Month: January 1975

The End Of The Hols & Start Of Lent Term 1975 At Alleyn’s, During Which My Poor Little Class, 2AK, Got Mauled On The Soccer Field

Unable To Face It – picture from a 1970s Scribblerus

OK, which of you horrible other classes led to my humiliating diary confession:

Monday 13 January 1975 – lost football match 16-1…

Was it you, 2BJ? Or more likely you, 2BM? Surely not 2AS? If no-one owns up to this, I might have to put all of you into detention.

16-1. How must that have felt at the time?

All was lost, but that the heavens fought…

…that’s what I probably said at the time…or words to that effect

Coincidentally, I received some cheery correspondence the other day (just shy of 50 years after the events described in this article), from Nigel Allott, who was in 1s and 2AK with us “back then”, but fled England with his family for New Zealand of all places about a year after The Carnage Match.

What is it with New Zealand and Alleyn’s alums named Nigel? Sir Nigel Godfrey might choose to help answer this question.

Anyway, Nigel Allott writes:

I’ve just stumbled across your site while browsing other Alleyn’s information. I am the Allott that appears in your diary class lists. We left for New Zealand after the first term of Year 3, but I remember a few of the class well, and enjoyed my time at Alleyn’s.

Given that I was planning this article at the time, I thought it only polite, as part of my reply, to ask Nigel about THAT match:

…Do you remember us (2AK) losing a football match 16-1 to another class on 13 January?  That must have been a tough score line to take…

Nigel responded:

I can’t remember the football match, but it is likely I was in goal watching the ball go past. I knew so little about football when I started at Alleyns that I was always put in goal because it kept me facing the right way!

I do remember enjoying field trips along the South Downs, although there was one field trip when our bus slid off the M4 on black ice near Heathrow (we might have been going somewhere else that time).

Yes, I have written up one of those field trips:

Alleyn’s School First Year (1S) Field Trip With John Clarke, 22 to 24 June 1974

As for keeping goal, which became my gig on the rare occasions I played football after that season, I suspect that it was only Nigel’s superior skills at lobbying for the goalie role that kept me and my two left feet away from it until Nigel and family abandoned the school. My memories of house football in the year or two following 2AK are solely about me being in goal.

A terrified-goalie’s-eye view, another 1970s Scribblerus picture

I hope it wasn’t the humiliating 16-1 defeat at football that drove Nigel and his family to flee to the furthest-flung corner of the dominions, where word of this sporting humiliation would probably not have reached…until now.

Let’s trawl the rest of my diary around that time. It wasn’t all about losing football matches 16-1. But, I mean, 16-1?! I wonder who scored the one? No, I’m over it again now.

Sunday, 5 January 1975 – Classes morning. Afternoon Grandma Anne Kalooki lost 5p. TV Planet of the Apes, Colombo, and No honestly. V good.

Monday, 6 January 1975 – Cloudy. Morning uneventful. Afternoon Andrew [Levinson]. TV Likely Lads, Alias Smith and Jones, Call My Bluff, and Churchill’s People.

Tuesday, 7 January 1975 – Fair. Went shopping in morning. Played in afternoon. TV film Right Left and Centre with Ian Carmichael and Alistair Sims v good.

Actually that film was called Left, Right & Centre. You can watch it on Daily Motion if you wish:

Wednesday, 8 January 1975 – Returned to school. TV Benny Hill v good indeed.

Thursday, 9 January 1975 – Classes good. Improved on model aeroplane – Cessna Skywagon.

Ah, the model kit that Auntie Pam and Uncle Michael gave me was a balsa wood Cessna Skywagon kit. The kit looked a bit like this. I vaguely recall the smell of the glue being the best bit of this exercise from my point of view. Not really ideal for cack-handed 12-year-olds, balsa wood model airplanes.

Friday 10 January 1975 – PE – swam butterfly. Nearly finished model. TV Rhoda and MASH v good.

Saturday, 11 January 1975 – School in morning. Bonfire in afternoon. TV ?!!!

I let the side down there, not noting the viewing. BBC Genome to the rescue. I’m going to guess Pot Black, Lulu and Kojak.

Sunday, 12 January 1975 – Classes morning. Afternoon Grandma Anne at home. Kalooki 19p. TV Planet of the Apes, film Billy Liar v good.

I vaguely remember doing Billy Liar in class, either with Ian Sandbrook in 1S or Michael Lempriere in 2AK. I don’t suppose we were able to give it the Tom Courtney treatment in class. here’s the film trailer.

I remember at one time, a few years later, my mother wondered out loud whether I should apply to “work for Keith Waterhouse”. As I was dabbling with comedy writing at the time, I thought she might, uncharacteristically, be encouraging me to pursue my avocation ahead of knuckling down to a reputable job. Then I realised that mum must have been confusing Keith Waterhouse with Price Waterhouse.

Monday 13 January 1975 – Lost football match 16 –1. TV Likely Lads, Alias Smith and Jones, Call My Bluff and Churchill’s People.

Tuesday, 14 January 1975 – Rouse switched with handicraft. [50 years later, I have no idea what that means]. Classes good. TV, The Mighty Continent.

Wednesday 15 January 1975 – Fives v good. TV Till Death Us Do Part.

Thursday, 16 January 1975 – Physics good. No drama. Classes good. TV After That…This and The Two Ronnies

Friday, 17 January 1975 – Biology – bacteria. TV Sportstown, MASH.

Saturday 18 January 1975 – School morning. Afternoon uneventful. TV Pot Black, Thriller and Kojak.

Actually, the diary entry the following Monday provides some unintentional comedy in the light of the 16-1 defeat at soccer.

…games choice – hockey…

After a 16-1 defeat at soccer, switching to hockey instead seems like a sound move.

Actually, I now have a sneaking suspicion that my 2 December diary entry which mentions “extra with Rothbart” after the football, see the following linked piece…

The Return Of The 12-Year-Old Alleyn’s Diarist, Late November To Early December 1974

…might well have been a taster of hockey with Bernard Rothbart to encourage some of us to switch to his favoured sport. No doubt he had spotted a glimmer of talent for “hard ball and stick” games…or more likely Mr Rothbart had spotted an utter absence of talent for footy-type games.

“Try hockey, kid. Maybe, just maybe you could be a contender.” Another 1970s Scribblerus image.

Tomorrow, Tomorrow, I’ll Name Names, Tomorrow…Playing Call My Bluff In An English Class, Was It 1S Or 2AK? 1974 or 1975

I had a memory flash in September 2024 from an event at Alleyn’s School that must have been about 50 years ago now.

Janie and I went to see Here In America at The Orange Tree, Richmond:

Here In America by David Edgar, Orange Tree Theatre, 14 September 2024

Great play/production btw. The play is about the Second Red Scare in the 1950s.

It brought back to my mind a memory of playing Call My Bluff in an English class. That simple panel game had teams of three trying to convince the other team of three that “bluff” definitions of unusual words were actually true…and that true definitions were in fact bluffs.

Call My Bluff was “appointment to view” stuff in the 1970s – certainly in our household. Mind you, there wasn’t exactly a lot of choice back then.

The class version of the game was to split into teams of three and try to convince the rest of the class to vote for bluffs rather than the true definitions.

My team was given the word MCCARTHYISM. I must have recently learnt a passage of Hebrew in Hebrew classes with the word “machar” (מָחָר) in it. I quoted the short passage and explained that the word “machar” means tomorrow. I then strung out this small truth into a flight of fancy that there is a sect of Judaism, known as MCCARTHYISM, that venerates the future.

I know what you are thinking. The word would surely be spelt MACHARTHEISM if it had that definition. But such subtleties were probably beyond almost all of us at that age. I must have made the idea seem convincing.

When the class voted on the three definitions proposed for the word MCCARTHYISM, the true definition came second and my bluff got the most votes.

For some reason, this moment of smartarsed glory must have resided at the back of my memory all these decades, only to be revived by seeing Here In America.

But I also recall that, even at the time, I learnt quite a lot from this tiny episode. I learnt that using a grain of truth to disguise a lie (or bluff) is a very effective method of concealment. I learnt that nobody likes a smartarse, because the episode, while momentarily pleasing the teacher, did not make me popular with my class. And I subsequently learnt that my possession of a moral compass and my lack of a poker face would make me a very bad candidate for a future in bluffing.

But did we play that game in 1S, with Ian Sandbrook, or in 2AK with Mike Lempriere? I don’t recall.

Still, McCarthyism is all about naming names and I have named names for both of those classes:

My First Class At Alleyn’s School, 1S, And Some Nicknames, guessing 8 January 1974
My Second Class At Alleyn’s School, 2AK, And Some Nicknames, guessing 1 January 1975

So if you are, or have ever been, a member of one of those classes…

…and if you recall playing Call My Bluff in class…

…please let me know everything that you know. Yes, I mean everything.

Just answer the question.

And, of course, name yet more names…

Eating, Coining It, Too Much TV & Seeing In the New Year: Twixtmas 1974 & The Start Of 1975

Denise Lytton’s excellent chocolate mousse might have looked a bit like this

My handwriting did not improve as I graduated from my 1974 diary to me 1975 one.

Sunday 29 December 1974 – cloudy, sunny intervals. Played at home in morning. Dined at Feld’s & tea at Grandma Anne’s. TV Annual Lectures For Children & Robinson Crusoe v good.

The Royal Institution Archive has the films of all of those lectures available still. I remember loving them as a kid. 1974 was Eric Laithwaite “The Engineer Through The Looking Glass”.

The historic, world record-breaking, events of Monday 30 December, with Paul Deacon, have already been recorded in a special piece on the topic – click here or below:

Breaking The World Record For Coin Catching With Paul Deacon, Woodfield Avenue, 30 December 1974

How I also had the time and energy to watch Call My Bluff & Churchill’s People on TV at the end of that record-breaking day I cannot quite fathom.

Tuesday 31 December 1974 -fair. Went to West End with Andrew [Levinson]. TV Engineer Through Looking Glass, Till Death Us Do Part v good indeed. SAW IN NEW YEAR.

That will have been the first time I was allowed to stay up to see in the new year. These days (50 years later), Janie and I see it as a badge of honour to try and get to bed and get to sleep before the worst of the noise kicks off.

Wednesday 1 January 1975 – cloudy. Uneventful morning. Dined at Schmidt’s. Grandma Anne at home in afternoon and evening. Helped mum win Kalooki.

Thursday 2 January 1975 – cloudy. Cleared out room. Went to barber. TV After That…This and Two Ronnies very good.

Friday 3 January 1975 – cloudy. Went to Brixton – v tiring. TV Crown Court, The Houndcats, Paper Moon, Ken Dodd & MASH v good.

Saturday 4 January 1975 – TV Dr Who, Bruce Forsyth, Match of the Day, v good. Went to Lytton’s. Played with Steven. Denise’s choc. moose was excellent.

I can hardly believe how much TV I watched back then. Match of the Day was not a feature in our house and I suspect I saw that because we were at The Lytton’s place. I think we were still Black and White TV at the start of 1975 – I think the colour TV “arrives” at some point in my 1975 diary, unless it arrived during my diary-writing-sabbatical in mid-1974. Point is, I remember quite a lot of the TV I describe here in black and white. I also remember colour seeming such a luxury.

Aficionados of my juvenile writing as a food critic might note my description of Denise Lytton’s chocolate moose as “excellent”. Praise indeed.

Mum, Me, Denise, Steve & Tony – guzzling peaches in Bulgaria, 1972

My very first diary entry, a year earlier, described Schmidt’s chocolate moose as “nice”.

I Diarist, My First Diary Page, 1 to 5 January 1974

Denise’s “excellent” sure beats Schmidt’s “nice”, and I remember Schmidt’s chocolate moose fondly. Big ups to Denise, albeit 50 years after the event, for that stunning chocolate moose. Never forgotten…or at least, now remembered in writing for posterity.

My Second Class At Alleyn’s School, 2AK, And Some Nicknames, guessing 1 January 1975

I have already published a piece about my first class, 1S and the names/nicknames I recorded at the back of my 1974 diary – click here.

In the same notes space at the back of my 1975 Letts Schoolboys Diary, I recorded the names and nicknames of the boys in my second class, 2AK:

1974-diary-2ak_0001

This material is even harder to decipher than the 1S equivalent – my use of bold tempo pens playing havoc with the thin paper of those diaries.  So, I set the text out below – apologies for replicated spelling errors, inability to decipher errors and for some of the ghastly nicknames:

Allott

Athaide

Bateman – Batman

Bedford – Bedders

Bradshaw – Brad

Brassell

Dalloway – Dallers

Deacon – Doormouse

Dwelly – Bone

Feeley

Forrest

French – Frog

Geere – Gottle

Goodwin

Gurney – LEFT

Handy

Hanton – Brucy

Harris

Hollingshead – Beachhead?

Jennings – Jumbo, Juggernaut, Jet

Johnson

Kelly

Masson – Chimpy (thanks to David French for the correction).

Pullinger – Tug

Proctor – Superproc

Reeves

Rowswell – Sandy

Spence – Spike

Stevens

Wahla – Gob

I don’t think Gurney was nicknamed “Left”, I think that is a note to say that he left the school.

Now many of the above nicknames are weaker and thinner than a supermodel on a crash diet. I know some of them were genuinely used, but I find it hard to believe that all of them had common currency…

…and surely the rest of us must have had nicknames of some sort at one time or another. My work in early 1975 was only part done and then I got bored – typical kid.

Surely some people out there can help fill in the blanks or put matters right, even after all these years? Comments and suggestions, please. Those from other classes are welcome to add their names and nicknames to the pile.