Month: November 1984

When Lenny Henry Came To Keele & Ringroad Performed The Warm-Up Act, 29 November 1984

Lenny Henry 1980s (c1985), Photo by Jane McCormick Smith, CC3.0. Did Lenny learn that face from Olu? For sure Olu was using it prior to 1984.

Imagine Taylor Swift having Susan From Accounts as her support act – after all, Susan does go down reasonably well at the open-mic sessions down The Greyhound. Or Oasis being preceded by The Venn Diagrams – that nice band of “sixth-form graduands”, who performed with such exuberant confidence at their end of school bash.

Actually, the idea of Ringroad supporting the Lenny Henry as originally conceived was even more grandiose; the idea being that Ringroad would perform a warm up act and then a warm down act in the main bar that night. I still have the running orders from the project as originally conceived:

That was probably every last scrap of vaguely suitable material Ringroad had to hand at that time. I have some of these sketches in my Ringroad file. Those which I performed and/or in which I had a part, mostly.

I wrote up the preceding week, including the Ringroad context and early rehearsals, here:

We Interrupt This Keele Student’s Union Sabbatical For A Short Visit To London Including A Bagel Hunt And A Heap Of Ringroad Show Rehearsals, 16 to 23 November 1984

Here are my personal diary notes from the few days before and the day itself:

Saturday, 24 November 1984 – shopped etc. Rehearsed Ringroad in afternoon – wrote [H Ackgrass] column in eve – Annalisa [de Mercur] came over for a while.

Sunday, 25 November 1984 – Rose quite late – spent most of day in office. Cooked Petra [Wilson] a meal in eve – stayed.

Monday, 26 November 1984 – Very busy with lots of committee meetings etc. Rehearsed Ringroad in evening.

Tuesday, 27th November 1984 – Lots to do today in office. Rehearsed Ringroad until very late – quite knackered.

Wednesday, 28 November 1984 – Busy day in office. Petra came over to help me learn scripts etc. – stopped.

Thursday, 29 November 1984 – Lots to do today in office. Performed Ringroad at Lenny Henry gig in evening. Got plastered after.

Those notes tell the story in their own way, but I should fill in some gaps.

I’ll write more about that particular H Ackgrass column in a separate piece. Suffice it to say here that I very much remember Annalisa visiting me that afternoon. She was one of “my spies” for H Ackgrass and that will have been the main purpose behind that visit. I recall Annalisa asking me that day, “how do you fit all of these activities in and get so much done?” and I also remember feeling a bit smug about that. Actually, reflecting now on the relatively poor quality of my extra-curricular comedic output at that time, my answer to Annalisa’s question, forty years on, is to admit that I was substituting quantity for quality.

I also recall that I recruited Petra as an H Ackgrass spy the following day, as she was vexed at my caginess about my activities the previous day. It seemed easier and more sensible to recruit an additional Ackgrass spy than to lie about something so trivial so early in our relationship.

I’m going to guess that we didn’t cull the Ringroad show until the day of the show, hence the night before desperation of learning scripts, with Petra’s help. I can’t imagine that it was much fun for either of us, trying to cram my brain with Ringroad lines, while there was so much else swirling around in said brain at that time. But I did have a very good short-term memory back then, it is much diminished in power for such things now.

How and when the decision to cull our Ringroad act from two parts to one was made, I have no idea. Pady Jalali might remember. All I recall is that the decision was hastily made and I don’t suppose for one minute that anyone calculated the length of the resulting show or consider the logistics around our performance being in the Main Bar ahead of a Lenny Henry gig in the Ballroom. Here’s the cobbled together running order for the show Ringroad actually performed.

Oh look – I’ve been honoured with the closing number as a solo…

I don’t think the show went down very well. But my abiding memory is of the most awkward spot I found myself in towards the end of the act. I had just started my “Dracula” solo, when word came across the tannoy (probably the dulcet tones of Wally), that the Ballroom doors were open and that Lenny Henry would be starting in five minutes.

More or less the entire audience, quite understandably, made a bee-line to the Main Bar entrance in the direction of the Ballroom to try and grab good spots to watch the main show.

OK, clever clogs reader, what would you do in those circumstances? Would you admit defeat and stop the Ringroad show in mid sketch, or would you take “the show must go on” approach, continuing to perform the sketch to the ever-shrinking, backs-of-heads audience? I chose the latter, albeit embarrassing, approach. I think the other Ringroad performers and a handful of friends, such as Annalisa and Petra, stuck around…but perhaps I was truly alone by the end of the sketch.

Hello! I’m still here! Where’s everybody gone?

Unquestionably my most embarrassing experience as a performer, ever. More embarrassing even than the sword fight that went wrong in Twelfth Night at school six year’s earlier:

Twelfth Night, Alleyn’s School, 12, 14, 15 & 16 December 1978

But I digress. And you want to read about Lenny Henry, not Ringroad, nor Alleyn’s.

The Lenny Henry Gig At Keele

Securing Lenny Henry at that time was a bit of a coup for Pady, in my opinion. Lenny Henry was on the cusp of real stardom at that time, having just been given his own TV show, which aired in the early autumn, just ahead of his gig at Keele.

Here is the preview story from The Evening Sentinel:

Lenny Henry Preview Sentinel ClipLenny Henry Preview Sentinel Clip 26 Nov 1984, Mon Evening Sentinel (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England) Newspapers.com

I remember the Ballroom being absolutely packed. I think we Ringroaders watched from a balcony spot; a sole perk for our efforts and blushes. I thought Lenny Henry was an excellent performer and his show had far more in it than I had expected, with songs and set pieces as well as classic stand up material.

Alistair Perkins interviewed Lenny Henry at length for Concourse and also reviewed the show at length. Here are the very pieces that emerged in Concourse ten days or so after the event:

Here is Tim Bevington’s review from The Evening Sentinel:

Henry Review Tim Bevington SentinelHenry Review Tim Bevington Sentinel 30 Nov 1984, Fri Evening Sentinel (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England) Newspapers.com

To get a flavour of Lenny Henry back then, you might want to see the first episode of his 1984 TV Show, which is available on The Internet Archive – click here.

Or you might get more of a feel for his 1980s live performance from the following YouTube, which starts with the live material about 7’30” in:

Epilogue

I saw Lenny Henry live a couple of times in 2023. Firstly, in a wonderful one-man-play which he both wrote and performed, August In England, at The Bush Theatre:

August In England by Lenny Henry, Bush Theatre, 6 May 2023

…and then again a few months later when dining with John White in Jikoni:

It’s Not All Black And White: Meet-Ups With Annalisa, Jilly Black & John White, Mid-October 2023

I was far too polite on both of those occasions to get my own back on Lenny – for the embarrassment he inadvertently caused me in 1984 – which I could easily have done, either by walking out of his show or confronting him in front of his friends in the restaurant. I’m far too nice a guy for that. I don’t bear grudges. Anyway, in truth, I had deep filed my memory of that ill-fated Ringroad performance, until going through the old materials brought the memories flooding back.

Lenny Henry 1980s (c1985), Photo by Jane McCormick Smith, CC3.0.

“Perfection isn’t everything, some mistakes are pretty groovy.”- Lenny Henry.

Additional Evidence From Concourse On Stafford Demo & Keele UGM, Plus Ashley Fletcher’s Recollections Of That UGM Rumpus, Mid November 1984

I really should read everything before I do anything! After writing up the events of mid November, including a demonstration in Stafford and the UGM at Keele…

We Interrupt This Keele Student’s Union Sabbatical For A Short Visit To London Including A Bagel Hunt And A Heap Of Ringroad Show Rehearsals, 16 to 23 November 1984

…I discovered, in my pile of papers, a “Concourse Freebie” that wrote those two events up.

The demo write up, in excruciating detail to my more senior eyes, made Page One of the Freebie (see headline image). The UGM made Page Five. It was written up by Ralph Parker & Martin Whatley. Several passages in that report (see below) made me smile out loud. Well writ, fellas.

Ashley Fletcher’s Take

Ashley Fletcher’s forthcoming paper on the miner’s strike includes the following passage about the rumpus at that UGM. Reproduced with Ashley’s kind permission below:

University of Life

Somewhere around this time (the exact chronology is difficult to pin down), the local university students’ union at Keele was to debate a motion to ban promotion of the strike and related fundraising as ‘Ultra Vires’.  The motion put forward by the Federation of Conservative Students (FCS) was part of a conservative defunding campaign described above.

We had allies and affiliates on campus and although barred on the one hand, I had been awarded life membership of Keele Students Union and so was able to contribute to defending both the principle and the benefit to campaigning there.

The meeting on the 19th was perhaps the busiest I had ever seen and was deeply polarised and mutually antagonistic.  Some local miners from Silverdale and even a couple of Hucknall strikers from Nottinghamshire with student siblings there, came with us and galvanised and provoked in equal measure.

At the debates peak, the FCS leader, (deadnaming me as a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain!) claimed that when challenged by him, I had refused to condemn the use of violence by striking miners.  I had to resort to bureaucratic procedural ‘points of order’ to gain access to the microphone stating first the obvious “is it not a fact that I am not a member of the CPGB but a revolutionary anarchist communist?” to jeers and cheers. 

Agreeing that, I followed with “is it not a fact that I did not say I refused to condemn the violence of striking miners but instead, condone it and support its use and extension across the coalfields against the violence of scabs and the police occupation”.  The room erupted with both sides lunging, throwing beer and insults leading to a short recess before the vote.  The FCS motion and consequent ban were resoundingly defeated.

We Interrupt This Keele Student’s Union Sabbatical For A Short Visit To London Including A Bagel Hunt And A Heap Of Ringroad Show Rehearsals, 16 to 23 November 1984

A well used copy of The Clearing Song from Ringroad

What possessed me, given that I was so darned occupied that year as an SU sabbatical, to persevere with performing Ringroad? I guess I caught the bug during the summer, doing mini Ringroad gigs for the Open University students with Frank Dillon (and occasionally also Adrian Gorst).

My First Ringroad Performance and Related Memories, Keele, 18 August 1984

Further, it probably didn’t occur to me that semi-rehearsing and winging our way through Open University gigs in the summer was all very well, but Ringroad proper, during the term, would be large audiences, who had an expectation of evident preparation.

But before I get into all that, I’ll talk about the end of a momentous week and a short visit to London:

Friday, 16 November 1984 – Busy day – UC and getting staff out of the way. Went to London – arrived quite late. Had a drink and earlyish night.

I blush at the phrase “getting staff out of the way”, which sounds like dismally bad management practice. Looking at my appointments diary, it looks to me as though I had lined up a meeting with the cleaning staff for the Monday morning but also had a plethora of other meetings thrust upon me that day. My guess is that the staff agreed to bring the meeting forward to the Friday to lighten my – and probably also that of Kate Fricker and John White – Monday load.

“London” would have been Bobbie’s new place up in Finchley at the top of the Archway Road. She was sharing in a large house with several other trainee lawyers (mostly solicitors; Bobbie was a pupil barrister).

Chinese Dining & Bagel Hunting

Saturday 17 November 1984 – Rose late – did nothing in particular in afternoon – then went to Joy King Lau for evening.

Kake 新醉瓊樓 (Joy King Lau), Chinatown, London WC2 CC 2.0

Joy King Lau was one of my favourite Chinese restaurants back then. John White reckons that a visit he and I made (probably with others) was his first taste of “proper” Chinatown Chinese food. But the 17 November 1984 occasion will have been with Bobbie and possibly one or two of her new flatmates.

Sunday, 18 November 1984 – Late start again – went bagel hunting and meal then returned to Keele – arrived back quite late and did some work.

A brace of bagels that succumbed to a bagel hunt, many years later, displayed as trophies in my flat prior to their dénouement in one of my cricket picnics

I cannot believe that Bobbie would have been front and centre in seeking a bagel hunt. I think the impetus came from at least one of her other flatmates and for some reason my faint memory points, perhaps unfairly, at Sharma Gupta as the possible ringleader of the “lets go on a bagel hunt” idea. The hunt probably got no further than Finchley or Hendon. Even back then, the London Borough of Barnet was a pretty sensible place to hunt for the big five (bagels, blintzes, kugels, rye bread and matzo balls).

Back To Keele For Meetings Galore & Ringroad Rehearsals

Monday, 19 November 1984 -Busy day interrupted with meetings etc. Carol Holder’s in early evening and on to UGM evening – Petra came back.

Tuesday, 20 November 1984 – Hard-working office today – meetings et. al. Rehearsed Ringroad in evening also.

Each of those days included three or four meetings. I was SO “committeed out” and “meeetinged out” by the end of that sabbatical year – looking at my appointments diary I can see why. I get a headache just thinking about it.

The Ringroad team at the start of the 1984/85 year comprised Olu Odunsi (a comparative veteran of Ringroad), Dave Griffiths, Jo and Jackie [if someone can remind me of their surnames I’ll insert the full names]…plus me.

As the year went on, we beefed up the team, adding:

  • John Bowen (who was a relatively junior academic at that time, subsequently Professor of Modern Literature at Keele and currently – forty years on – Professor of 19th Century literature at York)
  • Warwick Cairns, who also went on to more serious and arguably greater things post Keele
  • Karen [again, to my shame, her surname escapes me. Jo and Jackie were both very good at playing assertive, strident women; Karen, with a gentle Scottish accent, tended to take the more subdued female parts].

Meanwhile our initially small Ringroad team of five’s first big project – and my goodness this was provisionally conceived as a ridiculously big project – was to support a Lenny Henry gig in the Students’ Union with a warm up act and a warm down act for the evening. Suffice it to say that this idea, on its original scale, was biting off more than even the most seasoned metaphorical bagel-munchers could metaphorically masticate in one go.

Image produced using DeepAI. No actual people or bagels were harmed producing this image.

Some Events Including Mystery Meetings

Wednesday, 21 November 1984 – Went to Stafford Demo in morning – committees in afternoon. Did disco with John in evening – went Petra’s after.

According to my appointments diary, I had Welfare Committee at 1.00 and Policy Staffing & Development Committee at 2;15, so that trip to Stafford (presumably to support a North Staffs Polytechnic demo) will have been an early start and a relatively short demo. It didn’t make the press (not even The Sentinel) by the looks of it. Crumbs – that Wednesday reads like a very full day.

Correction: the demo did make one paper…a Concourse Freebie. That freebie also had a full page write up of the Monday UGM, which I think must have been the one Ashley Fletcher remembers as a particularly raucous debate about the miners’ strike:

Additional Evidence From Concourse On Stafford Demo & Keele UGM, Mid November 1984

Thursday, 22 November 1984 – Busy day with meetings etc. Had quiet drink in evening – Petra came over later.

The appointments diary for that day lists four meetings:

  • 1.15 WPAR Room 13 [answers on a postcard please as to what WPAR might have been – I have no idea]
  • 2.15 DVC [that will have been Deputy Vice Chancellor which presumably means Professor Don Thompson who was Acting Vice Chancellor that term. I got on well with Don, who had been my Civil Liberties professor. He pretty much always came up with a fair determination when I had to appeal dodgy disciplinary matters with him]
  • 4.30/5.00 Farm & Fricker. [“Farm” was my former flatmate Chris Spencer. “Fricker” was Kate…now Susan…Fricker. I am in touch with both of them again now and can ask them why I was meeting the two of them about something that day. I think it is unlikely that either of them will remember. And unless something crops up in a future diary entry that provides clues, the matter will remain a mystery]
  • 7.00 Mergers. [I’m not sure what might have been merging with what. Sounds like something Kate and John might also have attended. I’m no more expecting either of them to remember the subject matter of “mergers” than I am expecting Farm and Fricker to remember the content of their meeting.

Friday, 23 November 1984 – UC in morning – busy in office all day – rehearsed Ringroad in evening.

I shall go into more detail about that Ringroad/Lenny Henry gig in my next piece, which will report on the week leading up to the Lenny Henry gig and the gig itself. For now, I’ll whet your appetites with one sketch I remember performing jointly with Olu in our capacity as a pair of newsreaders:

I think, on at least one occasion with that sketch, I announced myself to be Trevor McDonald and Olu announced himself to be Alastair Burnett…

…maybe you had to be there.

Enter Petra Wilson, Stage Left…Plus A John Martyn Gig On The Keele SU Ballroom Stage, 8 to 15 November 1984

Petra Wilson, Summer 1985

Of course Petra didn’t “enter the stage” on 8 November 1984, but that date is her first mention in my diary.

My Education & Welfare portfolio had two key voluntary assistant posts – Academic Secretary & Welfare Secretary. Annalisa de Mercur subscribed for the academic one and was incredibly helpful, both during the late summer when resits and appeals were all the rage…

Keele Education & Welfare Officer In Training: University Of York (Education), University Of Reading (Welfare), University of Keele (Resit Result Appeals) & University Of Life (Beer Tasting), First Half September 1984

…and then throughout the 84/85 academic year.

I have a feeling that someone had subscribed to take up the 84/85 welfare secretary post but needed to withdraw before the autumn 1984 term started. Perhaps it was unfilled all along. But for sure it would have been too much for Annalisa to fulfil both, although she did a sterling job of the pastoral support role with the resit/appeals community and also the early days/weeks of term.

I advertised the welfare secretary role at the start of term and I’m pretty sure Petra, who was an FY fresher, put her hand up quite quickly. She had been helping out in the welfare office and proving her considerable worth in that role for some two or three weeks before…

Thursday, 8 November 1984 – Worked hard today – rushed about – election count [to fill the controversially vacant VP External position] then Petra came over for dinner – stayed till quite late.

One thing led to another.

I was living in the resident tutor’s flat (that was basically two study bedrooms and the end of a corridor combined) on the ground floor of K Block Horwood; Petra’s room was very nearby (H Block I think).

Friday, 9 November 1984 – Union committee in morn and then busy afternoon – Ali’s [Ali Dabbs’s] birthday – all got drunk in union (after chasing assurance!!).

Saturday, 10 November 1984 – Went shopping in morning – went to office in the afternoon – Petra helped and came back for food and stayed late.

Sunday, 11 November 1984 – Rose late – went to office and worked in fairly leisurely style. Early night.

I have no idea what “chasing assurance!!” means – I can only guess that it was a Union Committee in joke at the time. Perhaps a John White-ism or a Hayward Burt-ism for trying to get University officials to commit to a course of action.

You might notice that I was putting in the hard yards – tending to work some (although not all) weekends. I’m sure Petra remembers, as does John White, that my catch phrase was:

I’m very busy!

(Janie might complain, 40 years later, that I still take on more than I should and still bark, “I’m very busy!” with alarming regularity.)

Who? Me? Trying not to look busy, Autumn 2024

John Martyn Gig, Keele SU Ballroom, 12 November 1984

Monday, 12 November 1984 -Busyish day – did quite a lot of work – meetings etc. Went to see John Martyn in evening – latish night.

For some reason, I still have the flyer for that concert. Perhaps it amused me then, as it does now. Perhaps I kept it because I was very keen to see John Martyn again (having seen what was, to me, a less memorable gig of his in October 1981). Or perhaps I’d simply used that piece of paper as a place marker in something I ended up keeping.

Well done Pady Jalali for getting John Martyn at a good price and enabling Keele folk to see him for less than half the price of anywhere else. And well done Pady for emphasising that pricing point. The messaging is SO YOU.

I’m listening to some John Martyn while writing this piece, to get me in the mood.

He played quite a lot of stuff from his more recent albums, not least Sapphire which he was releasing in conjunction with the tour. But he also played a lot from his canon. I remember getting very excited when he played this favourite of mine:

The following video was recorded less than two weeks after the Keele gig, with the addition of percussionists who weren’t there at Keele but with Foss Patterson who was at our gig on keyboards and backing vocals:

If the first piece reminds you a bit of Nick Drake and the second one reminds you a bit of Phil Collins, you’re not far wrong. John Martyn was a bit of a style magpie (in a good way), who hung out with, amongst many others, Nick Drake in the early 1970s and Phil Collins in the early 1980s.

I remember the gig being rather different from my expectation (my knowledge of him was stuck in the 1970s) but I still remember very much enjoying that gig.

In my vague memory Petra was with me at that gig, but that might be a false memory. The diary is silent on that point.

Back To Reality…With A Bit Of A Bump

Tuesday, 13 November 1984 – Not feeling at all good today – went home (sent home in afternoon). Much fuss made and Liza [O’Connor] came over in evening to cap it all.

Wednesday, 14 November 1984 – Pretty wretched day – Senate dragged on and on – not feeling too good – went home for an early night.

Thursday, 15 November 1984 – Hard day – work – met solicitor [John Cheetham] in afternoon. Went to Leo [Hamburger] & Sarah’s party in evening – Petra came back after.

Although more than 18 months had passed since my dalliance with mononucleosis (glandular fever)...

Isolation, “Socially-Distant” Visits, Steroids, Peculiar Reading Matter & Strange Happenings: A Week In The Keele Health Centre With Glandular Fever, Mid February 1983

…I was still prone to the occasional “feel absolutely terrible for no apparent reason” spell. Actually, reviewing my diaries 40 years on, I think I can observe a pattern, suggesting that a late night after a bit too much to drink usually preceded such a day or two. I can certainly vouch for the fact that, 40 years on, it only needs to be “a tiny bit too much” drink the night before to make a mess of the next day.

I love the phrases “went home (sent home…)” and “much fuss made”. I don’t really remember it, but I can imagine Kate (now Susan) Fricker and Pady Jalali going into matronly mode, even in their young adulthood. John White would have supported them. Petra too, no doubt.

The home visit from Liza O’Connor (my ex from 82/83)…

Culture & Action At Keele, Late October 1982

…probably did not go particularly well. I cannot imagine that it was anything other than a coincidence that Liza was around to pop in on such a day. I’m pretty sure she was in Manchester studying that term, so presumably had briefly come home (to The Sneyd Arms) for some reason and tracked me down to my new bijou pad. “As if my life isn’t getting complicated enough”…was probably the subtext of my phrase, “to cap it all”.

For the Wednesday, “Senate dragged on and on” and “not feeling too good” gives me a clears sense of how I felt sitting there that afternoon. Kate Fricker had campaigned hard with the University to allow me to be the second SU representative on Policy Staffing & Development (PS&D) committee, which was the place where all the decisions tended to be made. Senate was more of a “rubber stamp or posturing” chamber for most matters…certainly those which had already been discussed in detail and approved by PS&D. For that reason, when PS&D approved items came around at Senate, my heart tended to sink even at the best of times if someone (usually a Professor who had lost a debate at PS&D) went over old ground, loquaciously, for a second and futile time at Senate.

Filibuster, anyone?

The Tommy & Ralph saga was never too far away that term.

A Week To Forget (Apart From Four Quirky Music Acts), Culminating In A Meeting To Regret: Tommy & Ralph’s Appeal To A Students’ Union EGM, 17 To 25 October 1984

The solicitor visit on Thursday 15th November would have been about the impending Employment Tribunal, scheduled for mid to late December. John Cheetham was the University solicitor – Kate and I had felt unconfident with the SU solicitor who had no real experience of employment tribunals. The registrar, David Cohen, had been helpful in allowing us use of the University solicitors for this purpose. He also took great pains to remind us, just in case it needed pointing out, that we couldn’t use John Cheetham for anything disputatious between the Students’ Union and the University.

“For the avoidance of doubt…” David Cohen 1960s COPYRIGHT KEELE UNIVERSITY

John Cheetham was a very good solicitor and looked after us sympathetically as well as professionally. He also, I clearly remember, was very cognisant of the mental strain that Tommy and Ralph were undergoing and went easy on them…which is more than can be said for Derek Bamford of NUPE’s approach to us…but that’s another story for another time.

As an avid Private Eye reader (back then and still), I was constantly amused by John Cheetham’s name, as a solicitor. He would surely have fitted in well at Private Eye’s fictitious law firm: Sue, Grabbit and Runne.

Leo Hamburger and Sarah’s party. I remember Leo well and recall keeping in touch with him for a while after Keele. He was very helpful in the Education & Welfare office, although he didn’t have a formal role in the way that Petra and Annalisa did. But it was my style to have a team of helpful people. As much as anything else, if the welfare office was to be staffed most of the time during office hours, I needed volunteers to do that while I was in meetings half the day.

I have managed to track down Petra prior to writing this article but have not yet tried to contact Leo, but I shall do so. I hope one of them will remember who Sarah was in this context. Possibly Sarah Hetherington who went on to marry Andrew Moran? Or possibly another Sarah.

Unfortunately we have no photographs from student parties such as Leo and Sarah’s from the mid 1980s. Photography had only just been invented and certainly wasn’t intended for such events back then.

But no matter – I have asked DeepAI to depict an appropriate scene and it has done a grand job of it:

Interesting that DeepAI depicts “UK students partying in a room in the mid 1980s” with mostly food and just a few signs of drink. My recollection, albeit fuzzy, is that it was much the other way around.

Was It All UGMs, Rent Strikes & Discos In Late October & Early November 1984?

Mark Ellicott in his capacity as UGM speaker

No, it wasn’t ALL about those things, but my diaries and the thrust of the early November issue of Concourse suggest that those aspects of student life were quite central, at least around the union.

Late October UGM

If you are geeky enough to want to read about the late October UGM in excruciating detail, I have good news for you; I was geeky enough to upload all three columns so you can click the links and read them:

The aspect I want to share with all readers, though, is the cartoon of Mark Ellicott accompanying that article, which reminded me of the headline photograph and made me laugh 40 years on:

Late October Rent Strike / Rent Delay

I was also amused to read Concourses take on the conclusion of the rent strike / rent delay, which had taken up a fair chunk of our October time.

A week before the end of October, I had signalled in a Concourse newssheet and Pub Circ that we had achieved our goals in pressurising the University into sorting out the accommodation problems and advised students to settle up before the end of the month to avoid late payment penalties.

Not many readers will be surprised to learn that a great many students left it until the last afternoon (31 October) to turn up at the finance office with their cheques.

Naturally, I was kinda busy that afternoon, so it seems that John White (Union Secretary) picked up this particular mantle. The following Concourse piece from early November describes the end game of this episode:

Here are the extracts from my diary for those last few days of October:

Monday 29 October 1984 – Hard day in office plus UGM in evening – had a late night.

Tuesday, 30 October 1984 – Busy day in the office – working hard etc. Worked late – UC, McDonald’s. Earlyish night.

Wednesday, 31 October 1984 – busy day – office/PSD [Policy, Staffing & Development Committee] etc. Did Union disco [with John White] in the evening.

Ah, so John & I were still talking to each other at the end of that fraught day. Of course we were. We’re still talking to each other forty years on. John’s comment on the above article, when I zapped it over to him ahead of writing this piece:

[That article] did make me smile and that’s the way industrial relations should be conducted

Doing Union Discos With John White After Work

I explained how we ended up DJ-ing a lot in an earlier article:

“John White The Only One Dancing”, Learning How To Do The Keele SU Disco And Other Late August 1984 Happenings

In short, Social Committee in previous years had paid people to DJ at Union discos, but Pady Jalali (our Social Secretary) felt that people would volunteer to DJ discos. John & I agreed to do any discos that lacked a volunteer until those who wanted to DJ union discos saw sense. My diaries tell me that the late October/early November period was “peak disco” for me and John – three in one week including the 31 October disco.

Thursday 1 November 1984 – Busy day in office over grievance and discipline. In evening went to Mel’s [Melissa Oliveck’s] party which was good.

Friday 2 November 1984 – Very busy day in the office. Came down to the union after dinner – ended up doing disco with John Boy.

Saturday, 3 November 1984 – Busyish day – shopping then in office. Ali [Dabbs] came back for a while – then called out to do disco (again!!).

Sunday, 4 November 1984 – Rose quite late – went over to Annalisa’s [de Mercur] for lunch – very pleasant – had an early night (deserved).

Monday, 5 November 1984 – Worked quite hard today – went to Constitutional Committee in evening – easyish evening.

Tuesday, 6 November 1984 – busy day in the office – drinks with VC etc. early evening -> Stoke to meet Kathy [Kathy Barlow, my opposite number at North Staffs Poly] et.al.

Wednesday, 7 November 1984 – Very busy day with meetings etc. Had a fairly easy evening for a change.

Busy days really were busy days. It might be that my allergy to sitting on committees developed in my union sabbatical year, as I probably attended a lifetime’s worth of them in the space of one year. Here’s an extract from my appointments diary that week:

John was also working very hard during the days. The 62 year old me finds it hard to imagine how the 22 year old me had the energy to do all of those things, including stints of highly active DJ-ing several evenings after work.

Still got the moves…sort of…

Which reminds me. That week in 1984, Ronald Reagan got re-elected as US President by a landslide. I wonder why that fact comes to my mind 40 years on?

Anyway, after that first week of November 1984, some aspects of my life started taking different twists and turns. The next episode will elucidate.