Tag: Fiona Levinson

Return To Keele For “Twelve Days Of Post-Christmas”/New Year 1983 After A Very Short Seasonal Break In London, 23 December 1982 to 9 January 1983

Boat & Horses Newcastle borrowed and edited from WhatPub.

I returned to Keele very soon after Christmas, for reasons that need no more explaining in this piece than they did in my last substantive piece for 1982.

The Sun Sets On The Outside Edge Of 1982 At Keele, 11 to 22 December 1982

Just A Few Days In Streatham, 23 to 28 December 1982

I basically just spent a few days in London with family and friends that year:

Thursday 23 December…went over to Wendy’s [Robbins] for the afternoon…

Friday 24 December…went over to [Andy & Fiona] Levinson’s…

Saturday 25 December…Benjamins [Doreen, Stanley, Jane & Lisa] came over in evening…

Sunday 26 December…went to [neighbours Eardley & Aidrienne] Dadonka’s in evening…

Monday 27 December …Italian meal [almost certainly Il Carretto]…met Jim [Bateman] in evening…

Tuesday 28 December …did some taping. Went to [John & Lily] Hoggan’s in afternoon. Nice Chinese meal [almost certainly Mrs Wong‘s]. Paul [Deacon] came in evening

Back To Keele For “Twelve Days Of Post-Christmas” Before the Start Of Term, 29 December 1982 to 9 January 1983

The diary mostly refers to hanging around with Liza O’Connor during that pre-term period.

On New Year’s Eve it seems that I made some dinner at Barnes L54, the menu for which is lost in the mists of time but it would have probably been one of my Chinese wok specials. We then went to the Boat and Horses in Newcastle for a New Year’s Eve party.

I have a feeling that Liza’s brother Liam was involved – possibly even the brains behind the idea. But it might have also involved Ashley Fletcher and/or Bob & Sally (Bob Miller and Sally Hyman). I certainly recall Bob having an affection for a Bass pub around there, but perhaps not that one and/or perhaps not New Year’s Eve.

It must have been a good night because it seems we dossed all day the following day, reporting only watching a film on (Alan Gorman’s) TV in the evening. New Years Day aged 20.

Friday 7 January – went to visit Simon {Jacobs] & Jon [Gorvett] today – went to pub, shopped etc.

I think those two must have been sharing a place off campus by then. I must ask them.

OK, I think I have assessed that those 12 days before the start of term do not contain a great deal of interest for the general reader. There are several mentions of doing some work, as well as several more of spending time with Liza.

In the interest of science, I have assessed the text and can provide the following, quantitative data about those 12 days.

  • Days spent with Liza but not working: six.
  • Days spent working and also seeing Liza: one.
  • Days spent working and not seeing Liza: four, three of which described as “did a little work”, only one described as “worked all day”;
  • Days spent neither working nor seeing Liza: one.

Also in the interests of science, forty years on, I have been playing with bots ChatGPT and DALL-E over the seasonal break, with predictably hilarious results.

As I have so few images from my Keele years, I thought I’d get DALL-E to help me depict that seasonal break. The above picture is a DALL-E image generated solely from the instruction:

Depict a University Student in January 1983 spending 12 days before the start of term dossing with his friends and girlfriend, doing a little work but not much.

Looks only a smidge like me, but more importantly I think DALL-E has erred on the side of the work rather than the dossing. Probably just as well.

A Visit To Billingsgate Fish Market With Andrew & Fiona Levinson Plus Pen Friend Valerie, 20 August 1977

Flying Fish In Old Billingsgate

I was reminded of this 1977 impromptu summer holidays outing at a recent (November 2017) gathering of the old school clan – click here or the link below:

Rock ‘N’ Rajasthan Evening, Mostly Alleyn’s Alumni, 14 November 2017

Not only did both Andrew and Fiona Levinson come up in the conversation that evening, but I realised, when the 1977 Billingsgate visit popped into my head, that the venue, The Rajasthan Restaurant, is just across the road from the old Billingsgate Fish Market.  Weirdorama.

Here is the relevant page of my diary. Not much going on at that stage of the summer…

..apart from England winning the Ashes! Happy days.

This was the first year I didn’t go away with my parents during the summer school holidays since I was a toddler. I don’t think dad had the money for a holiday that year – business was not good.

Still, it seems that, on the Sunday before, I:

won 1p at kalooky [sic] all OK

Why Jewish grandmothers liked to play Kalooki – Jamaican Rummy is a mystery to me.  I think it explained to some extent in Howard Jacobson’s book Kalooki Nights, which I commend to you.

That 1p will have contributed handsomely towards my bus fares and stuff.

On the Friday, the diary notes that I:

went out with Andrew, Fiona and Valerie (pen friend from France). No 23 in evening.

No 23 was my grandmother (of kalooki fame)’s flat. There was a three line whip for the family to gather and no kalooki on a Friday night. Don’t be ridiculous. On the sabbath? No, no, no. Kalooki was a Sunday thing.

What Andrew, Fiona, Valerie and I did on that Friday is lost in the bowels of my mind, so unless one of the others reads this and knows (please chime in if you do) the nature of the Friday activity will be lost for ever in the mists of time.

The Saturday diary entry is more explicit:

went to Billingsgate first thing with Andrew, Fiona and Valerie.

I do recall making a very early start of it and venturing out to Billingsgate with my camera in hand.

Old Billingsgate, dapper head gear

Left to right: two fishmongers, Andrew, Fiona, Valerie

Andrew pondering the price of fish as we leave Billingsgate

Who would have thought back then that I would end up writing a book on commerce, The Price Of Fish, using a multitude of fishy examples, some of which were spawned all the way back then at Billingsgate – click here or below:

But I digress…

…let us return to the 20 August outing. We clearly did a little more sightseeing before we went home – click the link below for the whole photo roll, which is available for all to see on Flickr – click here or below:

BILLINGSGATE 1977 (1)

As a footnote, I’d like to make it clear that our behaviour with Fiona’s pen friend from France was exemplary, showing her the sights, sounds and smells of Old London Town and generally being hospitable.

I feel the need to make this “good behaviour” point explicit, because some of our fellow Alleyn’s alumni took a somewhat different attitude to French pen pals. Messrs Wellbrook and Grant, for example, hang your heads in shame as I link any Facebook-enabled readers to David Wellbrook’s confession piece on the matter of Chris Grant’s French pen friend in the summer of 1976 – click here for Facebook or below for the Ogblog imprint: 

Guest Piece by David Wellbrook: The Long Hot Summer Of ’76 – Recollections Of A 14-Year-Old With Special Appearance By A Lunatic Frenchman, c1 July 1976

Tish tish.

I Didn’t Just Learn Tennis In The School Easter Holidays Of 1974, I Smashed It

Stuart Harris & Me In My (Or Should I Say My Parents’) Garden, 1976

I wrote a “Fifty Years Ago” piece last week about my first tennis lesson:

Fifty Years Of Tennis, Starting At Woodfield Grove Tennis Club, 30 March 1974

I remembered that Andy and Fiona Levinson were involved and several other kids of our age from the street and local area. The following week’s diary is revealing in several additional ways.

I’ll transcribe the diary entries in full at the end of this article, because I want to focus on a couple of key facts that leap out of the page at me.

The first obvious point is that tennis gets a mention in every entry, except the Sunday one which was dominated by (Hebrew) classes and family s*it.

But the item that screamed off this page at me, inducing mixed emotions of joy and embarrassment, is the entry for 3 April:

Wednesday 3 April 1974. Morn uneventful. Afternoon tennis: Gary [Sugarman] Stewart [sic – actually Stuart Harris] and John [almost certainly Davies], M singles & doubles tournament – SH & I won!

The reason for my embarrassment is that I maintained, for best part of half a century, that I had never won anything at hand/racket sports.

True, there was the match that I had misremembered to be the crowning moment of my youthful play, a winning quarter-final against Johnny Eltham at Fives in 1975…

An Uneventful Day Playing Fives, 9 June 1975

…an event rather ingeniously commemorated by Rohan Candappa – if you click the above link you can read about it.

Then an interval of best part of half a century, until, in 2022, real tennis success in The Lowenthal Trophy at Queen’s …

Finally…Unprecedented Success At Tennis, The Queen’s Club, 11 May & 27 May 2022

…when I again asserted, it seems wrongly, that I had never previously achieved tournament success.

Yet, it seems that my very first tournament, at Woodfield Grove Tennis Club, was, in fact, a winning one.

Just imagine the scale of that tournament and what it must have meant to all concerned. At least four participants (four are named in my diary piece). Further, the tournament was won by a couple of genuinely local boys.

Stuart Harris, my partner in crime for that tournament victory, is not a relative of mine. Our street, Woodfield Avenue, was blessed with a Harris family at each end.

Ours, the smaller Harris family, just me and my parents, at the north end of Woodfield Avenue. Stuart’s family, with multiple children, at the south end of the same road. Stuart’s dad was named Nathan, known as Naff. Stuart’s family were referred to as “The Naff Harrises” to distinguish them from our family, which might thus have been described as “The Tasteful Harrises”, but were probably known as “The Peter Harrises”…or possibly an adjective I would prefer not to learn about after all this time.

Parenthetically [did you see what I did there], calling my family “The Peter Harrises” would subsequently do no good at all, when another unrelated Peter Harris moved in next door to my parents’ house. A nightmare for the postal and delivery services ensued.

The headline photo shows me and Stuart larking around in The Tasteful Harris garden a couple of years later. Sadly, we have no pictures of me and Stuart in action, pulling off our stunning tournament victory that day in 1974, but I did commission DALL-E to reimagine the scene using AI technology and I think it has done quite well:

That tournament success seems to have preoccupied me so much that I simply scrubbed out the following two days. Presumably the celebrations went on deep into the night and then into the next night…

…or perhaps I was starting to lose interest in diary writing for a while, as evidenced by my seven month “sabbatical” between late April and late November that year.

Anyway, I shall use this diary discovery to try and reconnect with Stuart after all these years (I think I have found him) and we’ll see if any amusing memories and/or law suits ensue from him.

Postscript: Stuart Harris And I Are Indeed Now Back In Touch With One Another

Stuart, amongst many other things unrelated to this piece, points out that there was a Stewart in our street: Stewart Starkin, who quite probably was part of our tennis-take-up group that Easter. Indeed, re-reading my diary entry I strongly suspect that the name Stewart does indeed refer to the other Stewart and SH refers to Stuart Harris. That means that there must have been at least five of us in that tournament, which puts the victory on an even more impressive footing, don’t you think?

Here, For The Record, Is That Entire Diary Week Transcribed.

Sunday 31 March 1974 – Classes in morn. G Anne, Ida trouble [that means a family row]. VERY BAD DAY.

Monday 1 April 1974 – Tennis v good in morn. Afternoon OK. Andrew [Levinson] for badminton.

Tuesday 2 April 1974 – Tennis instruction v good. Classes good. Donuts for class notes. [Some form of sweetmeat bribery to do our studies, if I recall correctly]

Wednesday 3 April 1974. Morn uneventful. Afternoon tennis: Gary [Sugarman] Stewart [sic – actually Stuart Harris] and John [almost certainly Davies], M singles & doubles tournament – SH & I won!

Thursday X

Friday X

Saturday 6 April 1974 – Tennis morn. Afternoon uneventful. Seder v good – sung Ma Nishtana – v enjoyable evening.

Oh boy, was I hooked on the tennis early.

Here is another 1976 take on the dynamic duo that won that Woodfield Grove trophy in 1974 – the pictures below taken the same day as the headline picture:

My Fifth Birthday Party, Standard 8 Home Movie & Photos, Woodfield Avenue, cAugust 1967

I’m pretty sure my fifth birthday party was not held on my birthday because so many people were going to be away late August, including us.

I vaguely recall mum telling me that it was due to be held soon after school broke up but lots of people had measles/mumps/chicken pox or whatever was doing the rounds that season, so they rescheduled the party.

So perhaps it was held in early August.

It certainly looks summery from the cine film and photos.

Dad did a pretty good job of filming this event. Not exactly taxing on his skills.

There are a few photos too – click here for the album. The cutest photo is shown below.

 

My Very First Audio Recording & Inadvertent Desecration Of Mummy’s Tape, With Friends, Woodfield Avenue, Guessing Late 1966

This incident caused a long-term rumpus in our family. I’m not sure my mother ever forgave me for it.

I recorded about two-and-a-half minutes of childish nonsense…

…with friend or friends unspecified…

…on Mummy’s Tape.

She only had one tape, bless her, which I inadvertently desecrated that day.

Mummy’s tape comprises some of her favourite tunes and songs, recorded from various sources on the radio, probably over several years in the early to mid 1960s, around the time of my infancy.

Here is a link to the Mummy’s Tape track listing.

Just in case anyone is interested, I have also uploaded Mummy’s Tape in its entirety, within this piece – click here or below:

Mummy’s Tape, Woodfield Avenue Grundig TK-35, Mid 1960’s

Mum reckons I carried out the horrendous act of desecration when I was about four.

Here is the offending two-and-a-half minute clip.

The clip itself reveals little. I was clearly very young when I did this – I think mum’s “about four” estimate is about right. We (I am with at least one, I think probably two friends) mostly seem to be making noises to take pleasure in watching the recording level lights on the family Grundig dance.

Grundig TK35, ram-packed with thermionic valves. Photograph by Michael Keller, from Rad-io.de.

I guess I had been carefully watching what my parents (mostly daddy) did when they recorded me stories so I could listen in their absence, click here or below for an example of that…

Daddy Reading The Gingerbread Man To Me, Guessing Late 1966

…and I thus worked out how to record through the microphone. A non-trivial matter on a Grundig TK-35 I can tell you.

Mummy never let me live this down. A well-known bearer of minor long-term grudges was my mum…and boy did this grudge come back to haunt me for the rest of her life.

For a start, precious tapes, which meant those that mum (and to some extent dad) treasured were kept in a drawer in the living room cabinet that was out of bounds to me until I was much, much older.

But more importantly, subsequent minor infringements of various kinds (and there were many) were often “bigged up” with reference to the tape desecration incident, e.g.:

“you’ve never paid due respect to my property…do you remember that time you completely ruined my tape?”

Well, of course I did and do remember the incident in the sense that I was regularly reminded of it. But I was very small when the incident occurred and have no recollection of the actual playful episode, in which, presumably, I was showing off to a friend or friends and we played with the equipment for a while…

…two-and-a-half minutes or so to be a little more precise.

All the evidence suggests that there was actus reus for the criminal damage to Mummy’s Tape, but in truth I cannot believe that there was an ounce of mens rea for desecration. I doubt if I had even understood, by that stage, the difference between a blank tape and one that had recordings on it which might, if someone surreptitiously recorded on that tape while no-one was looking, would be permanently interrupted with inappropriate material, for the rest of all time.

Indeed, there is evidence that I took pains to avoid recording over anything – there is about 40 seconds of blank space between the previous recording on the tape and the start of my childish recording – so I guess I did have a careful listen to make sure that I was recording on blank tape, not over-recording anything.

At this juncture readers, especially younger people, might wonder what on earth all the fuss was about. Suffice it to say that editing tapes was an even less trivial matter than recording them in those days, which is why most amateur recordings of that era are diffuse with blips and occasionally lengthy intervals of inappropriate material.

I guess mummy carried on recording her tape and only discovered my childish interruption later, by which time it was, in her terms, too late to rectify the problem.

She could, of course, have recorded any material of her own choosing between two-and-a-half minutes and three-and-a-quarter minutes over the space and my material to reinstate her tape as a continuous one of her preferred music…

…but it was far easier and more fitting, instead, to kvetch or broyges for several decades.

I don’t like to point the finger at anyone else in this sorry tale, but something tells me that Andy Levinson might also have been at the scene of the crime at the time; possibly Fiona also. But only I have suffered a lifetime of guilt and shame as a result of two-and-a-half minutes worth of seemingly harmless, childish fun.

Not bad technical skills on the tape recorder at the age of four though – eh readers? This is, unquestionably, my oldest surviving self-made recording; quite possibly the very first one I ever made.

Andrew & Fiona Come To Play, Standard 8 Home Movie, Woodfield Avenue, c August 1966

This is a supremely cute little home movie, including “an outbreak of” kissing and eventually “an outbreak of” squabbling. Not quite a Tarrantino ending but…

…I certainly sense Dad’s cinematographic machinations all over this piece – good on him.

It was filmed at our house.

I’m no expert on children’s ages, but although mum and dad guessed summer of 1967 (making me and Andrew about 5 and Fiona about 4), from reviewing other materials (photos and cine), I think this one might be a year earlier, 1966, with me and Andrew around 4 and Fiona 3.

I’m pretty sure the birthday party film – click here – is 1967 and I think we look a little older in that one – although no less cute.