Tag: Caroline Curtis

As “So-Called Freedom Day” Came & Went, We Indulged In Some Cricket & A Bit Of Low Key Socialising, 7 July To 6 August 2021

It was a strange period; the height of summer in regular times but the autumn of the pandemic, as it were.

The government had signalled a possible “relaxing of pandemic restrictions” for towards the end of June, but the highly infectious delta variant of Covid 19 led to the deferral of that “freedom day” until 19 July.

There was much re-jigging of diaries and arrangements in the weeks leading up to and following the revised date.

For the most part, Janie and I carried on doing what we had been doing during partial lockdown: working, volunteering and playing tennis.

Middlesex v Leicestershire, Merchant Taylors’ School, 12 & 13 July 2021

The plan was for me and Janie to go with Fran & Simon on Monday 12 July, but plans have a habit of going awry. The weather forecast for the Monday was awful and indeed it was heaving down with rain in Ealing.

Janie and I abandoned all hope of going to the game by mid afternoon, despite the fact that the rain was mysteriously dodging Northwood and play was taking place beneath leaden skies.

I’m rather glad we did decide to bale out of going, as I learnt the next day that it took people from Ealing/Acton way a couple of hours to get home due to the flash floods.

Simon ended up watching some rather good cricket solo on the Monday, while I ended up doing similar on the Tuesday.

I had arranged to play real tennis at Middlesex University early on the Tuesday morning and went on from there to MTS for my first sight of live county cricket since September 2019.

The Fag End Of The Cricket Season, Lord’s, 23 to 25 September 2019

Social distancing was still the order of the day, so I sat in a reserved area and was suitably reserved.

We were allowed to stroll a bit, which enabled me to encounter some of “the usual suspects”, such as Barmy Kev and Jeff Coleman, who for some obscure reason were bemoaning Middlesex’s poor play and poor luck this season.

I tried to cheer myself up by reading The Economist, which for some obscure reason was bemoaning the economic devastation caused by the global pandemic.

Middlesex were in a bit of a hole second dig, so I do understand why people were pessimistic, especially as Middlesex had been snatching defeat from the very jaws of victory all season. Still, I was strangely optimistic about Middlesex’s position given my previous experiences of seeing teams bat last at MTS.

For once, I called it right – click here for the match scorecard .

Ealing Samaritans Gunnersbury Park Party, Tuesday 20 July 2021

Janie had hardly met any of her new Samaritans colleagues before, other than in an “on shift” context, as she had done all of her training by Zoom and they had not been able to meet socially during lockdown.

So the “party in the park” idea seemed to be the ideal opportunity to meet some more people…

…which indeed it was. It was just a shame that, apart from Janie and Ilkay, whom Janie had already befriended and met, no-one from their traning group attended that night.

Still, Alison Shindler (coincidentally an old friend of mine from BBYO, as reported here) was there with her husband Joe, which was fun. We met some other very nice Samaritans volunteer folk including some of the Ealing grandees.

Janie was so late back from work, however, that we missed the entertainment for the evening, Marie Naffah, who was doing 50 gigs in 50 days, apparently. We arrived just in time to say goodbye to her, so for now the video below will have to do.

The Hundred: London Spirit v Oval Invincibles Double Header, Lord’s, Sunday 25 July 2021

In the end we only got to see half a double-header, as the weather closed in after the women’s match. What was predicted to be the possibility of some light showers turned out to be torrential rain and flash floods which caused havoc around London.

Mercifully, my weather app tipped me off before the weather got too bad.

I have reported the event for King Cricket, click here or below:

A report from the first day of the Hundred at Lord’s

Just in case anything ever happens to King Cricket, a scrape of that article can be found here.

Despite shortened event due to the weather, we rather enjoyed ourselves. I had arranged to return for the midweek games myself and Janie was scheduled to join me on Finals Day, so we anticipated that we’d still get our fill of The Hundred.

Middlesex v Durham at Radlett, Tuesday 27 July 2021

Parking spaces at cricket grounds don’t get much more rural-idyllic than this

Janie and I had an early game of tennis, then met Simon at lunchtime/early afternoon at Radlett. I chatted briefly with Mike O’Farrell and others, holding up the process of finding some decent seats and settling in for some old-fashioned List A 50-overs-a-side cricket.

The weather sort-of smiled on us until mid to late afternoon, when a shower threatened to end proceedings but in any case was enough to scare us away from an exposed ground such as Radlett.

After the rain, a tense Duckworth-Lewis finish, which Janie and I watched on the stream at home. As has been the way this season, Middlesex were “close but no cigar”.

London Spirit v Trent Rockets, Double-Header, Lord’s 29 July 2021

In my desire to really check out The Hundred tournament, I had reserved a member’s place for myself at both of the midweek events at Lord’s. This was the first of them.

I enjoyed the women’s game from the pavilion terrace, where I was sitting right in front of the assembled rockets (as it were) while they waited to do their thing.

I was delighted to be invited to help choose the walk-on music for some of the players, although I didn’t recognise many of the bangin’ hits on offer.

I had planned to take in the men’s game from the sanctuary of the Upper Tavern Stand, but just before the end of the women’s game I was joined by Alvin, who then popped out to make a call before I had the chance to tell him my plans. So I watched the first innings of the men’s game from the pavilion, with Alvin, then relocated to the Tavern Stand for the final innings.

London Spirit did not do very well in these matches…

…women…

…and men.

Oh well.

Caroline, Alan & Jilly Visit Noddyland, 1 August 2021

A bouquet of yummy chocolate strawberries from Caroline

Long in the planning, it was super to see Caroline, Alan and Jilly after such a long time.

In fact, last time we saw Caroline & Alan for a meal, Janie and I were still full of Japan, as it were.

It’s summer, so Janie went for wild Alaskan salmon as the main, after some nibbles in the garden.

The afternoon and evening flew by, surprising us all when we realised that it was getting dark. That’s what tends to happen these days.

London Spirit v Northern Superchargers, Double-Header, Lord’s, 3 August 2021

An opportunity to watch some more cricket and get some reading done, I took in the second of the midweek The Hundred double-headers.

I decided to watch the women’s match from the Upper Allen stand and the men’s match from the Upper Tavern.

The women’s match was probably the best game (i.e. the most exciting game of cricket) I saw all tournament – see the scorecard here.

The men’s game probably the least exciting.

Oh well.

Pete Reynolds Memorial At Mosimann’s, 6 August 2021

Our first venture in a cab and our first indoor event since lockdown. Shirley was very keen that we join the event, as we (along with so many of their friends) had been unable to attend the funeral during lockdown.

Grace had organised the event wonderfully well. Mosimann’s is a stunning venue and was well suited to the occasion.

The speeches were heartfelt and moving, but it was mostly a party, which was, apparently, what Pete wanted. Pete usually got what he wanted in life, I believe, so he was certainly going to have what he wanted in this regard.

Philafrenzy, CC BY-SA 4.0

FoodCycle, GoodSAM, The Samaritans, 1981 Keele/BBYO Redux & Being Boilered, This Is Lockdown 3.0, 20 February 2021

With thanks to Rachelle Gryn Brettler for snapping us in Rossmore Road, preparing to do our FoodCycle run on a wet winter’s day

We don’t get out much in Lockdown 3.0, other than to buy food and do our charity work.

That is giving me a chance to crack on with my retro-blogging; I’m working through 1995 & 1996 to cover the Ged & Daisy (Ian & Janie) “25 years ago” story. I’m needing to give more thought, though, to the formerly less well-documented, “40 years on” story of my early days at Keele University.

Strangely, 1981 and 2021 seem to have collided, forty years on.

I wrote last summer about my joy at being asked to make our FoodCycle collections from St Paul’s in Rossmore Road…

FoodCycle’s Spiritual Home In Rossmore Road & Other Tales, 24 June 2020

…mentioning the superb tapes Graham Greenglass used to make for me, including quirky numbers such as Rossmore Road by Barry Andrews. I still hum it or sing it more often than not when Daisy and I do FoodCycle from there:

Dreamy use of sax and double bass on that track.

Last week, I wrote up the very weekend during which several visitors descended on Keele and Graham presented me with a few cassettes, including that very track. The piece below is a thumping good read, even if you weren’t there, including an excellent undergraduate recipe for spaghetti bollock-knees:

The Best Pot I Had In Five Years At Keele, i.e. The First Weekend I Tried Cooking In The F Block Lindsay Kitchen, 11 to 15 February 1981

On Wednesday, before Daisy and I did our FoodCycle run, I did an NHS Responder gig to collect a prescription. Strangely the prescription was to be collected at the Tesco Hoover Factory in Greenford. Strange, because also on that little collection of quirky recordings given to me in February 1981 was the song Hoover Factory by Elvis Costello:

So, by some strange quirk of fate, forty years after being given recordings of those two rather obscure (but wonderful) recordings about lesser-known places in West London, I found myself doing charity gigs from those two very places.

I have already written up the ear worm I got from Hoover Factory a few months after first hearing the song:

Uncle Manny’s Funeral & The Hoover Factory, 15 May 1981

But the early 1980s connection this week does not stop there.

While I have been cracking on with the NHS Responder/GoodSAM app as well as FoodCycle, Daisy has been training to become a Samaritan and this week moved on from being a course trainee to becoming a mentee (i.e. doing real sessions with real calls under the supervision of a mentor).

Towards the end of her course, Daisy had been waiting with a little trepidation to find out who her mentor might be. Mentors work closely with their mentees for a few weeks. She knew that it might be one of her course trainers or possibly someone she hadn’t encountered before.

A couple of weeks ago Janie announced that her mentoring instructions had come through and her mentor was a new name to her: Alison Shindler.

GED: Oh, yes, I know Alison Shindler.

DAISY: What do you mean?

GED: She was a leading light in BBYO towards the end of my time there.

DAISY: Might not be the same person…

GED: …Ealing BBYO – bet it is!

Of course it is.

What a pleasant surprise.

Less of a surprise though, after their first session together, is that Alison & Daisy seem to be getting along really well. I’m confident that the mentoring partnership should be a very good one.

Meanwhile Alison has furnished me with a photo from so far back in the day, the biggest surprise is that we were in colour back then:

With thanks to Alison Shindler for this photo

That’s a c17-year-old me turning around, next to me Simon Jacobs who was central to my “going to Keele” story and part of the “cooking weekend”. In the red scarf I thought was Jilly Black (who has remained friends with me, Daisy and Alison throughout those decades – in fact it is a little surprising we haven’t overlapped before now )…but it turns out to be Emma Cohen disguised as Jilly. Opposite Simon is Lauren Sterling plus, slightly upstaged by Simon’s head, Caroline Curtis (then Freeman) who visited me and Simon at Keele the February 1981 weekend following the “cooking” one.

A Short Visit From Caroline To See Me And Simon At Keele, 20 to 22 February 1981

It’s all too weird, in a good way.

But now, after all that excitement, Daisy and I are in temporary exile at the flat. The replacement of the Noddyland boiler has over-run by a day, making Daisy right and me wrong, as usual.

Stock boiler image: neither the actual old nor the actual new boiler

I’ve been grasping for a quirky early 1980s musical connection for a boiler replacement. So my earworm for the tail end of this tale is by that early 1980s mainstay, The Human League – Being Boiled:

Dinner At Caroline & Alan’s Place, 19 January 2019

It had been a while since we had seen Caroline and Alan…

…in fact, Ogblog is a helpful resource to answer such questions as, “when did we last see Caroline and Alan socially?”:

Dinner In Noddyland With Caroline and Alan Curtis, 21 January 2017, Followed By A Lazy Sunday, 22 January 2017

Ah, so it was the equivalent Saturday two years ago – that’s a bit uncanny.

This time we enjoyed lavish hospitality at Caroline and Alan’s place. We also enjoyed son Alex’s company for much of the evening. Alex is now a strapping young man, which was somewhat predictable when you think about it, but always comes as a bit of a shock when you haven’t seen a youngster for a few years.

I tried to avoid saying, “haven’t you grown since I last saw you”, but that phrase came out anyway – at least half in jest.

Yummy nibbles before dinner with a very jolly Viognier. Caroline tried to assess which of the nibbles we liked best, but we were wise to the risk of saying, e.g. “the salmon ones”, because that would have enabled Caroline to say, “oh, so what’s wrong with the asparagus ones and the avocado ones?”. Janie and I are old hands at that game, even when the host/hostess isn’t actually playing it. Then a yummy main meal of:

  • red pepper soup;
  • herb-crusted lamb rack with poshed-up rice and roasted vegetables;
  • chocolate tart and fruit cocktail.

A very tasty Châteauneuf-du-Pape complemented the main meal, especially the lamb.

Conversation naturally covered the biggest issues of the moment – i.e. cricket, with me, Alan and Alex all in the same room. We also discussed politics and world affairs to some extent – without any irony whatsoever, of course.

Alex stuck around for a higher proportion of the evening than was necessary for good manners, but when he returned downstairs having gone upstairs after dinner to watch a movie, Janie and I both realised that the time had flown, it was getting really late and that we were in danger of outstaying even the warmest welcome.

We also realised that we had been so busy discussing anything other than our trip to Japan that we hadn’t even started on that subject. So we covered that one briefly and promised to send Caroline and Alan some links to the blog on Japan – this one is probably best for a laugh and to pick up some other fine links:

Japan Reflections: I Need To Write About Toilets In Japan, 7 November 2018

Or, if photos are more their thing, here is a link to one of the several albums of pics:

But back to London in January – what else to say? – we’d had a very enjoyable evening – thank you Caroline and Alan.

Dinner In Noddyland With Caroline and Alan Curtis, 21 January 2017, Followed By A Lazy Sunday, 22 January 2017

Daisy’s Magical Garden In Noddyland, As It Looked On Saturday Evening

We’ve been in Noddyland for more than five years now, would you believe, but this weekend was the very first time we have been visited by a pair from this charming species…

A Charming Different Species Visiting Noddyland For The First Time

…but enough about the charming pair of blackbirds that turned up on Sunday morning, tweeting more vociferously than Trump. I’m getting ahead of myself.

As it happens, Saturday evening was also Caroline and Alan’s first visit to Noddyland. Let’s not talk about blame here for so many years passing without us getting together; at our age most of us are equally rubbish at keeping in touch.

Caroline and I have known each other since our youth; Janie met Caroline soon after Janie and I got together nearly 25 years ago. We’ve known Alan only since he and Caroline got together a mere 16-17 years ago. Yet strangely, in recent years, I have seen more of Alan (through cricket at Lord’s and slightly tangential business connections) than I have of Caroline. Janie had seen neither of them for years.

It was about time we put this matter right, so when Caroline got in touch a couple of months ago on matters unrelated to pleasant Saturday evenings, I responded by suggesting a pleasant Saturday evening in Noddyland instead.

So that’s what happened.

Janie pushed the boat out with:

  • mini open sandwiches based on Helga’s exceptional Irish smoked salmon from her local smokehouse in Kilcolman, West Cork – which we sampled with delight when we visited Helga a couple of years ago – click here . Subsequently, Helga has generously treated us to packages of same periodically – e.g. this Christmas. If you are reading this – thank you once again Helga – it was lovely to share some of your present with good friends;
  • additional nibbles of goose rillettes on black oat crackers, together with carrot sticks and tomatoes so we didn’t feel quite so indulgent;
  • Janie’s classic roast fillet of beef served with wasabi mayonnaise, roasted potato slices and salad;
  • apple strudel with cream and/or custard (most of us went for the latter).

Not ridiculously boozy, but we started with Prosecco (for three) and decent white wine (for me), followed by an Aussie Cabernet Sauvignon named cover drive (well we all like cricket) and then a rather special Argentinian Malbec once the Aussie wine had been lofted through the covers for six (glasses).

Caroline and Alan told us the story of how they got together…or were somewhat encouraged together…which made us think to recommend Through The Wall to them. I’m sure it also brought to Janie’s mind her recent Noddyland efforts in the matchmaking department.

We talked about cricket quite a bit and managed to keep Alan off the subject of Tottenham Hotspurs more effectively, I suspect, than he is used to. We also managed to keep Trump and Brexit out of the conversation for a surprisingly large proportion of the evening…which I think proves that the conversation was mostly of the right sort; interesting without being distressing. No “rush to the bathroom as a result of distressing Brexit talk misery” on this occasion – click here only if you want to read what can go wrong in such circumstances…and/or if you want to read about my most recent get together with Simon Jacobs.

One running theme of the evening was young Alex, Caroline and Alan’s teenage son. Alex was enjoying an early experience of going out with his friends on a Saturday evening while his parents were out seeing theirs. There was a bit of parent/child message exchanging towards the end of the evening. Caroline and Alan won hands down – i.e. they steadfastly remained at our place until after Alex reported that he had got home safely.

Soon after that, we all realised how late it was, so off went Caroline and Alan. We all swore we wouldn’t leave it so long again next time.

Dawn chorus tweeting more vociferously than Trump

The next morning we rose a bit later than usual – we knew that it would be futile to attempt tennis at our regular time as it was so cold and frosty. But we were treated to an especially magnificent dawn chorus, probably as a result of so many birds visiting that morning, including the new pair of blackbirds who were the bird equivalent of Simon and Garfunkle on tour, visiting Noddyland, perhaps only briefly.

All our regular visitors, including many parakeets, collared doves, blue jays, starlings and the woodpecker turned out to see the show, join in the chorus and eat from the feeders.

Before I was allowed my feed, we went off at lunchtime to the tennis courts where Janie continued teaching me a lesson on how to play slice and cut touch tennis properly. I worked hard at it and improved as the hour went on. That improvement doesn’t show from this picture, whereas the fact that it was still blooming cold does show:

Shadowy Character, Blooming Cold

Reduced To Tears By My First Consultancy Assignment, 27 January 1989

No-one said it was going to be easy, switching from freshly qualified Chartered Accountant to hot shot management consultant as soon as I qualified.

But there was one low point towards the end of my first consultancy assignment for Binder Hamlyn, trying to resolve a seemingly irreconcilable problem for Save The Children Fund (SCF), thus named back then, when I spread all of my hand-written notes and attempted spaghetti-looking work flow and data flow diagrams all over the living room of my little then-rented flat in Clanricarde Gardens…

…and burst into tears.

Quite a lengthy burst if I remember correctly. Four minutes, possibly, which you might choose to time by listening to the following while reading on:

Why hadn’t I listened to the recruitment agent who said that I needed a lot more work experience before I’d be ready for management consultancy?

Why didn’t I walk out of the job on day one, when I learnt that I had been recruited as part of a turf war and that the person who was now to be my boss, Michael Mainelli, had been angered by other partners recruiting me while Michael was away on a short break?

And of all the tough “sink or swim” assignments Michael might have allocated me to at the very start of this seemingly-soon-to-be-foreshortened career, why did it have to be something my heart really was in – a project that might, if successful, substantially help SCF, one of the most important charities in the world?

Of course, you realise, the story has a happy enough ending. Michael and I are still working together thirty years later (as I write in January 2019). I also met Ian Theodoreson, then a young, up-and-coming Finance Director at SCF. Ian continued to be a client on and off throughout the decades and we have remained in touch even since he gave up on major charity roles – e.g. this get together last year.

Two Sweltering Days At Lord’s, The First With Ian Theodoreson, The Second With Rohan Candappa – Part One: With Ian T, 23 July 2018

Yes, somehow the project did turn out to be a success. After the tears, I realised that I needed to focus the report on the evidence-based conclusions I had reached and the single bright idea I had come up with in the several weeks I had spent with SCF.

Little did I know back then that:

  • having even one bright idea during a 20 day assignment is a significant success if that idea is helpful/valuable enough and finds enough favour to be implemented;
  • the seemingly irreconcilable problem I encountered at SCF was an example of a perennial problem in all organisations that have potentially complex relationships with their customers, members or donors. If you can even partially solve or make progress despite that “natural fault line”, you’ve done well;
  • this single assignment would prove to be career-defining for me in so many ways. In part because it cemented my place at Binder Hamlyn working with Michael as well as other partners. In part because I still spend much of my working time with charities and membership organisations (albeit looking at wider issues). In part because many of the things I learnt on that challenging assignment stood me in good stead for later challenges in the subsequent decades.

Ogblog is primarily a “life” retroblog, not a “work” one, so this piece is a rarity – perhaps even a one-off – being more work than life. But this period was such a major change for me, not least in shifting my work-life balance substantially towards work for several decades, that I feel bound to write it up. I also spotted some intriguing notes on the diary pages for those first few weeks of January 1989.

Compared with late 1988, this is almost all work, not much life.
That meeting with Ian Theodoreson on 10 January will have been my first formal meeting with Ian and possibly even the first time I met him at all, although we might have had a “canteen chat” in Mary Datchelor House (the SCF offices back then) before we met formally. I was making a point of being visible in the canteen for informal chats throughout the project; a technique I had leaned from my Student Union sabbatical experience just a few years earlier. I also note that I had spelt Ian’s surname incorrectly back in 1989, a mistake I was to repeat (differently) on the acknowledgements page of the hard cover edition of Price of Fish. Sorry, again, Ian.
Again, lots of work, not all that much life there. A second meeting with Ian, now mis-spelling his name in the same way as The Price of Fish error – at least some sort of consistency set in. Hannah and Peter on the Thursday evening are my neighbours from downstairs. Peter is still downstairs – Hannah (Peter’s mum) returned to Germany some years ago and is spending her dotage there. I cannot remember the evening of 22 January 1989 with Caroline – I’ll guess that I cooked Caroline dinner at Clanricarde given the time and lack of other information in the diary. Caroline has reciprocated – most recently at the time of writing a week or so ago!
The amusing entry on this page is the morning of 25 January. Someone suggested that I visit Barnardo’s by way of comparison with SCF. I’m not sure who provided the above assistance for my journey, but it reads:

Barkingside St. [Station] Church – beside it c60s US “Prison”

Anyone who has visited the Barnardo’s campus would recognise that “1960s US Prison” description and it should make them smile. It would be ironic if it had been Ian Theodoreson who provided that helpful description for my journey, as he subsequently spent many years as Director of Corporate Services there and I did several assignments at that Barnardo’s campus, in the late 1990s and early years of this century.

Please also note “G Jenny” in small writing for 26th evening and then again on the Saturday afternoon. I know that I deferred my visit to Grandma Jenny 26th because I had a report deadline looming…

…in fact the “evening of tears” might have been 26th not 27th…

…but I also know that the report deadline was really for the Monday morning, when I needed to go into the office with the report ready for review. So I also remember postponing Grandma Jenny again on the Saturday, while dinner with Jilly I think went ahead after I finished my draft report on the Saturday.

I put Grandma Jenny back into the book for the following Tuesday and I’m sure I will have gone that evening. She forgave me for the multiple rescheduling I’m sure, especially when she learnt that I was doing work for a charity in which she believed strongly. I also remember her imparting the following worldly advice to me several times during that era:

all work and no joy makes Jack a dull boy.

Well of course there was joy as well as work during those “hard yards” weeks and months at the start of my consultancy career. But I don’t suppose there was much joy inside my tears on that evening, when I thought it was all going horribly wrong.

Maybe I even cried for the six-and-a-half minutes it takes to listen to this Dowland-ish Stevie Wonder song.

A Two Week Break After Summer Job, Then Return To Keele, Late September To Early October 1983

Keele Beckoning

After finishing my 1983 summer job with a swathe of nights out…

Keele Student’s Summer Working In London 1983, Part Four: Twixt Kenton, Centre Point, West End, Streatham, Friends & Family, September 1983

…the diary suggests that I spent a couple of weeks seeing friends, buying records and making tapes – the perfect preparation for the 1983/84 academic year that would be my P3 year (i.e. fourth year at Keele, third and final year of undergraduate studies).

It seems I was enjoying myself so much I even got my days mixed up in the diary:

Monday 26 September 1983 – …Paul [Deacon] came over for dinner _> Radio Kings in evening – click here for article on that event.

Wednesday 28 September 1983 – …went out for dinner with Jilly – came back here [Woodfield Avenue] after – late night

Thursday 29 September 1983 – Went to Brixton with Jilly in morning – lazyish afternoon – Andrew [Andy Levinson] came over late afternoon – dinner – wine bar

Frankly I wouldn’t have remembered that Streatham Hill had such a thing as a wine bar in those days. Perhaps it was new and we wanted to try it. I vaguely remember one in the 1980s on Sternhold Avenue – perhaps that was the one.

Saturday 1 October 1983 – went to visit Marianne [Gilmour] – pleasant lazy evening

Sunday 2 October 1983 – went to Makro with Dad in morning. Wendy [Robbins] came over in afternoon

My “business ” at Makro on that occasion was probably limited to a few record albums at discounted prices (see link to my October 1983 album purchase list) and some stationery for the forthcoming academic year. Goodness only knows what Dad wanted there.

Monday 3 October 1983 …went up West & to R&T today…

R&T meant “Record & Tape Exchange” as it was then named.

I bought lots of albums on that visit – the use of a different colour of ink listing them on my log tells me exactly which ones, so I have listed them in a separate article – click here or below.

Albums I Bought In Early October 1983 Ahead Of My Return To Keele

6 October 1983 – went to shop with Dad in morning – went to office – met Caroline for lunch

I suspect I helped Dad prepare his books that morning, hence stopping at the office (Newman Harris) on my way to lunch. Efficient, I was, even back then.

7 October 1983 – …went to G Jenny’s in afternoon. Paul came over in evening.

8 October 1983 – Busy day packing etc. taping too – getting ready to come back to keele

9 October 1983 – Left early – came to Keele lunched at Post House – unpacked some – went to Union – quite dull

I can only imagine that this meant that Dad drove me up on this occasion, as I cannot imagine why else I’d have eaten at a roadside convenience place such as The Post House. Of course nothing much up at Keele would have been open on a Sunday. In the circumstances, The Sneyd would not have been a diplomatic choice.

I love my comment that the Union was quite dull – yet again, in my enthusiasm, I had come back to Keele ahead of the excitement. But there was plenty of fun, as well as hard work, to come in that Autumn 1983 term. watch this space.

Keele Students’ Union – only dull when there is no-one around.

Keele Student’s Summer Working In London 1983, Part Four: Twixt Kenton, Centre Point, West End, Streatham, Friends & Family, September 1983

Centre Point Snooker Hall – This Picture “Borrowed” from the Crossrail Learning Legacy

My last few weeks of work that summer were a busy time. I was mostly working on Laurie Krieger’s various enterprises during the second half of that summer, which included Price Buster Records in Rupert Street (the one bit of the Harlequin Records empire he retained), Leisureplay (which was an arcade games business) and Centre Point Snooker Hall (depicted above), which at that time he was expanding also to include a gym venture, one within Centre point and the other out east (Barking if I remember correctly).

I spent most of my time for him pulling together various accounting records at the empire’s nerve centre – a modest former retail unit in Kenton. The team there was governed by a wonderful administrator named Marge who had a trusty part-time assistant (Jean I think), occasionally interrupted by Laurie’s former majordomo Mossy (Mr Moss) who ran Leisureplay and the occasional visit from Laurie himself.

You’re a young man. What do you think of this idea…

…he’d say, bouncing some new commercial idea off me. I usually didn’t much fancy the offer, but would always caveat my answers by saying that I’m probably not his target audience.

…yes…alright, but do you think young people in general will go for that?

…Laurie would often persist. He was a relentless entrepreneur.

The previous summer I had endeared myself to Marge and the team at Kenton by proving to be more than useful at the daily quiz on Radio London, which seemed to please them no end:

Winner, Winner, Radio London Pop Quiz Winner, Seven Singles – Summer 1982

Anyway, we’re here to talk about the tail end of the 1983 summer in this piece, so here are the diary pages and some comments/links to explain the interesting bits

Wednesday 31 August…Marianne [Gilmour’s] for dinner

Thursday 1 September…met Jilly [Black] went on to proms..

My First Night At the Proms: Me, Jilly & Claudio, 1 September 1983

Sunday 4 September 1983…[Uncle] Michael for lunch [he’d have visited my grandparents’ graves as was traditional at that time of year]…Paul [Deacon] came over later.

Friday 9 September 1983 – …helped Mum – Jacquie, Len & Mark [Briegal], Michael & Pam [Harris] came over for dinner – v nice

Sunday 11 September 1983 – Stanley & Doreen [Benjamin] came over for lunch – went over to Wendy’s [Robbins] in evening.

Basically the Jewish holidays Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur dominated these weeks.

Monday 12 September 1983 – Busy day Kenton – went out with Caroline in evening.

Tuesday 13 September 1983 – Finished P/B [Price Buster] today – went to office. Took mum and dad to The Rivals in eve.

The Rivals by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Olivier Theatre, 13 September 1983

Friday 16 September 1983 – busy day of work – lunch with Ashley [Michaels]…

Saturday 17 September 1983 – Yom Kippur – broke fast with G Jenny & Uncle Louis [Barst]…

Sunday 18 September 1983 – Nice lunch – Wendy came over in afternoon…

Tuesday 20 September 1983 …went to Annalisa [de Mercur’s] for lunch – went out with Jilly in eve – Pastels [was that a wine bar or something?] -> Joy King Lau [a favourite Chinese restaurant near Leicester Square]

Wednesday 21 September 1983 …worked late – boozing with Mike [King] till late

Thursday 22 September 1983 Felt grotty today! [see worked late / boozing till late the day before – what did you expect, kid?] Went to lunch late with [Sandy] Yap…cold coming on [this all reads a bit self-inflicted to my older eyes forty years later]

Friday 23 September 1983 – Last day. Went Stockpot lunch Yap – after work Phoenix -> Mayflower for feast – v nice.

Mayflower – was excellent – now closed – image “borrowed” from Hungry Onion.

Either I was now seen as part of the team or the gang wanted to make absolutely sure I was gone. You, dear reader, can decide.

Saturday 24 September 1983 …went to Caroline [Freeman’s…now Curtis] party – stayed at Simon’s [Jacobs]…

Sunday 25 September 1983…left about midday. Had Chinese meal at home…

The Chinese meal at home was probably from Mrs Wong. Not quite the same ass Mayflower feast, but it would have been good enough. Anyway, 40 years later, Mrs Wong is still there…

…well, the restaurant is, possibly not the middle-aged woman who ran the place abck then…

…whereas Mayflower is gone.

Image “borrowed” from All In London

Keele Student’s Summer Working In London 1983, Part One: A Social & Emotional Whirl…With Some Work Thrown In, July 1983

Actually I worked in 19 Cavendish Square, not 19a (depicted). I subsequently (many years later) went to the dentist/hygienist in 19a. Any resemblance between tooth pulling and me working as an accounts clerk in the university holidays is purely coincidental.

The summer of 1983 was to be the last of my summer holiday jobs working for Newman Harris in London. Two-and-a-bit years later I started working for that firm full time as a trainee, but that’s another story.

As with previous summer jobs, I spent an awful lot of time meeting up with people for lunch and after work. I also visited Keele during that summer – a benefit of having retained the Barnes L54 flat, along with Alan Gorman and Chris Spencer, for a further year.

I’ll set out my diary pages below and try to translate/transliterate them. The very first reference on my first day of work, “VL”, refers to Laurence Corner (the V stood for Victor), where I spent a fair chunk of that summer, as I had done previously in my summer jobs. Forty years on, I am still in touch with DJ and Kim from there – not least because I met Janie through Kim in 1992 and the rest, as they say, has been history.

https://www.allinlondon.co.uk/directory/surplus-stores/5766-laurence-corner

In July 1983 though, I was struggling with my sophomoric romantic travails with Liza. I did not want to seem to be pandering to my mum’s unreasonable aversion to the relationship…in truth I think mum had an aversion to me having ANY romantic relationship at that time…while in truth I had emotionally “checked out” by the end of the summer term, as reported in the last instalment…

The Sneyd, The Jedi, The Parents & The Return To London At The End Of My P2 Year At Keele, 1982/1983

…I just couldn’t see the Liza relationship working for me the following academic year.

There’s the context, so hold on to your hats for the deeds extracted from the diaries.

Monday 4 July 1983 – Started work – v busy. VL etc – unpacking etc evening

Tuesday 5 July 1983 – Work – v busy. Met Jilly [Black] for lunch [probably that Italian place on Henrietta Place where you could sit and eat in a railway carriage]. Unpacked till late

Wednesday 6 July 1983 – Busy day at office – Paul [Deacon] came over in evening. [I think there’ll be some good “mix tape” pieces from the summer of 1983, as Paul was in top form that summer with his record finds etc – my own form was not bad that summer either]

Thursday 7 July 1983 – Lots of work – stayed in this evening

Friday 8 July 1983 – V Busy – stayed in eve & relaxed

Saturday 9 July 1983 – Lazy day today – went shopping in Brixton -> G Jenny for tea – lazy eve

Sunday 10 July 1983 – Lazy day – did some reading – relaxed, ate, etc.

Grandma Jenny still lived in Sandhurst Court, Acre Lane, in those days, making a shopping trip to Brixton ahead of visiting her for tea a natural progression.

I expect you’ve got the gist of these summer diary pages by now, so I’ll only extract the highlights that might use some explaining from now on.

Tuesday 12 July 1983 – …met Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] for lunch…Paul [Deacon] came round in evening – went over to Andrew [Andy Levinson, who also lived in Woodfield Avenue]

Friday 15 July 1983 – Office Ok – much work – left early. Went up to Keele – stayed in eve…

Saturday 16 July 1983 – went pub in morning – afternoon Ashley [Fletcher] came over – v tired crashed out early…

Sunday 17 July 1983 – then up late – ran late – brekker – lazy day – left in eve – got back a little late.

Forty years on, I’m struggling to process that weekend in my mind. I sense that I was finding full time work tiring that summer – I think there was a bit of a heatwave on that year – but the weekend in Keele looks quite topsy-turvey to me and I’m guessing that some aspects are unwrit and unremembered, at least by me. Ashley might remember a bit more once he sees the diary write up. Perhaps that weekend was the “dancing and mud cricket in the rain” occasion:

Remembering The Heatwave Of Summer 1983 At Keele, Late June or July 1983

Wednesday 20 July 1983 – …went to Wendy’s [Robbins – in Bromley back then] in eve – v pleasant.

Thursday 21 July 1983 – …met Caroline for lunch …

Friday 22 July 1983 – Work OK – deadlines. Went to Annalisa’s [de Mercur, who lived in Harley Street in those days] for lunch and went for a drink with Marianne [Gilmour, daughter of Geoffrey, also doing holiday work at NH those summers] – Paul came over later.

Saturday 23 July 1983 – …had haircut… [a rare and therefore diary-worthy event back then]

Sunday 24 July 1983 – Lazy day – nice lunch (Chinese) [probably at Mrs Wong’s] Finished with Liza in eve – not nice.

I vaguely recall seeking counsel from several friends in the run up to the Sunday call with Liza, which possibly in part explains the social whirl of the end of the week. I’m not going to pretend that I handled the matter well, but I was bringing little or no experience to the matter. In any case, it isn’t a situation that lends itself to being handled well.

Monday 25 July 1983 – …Ashley [Michaels, from NH, not Fletcher from Keele] took me to lunch…

Tuesday 26 July 1983 – …Met Jim [Jimmy Bateman] after work – boozed & ate in eve [almost certainly a Sun in Great Ormond Street/Lambs Conduit Street event] along the lines of evenings during holiday jobs passim…

Perseverance With Work & Meeting Up With Friends, 28 March To 10 April 1981

Thursday 28 July 1983 – …met Hamzah [Shawal, my departing Keele flatmate – I think this was the last time I saw him] for lunch…

Friday 29 July 1983 – …went for drink with Ashley [Michaels] and Dilip Vora] after work …

Saturday 30 July 1983 – …went over to Paul’s for afternoon…

Sunday 31 July 1983 – Did little today. Set up hi-fi. Met Liza in Edgware – drank quite a lot!

I vaguely remember that evening in Edgware. I think Liza’s brother Sean and sister-in-law Marlene had invited her down with a view to setting up a face-to-face between me and Liza. Possibly they wrongly envisaged a possible reconciliation if Liza and I met in person. In any case it was a grown-up ploy, because breaking up by phone had been far from ideal; I think (hope) Liza and I parted on better terms as a result of that very boozy evening.

Ten Days In London For Passover & Easter 1982

There was a lot of taping involved, apparently.

Saturday’s “Paul came round in the evening” will be Paul Deacon. Some notion of music/tape swapping or at least an exchange of views on the topic of ,usic will have been high on the agenda.

“Bushey for the day” on the Sunday will have been multiple stone-settings at the Jewish cemetery to mark the end of mourning for Uncle Manny’s death…

Uncle Manny’s Funeral & The Hoover Factory, 15 May 1981

…and that of Grandma Anne:

Twenty Days Of Summer Holiday Work During Which Grandma Anne Died, 10 to 29 August 1981

I vaguely recall the family taking refuge between ceremonies in a ghastly hostelry on the side of the A41 near to the Bushey Cemetery. “Yuk” indeed.

Spending some time with Wendy (Robbins) that evening will have been respite for sure, although my sense of humour that evening probably didn’t extend to the events of the day.

Tuesday evening with Anil Biltoo at The Fox On the Hill and an overnight stay at the Biltoo house will also have been fun.

The word “lazy” appears a lot in my diary for that Easter break.

Wednesday 7 April 1982 …Seder in evening with Louis & Marie [Barst], G[randma] Jenny & [Lionel & Dinah] Aarons.

Seder is the traditional Passover feast and ceremony. In truth I don’t recall that particular Seder well. Dad will have tried to “speed trial” his way through the prayers and story-telling bits. We would have taken our time over the singing, however, not least because Marie was a proper singer (who taught and sang with the BBC Choir) which made the singing worth hearing when she was around. We latterly went to communal Seders in Kingston with Louis, Marie and Grandma Jenny – more on those in subsequent pieces I’m sure.

I should have some latter pictures of Louis and Marie but the one below of Louis at Jenny & Grandpa Lew’s wedding will have to do for now.

Grandma Jenny left, Louis Barst right – 1930s.

Lunch with Caroline [ then Freeman, now Curtis] and on to RTE (Record & Tape Exchange) on the Thursday was a very “me” thing to do in the University holidays.

Yup – that visit to RTE led to more laziness, more taping and another visit from Paul.

On my return to Keele it seems I was lazy no more – instead I festered. I’ll pick up on what festering might have been about in my next Keele episode.

End Of Term Blues Band At Keele Before Speeding Off To Herefordshire, Mid March 1982

Photo: mfjordan / Olde-worlde facades, Eardisley (Herefordshire)

End Of Term Blues Band & The Interminable Signing On Ritual

Writing forty years on (March 2022) I am quite impressed reading about my diligence at the end of the second term of my P1 year…and how that diligence soon turned to partying and mayhem once my work was out of the way.

Friday 12 March 1982 – Easy sort of day. Went to the ball in the evening. Quite a good ball *. Jon [Gorvett] lost keys – stayed in flat.

I’m pretty sure that there is more than one reference in my diaries to Jon mislaying his keys and dossing out at my place.

According to Dave Lee’s book The Keele Gigs!, the ball that I described as “quite good” was controversial in its choice of The Blues Band as they had played Keele only a couple of years earlier and were not deemed, by some cognoscenti, as ball material. I remember finding them pretty darned good.

Was Paul Jones abandoned in the Keele gigging rigging by discontended roadies? Photographer A. Vente, CC BY-SA 3.0 NL (1967)

The Keele gig from 1980 is available on-line as it was recorded as a Rock Goes To College broadcast, so you can see it below. The 1982 manifestation was really quite similar:

Saturday 13 March 1982 – Rose late – went to Newcastle during day – shopped. Rana [Sen]’s dinner party in eve -> Simon [Jacobs]’s party – Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] up for weekend. V Good.

That’s quite a busy couple of evenings, even by my standards back then! No wonder I took it relatively easy the next day or two.

There is a strange comment in my diary on the Monday:

…went to union in evening – got mixed up in everyone else’s problems.

I have no idea who or what “everyone else’s problems” might have been referring to. Probably just as well I didn’t extrapolate in the diary and cannot remember a thing about it.

Tuesday 16 March 1982 – Last official day of term. Andrea [Collins] popped in to say goodbye – went to the union in the evening – much emptier!!

…and therefore fewer problems to interrupt my flow, presumably.

Wednesday 17 March 1982 – Went to sign on in morning – sent away again. Did little during day – stayed in evening.

Thursday 18 March 1982 – Did a little work today after signing on with Kath [I think the same person as Kate] after hanging around for hours – went to union in evening.

I have written before about the ridiculous bureaucracy of having students sign on each holiday. It’s good to see that bureaucratic nonsenses had “sending away empty handed” and “hanging around for hours” events even 40 years ago. Bureaucratic denial and delay techniques are more sophisticated and partially-automated forty years on, of course.

Speeding Away From Keele To Eardisley, Herefordshire

What did the beautiful little Herefordshire village of Eardisley ever do to deserve us?

mfjordan / Olde-worlde facades, Eardisley (Herefordshire)

The answer, it seems, is that Jon Gorvett’s parents had a cottage there and a Keele student posse decided to descend upon it when those parents were not around.

My poor memory had this as a “trip to Wales” rather than “on the English side of the Welsh border” but never mind. We did venture into Wales a couple of times.

Jon Gorvett writes, with more authority than my memory:

Trip to Wales… that wasn’t the trip to my folks’ place in Herefordshire, was it? 

It was right on the Welsh border. Gerry Guinan was there, indeed, and Julie McClusky and Vince [Beasley] and George Scully, along with the three of us [Jon Gorvett, Simon Jacobs & me] and two friends of Vince’s who came up from London. 

I seem to remember that my folks’ tiny cottage was rather jam-packed with people, with not a lot of sleep possible except on the floor - though possibly there wasn’t much sleep in any case because of the various substances imbibed…

Indeed.

My diary covers the event quite well:

Friday 19 March 1982 – Decided on impulse to go to Eardisley (Jon’s parents’ country home). Left Keele about 7 – got there – went to pub – ate dinner etc. Up most of the night I felt a…

Saturday 20 March 1982 – …bit ill – crashed – went out to Wales (c12:00) – great time there climbing hills etc – really nice. Got back quite late – had supper etc. – again up all night…

Sunday 21 March 1982 – …playing Risk etc. – walked a long way early morning – did little else – went back to Vince’s for supper – returned – crashed out very tired.

There are a few elements of this story that are clear in my memory but missing from the above notes.

I seem to recall that the impulse to do this trip came from the fortunate discovery that Jon’s parent’s cottage and the Keele Student Union minibus were both available for a group of us to use at short notice.

I do remember not feeling brilliant that first night, being relieved that I felt fine and had a great day walking the hills on the Saturday. I think that was my first “hill walking with friends” event and the joy of such walking has stuck with me ever since. A much better experience for me than my ill-fated school walking trip some eight years earlier.

As for the Saturday to Sunday all-nighter, I recall that I was desperately keen not to wimp out again and crash. I chose, on unsound advice, to try speed (Amphetamine).

This experiment certainly helped me to stay awake all night but I do recall that I almost bit my bottom lip to pieces in the process. I don’t think I did very well playing Risk in that state – I’m not sure I ever did well playing Risk. I would tend to play carefully, then get overconfident, invade somewhere beyond my means and get crushed.

Speeding as I was, I have a feeling that I didn’t even go through the “play carefully” stage and I have a dreadful feeling that I might have invaded Ukraine – it just always looked so enticing in the middle of the board. Forty years on, I hang my head in shame at my drug-addled, over zealous, over-confident, reckless former self.

My other unwritten but abiding memory of this trip was the long walk we did on the Sunday, walking from Eardisley across the border into Wales and back. WE must have looked like a right motley bunch by the Sunday and I particularly remember Gerry Guinan wearing a bright green cape-like outfit and remarking that the strange looks she was getting left her in fear of being burnt at the stake as a witch by the horrified-looking villagers as we strode through various villages.

A bit like this – brighter green, I think, and with a hood

But I am glad to report that there were no witch burning incidents or even “running the students out of our village” incidents as far as I can recall.

It was a seminal little trip for me in several ways. Perhaps I even fell in love with the look of Tudor-style architecture that weekend.

Eardisley (Herefordshire) probably looked like this 19 March 1982
Noddyland, (London W3) did look like this 19 March 2022

Postscript: Jon & Simon chime in with their memories

Jon makes the following informed contribution in addition to the notes (above) which he sent prior to my write up:

1982, eh? Eardisley… I have to say, though, that my folks’ old place there would have regarded the Tudors as fancy young interlopers with no sense of style or tradition at all, I’m afraid. The Cruck House, as it was known, was a 14th century jobby, made out of a single massive oak tree spliced vertically down the middle and then inverted into a kind of Plantagenet ‘A’ Frame. What the ghosts of the house made of us, mind you, speeding like crazy all weekend, I’ve no idea. Gerry Guinan’s cape might even have seemed comfortingly familiar…

The Cruck House, above picture by Lee Holland “borrowed” from the British Listed Buildings site.

Simon’s recollections are no more focussed than Jon’s and mine:

I remember our trip to Eardisley pretty well except that I can’t remember precisely who was there. Vince Beasley was, for sure. I recall going for a brief walk after a first or second night of not sleeping at all and having stomach cramps as a result of the somewhat toxic powder we’d been happily imbibing.