These images of Keele thanks to Graham Sedgley. How can you be in a blue funk in a place with red skies like that?
Something irked me in the penultimate week of term that year. The diary has more than its usual smattering of negativity.
I cannot remember what would have led to the phrase:
…UGM in eve – sabotaged…
…but that will for sure have irked me.
I sense that I was pretty busy that week with both studies and union stuff and I suspect that, whatever the sabotage was, I thought it disruptive and a cause of uneccessary work on my part.
I know I was already sensing that the 1983/84 committee on the whole was not very good and that there were aspects of the Union that mattered to me that felt out of control.
I also recall planning with Viv Robinson to promote the election season to try to ensure that the students engaged with that process – more on that will follow early in 1984. Similarly, I took it upon myself as Chair of Constitutional Committee to attempt to revise the constitution in order to remove some of the procedural loopholes that were enabling sabotage. More on that anon too.
Thursday – A Liberal Array Of Activities
One of the more strange collections of activities is listed for Thursday:
V busy day – odds and ends – helped Ashley [Fletcher] move bed in afternoon – went J-Soc -> Liberal party in evening
I don’t think I am a good candidate for helping anyone move a bed from one part of Stoke to another, especially not a team comprising me and Ashley.
Just the thought of it brings to mind the following short film:
As for the “Liberal Party” later in the day, that would not be the actual political party, of course, but a party thrown by the bunch of Liberal activists who had arrived at Keele that year, who included my flatmate Pete Wild and Hayward Burt, both of whom depicted in the following picture:
My Barnes L54 flatmate Chris Spencer would no doubt have been there, as would Melissa Oliveck, who was Pete’s girlfriend at the time and a regular visitor to Barnes L54.
Friday 9 December – Busyish day – really pissed off today – went Hanley in eve with Ashley – Bobbie’s for a while in eve
I wonder what pissed me off. The Union business? Writers block for one of those pesky essay deadlines? Back ache from helping Ashley to move his bed? Head ache from overindulging liberally at the previous night’s party? Whatever caused it, I don’t suppose Bobbie enjoyed the experience of my mood on such days. Relatively rare in my case but I must have been REALLY pissed off to have noted such in my diary, which was normally spared such emotions.
Saturday 10 December – Busy sort of day. Shopping etc. Helped Ashley move in evening -> Black Lion -> two parties in eve. Stayed B.
Seems that my mood was more or less restored by the weekend. What a relief for all concerned.