Some Pinner BBYO Grandees, 1979
Probably because I had become so friendly with Simon Jacobs & Caroline Freeman during my BBYO years, I spent a fair bit of time in Pinner during my last couple of BBYO years. Not as much time as Streatham, my home club, of course, but still a fair bit.
In fact, there seemed to be a general affinity between the two clubs, perhaps because our groups had been “new kids on the BBYO block” and then received our full BBYO charters around the same time, in the late 1970s.
Or perhaps it was simply because we had quite a few friendships emerge betwixt and between Pinner & Streatham.
Anyway, just a few days after handing over the National BBYO batons at convention 1980/81…
…I found myself in Pinner helping Simon, Caroline and others to hand over the Pinner batons at their club AGM, as my diary attests.
Sunday 4 January – returned home [from a visit to Portsmouth BBYO with Jenny Council via Barry Laden’s place] (via Feld’s). Rather tired. Easy day. Early night.
Monday 5 January – Lazyish day. Did v little.
Tuesday 6 January – Another lazyish day. Popped up to Hillel (lunched with Caroline) – early night
Wednesday 7 January – Packed etc. Went To Pinner – AGM -> Caroline’s etc. Stayed at Simon’s.
Thursday 8 January – Simon & I returned to Keele
That tradition of meeting Caroline for lunch (Tuesday) continued through my holiday jobs and my return to London in the mid to late 1980s. If, as I suspect, she was already working for Harrods back then, I would have tubed it from Euston to a location near to her place of work, as she was the one with the fixed lunch hour.
On the Wednesday evening, I suspect the deal was that I dined with Caroline and her family, then stayed with Simon and his. The number of times I must have dined at Caroline’s place in that period goes uncounted. I did at one time work out that I had eaten at Caroline’s house more often than I had eaten at my parents’ house over a period of several months during 1980. (I had probably eaten at Hillel House many times more than at either or even both of those homes!).
I’m trying to recall who at Pinner would have taken up the cudgels at that time. The era of Richard & Ros Marks, Paul Sass, Paul Dewinter, Simon Jacobs, Caroline Freeman, Paul Ley, Graham Greenglass, Alan Tucker and many others was done, I think. Jilly Black, Sue Jacobs and several others of the next BBYO generation were coming to the fore. Between Simon, Sue, Paul, Caroline, Jilly and others, perhaps we can get some names and serial numbers from the hive mind of memory banks.
The reason I stayed at Simon’s place was that we were both going back up to Keele by train the next morning, with predictably hilarious results in the days following: