Ian Louis Harris

The Six O’Clock Alarm Would Never Ring, Starting My First Keele Summer Term, 24 April to 9 May 1981

It’s sometimes difficult to get up in the morning when you are a first year Keele student. Who knew?

Back then, I had an alarm clock a bit like the one depicted above. I could easily sleep through the ringing of that alarm. I remember bringing back a metal biscuit tin after the Easter holidays with the sole purpose of increasing the volume of the ringing, by placing the alarm clock within the biscuit tin. Didn’t work, I know, I know.

The Key To Getting A Good Night’s Sleep As A Keele Undergraduate

Mind you, it doesn’t help if you start the term as described above. Here is a transcript for any readers not so well versed in the rarefied script that is my handwriting:

24 April 1981 – Exams today. After dinner went to Mark’s [Bartholomew] -> Union. Talking till late with Sim [Simon Ascough], [Mad] Harry & Dave [Johnson, I think].

25 April 1981 – Easy day. Went to Union in evening -> Roy’s for drinks – Melanie [Print], Ashley [Fletcher] & Louise [Lorenc] – locked out – stayed…

26 April 1981 – …overnight. No sleep. Found keys in morning- had lunch – wandered aimlessly & slept from 6 pm until 8 am.

With thanks to Ashley for recalling Melanie & Louise’s names. Neither of us really remember what passed that night, other than a lot of bullshit chat no doubt and Ashley probably went to town with his Adolf Hitler and Ian Paisley (senior) pastiche/parody speeches.

“The flag of my country is hanging upside down outside this building”.

I simply cannot imagine sleeping 14 hours straight through any more. It’s not just that I know I couldn’t do it; I really cannot even imagine it.

Still, that extended night’s sleep got me up in good time for the first FY lecture of the term. What a fresh start.

My First Rolo & My Last Rolo

That peculiar sleep pattern got me up in time to see Professor Paul Rolo’s 9:00 history lecture and Professor David Adams’s 11:00 American Studies lecture.

I recall being fascinated by both of those lectures. Peculiarly, the allure of Russian and Fascist revolutions did not enable the alarm to rouse me on the Tuesday, but the idea of another Paul Rolo lecture somehow enabled the alarm to interrupt my slumbers on the Wednesday and get me to the FY Lecture Theatre for 9:00.

Similarly, the prospect of order in the post-war international system, combined with the alarm clock, failed to get me out of bed on the Thursday morning, yet the subconscious thought of another David Adams lecture woke me and got me to the Chancellor’s Building for the 9:00 lecture on the Friday for the third time that week.

This is the first sign of a pattern that persisted throughout my student years; I was able to get up for lectures, even at 9:00, if I thought they’d be worth the candle. Otherwise I tended to skip the lectures, read up on stuff at leisure (if need be) and sleep in like a teenager…which is what I was.

I didn’t get to know Professor Paul Rolo – he left a year or so after I did FY – but he could lecture and he sounds like a fascinating chap.

Professor David Adams I did get to know when I sat on Senate and also prior to that, when I sat on the train from Stoke to Euston or from Euston to Stoke. He must have gone to London quite a lot because I remember encountering him several times. A really interesting and lovely chap.

What Else Did You Get Up To, Kid?

Ok, ok, I’m getting to it.

Monday 27 April 1981 – First lectures etc. – finished moving etc [all the way from pokey Lindsay F1 to salubrious room with a view Lindsay F4] after dinner -> Union, quite pleasant

Tuesday 28 April 1981 – Light day. Went to see film in evening (Fame – v good,) -> on to union with gang – quite good.

Wednesday 29 April 1981 – OK day. Went to Concourse meeting – on to Mis [Miriam Morgan] & Heather [Jones] for heavy evening

Thursday 30 April 1981 – easyish day. Did little. Short stay in Union – reasonably early night.(Simon [Jacobs] & Sim [Ascough] came back after)

Friday 1 May 1981 – not bad day. Busy afternoon (Kallah photos). Went to see film (yuk). Went back to union – bon.

I’d started going to Film Society by the end of the second term and went a lot in this third term. I am pretty sure the 1 May film which I did not name but described as “yuk” was Fellini Satyricon. If I remember correctly, there weren’t all that many of us in the FY lecture theatre at the start of the movie and by the end I think just three or four of us had stuck it out.

Saturday 2 May 1981 – Easy day. Shopped in Newcastle – went to see David [Perrins] & friends, supper they came over -> Sneyd, Union bop -> Amanda’s.

Sunday 3 May 1981 – Lazy day – went to Lloyd’s [Green] and Amanda’s -> Union in evening.

I feel bad saying this, but I cannot remember who Amanda is/was, but she was unquestionably a diary highlight that weekend. Simon might remember. Lloyd might remember. But I feel that it is me who should remember. Apologies. If you are out there, Amanda, please do get in touch and jog the memory…if by chance you remember anything about it.

Tuesday 5 May 1981 – Busyish day. Saw All That Jazz in the evening. Simon’s [Jacobs] for coffee after – good.

Wednesday 6 May 1981 – OK day. Went to see Discipline and Lounge Lizards in evening – v good.

This image “borrowed” from Adrian Belew’s Facebook Page, with thanks/appreciation

Dave Lee’s forthcoming (as I write in April 2021) book The Keele Gigs! will no doubt review Discipline (whom in truth I don’t really remember), and The Lounge Lizards (a gig I remember well and very fondly). You can see something quite similar to the gig we saw on YouTube – click here:

Thursday 7 May 1981 – Easyish day. Laundry etc. Easyish evening.

Friday 8 May 1981 – Busyish day. Went to Burslem in evening. Enjoyable evening. (Came here for coffee).

Saturday 9 May 1981 – Late start, Newcastle shopping – ate – Union in evening – back here after.

That new room of mine, Lindsay F4, was salubrious enough to become a focal point to the extent that people had started coming back to my place. It might also have had something to do with the fact that I was going in to Newcastle on the weekend to buy food so always had something to eat – possibly even some left overs of cooked food but at the very least plentiful biscuits. My mum would have approved.

I should highlight the fact that Simon Jacobs gets a couple of mentions in this piece – he wrote to me saying that he was mightily put out that he didn’t get a mention in the previous Keele piece.

Finishing Work, Easter Itself & Returning To Keele For The Summer Term Of My Foundation Year, 17 to 23 April 1981

Thanks again to the Keele website for unwittingly lending me this Lindsay picture.

The Easter holidays of 1981 was the one and only time I worked a Keele Easter vacation. It had not been a very effective way of replenishing the coffers, although it had helped a bit. In any case, I had enjoyed myself in the matter of seeing lots of old friends and spending most of my earnings.

I had even bumped in to one of my new friends, John White, while strolling through John Lewis’s (which backs on to Cavendish Square, where I had been gainfully employed).

Hello John, Got A New [insert name of John Lewis purchase here]?

I remember excitedly telling my parents about my chance encounter with John, only to be told by my mum that she bumps into friends of hers in the shops all the time. But her friends all lived in Streatham and shopped in Streatham. John was a friend from Keele who lived in Hertfordshire – that had genuinely been a chance encounter. Parents just didn’t get it in those days.

Anyway.

On Good Friday (17 April) I:

Went to shop with dad to clear up robbery damage…

Not yet a proper law student, I failed to distinguish the crime that had occurred, a break-in (which is a burglary) from a theft with menaces or violence (robbery); the latter crime was, mercifully, not what had happened.

Dad’s shop – a relatively tranquil place…normally.

What a mess, though. Broken glass everywhere. And blood stains to mop up.

Strangely (and unusually for such a crime), the case was solved by the police rapidly, indeed before I returned to Keele a few days later. The culprit, who I think was on short-term release from a psychiatric institution, had presented himself at Bolingbroke Hospital (a few hundred yards from Dad’s St John’s Hill, Battersea shop), with blood-drenched arms, clutching several items of stock from Dad’s shop window. Sherlock Plod managed to put two and two together. Impressive.

The diary also talks about tape swaps and taping, which I have written up at length in recent weeks. My friends Graham Greenglass and Paul Deacon both “went to town” producing tapes as part of a tape swap with me. Their tapes became much of the soundtrack of the Summer Term of My Foundation Year. Those of you who like wading through such mix tape playlists, I have upped the six of them from March/April 1981, three from each of the lads. I’ll just add one example of each as links here – you can find the others easily enough by clicking through these links. Here is the first of Graham’s:

Graham Greenglass Easter Holidays 1981 Mix Tapes – Tape One Of Three, 17 March 1981

…while here is the first of Paul’s:

A Mix Tape Fest With Paul Deacon, 11 April 1981

According to the diary, Paul came over and we swapped tapes on Easter Saturday (18 April). The diary also suggests that I spent a fair amount of time taping for the rest of the holiday weekend.

Paul’s tapes came in the form of reel-to-reel spools, so they needed “ripping” (i.e. re-taping) onto cassette for Keele purposes. I also can tell from my notes that I made some other tapes, from my own albums and stuff. I’ll need to do a bit more archaeology to see if I can find notes on what was on those. Watch this space. I can see from my listings that I did tape the following albums from my own collection, which were also part of the soundtrack of that summer for me:

Armed Forces by Elvis Costello & The Attractions;
New Boots & Panties by Ian Dury & The Blockheads;
There Goes Rhymin’ Simon by Paul Simon;
Donovan File.

Actually, “my soundtrack” was inflicted on many other people, especially once I moved room from the little side room that was Lindsay F1 to the far more salubrious Lindsay F4, which looked out on rolling Staffordshire countryside and outside which I could sit on a sunny day with the window wide open and my Phillips ghetto-blaster blaring. Everyone in E and F blocks who had south-facing rooms, plus G block across the way, was treated to my music choices.

One abiding memory I have of “getting a response ” from Paul Deacon’s wonderful 60s collection, was when I was blasting the above mix tape. I remember “ABCD” Hemsley marching across from G Block in a manner that only the OTC (Officer Training Corps) lot who occupied that block could muster.

I imagined that I was about to get a dressing down about the noise, but instead Dick informed me that he adored The Doors – Light My Fire is on that mix tape – so Dick wondered if I had any more of The Doors to play…which at that time, I didn’t.

It was a rare civil interlude with someone from that G Block crowd, to be honest. Jon Gorvett was unfortunate enough to find himself in that block for our first year. I can’t imagine why Jon didn’t engineer an escape from there. He could have had Lindsay F1 after I moved out of it. I don’t suppose that would have felt like a complete escape, though. Come to think of it, Jon could have satisfied “ABCD” Hemsley in The Doors department as Jon had a liking for (and at least one or two good records of) The Doors music at that time too. Spooky.

The diary notes document my return:

Wednesday 22 April – Returned to Keele (met Lewis [Sykes] on way). Went to Union – David’s [Perrins] for coffee till late.
Thursday 23 April – Fairly early start. Bust moving room etc. Many people back. Revised. Went out for quick drink.

I’m not sure whether my meeting with Lewis Sykes (then National President of BBYO) was a coincidence or not. I suspect not. I had spent time at Hillel House 10 days earlier – JPMP whatever that might have been (sounds important) – so perhaps we engineered it to travel on the same train – me to Stoke and him on to Manchester.

It doesn’t seem to me that I put much into my FY exam revision on 23 April, given that I spent the morning grabbing the more salubrious room, the afternoon having “many people back” and still found time for a quick drink in the Union ahead of exam day. FY students – oh really!

Side Two Of Paul Deacon’s 7″ Spool Mix Tape, 15 April 1981

We had a Sony TC377: I think Paul had an Akai or a Philips

Here is Side Two of Paul’s larger tape from that Easter vacation. I have explained the story of these tapes in the earlier postings; the piece about the smaller mix tape that Paul dated on 11 April 1981…

A Mix Tape Fest With Paul Deacon, 11 April 1981

…and the piece that sets out Side One of this larger tape:

Side One Of Paul Deacon’s 7″ Spool Mix Tape, 15 April 1981

So here is Side Two:

Here is the play list, as best I can make it up from YouTube links at the time of writing, forty years on from that Easter of 1981:

https://youtu.be/AeaZ3DEQEyo

https://youtu.be/HOUPbKuYMbU

https://youtu.be/upg5Pj5PW8k

https://youtu.be/OgtQj8O92eI

https://youtu.be/XhAec0h4lds

https://youtu.be/4naoG2z4Zcc

https://youtu.be/Z4XGqcB19sw

Side One Of Paul Deacon’s 7″ Spool Mix Tape, 15 April 1981

Paul Deacon really went to town that 1981 Easter holidays, making me a couple of seriously superb mix tape spools. The 5″ spool came with a fact sheet dated 11 April 1981:

A Mix Tape Fest With Paul Deacon, 11 April 1981

The 7″ Spool (twice as long) has a fact sheet dated 15 April 1981. I’m splitting the sheet into Side One and Side Two to make these Ogblog postings just about manageable in size.

Splitting the two spools into three postings in this way more or less equates with the three cassettes I ripped from the two spools. Those cassettes got a lot of play at Keele over the years, especially that summer of 1981. But more on that anon.

Here is the play list, as best I can make it up from YouTube links at the time of writing, forty years on from that Easter of 1981:

https://youtu.be/rts7Qdew3HE

https://youtu.be/UQU4sIn96M4

https://youtu.be/VS-_nnJ-QD4

https://youtu.be/EUY2kJE0AZE

https://youtu.be/0e0qYP_PTlY

https://youtu.be/Y64211sjSko

No recording available for Contrast, Hey That’s No Way To Say Goodbye.

https://youtu.be/zXeRB-3nDR8

A Mix Tape Fest With Paul Deacon, 11 April 1981

This is one heck of a good mix tape, if you like interesting sixties and early seventies music.

The diary tells me that Paul popped around with records etc. on the Thursday evening (9th). My diary entry for the 11th reads:

Lazy sort of day. Shopped etc. Taped for Paul. Lazy evening.

My guess/vague recollection is that Paul popped around with a sample of the records he had been acquiring since we left school. I would have shown him the records I had acquired since he last had a look at my (by his standards) minuscule collection. So we agreed to do a mix tape swap.

Unquestionably I’ll have got the better end of the deal. I suspect that the mix tape I made for Paul is lost in the mists of time. Whereas the above tape is an absolute cracker. Not the only mix tape from Paul that week either; there is an even longer tape dated 15 April 1981 in my collection. And a great many others from the following two or three years. More on those anon.

This tape, along with the longer one that I shall write about over the next few days, was a huge part of the soundtrack of the summer term at Keele that followed and way beyond. I still listen to Paul’s mix tapes occasionally; these from Easter 1981 surprisingly often.

Great stuff Paul. Thanks again, forty years on!

To the extent I am able, I have made up that mix tape below with YouTube links. Some might get broken over time, but I’m sure you can find the items for yourselves if you are interested.

https://youtu.be/OuUpOerfT2I

https://youtu.be/f7eJSdpMEnI

https://youtu.be/f3mUO268OkY

Perseverance With Work & Meeting Up With Friends, 28 March To 10 April 1981

The Perseverance, then named The Sun, Edwardx, CC BY-SA 4.0

My working life that Easter vacation seemed to revolve around lunching and spending evenings with friends. I have already remarked on that in the preceding piece, which culminated in a wonderful Elvis Costello concert which was a highlight of my 1981 concert-going:

Elvis Costello And The Attractions, Hammersmith Odeon, 27 March 1981

Prior to returning to work, lunches and occasional boozy evenings:

Saturday 28 March – went to David [Wendy’s brother] Robbins’s barmitzvah in morning and Ivor’s [Heller] in afternoon. Mays [neighbours George and Winifred] came in evening.
Sunday 29 March – Lazy day. Went to Barmitzvah party in evening.

Wendy Robbins sporting her Streatham BBYO tee-short in 1979

In truth I don’t remember too much about that weekend – others (e.g. Wendy) might have stronger memories of it. The hospitality will for sure have been warm.

Back to work on Monday:

Monday 30 March – Work OK, Lazyish evening.
Tuesday 31 March – Work OK. Spoke to people in eve etc.
Wednesday 1 April – not bad day. Went to [The] Sun [latterly renamed The Perseverance] with Jimmy in evening.

I’m not sure whether Jimmy was also doing a holiday job that Easter, but I think he probably was. For sure he spent several summer holidays working for the UCL Bubble Chamber Group at the main UCL campus in Bloomsbury. Just in case there is anyone reading this who doesn’t have a comprehensive grasp of what a bubble chamber group might do, allow me to deconstruct by saying “high energy physics” and linking to this piece about the UCL Bubble Chamber Group.

What I do know for sure is that the scientists with whom Jimmy was working had no truck with bubbly beer – they were a real ale crowd and I would be invited to join Jimmy and the team for a drink or two in their UCL bar until the early closure there led us to trek for 15 minutes or so to The Sun, which sold a vast array of real ales at any one time.

“Stop wasting valuable drinking time – let’s go to The Sun!” would be the cry from one or two of the bearded researchers with a central casting look and tone if anyone dared to drink up too slowly at the UCL bar.

Thursday 2 April – Work not bad. Lunched with Andrea [Dean]. Easy evening.

You’re probably getting the gist of this now. The diary is depicted above. I’ll pick up the translation story again the following Wednesday:

Wednesday 8 April – Went out with Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] for lunch. Went on the booze with Jimmy in the evening.
Thursday 9 April – Met Jilly [Black] for lunch. Paul [Deacon] popped in, in evening with records etc.
Friday 10 April – Busy day at work. Relaxed in evening.

By the end of this fortnight was clearly focussed on producing mix tapes for Paul Deacon, while he was clearly hard at work doing the same for me. 11 April 1981 was a big mix taping day for both of us, as my archive will reveal in the next posting.

Elvis Costello And The Attractions, Hammersmith Odeon, 27 March 1981

I did a holiday job at Newman Harris that first Easter holidays of my Keele life.

My motivation for working was purely financial. I was enjoying/wanted to enjoy my time at Keele. The student grant only went so far. There was no bank of mum and dad (BOMAD) for me. Getting into debt was anathema.

I hadn’t worked for Newman Harris since 1978 – that first experience being a subject I shall most certainly Ogblog in time. (I had worked full time during the summer of 1980, for BBYO – which should be another rich seam of Ogblogging once I get my head into that topic.)

The Easter 1981 vacation was the first time I worked for Stanley Bloom; he wasn’t at the firm in 1978. Yes, that’s right pop-pickers:

I got a job with Stanley, he said I’d come in handy.

Anyway, here is my diary from the first couple of weeks of that experience.

Graham in this instance must be Graham Greenglass. We were going through a process of swapping music on cassette at that time. Coincidentally, Graham furnished me with a fair smattering of Elvis Costello material, including rare groove such as Hoover Factory.

Jimmy (Bateman) was a friend from Alleyn’s. I wonder what has become of him? We met up a lot when working the University holidays those first couple of years at least.

David Robbins is Wendy Robbins kid brother. No longer a kid of course.

Caroline Freeman and I lunched and dined a lot in the holidays back then.

In fact, if my older adult self might be so bold as to observe my young adult self, according to that diary page, there seems to have been a heck of a lot of lunching, dining and going out generally. As a result, I’m not sure that the bank balance replenishment exercise could possibly have gone as well as I had intended. Perhaps that’s why I didn’t work Easter holidays again after that first year. But heck, I was having a good time.

On Friday 27th, a meal at Borshtch N Tears (posher and pricier now, I’d guess) followed by Elvis Costello and the Attractions at the Hammersmith Odeon, with Anil Biltoo (my friend from school, with whom I went to Mauritius in 1979), Caroline Freeman and Simon Jacobs, who I met through BBYO but with whom (and indeed through whom) I went to Keele.

Simon always claims not to remember anything from those days, although he might make an exception for Elvis Costello. Example: which tracks did Elvis play that night, Simon…

…and before you say, “don’t be ridiculous, I don’t remember stuff like that”, actually we don’t need your help with that question; Mr Google came up with the answer for us – click here…

…or if that link fails, I have scraped the answer to here.

Much of the material in that gig came from Trust, which was the latest Elvis Costello album at the time…

…and before Simon claims that he cannot remember exactly what he thought of Trust at that time, here is a link to Simon’s whole page review of Trust in Concourse, the Keele SU newspaper.

How Simon got allocated a whole page for an album review is anyone’s guess, but let’s just note here that the Concourse editors were sacked before the next edition went to press. That edition had to be cobbled together at the last minute by me and Dave Lee, with predictably hilarious results, which I shall write up soon enough. Simon got a regular-sized column that time.

Anyway, we must have really enjoyed the gig because we went back for more Elvis that summer; at least I know I went back with Simon for a second go and I think Caroline also joined us in the summer.

Anil, I think, was less sure about the gig. I’m not sure he had recovered from our evening watching his big sister Bi perform in The Sound the previous year.

Here is a great vid of Clubland (from Trust) to give you a taster of the gig, although the Hammersmith Odeon didn’t look like the vid as far as I can recall…

…Simon will simply claim that he can’t remember:

Industrial Injury In Cavendish Square, c26 March 1981

The room in 19 Cavendish Square where the accounts clerks were housed looked a little like the above image, only with about 10 desks and lots of shelves for box files all the way up to the high ceiling.

One day that week, I’m guessing the Thursday, a big Greek clerk propped a stepladder at the side of my desk (rather than opening the ladder properly) while attempting to retrieve a box file.

The next thing I knew, the big lad was falling backwards and I instinctively dived forward to break his fall. He might have landed dangerously hard on the edge of my desk had I not done so.

The big lad was slightly shocked but unscathed. I felt a surge of pain through my back.

My scoliosis is a little lower than the image above

I was in quite a lot of pain with my back for some weeks thereafter. It might well have been the root cause of my serious multiple prolapse nine years later.

I remember it being especially painful on the day of the Elvis Costello concert, which is why I think the incident was just a day or two before the concert. I also remember Elvis’s music seeming to dull the pain.

Graham Greenglass Easter Holidays 1981 Mix Tapes – Tape Three Of Three, 17 March 1981

The context for the three mix tape cassettes that Graham Greenglass made for me as part of a swap-athon in early spring 1981 is set out in the Ogblog piece that shows the first of those three tapes – click here or below:

Graham Greenglass Easter Holidays 1981 Mix Tapes – Tape One Of Three, 17 March 1981

The headline picture at the top of the current piece shows Side A of the third swap tape. Below is Side B:

I set out below the YouTubes, other than the Simon & Garfunkle whole album, for which I have provided two favourite samples, one lesser known.

https://youtu.be/2aPQbYMPEOU

https://youtu.be/M1cESSh-SqU

https://youtu.be/JhZqsYkl1zI

https://youtu.be/IbLZHLdWVLA

https://youtu.be/6lnexu106ws

https://youtu.be/3rLFdW-K3vQ

https://youtu.be/IgdCIAEupNI

https://youtu.be/FVY2ERXkNgY

https://youtu.be/CJXNV_ZOwTc

https://youtu.be/aUzBgeI5dpc

https://youtu.be/1JxMHL9h-W0

Graham Greenglass Easter Holidays 1981 Mix Tapes – Tape Two Of Three, 17 March 1981

Graham Greenglass Easter Holidays 1981 Mix Tapes – Tape One Of Three, 17 March 1981

The headline picture at the top of the current piece shows Side A of the second swap tape. Below is Side B:

More theming than the first side of the first cassette, this second one. Several tracks from each artist. But still an eclectic mix. I don’t suppose many mix tapes include The Jam, Elvis Costello, Echo & The Bunnymen, T. Rex, Talking Heads, Lambert, Hendricks & Ross plus Quintet Of the Hot Club Of France.

Here goes: