“LAST of the brood safely deposited at uni. Now back to the empty nest. I’m a wreck, obviously.”

My friend’s Facebook post, littered with crying face emojis, landed after she took her youngest child to university at the weekend. Having waved all three of her kids off, to various corners of the UK, she’s re-adjusting to a house without them. A house free of teenage chaos and an overflowing laundry basket, but with a sadness lingering in the quiet.

The university drop-off is a rite of passage at this time of year - not just for students, but their tearful parents too.

Not being a mother, I don’t feel their pain, but when I helped my niece move in to uni halls a few years ago I felt quite bereft as we left her in an unfamiliar room, surrounded by unfamiliar things. “Just go. I’m fine,” she said, nonchalantly smoothing down her new duvet cover. By Christmas she’d quit. I think I knew her heart wasn’t in it that September afternoon we left her, looking small and lost.

Starting university is an overwhelming experience. Some newbies find it terrifying, others find it thrilling. Or somewhere in between. For most young people, it’s the first time they’ve lived away from home; adjusting to the independence is an education in itself. I couldn’t wait to go, accompanied by my own electric kettle. Everyone went off to uni with a kettle - symbol of a decadent new life.

A kettle, a radio-cassette and a couple of old saucepans was pretty much all I had when I arrived at my halls of residence. I didn’t even have a bed. There’d been a delay with furniture deliveries so I spent my first night sleeping on a mattress on the floor. “Just go. I’m fine,” I said as my parents left me in a room with no bed.

My first year accommodation was a big old house, split into bedrooms, with shared bathrooms, a very basic kitchen, a sinister chest freezer, and a draughty lounge with slugs on the carpet. I soon got used to slumming it, which came in handy when I later moved into a flat with a constantly flooding bathroom and ice-cold bedrooms where the windows froze up, inside.

I even shared a room in my first term - with a chain-smoking goth called Sandra. I’m pretty sure students don’t share rooms these days. I’m amazed by how fancy student digs are now. A website offering “prestige student accommodation” has rooms like loft apartments, with exposed brick walls and city views. There’s a gym, cinema room, even a dinner party room. What kind of student has dinner parties? When my nephew’s girlfriend started uni last year she had an actual colour scheme for her room, with co-ordinated bedding, cushions and throws, and fluffy towels in her en-suite. It was a far cry from my grubby student digs, with the slug carpets and mice scuttling about.

Student accommodation is, however, very costly now. In my day it was dirt cheap, and we could claim housing benefit. My rent was £11 a week in one place. The standard may have been poor, but I loved each one of my student homes.

When I arrived at uni I could barely cook or use an iron. I lived on baked beans, dehydrated soya mince and the chippie. I found my way round the laundrette. I drank my first pint in the student union bar. I had highs and lows, and I rang my mum every Sunday tea-time from the pay phone in the hall. And some of the happiest times of my life were spent sitting with my house-mates on the floor of someone’s room, making endless cups of tea in those kettles of independence.