12 August 1980. Not too bad a day. Went to Chrystal [sic] Palace with PDeW in evening.
Let’s not talk about my inability to spell the word Crystal at the age of seventeen.
Let us instead try to work out, just over forty years on, what the blithering heck might have been going on here.
The not too bad a day would have been at Hillel House working; I was trying to run the BBYO office that summer in the absence of a proper grown-up full-timer, as Rebecca Lowi had left and not yet been replaced.
I do recall an impending governance crisis on the National Executive around that time, which inevitably embroiled both me and Paul, as we were both on that National Executive. We had things to talk about and I do remember having several after work discussions with Paul that summer.
But if you had asked me, the day before yesterday, if I had ever been to Selhurst Park to see Crystal Palace play football, I would have said, categorically, no.
Football is not really my thing. Never really was, although in my youth I could be persuaded to go to football matches and certainly went to a few.
But Crystal Palace with Paul DeWinter on 12 August 1980 makes no sense for several reasons.
More importantly, despite my limited knowledge of football and Paul DeWinter, one thing I do know for sure is that Paul is a lifelong devotee of Brighton & Hove Albion FC (The Seagulls), not Crystal Palace FC (The Eagles).
Several of my South London friends are devotees of Crystal Palace and I am aware that there is intense rivalry between the two teams. I have often enjoyed, from the metaphorical sidelines, many enjoyable bants between the fans of those two teams, especially when Paul DeWinter is around.
Indeed, as I understand it, there is intense speculation as to whether representatives of the two species (eagles and seagulls) might be observed cross-fertilizing. I’m no ornithologist, but eagles are from the order of Accipitriformes (birds of prey), whereas seagulls are from the order of Charadriiformes, a diverse order which includes waders and auks as well as gulls, so I think it highly unlikely that those two species would even attempt cross-breeding. Certainly not visibly. But I digress.
So did Paul and I go to Crystal Palace to do something other than watch a football match? Perhaps we went to one of those open air concerts I remember my parents taking me to at Crystal Palace Bowl. Handel’s Water Music, Elgar’s Enigma Variations, Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik…that sort of thing. But I doubt if those concerts would have been Paul’s bag.
What about Bob Marley…didn’t Bob Marley play “The Bowl” that summer? But the bowl was done weeks before August in 1980 and anyway my diary would certainly have noted (and my memory would have retained) such an event.
No. For sure it would have been football.
I’m guessing it must have been some sort of pre-season friendly between Crystal Palace & Brighton; the intense fan rivalry belying an actual spirit of co-operation between the two clubs at an operational level.
Paul might actually remember what happened and put my feeble memory out of its misery.
Anyway – forty plus years on – thanks again for taking me to the footie in 1980, Paul.
I spent the summer of 1980 trying to run the BBYO office in Hillel House. Rebecca Lowi, our wonderful full-timer, had left. I was on the National Executive, had just finished my ‘A’ Levels and had made no plans for the summer. The arrangement made sense for everyone.
I’ll have plenty to write about that summer in the fullness of time. The diary is rich with clues and the memory still holds some intriguing details. I was 17 going on 18 and that is surely a good age for seminal, memorable stuff.
This piece, though, is very specifically about a hoo-ha that kicked off very early in my time running the BBYO office, concerning that year’s kibbutz groups.
I shall try to extract the relevant scribbles:
Monday 21 July – Not too bad a day. (Kibbutz trouble though).
Tuesday 22 July – Hardish day. More bad reports about the Kibbutzniks
Wednesday 23 July – Hard day. Still worried about Kibbutz lot…
Thursday 24 July – Not too bad a day. (Afek sorted out).
Now the fact of the matter is, I really need some help from some of the people who were on those Kibbutz groups to piece together exactly what happened.
From memory, there were two groups i.e. two Kibbutzim. One Kibbutz seemed fine, whereas the other Kibbutz didn’t seem to recognise that groups of young teenagers from England (I think these were 14 to 17 year old groups) could not be expected to work full adult worker hours in Israeli summer weather.
I received several calls – I think from worried parents – saying their kids were very unhappy and that there did not seem to be equivalence between the Kibbutzim. I was concerned on the first day reports came in but things really kicked off on the second day.
I was 17 years old, I had been a schoolboy three weeks earlier, but it was my job to try intervening and helping to resolve this problem.
Would you want the fate of your kid to be, to any extent, in the hands of this…er…kid?
I remember talking to some sort of shaliach – i.e. a liaison officer from the agency through which the tours had been organised; The Jewish Agency, if I recall correctly. I think he was quite negative about the situation, suggesting that the problem Kibbutz (which I think must have been Afek given my diary note, but possibly was the other one) was not a suitable venue for teenage kibbutz experience tours.
I remember talking to the agency on the telephone in quite animated terms. Those readers who know me well, especially those who knew me well back then, can imagine how arsy I might have sounded. Did the person at the other end of the phone realise that he was talking to a kid? Possibly. That might have made their predicament seem scarier.
I remember saying that I had really angry parents on the phone constantly, some of them lawyers, who were already threatening to sue anything that moved if the problem wasn’t resolved rapidy.
I remember thinking that I was laying it on a bit thick. I also remember thinking that the “ach, so what do you expect us to do?” attitude I was getting back from my initial enquiries was not getting me anywhere. So laying it on thick with a metaphorical, oral trowel was probably the best approach.
If Afek really was the problem site, then the whole incident panned out (from my point of view) within 72 hours. Word soon reached me that conditions had been changed. Did some youngsters switch Kibbutz? – I think that might have happened in some cases. Or were arrangements made for the groups to meet up some more and have shared leisure time?
Anyway, I do recall that the returning youngsters seemed to have had a good experience in the end and that my intervention was perceived to have helped solve the problem.
I’d love to hear from people who were actually on those kibbutz groups and find out what memories you have of those trips.
I’d love to see some photos, if anyone has them to share.
Coincidentally, there was a play at London’s Royal Court that year, Not Quite Jerusalem, about British youngsters going off to experience Kibbutz life and it not being what they expected. Even more coincidentally, it had its initial public airing through rehearsed readings that very weekend, 25 and 26 July.
I didn’t get to see that Royal Court production, but 40 years on…a few days after writing these words, I shall see the play’s first revival at The Finborough Theatre:
Unsurprising, then, that my memories of that 1980 experience came to mind and I was keen to get my thoughts written down before my weak memories morph with the play!
Possibly Christine by Siouxie & The Banshees is the pick of the mix
Ahead of a virtual gathering of the Alleyn’s “Class of 1980” in January 2021, I have decided to share the mix tapes I made right at the end of my time at Alleyn’s School.
Rohan Candappa and Nick Wahla have asked questions for that gathering, which I answered here:
Those have led to some debate. Perhaps my “end of school” mix tapes will similarly cause some discussion. At the very least, I imagine they’ll spark some memories. Chart music was part of the soundtrack of many of our lives back then.
Effectively I recorded two batches right at the end of my time at Alleyn’s. One batch around the Whitsun long weekend (end of May 1980) and then another batch right at the very end – late June – mostly the weekend after the ‘A’ levels I’d guess.
Here’s a list of the first batch – the May 1980 batch:
Messages, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
Dance, The Lambrettas
Breathing, Kate Bush
I’m Alive, Electric Light Orchestra
Teenage, UK Subs
Let’s Go Round Again, The Average White Band
Over You, Roxy Music
The Bed’s Too Big Without You, The Police
Theme From M*A*S*H, M*A*S*H
We Are Glass, Gary Numan
Here is the list of the late June 1980 batch:
Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime, The Korgis
Christine, Siouxsie and the Banshees
The Scratch, Surface Noise
New Amsterdam, Elvis Costello
Who Wants the World, The Stranglers
Play the Game, Queen
Breaking the Law, Judas Priest
Let’s Get Serious, Jermaine Jackson
No Doubt About It, Hot Chocolate
Funky Town, Lipps Inc
Crying, Don McLean
Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps Please, Splodgenessabounds
Given the amount of time I spent in The Fox On The Hill in that last Alleyn’s week, the final recording on that list comes as no surprise. (Although for sure I’d have been drinking bitter, not lager). Anyway, I don’t think “Two Pints…” will make it onto my Desert Island Discs list. Frankly, I can’t see any of the above making that list. Christine’s a great track, as is New Amsterdam. There’s some good stuff, but it’s not my best mix tape, that’s for sure. I was kinda busy with other stuff at that time.
I am writing this up in January 2021, in part as a response to a couple of “exam questions” set by friends Nick Wahla & Rohan Candappa, ahead of a gathering of the Class of 1980 in the “Virtual Buttery”.
In Rohan’s words:
Nick Wahla’s suggested a question to ponder: “What advice would you give to someone about to leave Alleyn’s?”
It’s a good question, and one which I am obviously going to claim credit for. But I’d also like to twist it around a bit. My question is: “What advice would you give yourself if you could go back and talk to yourself on the day you left Alleyn’s?”
So, the day I left Alleyn’s was not, by my own account, a good day for me. That whole final week doesn’t read brilliantly in fact:
To transcribe that final day:
What a horrid day!!! Chem (I) -> In comm -> Econ II -> Fox after and got pissed.
I’m guessing that “in comm” means “held incommunicado”, presumably because I took the Chemistry exam before others had taken it…or others had taken the Economics exam before I took mine.
There are three mentions of going to “The Fox” that week, not just the “getting pissed” session after the exams.
The Fox On the Hill, Denmark Hill, was the hang out of choice for Alleyn’s boys like me and Anil Biltoo. I don’t think they had twigged that these fresh-faced besuited youngsters were often well below 18…or if they had twigged, at that time they didn’t care.
That “got pissed” session on my final day would doubtless have included Anil and I suspect a few others who finished their exams that day. Anyone out there remember?
The diary even for that final week of school is peppered with BBYO stuff. I was on a small National Executive with a large portfolio that year. A lot of difficult stuff had kicked off that spring, not least our sole full timer, Rebecca Lowi, was leaving on 30 June. I had agreed to run the office temporarily over the summer, while a successor was recruited, so started work on the Monday after leaving school to have a handover day with her.
It seems I spent the weekend in between leaving school and starting work with Ivor (Heller), Simon (Jacobs) and Caroline Freeman (now Curtis) on the Sunday.
But at the “day I left school” stage, that Keele element of my past was still in the future.
So, to answer Rohan’s question, “What advice would you give yourself if you could go back and talk to yourself on the day you left Alleyn’s?” I think the nub of my answer is that I would advise myself to be more reflective and thoughtful about the moment.
Yes, I had a lot going on at that time. Yes, I was psychologically in a rush to move on to fresh challenges. But I think I should have paid a little more heed at that time to the significance of the moment and reflected on that major, albeit natural, transition. And reflected on what those seven years at Alleyn’s had been about.
I have reflected on it since. Frankly, I’m not sure that reflection would have been all that profound at the time. I think it was much later that I started really to appreciate what that Alleyn’s education and those friendships, some enduring, others that resumed oh so easily, had done for me. Partly that appreciation came from growing up and partly from re-engaging with friends from school decades later. People like Rohan, Nick and many others.
But still I think that, at the time, I missed out on a “life moment” to which I can never return, by rushing away from the school that day and not looking back for years.
So, to answer Nick Wahla’s question, “What advice would you give to someone about to leave Alleyn’s?”, I’d simply say, “read this piece about the day I left Alleyn’s and try not to do it my way.”
But 16 May 1980 was surely my first “proper rock” gig; The Sound at The 101 Club. And my mate Anil Biltoo’s sister Benita was in the band – how cool was that?
My diary entry for the day is light on detail:
Friday 16 May 1980: Helped at charity shop => Anils (Fox) => home for dinner => 101 Club (Benita’s concert).
Fortunately, my memory is quite good on detail for this one and The Sound gained enough cult status to be pretty well documented too.
“Fox” can only mean The Fox On the Hill pub on Denmark Hill. What a couple of 17-year-olds might have been doing in there on a half-term Friday afternoon is anybody’s guess.
The 101 Club was a fairly iconic venue back in the late 1970s and early 1908s. It was a couple of blocks up St John’s Hill from my dad’s shop (No 43).
I knew that Anil’s big sister was in a band – all three of the Biltoo kids were very musical – and Benita used to talk to us about music if we were hanging out at Anil’s house and if she was in the mood for chatting; which was quite often; she was very friendly and inclusive with us youngsters. A top girl.
So when this gig came up, Anil and I were very keen to go and were included in the entourage.
The 101 Club was a proper dive. Smoke filled and grimy.
At one point during the gig, I remember someone telling me that the bloke next to me with whom I was rubbing shoulders was Julian Cope from The Teardrop Explodes.
Imagine that. I’d even heard of The Teardrop Explodes!
The fact that my knowledge of The Teardrop Explodes almost certainly extended no further than Benita having played Treason to us some weeks earlier was beside the point. Indeed the circularity of that argument has only just occurred to me as I write, more than 37 years later.
I made sure to acknowledge Julian Cope. I realise it’s just a story…but a true story.
…apart from The Sound being incredibly good, I mean, like, far and away the best rock gig I had ever heard in my entire life…
…was the MC calling a halt to proceedings on The Sound, before they had finished their set.
We members of The Sound’s entourage tried to reverse this decision by shouting for more…
…the next thing I remember was being ejected, in a collar-lifting stylee, from the 101 Club, along with The Sound and the rest of The Sound’s entourage.
Anil, Benita, her (then) boyfriend Muffin and I ended up back at my parent’s house, nursing our dignity.
I remember my mum supplying tea and biscuits. It can’t have been all that late; mum never could stay up all that late. I remember mum asking Benita and Muffin all sorts of questions. I remember learning that they were now sort-of living together in South Kensington.
After Muffin and the Biltoos (by gosh that would be a good name for a 1980s band) left, I recall my mum saying that she thought Muffin had smelly feet. Why that particular fact from that evening has stuck in my brain all these years is a mystery to me. But there in my brain it is; no false memory in that factoid; just extremely weird recall.
This story really isn’t as rock’n’roll as it should be, is it?
Benita stuck with The Sound for some further months after the 101 Club gig and she was an integral part of their first album, Jeopardy, before a parting of the ways with Adrian Borland and the boys.
I remember being so thrilled when that album, Jeopardy, came out and got a double-page spread in Melody Maker during my first term at Keele – around the time I saw The Teardrop Explodes perform.
Of course I bought a copy of Jeopardy. Of course I still have it.
You can click through below to hear the title track
…and agree in advance to amend any part of this Ogblog piece at Mark’s request…
…and use the word allegedly at frequent intervals, even though I know that the addition of that word serves no defensive purpose whatsoever if the statement to which it refers in libellous…
…but I digress.
At Simon’s launch, Mark and I had roughly the following conversation, from which I have recovered some memory (and the relevant diary pages):
Mark: I remember the first time I met you. I had recently joined my local BBYO group in Manchester and you came to stay at our house for for the weekend. You were on the National executive, so it felt to us that you were a visiting dignitary…all the more so, because you came straight from school and you were wearing a three-piece suit when you arrived. Were you wearing tails too?
Me: Was I heck wearing tails. I’ll confess to the three-piece suit though; that was the school uniform for sixth-formers.
Mark: We thought you must be incredibly posh.
Ian: I wasn’t incredibly posh. I was just a scholarship boy at Alleyn’s School…
The conversation continued. I promised to dig out the trusty diaries and try to establish exactly when that weekend happened and see what else the diary might reveal.
So here it is:
I’ll transliterate the relevant bits for any reader who doesn’t read the rarefied script otherwise known as my handwriting:
school OK, -> Euston -> Manchester -> Prestwich, Mark Lewis, stayed up till all hours -> shule -> lunch -> open house -> Nat Exec meeting -> party -> bed -> North v South soccer -> lunch -> Installations -> Piccadilly -> home (exhausted).
…and who wouldn’t be exhausted after that. I feel exhausted now just typing those words and thinking about it.
I like the Monday message too, by way of echo: “school OK”.
I’d just like to reflect for a moment on the early part of that adventure. The bit where I left school in my three piece suit, went to Euston and up to Manchester. The easiest/quickest route would have been to take the train from North Dulwich to London Bridge and the tube from there to Euston.
But that would have meant me venturing, more or less alone, on the Billy Biro’s (pupils of William Penn School) side of the station/platform, which, while wearing an Alleyn’s three-piece suit, would have been a form of attempted suicide. I don’t remember doing that.
More likely, I left school a little early, probably with Anil Biltoo, most likely (if with Anil) stopping at his house for a couple of cigarettes and an earful of some trendy music served up by his rock chick older sister Benita. Or, if Bi wasn’t around, we’d have probably listened to Innervisions by Stevie Wonder. Then, I guess, on to Euston, either by bus or by picking up the train from the relative safety of East Dulwich.
At no point in this trek from school to Mark Lewis’s house did it occur to me to change clothing. I must have had changes of clothing. But perhaps not a suitable suitcase/bag for my three-piece whistle.
Based on Mark’s 2017 description and my reflections on how I came across, I must have seemed like a Judaic Jacob Rees-Mogg.
I’m not sure whether that visit was my only stay at the Lewis house or whether I stayed there again on subsequent visits to Manchester that year. I certainly do remember discourse late into the night.
I recall Mark’s sister, Mandy, introducing me to the delights of the Manchester music scene, at least to the extent they were represented in her record collection and narrative. I think her main thing was Joy Division, but I might be mistaken.
It was only decades later I learnt that Joy Division weren’t Manchester at all, they were Macclesfield. I also recall hearing Spandau Ballet a few months later and confusing them with Joy Division, much to the derision of friends at the time. I don’t think I needed to confess that foible – I think it might have vanished without trace if I hadn’t raised the matter again. Perhaps Mandy talked about Spandau Ballet, but I think they came later and were quintessentially London. Perhaps none of us knew what we were talking about – I certainly didn’t – I only went to my first proper gig a few weeks later – click here for that debacle.
I hope this piece triggers some of Mark’s memories about that weekend. Or indeed memories of other subsequent weekends if I did stay more than once. I don’t know why, but I think the Joy Division (or whatever “Manchester scene” stuff it was) conversations might have been a subsequent visit.
The National Exec meeting would then, I think, have included Jay Marks, Ivor Heller, Paul DeWinter, Raymond Ingleby and the late, great Jeffrey Spector. We must have discussed matters of enormous import; I’m sure one of the others can fill us in on the details, all of which for some reason have slipped my mind.
I also have no recollection of the North v South football match – but that sounds like fun – perhaps someone out there does recall the match and can provide a match report and/or photographs.
This picture from a different BBYO football match, in Portsmouth. a year or so earlier, but the March 1980 one in Manchester will have looked a bit like this
The installation ceremony cannot have been for Mark Lewis’s new Sunnybank group – that was far too new. So perhaps it was the Sale group or more likely the larger Whitefield Group. Again, perhaps some people reading this can chime in with their own memories and/or diary notes and/or photographs…
Correction: David Nispel has written in to confirm that Sunnybank BBYO had actually been going for 2-3 years by that time and that this weekend was their inaugural installation weekend. Mark confirms that he was a newbie but the group wasn’t. David Nispel has also posted several pictures in the BBYO Facebook Group – members of which can see the chat and pictures by clicking here. One quite extraordinary feat of memory comes from Jay Marks, recalling the score as a 1-1 draw and describing the football match as, “an undignified kick about in 70s terrace attire…” and that…”wherever the party was in north Manchester later it would have been far more successful.”
If any of my old mates from Alleyn’s School are still reading this and had been wondering why I often looked so wrecked on a Monday morning during my last year at school – this piece explains a fair bit.
Anyway, Mark, I have done my worst (as lawyers tend to say) and now rest my case. Over to you.
Jay Marks posted in the BBAK Facebook Group in January 2019, inferring that the 1980s look might have been a little more aesthetically pleasing than the 1970s look. That remark kicked off some lively debate.
As it happens, Jay became BBYO National President on 1 January 1980, so methinks Jay might have been alluding to this fact and trying to take some credit for a change…
…in his opinion improvement…
…in style or looks between 31 December 1979 and 1 January 1980.
As it also happens, I am one of just a handful of people who had the honour to serve on the National Executive in both 1979 and 1980. Unfortunately, though, I was encouraged to put down my camera once I’d been co-opted onto the Committee in the summer of 1979, so I have been forced to trawl public domain archives for photographic evidence of that seminal change in aesthetics.
Of course, public domain sources are notoriously unreliable, whereas my memory is merely notorious.
Here are my “best efforts” to capture the look and spirit of the cusp of those decades.
I believe this might be the 1979 BBYO National Executive doing outreach work in one of the remotest parts of the District 15 empire. Hull perhaps? Is that Jeffrey at the back of the wagon wearing shades? It is hard to tell. The local member (bearded) looks ever so grateful for the visit.I believe this might be the 1980 BBYO National Executive in relaxed mode, taking full advantage of the female attention, attributable no doubt to the much improved sartorial look, no? Is that Raymond partially obscured at the back? And once again Jeffrey, perhaps, playfully biting a colleagues shoulder. It’s so hard to tell.
The original Wikimedia Commons sources for these photos seem to think they are something else. In the interests of good manners and good practice, they are embedded below so other researchers might form their own opinion on these sources.
…for further information and/or photos was answered in most impressive style by Jay Marks…or should I say Jay’s mum.
Please thank your mum for me, Jay. (How many times must I have said that during 1980?)
As Jay says to me in his covering note:
… my mum has outdone you…
…and who could disagree with that?
Point is, Jay’s mum had saved a magazine article from the Jewish Chronicle nearly 40 years ago (as I write in January 2020). The piece, by Barry Toberman, is a veritable treasure trove of pictures (some colour, nach) and information about BBYO at that time.
Jay remarks elsewhere about these articles:
Reading it made us sound like a trade union / political party
But some fabulous shots of very special people…
There’s no date on the pages, but I’m guessing it will have been published in the spring of 1980, after Rebecca Lowi’s resignation but before she left just ahead of that summer. More on that subject anon.
Meanwhile Jay cheekily also photographed a couple of the ads from that magazine, just to remind us all (in case we need reminding) that it was all a long time ago.
As Jay says:
But best of all in this mag were the ads… Aramis literally communicates success – assuming success is on the lounge floor in a sleeping bag 200 miles from home
…and then, Jay again commenting:
Tech ain’t what it used to be
This Hitachi ad makes a good point, Jay. Where’s your video footage from convention 1979/1980, eh? Now that can be your next challenge.
Seriously, many thanks again to Jay and Jay’s mum for providing this wonderful archive material.
I have very few specific memories of the 1979/1980 BBYO National convention.
One reason for my dearth of memories from that particular convention is a complete absence of photographs. I have hundreds of photographs from the previous year’s convention – click here or below for the Ogblog article and links…
…but I have not a single photograph from the 1979/1980 convention. If anyone reading this piece has photos…even one photo…from that convention, it would be great to see it and/or add it to this Ogblog piece.
Of course, I do have my diaries, but – as was my habit with large scale BBYO events such as conventions – I considered them, at the time, to be such memorable events that I needn’t write down any details about them.
Below is the sum total of my scribbling for the three days 30 December 1979 to 1 January 1980:
…got up very early in morn, set off for convention. Great time at convention, saw in new year… …GREAT DAY. GOT ELECTED AS NATIONAL RESOURCE.
Yet, despite the lack of memories and writing, the 1979/1980 Convention was a momentous event for me. I was elected onto the National Executive for 1980 (I had been co-opted onto the National Exec to edit the magazine for the second half of 1979, but that’s not the same thing as getting elected).
So let me try to delve the memory bank. The National Executive for 1980 had been scaled right back – the feeling being that most day-to-day responsibility should be devolved to the regions and thus a smaller National Executive could be a more strategic or policy-oriented body.
1980, I think, proved this scaled-down executive idea to be flawed for BBYO in Great Britain and Ireland, but the upshot for the 1979/1980 convention was that there were only three posts up for election that year, rather than the usual 6 to 8 posts.
Jay Marks was elected National President.
Jay Marks, Spring 1979. If you could look that cool, you could be National President.
Ivor Heller, my fellow Streathamista, was elected National Vice-President:
Ivor Heller, Spring 1979, enjoying a goodness-knows-what moment with Helen Lewis from OxfordIncontrovertible evidence that the mystery woman above is Helen Lewis, plus a rare picture of Rebecca Lowi, the BBYO full-timer, chatting with Ivor, Spring 1979
The third and final election that year was for National Resources Officer, which was a combination of several former portfolios such as welfare, programmes, Soviet Jewry and perhaps a couple of others. I remember so little about how the elections worked. I think a candidate had to be proposed and seconded by an elector. Each group that was fully constituted (i.e. had a charter) had two electors. I think candidates simply made a short speech of self-advocacy and the electors then voted.
I don’t recall preparing myself for an election battle in any meaningful way. I think the influencers from the outgoing committee had decided that I had done enough in four or five months of magazine editing to justify supporting me for this expanded and complex portfolio. Anyway, I somehow succeeded in convincing enough electors that a bit of magazine writing and editing qualified me for the task…
…which would be a bit like assuming that a political sketch writer and former editor of a political magazine should be elected to a great political office of state…oh cripes!
We joined those already on the National Executive who would remain; Paul Dewinter (Southern Region President), Raymond Ingleby (Northern Region President) and Jeffrey Spector, who was to stay on as immediate past National President after saying goodbye to formal office.
Of course, conventions are also about goodbyes as well as hellos. This convention marked the end of Jeffrey Spector’s Presidency and indeed the end of two very successful years on the National Executive in his case.
Jeff Spector, Spring 1979
Writing forty years after this convention (in January 2020) and nearly five years after Jeffrey’s premature death, his memory lives on powerfully in my mind and I’m sure in the minds of most who knew him.
Jeffrey will have been honoured with life membership of BBYO at this convention, as would several other stalwarts. I don’t remember all the names, but I’m pretty sure Richard Marks, Tania Silverman and Neil Hyman were amongst them.
Of course there will have been interesting events for us all to enjoy. There will have been singing, dancing, skit competitions and a heck of a lot of spirited stuff. We had the spirit all right.
But in truth, I do not remember any specific stuff of that kind from this convention. I’d love to hear from people who have some very specific memories from this one.
But I do have one very clear memory from the aftermath of convention. It is described in my diary a bit but I do also remember it clearly.
Wednesday 2 January – Really late night. GREAT DAY. Returned, went straight back out to Hillel top stay with…
Thursday 3 January – …Dubliners. Saw off in the morning. Got a lot of admin done.
Yes, something went awry with the travel plans for the Dublin contingent on 2 January – presumably they missed their train or were informed that they would not get to Holyhead in time for the last ferry or something.
Anyone who ever went to one of these conventions will know how tired I must have been when I got home, but I had barely put down my bags when I got the call to please come to Hillel House and stay the night. The authorities there were refusing to give the Dublin BBYO contingent (I think it was 10 to 15 people) sanctuary unless someone suitably senior stayed with them to ensure that there would be no trouble.
So I grabbed my sleeping bag and headed off to Euston for the night, where I joined some very grateful Dubliners in a large room that I think was normally used for functions…
I’m amused also to read my comment about “getting a lot of admin done” while at Hillel on 3 January. However tired I must have been after seeing off the Dubliners, I was clearly awake and motivated enough to get started on my new portfolio that very day. The 57-year-old me is awarding the 17-year-old me top marks for effort there.
The Dubliners, being a warm and generous lot, sent me a lovely thank you and gift voucher when they returned to Dublin. I think David Lapedus was the ringleader of that kind gesture.
With the voucher, I treated myself to a copy of Roget’s Thesaurus, which has been my writing companion for the 40 years since…
“A thesaurus is great. There’s no other word for it” – Ross Smith
The sight of my Roget’s Thesaurus would often make me think of that convention and in particular that additional night with the Dubliners at Hillel House.
A BBYO convention is great. There’s no other word for it.
Postscript: Jay Marks responded to my shout out for more memories and/or materials in tremendous style – thanks in the most part to his mum. I have annexed – link here and below – a wonderful magazine piece from the Jewish Chronicle at the time, preserved by Jay’s mum and sent through via Facebook by Jay;
I was also still very active with my local group in Streatham. Once the time is right I’ll write up the plethora of Streatham BBYO activity that took place that autumn, including our famous (or should I say infamous) so-called-fashion-show at Bolingbroke.
So the fortnight’s run up to National Convention was a giddy mixture of local and National stuff. I might need help from friends disambiguating some of this.
Let’s start translating my scrawl with the day I broke up from school:
18 December – broke up. Back to Anils. Met Fran. Went to club in evening, she stayed.
No doubt Anil and I smoked some cigarettes and listened to some of our favourite records. e.g.
Fran had started her dentistry course that term and was staying in digs quite near our house. Mum invited her round for dinner a few times that first term and I’ll guess that term had just finished for her that day too, hence her staying that night before returning to her family.
Fran and I have subsequently reconnected through Facebook, where we discovered we had a shared interest in Middlesex CCC cricket – click here for the Fran tag.
19 December – Left for N [north] London. Took hours to get to Caroline’s [Freeman, now Curtis], dinner, Pinner, Drewey’s, late night
I ate often at Caroline’s house on my visits to “The North” in those days. I remember calculating at one point during my National Exec time that I had eaten more often at Caroline’s house than I had at my parent’s house over a period of several months. Caroline is also someone with whom I have kept in touch – here’s the Caroline tag.
“Drewey’s” is Andrew Melinek’s house. He (or I should say his parents) often and generously hosted meetings.
20 December – early start. Hillel all day, on to Sabra, then home.
Sabra was the Hampstead Garden Suburb chapter. Not too sure what i was doing there that evening – perhaps leading a group meeting. I was going round the groups that autumn showing photos of and talking about Mauritius:
The other two days of the above week were uneventful.
23 December – …Met Melina & 6 others went to Manhattan & on to party v good
Melina was, I think, Hendon BBYO and I’m guessing the six others were her pals from that part. I so clearly remember going off to see that Woody Allen movie, Manhattan and thinking it was a truly terrific movie.
I remember the strains of Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin ringing through my mind for several days after seeing that film.
24 December – Went to meeting at Hillel in afternoon. Went to Martin’s [Shaw?] in evening, got sozzled, Trafalgar Square etc.
The meeting was no doubt some planning towards convention. I wonder who else was at Martin’s getting sozzled and going up to Trafalgar Square. Shout out to the Streatham gang – who was there and do any of you remember that occasion better than I do – i.e. does anyone remember any details beyond my scanty jotting?
25 December – Went to home in morning, on to Linda’s for coffee. Evening entertained family etc. Quite good.
My recollection is that we went to a home or day centre in Camberwell to do voluntary work for needy and/or lonely folk. “Home” implies Nightingale – perhaps my memory is getting the dates/years confused, but I don’t recall ever doing voluntary work at Nightingale on Christmas day, I just remember the Camberwell place. Linda, Mark, Sandra, Natalie and/or others from Streatham might remember this and be able to explain it.
The next few days seem less eventful. I get the impression I had a bit of a pre-convention cold. 27th mentions Streatham preparation (that would be skits and songs), 28th mentions build up to convention but goodness only knows what I might have built.
29 December – Mike came in evening stayed night…
I cannot work out who Mike might have been. It was a tradition to put up northerners in need of a stop over on the way to a convention when it was in the south. The only Mike I can think of is Mike Rose, but I really don’t remember him ever staying with us. If there is a Mike out there who remembers staying in Woodfield Avenue with us on the way to convention, please put your hand up now.
But if it was Michael Rose…or even if it wasn’t…here’s Mike Rose’s song, which we for sure often sang at convention.
