Month: June 1980

Mix Tapes From Around The Time That I Left Alleyn’s School, Late May To 28 June 1980

Possibly Christine by Siouxie & The Banshees is the pick of the mix

Ahead of a virtual gathering of the Alleyn’s “Class of 1980” in January 2021, I have decided to share the mix tapes I made right at the end of my time at Alleyn’s School.

Rohan Candappa and Nick Wahla have asked questions for that gathering, which I answered here:

The Day I Left (Alleyn’s) School, 27 June 1980

One of those questions, around “what would you do differently?” might be answered in terms of the choice of music. Or would it?

I have recently (late 2020) enjoyed replicating and sharing the mix tapes I made in the autumn of 1980, around the time I started Keele University and the mix tape I made at the end of that first term at Keele:

Mix Tape Recorded Just After My First Term At Keele, c28 December 1980

Those have led to some debate. Perhaps my “end of school” mix tapes will similarly cause some discussion. At the very least, I imagine they’ll spark some memories. Chart music was part of the soundtrack of many of our lives back then.

Effectively I recorded two batches right at the end of my time at Alleyn’s. One batch around the Whitsun long weekend (end of May 1980) and then another batch right at the very end – late June – mostly the weekend after the ‘A’ levels I’d guess.

Here’s a list of the first batch – the May 1980 batch:

  • Messages, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
  • Dance, The Lambrettas
  • Breathing, Kate Bush
  • I’m Alive, Electric Light Orchestra
  • Teenage, UK Subs
  • Let’s Go Round Again, The Average White Band
  • Over You, Roxy Music
  • The Bed’s Too Big Without You, The Police
  • Theme From M*A*S*H, M*A*S*H
  • We Are Glass, Gary Numan

Here is the list of the late June 1980 batch:

  • Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime, The Korgis
  • Christine, Siouxsie and the Banshees
  • The Scratch, Surface Noise
  • New Amsterdam, Elvis Costello
  • Who Wants the World, The Stranglers
  • Play the Game, Queen
  • Breaking the Law, Judas Priest
  • Let’s Get Serious, Jermaine Jackson
  • No Doubt About It, Hot Chocolate
  • Funky Town, Lipps Inc
  • Crying, Don McLean
  • Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps Please, Splodgenessabounds

Given the amount of time I spent in The Fox On The Hill in that last Alleyn’s week, the final recording on that list comes as no surprise. (Although for sure I’d have been drinking bitter, not lager). Anyway, I don’t think “Two Pints…” will make it onto my Desert Island Discs list. Frankly, I can’t see any of the above making that list. Christine’s a great track, as is New Amsterdam. There’s some good stuff, but it’s not my best mix tape, that’s for sure. I was kinda busy with other stuff at that time.

Anyway, here it is, as a playlist of YouTubes:

The Day I Left (Alleyn’s) School, 27 June 1980

Robert Cutts, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0

I am writing this up in January 2021, in part as a response to a couple of “exam questions” set by friends Nick Wahla & Rohan Candappa, ahead of a gathering of the Class of 1980 in the “Virtual Buttery”.

In Rohan’s words:

Nick Wahla’s suggested a question to ponder: “What advice would you give to someone about to leave Alleyn’s?”

It’s a good question, and one which I am obviously going to claim credit for. But I’d also like to twist it around a bit. My question is: “What advice would you give yourself if you could go back and talk to yourself on the day you left Alleyn’s?”

So, the day I left Alleyn’s was not, by my own account, a good day for me. That whole final week doesn’t read brilliantly in fact:

To transcribe that final day:

What a horrid day!!! Chem (I) -> In comm -> Econ II -> Fox after and got pissed.

I’m guessing that “in comm” means “held incommunicado”, presumably because I took the Chemistry exam before others had taken it…or others had taken the Economics exam before I took mine.

There are three mentions of going to “The Fox” that week, not just the “getting pissed” session after the exams.

Jwslubbock, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0g

The Fox On the Hill, Denmark Hill, was the hang out of choice for Alleyn’s boys like me and Anil Biltoo. I don’t think they had twigged that these fresh-faced besuited youngsters were often well below 18…or if they had twigged, at that time they didn’t care.

That “got pissed” session on my final day would doubtless have included Anil and I suspect a few others who finished their exams that day. Anyone out there remember?

The diary even for that final week of school is peppered with BBYO stuff. I was on a small National Executive with a large portfolio that year. A lot of difficult stuff had kicked off that spring, not least our sole full timer, Rebecca Lowi, was leaving on 30 June. I had agreed to run the office temporarily over the summer, while a successor was recruited, so started work on the Monday after leaving school to have a handover day with her.

It seems I spent the weekend in between leaving school and starting work with Ivor (Heller), Simon (Jacobs) and Caroline Freeman (now Curtis) on the Sunday.

But my ire that last week was mainly directed at the unreasonable requirement for me to do ‘A’ Levels while all of this other stuff was going on. Needless to say my A Levels did not go well and it was only the good offices of Keele University via Simon Jacobs that helped me dodge the bullet of my resulting dodgy A Levels.

Getting In To & Starting At Keele University, 8 October 1980

But at the “day I left school” stage, that Keele element of my past was still in the future.

So, to answer Rohan’s question, “What advice would you give yourself if you could go back and talk to yourself on the day you left Alleyn’s?” I think the nub of my answer is that I would advise myself to be more reflective and thoughtful about the moment.

Yes, I had a lot going on at that time. Yes, I was psychologically in a rush to move on to fresh challenges. But I think I should have paid a little more heed at that time to the significance of the moment and reflected on that major, albeit natural, transition. And reflected on what those seven years at Alleyn’s had been about.

I have reflected on it since. Frankly, I’m not sure that reflection would have been all that profound at the time. I think it was much later that I started really to appreciate what that Alleyn’s education and those friendships, some enduring, others that resumed oh so easily, had done for me. Partly that appreciation came from growing up and partly from re-engaging with friends from school decades later. People like Rohan, Nick and many others.

But still I think that, at the time, I missed out on a “life moment” to which I can never return, by rushing away from the school that day and not looking back for years.

So, to answer Nick Wahla’s question, “What advice would you give to someone about to leave Alleyn’s?”, I’d simply say, “read this piece about the day I left Alleyn’s and try not to do it my way.”