't awaken some strange interest in the US for Lewis...
Lewis graduated from Warwick in 2015. His cap nearly fell off his head when he was collecting his degree, then when everyone threw theirs in the air he got his mixed up his with a much smaller one when. I'm not sure if he's up to this academia lark...
After a false start and change of degree, Sarah finished at Birmingham in 2016. Here she is with a well-earned pint.
Era #2 : Durham (2015-2017)
Era #3.1 Cambridge (2017-2021)
Lewis moved to Durham in 2015 to do an MA (yeah right!), and Sarah technically didn't move up till a year later, also starting an MA in Newcastle.
Living in the North-East was lovely, and also meant we got to spend lots of time with the stars of the Durham DIY scene, pictured here.
Here's a candid shot of us at one of the legendary Chicken Cottage karaoke nights.
We also went on family holidays and looked nice for the camera.
err....
We carried Lewis's real best friend, Harris, around obstacles in Cornwall.
Here's Sarah graduating AGAIN, this time from an MA in Social Research methods at Newcastle
But no sooner had Sarah finished her MA than Lewis begun to feel the call of the south...
We moved to Cambridge in September 2017 so Lewis could start a PhD in history. Despite a culture shock (read: bloody expensive) we settled in surprisingly quickly. Sarah also got her first job working in the university library within a month of us moving.
The move was made a lot smoother by our making some dear friends in Cambridge pretty early
Here we are at Lewis' college, Sidney Sussex.
Doing a PhD in American history has its perks. In 2019 Lewis did a 2 month fellowship in Austin, Texas, then a two week archive visit in Cody, Wyoming. Sarah came out for part of it, and we took a road trip up to the gate of Yellowstone National Park (we saw a bison less than an hour before this pic!)
This is us at our friend Clem and Ed's wedding
and here we are at Lindsey and Sam's wedding a couple of years later
the COVID lockdown was bleak, but it coincided with Lewis' writing up year, so he was already going to be mostly confined to the flat spending as little money as possible anyway...
Lewis finished his PhD in 2021, here we are at our fifth and final graduation together (Sarah did a diploma in library science but missed the graduation!)
Era #3.2 Cambridge and a bit of Ireland (2021-present)
We've mainly been doing these photos in chronological order but couldn't resist using this pic from Taormina in September 2024, the day before Lewis popped the question, to start this latest era!
After the PhD, Lewis got a 10 month lecturing job at Maynooth Uni in Ireland! It was intense work, and long-distance was tough going, but we also had a lot of adventures and can now both recite the Ryanair safety message from memory.
Both us continued to look with concern at events happening across the Atlantic
After a year in Ireland, Lewis got a (temporary) dream job lecturing back in Cambridge. Not long after that, Sarah got an amazing promotion at work. We cycled round the Isle of Wight to celebrate. Here we are at the beach in Freshwater...
And here we are by the Needles
We continued to make time for each other's interests
(even when it led us to strange places...)
hang out with friends...
celebrate our loved ones
spend time with family (hi Nelly!)
And are looking forward to starting a new era together as a married couple!
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