“Go for it”: Advice from 73-year-old who graduated from Newcastle University in 2025
In December 2025, former newspaper sub-editor Greg Freeman was among 3,000 students celebrating their graduation on campus. Following the celebrations, we caught up with Greg to hear about his experience returning to education in later life.
9 February 2026
Class of 2025 graduate proves it’s never too late to learn
Arriving at Newcastle University to enrol onto the MA in Writing Poetry in September 2023, then 71-year-old Greg Freeman had his first taste of campus life for over 50 years.
Having failed to complete a philosophy course at Warwick University in his teens, Greg was undeterred and embarked on a successful career as a journalist with The Guardian. During his time there, he gained a First from the Open University – “so my mother had a photo of me in a gown to put on top of the television” – but it wasn’t until he retired and explored other interests, namely poetry, that Greg decided to take the leap and return to university.
Greg has written creatively all his life alongside his journalistic career. Today, he is the author of three poetry collections, news and reviews editor for the poetry website Write Out Loud and a contributor to the Northumberland community magazine Curious Squirrel.
Following his graduation in December 2025, we caught up with Greg to discuss his two years on campus and his advice for others who are keen to continue learning.
Life as a storyteller
I have spent 35 years of my life as a newspaper sub-editor, first at the Yorkshire Evening Post in my twenties and then – for three decades – at The Guardian in London. After taking early retirement at 60, I continued to work voluntarily for the Write Out Loud poetry hub website, compiling poetry news stories, reviewing poetry events and books and taking some photographs.
But this wasn’t my first foray into creative writing. I’ve attempted to write creatively ever since I dropped out of university at 19 – first novels, then short stories, finally poetry! It was only when I turned to poetry that I succeeded in getting anything published. One facet of sub-editing is about reducing news stories to their essentials, and writing and editing poetry should be about that as well.
In 2022, we moved from Surrey to Northumberland. I had heard good things about the poetry MA that Newcastle runs jointly with the Poetry School in London, mainly from the London end. I also knew that Newcastle had a reputation for promoting poetry, which encouraged me to give it a go.
Camaraderie on campus
The stand-out feeling from my time at Newcastle University is undoubtedly enjoying the camaraderie of my fellow MA students. We have formed a tight-knit group that has endured beyond the end of the course and will continue to do so.
Another highlight was taking part in a reading at Northern Stage during the 2024 Newcastle Poetry Festival, which was the culmination of a project about Newcastle’s legendary Morden Tower poetry readings. The summer school week based at the Great North Museum in 2024 was another enjoyable experience, meeting the London Poetry School cohort, and finding out so much about the history and landscape of Northumberland.
The MA course was part-time over two years and only required me to be physically present for two hours a week. I live an hour’s bus ride away in north Northumberland, but I attended several NCLA (Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts) poetry readings at the Culture Lab after classes too. One I particularly remember was the launch of the Bloodaxe anthology of Sri Lankan poetry, at which last year’s joint winner of the Forward prize for best collection, Vidyan Ravinthiran, took part as one of the anthology editors.
The stand-out feeling from my time at Newcastle University is undoubtedly enjoying the camaraderie of my fellow MA students. We have formed a tight-knit group that has endured beyond the end of the course and will continue to do so.
Achieving some sense of closure
After failing to complete a philosophy course at Warwick more than 50 years earlier, I felt compelled to enrol on the course and achieve some sense of closure on my education. It is true that I gained an Open University BA degree – and a first – in the 1990s, which enabled me to hand my mother a picture of myself in a gown, to place on top of her television. And this was a very enjoyable and satisfying experience.
But I also felt that I would have regretted not having taken up the chance to do the MA at Newcastle to see what kind of poet others thought I was. The day I registered, and physically found myself on a university campus again, I took a selfie in which I look apprehensive. I’m glad I ended up passing the audition, to some extent, at least.
I wasn’t sure I would make my graduation ceremony in December 2025 as it was quite soon after I’d had some surgery. But it turned out to be a very special day. Now, I’m looking forward to taking the advice I have been given to improve my future writing.
At the age of 73, I think a PhD would be too big a task, especially as I found writing academic essays more difficult than expected, despite – or maybe because of – my background as a journalist. But I will go on covering the poetry scene for Write Out Loud as best I can.
Be digitally confident… and go for it
During my time at Newcastle, I needed some crucial help from a fellow MA student to even successfully get on to the course in the first place! So being digitally confident is a must for anyone thinking about studying again. I’d also advise you to talk to as many people as you can and find who have had similar experiences, whether good or bad. Then, whatever they say, if you still want to do it, go for it.