June 1985 – Ian Louis Harris

We Interrupt Keele Festival Week To Dice With Death On A Strindberg Theatre Trip To London, 28 June 1985

Petra: “I wonder if someone here does advanced driver courses?”

The appointment diary reads “day off” in big letters, but I latterly inserted:

11:00 Day Nursery

Despite the fact that my term of office was over, I was still taking my students’ union duties very seriously and the meeting will have taken a good couple of hours – I have written about my experience of such a meeting previously:

Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Ronnie Frankenberg & The Keele Day Nursery Nurses But Were Afraid To Ask – Plus Other Tales From The End of Spring Term 1985

As a result, Petra and I set off from Keele for London a fair bit later than we had intended.

My personal diary entry skims over the details of this…

…but I remember the hair-raising aspects of this episode very clearly.

We took this trip in Petra’s car, as the idea was to have a Chinese meal in Soho’s Chinatown, see The Dance of Death at the Riverside Studios, and then return to Keele at night. That sort of round trip only makes sense in a car.

It also only really makes sense to do that sort of road trip if you allow plenty of time for the journeys and know your way around London by road. We were more than a little deficient in both of those regards.

Imagine the scene – Petra driving east along the Marylebone Road in Friday afternoon traffic, by which time we realised that we had not allowed enough time to eat before heading out to Hammersmith to see the play. I was trying to work out, by landmark and road sign, where we should turn off for Chinatown…or perhaps we now meant to turn off for Hammersmith…

…to be fair, my directions might have been less than perfect…to be equally fair, Petra’s knowledge of the road layout of the Marylebone Road must also have been less than perfect…

…but in truth, I couldn’t fathom then and certainly couldn’t fathom now how the next bit happened. We continued driving east along the Marylebone Road…on the wrong side of the dual carriageway.

I asked DeepAI to reimagine the scene for us. I did suggest that I should be depicted head down in the crash bracing position, but the technology wouldn’t depict that.

I think I adopted the crash bracing position. For sure I covered my eyes at least and no doubt expressed orally my terror. I vaguely remember Petra saying reassuring stuff like:

Don’t worry, don’t worry. It’ll be OK. I’ll get us out of this.

I think she must have manoeuvred across all of the lanes and turned right onto Judd Street, although how she managed to dodge all of the Friday rush hour traffic while doing that I can barely imagine.

I asked DeepAI at least to show me covering my eyes. Not much joy there. You’ll have to imagine the terrified gestures and sounds for yourselves. Still, thanks to DeepAI for the images

The irony of having diced with death ahead of going to see The Dance Of Death might have been wasted on me then, but it is not wasted on me now.

I also recall how bad the traffic was between Marylebone “Dice With Death” Road and The Riverside Hammersmith, such that we were cutting it fine ahead of seeing The Dance Of Death. But we did make it to the theatre in time and by gosh was it worth the trip and the trauma.

The Dance Of Death by August Strindberg, Riverside Studios

All we had forfeited was one day of Keele Festival week (and nearly our lives), but it transpires that the great Alan Bates gave up a Hollywood movie for the chance to play Edgar in this production. Here is a preview interview piece from The Standard:

Dance Bates Standard 17 May 1985, Fri Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

I had long wanted to see some Strindberg, having read plenty of it at school and then more during my working summers, when I tended to read plays voraciously while commuting to work. The opportunity to see Alan Bates opposite Frances de la Tour in a Strindberg play, albeit one I hadn’t read at that time, had been enticing to say the least.

Dance Of Death Promo Southall Gazette 17 May 1985, Fri Southall Gazette (Ealing, London, England) Newspapers.com

I don’t suppose I saw that advert in the Southall Gazette. I suspect I saw a review in The Guardian or The Observer.

Michael Radcliffe in the latter loved it:

Dance Ratcliffe Observer 02 Jun 1985, Sun The Observer (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Nicholas de Jongh in The Guardian seemed less sure but still positive:

Dance de Jongh Guardian 01 Jun 1985, Sat The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

John Barber in The Telegraph was not so sure about the play or the supporting cast, but waxed lyrical about Alan and Frances:

Dance Barber Telegraph 03 Jun 1985, Mon The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

That last article reminds me that the production we saw was The Dance Of Death Parts One & Two, barely expurgated, so it ran for a bum-numbing four hours.

That’s FOUR HOURS on those excruciating seats they had in The Riverside Studios back then.

Still, my review of The Dance Of Death was a one-worder:

Excellent

Petra and I will have arrived in Chinatown around midnight, by which time the choice of eateries was limited to say the least – I suspect the choice was either Yung’s or the notoriously and relentlessly rude Wong Kei.

Extravagantly, and wisely, I plugged for Yung’s, sparing us the indignities and lesser food of Wong Kei. Clearly I thought the meal at Yung’s was very nice as I described it as such in my diary.

I like the diary description “returned through the night” for the drive home, which was, as far as I can recall, relatively incident free.

So was it good manners or post traumatic stress related amnesia that made me miss out the details of the “driving the wrong way along the Marylebone Road” incident from my diary? It’s hard to recall my diary entry mindset, forty years on, although my memory of the incident remains very clear indeed.

Ringroad Finalists Revue, Keele University Students’ Union (KUSU), 27 June 1985

This image from Concourse, depicting a show several months earlier

A couple of weeks ago (May 2017) I wrote an Ogblog piece about my first forays into Ringroad Revue – click here. Quick as a flash, John Easom at “Keele Alumni Central” put Frank Dillon in touch with me, triggering e-mail exchanges, arrangements to meet up and of course a flood of more memories.

Frank wrote/asked:

I was particularly intrigued to learn that you are in possession of The Cornflake Box – or The Holy Grail as Olu Odunsi and I have dubbed it these past 30 years(!) or so.

Any chance you could scan me the contents?

The actual box (which I suppose I inherited from Frank in the summer of 1984) disintegrated during 1985 while it was living in my flat (K block Horwood). I think it was probably replaced by another similar box.

My collection of scripts is now in a file – a mixture of original hand-written scripts and photocopies – a fragment of the Holy Grail with some facsimile elements.

I don’t think that I even took the actual box with me…not that it was THE actual box any more, unless we accept that this particular Holy Grail of a Cornflake Box regenerated every few years – a bit like Dr Who…just more funny, less animated and with fewer enemies.

I suspect it will be autumn (2017) before I get space to take on the Ringroad File/Cornflake Box/Holy Grail Fragment for comprehensive scanning and sharing – otherwise I’ll be interrupting my current/future life by spending a disproportionate amount of time wallowing in the past…and that won’t do.

But I do have, already digitised, a recording of the Finalists Revue from 1985, which I have uploaded in two chunks (due to WordPress file size restrictions).

I cannot remember the name of everyone who appeared in the 1985 Finalists Revue – apologies to those whose names I only half remember or forget.

Frank was gone by then. Olu Odunsi was still around and was a delight to work with on the boards, including this show. John Bowen, who was on the research//academic staff, also joined with us for Ringroad that 1984/85 academic year and was similarly good news to have in the team.

Indeed the whole cast was fun and friendly. Dave Griffiths (who also wrote very good material) and three fabulous lasses, Jo, Jackie and (I think) Karen. Possibly there were others, but I think that’s it. Please help me to fill in the gaps if you are able, dear reader.

I have not re-listened to the recording in full myself yet, but I think the second half might be a tad better than the first half. The recording is poor as we had a microphone shortage, so some bits are less audible than others and some sketches sound a bit shouty.

I was pretty hopeless as a performer, really, but I think it was seen as a bit of a coup to have a union sabbatical on the Ringroad cast taking the pee out of union politics. I wrote little back then – my comedy writing was to blossom later, in the 1990s, at NewsRevue.

Enjoy the recording(s) below and please do comment.

Ringroad Finalists Revue 27 June1985 Part One of Two

Ringroad Finalists Revue 27 June1985 Part Two of Two

More Festival Week Stuff Including My Last Keele Students’ Union Ball, 25 to 27 June 1985

1985 Summer Ball image with grateful thanks to Andrew Macmillan

In many ways the things unsaid in my personal diary entries for that Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday are more interesting than the things said.

Allow me to transliterate those three days for you:

Tuesday 25 June 1985 – busy day – shopped – Ringroad rehearsal – popped over to Kate’s – had dinner – went to Pop Quiz – got drunk – Petra came over.

Wednesday 26th June 1985 – meetings etc – quite busy – dinner – Ball (including weak Ringroad!) – left about 2:30 am.

Thursday 27 June 1985 – meetings etc went to WPAR [if someone remembers what that was, please let me know] – hospital – cooked dinner – Ring wrote summer review – went down very well.

My appointments diary for the Tuesday shows that I had fully intended to play the festival week cricket match for the fourth year running, but became quite inundated with requests for meetings and gave up on the idea of one last go at the cricket.

Those readers who missed out on my Keele cricket (so-called) career can catch up with it through this King Cricket piece authored by Herbert Ackgrass with me appearing pseudonymously as Ged Ladd. It takes some gall to have one of your noms de plume write about another of your noms de plume, so clearly I have some gall:

Players (of the left) v Gentlemen (of the right) – match report + wagon wheel

But I digress.

The fact that we had a last-minute rescheduled Ringroad rehearsal suggest to me that the Ringroad show we performed at the Ball, which I described as weak, was a last minute idea, perhaps to fill a gap in the Ball schedule. We had a long-planned Summer Revue the next day and I think we needed to dredge the bottom of the Ringroad cornflake box of scripts to come up with a second show in as many days that wasn’t going to overlap.

I don’t remember much about the pop quiz on the Tuesday, but as I state that I “got drunk” rather than “won”, or “did well”, I think you can draw your own conclusions.

Frankly, I remembered little about the Summer Ball too. It is only fair to say that John White’s memory did no better. Interesting also that I didn’t note the names of the bands we saw – not even the headliners (Darts).

So I am truly grateful to Andrew Macmillan for supplying the headline image which helped bring back the memories.

One reason that I would not have thought Darts that exciting a pick is that I had seen them at an SU ball early in my Keele career. No doubt Pady chose them precisely because only a handful of us would have seen them at the Valentines Ball in 1981 – written up in this piece:

The Best Pot I Had In Five Years At Keele, i.e. The First Weekend I Tried Cooking In The F Block Lindsay Kitchen, 11 to 15 February 1981

You can hear/see some Darts in the above 1981 write up, but if that’s not enough for you, here’s another embedded video of that retro group. They were seriously retro, even when at their peak in the 1970s:

More interesting perhaps were the support acts. I remember being less impressed by The Higsons than I was by The Untouchables, but enjoying the sound of both.

The Untouchables were very much “John’s and my sort of thing”, with their Mod/Ska revival sound. I wonder whether Pady [Jalali] chose them for our last hurrah deliberately to please us. Forty years on, John [White] and I can ask Pady that question when we all meet up in late July.

I particularly remember liking The Untouchables version of a Northern Soul classic, I Spy For The FBI:

I love the parting remark in my diary, “left about 2:30 a.m.”.

And I had SO many meetings the next day, and THE Ringroad Summer Revue to perform. Did I make it?

Of course I did.

Perhaps WPAR is something to do with “womens group”, but I’m still none the wiser

Not only did I do all of that on the Thursday, but my diary reports that Petra and I visited recently run-over Ruth in hospital in amongst all of that too. I’m getting hot and bothered just thinking about it.

Some years ago I wrote up that Summer Ringroad Revue, my final Ringroad performance, including an audio recording of that show – here’s that write up:

Ringroad Finalists Revue, Keele University Students’ Union (KUSU), 27 June 1985

“Something’s Wrong” In The Keele Hall Salvin Room & I Am Keele’s “Bamber Gascoigne”, 19 to 24 June 1985

Bamber Gascoigne, image use permitted by the National Portrait Gallery

My diary entries for 19 June 1985 barely tell the story. I’d had a busy day of meetings, but the day was supposed to end in an enjoyable fashion, as Petra and I had been invited to an Overseas Students Reception in the Keele Hall Salvin Room, which we planned to follow up with a party/disco in less salubrious Lindsay – probably the Hexagon.

Well posh, the Salvin Room, this image borrowed from the Keele archive

Well posh, Keele Hall, as seen from the lakes

I remember a very relaxed atmosphere at the party – I knew many of the overseas students well from my Education & Welfare activities.

About an hour into the party – I’ll never forget this – Petra suddenly seemed very anxious and said:

I’ve got to go. Something’s wrong. I need to go back to my room.

I went with her, really not understanding her vexation. I don’t suppose she understood it at that moment. We soon got back to Petra’s Horwood block, H if I recall correctly, where one or two people were looking for her. Word had reached the block that Ruth had been run over by a car in town. Ruth was in A&E at North Staffs Royal Infirmary and had been asking for Petra.

I don’t much believe in extra sensory perception – I certainly don’t understand it -and am sceptical about the way that some people profess to have it – but for sure Petra profoundly sensed something that evening in Keele Hall.

Anyway, we jumped into Petra’s car and headed for the hospital.

Jonathan Hutchins / North Staffordshire Royal Infirmary – from Wikimedia Commons CC 2.0

The staff at the hospital were very nice to us. They explained to us that Ruth had suffered some significant fractures and that there was a fair bit of superficial injury to her face which looked worse than it was. Would we like to go in to the observation ward now?

Petra said yes. Squeamish back then as indeed I am now, I said that I would hold back for the time being.

Two or three minutes later, one of the nurses came out to inform me that Petra had fainted at the sight of Ruth and was recovering on a spare bed in the observation ward. Would I like to go in and see the pair of them?

Do you have another spare bed in there?

I asked, instinctively. Perhaps it was the wrong moment for comedy, but there was also veracity in my question.

Actually I did go in to the ward and understood why the events of the preceding hour or so, not least “the big reveal” of entering that small ward, had been so upsetting for Petra. She was a very close friend to Ruth and they are still very much in touch with one another, as I understand it, 40 years on.

My diary entries for the following few weeks have daily visits to see Ruth, apart from a few days when Petra and I were apart (when Petra would have visited without me) or when Petra and I were away from North Staffs together.

Wednesday, 19 June 1985 office – union committee meetings – overseas student reception – heard Ruth had been run over – went to hospital – got back late.

Thursday, 20 June 1985 – Rose early Leisuregames lunch – then went around with Petra to hospital etc – dinner after.

Friday 21 June 1985 – busy sorting out things for Ruth with Petra etc. Had Chinese meal at Hanley Garden.

Saturday, 22 June 1985 – got up quite early. Went home to visit mum and dad.

Sunday, 23 June 1985 – moved belongings around – had lunch. Left [for Keele] quite early – had dinner – Petra came over.

Monday 24 June 1985 – Rose quite late – did university challenge heat (compere) – had dinner with Petra and Ruth’s mum.

Gosh, yes, I remember being “Keele’s very own Bamber Gascoigne, just for one day”, doing the University Challenge teams selection heats in the ballroom that Monday. It was one of the first activities in Festival Week that year and I took the job of compering it very seriously.

The 1982 team – my contemporaries I suppose – picture borrowed from the Keele Archive

I especially remember all the effort I put in on the preceding days, including the couple of days I spent visiting my parents, going through the huge wad of questions that the Granada TV people had sent through to help with those heats. I tried to select collections of questions that I thought would be fairest and best help separate the Keele quizzing wheat from the Keele quizzing chaff.

I must admit I find it hard to think about University Challenge “in our day” without thinking of The Young Ones episode in which the anarchic quartet from Scumbag College take on a bunch of infeasibly posh students from Footlights College Oxbridge. Here’s a link to that episode on BBC iPlayer – you know you want to peek at it.

In the next episode of this forty years on series, I’ll be writing up, amongst other things, the Students’ Union Summer Ball, which took place a couple of days after the University Challenge heats. I need your help, dear readers…

…SO…

…fingers on buzzers and no conferring, here is your starter for 10:

Which act headlined at the Keele Students’ Union Ball on 26 June 1985?

And, your bonus questions for five points each:

Name the support acts…

…(Ringroad doesn’t count as a support act).

Answers in the comments or by private message please.

Out Of Office But Not Quite Yet Out Of Time At Keele, Mid June 1985

With thanks to Mark Ellicott, who captured the historic moment at which I symbolically handed the keys to the Education & Welfare Office to Hayward Burt.

10 June 1985 was the day of the last UGM of the academic year and the official end of my sabbatical year of office as Education & Welfare officer. Not that the official ending seemed to reduce the number of meetings and things I attended for the next few weeks. We sabbaticals in particular undertook quite a substantial “handover”, which we hadn’t received with such gusto from our predecessors but which we felt we should do for our successors.

I have previously written up the “Hackgrass Reveal” story, which dominated the early part of that historic day:

Hackgrass Reveal in Pub Circ, Keele, 10 June 1985

I have also previously written up some sort of spoof Union Committee meeting we held after a wet lunch that day:

After The Hackgrass Reveal…Later That Same Day…A Strange Sort of Committee Meeting, 10 June 1985

My appointments diary tells a slightly maudlin tale, with the entry “UGM, The End” on that day:

My personal diary sort-of covered the day…

Monday 10 June 1985 – last day officially in office – did little – “union committee meeting” for awhile – then somewhat chaotic last UG M – drink after etc. Very late night.

…although it failed to mention that I was awarded life membership of the Keele Students’ Union at that UGM. I was given a card the following day to prove it. Very proud of that card I am, such that I carried it around with me at all times for years. It now looks like this:

Like my face, my life membership card has seen better days. 40 years is a long time.

I always knew I had something in common with Nelson Mandela, but in truth had forgotten, until I found this article in the Sentinel while looking for something else, that Nelson & I both had life membership of UKSU conferred upon us that night:

Nelson gets life on 10 June 1985 15 Jun 1985, Sat Evening Sentinel (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England) Newspapers.com

Here’s the text from my personal diary for the next week or so:

Tuesday, 11 June 1985 – Rose late – residential services in afternoon etc – had dinner with Petra.

Wednesday, 12 June 1985 – busy day – meetings etc – celebrated after Senate – had dinner with Petra.

Thursday, 13 June 1985 – meetings – in office most of the day – had an easy evening [Strangely, the appointments diary says that I did the Bust Fund Disco that night. I expect the appointments diary is right and the memory at the time I wrote up that week was wrong.

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

Friday, 14 June 1985 – meetings, office etc. Cooked dinner for Petra, Ruth and [Graham] Pitt.

Saturday, 15 June 1985 – lazyish day – shopped etc – popped over to Pitt’s – went to Jackie Wong’s for dinner.

Sunday, 16 June 1985 – Rose late/lazy day –brekker etc. Cooked Petra dinner later.

Monday, 17 June 1985 – went to Derbyshire for day with June – peak/picnic etc. dinner. Got back late – Petra came round after.

I have very happy memories of the day June Aitken (the Keele Student’s Union administrator extraordinaire) took us outgoing sabbaticals (me, Kate, John & Pady) to the Peak District, for a day of picnicking and walking.

It was a truly special and memorable day – I am so irritated that I didn’t take a camera and a roll of film that day. I fell in love with the Peak District that day and visited it many times since – especially in the late 1980s and early 1990s – the following photo from 1990:

Tuesday, 18 June 1985 – meetings etc – Ringroad rehearsal – Petra cooked dinner later.

The next day…something significant happened. I’ll write up that story and its aftermath next time.

After The Hackgrass Reveal…Later That Same Day…A Strange Sort of Committee Meeting, 10 June 1985

Hackgrass Reveal in Pub Circ, Keele, 10 June 1985

On top of my Hackgrass reveal antics on our last morning in office, it seems we held some sort of bogus committee meeting later in the afternoon. More a symposium than a mere meeting, by the looks of it.

It looks as though I completed the minutes that December, ahead of our January 1986 appearance at the UGM I shouldn’t wonder, so I’ll publish the typed version at that date. The hand-written version that follows must have been part-written on the day and then concluded later.

Looks as though my Daily Mail rebuttal might have been around the same time.

Experts at handwriting analysis forensics might be able to work out exactly what went on. John White – I suggest you might choose not to apply for this role, if your attempt at the Hackgrass cypher is anything to go by.

Hackgrass Reveal in Pub Circ, Keele, 10 June 1985

When signing out Hackgrass from Concourse in February 1985, I left my name hidden in a not very complex code of initials in the final sentence of that piece.Hackgrass Signs Out, Concourse The Juicy Bits, February 1985 Part Two

Hackgrass Signs Out, Concourse The Juicy Bits, February 1985 Part Two

Most of my fellow committee members didn’t know that I was Hackgrass. Indeed the only person on the committee who did know was Pete Wild, as the only people still at Keele who did know my identity were my remaining former Barnes L54 flatmates (hence Pete), Petra Wilson and Annalisa de Mercur.

For the last day of our office as sabbaticals, I wrote a final Hackgrass one-pager and revealed myself to the lovely Pat Borsky in the print room. (As Hackgrass, I mean; please retain some decorum and concentrate, dear reader). Pat agreed to print the one-pager as a publicity circular (pub. circ.) special and the rest is history.

The one-pager caused more than a bit of a stir that day in students’ union circles. I thought best to lie low in my office.

Soon enough, John White plonked himself in my office with pub. circ. and a copy of the February Concourse, saying that he wanted to break the code.

I said that I didn’t much care who Hackgrass was and that I wanted to finish off some work, as I was still very busy.

John laboured with the puzzle for some time in my office, concocting some highly convoluted theories such as:

a=1…z=26, reverse the number series and rework the letters

Once I got irritated enough, I suggested to John that whoever Hackgrass was, he or she probably wasn’t that sophisticated a cipher-wright, so John might be better off trying something really simple like the initial letters of the words in the sentence.

About 10 seconds later, I received an unrepeatable (indeed forgettable) stream of invective from John. I have forgiven him for the invective and I believe he has forgiven me for keeping my identity as Hackgrass a secret during our sabbatical year.

Post script – John White has left an extensive comment on the above few paragraphs, but for reasons known only to himself (perhaps cognitive dissonance between a need to vent his spleen in public while simultaneously hoping no-one will find and read the venting) has posted the comment on a different posting – click here to read both posting and comment.

In all the excitement, I don’t seem to have kept a copy of the printed pub. circ. itself, but I do have the original text, a scan of which follows.

Having A Ball Towards the End Of My Keele Students’ Union Term Of Office, Late May To Early June 1985

My appointments diary remained ridiculously full of meetings right up until my term of office ended…and indeed for a while after it ended doing handover.

This article covers the two weeks ahead of the final day of our term of office.

Tuesday 28 May 1985 – rushed today with interviews, meetings etc etc. Cooked Petra some food in evening.

Wednesday. 29 May 1985 – busy in meetings all day – worked late. Cooked Annalisa a meal in evening.

Thursday, 30 May 1985 meetings all day – including NUPE over staff. Petra [cooked me a] meal in evening.

Friday 31 May 1985 – very busy day – hassled etc. Made Petra a meal late.

Saturday one June 1985 – Rose fairly early – went shopping (proper). Worked after. Cooked Petra meal

Sunday to June 1985 – Rose quite early – went to office for most of day – saw Petra later.

The question of who cooked whom dinner seems to have been my main personal diary concern that week.

Coincidentally, forty years on, Janie is cooking a pork stroganoff this evening of a very similar specification to the “strog” I used to cook back then. Obviously ingredients such as “shitake mushrooms” hadn’t been invented in 1985 and “three kinds of mustard” is at least two kinds more than I would have mustered back then, but still. We have no pictures of the food from 1985, as taking pictures of food hadn’t been invented. So here is a picture of the 2025 strog in the making:

Digression over – let’s move on to week two.

OK, I’ve heard you – you can’t read that diary page. Here’s a transcript:

Monday, 3 June 1985 – rushed today – meetings etc. Constitutional committee etc in evening – got back quite late.

Tuesday 4 June 1985 – choc-a-block today – meetings etc till late – cooked Petra a late meal.

Wednesday, 5 June 1985 – busy day – Union Committee, Ringroad meeting. Easyish evening at home – Petra came over.

Thursday, 6 June 1985 – worked hard & late today – Petra exams – made her grub – early night.

Friday, 7 June 1985 – busy day in office – not feeling too good. Cooked Petra meal in evening – stayed in.

Saturday, 8 June 1985 – lazy day – rose late – went shopping – had theatre supper around Having A Ball – very nice evening.

Sunday, 9 June 1985 – got up late had breakfast went to office for a while. Went to Kate’s for dinner.

Ah yes, Having A Ball at the Theatre Royal Hanley.

I’m glad that Petra and I had a pleasant evening. My memory of the play & production itself was of a very corny comedy, which was, in truth, not to my taste. Nor Petra’s, I should imagine, but we clearly enjoyed the “end of exams/end of tough week” escapism of it. I do especially remember thinking that the “having a ball” pun about being in a vasectomy clinic started to grind very quickly and was used far too many times.

I wonder if I might find a review of the production we saw…

…yup, from Newcastle a few days later. The critic’s view from 1985 concurs with my memory forty years on:

Ball Northern Echo Mortimer 11 Jun 1985, Tue The Northern Echo (Yorkshire ed.) (Darlington, Durham, England) Newspapers.com

Sexplanations: Keele Students’ Union Guide To Birth Control & Related Issues – Conceived Autumn 1984, Born Early June 1985

With thanks to cartoonist Paul Wood and Private Eye for their kind permission to use Paul’s image, published in Eye Issue 1636, November 2024.

When I spotted the above cartoon in Private Eye, it brought back a flood of memories about the conception, in Autumn 1984, of the publication that we named “Sexplanations”.

The unfunny part of this story is the running battle I was facing, as Education & Welfare Officer, with those pockets of Keele culture that did not want any information on “Birth Control and Related Issues” displayed and distributed by my office in the Students’ Union. My predecessor had bowed to the pressure of objections to information leaflets on the topic by abstaining from displaying any. I felt it was vitally important to provide information to students and was prepared to take on the issue.

My attempted compromise with the naysayers was to display the better of the supposedly controversial third party leaflets on a promise that I would produce our own Keele SU document that would aim to be suitably balanced in its perspective.

I made an early decision to pepper the booklet with cartoons, as part of my attempt to make the booklet readable and engaging enough to encourage wide readership. I had (indeed still have in a yellowing file) a small collection of Private Eye cartoons that I had torn out of my subscription copies of Private Eye when I saw a picture I enjoyed. Once the booklet had been conceived, I particularly sought out relevant cartoons from the pages of Eye.

When I sought permission to use the 2024 headline cartoon from Private Eye, I did confess to my previous use of its cartoons without permission (but for a good social purpose). So I really do owe Private Eye one…or indeed more than one. But I have been a subscriber for well over 40 years and do commend that esteemed organ to all Ogblog readers – here’s a link to its website.

The handful of mentions in my diary during the gestation of this booklet refer to it as the “birth control” leaflet. But the medical advisors I consulted, both in the local health authority and the Keele Health Centre, persuaded me quite early to broaden the scope and include information about sexually transmitted infections as well, which we did.

I recall that June Aitken (senior admin assistant) reported to me that Joan was in tears trying to type this document for me. I wondered whether Joan was finding the material embarrassing or difficult.

“Oh no”, said June, “she just so wants to do a good job for you, but cannot read your blithering handwriting, duck”.

The irony of my medically-oriented draft leaflet being illegible is not wasted on me. Sorry, again, Joan! June undertook to help Joan with the draft and of course the resulting document was very well typed and set in the end.

Petra Wilson and Jean Mackay, who were both on my welfare committee, were my main content assistants on this publication and did a terrific job on it. (I wonder what became of Jean? Petra – do you know?).

I recall a meeting (probably quite close to publication day) when we were to choose the name. I came up with the pun, Sexplanations, which none of us really liked, but none of us could think of anything better – i.e. suitably descriptive, catchy and suggesting that their might be some humorous as well as informative content.

Forty years on, I still don’t really like the title Sexplanations and still cannot think of a more suitable one.

Meanwhile, controversy continued to rear its ugly head in the union around such topics, as this snippet from May 1985 Concourse attests, in the matter of Life posters, which I permitted the “Life lot” to put up, but wouldn’t police for them in a “die on a hill” manner. I mean, dying on a hill would have been against their sanctity of life principles, wouldn’t it?

By the beginning of June, it really was time to induce the birth of Sexplanations, don’t you think?

Here is a link to the entire document if you want to read it, skim it or just look at the pictures – click here or the cover image below:

I believe the publication was a success. They certainly went like hot cakes during the few weeks that I remained at Keele post publication – my term of office was very close to its end when the booklet came out. I don’t think it was ever going really to please the naysayers, as their perception of balanced writing on this topic was somewhat at variance with mine.

Just one more strange memory about this topic – i.e. the aftermath of Sexplanations coming out.

Spikey condom image borrowed from Amazon, where such items can be procured.

Whether the spikey condom (unused) that awaited me under the door on arrival at my office on the morning after the publication was from the naysayers or a random prankster we’ll never know. Petra and I wondered at the time whether it might even have been a late contribution towards our research. Fortunately, further research of that kind would have been pointless post publication.

Anyone out there care to confess to having deposited said “gift”?

The Dance Of Death by August Strindberg, Riverside Studios

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