August 1975 – Ian Louis Harris

A Short Mediterranean Cruise, Stopping At Malta, Catania (Instead Of Tunis), Palermo & Naples/Pompeii, 24 to 31 August 1975

We’d done a serious (two week) cruising holiday in 1973:

A Two Week Mediterranean Cruise Ahead Of Starting At Alleyn’s School, late August 1973 – Context, Itinerary, Links & Day Zero: Porto di Rimini via Luton Airport

Clearly that experienced had pleased me/us sufficiently that dad snapped up a one week cruise as a second half to our holiday in 1975. Frankly, my memories of the 1975 one pale into insignificance next to the 1973 one.

The fact that I have not, in 50+ years, returned to a cruise ship might give the reader a clue that ships and me don’t really get along. I marvelled at seeing lots of places in a short period of time, but I think the novelty wore off, for me, and my folks, once the second cruise was done.

My diary sets out the itinerary pretty well – almost legibly:

This is how I know that I shot some, sadly lost forever, cine film on that 1975 cruise. AI recognises this panorama as Malta.

I remember very little about the day in Malta.

I don’t remember much about the pal I made on this trip. This evening picture is a bit weird.

I do remember the disappointment at missing out on seeing Tunis, due to an outbreak of cholera there. All the more disappointing because we docked instead in Catania, on the eastern side of Sicily, near to Taormina, where we had holidayed the previous year.

As a result, I don’t think we did any touring that day, saving our energy for the next day’s scheduled stop in Palermo, on the other side of Sicily, which we had not explored the previous year.

I recall from our 1974 holiday in Taormina (which I shall Ogblog in the fulness of time), that a brace of young American women, who were staying in our hotel, ventured to Palermo one day and my dad asked them to report back to us, as he was considering booking a day trip for us. Their one line report was:

You can put Palermo in the trash can…

…which still sticks in my mind, albeit as an unfair assessment, but in 1975 I was possibly a little deflated to be visiting, on my birthday, a place that, by all accounts, belonged in the trash can.

Perhaps consequently, dad arranged for us to tour places near to Palermo but not Palermo itself, if the surviving photos are anything to go by.

Afficionados of mid 1970s fashion will surely dig the flared trousers I wore that day. Photos of all earlier days on that holiday had me in short trousers. I’m guessing that mum took no risks for a day in or near “trash can Palermo” and insisted that I wore longer trousers as a preventative measure against flea bites. More likely, the day of touring in Malta had probably highlighted that long trousers would make more sense than shorts when touring.

Give it up one more time for those flares of mine. Classic.

It looks as though we celebrated my birthday in style…with fizz for the grwon ups and cake for me and the grown ups.

Not sure about that short, tie and trousers combo. Mum – what were you thinking?

The final day of touring was the highlight – to see Pompeii. My parents had been before – dad’s 1961 sound film from that holiday being a classic of it’s kind. Pompeii is c3’10 to 5’25.

No film from our trip, sadly, just a handful of snaps:

Me, Live At The Apollo (Temple of Apollo)

My diary excitement the following day, which was all at sea, comes in the phrase

Captain’s Dinner Great.

I understand this to be a traditional thing on cruises and I obviously took great joy in the luxury of it and the fuss that was being made of me as a birthday boy at the Captain’s Table.

My 31 August diary entry simply reads:

Arrived home. Great!!!!!!

Glad to be on dry land, perhaps? Anyway, that was cruises out of my system for good. 50 years on, I still haven’t done another and don’t suppose I ever will.

Photos from this holiday can be found in two Flickr albums – this first one scans of prints – click here or below:

…or this one, which is still raw stereo images at this stage – click here or below:

A Week In Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia, In The Hotel Argentina, Prior To A Short Mediterranean Cruise, 17 to 23 August 1975

Dad had almost certainly booked this holiday from a bucket shop using whatever paltry savings he had left after shelling out for my Bar Mitzvah. I suspect he got good bang for his bucks on this one, holding out until the price became too tempting for him.

The diary sheds little light…

…but we do have some photos and cine. Not much – I think dad (and mum)’s enthusiasm for holiday photos and the like had waned by 1975. Still, we have a few prints, a short snippet of cine and a box of stereo photographs, all of which I have digitised but I have not yet (end 2025) turned the individual images from the stereo box into digital stereo images.

Also, we have my memories of the place – assisted by the pictures.

I think this young man might have been East German. A lot of the people we met at that hotel were.

I communicated with a lot of the younger people (who were mostly East German, Yugoslavian or Russian) through chess and cards.

I’m pretty sure this patient gentleman is/was English – or at least spoke excellent English – my parents got pally with him and his wife.

Please note the writing pad with a posh-looking floral cover. Dad had bought up a job lot of those, which he thought might serve me well as a budding scribbler for quite some time.

31 December 2025 – the one I am looking at has family genealogy notes in it and is still in use with many pages left, as is/has the orange one behind, which contains some comedy and whimsy writing notes, with plenty of space still for more. Also to my right, the writing box, Bar Mitzvah gift mentioned in my article about the Bar Mitzvah itself – propped open with a bag of biros..

By this stage of my then short life (I was still not yet 13), I clearly fancied myself as a hand-held cinematographer, following in my father’s footsteps:

We have, from this holiday, four-and-a-half minutes of cine, all of which is either filmed in Dubrovnik itself (when we went there on the Wednesday) or in and around the hotel. It can be seen minutes 7’20 to 11’50 on this reel:

Confusingly, we had been to Dubrovnik at the end of our 1973 cruise, so you can also see Dubrovnik at the start of this reel.

Sadly, no film from the 1975 cruise survived. I know I shot some, but suspect that the film got spoilt by getting caught in the camera or inadvertently exposed to light prior to process. That used to happen sometimes.

I also have a few impressionistic memories from our week in the Hotel Argentina.

I really liked the place. It seemed really cool – especially the great big round leather chairs and ceiling lamps – that felt futuristic/Star Trek like to me at that time. It just looks quintessentially 1970s to me now.

There was a strange late middle-aged East German resident who used to walk around the hotel all day and would occasionally approach people who were talking, put his finger to his lips and say, with a thick German accent:

Shhhh – there is sickness here.

Dad thought he was probably on temporary respite release from a nut house. (Dad’s choice of phraseology – I am merely reporting it to you, dear reader, not approving my father’s choice of terms). I was fascinated by this bloke and used to look forward to his unexpected interventions.

For years afterwards, if I was making more noise than dad wanted to hear, he would put his finger to his lips and incant, “shhh, zer is sickness here” in his best mock-German accent.

You can see all of the scanned prints from this holiday through this Flickr link – here and below:

The unedited stereo slides (in their raw and multiple form) can be seen through the following Flickr link – here and below:

Getting Ready To Go On Holiday After My Big Day, 11 to 16 August 1975

It seems I spent a fair bit of time with Andy Levinson in the few days between my Bar Mitzvah and going on holiday. Here’s the transcript of the headline picture’s diary scribble

Monday, 11 August 1975 – Andy all day. TV Star Trek, My Honourable Mrs, Yuri Geller and psycho film.

Actually the “psycho film” was Pressure Point with Bobby Darin & Sidney Poitier:

Tuesday, 12 August 1975 – Andy morning. TV Tarzan. Uncle Dick in the evening.

Guess who’s coming to dinner? Uncle Dick! He wasn’t my uncle, but was, I think, next door neighbour Rose Beech’s brother. Very nice chap who had been a POW during the war and needed careful feeding as a result. I’m guessing the the Beeches went away straight after my Bar Mitzvah and mum promised to feed Dick at least once in the days before we also went away.

It was that sort of neighbourliness in that area in those days.

Wednesday, 13 August 1975 – uneventful day. All OK.

Thursday, 14 August 1975 – went to West End to get tickets.

Friday 15 August 1975 – fired Jeanette. Went to Grandma Anne’s.

What on earth can “fired Jeanette” mean? I can only surmise that she was our cleaner for a short while, as I have no recollection of her. Mrs Nugent “Nu-Nu” was our cleaner for many years – most of childhood, followed by Mrs Main who also stuck with mum (and vice versa) for donkey’s years. I’ll guess that Jeanette was one that didn’t work out between the two I remember.

Just to be clear, it will not have been me who did the firing. It will have been mum. I just dutifully recorded the HR proceedings in my diary.

Saturday 16 August 1975 – uneventful. Preparation. TV [Sgt.] Bilko and Crown Court.

I don’t mention watching Days One to Three of the Headingley test, but I know I watched some of it. On the Saturday, Bilko was on the TV before the start of play; Crown Court after stumps. What else would I have done on an uneventful day?

The reason I am sure I saw some of it is that I recall my sense of horror when I learnt, on holiday, what had occurred while I was away from the match after those first three days. England looked very well placed at that stage.

Trigger warning: only look at the final scorecard – linked here – if you are sufficiently robust and/or if word of this ridiculous denouement has reached you previously.

My Bar Mitzvah: The Party At The Peacock Club, 10 August 1975

So to the party to celebrate my Bar Mitzvah, the day after

My Bar Mitzvah: The Actual Bar Mitzvah Itself, 9 August 1975

Actually, I wrote up the centre piece of the party – the limbo dancing – some five years ago (he says, writing now in December 2025) – click here or below:

My Very Brief Junior Career As A Limbo Dancer, The Peacock Club, 10 August 1975

But there was more to this party than just the limbo dancing. Oh yes.

There was a meal, for a start. A meal that is bound to have been baked salmon, although I really don’t remember the meal. But in a non-kosher venue with some observant people present, fish would have been the order of the day for sure. Then you could also have some creamy deserts and stuff like that.

Then speeches. The camera only caught the important ones – me as the star of the show and Andy Levinson as my warm up or warm down act, I cannot remember which way round we spoke.

I certainly win the award for the more skew-iffy tie.

There was also regular dancing for regular people, as well as limbo dancing.

Mum with Norman Levinson – Dr Edwina Green looks disapproving, perhaps because mum’s new hip was only three months old at the time

Mum had put enormous effort into rehab after her hip replacement in May, motivated by a desire to dance at my Bar Mitzvah party, which she sure did. My perspective on this has shifted in the past year, having been through the hip replacement and hard yards for rapid rehab myself in 2025.

Mum, Denise Lytton and Rose Beech, as Marjorie and Fiona Levinson look on. Don’t overdo it, mum and whatever you do, don’t fall over…

…and don’t try to emulate cousin Colin Jacobs.

Of course, these events are family affairs and most of the family was there:

Grandma Jenny & Me above, Me & Grandma Anne below

Pam & Michael front, Auntie Francis standing, flanked I think by Lieba and Sam Aarons…

You can see all of the photos from both days of the Bar Mitzvah weekend through this Flickr link, here or below:

My Very Brief Junior Career As A Limbo Dancer, The Peacock Club, 10 August 1975

This event came to me as a memory flash while in e-conversation with Rohan Candappa in December 2020 on the topic of that “limbo period” between Christmas and New Year. Rohan pointed out:

Limbo is a strangely schizophrenic word. It’s either a time when nothing is going on, or the most extreme dance you can imagine.

Suddenly it all came flooding back to me. The dinner & dance the day after my Barmitzvah. The Peacock Club in Streatham. The limbo dancer my parents arranged as entertainment for said evening. My limbo dancing “career”, not just remembered but I knew for sure that I have photographs.

Why the choice of limbo dancer for a Barmitzvah party? The answer to that question is truly lost in the mists of time. Some would suggest that it was a very “South London” choice. Others that it was an inappropriate choice steeped in cultural appropriation.

My guess is that someone dad knew through his photographic shop business was connected with the charming young lady in question.

Dorothy.

I know that she is/was named Dorothy because the pictures in my parent’s memory book / photo album have clearly been labelled “Dorothy”.

[Infantile readers may insert their own version of the joke revolving around the idea that “Ian was a friend of Dorothy when he was thirteen years old” here.]

Dorothy [Thinks]: What a funny little boy he is.
Ian [Thinks]: I could be in here…whatever “being in” might be.

Dorothy showed us how it should be done.

Steve Lytton was one of several people who had a go. Unfortunately for him, his photo survived and has lived peacefully in my parent’s memory book for 45 years and counting:

Friends from the neighbourhood and school might recognise Andy Levinson in the background of the above and following picture. He’s hiding behind is mum. It seems he didn’t have a go at limbo dancing.

My technique showing real promise there. If only I had persevered with the practice, I could have been a contender.

Then Dorothy started to show off.

I mean, really, was that completely necessary?

Seriously, I do remember Dorothy being sweet with me and making the whole event feel special. She was clearly very talented at limbo dancing.

One day I’ll write up other aspects of my Barmitzvah. Sadly, for lovers of music and theology, there is a recording of me singing my rite of passage passage and I’ll feel Ogblog-honour bound to upload it, if only for the sake of completeness.

Anyway, the limbo dancing was great fun. Dad clearly felt that he had pulled off a blinder by booking Dorothy…

…while mum did far more dancing than was good for her, just three months after having a hip replacement:

Update/Footnote Post Publication

I managed to track down and get in touch with Steve Lytton after publishing this piece – it seemed only polite to let him know that his youthful limbo dancing efforts were now in the public domain.

It was really nice to catch up with Steve and e-chat after so many years.

One thing that Steve said solved at least part of the “why a limbo dancer at my Barmitzvah party” mystery:

…what a coincidence. We had a limbo dancer at MY Barmitzvah party…

…said Steve. The penny dropped. We had a limbo dancer at my celebration because I/we had so much enjoyed the limbo dancer at his, a year or so earlier. So the question now really should be, “why did Steve have a limbo dancer at his Barmitzvah party?” Or maybe it was simply the fashion for such parties at that time.

My Bar Mitzvah: The Actual Bar Mitzvah Itself, 9 August 1975

Truth to be told, dear readers, most people who, like me, were brought up in non-religious, or, at the most, quasi-religious households, thought of the Bar Mitzvah as an event which would result in lots of super presents and a big party in your honour…

…with a religious ceremony inconveniently taking place between the presents and the party.

Hence, I felt the need to separate out the Bar Mitzvah itself for an Ogblog page, because I did put in the effort to do the thing properly. My parents would have expected nothing less.

I have written before about my Hebrew classes (cheder) experience, including my failed attempt to recuse myself from the Bar Mitzvah on the grounds of atheism, which Rabbi Ginsbury nipped in the bud – click here or below for that story:

“Freed At Last, Freed At Last…”: Brixton Cheder In Early 1974

Had I succeeded in recusing myself eighteen months or so earlier, I don’t suppose the presents and the party would have been forthcoming, so…thank you, Rabbi Ginsbury.

I still have a handful of the presents, in particular the gramophone records and books (things I never throw away), a letter writing box/set from Jacqueline and Maurice Swain (still with me but rather fershimmeled to be truthful), a rather splendid onyx chess set in Aztec style (from Monty & Vivienne Phillips, I’m pretty sure)…plus money, of course – I still have some of that – not the actual cash or cheques tendered at that time of course, although several people insisted on their money being converted into premium bonds and I will still have those actual bonds as I have never sold a premium bond.

I digress. Anyway, it wasn’t just me who thought the eating, drinking and making merry was the bigger part of the process. The invitation below, which stretches to ten lines, uses four of them to cover the religious service, then six lines to describe the ensuing libations, feasting and terpsichorean celebrations.

To an even greater extent, the surviving photographs are heavily oriented towards the celebratory events the following day, although this can in part be explained by the prohibition of photography in shule and indeed anywhere on the sabbath.

Dad was no doubt breaking multiple rules when he snapped me in my state of readiness on the morning of my Bar Mitzvah before we set off for shule.

I’m pretty sure I still have that yarmulke and it looks suspiciously un-fershimmeled given its vintage, unlike my writing case. I have clearly spent more time writing than praying in the intervening 50 years. Who knew?

Another breach of protocol, although this breach will not have been made on that Saturday, but some days earlier, was a recording of the passages I was to read and sing for my Bar Mitzvah.

The Bar Mitzvah is, in a religious sense, a coming of age ceremony, around the age of 13, when the initiate reads the weekly passage from the Torah (in my case a dollop of Deuteronomy) and that week’s chunk of additional Old Testament material (in my case an iota of Isaiah), along with some ceremonial prayers. All sung in Hebrew using some of the oldest musical notation known to man.

Having done that, the initiate is a fully fledged “man”, in the sense that their presence in the synagogue now counts towards the minyan – i.e. the quorum of ten adult males required for certain prayers.

The idea of a minyan is not to be confused with cute but despicable creatures, minions, who appear in several of my favourite movies. (I never did grow out of loving animated films).

Anyway, with the trigger warning that this sound file is less than special aesthetically, here is the recording of me singing my passages and prayers:

Ten minutes of unimaginable sound.

Had you asked me ten minutes ago what those passages were and what they were about, I’d have shrugged, other than the “dollop of Deuteronomy & iota of Isaiah” line.

But thanks to Mr Google (other AI-enabled searches are available), I can be far more specific:

On August 9, 1975, which was a Saturday (Shabbat), the weekly Torah portion read was Parashat Shoftim.

This Torah portion is the 48th in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading and is found in the book of Deuteronomy, specifically Deuteronomy 16:18–21:9.

The main themes of Parashat Shoftim include:

Guidelines for leadership and the appointment of judges, officers, priests, and a king.

Laws concerning the integrity of the judicial system.

Rules regarding prophets, cities of refuge for accidental killers, and false witnesses.

Specific laws for warfare and the procedure for an unsolved murder case.

Reading about that, fifty years later, I sense that “my” portion could come in handy given the conduct of many notable and notorious world leaders, and their hench-folk, in the modern era.

My Isaiah passage covers the late, prophetic stage of the “twixt the temples” exile:

Isaiah 51:12-52:12 is a powerful prophetic passage where God comforts His fearful people, reminding them He is their sole protector, not mere mortals (grass) or oppressors; He calls Jerusalem (Zion) to “Awake, awake!” to cast off shame and put on strength, promising redemption from exile (“sold for nothing”) and the beautiful arrival of good news of peace and salvation from the Lord, telling them to leave Babylon and be purified.

Peace, salvation and purification sound like good ideas, as long as they apply even-handedly to all concerned.

Only mum could have taken photos that were THAT skew-iffy, so my guess is that dad couldn’t be bothered when we got home but mum wanted some more pics from the day.

Worse yet, on the “dad couldn’t be bothered” front, is that the negatives from the events of both days have all been lost. Given that dad was in the photographic business, that is bizarre. The negatives from several holidays around that time are also lost. My guess is that he lost a whole batch together – probably those he had taken to the shop in order to obtain extra prints for sending around to friends and family.

Talk about the cobbler’s children.

Anyway, scans of all 50-or so surviving prints from the Saturday & Sunday can be seen through this Flickr link, here and below:

A Bit More Outdoor Activity Ahead Of My Big Day, 3 to 8 August 1975

Common people – Tooting Commons

It seems that I got out a bit more in the days running up to the day of my Bar Mitzvah. Just as well, as it was a heatwave week apparently. It seems that the Levinson family had been away for a couple of weeks and had now returned.

Sunday, 3 August 1975 – Uneventful. More presents, dined at Chippy. Grandma Anne and Andrew [Levinson] came home today.

Monday, 4 August 1975 – played with Andy [Levinson]. Dentist – no trouble. TV Star Trek, My Honourable Mrs, Hiroshima.

Tuesday, 5 August 1975 – Andy morning, afternoon uneventful. Test draw. TV Test and Inspector Clouseau.

Day Five of that test match cannot have been exciting viewing and must have been disappointing for little me.

Wednesday, 6 August 1975 – went to Brixton and Grandma Jenny. TV The Shadow, The Rough and the Smooth. Four pressies.

I have no recollection of the sitcom The Rough and the Smooth. That might be a telling fact about it.

Thursday, 7 August 1975 – went to Box Hill, private swimming pool etc. Ida trouble. TV All in the Family.

I have a very vague memory of being taken out by Uncle Manny & Auntie Ida that day. I think the “trouble” resulted because they didn’t drop me back to our house but expected me to walk home from their place, about 15-20 minutes walk, which resulted in my mum having a bit of a hissy about that.

The irony of seeing a programme “All in the Family” after that is not wasted on me. I don’t think that sitcom found much favour in our household either.

Friday, 8 August 1975 – common in morning. Flowers to shule in afternoon / shule evening. Still a heatwave.

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Update/Footnote Post Publication

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