BBC news reader George Alagiah revisited his student days yesterday when he opened university accommodation.

When the journalist and former BBC foreign correspondent had been a student in Durham in the late 1970s, en-suite rooms complete with "shower pods" were a long way off.

But yesterday, the former politics undergraduate returned to his old university to open a £3m student accommodation building on the campus on Elvet Hill.

The three-storey construction provides the university's Van Mildert College with an extra 95 en-suite student bedrooms, a two-bedroomed staff house, student lounges and a large common room for students.

It was designed in consultation with students and each room contains a pre-fabricated bathroom and message board outside.

It was at Van Mildert College that Sri Lankan-born Mr Alagiah met his wife and both of them returned to their old haunts at the weekend.

The journalist, who has witnessed massacres in Rwanda and Burundi as South Africa correspondent, said the Deerness accommodation block was a great deal more luxurious than some of the hotels he has visited on assignments.

He said: "My wife was in the year below me at university. This is the first time we've been back together since 1984.

"I don't know that I was a model student. I had a fantastic time. Most of my energy went on the student newspaper Palatinate.

"I sometimes wish I could be a student again and go back and read all the books."