Photo by Jonathan Hutchins / Keele University Library
I needed to get some work done towards the end of my first term of P1, studying Law & Economics, with subsidiaries in Psychology and Applied Statistics/Operational Research.
The words and symbols in my diary suggest that I did indeed get my head down during that period, while still finding time for some fun.
I’d better translate some of that:
Sunday 22 November 1981…went to Alexander’s. Did some work. Asian supper & disco in evening.
I think Alexander was one of my law friends from the Chinese-Malaysian community, as was the lovely Tina, who gets a mention on the Thursday. I’d started to get involved in some of the cultural societies around Keele; keen for combining forces as most were really very small groups when standing alone.
It will be difficult for modern students to get their heads around this, but, back then, some of the published resources we wanted (or even needed) to prepare our tutorials and write our essays were rare and in very short supply. We were expected to buy our law textbooks of course (quite a large chunk of the grant went on those) but there was also material – such as the detailed law reports on cases or journal articles on specific topics, that we had to borrow from the library’s tiny stock of copies and share amongst our friends who all needed to see the same stuff around the same time of year.
Forty years on, I simply Google the names of key cases I learnt about then and can read the full law report of “slug in the ginger beer” Donoghue v Stevenson, finding it in 10 seconds. Even without fully remembering the case names, forty years on, it took me 30 seconds to lay my hands on detailed accounts of Candler v Crane Christmas and Hedley Byrne v Heller.
No doubt I could also find on-line the old journal articles that tutors such as Michael Whincup, Philip Rose and Mike Haley were so keen for us to read to enhance our understanding. I especially remember hunting around for a journal article that supposedly would contextualise the High Trees House case for us P1 students -there were three library copies for the whole year to share.
No wonder, forty years on, Mike Haley, who is still at Keele, is beaming in his Keele mugshot:
Monday 23 November 1981 – …went to Int Aff meeting -> Rocky Horror Picture Show.
I think “Int Aff” stood for International Affairs and that was the group that had been established to oversee the Anti-Fascist day and follow up on it’s activities. Joe Andrew was the lead protagonist on the academic side and very good at that he was too.
I do remember those early meetings concerning themselves rather too much on “assumed” rather than actual problems. In particular, I remember the chaplains worrying about possible strife between Chinese-Malaysian and Malay students, and/or between Jewish and Muslim students, whereas the reality “on the ground” was that those groups tended to get along just fine.
A major upshot of that focus group, once it focussed on accentuating the positive, was the hugely popular Keele International Fairs, which became a twice-yearly feature of Keele campus activity and I believe still features on the calendar today. One of my proudest, lasting achievements; just being involved with the early stages of that development.
Thursday 26 November 1981 – Usual busy Thursday. Went over to Tina’s in evening till late
Friday 27 November 1981 – Work OK – did Economics essay afternoon & eve – went to Simon’s party later ***
Saturday 28 November 1981 – up late – went to town – wrote law essay all evening
Sunday 29 November – latish start – wrote Psychology essay today lazy evening
That’s a lot of essays in a short period of time. No wonder I tailed off for a couple of days, then:
Wednesday 2 December 1981 – Worked quite hard during day. Went to Alexander’s for dinner -> UGM
Thursday 3 December – Busy day – doing odds and ends, meetings etc. Lazy evening in
Friday 4 December – Worked reasonably hard today. Went * to * Lindsay * Party ** in evening – late night.
I don’t remember UGMs being any day other than a Monday, but perhaps some strange circumstance had led to that particular UGM being unusually scheduled for a Wednesday.
I can’t remember or recognise what the symbols in my diary entry for the Lindsay party might mean, so I suspect that the girl or girls in question similarly remember little or nothing about it forty years later.
Saturday 5 December 1981 – up late – went into Newcastle – lazy day – played cards in evening.
I remember playing cards with some of the guys on my block (F Block Lindsay), including Richard van Baaren, Bob Schumacher, Simon Ascough, Malcolm Cornelius and especially Benedict Coldstream.
Never gambling, although I think we might have played some poker and never bridge, although I think we sometimes played whist-based games.
The game I especially remember learning from Ben Coldstream was piquet, which I found fascinating and which we played quite a few times, especially at that tail-end of the autumn term in 1981.
I am fascinated now to look at the game of piquet again, learning that it is a very old game, dating back to the Renaissance or earlier. This sits neatly with my more recent interests in real tennis and Renaissance music:
Quite a complex game with some byzantine scoring rules and asymmetry to the playing, is piquet – again, reminding me of real tennis in those regards.
It is even reminiscent of my own (rather unusual) real tennis serve which is, coincidentally, called the piquet – (in truth normally spelled piqué or pique for tennis).
Returning to playing the card game piquet – unfortunately we have so few photos from our time at Keele, but I have managed to find an artist’s impression of F Block Lindsay folk “at piquet”, supervised by appropriate academics – I’m sure I have identified each of the characters correctly:
I’d love to give piquet another try some time. Anyone out there up for it?