Month: November 1981

I had a lot going on in that first week of November. It was my P1 year, which meant getting down to business a fair bit more than FY.

I have already written at length about planning for the 1 November Anti-Fascist day…

Live Bands, Movies, Mystery Girls, Campaigning Against Cuts & Fascism…Even Some Studying, Keele, Late October 1981

…so all that remains to say is that I considered the event to have been a great success, judging by my diary:

My diary for that week shows signs of industry…even to the point of using the word “industrious” on 7 November – not a word often found in my youthful diaries.

Still, I found time to see movies, go to the union several times, see a gig and at least one party. Not bad.

I vividly remember seeing Stardust Memories that week, a movie I loved at that time.

The next night, I went to see The Comsat Angels in the evening. Dave Lee, in his wonderful book The Keele Gigs!, reminds me that the support act was Victorian Parents and that The Comsat Angels were, in his opinion,

“The-Cure-meets-Joy-Division (in a dark alley!)”

It took me quite a while to unpick the Thursday scribble:

Thursday 5 November 1981 – Busyish day – warden, diary, Wizzards [sic], went over to Anjou’s [sic] in evening – quite a few people there.

“Warden” would have meant a visit to the Lindsay Hall warden, J P de C Day. Mr Day, as we all knew him, was somewhat of a walking miracle. Apparently he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, with months rather than years to live, a few years before I arrived at Keele (1980). Mr Day by all accounts refused to accept the diagnosis and simply kept calm, kept fit and carried on…for more than a quarter of a century.

I don’t remember much about this “visit to the warden” but I think it was part of his campaign of pastoral care, inviting small groups of Lindsay students to his home for tea. I remember him mumbling a fair bit but seeming ever so decent and nice.

“Diary” is a rare post-modern reference in my diaries to the process of writing in my little book. My guess is that I had got a few weeks behind, so had devoted some significant effort to writing up.

“Wizzards”, by which I am sure I meant “Wizards”, was a strange animated movie, which I think Film Soc showed as a nod to the Anti-Fascist Day earlier that week:

I’d like to see that movie again now, as I suspect I’d get far more out of it now than I did then.

“Anjous” will have meant Anju Sanehi’s place, in Harrowby House, which must have been a small party-type gathering. I recall thinking of Harrowby House as a rather privileged residence, with larger, seemingly superior rooms to the rest of Lindsay Hall. Yet one early Keele pioneer in the Keele Oral History Project Hut Life piece describes the old Nissen huts as superior accommodation to Harrowby House. Perhaps the latter was renovated/improved in the intervening years. Or perhaps the Nissen Huts were super-luxurious.

Friday 6 November 1981 – did quite a bit of work today. Went to Plesches in evening. Union after.

Peter and Traudi Plesch acted as mentors to the tiny community of Jewish students at Keele. This gathering would have been a traditional (although not religious) Friday night meal at their home; something they did occasionally. Professor Peter Plesch was a chemistry professor, who had joined the teaching staff in the very earliest Keele days. Traudi Plesch was a force of nature on the campus – a relentless fundraiser for multiple good causes and part of that social weave that made the rich and wonderful fabric that was Keele life.

I’m sure I didn’t think about the connection at the time, but given that both Peter and Traudi Plesch were escapees from Nazi Europe in the 1930s, that evening was a fitting end to the week that had started with Anti-Fascist Day.

An evening at the Plesch House was always a treat, but to some extent a daunting treat. Peter Plesch was a polymath and would usually seek a seemingly arcane topic of conversation, which sometimes felt more like a tutorial than an evening of chat. I remember him waxing lyrical about Chinese ceramics on one occasion – it might even have been this occasion – which morphed into a lesson on Chinese history and the science behind ceramics.