May 1985 – Ian Louis Harris

I have extracted a few good pages from the May 1985 edition of Concourse. By that time, my Education and Welfare sabbatical year was coming to an end, so the paper was interested in ushering in the new and ushering out the old. Hold the front page…

Concourse May 1985 Page 1 — Superb picture of John White on the front page, the main (nay only) reason I have uploaded this page

There had been some sort of hoo-ha about the FY exams that Easter, so it seems that I got busy and Margaret Gordon (a lovely lass, I wonder what became of her?) interviewed me about it:

Concourse May 1985 Page 4 — FY stands for Foundation Year, the late lamented “try a bit of everything” course, sadly no longer taught at Keele. Gresham College is perhaps the closest thing to it.

I like the next two pages – a double page spread on the new sabbaticals. Nice to still have pictures of faces I remember. Hayward Burt’s comments on my style raised a smile with me.

Concourse May 1985 Page 13 — I don’t think the term “stress head” had been invented back then, not least because, if it had existed, I think that is exactly the term Hayward would have used to describe me.

I love this little article about John White, Kate Fricker and the Students’ Union cleaners. John looks like a rabbit startled by headlights in the picture. Little did he know that he would subsequently become seasoned for photo shoots, such as his gig as the poster boy for Food Retailer Monthly magazine (or whatever it was called, why can’t I remember?)

Concourse May 1985 Page 14 — Top tank top, John.

Finally the following review of the UGM. These days, the (anonymous) author of this piece would surely not get away with the ethno-physiognomy remark made about me, especially in that context. Where was editor Krista Cowman’s red pen when I needed it? Surely the UGM and Concourse should have been safe space from such comments for people like me? Is it too late for me to seek redress?

Strangely, I have no recollection whatsoever of reading that comment before, although I must have read it, so it must have seemed like water of a duck’s par for the course back then.

A DALL-E image based on my 20 word description of our Keele scene

I have written a few times about John White’s and my exploits as DJs in the Keele Students’ Union Ballroom throughout our sabbatical year 1984/85. For the initial story, which explains how we ended up as DJs that year click here or below:

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

Over the last few months, forty years after the events, John and I have been corresponding occasionally about those discos and the music we played. Our favourite type of gig was our “60s soul discos”, which I shall write up later/separately. We had no trouble agreeing playlist material for those as we both remember our own favourites and the results of our crate digging.

I have already written up and published a playlist of the sort of material we would play at Bust Fund Discos – click here.

But what of the more regular type of disco in the ballroom? There our memories took slightly different paths. John’s strongest memories were of his favourites from the early 1980s, that he would regularly want to play at those discos regardless of whether or not students wanted to dance to the music. There was a reason why the Geordie Mag symbolised John as “the only one dancing” sometimes – especially the early stage of the discos, before the main bar closed, when there would be few punters anyway.

My memory took me more to tunes that I remember specifically from around our sabbatical year that would often be requested by attendees and that I felt would fill the dance floor. I believe the modern parlance is “bangers”, m’lud.

Hence, two YouTube music playlists below, neither of which represent a complete disco set, but from a combination of which 1984/1985 John White & Ian Harris discos would mostly have comprised. The first is about four hours long, the around second half that length. Click either the description link or the picture below it for the playlist.

Keele SU Disco, Early To Mid 1980s, John White & Ian Harris DJ Mix;

Keele Students’ Union Disco 1984/1985 Dance Floor Fillers.

John & I would love to hear some student memories or thoughts on these playlists. Not only from students who were around at that time but from more recent or current Keelies. I wonder whether you could fill the SU dance floor with any of these grooves now? If we get lots of belated requests, I might even make up a fresh playlist based on requests!

Below, a small sample of tracks from the above playlists in video form. Enjoy.