STUDENTS rubbed mortar boards with the famous and remarkable at graduation ceremonies at Essex University.

Thousands of students from across the country came back to Colchester to pick up their degrees alongside a bunch of honourary graduates who received theirs for services to the community.

Among them were former vice chancellor Ivor Crewe, businessman and former dragon from BBC’S Dragon’s Den, Doug Richard, award-winning actress Juliet Stevenson and Holocaust survivor Dora Love.

Juliet was born in Kelvedon and although she has Essex links, her degree was for services to the British theatre.

The famous people stood alongside students from the Wivenhoe Park campus at eight ceremonies which finish today.

Six of those graduating have been giving the Sports Science lecturers at the university a bit of a headache for the past three years – because they are three sets of twins.

James and Scott Fitzgerald, from Tiptree, Rob and Chris Hopgood, from Chelmsford, and Jackie and Joy Crossley, from Ipswich, have ended the three-year struggle of staff at Essex’s Centre for Sports and Exercise to tell the siblings apart when they picked up a BSc in Sports Science.

Another student putting lecturers in a spin was former British Masters Ice Dance Champion, Diana Entwistle, from Chelmsford.

Diana, who is one of the UK’s top figure skaters, graduated on Wednesday with what is thought to be Britain’s only doctorate studying figure skating.

Awarded a PhD in Sports Science, her thesis, entitled Aerobic Fitness: Testing and its Impact on Figure Skating Performance, looked at figure specific endurance and its effect on jump performance during a figure skating routine.