Their student years are well behind them but a group of old friends gather outside a favourite Oxford pub to laugh about old times - and look, it's Bill and Hillary Clinton!

They all have crazy antics to recall, though the presence of new girlfriends and wives means some of the rowdier episodes are wisely glossed over.

No one is happier to be at The Perch, the popular Thames-side pub, than the carefree young American woman on the right. More than bright enough to have won a place at Oxford herself, she is clearly thrilled to be there with the man she still sees as the love of her life.

Hillary Clinton may have a more manicured look these days but we can be fairly sure that it has been a while since she felt so free of worry.

Behind her stands Bill Clinton, a former Rhodes Scholar, who is clearly enjoying his return to Oxford for a 1978 reunion. Times have changed for him too - from dreaming spires to scheming liar, some might say. The photograph appears in a new book Cowboys into Gentlemen: Rhodes Scholars, Oxford and the Creation of an American Elite (Berghahn Books).

The book by Thomas Schaeper, a Professor of History at St Bonaventure University, and Kathleen Schaeper, claims Clinton felt guilt about going to Oxford when other men his age were going to Vietnam.

It claims that while at Oxford Clinton developed one unusual night-time obsession.

Schaeper said: "It was widely known that nearly every night he retreated to his room to work on his index cards.

"These cards contained the names of nearly all the people he had ever met. On each one Clinton added notes about when they had met or corresponded and topics they discussed. Clinton was in short, the consummate networker."

He added: "There was much casual sex among his fellow students, and Clinton was frequently seen with one or another of his female friends."

But according to one of them, Bill always slept with his saxophone. Maybe he should have stuck to that.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.