Author: Ian Louis Harris

Meeting With Triumph And Disaster At The End Of My 2AK Year At Alleyn’s School

Triumph on the cricket pitch meets disaster in the exam hall

By my mediocre standards as a sportsperson, my second year at Alleyn’s was an annus mirabilis. Actually, the success all seems to have come in a rush in the final term, so it was possibly no more than a terminus mirabilis.

Tony King: “Even yer Latin was pretty shite, Harris!”

No week better sums up the peaks and troughs of that particular period of my school life than the one depicted and described here.

I know, the words need transcribing. Here goes:

Sunday 29 June 1975 – Went to classes sports. Got certificate for second place in the 4 x 80 m relay – very enjoyable time.

Monday 30 June 1975 – the swimming gala. We came ↓ [bottom, presumably]. Getting some [exam] results, some not too good. TV Star Trek, Waltons, Horizon, Anaesthesia.

Tuesday 1 July 1975 – classes good TV

Wednesday, 2 July 1975 – We’ve [2AK] won the cricket league by beating to 2BM 86-80. TV The Ascent of Man

Thursday, 3 July 1975 – uneventful day. Preparation for concert. TV Jacques Cousteau, Comedy of Marriage.

Friday, 4 July 1975 – Day of concert. All went well. On to Grandma Anne. Don [Donald Knipe] kicked up a fuss. 24th in class.

Saturday, 5 July 1975 – had an exeat. Mum in peeve all day. TV Canon, That’s Life.

I cannot believe it. That certificate for coming second in the 4 x 80m relay failed to avoid my mother’s cull of my juvenilia and memorabilia. I do recall it had pride of place with my pile of near-irrelevant certificates for many years.

As for the swimming gala – the “we” in that comment was presumably 2AK. Our year had some cracking good swimmers in it, but, looking at my 2AK names list, we lacked most of not all of our year’s swimming and water polo heroes. Swimming was not one of my strong suits.

I had far less excuse for my dismal performance in class. Suffice it to say that my myriad extra curricula activities that year, combined with my mother’s diminished influence while in hospital/rehabilitating much of the time, had drawn my attention away from the business of learning stuff that gets results in school exams.

Two words: not good.

But who cares? 2AK won the league in the interclass cricket that year, no doubt strongly influenced by my voice-captaincy.

Parenthetically, I still have no recollection of any duties performed by the vice-captain in such circumstances, nor do I recall who our captain was. I’ll guess that the captain was Ian Feeley or Dave French. It’s hard to tell who was deemed to be captaincy material back then. I mean, we ALL went to the right sort of school, didn’t we?

Jumbo Jennings did not play cricket for us that season, I am 99% sure, because when he broke through in house cricket the following year, he surprised everybody…including himself probably, as I don’t think he much liked cricket.

I have copious, near-illegible notes about performance scribbled at the back of my diary. Perhaps THAT is what a vice-captain is supposed to do. The stats. I might scan those and add them as a appendix here for my completist readers and for cricket historians of the future.

Long ago and far away

As for the lower school concert on the Friday…

…my role is neither mentioned in my diary nor in the quaint, comprehensive write up for Scribblerus by Mr Kingman, which is linked here.

I’m pretty sure that I had been elbowed out of the lower school orchestra by the end of the year, by dint of being so very, very awful at playing the violin. My mother never really got over that, coming from a family of virtuoso violinists and multi-instrumentalists…

Turn It Up To Max & Spit: The Baltic Origins Of My Mother’s (Marcus) Family Revealed

…how come Andy Levinson, from a family of medics, was making so much better a fist of the violin than mum’s little darling? Jovito Athaide is also mentioned in that concert write up and I do remember him as being a musical talent. It was so sad to learn that his life was cut tragically short through heart failure.

I do vaguely remember the Tom Sawyer dramatization, which is also mentioned. I don’t suppose my deep south accent cut the mustard then, any more than it would now, so I’ll guess that my role in that concert was to be a gopher/fixer for the teachers.

Don Knipe “kicking up a fuss” at Grandma Anne’s place is part of a long and very peculiar story. Edwina Green, Don’s wife, was our family doctor. They were great friends of my grandma and indeed the whole “Streatham branch” of our family. The story is set out in the following linked piece, if you like reading weird:

Strange Case Of Dr Green And Mr Knipe…And Beluga Caviar And Scotch Whisky And A Bust Of Hitler, c22 December 1981

Moving on, I wonder whether I made the connection, back then, between “24th in Class” reported on the Friday and “Mum in a peeve all day” reported on the following day. That connection is certainly clear to me now.

The word “peeve” makes me think of Andy Levinson’s vocabulary more than my own. Do you still use that word, Andy? I certainly don’t…or at least didn’t. I might start using it again, now that the diary has brought it back to the front of my mind.

WordPress AI’s depiction of “a peeved kid”.

“Came Fourth In The Inter-Form 400m…” – Back When I Was Better At Watching Tennis On TV Than At Doing Exams…Or Indeed Athletics

Trigger warning. My best placing was usually before the starting gun.

Oh dear! I was not enjoying the exam season at school that year. And for good reason too. I was having a flunky year.

Perhaps the problem was simply that the markers were struggling with my handwriting. If only it had been possible to transcribe scribble into typed text back then.

But it is possible to do that now, so let’s try and set the record (unlike my handwriting) straight:

Sunday, 22 June 1975 classes boring. Dined at Felds. Afternoon in sun. So errands. David Aarons sitting – played backgammon and chess.

Monday 23 June 1975 started exams. TV Star Trek, Waltons.

Tuesday, 24 June 1975 – worst day for exams. Uneventful day.

Wednesday 25 June 1975 – took two exams. Still hard. Inter-form athletics. I came fourth in 400m out of four. Calculator from Auntie Rose [Rose Beech]. Very good one.

I love the unwitting joke that I came fourth in the inter-form event. On first skim I thought that sounded pretty good, until I more carefully read, “out of four”. Oh dear.

That Rockwell calculator was a REALLY good one

4 divided by (out of) 4 = 1. Does that mean I came first in the 400m?

Thursday 26 June 1975 – still examining. Today physics and music. TV Jacques Cousteau & Play with a twist.

Friday 27 June 1975 still doing exams – only 2 to go. TV Walt Disney, It’s a Knockout and 10 from 20.

Saturday 28 June 1975 – finished exams, relaxed afternoon. Watched Wimbledon. Film: Greatest Show On Earth, ITV Boobed.

Arthur Ashe by Bogaerts, Rob / Anefo, CC BY-SA 3.0 NL

Perhaps I saw Arthur Ashe that day. Or Jimmy Connors. Or Brian Gottfried. Or Ken Rosewall. Or several of them and others.

The Very First Cricket World Cup Final, Australia v West Indies, 21 June 1975

I made three mentions of the very first cricket world cup (which was billed as the Prudential Cup) in my 1975 diary. I have already Ogblogged the very first match…

The Very First Match Of The Very First Cricket World Cup: I Was There (In Our Living Room), As Were Tom And Jerry, 7 June 1975

…and also the day that England made an untimely semi-final exit:

A Truly Thrice Awful Day In My School/Sporting Life, 18 June 1975

Here is my diary entry for the final:

Even I have had to do some Photoshop forensics on that 21 June entry:

West Indies won first P Cup by 17 runs. Had a day off school for founders day. TV: Cannon, That’s Life. Still swotting.

I’m not sure why I got a Saturday off on Alleyn’s School Founders Day. Perhaps it was because my year was still swatting for exams so we were exempted. Perhaps I was exempted on religious grounds, as that Saturday was just a few weeks before my barmitzvah.

In any case, I can’t imagine when I did the swotting boasted in the diary entry. I don’t have any recollection of swotting that day. I only recall being glued to the telly, not least for most if not all of that cricket match.

I certainly recall seeing Roy Fredericks getting out hit wicket, which was very early in the match…and seeing that partnership between Clive Lloyd and Rohan Kanhai…and seeing the Aussies struggle against that West indies bowling attack…

I do also recall the match going on late…indeed past the time that dinner was normally served in the Harris household. There was a golden rule that meal times took precedence over ANYTHING on television.

I remember arguing my corner. This was the first ever cricket world cup final and there would never, ever be another “first ever” and it was building up to a really exciting ending.

I managed to get a temporary stay of execution for the family dinner, much against my mother’s better judgement.

Here is a link to the scorecard and the Cricinfo resources for that match.

Below is a highlights package of the match – I especially dig the floppy hats donned by Fredericks and Greenidge at the start of the innings:

Beyond the final, I know that first cricket world cup had a profound effect on me.

I saved newspaper clippings of the scorecards from the various matches and I remember replaying the world cup with my friends (and on my own) in various formats over the summer:

I especially remember looking at the names of players and trying to understand what the different types of names meant for those different places. The mixture of Portuguese and Southern Asian names from Sri Lanka especially sparked my interest.

I wondered whether I would visit some of those exotic-seeming (judging by the cricketers’ names) places. I have now visited most.

Writing this article on the eve of the 2019 Cricket World Cup Final, I am still wondering when England will win the tournament.

A Truly Thrice Awful Day In My School/Sporting Life, 18 June 1975

The summer of 1975 was my sporting annus mirabilis at Alleyn’s School. This was the summer in which I considered winning a tournament quarter-final to be an uneventful day

An Uneventful Day Playing Fives, 9 June 1975

This was the summer in which I took a hat trick at cricket; at the culmination of a league-winning tournament in which my class, 2AK won all but one of the league matches:

The Day I Took A Hat Trick At Cricket, Alleyn’s School, 9 July 1975

But when you are as sporadic at sport as I am, no amount of enthusiasm nor occasional high achievement is going to protect you from the bad days.

18 June 1975 seems to have been such a day. And not just for me.

Just in case any readers are as sporadic at reading finely crafted handwriting as I am at sport, let me transcribe that 18 June diary entry for you.

We lost in cricket league. Boo hoo. Some hot revision. Had to catch 37 train home. Out of fives competition. TV Ascent of Man, Only On Sunday. England out of Prudential Cup.

That loss in the cricket league will have really hurt at the time. I have all of the scores neatly recorded in the back of my diary (I’ll write up the tournament at some point) so can confirm that we lost that game to 2BM by three runs (90 played 93). They were the other form team in the league – we had beaten them once before in our run of six wins at the start of the tournament. A seventh win on 18 June would have confirmed the tournament for us, but that loss kept our main rivals in the race – we were to face them once more a couple of weeks later.

It appears that I not only had to vice-skipper the cricket team that day but I also had to play my fives tournament semi-final. I dont record who my fives nemesis was that day, but I have a feeling, thanks to John Eltham’s extraordinary memory for our school’s sporting legends, that it was Neil Hodson.

The 18 June 1975 diary entry, I must say, is extraordinarily bleak, even in its brevity. “Some hot revision”, I sense, was my juvenile attempt to record that sense of being hot and bothered all day at Alleyn’s. Clearly even my preferred route home from school on that day of sporting disaster was confounded.

Then, to cap it all, “England out of the Prudential Cup”, that first cricket world cup that I had been following avidly since the very first day of the tournament.

A Tale Of Two Cartoons And An Historic Yet Cartoonish Cricket Match, 7 June 1975

And let’s be honest about it. England hadn’t just been knocked out. England had been soundly thrashed by Australia of all teams. Soundly thrashed – click here to see the scorecard.

England’s nemesis that day – a left arm swing bowler named Gary Gilmour. 1975 was to be his annus mirabilis too. But Gilmour’s sporting heights were mirabilis electi while mine were mirabilis ordinarius.

The Ascent Of Man was clearly compulsory television viewing in our household that summer and quite right too. But what was Only On Sunday? I had to delve deep for this one, but Only On Sunday turns out to have been a comedy pilot for a sitcom set in the world of village cricket. I don’t suppose that screening the pilot on the day England were thrashed out of the cup did much for its chances, despite the top notch writing team and cast. Others cashed in years later with a similar idea, Outside Edge.

I wrote the words “boo hoo”, cynically I suspect, but I wonder whether or not the 12-year-old me really did cry at some point during that day or evening. I must admit that, writing this up now, aged 56, I welled up a little imagining my much younger self going through and then reflecting on that awful sporting day.

For The Completists Amongst You…

Here is my transcription of that diary page:

Sunday, 15 June 1975 – took second half of exam. All over! Dined up films. John player – Derby V Essex, film panicking streets.

Monday 16 June 1975 school under 13s. We won by seven wickets. TV Star Trek, likely lads, Waltons, weekend, Horizon.

17 June 1975 – bar mitzvah class. Then came home lots of revision. TV add the seventh crown hooray.

Wednesday, 18 June 1975 – we lost in cricket league boo-hoo some hot revision had to catch 37 train home. Out of five competition. TV ascent of man, only on a Sunday, England out of potential cup.

Thursday, 19 June 1975 didn’t go to classes. Still sweltering. TV Dad’s Army, Jacques Cousteau, All in the Family.

Friday, 20 June 1975 – uneventful day. Still sweating. TV It’s a Knockout v good, more swatting.

Saturday, 21 June 1975 – West Indies won Prudential Cup…Still swatting.

I wrote up the Saturday some while ago:

The Very First Cricket World Cup Final, Australia v West Indies, 21 June 1975

Fives, Cricket, Exams And Telly; The Second Week Of June 1975

The handwriting was pretty wonky:

Sunday, 8 June 1975 – took first part of senior exam. Not too bad. Another sweltering day like the last two. Had a good time in garden. TV Doctor On The Go.

Monday, 9 June 1975 – uneventful day. Beat Eltham 11-5, 11-5 in quarter-finals. TV Star Trek, Likely Lads, Waltons, Rutland Weekend Television.

I wrote up 9 June 1975 some years ago:

An Uneventful Day Playing Fives, 9 June 1975

Tuesday, 10 June 1975– got to classes late because the bus. TV Edward VII.

Wednesday 11 June 1975 – we won cricket. I scored 7 and gave 5. TV Ascent of Man, Spike Milligan.

Thursday, 12 June 1975 – classes good – last one ever [i.e. last midweek Hebrew classes ever, not all types of class…obvs.] . TV Cousteau, All of the Family.

Friday 13 June 1975 – PE, cricket. TV Walt Disney, It’s a Knockout, 10 from 20s.

Saturday 14 June 1975 – scored under 13s, us 136 for one declared, [Wayne] Manhood 55 not out, [Perry] Harley 58, and them 96 all out – [Paddy/Sean] McGlone 4 wickets and a catch

My faint memory of scoring for the under 13s was pretty much solely of Wayne Manhood & Perry Harley batting. That 14 June 1975 report at least part explains why.

An Uneventful Day Playing Fives, 9 June 1975

Phil Bishop & Dave Fox playing Rugby Fives, RFA Website, GPL

Without doubt my favourite game in the early days at Alleyn’s was fives. Specifically at Alleyn’s we played Rugby Fives.

It was the only sport at which I was good enough to represent the school and no doubt that selection only came through my comparative ability with the left-hand as well as the right. Let’s not call this ambidextrous, in my case more like ambiclumsy. In any case, my doubles partner was Alan Cooke and he was good. I probably got my team berth more on the back of Alan’s skills than my own.

Still, I wasn’t bad and there are lots of references to my successes and failures throughout my diaries, especially 1974 & the first half of 1975.

But looking back today, early February 2016, I thought I should write a short piece about this simple entry I found for 9 June 1975.

Uneventful day.  Beat Eltham 11-5, 11-5 in Q-Finals.

Now in my book, John Eltham was good at sport. Really good at sport. I’m not sure John played fives much, but he was generally good at sport.

I was not good at sport. Really, really, really not good at sport. There was the occasional success, of course, not least one goalkeeping tale of derring-do that I have promised not to blog about…

…for the time being…

…until I can find the reference and/or unless the promised hush money proves not to be forthcoming…

…but my point is, looking back, I don’t see how the two sentences in the above quote could possibly be talking about the same day. Beating John Eltham at any sport made it an eventful day. Heck, just having got to the Q-Finals of any sport made it an eventful day for me.

But perhaps my young mind, turned by some fleeting success, was by then looking beyond a semi-final appearance to greater glory than that achieved.

The diary is silent on fives for the rest of the term apart from a fleeting mention of my semi-final loss a week-or-so later, with no mention of the score or the opponent – click here or below – clearly I couldn’t even bear to write down that particular losing result.

A Truly Thrice Awful Day In My School/Sporting Life, 18 June 1975

Anyone care/dare to own up to ruining this poor kid’s day by destroying his one chance at glory in the internal fives competition? I fancy a rematch.

Postscript One

John Eltham, on seeing this posting, e-mailed me the next day to say:

You modestly left out the fact that we had at least two national Rugby Fives champions in our year ! Hodson & Stendall.

Indeed we did, John. And indeed Jumbo Jennings latterly. I’d forgotten about Neil Hodson in that context.

I have a strange feeling that it might well have been Hodson who beat me in the semis – I have always had a sense of unfinished business with him and I probably would have been too gutted to report the loss. Whereas Chris Stendall was, like Alan Cooke, an old mate from primary school; I took my (more often than not) losses against them on the chin and regularly recorded those in the diary.

Postscript Two

After writing the above line “I fancy a rematch” and posting this piece, I then knelt down to put the 1975 diary back in the box under the bed and then…felt my left hammy twinge when I got up again. Perhaps a fives rematch at the age of 53 is not such a good idea after all.

Postscript Three

For reasons of his own, Rohan Candappa presented me with a trophy commemorating this historic fives victory, in December 2018, described here:

An Award-Winning Evening During Which I Hung Out With The Alleyn’s Old Boys Crowd, Sripur Restaurant, 6 December 2018

From left to right: John Eltham (just in picture), Rohan Candappa, Paul Driscoll & Ollie Goodwin

A Tale Of Two Cartoons And An Historic Yet Cartoonish Cricket Match, 7 June 1975

Allow me to transcribe this diary entry as best I can. The verb pertaining to my father’s insurance claim I think reads, “blagged” but I might be mistaken:

Saw Prudential Cup. England Won. Old 51 not out. Dad blagged from insurance got two films: Jerry & the Goldfish, and Dr Jekyll & Mr Mouse

“Prudential Cup” that day was actually the very first match in the tournament that later became known as the cricket world cup, so I am rather glad to realise that i really have been following that tournament since the very beginning.

A strange match to say the least. Look at the scorecard:

England v India at Lord’s 7 June 1975

England’s score looks normal by modern standards, but 334/4 was a monster score in a one day match back then. My excitement about Chris Old’s performance was due to the fact that he was one of my favourite players, because he was from the Yorkshire team that I met when I was seven…

A Short Holiday In Brighton, During Which I Met Geoffrey Boycott & The Yorkshire Cricket Team, 3 September 1969

…therefore Chris Old was, to all intents and purposes, my friend. My friend scored 51 runs in 30 balls which was, in those days, a very unusual and exciting run rate.

In response, India crawled to 132/3, with Sunny Gavaskar responding to England’s huge total with what I can only imagine was an act of passive resistance: 36 runs in 174 balls.

I doubt if I saw the whole match through.

More likely, I was captivated by the Tom & Jerry cartoons dad brought home from the shop for me.

Dad’s shop.

His shop window had suffered some serious water damage, with much stock completely written off, but those two Tom & Jerry cartoons (Standard 8) had damaged boxes but the film inside was salvagible.

Dad, being dad, asked the insurance man if it would be alright to hand the unsellable but still useable items to his son. the insurance man probably nearly fainted (or could hardly control his laughter) at being asked such a question and kindly acquiesced to dad’s modest request.

Dad told me that he had persuaded the insurance man to let me have the films and I was most impressed by dad’s negotiating skills.

I loved those films and watched them over and over.

I strongly suspect that dad got home before Sunny Gavaskar’s crease protest was over and that I abandoned the cricket match for the cartoons. The diary is silent on that aspect.

Here is the Jerry & the Goldfish, thanks to The Daily Motion:

And here is Dr Jekyll & Mr Mouse, also from The Daily Motion:

The First Week Of June, Including The UK Joining The EEC & The Very First Match Of The Very First Cricket World Cup. I Was There (In Our Living Room), As Were Tom And Jerry, 1 To 7 June 1975

I witnessed the very start of world cup cricket from the comfort of our family living room in Woodfield Avenue.

How do I know? Because my diary says so.

It’s just possible that you cannot read the first two lines of the 7 June 1975 diary entry – allow me to help:

Saw Prudential Cup. England won, Old 51 not out.

I described the match as Prudential Cup, not Cricket World Cup. David Kendix – Middlesex CCC treasurer, international cricket scorer, ICC guru on rankings/statistical stuff and “Man From The Pru” would no doubt approve.

At that time, the tournament was not being promoted as, nor (as I understand it) was there an express intention to initiate, a regular cricket world cup. It was simply billed as an eight team international one-day cricket tournament, sponsored by Prudential, to help fill the scheduling gap created by South Africa’s apartheid-induced suspension from international sport.

But in my mind at the time it most certainly was a world cup and I remember being absolutely captivated by it. I’ll write more in subsequent pieces about how that captivation manifested itself in me over that summer of 1975. This article will focus only on that very first day.

Here is a link to the scorecard from that televised match.

My diary comments on the score are quite interesting, more for what they omit than for what they say. True, England won the match. True, Chris Old scored 51 not out.

I did not remark on Dennis Amiss scoring a magnificent 137 – perhaps in honour of my favourite bus route at the time; the route from our house to Grandma Jenny’s flat.

Nor did I remark upon the England team score of 334/4, which was a very high score in those days, albeit in 60 overs rather than the now-standard 50.

Even more remarkable, but absent from my comments, was the paltry India score in reply, 132/3 in 60 overs, with Sunil Gavaskar on the mother of all go slows, scoring 36 not out in 174 balls. Possibly he decided that India stood no chance and he would have a bit of batting practice instead. Either that or the Little Master didn’t fancy this one day stuff and indulged in a bit of satyagraha.

Below is a highlights reel from that match, upon which you will hear the voices of Richie Benaud and Jim Laker:

My focus on Chris Old will have been, in part, as a result of my having met the Yorkshire team some six years earlier and thus adopting my Yorkshire friends for the duration of my childhood:

A Short Holiday In Brighton, During Which I Met Geoffrey Boycott & The Yorkshire Cricket Team, 3 September 1969

But also, to be fair on myself, I was probably awestruck by my childhood hero Chris Old’s batting at the end of that one day innings – you didn’t see anyone score 51 runs in 30 balls in those days – it is commonplace now.

The rest of my diary entry for that day relates to something completely different:

Dad heard from insurance – got two films -Jerry and the Goldfish, Dr Jekyll and Mr Mouse

There had been a flood at dad’s shop and a fair chunk of stock got damaged; some beyond use, some beyond looking merchantable. I had helped dad clear up the place and my reward was to be some damaged stock that might still be useable. It turned out that these two Standard 8mm Tom and Jerry cartoon films were that reward.

If I recall correctly, both films were more than a little water-marked and also subject to snagging in the movie projector, so I don’t think I watched them all that much. No wonder the insurance company’s loss adjuster told dad that he could scrap them.

I wonder whether dad’s commercial insurance was with Prudential back then? Weird coincidence if it was.

Anyway, we can all watch those animated movies now, easily, on YouTube:

Jerry and the Goldfish – click here.

Dr Jekyll and Mr Mouse – click here.

For the completists among you, here is an attempted transcript of the rest of the text from that week:

Sunday, 1 June 1975 – classes good. Visited mummy. TV The Count of Monte Cristo.

Monday 2 June 1975 – beat [Bob] Kelly in the second round of fives [competition]. Mum came home. TV Likely Lads, Waltons, RWT [Rutland Weekend Television].

Tuesday, 3 June 1975. Classes good. Tea at Grandma Jenny’s. Cold chicken for dinner. TV Tommy Cooper.

Wednesday 4 June 1975. Beat 2BJ by 105 runs. 143 to 38. I got 10 runs gave five and got a catch. TV The Ascent Of Man, Wodehouse Playhouse.

Thursday, 5 June 1975 – Polling day [The European Communities membership referendum]. Classes mix up. TV Jacques Cousteau. Nothing else to tell!

Friday, 6 June 1975 – CCF Parade. Rotten. Had to walk home from Tulse Hill. I felt pretty ill. TV Walt Disney, It’s A Knockout and Canon. Britain’s in Europe!!

Selected For Cricket First Eleven Aged 12 & Other Alleyn’s School Hard Ball Stories, Plus Mum’s Hip Op & More, May 1975

1975 was my sporting annus mirabilis – or perhaps I should say that Alleyn’s Trinity Term 1975 was my sporting tempus mirabilis – for several reasons. For example, I have previously (out of sequence) reported my fives quarter final success.

An Uneventful Day Playing Fives, 9 June 1975

My most mirabilis hard ball (cricket ball, I hasten to point out) moment was also in June 1975, but I’ll keep readers in suspenders for that one at this stage.

Still, almost as astonishing was my selection for the cricket first eleven, on 3 May 1975, while I was still only 12. It’s there in the diary:

What do you mean, you can’t make out what that page says?

Sunday, 27 April 1975 – classes good. Salt beef excellent. Kalooki from 15p down to 11p up. Nice day and all.

Monday 28 April 1975– fives good. TV The Likely Lads, The Waltons, The Goodies.

Tuesday 29 April 1975 – uneventful day. TV The Rockford files, Edward the Seventh.

Wednesday, 30 April 1975 – cricket 2AK won – Me 6–0 runs 1-9 bowling, one catch. [Family dentist Harry] Wachtel came. TV St Trinians, Survivors, Woodhouse Playhouse.

Thursday, 1 May 1975 – Mom’s birthday. Classes good. TV Are You Being Served?

Friday 2 May 1975 – went into Barnett’s [Cyril and Marion]. Went to Camden. TV The Main Chance.

Saturday, 3 May 1975 – scored for first 11. Us 150 for 7 declared them 130 for 6.

OK, so I didn’t PLAY for the first XI at the age of 12, I scored for them. Give me a break, readers, I was only 12. Still, this was I’m sure an unusual promotion for one so young. Colin Page looked after the first XI and must have spotted (or been tipped off to) one of my many superpowers while I was still very young.

I simply will not accept the argument that Colin Page must have been desperate in his search for a scorer for that match. Nor that his desperation might well have had something to do with the fact that the FA Cup Final was that day and a London derby to boot. That is an outrageous slur on my burgeoning talent, aged 12.

Colin Page utilised my enthusiasm for cricket a great deal over the years, as the diary will attest. Scoring, umpiring…pretty much anything other than taking to the field of play. Still, he repaid my enthusiasm in spades at the end of my Alleyn’s journey, by giving me a glowing reference for Keele University in 1980:

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

But that bit of the past was way in the future in 1975. Let’s press on with the next week:

Sunday 4 May 1975 – classes good. Played in afternoon. Nice day. TV War Film.

Monday, 5 May 1975 – fives good. TV The Likely Lads, The Waltons, The Goodies.

Tuesday, 6 May 1975 – classes good. 18 out of 20 maths, 19 out of 20 Latin. TV Edward The Seventh.

Wednesday, 7 May 1975 – cricket was off. Finished Treasure Island. TV cartoon film, Survivors, Woodhouse Playhouse.

Thursday, 8 May 1975 – went to Grandma Jenny. Classes good. TV Love Thy Neighbour, Are You Being Served? Goodies Special.

Friday, 9 May 1975 – event swimming. Little men [goodness only knows what this means?]. TV The Best Of Dick Emery, The Good Life.

Saturday, 10 May 1975 – school in morning. Uneventful. Afternoon TV Eastern?, Sale of the Century, Mike Yarwood, Cannon.

Sunday, 11 May 1975 – dined at “Dragon” [Golden?] – v good. Flew planes. Stick stretch [was that a type of model plane?] excellent. TV Waterloo Road, Waltons film.

Monday 12 May 1975 – fives v good. Mom went into hospital. Dined at Peach Blossom. TV RWT [Rutland Weekend Television].

Tuesday, 13 May 1975 – went to classes. Had a nice dinner. TV Edward The Seventh.

Wednesday, 14 May 1975 – won cricket 54 to 38. Went to Barnett’s for dinner. Went to Camden Town. Beat Uncle Cyril at chess. TV Wodehouse Playhouse.

Thursday, 15 May 1975 – went to see mom. All right after operation. Dined at Peach Blossom. TV All in the Family (no good).

Friday, 16 May 1975 – had chicken etc. Went to see mum. Went to Grandma Anne’s. Don [Knipe] in bloody swear mood.

Saturday 17 May 1975 – went to school in morning. Andrew [Andy Levinson] for the rest of the day. Won snooker competition.

I owe an apology to readers who are wondering why I am again reporting my mother’s hip replacement surgery having previously reported it in/as February 1975:

A Private Lesson In Arthroplasty, Hockey, Supervising Entrance Exams, Viola Mooted, A Field Trip To Kew Gardens & Far Too Much TV: Alleyn’s School & Beyond In The First Half Of February 1975

I now realise/remember that mum’s surgery in February was a preparatory operation for her scheduled hip replacement, as she had, some years earlier, had a plate inserted in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt at using femoral osteotomy to provide a long-term solution to her hip problem.

The main, hip replacement surgery was in May 1975 and what a marathon that was compared with today. Mum was in hospital for more than two weeks having her Stanmore inserted…

…whereas my own experience of a total hip replacement, fifty years later (sixteen weeks ago as I write) was to spend only two days in hospital and then acquainting myself with  Pinky, my brand-new hip, at home.

The upshot for me and dad in May 1975 was a chance to try out several different Chinese restaurants and multiple invitations from friends and neighbours. What a kindly community we had back then.

My visits to Cyril and Marion Barnett next door had started before the hip business. They were in the schmutter (clothing) business and had a storeroom/showroom thing in Chalk Farm/Camden. It became one of their/our habits for them to feed me, take me for a ride in the back of their van to Camden, where I would help them move clobber around or whatever, then they would buy me (and themselves) ice cream at Marine Ices and then home. I loved Marine Ices Marsala wine flavoured ice cream best and can never taste Marsala or see a bottle of the stuff without thinking of those days.

You can keep your madeleines – my Proust phenomenon comes from Marsala wine.

I also mention, on the Friday, “Don [Knipe] in bloody swear mood”. I have told the tale of Don Knipe (our doctor, Edwina Green’s husband) in a previous article, which, as it happens, also involved the idea of involuntary memory.

Strange Case Of Dr Green And Mr Knipe…And Beluga Caviar And Scotch Whisky And A Bust Of Hitler, c22 December 1981

Another bit of the past that was still way in the future in 1975. Let’s move swiftly on.

“Won snooker competition”, which I mention on the Saturday, was most likely a tournament comprising three or four of us: Andrew (Andy) Levinson for sure, me also for sure (as I won it, remember) and most likely Stuart Harris [no relation], with possibly other competitors such as Fiona Levinson and Gail Harris (Stuart’s sister). My annus/tempus mirabilis simply knew no bounds at that time.

Sunday, 18 May 1975 – classes morning. Afternoon saw mum. Evening Andrew.

Monday 19 May 19 75– Fives good. Beat Edwards 15-10 and Johnson 15-12. Saw mum.

Tuesday, 20 May 1975 – classes good. Had Langers again. TV Hughes[?] Rockford, Edward Seventh.

Wednesday 21 May 1975 – did all prep in chapel service. Cricket again got two catches. We won 52-46. Visited mum. OK.

Thursday, 22 May 1975 – field day very good. Scored 3 C[ricket matches?]. [Wayne] Manhood in best match. Grandma Jenny’s for tea. Classes Ok.

Friday, 23 May 1975 – went to Grandma Jenny for lunch and afternoon. Went to [dad’s] shop then visited mummy.

Saturday 24 May 1975 – Andy’s barmitzvah went well. Stayed with Benji’s [Stanley, Doreen, Jane & Lisa] for day. Saw mum in morning and evening.

Andy Levinson at my bar mitzvah some weeks later

Sunday 25 May 1975 – no classes. Dad at home of course.

Monday 26 May 1975 – dad home. Visited mummy. Mum’s walked. Went to see Earthquake (shake)

Tuesday 27th of May 1975 – went to Grandma Anne’s for lunch. Played with Andy. Classes good.

Wednesday, 28 May 1975 – we won cricket verses 2BM. I caught Andrew out. Saw mummy.

Thursday, 29 May 1975 – went to Grandma Jenny for tea. Classes good. TV Dad’s Army, Jacques Cousteau, All In The Family.

Friday, 30 May 1975 – went to visit mum. Getting better every minute – should be out soon. Went to Grandma Anne’s.

Saturday 31 May 1975 – scored for under 13s v Whitgift. Tied match. 83 all out each. Went to Richmond Rendezvous with Uncle Cyril [Barnett].

Earthquake – oh deary me. Those disaster movies were all the rage back then. Earthquake was in Sensurround, which made you feel as though you were experiencing the quakes in the cinema. Lovely.

I seem to recall that Grandma Anne was nevertheless able to sleep through the experience.

And talking of quakes, I wonder how my good friend Andy Levinson feels now about me reporting that he was caught out by me on the cricket pitch so soon after his bar mitzvah?

Ah, right!

Vice Captaincy, Back When the Phrase “I Scored At the Weekend” Meant Cricket At Alleyn’s, Plus So Many Unanswered Questions For The Hive Mind Of Alleyn’s Alums, Start Of Trinity Term, April 1975

Folks – I need help.

I am so stuck trying to decipher my diary from the start of the Trinity term of 1975, I have been putting off progressing my write-ups…

…well, actually, to be fair, real life has intervened a lot these last few weeks.

Anyway, I really am stuck on one page so much, I am going to throw my questions out to the hive mind of Alleyn’s alums from my era and see if the collective brains can solve some of these mysteries.

Here’s an attempt at unpicking the words in the diary page pictured above, Tuesday to Saturday.

Tuesday 22 April 1975 – went back to school. Classes good. TV Edward The Seventh.

Wednesday, 23 April 1975 – appointed cricket vice captain. TV Robin Hood, The Survivors, The Fight Against Slavery.

Thursday, 24 April 1975.– Taking violin grade 2. Rotten fish. TV Are You Being Served.

Friday 25 April 1975 – Dr Chow took rest Fartleck training. TV The Husband of the Year, The Good Life.

Saturday 26 April 1975 – scored in cricket match. Good match. Richards c Cox b Cummings 75. TV Canon (Fatso Fuzz).

Questions – let’s start with the Wednesday’s cricket vice-captaincy. This will have been an appointment for my class, 2AK, team, not the firsts or seconds. But can anyone out there tell me:

  • what did the role of vice-captain entail in such a team? Was it a bit like being the vice-president of the United States, only without the hate? I have no recollection of doing anything captain/vice-captain like at that time. Indeed, finding that diary entry was a bit of a surprise.
  • who was the captain of that team? We weren’t the sportiest class and the few sporty people we had tended not to condescend to play cricket for the class. I’m pretty sure that Jumbo Jennings, for example, was far too busy dominating other sports to show his face on a cricket pitch until his terrifying arrival with ball in hand the following season. I’d guess Ian Feeley but hopefully someone (e.g. Ian) remembers.
  • who would have chosen these key roles in that vital tournament? Tony King, our form master, presumably.
Aye, you – Harris! Look at me when I’m talking to yer. Cricket. Vice!

Moving on to Thursday, what does the phrase “Rotten Fish” mean in that context? Was that a slang phrase we were using to show discontent? I don’t remember it. Or was it some in joke or code phrase of my own, which I expected to remember for all time? Paul Deacon – you were our form catch phrase merchant.

Similarly, even worse, on Friday, what on earth do I mean when I write that Dr Chow “took rest Fartleck [sic] training”? I am pretty sure that Chris Liffen taught us biology that year and Chow taught us chemistry. But perhaps I am wrong. My chemistry was never very good, so perhaps the phrase “rest Fartleck training” makes perfect sense to a decent scientist. Or to other reluctant scientists like me who had made up some sort of lingo.

Update: Paul Deacon chimed in on Facebook to point out that, “From Wikipedia: Fartlek is a middle and long-distance runner’s training approach developed in the late 1930s by Swedish Olympian Gösta Holmér.” My failure even to do a simple Google search on the term Fartlek makes me feel “old fart-like” 🤪

Gösta Holmér – clearly his method did not spare his knee

I cannot unpick Richards, c Cox b Cummings 75. Who were we playing for a start? And what level was I scoring? I don’t think I was promoted to scoring first eleven games until a little later in the season.

Returning to slang, the only phrase I recognise as being family slang is the notion that Canon, the TV detective, was “fatso fuzz”. My dad would have cultivated that phrase, in part as self-effacing humour.

Dad sort of liked and sort of disliked the Canon series. He liked the idea of a portly cop but liked to ridicule the plots and writing. Indeed, he had a theory that the studios had computers that were generating the scripts for such programmes, as each week’s programme seemed like a slight variant on its predecessor story.

You were 45-50 years ahead of the curve, dad.

Anyway, I apologise unequivocally if I have hurt the feelings of any portly people or anyone who works (or has ever worked) in law enforcement.