Ian Louis Harris

Getting In To & Starting At Keele University, 8 October 1980

Tanya Dedyukhina / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)

I saw Keele University for the very first time on 8 October 1980. I entered through the main gates, on the bus from Stoke, carrying a suitcase and a holdall; less stuff than I would take with me for a weekend these days.

[“These days” means almost exactly 40 years later at the time of writing].

I stayed at Keele for five years.

It was Simon Jacobs’s fault. (Simon, right, trying to look cool and uninterested).

It was Simon Jacobs’s fault that I was there. No ifs no buts no maybes.

It happened like this.

Both Simon and I had made a similar mess of our A levels. We’d both thrown ourselves into BBYO at a local level (Pinner in his case, Streatham mine) and at a national level as well; we were both on the National Executive and indeed that summer I had been running the office after the sole full-timer, Rebecca Lowi, had left.

Simon started to address the educational “oops, what happens next?” problem far quicker than I did. On one unsung occasion in mid-to-late August 1980 Simon popped in to see me at the office at Hillel House, after he had visited Keele.

It seems like a really nice University. It’s small and friendly, the campus has large and very attractive grounds…and…they’ve offered me a place, even with my crummy A levels. You should give it a try.

I phoned Keele the next morning. I explained my predicament. The official I spoke with sounded quite promising.

Sure – come and have a look in the next week or so and we’ll have a chat about what we might be able to offer you with your so-called crummy A levels.

I demurred.

That might be a bit difficult. I am running this office all by myself and we have our annual National leadership training course starting next week and a bit of a governance crisis going on at the same time. You come highly recommended to me by Simon, whom I trust, so if you have a place for me I’m sure it will work out well for me and for Keele.

The Keele official demurred…slightly.

Well, that is a rather unusual request, but I suppose you have described a rather unusual predicament…let’s see what we can do…

I recall being asked to provide character references from senior teachers at my school, Alleyn’s, which wasn’t too difficult for me to achieve. Thank you, Colin Page; house master, games master, nice guy and teacher whom, I believe, never actually taught me academically-speaking. Not quite sure what he organised for me, but it worked.

My diary on Wednesday 10 September notes:

…good day (possible good news from Keele)…

I think that might be the news that I had a place subject to references.

Then Monday 15 September:

Got back from Nottingham [BBYO that was, not University hunting] – phoned Keele – in.

So when I entered through the gates on that bus with my measly bags, all I knew about the place was Simon’s review from his interview/tour day and the correspondence the University sent me between accepting me and my arrival.

Still, by 8 October, Simon had been there for a few days, so he was an expert already. He recalls being taken up at the weekend by his parents. That must have been the Sunday, because my diary says that Simon (along with several others) spent Saturday at the Harris residence in Streatham, but Simon wasn’t among those who stayed over.

Wednesday 8 October. Left home early. Easy journey. Registered. Met Simon, easyish day. Disco in evening v good.

That first day of Keele reads a bit Adrian Mole.

Thursday 9 October. Tons to do. Sorting things out. Saw Supercharge in evening.

No comment on Supercharge there. I do recall buying, for a very modest sum, one of their albums, Local Lads Make Good, in Record & Tape Exchange later that academic year. I realised on listening to it that they worked better live than they did on album…and I recalled that they hadn’t worked all that well for me live. They were fun, it was Freshers’ Week and we were all up for pretty much any live music.

I have subsequently found the micro review of the Supercharge concert from Concourse, the student newspaper – see below. I don’t think Christine was impressed.

Friday 10 October. Lots to do today. Sorting things out. Evening down union & singing songs avec Simon.

Cripes. I’d been at University for fewer than 72 hours and already I was clipping phrases such as “down Union”…

…and where did the phrase “avec Simon” come from? Was it an in joke from the evening – perhaps we had sung a French song or parodied the French chanteur style.

I recall the singing taking place in the Walter Moberly Hall. Certainly on more than one occasion and I’m pretty sure that evening must have been the first. Simon was itching to play the piano, so after a drink or two (and almost certainly a game or three of table football) we went in search of a piano for Simon to play and discovered that the Walter Moberly Hall was left open in the evenings for the convenience of scallywags like ourselves.

Of course, Simon has subsequently gone on to have a glittering avocational musical career, with album launches…

Simon Jacobs, Circle Line, Album Launch Showcase, Old Paradise Yard, 10 September 2017

…and more recently his latest album, from lockdown, which is previewed on the following track:

Coincidentally, Janie and I had arranged to visit Simon 10 October 2020 in blissful ignorance of the fact that it was 40 years since he and I had started Keele. It was only some chat on Facebook that alerted me to the “anniversary”.

A Week Of Serious Training For University Life Ahead Of Heading Up To Keele, 28 September To 4 October 1980

OK, so it seems that I somehow managed to blag my way in to Keele University…with a little help from my friends (in particular Simon Jacobs) and teachers (in particular Colin Page).

I returned alone from a week in Bournemouth with my parents (a one anecdote story about that trip will appear on Ogblog in the fullness of time), while my parents went on to explore the South-West of England for a week.

So, I had the run of Woodfield Avenue for my second and last week of holiday before steeling myself to the arduous task of student life.

I needed to do some training to get fit for the specific Herculean labours that the early part of my student life was likely to involve.

Fortunately I had plenty of friends to help me. Here, with just a little shame as well as pride, is my diary of that week.

Sunday 28 September. Left [Bournemouth] for London with [Dina? Nina?]. Advisors doobrie. Simon & Caroline came back. Went out for food. Drank.

Out for food in Streatham in those days probably meant Italian at Il Caretto or Chinese at the Blue Whatnot. I’ll guess Il Caretto.

29 September 1980. Simon & Caroline left. Went to Grandmas. Easy evening.

Not sure if there is an apostrophe catastrophe there, as it is quite possible…even likely…that I did a round trip of both Grandmas; Anne and Jenny.

Tuesday 30 September 1980. Went to office. Helped Jay [Marks]. Came home., read, slept.

A relatively gentle start to my training. One evening on, two evenings off. A bit feeble, actually. Then, mercifully, my friends rallied around and matters got serious.

Wednesday 1 October 1980. Easyish day. Simon came over early evening, stayed over, drank.

Thank you, Simon.

Thursday 2 October 1980. Simon left. Easy day. Lewis [Sykes, I assume] came over – stayed over, drank.

Picture “borrowed” from David Menashe. I’m sure David won’t mind, but if there is ever a blank space where the picture once lived, then you’ll know that David did mind..

Friday 3 October 1980. Lewis remained. Anil came over. Anil & Lewis stayed. Drank.

Saturday 4 October 1980. Anil & Lewis left. Simon, Caroline, Richard [Marks, I assume], A.N. Other [I can only apologise to this forgotten person], Melisa [yes, I remember Melisa, Hendon BBYO I think, but I shall need to do some more archaeology on my archive], came over, & Andrea & Wendy who stayed. Drank.

I am wondering what we drank. My dad usually had a handy stock of more than half-decent Bulgarian red wines in those days, as he was friendly with his importer neighbour near the shop on St John’s Hill, Battersea. I’m guessing that dad left me a case for that week with a nod and a wink. He was that kind of dad.

Forty years later, I’m still in touch with most of the people who helped me train that week. Thank you so much, folks, for helping me prepare for University. So kind and the kindness is not forgotten.

Mix Tape Of Popular Music Around The Time I Started Keele, c1 October 1980

I have already written up the week I spent “training” to go to Keele:

A Week Of Serious Training For University Life Ahead Of Heading Up To Keele, 28 September To 4 October 1980

At some point during that week, I will have made up a mix tape of current popular music.

In less frenetic times, I would record the odd song or two or a few, while listening to the chart show every few weeks. These were frenetic times, though. I had just finished working for BBYO all summer (living in at Hillel House most of the time) and was soon to go off to Keele University.

So I recorded quite a lot of stuff from the radio during those few days off. Initially, that would have been recorded onto the Sony TC-377 reel-to-reel tape recorder (see photo above). But as I knew I planned only have a cassette player with me at Keele, I then copied said recordings onto a cassette.

Quite laborious stuff.

Here is the list of recordings I made at that time:

Masterblaster Jamming, Stevie Wonder
I Die You Die, Gary Numan
Don’t Stand So Close, The Police
Don’t Lose Your Temper, XTC
Best Friend, The Beat
I Wanna Be Straight, Ian Dury and the Blockheads
Baggy Trousers, Madness
Give Me the Night, George Benson
Searchin’, Change
Oops Upside Your Head, Gap Band
Tom Hark, The Piranhas
Eighth Day, Hazel O’Connor
Feels Like I’m In Love, Kelly Marie
One Day I’ll Fly Away, Randy Crawford
What You’re Proposing, Status Quo
Stereotype, The Specials
Misunderstanding, Genesis
Fallout, Data
Fashion, David Bowie
Army Dreamers, Kate Bush
Mad At You, Joe Jackson
All Out of Love, Air Supply
I Got You, Split Enzz
Another One Bites the Dust, Queen
Amigo, Black Slate
Disco, Ottawan

In truth, I wouldn’t be choosing many of these for my Desert Island iPod now. I can try the slightly lame excuses that I hadn’t really been paying that much attention to the chart music that late summer/early autumn and that I will have made up this tape in a bit of a rush, possibly with more willingness to pad out the tape than usual.

Anyway, to the extent that I am able, below are links to public domain versions of each of the above, so you can decide for yourselves, if you can be bothered. In any case, I’m sure some readers will be curious enough to want to listen to some of the recordings.

The play list starts brilliantly…and ends.

Gosh, that was quicker and easier than making up a mix tape, by a long, long chalk.

A Week In Bournemouth: “Nothing To Do Here” (Apart From Master Blaster Jamming), 21 to 27 September 1980

I do hope that residents and lovers of Bournemouth forgive me for my damning four word review of the place…or at least understand the context of that diary statement from the 18-year-old me.

I had just completed an exciting three months over the summer, running the BBYO office, dashing up and down the country visiting BBYO projects, learning in late August that I had messed up my A-Levels and yet somehow (with Simon Jacobs’s & Colin Page’s help) blagging my way into Keele University by mid September.

I was eagerly anticipating the next phase of my life by late September and I don’t think I was especially keen on a “Jewish holidays” stay in Bournemouth with my parents and Grandma Anne.

The compromise we agreed (not least because I had BBYO commitments) was that I would join them for a week in Bournemouth and then travel back to London for a Sunday commitment and then my own holiday week “training to be a student”:

A Week Of Serious Training For University Life Ahead Of Heading Up To Keele, 28 September To 4 October 1980

I went to the Bournemouth BBYO meeting on the Sunday. The phrase “nothing to do here” was clearly a reference to Bournemouth as a town, not the warm hospitality I was no doubt afforded by the youth group there.

I suspect that the phrase “there’s nothing to do here” was handed to me by one or more of the BBYO-niks when I asked them on the Sunday for suggestions that might spice up my week.

We stayed at the Cumberland on this occasion, as evidenced by the photo below.

Until I found the above photo, helpfully labelled “The Cumberland” by my mum, I mistakenly thought we had stayed at the New Ambassador, as we had three years earlier – a mini-holiday from 1977 that I shall certainly write up in the fullness of time.

But whereas the fifteen-year-old me had revelled in the company of fellow youngsters in a Jewish hotel during the half-term week of October 1977, this 1980 visit was clearly not to my taste.

To add to the boredom factor for me, this holiday coincided with Sukkot, which, to religious Jews, is a major festival, observed strictly at kosher hotels such as the Cumberland (or New Ambassador, come to that).

The food would have been plentiful and all-inclusive; breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner, with several courses both to lunch and dinner. Grandma Anne will have massively over-eaten, especially at lunchtime. Then, every day, she would have gone through the four stages of post-lunch gastro-grief: irritability, wind, sleep and finally hope (i.e. hope for a few hands of kalooki before tea and cakes are served).

On the main Sukkot festival days (the Thursday and Friday that year) plus shabbat (Saturday every week), games like kalooki were forbidden, thus worsening Grandma’s afternoon mood when her kalooki hopes were dashed.

Grandma Anne – “I’m forcing myself to eat”

Still, a week in “Borschtmouth” was quite a pleasant change for someone, like Grandma Anne, in their late 80’s.

But not what I was looking for in my early 18’s.

In fact, if we go by the diary, nothing at all memorable happened during that week in Bournemouth. But I have one very strong, abiding memory from that trip.

Master Blaster Jamming Revolving Doors

Image “borrowed” from a defunct catawiki listing on fair use basis for identification

Neither my parents nor I were particularly interested in the religious holiday element of the visit. Grandma Anne was a rabbi’s daughter and dad had been raised in a very traditional Jewish household. Mum far less so. Once I had shown little and diminishing interest in the religious side of things, our household had become pretty secular.

Anyway; we had one mission while we were in Bournemouth which was to sort out my combined 18th birthday and going away to University gift. I wanted a ghetto blaster, so I could listen to radio and cassettes in the confined space I knew was to be my lot for several years at University.

Having left matters until late in the week, mum, dad and I hatched a cunning plan to get this piece of shopping done during Sukkot. The hotel basically acted as a synagogue for such a high-holiday and the vast majority of residents – not least all of the religious ones – would attend the service.

We worked out that we would have plenty of time to sneak out of the hotel, procure a suitable item and get back with the booty while all the religious lot were still ensconced in ritual and prayer…

…except that…

…shopping expeditions with my family were never particularly timely affairs and this purchase required thought and due diligence.

I bought a Philips Spatial Stereo Ghettoblaster/Boombox (see above picture) and very pleased with it I was too, all packaged up in its great big box .

We realised that we had cut it a bit fine and hurried back to the hotel.

We realised that we had goofed as we saw people started to come out of the makeshift hotel synagogue. But rather than slowing down and unobtrusively braving our way in by sneaking through the doors and up the stairs while the assembled frummers were preoccupied with chat and thoughts of lunch…

…we panicked. In our rush, Dad and I got in the same section of the revolving door – a potentially door-jamming mistake at the best of times, but with the additional space-taking-device that was my ghetto-blaster in its box, we were stuck.

Not as posh-looking as this one, but you get the gist

Mum tried to rectify matters by pulling the revolving door in the reverse direction, but revolving doors don’t work like that – or at least this one certainly didn’t. I think a receptionist spotted our embarrassing circumstances and helped to rescue us. Goodness only knows how many people saw us and if any of those who might have seen us really cared. No-one said anything to us about it.

In later months and years, mum, dad and I would joke about the incident. It would have made a good scene in a sit-com or sketch in a comedy TV show.

Just in case some readers don’t realise what a suitable headline phrase “Master Blaster Jamming” is to describe the revolving doors story…and just in case some other readers want to hear the song Master Blaster (Jammin’) again, the following Stevie Wonder smash was all over the airwaves at that time and was for sure one of my welcomed earworms at the time:

So good, that track.

Anyway, I had my ghetto blaster and it gave me good service at Keele for my first two or three years, until I traded it up for an armour-plated Grundig one…but that’s another story.

Master Blaster Jamming…We’ll Be Jamming The Revolving Door…

A Most Mysterious Evening In Or At Crystal Palace With Paul DeWinter, 12 August 1980

The diary is pretty clear on this matter:

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.

Firstly, my Googling of the 1980/81 football season reveals that the season didn’t even start for Crystal Palace until 16 August 1980.

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.

Sorting Out A Problem Kibbutz, BBYO Hillel House, 21 to 24 July 1980

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.

Thu, Jul 24, 1980 – 24 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

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:

Not Quite Jerusalem

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!

Postscript: seeing Not Quite Jerusalem at the Finborough turned out to be our (my and Janie’s) last visit to the theatre before lockdown:

Not Quite Jerusalem by Paul Kember, Finborough Theatre, 13 March 2020

Anyway, if you were one of those 1980 BBYO kibbutzniks, please do get in touch and share the experiences from your perpective.

Afek – reproduced from Wikimedia Commons with the kind permission of Ori

Mix Tapes From Around The Time That I Left Alleyn’s School, Late May To 28 June 1980

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:

The Day I Left (Alleyn’s) School, 27 June 1980

One of those questions, around “what would you do differently?” might be answered in terms of the choice of music. Or would it?

I have recently (late 2020) enjoyed replicating and sharing the mix tapes I made in the autumn of 1980, around the time I started Keele University and the mix tape I made at the end of that first term at Keele:

Mix Tape Recorded Just After My First Term At Keele, c28 December 1980

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.

Anyway, here it is, as a playlist of YouTubes:

The Day I Left (Alleyn’s) School, 27 June 1980

Robert Cutts, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0

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.

Jwslubbock, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0 g

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 my ire that last week was mainly directed at the unreasonable requirement for me to do ‘A’ Levels while all of this other stuff was going on. Needless to say my A Levels did not go well and it was only the good offices of Keele University via Simon Jacobs that helped me dodge the bullet of my resulting dodgy A Levels.

Getting In To & Starting At Keele University, 8 October 1980

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.”

My First “Proper” Rock Gig, The Sound, 101 Club, 16 May 1980

I had been going to see R&B stuff in the pub for over a year before The Sound gig, as documented in my piece about going to The George Canning in April 1979 – click here or below:

An Evening At The George Canning, 8 April 1979

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).

Here’s what the Derelict London site says about the 101 Club, so many years on – third derelict venue down the list at the time of writing.

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.

As it happens, just a few months later, a gig by The Teardrop Explodes, supported by The Thompson Twins, was one of my earliest and most memorable gigs at Keele – reported here and below:

The Teardrop Explodes supported by The Thompson Twins, Keele Students’ Union Ballroom, 5 November 1980

The next thing I remember…

…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?

Anyway, there is a splendid two-part interview on-line with Benita (who was known as Benita Marshall or Bi Marshall as an artiste), which tells her story from The Sound days:

Here is Part One of that Benita interview.

Here is Part two of that Benita interview.

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

A Weekend In Manchester Straight From School, 7 to 9 March 1980

My memory for this piece was triggered by a very enjoyable reunion with Mark Lewis at Simon Jacobs’s album launch in September 2017.

Mark Lewis is now one of the top media and libel lawyers around – a man who did not fear taking on the Murdoch Empire in the Millie Dowler phone hacking case, nor did he fear Katie Hopkins in the Jack Monroe Twitter libel case.

So I’d better be very careful indeed what I say…

…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.

Postscript: I have subsequently found a picture of me in my Alleyn’s three piece suit a few month’s later – written up and linked here & through the picture below:

Me And Wendy Robbins On Westminster Bridge

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.

January 2018 postscript: I have found the second visit and tried to disambiguate the two weekends here:

A Second Weekend Visit To The Lewis Household, Towards The End Of My BBYO Days, 20 & 21 December 1980

Back to the March 1980 weekend:

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.

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Master Blaster Jamming Revolving Doors

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