Back then, if I wrote “Herbie” I meant this anthropomorphic vehicle…
I ran out of steam for diary entry writing towards the end of April 1974. Well, I had been doing it for nearly four months by then. I suppose I had earned a sabbatical, or perhaps I was afflicted with juvenilia-writer’s-block.
When I returned to diary-writing at the end of November 1974, I think my efforts were pretty much continuous for a further 15 years. I regret the absence of entries between May and November 1974, but there’s not much I can do about that now.
Ian Sandbrook (who was my 1S form master and is now my e-mail-pen-pal) suggests that I could ask a chat-bot to make up some entries. But that strikes me as a rather low grade task for such a pinnacle of technology. If vast amounts of processing power is going to produce confabulatory text, it should do so on matters of greater import than my 11/12 year old’s diary entries.
I might try trawling my memory and the memories of other Alleyn’s alums for tales of derring-do in the summer term of 1973/74 and the autumn term of 1974/75. I certainly have a few summer holidays memories to share from that year.
Anyway, let’s make the most of what we have left, a few rather sketchy days bringing up the end of the Easter break and the start of the summer term:
Sunday, 21 April 1974 – Classes morn. Afternoon G[randma] Anne.
Monday, 22 April 1974 – Russell [Holland] – Herbie and Run Cougar Run. A good day.
Tuesday 23 April 1974 – New [term] at school, G Jenny afternoon, Classes.
Wednesday, 24 April 1974 – Sports – fives and tennis – uneventful – all ok.
Thursday, 25 April 1974 – Latin ok.
Russell Holland was a friend from my primary school, Rosemead.
Ten years later, the words “herbie and run cougar run” might have been describing a smoke-filled room in the Keele Student’s Union performing comedy for louche, mature students from the Open University:
…but I digress.
In 1974, it meant going to the pictures with Russell to see the films Herbie Rides Again and Run Cougar Run.
Here’s the Herbie trailer:
It’s quite a childish idea, an anthropomorphic car with a mind of its own, but then the Herbie movies were Disney films. My anthropomorphic car, Dumbo, writes sensibly about all manner of things when the fancy takes him, sometimes on my blog and sometimes on King Cricket, such as the following piece about his run in with the police…
…but again I digress.
It seems I played a bit of tennis as well as cricket that summer term at Alleyn’s and it seems we started learning Latin, I think with Doggie Johnson, the junior school head.
Perhaps I am confusing my Hebrew classes with my Latin classes, but I think the lessons might have gone a bit like this:
OK, in truth my memory fades, but I still find that Life of Brian sketch one of Python’s very best. If other alums from my year wish to chime in with memories from that third term at Alleyn’s, real, false or just funny, now would be a good time.
If you need a musical memory jogger, the following was Number One and a sound you just couldn’t avoid at that time: