I have discovered a cassette tape of “contemporary” music which Mark Ellicott made for me in the summer of 1982. I remember little of the background to this tape, but I did play it a fair bit during that summer break from Keele and quite a lot during the ensuing academic year 82/83, which Mark missed.
During his first year at Keele, Mark was, self-confessedly, going through a bit of a transformation, from “Tory Boy” at the Keele Royal Ball…
…to becoming a more iconoclastic figure in Keele circles, going on to become Social Secretary later in the 1980s and subsequently managing some of the best-known venues in the UK.
I think Mark might have given me this tape right at the end of the summer term in 1982, perhaps by way of an apology for getting me roped into playing cricket on his behalf – long story told here and below:
Below is the tape listing from Mark’s one-side of a C90 offering, which I labelled “ME Batch” with a clear note on my log that Mark had made this for me:
Some fascinating choices there, which I have attempted to find in the best versions possible on the web. It will be interesting to learn Mark’s thoughts about this mix tape (or what people latterly would call a playlist) forty years on.
To add a little to the intrigue, the second side of the cassette is a recording of Changestwobowie, which my log says was made for me by Andrea Collins (now Woodhouse). Did Mark and Andrea collaborate on making this cassette for me, or did Andrea offer to fill in the second side of the tape for me after Mark gave me a one-sided cassette? My diary and logs are silent on such details and my memory only retains the extent to which I played this cassette quite a lot in the second half of 1982.
To close, here’s one of my (many) favourite tracks from that Bowie album:
Forty years on, just in case I didn’t express sufficient gratitude at the time: thanks Mark, thanks Andrea.
I have such happy memories of my time at Keele in the summers after the exams. 1982 was no exception.
For those who have come late to this “forty years on” series, I wrote glowingly about the glorious time I had at Keele late June 1981 – click here or below:
In June 1982 there was a football world cup and the union did a lot of “big screen stuff” to encourage business and to enable most of us to watch. (In those days a TV was a luxury item that only slightly better off students had). I probably watched more football during that 1982 fortnight at Keele than I have watched in the forty years since.
Plus there were the balls, the parties, the inaugural International Fair…and of course, lots of chat.
Tuesday, 15 June 1982 – Last exam this morning. Drank at lunchtime. Watched Scotland versus New Zealand – went to union – Pete [Roberts] came back for coffee after – late chats.
I had forgotten that I befriended Pete (or Pete befriended me) at that stage. I have good memories of Pete getting involved with our anti-cuts campaigning the following term (he was sabbatical Education & Welfare in 1981/82) but I now realise/remember that those conversations started in the summer of 1982.
Wednesday, 16 June 1982 – Latish rise – dossed around. England V France in afternoon. Spain V Honduras in evening -> bar -> disco. Sharon and Louise came back after.
Thursday, 17 June 1982 – Got up early. Went shopping -> Carol’s [Downes] for coffee. Dossed around Keele in afternoon. Northern Ireland v Yugoslavia in evening. -> bar and reggae disco.
With thanks to Chris Parkins for this superb photo of Carol
Carol Downes had been sabbatical Education & Welfare in 1980/81. She was super friendly, very encouraging to those of us who were active in the Student’s Union and had presumably finished her finals by then. Sadly, she is no longer with us 40 years on.
Soon the weekend beckoned…
Friday, 18 June 1982 – lazyish sort of day – drinking lunchtime – cooked tonight. Watched the football -> union disco * early-ish night.
Saturday, 19 June 1982 Early start – got things done. Jon [Gorvett] came round in afternoon – watched footy in early evening -> Jazz Night -> Y Block [Hawthornes] party, somehow got home.
I apologise to football lovers that I stopped reporting which match was which. They probably all merged into one in my head and (as you can probably tell) I was not making full use of my cognitive faculties by that stage of the term. This on-line resource might help you. I assure you it doesn’t help me.
The Y Block party will have included Ashley Fletcher, Miriam, Nicola, Heather, probably Simon Jacobs & Jon Gorvett too, plus many others. I love my “somehow got home” comment – how many of us Keele alums from that era must remember staggering to or from Hawthornes in a state of…not really being capable of staggering quite that far?
Sunday 20th of June 1982 – Rose quite hung over – went down to International Fair most of the day – watch football in the evening. Joe [Benedict Coldstream ] came back – played cards till late.
I have talked about the birth of the International Fair in earlier posts – e.g. this one. I am very proud of the fact that I was involved in the conception of this wonderful Keele tradition. I was also involved in its delivery at times, but it seems not so much in that first edition of it, unless “hungover attendance” qualifies as delivery.
Why Benedict Coldstream became known as Joe is lost in the mists of time. I think Richard Van Baaren gave him that nickname early in our time at Keele because he didn’t believe Benedict’s real name.
Monday 21 June 1982 – rose quite early – easyish day about the place – watched football – went to Lindsay Ball in evening – Osibisa v good.
Dave Lee also gives this Osibisa concert a superb review in his book The Keele Gigs. But now I come to think of it I did provide him with my feedback , so I was probably one of his main sources. It was an ideal concert for a summer ball at University – fun Afrobeat that just sounds like sunshine. Below is a live gig of theirs from the following year – it should make you smile for a good few minutes:
Tuesday 22nd of June 1982 – Rose at a reasonable hour – got results – went to meeting in afternoon.
Evening battle of bands etc in the union – [?? someone] came back to flat after – up all night chatting etc
Wednesday 23rd of June 1982 – easyish sort of afternoon – went to Barnes to watch footy in evening – went to bed.
Apologies to whoever it was whose name I scribbled so badly I cannot work out who came back and chatted all night after the Battle of the Bands. Perhaps someone can help out by deciphering the original diary page (below) – there are people out there better at reading my handwriting than me:
Thursday 24th of June 1982 – Rose quite early. Sorting some things out. Got roped into playing cricket all afternoon. Went to ball in evening (Joe Jackson pretty good). Up all night –
I have written up the cricket story separately, some time ago – click here for the Ogblog posting…
I was impressed with and remember enjoying Joe Jackson at the Summer Ball. It was a pretty darned impressive gig, with Joe Jackson on the verge of getting properly big (i.e. breaking through in the States) at that time. You can see a good live vid from that era below:
Friday, 25 June 1982 – Went to went for brekkie in Newcastle with Sandra. Got subsid results. Meeting in afternoon – watched football – lounged around – took early night.
Sandra – from the previous year’s summer term – reappeared at that Summer Ball (I suspect she had been doing finals between times rather than actually disappearing) allowing us to spend just a little more time together before she left Keele. I didn’t remember the bit about going into Newcastle for brekkie, but if I wrote that in my diary, that’s for sure what we did.
Saturday 26th of June 1982 – Spent all day packing etc – went to union in evening – ok.
Sunday 27th of June 1982 – Mum and dad came up – went down to London – easy evening.
By 1982, the annual Gentlemen (of the right) v Players (of the left) cricket match had become an iconic feature of Keele Festival Week. It was many years later that I learnt that this “tradition” had only started a year or two earlier. Keele traditions were a bit like that back then.
The Roping In
I made a pigs ear of writing this event up previously, combining my memories of the 1982 match with the 1983 match, having forgotten that I ended up playing this match three illustrious times while at Keele; my last appearance being 1984.
My mistake was spotted by Mark Ellicott, whose name I had delicately left out of my previous write up of this first occasion, as it was for an “intoxicated” Mark that I was hurriedly found and roped in as a late substitute. Mark pointed out that it must have been 1982, as that was the summer during which he was caught up in all this stuff and he was involuntarily on sabbatical from the University the following academic year. Mark later went on to be a Students’ Union sabbatical, stretching his Keele duration yet further.
On the topic of this 1982 cricket match, my diary entry merely says, with surprisingly little enthusiasm:
Got roped into playing cricket all afternoon.
Here is the Mark Ellicott substitution bit of the story, as I originally wrote it, before Mark got in touch. Naturally I have now cleared with Mark the idea of attaching his name to the story:
“I got a knock on the door early afternoon…a certain wild-haired student (even more wild-haired than me), who latterly – more latterly even than me – became a sabbatical, had been experimenting with an acidic chemical – presumably something to do with his subsidiary or extra-curricular studies – and had accidentally ingested rather too much of the stuff…
Mark Ellicott two or three years later
…he might have been experiencing something like this:
In short, the accidental acid victim was away with the fairies and I was in the team.“
Mark describes his experience slightly differently, presumably starting the evening before:
It was on Results Day for finalists in the summer of 82. I had scored two tabs previously and was working that day as a waiter in Oysters wine bar serving up bottles of wine etc to celebrating finalists. I dropped one tab whilst working idiotically enough and after ten minutes when nothing was happening even more idiotically dropped the second. Thereafter it all gets hazy, but like you I have kept a diary since I was a kid so can refer back. I must have wandered away from my workplace because the next thing I remember is wrestling with an anonymous young woman outside the Computer Science lab. Then it’s several hours later and I’m sitting in the Union bar with Truda Smith, Mark [Bartholomew], Simon [Jacobs], Anna [Summerskill] etc. I’m completely incapable of speech at this stage. I hear Truda’s disembodied voice explain to people “he’s tripping, keep an eye on him”. Next thing I recall I’m hiding under a bush by Keele Hall and Mark and Simon come looking for me, find me, and gently return me to the Union and a disco where I have a vague recollection of ‘dancing’ to ‘Say Hello Wave Goodbye’ by Soft Cell. Then I’m at a party in Stoke talking to a woman who runs a chippie. Completely brilliant day that was !
When I gently suggested to Mark that I might link his name with my cricket-career reviving incident, he replied…
…please go ahead and use my name. I’ve never been embarrassed about my psychedelic experiments then.
The Match Itself
Under the circumstances, I didn’t expect much of a role for The Players and got pretty much what I expected.
I was reminded of this 1982 match in August 2018, after Adil Rashid had a rare “thanks for coming” (TFC) test match – i.e. he did not bat and did not bowl in the whole match – a very rare event in test cricket – written up here…
…but not quite so rare an event in beer matches. Indeed, both the 1982 & 1983 Gentlemen (of the right) v Players (of the left) match at Keele were TFC matches for me. I did not bat; I did not bowl, but…
But the ball tends to follow the team donkey. I recall the Gentlemen doing rather well against us at that stage of the match, with Mike Stephens (Secretary 1980/81) batting well & properly, along with a beefy, sporty fellow…I think his name is Steve Bailey, who had been the Chair of the Athletic Union, providing some humpty to the innings.
I’m pretty sure the above picture shows “the humpty chap”, Steve Bailey, at the 1980 Christmas Ball – apologies if I have grabbed a picture of the wrong humpty chap.
Three times the humpty chap lifted the ball skywards in my direction. Three times I failed to catch it. One of those misses was a juggled attempt which failed even after several potential reprieves. One I think I lost sight of completely, perhaps even running the wrong way.
Toby sent me to backward point instead, where he suggested that catches were far less likely but I might at least save some runs if I continued to put my body (the only asset I seemed to be bringing to the party) on the line. I think I brought my skiff of ale infield with me.
A few balls later, Mike Stephens executed a firm, albeit slightly uppish, late cut, which should have hurtled to the left of a diving backward point for four…
…but the diving backward point, me, somehow contrived to dive at the correct moment and the ball contrived to stick in my hand. A stunning, potentially match-turning catch.
It might have looked like a left handed version of this one from school a few years earlier, c1979, for which I was the photographer, not the catcher.
I recall Mike Stephens stomping off in an uncharacteristic huff of “it’s so unfair. He can’t catch for toffee…”
I have no photos from the 1982 game, sadly, nor the 1983 nor 1984 ones, but this one from a year or two earlier, thanks to Frank Dillon, should give the reader a pretty good feel for the look of the mighty Players team.
With thanks to Frank Dillon, this picture of an earlier “Players” team, probably 1981
If anyone out there has any more memories and/or photographs of our festival week beer matches, I’d love to hear from you.
Forty years on, reading about this particular fortnight in my diary, I can see that I did, for a short while, perhaps a day or two before and during the exams, give some proper care and attention to the end of academic year tests.
In particular, I had to complete two subsidiary courses that year – I had chosen Psychology, plus Applied Statistics & Operational Research.
Actually I remember enjoying both courses and I am also sure that both proved useful to me in later (working) life, not that I had chosen those courses particularly with vocational training in mind. The former sounded like an interesting course to take at subsidiary level (it was) and the latter I imagined to be the closest match between my numeracy skills and a subsidiary that qualified as a science (also true).
No evidence of much work the week before the subsid exams. In the union every night. At Film Soc watching Time Bandits and getting stoned afterwards on the Friday evening – well, it was the end of the “working” week, Friday.
Sub-standard Soccer
Sunday 6 June 1982 – Dossed around most of today – tried to do a little work and failed. Q Block. Played football with Ahmed and the lads. Earlyish night.
It took the diary to trigger a memory of ever playing football at Keele. I was thoroughly useless at football. “Ahmed and the lads” means my Malay flatmate, Ahmed Mohd Isa, four Malay guys who shared a flat in Q Block Barnes and probably my Bruneian flatmate-to-be 82/83 – Hamzah Shawal.
I remember telling the lads that I was no good at football. I remember them telling me that it was just a kickabout and that it didn’t matter. I remember them being much too good at football to be kicking about with me. I remember them being thoroughly polite about it and I have no recollection of ever being invited to play football with them again.
The field of dreams…or, in my case, nightmares
They were a very hospitable bunch, the Q-Block Malay gang, so I was certainly invited again for other activities, not least eating. Almost certainly part of this football occasion was a delicious Malay curry back at Q Block – usually with mutton as the core ingredient and usually wet-style Malay curry, not dry-style. At least two of the Q-Block lot were very adept at cooking Malay food, as was Hamzah – I was to discover to my delight the following academic year.
So I Subsided After My Subsid Exams In My Subsiding Flat
Monday 7 June 1982 – Did fair bit of work today. Dossed around a bit too. Early night.
Tuesday 8 June 1982 – Psychology subsid for six hours today. Didn’t feel like doing anything [afterwards].
Wednesday 9 June 1982 – Stats subsid – got pissed lunchtime – came home – ate – felt exhausted – crashed.
Bless.
I think we can take it that the Stats subsid was just the single three hour paper. I wasn’t THAT negligent towards my studies.
Thursday 10 June 1982 – Shopped and laundered. Did some work later of course.
Friday 11 June 1982 – Worked a fair bit. Went to film (Arthur) – came back worked after Earlish night.
Saturday 12 June 1982 – Worked pretty hard today – went to Union in evening for a quick drink. Simon [Jacobs] and Jon [Gorvett] came back for coffee.
Sunday 13 June 1982 – Did a fair amount of work today – stayed in trying to anyway – early night.
Clearly I took my law exams a bit more seriously than the subsids. Probably with good reason – i.e. there was more I needed to cram.
Monday 14 June 1982 – Law exams all day – yukky. Not quite finished but went to UGM anyway – left early.
In the next episode you’ll learn about the last of the exams and what I did next. It’ll be more exciting and have more name drops in it than this episode, that I can promise.
At Keele in those days we had to take two subsidiary courses during our first degree year. I’ll write about those in time, but for now I want to write a trilogy of pieces about the informal subsidiary education I enjoyed around contemporary music at Keele that year.
My source for these pieces, for once, is not the diary – it is my collection of music; in this instance mostly cassettes that Keele people made for me.
I only had a radio cassette player at Keele – see image below for the one I had for the first couple of years – while my record and reel-to-reel collection at my parents house also burgeoned during my Keele years.
My system at Keele back then, a Philips Spatial Stereo Ghettoblaster/Boombox
Of all the pieces I shall write about friends influencing my interest in music, this is the most mysterious and perhaps the Keele alum community can help me identify Dave.
I don’t think I mention him at all in the diary – nor can I trace the particular evenings when, as my memory stores it – I went to his room with my blaster and he recorded several of his records onto cassette for me while we drank, smoked and chatted music.
Listing “the Dave Eight” just before my March-June charts rip tape sort-of dates it
I’m pretty sure he was Lancastrian – I can hear in my mind’s ear him saying “Depeche Mode” with the word “mode” sounding like the past tense of a cow making noise…”mooed”. Indeed, until recently I had assumed that Depeche Mode was a Northern electro pop band – only forty years on have I learnt that they were from Basildon. Dave was strangely attracted to their sound and style – I think he had cognitive dissonance about them. I was not a fan and have none of their music in my collection, but I must say, forty years on, the video below just oozes 1981/82 and I felt bound to share it with you.
Dave thought Depeche Mode had hidden depths, I thought hidden shallows
I think my fleeting, casual friendship with Dave sprung up around the topic of Van Morrison, whom I had discovered in the summer of 1981. I played Astral Weeks incessantly and I think Dave might have first introduced himself to me by knocking on my Lindsay F Block door on hearing Astral Weeks blaring from my room.
I think Dave was involved with social committee to some extent – perhaps on the technical side. Unusually, he had connection leads to enable us to connect my blaster to his “gramophone”.
I guess we made a din recording those albums
The two Van Morrison albums that comprise the first Dave tape – TB Sheets and Into the Music, while interesting and informative, did not get air play in my room to anything like the extent of Astral Weeks.
The tape with Surrealistic Pillow by Jefferson Airplane and The Best Of Grace Slick & The Great Society on it got played so much, it is a miracle that it survived. For the Airplane heads amongst you, Dave’s “Pillow” was the 1967 UK release – I subsequently acquired decent copies of both the UK and the US version of the album. I also now have the digitally remastered Grace Slick & The Great Society collection.
Here are a couple of samples to whet your appetites:
In truth, I did not listen much to Crown Of Creation or Baron Von Tollbooth – perhaps I should give them a proper try now and see what I make of them in my dotage.
The other album I listened to oh so many times at Keele (and subsequently) was Goodbye Pop by National Lampoon. Much as I liked Not The Nine O’clock News, the sketches and especially the song pastiches on Goodbye Pop are of the very highest quality.
The Gilder Ratner song/sketch I’m A Woman is superb and seems just as relevant forty years on…
…and if you think the Sid Gormless character at the start of the Art Rock Suite reminds you a bit of Nigel from Spinal Tap, that might just be because it is indeed Christopher Guest playing that role. Oh, stuff it, here’s a link to the whole album. You can get it on Spotify and Apple and all those places now.
So thank you, Dave, whoever and wherever you are now.
Question for advanced students among the Keele alums of the time – any thoughts on who the mysterious Dave might be and where he might be now?
