With many thanks to Dave Lee for the “loan” of this snow picture from 1981.
Even before the extreme weather set in, I had pre-arranged to return to Keele immediately after the Christmas Bank Holiday, during the period that we now call Twixtmas. I was to stay in Rana Sen’s flat, which I think was G Block Barnes, until the halls of residence reopened. I’ll write up that fag end of 1981 and start of 1982 soon enough.
So when the snow made it very difficult to travel, with The Beat concert cancelled for weather reasons on 11 December, I decided, on 12 December…
…to move into that same Barnes flat and await better weather before travelling. I think Rana had already gone and I stayed in his room pre Christmas. I ended up staying at Keele for an extra 10 days and only going to my parent’s place for a week at Christmas.
Sunday 13 December 1981 – Blizzards – stayed in all day in flat – amused ourselves. Stayed in for evening then…
Monday 14 December 1981 – …saw off Jenny. Went to Newcastle shopping – cooked. Went to Union in evening – Neil White’s for some home brew. Up late.
I’m starting to smell a rat here. It seems to me that, with Jenny able to travel, me able to go to Newcastle shopping and the Union boozing, that my “snowed in” excuse had run out of steam by the Monday.
It seems to me that I was now simply enjoying some extra Keele lifestyle outside term time. This might have been the first time I did that, but certainly it wasn’t the last.
At this point I also want to eulogise Neil White, who died in 2005 after spending 30 years at Keele. There is a wonderful tribute to him on the University website – click here. I cannot better those tributes, but I can add a personal note of fond memory and thanks.
Neil was a junior lecturer in those days – he had just completed his doctorate and started teaching full time when I arrived at Keele in 1980. Computer Science was not my thing back then, but he was a friendly fellow with many interests. He would quite often invite the several stragglers in the bar back to his campus pad for some after hours drinking and deep conversation about life, the universe & everything. His home brew, as mentioned in my diary for that December 1981 visit, was legendary.
There will be further mentions of Neil in my diaries I’m sure and I’ll report further memories as those mentions arise. The story of the night that Neil and Toby Bourgein kidnapped me in 1984 will make for an interesting conversation piece when my forty years on series gets that far.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
It seems I had a couple of quiet days on the Tuesday and Wednesday – perhaps I needed them after the night of Neil’s home brew – but I did enjoy “Tony’s party in evening” on the Wednesday night.
I have written before about the ludicrous bureaucracy back then, which required students to sign on and off the dole even for the short holidays in order to claim a pittance of additional money, because the grant only covered certain weeks.
What a waste of paper – what a waste of time. Mind you, the unemployment rate was so bad back then, I suppose it at least provided some honest work – even if such employment was merely bullshit jobs – for many people who would otherwise have been signing on along with us students.
Thursday 17 December 1981 – Signed on today – shopped for this evening – dinner – food good – but Jon & Tru did not get on too well.
I mentioned Jon [Gorvett] & Truda [Smith] traumas the previous week. I have now had an exchange of correspondence with Jon about this and his own recollections are expressed below:
Seems rather ridiculous now, but I recall that her dumping me for Toby B [Bourgein] was quite traumatic, with the backdrop of snowy wastes and blocked roads that it took place against a rather excessive use of metaphor, I now feel. I do recall that both you and Simon [Jacobs] were brilliant company at the time, though – many thanks for pulling me through. First serious girlfriend I’d ever had, and so I think it was the hardest knock (‘first cut is the deepest’, I recall, was a line repeated at the time, ad nauseam..)
I believe that my “dinner party” on 17 December was a futile attempt on my part to help Jon and Truda rekindle their romance. I don’t think I ever again made the mistake of trying to help friends that way. I learnt a lot and quickly from my experiences age 19 at Keele.
Simon Jacobs, who was absent “without leave” for much of the intense part of this unfolding, says the following, forty years on:
And of course, I remember the drama of Jon’s relationship break-up that happened during that winter term before I stomped back down to London to be present (if not correct) at a very annoying family moment.
So it was 1981 and I knew remarkably little about relationships and how they’re supposed to work. So for Jon this was clearly very traumatic. Even for me, one place removed, I remember being quite shocked at Truda’s behaviour. I think I’m right in saying that her dumping of Jon was somehow inextricably linked to her ambition to be President (or at the very least, someone important). I don’t think I’d ever come across this type of ruthless ambition close up before and I suspect it had quite a profound effect on me. I think I learned how not to be. It was pretty unforgivable. And of course, it was all set against a backdrop – as Jon points out – taken straight from Ken Russell’s ‘Women in Love’, which you’ll both recall ends with a dead body in the snow.
I’m pleased to report that the Keele mini-drama did not result in any dead bodies in the snow. Indeed, all of us protagonists found ourselves campaigning against the cuts at the UGC in London three weeks later. I have a feeling that my planned early return to Keele during Twixtmas was primarily to help plan that 6 January 1982 protest.
But I’m getting ahead of myself again – let us move on.
It seems as though I mostly took it easy for the last three days of that extended stay at Keele, spending Friday evening in the Sneyd, Saturday evening in the Union, having undertaken a rather ominous sounding:
Jon search in afternoon…
…I don’t think we were searching for his body in the snow.
Sunday 20 December 1981 – Lazyish day. Did some work. Justin came over in evening.
Monday 21 December 1981- Left Keele – fortunately got lift home. Lazy evening.
With apologies to Justin – I cannot place you just now but by all means get in touch and trigger my memory. Also apologies to the unnamed driver who sponsored my journey from Keele to South London.
For those who have a strong stomach, the next story in date sequence, which I wrote up three years before this “forty years on” series, requires a trigger warning about Hitler and the National Front. It’s strange but completely true:
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