Dating, Mandating & Catering To Scale At Keele, Mid To Late November 1982

Keele Students’ Union With Thanks To Paul Browning For The Photo

My November 1982 diary continues mostly to document a set pattern of student life that term. I was going out with Liza O’Connor, whom, it seems, I would see two or three times each week. At that time she was still living with her family at The Sneyd Arms, so I quite often describe walking her home late at night; which presumably staved off the wrath of Geoff O’Connor – no student (or offspring) wanted his wrath.

There are three noteworthy events in the diary for that mid to late November period:

• getting Keele Action Group (KAG)’s long-planned mandate for an occupation through the UGM;
• planning and holding a Jewish Society Friday Night meal;
• a rather peculiar diary entry for the Saturday after that meal, which suggests, between the lines, some consternation.

Keele Action Group’s Long-Planned Mandate For An Occupation, 15 November 1982

I explained the background to KAG’s UGM mandate for a student occupation in a couple of earlier pieces – click here or below for the first of them:

Keele Action Group Springs Forth Campus-Wide, Constitutional Matters Mingle With A Crucial Culinary Debate In My Barnes L54 Flat, 8 to 11 October 1982

…here or below for the second of them:

Culture & Action At Keele, Late October 1982

In the end, it was me who proposed the motion – much to the chagrin of Union President Truda Smith, who afterwards gave me a metaphorical handbagging…or do I mean “metaphorical hairdryer treatment“…or do I mean a metaphorical “handbagging with hair-dryer within” treatment? Truda was not happy. Pete Roberts seconded the motion, which probably gave the motion the political gravitas we thought it needed, as he was the immediate past Education & Welfare sabbatical and he said that he thought the quality of our education and our welfare was at risk from the cuts.

The diary entry suggests that the result was a solid win on the vote:

Monday 15 November 1982: Busy day – writing speech etc. UGM went well – motion passed well etc. Paul & Mike came in after.

I’m not sure who Paul & Mike were in this context. Was it you, Paul Evans? I don’t remember you being into the politics much but perhaps the issue of the cuts floated your boat. For Mike, a bearded fellow in a duffel coat springs to mind but I don’t honestly remember for sure. Pete Roberts, Simon Jacobs or Jon Gorvett might help me out here. Or perhaps not.

J-Soc Friday Night Meal, Friday 26 November 1982

Whose blithering idea was it to attempt this at Keele – a University with a tiny, mostly secular Jewish community?

Actually I have a funny feeling it was sort-of my idea.

Following the success of the International Fair the previous summer and the “joint venture” I had fostered with Tony Wong of the Chinese Cultural Society, I was very cognisant of the fact that other cultural societies had centred their cultural offerings around food, whereas J-Soc had not really done so.

Further, we had some enthusiasts for doing a meal in the form of, if I remember correctly, Michelle Epstein (who was in her second year) plus a couple of newbies – Annalisa de Mercur (who became a good friend for many years, during and after Keele) plus Julie Reichman.

In short, I think it was my idea that we do food and “the girls” turned the idea into something with deeper cultural significance – a heimisch Jewish Friday Night meal.

…our event wouldn’t have looked or sounded anything like the vid below either:

My recollection is that the event “got big on us”, with a lot of work in the planning and the aftermath. The event dominates my diary from the Tuesday before until the day itself and even seemed to dominate until the Monday after.

I don’t even remember where we held the dinner, although something tells me that there was a facility in Horwood that we could and did use for events like this. Or, if not, possibly the Lindsay Hexagon.

I remember being delighted to leave much of the hands-on running of the event to “the girls” and feeling, by the end of it, that I was happy to leave J-Soc more generally in their very capable (and more enthusiastic than my) hands.

The attendees for the event included several people from the Chinese and Arab cultural societies, plus my own entourage (including Liza O’Connor & my new flatmate Alan Gorman, who came from Catholic backgrounds), which might have been fascinating and/or beguiling for them.

“Hastly” Day After The Big Event, Saturday 27 November 1982

Hastly [by which I think I meant “hassle-strewn”] day. Shopped in afternoon – Liza and Chantelle’s friend stayed for dinner. Went to union – got quite drunk…took L home quite late

The fact that I mention Chantelle’s friend in this context means, I’m pretty sure, that there must have been some sub-text. I don’t really remember, but I suspect that I was pretty “duncatering” by the Saturday and/but ended up preparing the Saturday dinner in question. “Got quite drunk” was probably a way to let off steam in the union after the catering stresses of the preceding few days.

The subtext is probably lost in the mists of time, but if I had a grump on in those days, people around me would have known about it. Actually I’m not sure the obviousness of my grump has changed much in the forty years since.

On the Monday I was “sorting out J-Soc stuff still” which probably irritated me, although I did find time in the afternoon to “visit Anju”.

But it is mostly work for the next few days, so I sense that I felt that I was behind where I wanted to be with my essays and the like. Either that or some sort of interpersonal grump that I was too polite to write down and which is now, mercifully, long-since forgotten.