The final term of my FY year was pretty darned great, actually. So when I say, “an horrific time”, what I really mean is, “a short period during which horror seemed to feature a great deal”.
Wednesday 20 May 1981 – OK day. Went to see The Cramps – OK.
Such gigs will be properly reviewed in Dave Lee’s book, The Keele Gigs!, due out Summer 2021. Suffice it to say that my mini review: “OK”, doesn’t help much. I do recall that The Cramps style of music was described as Psychobilly and we were even told that their 1981 phase had its own sub-genre name: Voodooswampabilly.
It looked and sounded very much like this 1981 live clip from San Fransisco later that year:
Thursday 21 May 1981 – Last day of lectures – union in evening.
Nothing horrific about finishing with lectures. Of course when I say “lectures”, in my case I really mean, in respect of that day, “lecture” as the ticks and crosses in my FY programme book make it very clear that I only made it to the 11:00 job that day: Mr Allinson talking about the electronics of television.
Not that television played any part in my day to day life back then – I had no television of my own and didn’t visit the television rooms much during my whole time at Keele – I’m not sure I went into them at all in my FY year.
I did interview a television personality around that time, though – Patrick Moore – an event that didn’t seem important enough to record in the diary but is already up on Ogblog:
But I digress.
Friday 22 May 1981 – OK day. Amityville Horror -> Union in evening. Back with people after – late night.
Film Society, perhaps in cahoots with the Union, seemed to be having a horror-themed week. They showed The Shining the following Tuesday. The Amityville House in Long Island is depicted in the headline picture btw.
Putting to one side the fact that my stroppy relationship with my dad’s old Rolls Razor at that time was yielding similar amounts of real blood as those movies were yielding the fake stuff…
…I developed a form of cognitive dissonance towards such films at that time, which never went away. I was/am, in almost equal measure, thrilled and shocked by them, yet also amused by the over-the-top melodrama of some elements of those film productions.
I was clearly doing a lot of reading at that time, presumably for my final essay (which was on topology if my memory serves me well) and in preparation for the sessional exams in politics and history.
Saturday 23 May 1981 – Earlyish rise – reading loads – Cabaret Futura in evening.
Have I yet mentioned Dave Lee’s book The Keele Gigs! due out in Summer 2021? No doubt he will cover that Cabaret Futura gig better than I did in my diary – not even a one word review from me for that one. I vaguely remember enjoying the evening for its quirkiness without really digging the music.
Good article here about Richard Strange and the Cabaret Futura thing from 1981 in The Guardian.
I’m pretty sure that Eddie & Sunshine performed the following as part of the Cabaret that night. Anyway, I recall electro-weirdness of this kind…and the reel-to-reel tape recorder to make me feel at home:
Sunday 24 May 1981 – Plenty of reading again – Union in evening.
Monday 25 May 1981 – Wrote essay today – out in evening
Tuesday 26 May 1981 – Handed in essay – went to see The Shining after drinks – coffee after, late night.
Wednesday 27 May 1981 – Easyish day (not good). Relaxing evening, late night again.
Thursday 28 May 1981 – Not bad day (laundry, vote etc). Easy evening in union after celebration.
I’m not too sure what we were voting on 28 May nor why I was joining in celebrations. The major elections tended to be over long before late May, but perhaps it was Steve “Spike” Humphrey’s election against Tony Roberts, which had to go to a re-ballot, as reported but not explained by the cub political editor back in March.
The thought of the FCS managing to get a ballot voided and then get their candidate elected would have been horrific, so Spike prevailing in the revote would have been cause for celebration.
But all such horrors – musical, cinematographical or political, were mere aperitifs for the seminal yet horrifying matters that unfolded over the following day or two. I wrote those up a few years ahead of this “forty years on” series, so the next episode is already there to be read:
Trigger warning: an horrific example of racial and linguistic abuse is described within that piece.