Mike Jones ponders our imminent arrival in his class – thanks Mike for the photo
I’ve been finding it difficult to start writing up my third year at Alleyn’s; 1975/1976. My diary for the 1974/1975 academic year was full of juicy details of my activities.
But it seems, after all the excitement of my 1975 summer, I returned to school in September 1975 in a different mood – at least in the matter of keeping my diary. I’m needing to rely more on my fading memory for this period of my life and hope for some informed comment from readers.
For example, whereas I wrote down the “cast list” for my 1S and 2AK years, I had “grown out of” doing that by the 3BJ era – which is a blithering shame.
Also, I think I was under the parental…by which I mean maternal…cosh, having made a mess of my year end exams that summer and finding myself in a B stream class. “Get the back up to the A stream,” was the familial message, with some new rules at home to encourage homework and discourage loafing.
I’m not convinced that sparse diarising was entirely necessary in my mission to do better at school that year. But the diarising was more sparse and the school results were better.
Here are the first three weeks of September:
I realise that most of that is beyond legibility and/or interpretation, so here goes with my best efforts.
Sunday, 7 September 1975 – Rosh Hashanah [Jewish New Year, day two in this instance].
Monday, 8 September 1975 – uneventful day.
Tuesday, 9 September 1975 – last day [of school holidays. Not the end of the world.] Stuart and Andy [both from our street – Stuart Harris was not a relation and was a Whitgiftian, Andy Levinson was a fellow Alleyn’s pupil].
Wednesday, 10 September 1975 – first day [of school]. 3BJ. Mr Jones.
Thursday, 11 September 1975–1st proper day at school.
Friday, 12 September 1975 – school good. TV Dad’s Army, Liver Birds.
Saturday, 13 September 1975 – school morn. After library. TV Gambit, Dick Emery, Kojak.
Sunday, 14 September 1975 – Kol Nidre [evening prayers to herald the Day of Atonement] in evening.
Monday, 15 September 1975 – Yom Kippur [Day of Atonement].
Tuesday, 16 September 1975 – catching up only today.
Wednesday, 17 September 1975 – uneventful day. Good results school.
Thursday, 18 September 1975 – more good results. TV $6 million man, Two Ronnies, Man About The House.
Friday, 19 September 1975 – uneventful day. TV Dad’s Army, Liver Birds, Stanley Baxter III.
Saturday, 20 September 1975 – school morning. TV Generation Game.
Sunday, 21 September 1975 – no classes. Dined at Feld’s. TV Upstairs Downstairs.
Monday, 22 September 1975 – school OK. TV Goodies, Angels, Waltons etc.
Tuesday, 23 September 1975 – did swimming good. Telepathy. TV Pink Panther
Wednesday, 24 September 1975 – swimming. Went to Aviv meeting [one of mum’s charities. I cannot imagine why I went with her, unless dad had something on that evening and mum didn’t want to fork out for a sitter!].
Thursday, 25 September 1975. Got CCF [Combined Cadet Force] kit. TV Two Ronnies, Man About The House, Morecombe & Wise.
Friday 26 September 1975 – uneventful. TV Invisible Man, Dad’s Army, Liver Birds, Fosters Tower [sic – that can only be Fawlty Towers]
Saturday, 27 September 1975 – school morning. TV Dick Emery, Kojak.
Hard to believe that I didn’t even register the name Fawlty Towers correctly when I first saw it.
It was the episode about The Builders and I remember it tickling me no end. My parents didn’t like it much. Dad found Basil Fawlty irritating, reminding him of some of the twerps he had to deal with in running his business. You can decide for yourselves, if you hadn’t made up your minds already – see embed below.