The title of this article is unusually appropriate, not just in its contents but the circumstances that surround it. At this juncture I must confess that this is not a recent interview – in fact, Romilly doesn’t even live in this room anymore. By now it will have been reassigned, at least once, if not twice, emptied and re-filled with a new iteration of occupant, one whose decor decisions will not echo Romilly’s. This interview has haunted my to-do list for the better part of a year, buried beneath the growing burden of third year and the sprawling expanse of the after. But to look back through the lens of everything contained within being “something old,” this space positions itself in a broader history, with the fabric of Romilly’s room built on inheritances, built on “something old”.

While finding a steady bedrock in the material and artistic gifts of her family, Romilly does not shy away from a powerful self-assertion as a geographer in the prominent flag collection that forms the focal point of her room. As she says: “I’m a geographer. You’d never have guessed”. Connecting with her name, she has the flag of Norfolk Island, while Eswatini and Kiribati earn their keep through aesthetic delight, and frequent mention in lectures.

Carved out like geographical borders, the various corners of her pinboard wave the flags for the beautiful facets that compose Romilly’s life. Compartmentalised into family, football, home, and music, it takes on the same discrete perimeters that Cambridge creates, the division into terms, and years, parts of the tripos, colleges, home, and university, here and there. They all coexist in all of us, crowding up against each other, occasionally daring to overlap. Romilly’s family section has grown to include photos of her college wives, welcomed into the fold of family through the unique bonds this place breeds.

Keen readers of Varsity will know of Romilly’s extensive experience in live music, writing about her summers spent at Rock in Rio because, as she mentions: “Everything in life is just a Varsity article. You just do things and you go, I’ll do it for Varsity”. But more than that, music connects her to her dad who works in lighting for concerts. This materialises in a collection of set lists Romilly has accrued through years of attendance, and occasionally playing guinea pig for tech run-throughs. From the Foo Fighters to Bruno Mars and Circa Waves, her collection evidences evenings with her family, as well as ultimately shaping the topic of her dissertation.

Academics and family coincide again in the poster of Mount Etna that adorns her wall, marking a day’s truancy in year 10 to scale the volcano with her dad, her love of volcanology continuing into her third year paper selection. Nearly every item that adorns the many surfaces of the mid century modern furniture is a gift from family. The quilt, made by Romilly’s grandmother, Shirley Norfolk, lays sprawled across the college standard arm chair, bringing a colourful touch of home that nets in the many colours of her space.A shell houses the many pieces of jewellery Romilly has been gifted, although she confesses “most of my jewellery is not a circle”.

Part of the beauty of these items is these imperfections, moulding to the form of other peoples’ hands, holding the shape of all the previous owners, all of her loved ones who’d worn it before. Her grandmother, an avid rhino lover, is honoured by Romilly’s own rhino ring, even if it does snag on everything she wears. It’s not just her grandmother with a keen love of animals, but is a family pursuit with her great grandmother possessing Gordon the gorilla, “the final boss of monkeys,” as Romilly describes it, upon whom sat a collection of smaller monkeys. Romilly echoes this in her bear collection, consisting of a Build-a-Bear and a tiny gift bear from her college wife; a tiny water hog purchased from an art museum in San Paulo as she thought it would “vibe with my grandmother’s rhino collection”. She jokes that her tiny zoo is a “reflection of my mental state” but is an endearing nod to the importance her relationships.

Furnishing her room consisted mainly of raiding her mum’s pottery collection, alongside a canvas of Taylor Swift lyrics and several of her mother’s paintings. Romilly keeps a piece of tinsel from home as her mum was born three days after Christmas; the tinsel tangibly transforms a university room into an extension of home. The mid-century modern style even speaks to the 70s dream her parents realised in the eBay sourced orange furniture of their own house. Romilly explains that: “I don’t really buy decorations for my room because they feel like decorations. Things can look nice, but they can also have a story”.

The stories are often her family’s, but also her own, with a tote bag collection termed “one of the best tote bounties ever seen in Cambridge”. The soapstone Buddha statue, which she moved from her grandmother’s bathroom to her own room, is dusted regularly and placed at eye height so it always catches her eye. The gentle eclecticism is embraced by Romilly, who notes you can be: “Deputy Editor, proud geographer, football fanatic, animal enthusiast and a hot mess”. While nothing about her room suggests mess, everything else is embodied throughout: a Varsity laptop sticker, many pictures of Brentford FC, and a flag collection unrivalled by anyone bar the UN.

Romilly’s room, as well as this article, is “something old,” something that has sat in more than one place, manifested in several iterations, and is now due a change hands to someone new. Her room is a catalogue of her loved ones, interests, and the love shared between the many places and people she calls home. Everything in here will now be somewhere new, but alongside these spaces, they will soon become “something old”.