Month: August 1982

NT In Evening With Party, 18 August 1982

National Theatre, From Wikimedia Commons

My recollection of this evening is thin to say the least. My guess is that it was an impromptu works outing, the diary simply reading:

Work busy – went to NT in evening with party

I am pretty sure we didn’t see a show. Danton’s Death was showing at the Olivier at that time but I’m pretty sure I didn’t see that and in any case I don’t think they even put the show on that Wednesday evening.

I am similarly sure that I didn’t see the production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle at the Cottesloe back then. My Cottesloe days were still way ahead of me.

In any case, had I seen a play I am sure I’d have at least noted what we saw – I was already enough of a theatre freak for that. So we didn’t see a play.

No.

I think we must have gone to the NT as scavengers that night. The press night for the Lyttelton production of Way Upstream, scheduled for that night, infamously had to be postponed because a water tank flooded.

Newman Harris had a fair smattering of luvvie clients so I suspect that we were invited along to help mop up, hospitality-wise…certainly not to help mop up the Lyttelton Theatre itself, I’d have remembered that better.

I wonder who was in that “party”? Probably a similar bunch to those I nailed in a short piece about the Phoenix & football from 10 days earlier…

Phoenix & Football With Fellow Workers, Newman Harris, 6 & 7 August 1982

…except some of the more senior folk might well have joined us midweek – Stanley Bloom even, possibly, as he had taken over a chunk of Harry Newman’s luvvie portfolio.

Another Informal Subsidiary In Contemporary Music From Keele In the Summer Of 1982: Tutor On this Occasion – Jon Gorvett

Jon Gorvett on the far right (pictorially, not politically) next to Simon Jacobs (also a Keele alum), together with me and Jon’s partner Stephanie in 2018

In August 1982, during the Keele summer break, Jon Gorvett visited my family home in Streatham for the weekend.

The diary is a little low on detail. It looks as though we focussed on wine more than beer (unusually for me at that time) and we seem to have focussed on trendy London places – Brixton, Camden Lock & Notting Hill – how cool is that!?

Somewhat higher on detail is my log of tape recordings, which lists a whole heap of albums with Jon’s name beside them. How we found the time to rip all those albums onto tape while doing the listed activities from the diary is a mystery to me. I’m guessing that Jon might have left that pile of albums with me and I returned them to him at the start of term. Either that or there were some recording sessions deep into the early hours.

Here is a list of the albums:

There were some singles too, which I used to fill up the tapes, but I was not so meticulous about logging who lent me which singles and I know I had a similar (smaller) recording session with Wendy Robbins later that summer break; she also had some cool singles. But I think the following classics were from Jon:

Yet still questions remain about that visit. Why was Jon delayed on arrival on the Friday? How scary did he find my mum? Which wine bar did we go to in South London – I don’t remember such places existing in those parts in those days.

Memorable sounds though, for sure. I listened to those recordings one heck of a lot in the subsequent years and still rate several of those albums very highly indeed.

Thanks, Jon.

Phoenix & Football With Fellow Workers, Newman Harris, 6 & 7 August 1982

6 August 1982 – Work OK – went to Phoenix briefly after work.

The Phoenix was the best pub for the staff of Newman Harris in Cavendish Square, with the sole criterion to determine “best” being “nearest”. We went there a lot. It transpires that my friend from later years, Charles “Charley the Gent Malloy” Bartlett, worked nearby back then and similarly frequented the Phoenix.

7 August 1982 – Played football in afternoon/evening. Got home quite early.

A plan no doubt hatched in the Phoenix the night before. Who were the football nuts at that time? Dilip Vora I should imagine. Duncan was often the ringleader for that sort of thing. Mike King – had he started yet? If so it would have been before he was always too busy with Sandra to join in this sort of activity. Lailash Shah – probably. Roy Patel I think was too senior/important/old to join in with our weekend activities. Ashley Michaels possibly would have done, though.

It won’t have been great football, but I seem to recall such events also turning into impromptu opportunities for a few beers and sometimes a barbeque, although the diary note implies that this occasion was lower key than that.