Month: April 1985

Three Weeks Of Easter Holidays, London & Keele, 1985

Having run myself down in the early spring of 1985, doing the Keele Students’ Union sabbatical thing, I took a bit of a break during the Easter holidays and then returned to Keele for a relatively calm period before the storm of my final term.

“Holy Week” & Passover Resting/Convalescing At My Parents House

Of course Holy Week had no meaning in my family, but the week or so in question was the run up to Easter and the Easter weekend. It coincided with Pesach (Passover) that year.

Monday 1 April 1985 – Lazy day – went shops – stayed in mainly taping, reading and feeling low.

Tuesday to April 1985 – Lazy day in – taped, read etc – feeling grotty and lazy. Stayed in evening also.

Image borrowed from Amazon, where this book can be procured.

Strangely, although the diary is silent on this matter, I very clearly remember reading Something Happened by Joseph Heller during that particular Easter break. It didn’t cheer me up, but I remember finding the book jaw-droppingly good. I had loved Catch 22 and had not expected to be that impressed by Heller’s so-called difficult second novel. Something Happened is a much under-rated classic in my opinion, but I digress.

Wednesday 3 April 1985 – Went to town [West End of London] today – went Newman Harris & Co – Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] for lunch – shopped etc. Lazy evening in.

Thursday 4 April 1985 – Went to Edwina [Green, doctor] in morning. Went to Dad’s shop in the afternoon and had an easy evening in.

Friday, 5 April 1985 – Did little today – went for a [traditional bank holiday, with Dad] walk etc. Had a nice dinner and watched TV etc. – lazy day.

Saturday, 6 April 1985 – Easy day – did some taping etc – went to seder that evening with Grandma Jenny. Very pleasant evening.

Sunday 7 April 1985 – Lazy day – nice lunch – went to Briegals [Jacquie, Len, Hilary & Mark] afternoon and evening – had a nice time there.

I’m trying to remember whether the Briegals were still in Wembley at that time (I think so) or had yet drifted further south to Swiss Cottage. Mark will no doubt let me know. Were smoked and pickled fishes involved? It’s hard to imagine that they weren’t, but 1985 was before the competitive aspect of herring feasting had been formalised.

Pickled Herring Of The Year Competition and Other Delights, 12 October 2016

Monday, 8 April 1985 – rose quite late. Had a nice lunch. Went to Auntie Frances [Harris] in the afternoon. Lazy evening in on phone and in front of box.

No doubt Angela, Vivienne & John (Kessler) will also have been there – this picture is of the former two a few years earlier in Auntie Frances’s flat:

Returning To Keele & Preparing For The New Term

Tuesday, 9 April 1985 – rose quite early – Winfred [May – neighbour & Mum’s friend] came over for lunch. Petra [Wilson] came over – returned to Keele – had dinner and early night.

That will have been the first time that my parents encountered Petra. I recall that dad was quite taken with her and that mum didn’t have a clue that we were going out with each other, probably because mum was so weird still about that sort of thing. Mum – I was 22 years old FFS.

Wednesday 10 April 1985 – rose late – lazed around. Went shopping in afternoon. Met Ashley [Fletcher] had a drink and stayed in. Lazy evening.

Thank goodness. Another Ashley mention to keep Ashley happy.

Thursday, 11 April 1985 – rose early – Union Committee in morning – lazy afternoon – went to union. Had a drink with John [White] in evening and then home for dinner, etc.

Friday, 12 April 1985 – Lazy-ish morning. Rose late. Had lunch – went SC – busy afternoon and evening – had nice meal etc.

If any of you Keele alum detectives can fathom what SC means in this context, please help me out. I am clueless.

Saturday 13 April 1985 – rose quite early went to Chester for the day – lunch – Toy Museum – drinks etc. Stayed in evening had a nice dinner etc.

I do remember an enjoyable day trip to Chester with petra, but I don’t in truth remember the Toy Museum there. Perhaps the place wasn’t all that memorable as it permanently closed down some years ago, as I write 40 years on.

Sunday, 14 April 1985 – Rose quite late had nice food went for a walk, etc. Big meal in the evening – did little. Nice day.

Monday 15 April 1985 – More or less worked all day – sorted some things out. Petra and I went for a very nice walk after. Lovely evening.

Tuesday, 16 April 1985 – Took day off – went Mainwaring. Shops – did some work etc. Ashley popped in. Lazy evening very pleasant.

Don’t panic – The Mainwaring Arms is still there in Whitmore.

Picture borrowed from the Google Review – click here or the picture to visit it.

I don’t find it extraordinary that my mood was clearly much better when recuperating at Keele in Petra’s company, compared with convalescing at my parents’ place. But what I do find interesting is how clearly the changed emotions ring out (and how well my memory can be triggered forty years later) by so few words in my diary entries.

Wednesday, 17 April 1985 – Easyish day in office – union committee morning – Petra went home – easy evening – walked with Annalisa early eve, stayed in evening, early night.

Thursday, 18 April 1985 – Fairly light day in office today – did a little work in the evening. Ashley and Co came around – cooked them a meal etc.

Friday, 19 April 1985 – Busyish day at work getting odds and ends done. Went over to Kate’s in the evening – got drunk and stayed late.

Saturday 20th of April 1985 – Rose late – shopped with Kate – did a little work and then did disco [with John White] in evening.

Sunday 21 April 1985 – Stayed in most of the day – saw Kate and Annalisa for a while and did work on birth control leaflet.

I really must get around to putting up some more “John & Ian Disco Playlists” after the success of the Bust Fund Disco one. Watch this space.

A 1984/1985 Keele Students’ Union Bust Fund Disco Playlist

Interesting that, in April, I was still referring to the publication that became “Sexplanations” as a birth control leaflet, as it became more than that between April and its publication in June. Watch this space for that too.

Addendum To Jilly Black’s Spring 1985 Visit To Keele: The Great Tampon Controversy

Photo by TitiNicola, CC BY-SA 4.0.

I didn’t expect controversy to arise from my article covering late March 1985, including Jilly Black’s visit to Keele:

Controversial? Moi?

But it did.

Jilly chimed in with this:

…one thing I do remember about a visit to Keele was… round to someone’s house…going into the kitchen for supper and being somewhat disturbed by the fact someone was sitting at the table with just a towel on. Do you remember who that might have been? Thank you anyway for another trip down memory lane. I remember our having an argument about what size of tampons should go in the machines in the women’s toilets at the university as well. What a selective memory I seem to have!

I suggested to Jilly that the venue was Ashley Fletcher’s place and that “towel man” was almost certainly Simon Legg, one of Ashley’s flatmates at that time. Simon might confirm or deny.

I then, perhaps foolishly, asked Jilly to elaborate about the great tampon debate. The following diatribe came:

Now, as far as the tampon size argument is concerned, I’m now trying to remember if Annalisa [de Mercur] was the one to support me in the argument that we had. Anyway, it was the year when you were running the student union or similar (please forgive my lack of specific information, as I didn’t keep diaries like yours unfortunately) but I do remember you were involved in deciding what tampon machine would go into the ladies loo, and, together with (I think) Annalisa, I was quite indignant over your choice of tampon size to go in the machine, as this had been made without suitable consumer experience of the selected product, and we were both of the opinion that your judgment on this occasion might not be so well appreciated by the eventual product users. If I’m not wrong, it seems that you took an executive decision and decided to stock the tampons you liked the most in the facilities without further consultation or discussion, and I frankly wonder to this day how it might have affected the overall wellbeing of those women who weren’t fortunate enough to make their own informed choices at the time.

I, personal care product expert, early 1980s

In my own defence here, I cannot imagine that I ever made a decision about the products to be supplied in the women’s (or indeed anyone’s) lavatories.

This debate feels to me, like the work of wind-up merchants, which might well have included Ashley, Simon and, if I’m not mistaken, Helen Ross, who also shared a flat with Ashley. I don’t think Annalisa was there that evening.

I can certainly imagine all three of them: Ashley, Simon and Helen, wickedly confirming: “oh yes, Ian makes all of those personal care decisions in the union, with reckless abandon and no regard for the opinions of the service users”.

I can also imagine that any attempt at denial by me would have been systematically refuted by the others as a weak attempt by me to cover my dictatorial tracks in the matter of personal care products.

Ashley: “Wind-up merchant? Do I look like a wind-up merchant?”

But Jilly’s strange memory piece raises a genuine question in my mind. Was there ACTUALLY an issue with regard to a mismatch between the products that students wanted and the products that were supplied in the Student’s Union loos? The truth of the matter, of course, was that the decisions about the specific mix of products in the machines would have come from the commercial provider. The economist in me believes that such a provider should, by dint of simple sales data, be able to provide a near optimal mix of products to maximise sales and satisfy demand. I realise that Ashley might now be laughing his head off while waving a copy of Careless Talk at me.

Anyway, putting politics and economics to one side, I would genuinely be interested to know whether or not Keele students from that era (or indeed any other era) actually felt that the vending machines were dispensing the wrong menstrual products.

As the Rolling Stones put it on the album Let It Bleed, “you can’t always get what you want”.