Keele Fresher Memories Forty Years On: Meet The Lindsay F Block Gang, Mid-October To Late November 1980

It’s been tarted up since our day, I can tell you. Picture “liberated” from the Keele website page about Lindsay Hall, which you can find here.

My diary for late November 1980 is pretty useless. It’s pretty clear that I wrote it up a week or two into December, while still hazy from the hazy stuff I’d been doing for much of the second half of that term.

So it’s time, surely, for me to write impressionistically. For me to write about bits I actually remember. To accept that there must be aspects that are lost in the mists of time…

…and also for me to introduce some of the characters I got to know in those early months.

Location, Location, Location: Lindsay F1

On arrival at Keele, I was deposited by the authorities in F Block Lindsay. I am grateful that a drew that straw. F Block Lindsay was a good place for freshers. Lindsay Hall is lauded by the University as

[S]ituated at the south of campus and overlooking the adjacent farmland, Lindsay hall is just a five minute walk from Union Square.

F Block was blessed with stunning views of the adjacent farmland…

…as long as you had one of the rooms that faced that way. Unfortunately, F1, despite sounding like a Grand Prix of a room, was a rather odd-shaped affair at the side of the block with nothing that might be described as a view…or even might be described as natural light.

OK, the view from F1 wasn’t that bad, but you get my drift

It was my good fortune, though, that I only had to endure F1 for two terms. When I returned from the Easter break, I learnt that one of the lads in one of those “prime view” rooms had moved on, so I managed to negotiate a move into a super room with a view across the fields, F4, for the summer term. We were blessed with good weather and time on our hands that summer term; I took full advantage of my improved location during those months.

F Block itself is now long gone, presumably replaced by new buildings with better facilities and with rooms that still (mostly) have stunning views of the adjacent farmland.

Meet The Gang, ‘Cos The Boys Are Here

On arrival, we were boys in F Block. I suppose some were already 19, but I was just turned 18. I even recall one 17-year-old Scottish fella, not on our corridor but nearby, whose parents had thoughtlessly named Matt (with the surname Black). Matt was so young he wasn’t even allowed to come drinking with us for most of the first year.

Anyway, I’ll try to recall the gang from my ground floor corridor on F Block:

  • Simon Ascough, known as Sim. He was my next door neighbour in F2. I met him right at the very start of my Keele time. Sim will crop up in several episodes of the story;
  • the chap who moved on was, I think, named Martin, although in truth I don’t much remember him. He didn’t join in much of the joviality and the only tangible thing I remember about him was buying a couple of The Jam cassettes from him for not very much money;
https://www.amazon.co.uk/All-Mod-Cons-Jam/dp/B000006TZ8
  • then there was Brummy Paul, who in the early days lived in the F4 room I inherited in the summer term. But I have a feeling that Paul stayed around, perhaps switching to the room that the departing fellow had occupied. I remember Paul complimenting my accent (without sarcasm) as “BBC”. I also recall that he loved The Stranglers;
  • further down the corridor was Malcolm Cornelius, who I think might have been the first person I met on that corridor when I first moved in. We became good friends and he’ll crop up quite a lot over the years I spent at Keele. In those early days, I recall that he had brought a record player and records with him, several of which were of the Peter Paul & Mary, Pete Seeger & Bob Dylan folk variety. I also recall Malcolm sporting something that resembled a Paul Stookey beard, which was quite impressive facial growth at our age; I wouldn’t even attempt wispy stuff back then.
Paul Stookey (left), with Peter & Mary

  • at the far end of the corridor, lived Benedict (Ben) Coldstream. I got to know Ben better later in that first year and the first part of my second year. He will crop up in later episodes, as will his next door neighbour, with whom Ben seemed inseparable in the early days…
  • …Richard Van Baaren, who got in touch about 18 months ago (May 2019, as I write in November 2020) after I wrote up the story of my Patrick Moore interview (which also mentions Sim as it happens). As with several of the others, tales of Richard’s derring do will crop up in later episodes.

I jest about Richard chasing girls in that Patrick Moore piece, but I do recall Richard (and to some extent Ben) getting started in the matter of chasing girls quite early in our time at Keele. I also recall Malcolm “settling down” with a nice girl named Ruth. When I say “settling down”, we’re talking weeks, or a few months/terms, not years. But most of us on that corridor were “just hanging” in those early months, with perhaps the odd youthful dalliance to add some intrigue or frissant to our student lives.

Apologies to those from our F Block ground floor corridor whose details I have mislaid in my mind. I think there must have been one or two other people on our corridor. I hope that some people reading this will chime in with their own memories.

I do remember a softly-spoken Welsh fellow named Mark Evans, who supported Swansea City FC, but have a feeling he might have lived on the corridor above us. That corridor was dominated by “Mad Harry”, an extraordinary fellow about whom I shall write separately. We heard more than we saw, in the matters of Harry.

“Don’t Bring Harry…”

A Crossroads Twixt BBYO & Keele University, 17 to 24 November 1980

Reading my diary references to Caroline’s visit to Keele in late November 1980 gave me a memory flash of an event earlier that term.

Caroline Freeman (now Curtis) was a good friend, through BBYO, of mine and of Simon Jacobs . Caroline chose not to go to university, although from memory she had as many UCCA points from her A levels as Simon & I had put together from ours.

I had long been the beneficiary of Caroline’s mum’s cooking on the many occasions I found myself in North-West London doing BBYO stuff in the year or so before heading up to Keele.

“That poor boy needs a good meal” – c1979

Anyway, I think Caroline must have got it into her head that Simon and I might struggle to feed ourselves properly at the weekends. Keele provided refectory meals to freshers Monday to Friday but at the weekends we had to look after ourselves.

Frankly, I don’t think the self-catering element of student life was a challenging aspect for either me or Simon…

…nor was I in want of food; I was just burning calories at a furious rate back then…

…but early in our time at Keele, Simon and I both received, through the post, from Caroline, an emergency food parcel styled in the mode of a Red Cross jobbie as depicted above. I don’t recall exactly what was inside the parcels, but I suspect it was more like “boarding school kid tuck” than “genuine emergency rations”. Simon and I were both amused, I certainly remember that.

Hawk-eyed readers (especially those with cipher-cracking skills) might have spotted the 17 November entry: “Jay was supposed to come – “did he heck”. Goodness only knows what that visit from Jay Marks was supposed to be for and why it went awry, but it will have been part of a BBYO National Executive unravelling towards the end of our year which makes the last 74 days of the Trump presidency

…well, on reflection, it was bizarre (but in the grander scheme of things trivial) stuff around resignations, unresignations, with some of us trying to keep the show on the road with sufficient dignity to hand over to a new committee over the new year holiday. So nothing at all like the last 74 days of the Trump presidency.

Meanwhile my diary keeping was temporally awry that November – hawk-eyed cipher-crackers might also spot the reference to a Teardrop Explodes concert in the 19 November entry. That concert actually took place on 5 November; yes, really I am sure.

Anyway, Caroline’s first visit to Keele is quite well documented in the diary:

Friday 21 November 1980 – Not bad day. Met Caroline at Stoke. Went to Lindsay, Union & coffee lounge.

Saturday 22 November 1980 – Simon & Roy popped in early hours. Got up q late. Found Simon., lunch there…

So far so sensible. Simon had met Roy and started going out with him almost as soon as we arrived at Keele. I’m pretty sure Caroline stayed in my pokey room, which was tolerably fine back then and would be unthinkable now considering the size of those student beds and bedrooms. “Lunch there” I guess was in Simon’s block in Barnes (D if I remember correctly), where the facilities for weekend self-catering were marginally better than those in my Lindsay block (F I recall most certainly).

I have used sophisticated computer-aided techniques to decipher the next bit and am pretty sure it must say:

…romped in lakes. Simon left. Spiff dinner (over top) -> over to Roys.

The Lakes at Keele is a rather charming wild garden beyond the ornamental gardens of Keele Hall. Originally planned to be a network of seven substantial artificial lakes, money and/or motivation must have run out for the Sneyd family in the early 19th century as the more far-flung lakes are more like puddles and only two or three have any scale to them. Still, they are pleasant enough to walk around and I dread to think what romping entailed on that occasion. Whether “Simon left” in disgust or simply to go over to Roy’s place is lost in the mists of time. Almost certainly the latter.

No idea what the sentence “Spiff dinner (over top) -> over to Roys” actually means. I sense an in-joke long since forgotten.

Sunday 23 November 1980 – Lounged around all day. Roy, C & I met Simon, went out for dinner. V nice.

Monday 24 November 1980 – Not bad day. Caroline left at 3:00 pm. Relaxing evening.

It would have been helpful if I had noted where we went out for dinner. There were a couple of passable restaurants in Newcastle-Under-Lyme and I suspect it was one of those. The Sneyd Arms didn’t qualify as going out for dinner. Nor did the Union and nor did The Golf. So Newcastle it almost certainly must have been.

Caroline will surely remember every detail and help fill in all the blanks. After all, she was the one with more UCCA points than me and Simon put together.

Mind you, she was almost silent about my write up of her visit the following term, which for reasons of happenstance I wrote up before this one:

A Typical Keele Weekend For A Bunch Of Freshers, 15 & 16 November 1980

With grateful thanks to Martin Ladbrooke & Steph for the above photograph of Ashley Fletcher

I suspect that I met Ashley Fletcher for the first time this weekend.

My earlier pieces about starting at Keele should leave readers in no doubt that Simon Jacobs was totally to blame for my presence at Keele…

…and a fair smattering of my activities during my early weeks at Keele

It seems this weekend was no exception. Unfortunately, my diary keeping was poor that term and got poorer as the term went on. The mid November scribblings were, by the looks of them, written several weeks later while inebriated.

Still, I can just about make out the following:

Saturday 15 November 1980. Easy day. Got up late. Went over to Simon’s for shopping, lunch etc. Went to town for supper – ??

…and then it reads, sprawling over the Saturday and Sunday entry

Heather’s party v late // & drank etc.

I am pretty sure that this particular Heather was “Miriam & Heather” Heather, who lived, if I remember correctly, in The Hawthorns. Not the Heather who lived (or at least dined) in Lindsay, whom Simon nicknamed “The Heathertron Bomb” on account of her unfeasibly high-decibel-registering laugh.

The double-slash marking in my diary I believe was to indicate that I partook of some cannabis, which would probably have been in the resin form illustrated above.

This was not my first experience of smoking cannabis; I was weened in Mauritius in the summer of 1979:

It probably wasn’t even my first toke at Keele, but I think it is the first time I used that symbol, probably suggesting that the rest of the evening/night was somewhat of a haze for me.

This photo of Simon Jacobs, from 1979, was tobacco only I am sure

But not a total and utter haze, so I am fairly sure that I met Ashley at that party and he might be able to confirm or deny the matter.

Simon Jacobs had thrown himself into Keele’s gay scene as soon as we arrived at Keele. I think Simon might have started going out with Roy 25 minutes after arriving at Keele; that was the rumour anyway…a rumour proliferated mostly by Simon, I suspect. Anyway, the gay crowd was a welcoming bunch, supremely tolerant towards my unfortunate lack of gayness. I made a great many good & enduring friends, such as Ashley, while enjoying “honorary membership” of the clan throughout my years at Keele.

With thanks again to Martin Ladbrooke & Steph for this quintessentially 1980s photo of Ashley

“So what did we discuss late into the night at Heather’s party in the early hours of 15 to 16 November 1980?”, I hear you ask. Well, if anyone pretends to remember that level of detail, they are probably making it up as they go along.

I do however recall, from those early days, one particularly shocking party trick of Ashley’s. So shocking that I suspect he didn’t pull the trick on this first occasion, but he did so soon after.

Ashley pretended that he knew Hitler speeches by heart and would rant at length, in mock German, sounding just like a Hitler speech. Eventually, someone’s limited knowledge of German brought the blessed revelation that Ashley’s rant was a mock speech and not, as advertised, a vile feat of memory.

Get Ashley inebriated enough today and it’s just possible that he could still pull off the trick. Of course trigger warnings and safe spaces hadn’t been invented back then. The trick might not be appreciated in quite the same way today.

Anyway, despite all that, 40 years on, Ashley and I remain in touch and it wasn’t that long ago that we last met up…

…while Simon Jacobs was the most recent person (ahead of Lockdown 2.0) that Janie and I have seen in person:

Enduring friendships indeed.

“Went To Middle Of M62 For JSoc Do”, From Keele, 12 November 1980

Why?

Why did several of us go to the middle of the M62 for a JSoc do on a Wednesday evening?

Because we could, presumably. Of the few Jewish students we had at Keele, two or three had cars, making us more mobile than most societies. But “because we could” doesn’t really help much, as I write forty years later.

Nor does my late 1980 diary help much. It was certainly suffering from the dual problems of belated and inebriated writing up by the time we got to mid November 1980.

There is a little bit of extra help, though, as the black ink scrawl goes on to say:

JSoc Do Exit 22 Ram’s Head Pub enjoyed

OK, The Rams Head is indeed a well-known inn, very close to Junction 22 of the M62 at Denshaw, near Oldham, described in glowing terms here. (or, if anything ever goes awry with Visit Oldham, try this scrape here).

I’m sure The Ram’s Head did and indeed does (once it is allowed to open again post-2020-pandemic) offer fine fare and an excellent range of ales at an historic location in a stunning part of the country…

Picture borrowed from & linked to Visit Oldham.

…but 70-odd miles from Keele to find that? Surely there was something similar, closer?

My guess is that the purpose of the expedition was to meet up with some J-Soc folk from other universities; those in Manchester and/or Leeds. Those places had plentiful J’s, whereas Keele, to be frank, had a veritable J shortage. There weren’t very many of us and those Js who were at Keele tended to be…as I soon became…fairly reluctant J’s.

In my case, at that time, I was still heavily involved with BBYO, soon to be finishing my National Executive tenure but reluctant to give it up at a time of BBYO crisis. My 9 November diary entry probably doesn’t need translating and says it all.

Anyway, if we are to get chapter and verse on what that Ram’s Head Denshaw evening was about, I need help from my old friends.

The bowels of my mind have dredged up some names. Nigel Lloyd, who I think was the leader of the J-Soc pack at that time. Lloyd Green, who was an old friend of mine from the haim (Streatham).

Both of those fellas were surprisingly easy to trace in 2020, forty years on, by Googling their names together with the word Keele. Nigel Lloyd claims to be a lawyer with a sense of humour (we’ll soon find out), while Lloyd Green appears to be the sort of person one might go to if one wanted to find someone forty years on and all you knew about them was their name and alma mater.

Anyway, let’s see if either of those two can (and/or wish to) provide some additional detail to this story…or possibly the names of some other people to “tap up” about it.

The only other names that come to my mind about this are Hilary Kingsley, who I think was there but who does not pop up on a simple search, plus Simon Jacobs who I’m pretty sure wasn’t there that evening but I shall ask him.

The only other thing I remember about the evening, weirdly, is the back gate route we used to return to Keele that evening. In those days, as I recall it, if you were travelling south on the M6 and came off at Keele services, there was a “back gate” that was sometimes left open and which allowed drivers to cut along a track to the Keele University road, shaving several miles and a good few minutes off the journey. Why that small detail sticks in my mind, I have absolutely no idea.

Did Lloyd’s car look a bit like this? I recall at least one hair-raising journey with him from Streatham to Keele, I think in early 1981. That diary is in better nick than the late 1980 one, so more should be revealed on that story when I get there!

Postscript

Nigel Lloyd claims to recall little or nothing about the evening, but Lloyd Green provided this helpful recollection:

I remember travelling there as part of our attempt to integrate into the Jewish North scene ; my clearest recollection was that my old girlfriend at the time was there with her new boyfriend, who I met for the first time. We have remained close friends to this day…it helped he was a Chelsea supporter!!

By way of reciprocation to Lloyd, I discovered a piece of his juvenilia in the January 1981 issue of Concourse. For some reason, Lloyd chose to write a scathing review of a re-released album by The Average White Band:

I’d have given that review the headline, “Well Below Average White Band”, but what do I know?
I bet they weren’t still smiling & laughing after they read Lloyd’s review

“No Law, Molly Badcock’s Instead” & Responding To Concourse’s Shout Out, 6 November 1980

Frankly, writing up my early days at Keele University forty years on, I was baffled when I read, in my diary for that day:

No law, Molly Badcock’s instead.

To be honest, my diary is not especially helpful for that November/early December period of my life. It’s pretty clear from the scrawl and my own graffiti, that I was writing up several weeks later, in some manner of inebriated state.

It crossed my mind that “Molly Badcock’s instead” sounds like a euphemism, somewhat along the lines of “Ugandan discussions” in Private Eye.

But in truth I couldn’t remember who Molly Badcock was, so I tried Googling her. I am sorry to report that, at least initially, this only made matters worse, as Google did that, “surely you mean Lolly Badcock” thing, allowing me to discover that Lolly Badcock is a porn actress; Molly’s less appetising twin, perhaps.

Clicking (or rather, mostly not clicking) very carefully indeed by this stage, I tried Molly Badcock Keele as a search term and found Molly Badcock’s diaries on the Merchant Taylors’ Alumni Network site – Item 30. There I learnt that Molly was a cultured girl, who became a biologist, teaching ecological science at Keele.

Ah, yes. Now I remember.

Although Molly Badcock didn’t teach me at Keele, I was allocated to her for “pastoral care”, I believe as something known as a “resident tutor”. She lived in an academic’s house or apartment in Lindsay Hall, near to my humble fresher diggings in F block (long gone; possibly her place has also gone).

I think Molly had set up a series of “pop around for tea and a chat” slots for her fresher charges. I believe I met (amongst others) a lovely lass named Mary Keevil that day; another of the people who became a chatting & nodding acquaintance for many years. I certainly didn’t hike the Appalachian trail or discuss Uganda with Mary. I do remember running into her in London mid to late 1980s by which time she was working for SportsAid. I also have a funny feeling I first met Rob Whitehead there that day; we subsequently became work colleagues at BDO Consulting.

My visit to Molly Badcock’s that day might have been my only resident tutor encounter that year, although I have a vague memory of returning at the end of my first year for another informal session at Molly Badcock’s.

Fascinating to learn that Molly, like me, kept diaries as a school kid. But look how neat and tidy Molly’s were compared with mine. She was 12 in 1934 (roughly the same age as I started) and 15 in 1937.

Photos above borrowed from and linked to that Merchant Taylors’ Alumni site – item 30. I do wonder what “massage” might have been; the MT archivist’s theory is unconvincing.

Postscript To My Molly Badcock story: Karen Walsh reports on the KUSU Facebook Group that:

I was a biology student so had molly as a lecturer – and escort for a field trip to aberystwyth where she patrolled the corridors to ensure there was no “mixing” 😂😂”

Enough said.

Concourse Needed Me

Although it is not mentioned in my diary, I recall that I (along with Simon Jacobs) responded to the above shout out in the October 1980 issue of Concourse, the students’ union newspaper.

There I met, for the first time, John White. I recall that John was sitting on a bar table looking rather sinister with a football scarf around his neck (Tottenham Hotspurs for some reason; he has been relentlessly Leyton Orient for decades) and Doc Martin boots.

I now realise that John was somewhat shy or at least introverted back in those very early Keele days. The problem was, his look fitted the exact stereotype I had been warned about; racist (or at least very right wing) students who seek to disrupt student life, often by getting involved in student politics and student journalism. I so clearly remember thinking, “be careful of him”.

I now know, of course, that John is a gentle fellow; we worked tremendously well together in student politics and have been firm friends ever since. Actually it didn’t take long for my “John stereotype” to collapse in a heap, as John had been quick off the mark to sign up for the Labour Club and for Concourse – he was already credited although not bylined in the October edition that contained the shout-out:

In fact none of us new arrivals got bylines until the January 1981 edition, apart from David Perrins, who coincidentally was Simon Jacobs’s next door neighbour in Barnes, who was so quick off the mark he had become the “Arts Correspondent” on arrival, presumably by dint of dressing in a dandified fashion and talking in an Oscar-Wilde-stylee…

David Perrins – the first of our batch to get a big column (as it were) – October 1980

…or perhaps because no-one else put their hand up to review the drama.

Anyway, I must have made a huge impression when we were asked if we had any previous experience of journalism by admitting that I had edited the national magazine for BBYO – an organ with a circulation in the hundreds or low thousands, much the scale of Concourse – albeit a much simpler style of publication – Gestetner printed rather than “proper” letterpress printing.

But I could type fast with two fingers (still can) and was credited in the next issue which came out in early December…

…by which time John White had dropped off the chart, although just for one issue…and Simon Jacobs hadn’t yet got a mention. Like me and John, Simon got his first byline in January 1981. But that part of my past is still in the future, as far as my Ogblog write-ups are concerned.

Meanwhile, returning to 6 November 1980, the other thing I remember doing that evening (although the diary is silent on this point) is queing up for ages to get a turn on one of the handful of payphones and calling home to speak with my parents. It was a hugely onerous, time-consuming and expensive routine, which lives long in the memory of those of us who had to put ourselves through all of that just to make a phone call. A phone call is now so cheap, so casual, so simple…

…anyway, the reason I know that I subjected myself to that routine on that evening is because 6 November 1980 was my parents’ silver wedding anniversary and I couldn’t let an occasion like that pass without a phone call.

Mum & Dad, 6 November 1955

The Teardrop Explodes supported by The Thompson Twins, Keele Students’ Union Ballroom, 5 November 1980

No fireworks for me in the conventional sense that year, but a couple of pyrotechnic splashes to be sure.  This was my first term at University and what a billing.  The Teardrop Explodes were reasonably well known among the cognoscenti, but back then no-one would have known that the Thompson Twins were also heading for new wave stardom.

I had actually rubbed shoulders with Julian Cope some months before, at a The Sound gig in a Clapham Junction dive:

My First “Proper” Rock Gig, The Sound, 101 Club, 16 May 1980

Benita “Bi” Marshall was my-mate-Anil-from-school’s big sister – how cool was that?

Anyway, I thought that The Teardrop Explodes were just great and that this was one of the best gigs I had ever been to in my entire life.  It was, of course, one of the first gigs I ever went to, so perhaps my judgement was not yet well-formed. Still, even with the benefit of subsequent experience and some more-informed hindsight, this was a pretty superb gig to get in your first term at University.  I do remember it went down really well with the crowd.

I’ll leave it to the better-informed Concourse reviewer, in an article from the 1980 special Christmas edition, to let you know how the concert really was.

Although why the reviewer thought the concert was in October is a mystery; perhaps he’d lost all track of time that term.  Bless him, it sometimes happened to the best of us at Keele. I registered this concert in my diary as 19 November, but I was going through a particularly hazy patch towards the end of my first term, if you know what I mean, writing up my diary while inebriated some weeks after the event. Oh dear!

Teardrop & Thompsons

An Unconventional Start To My University Years Dashing To BBYO Conventions, 11 October To 3 November 1980

With thanks to Alison Shindler for the photo, taken somewhere between Glasgow & Preston, 12 October 1980. Me, Simon Jacobs, Caroline Freeman, Lauren Sterling, Emma Cohen, Warren, Maxine…

I went up to Keele University on 8 October 1980. It was Simon Jacobs’s fault, as told in the story linked here and below:

Not only did I throw myself into student life I also continued attempting to serve on the National Executive of BBYO.

Here’s an extract from my diary from what should have been my first weekend at Keele:

Saturday 11 October 1980 – Lecture by Vice Chancellor -> Glasgow -> open house -> hosts for din-dins -> disco/dance till v late (feeling ill)

Sunday 12 October 1980 – YCC (non quorate in morning – farcical) -> hosts lunch -> installation -> home with Londoners (as far as Preston) – went to bar on return.

Un-named hosts in Glasgow – apologies to whoever it was and thank you for your hospitality.

I suspect that my feeling ill had something to do with the copious quantity of drinking I’d been doing to prepare for and in my first few days at Keele; nothing to do with Glasgow BBYO.

I don’t clearly recall what a YCC was but I’m sure it was very important and certainly must have been farcical without a quorum.

Preston to Keele on a Sunday evening would have been a non-trivial journey in those days. I’m guessing Crewe and then a cab.

I then spent a couple of weeks being a fresher…

…and then being a bolshie little devil…

…before knuckling down to a week of being Jewish & BBYOish all over again.

Monday 27 October 1980 – not bad day. Relaxing evening, good fun (Clive Lawton – J Soc etc.)

This picture of Clive from Portsmouth BBYO in 1979. In the summer of 1980 he mentored me (informally) when I was working at Hillel House.

Tuesday 28 October 1980. Not bad day. Went straight after politics to Scarborough [Northern Region Convention] – film, casino etc. Jay’s resigning.

Scarborough 2014 (it hasn’t changed all that much, but it is in colour now)
Jay in 1979

Wednesday 29 October 1980 – slept well. Speakers (Janice [Leberman – Rebecca Lowi’s successor], mayor, divorce) programme, AGM, cunted votes, installations, life [membership for those who had served]. (felt ill went to bed)

Feeling ill seemed to be par for my course those weeks. I think I was overdoing everything, frankly.

Thursday 30 October 1980 – left v early. Got back just in time for law. Guiness [sic] evening – good fun. Went to Mike’s for coffee.

I think Mike was one of Simon Jacobs’s friends in those early days; perhaps from his hall of residence or perhaps from one of his courses.

Friday 31 October 1980 – Good day. Went home after history. Good journey, enjoyed it.

Saturday 1 November 1980 – Left house fairly early, went SR [Southern region] convention – skits, songs etc.

Sunday 2 November 1980 – SR Convention – business, reports, AGM, v good. (Got all in who wanted). Installation awards, life, went home…

Monday 3 November 1980 …Ben’s van [must be Ben Davidson, whom I knew from Alleyn’s School and who was at Keele] got back (around 4?0 Late start in morn. Easy day.

In truth I remember little about those regional conventions, but that doesn’t stop other former BBYOniks with better memories or who were better placed to remember those particular conventions to chip in with details.

To be honest, I don’t even remember whether that Southern Region one was in Brighton or Oxford or possibly even somewhere else.

Help!