Angela & John Kessler, this photo just nine months after their wedding
The diary page for this week is as colourful as it is (almost) unintelligible:
Allow me to try to interpret the above scrawl for you:
Sunday, 8 December 1974 – First light in play [Hanukah play at chedar, presumably]. Dined at Schmidt’s. The Great War, Sykes, David Copperfield and A Change Of Ground.
Monday, 9 December 1974 – Last full day of term. Uneventful. TV Waltons, Call My Bluff, and Horizon v good indeed.
Tuesday 10 December 1974 – Christmas dinner v good. Classes rehearsal. Mission Impossible and Rhoda v good.
Wednesday, 11 December 1974 – Rather uneventful. Left school 2 o’clock, Carol rehearsal. Disappearing World – Ongka’s Big Moka Rather amusing?????
I don’t much review television programmes (probably just as well given the amount of TV I was watching back then), but a few years ago I wrote up my memories of Ongka’s Big Moka, because it had such a profound effect on me, sparking my interest in South-East Asia/Oceania.
Thursday, 12 December 1974 – Left school 2:20 carol service. Classes good. TV Mastermind good.
Friday, 13 December 1974 – Broke up today. Not a very good report…
…hardly surprising given the amount of TV I was watching in the evenings when I should have been doing my homework. Honestly…
TV Dad’s Army, Ken Dodd and MASH v good.
Saturday, 14 December 1974 – Went to ooof roof [John & Angela’s aufruf]. Meal was excellent. TV Run Wild Run Free film, Stanley Baxter, and Candid Camera very good indeed
I didn’t at the time spot the juxtaposition of watching the Melanesian tribal ceremony, Ongka’s Big Moka, and, a few days later, attending the Jewish tribal ceremony that was Angela and John’s aufruf. For those who don’t like to click, the aufruf is a tradition of calling up the groom in synagogue on the Saturday before the wedding.
I am glad that I gave that aufruf meal an “excellent” review 50 years ago, as that should please Angela and John ahead of their impending golden wedding anniversary. I do remember enjoying the aufruf event very much, conversing with the grown ups and feeling a little more grown up myself for the experience. I distinctly remember finding the film Run Wild Run Free rather childish and mawkish, perhaps in comparison.
What might seem a lot less grown up…and might please Angela and John a bit less, is my abiding memory that I insisted, in the build up to the day, on pronouncing the word “aufruf”…
woof-woof
…to the extent that I recall mum telling me, wagging finger style, that I was not to make that silly joke at the event.
