While trawling the diary for Concourse memories, I spotted a few entries that brought back memories of a visit by Caroline during our second term at Keele. When I say “our”, I mean me and Simon Jacobs.
Allow me to translate:
Friday 20 February: Not bad day – went to meet Caroline – went to see Too Many Chefs – Simon’s for coffee – not too late a night.
Saturday 21 February: Late start – went to Sneyd for lunch – lazy afternoon – went to “O” party in evening // late night snowballing and making…
Sunday 22 February: …pancakes. Late start. Simon’s for ploughman’s and booze. Romped in snow – lazy evening.
Caroline will have dossed out at mine on this visit – Simon was with a really nice chap named Roy at that time.
“Too Many Chefs” will have been this movie – actually named Who Is Killing All the Great Chefs Of Europe – at Film Club. Reading the synopsis, I remember this kitsch, eminently forgettable movie surprisingly clearly.
Sneyd for lunch, eh? How many times did I end up eating a meal there during my time at Keele. Often. It wasn’t at all bad, as I recall. Landlord Geoff O’Connor knew and liked his food…but not in a Too Many Chefs sort of way.
“O” party in the evening is not a reference to a 1950’s erotic novel. I think it was the block in Hawthorns where Miz and Heather lived…or perhaps the one in Barnes where Roy lived. Anyway, it will be the name of a block.
I really like the notion of late night snowballing and making…pancakes – spilling from Saturday night to Sunday morning. My guess is that I was trying to reflect the actual timings of those things. Such simple, youthful pleasures. Romped in snow was, I’m sure, similarly innocent fun.
I don’t mention Caroline’s departure, but she must have departed at some point – at least I’m pretty sure she isn’t still visiting Keele as I write. I hope I took her back to Stoke in much the same way as I went down to Stoke to meet her. I’ll guess that Caroline’s departure was between the romp in the snow and the lazy evening.
If anyone else (Caroline? Simon??) remembers this weekend, please do chime in with your memories.
Probably because I had become so friendly with Simon Jacobs & Caroline Freeman during my BBYO years, I spent a fair bit of time in Pinner during my last couple of BBYO years. Not as much time as Streatham, my home club, of course, but still a fair bit.
In fact, there seemed to be a general affinity between the two clubs, perhaps because our groups had been “new kids on the BBYO block” and then received our full BBYO charters around the same time, in the late 1970s.
Or perhaps it was simply because we had quite a few friendships emerge betwixt and between Pinner & Streatham.
Mixture of Pinnerites and visiting Americans, 1979
…I found myself in Pinner helping Simon, Caroline and others to hand over the Pinner batons at their club AGM, as my diary attests.
Sunday 4 January – returned home [from a visit to Portsmouth BBYO with Jenny Council via Barry Laden’s place] (via Feld’s). Rather tired. Easy day. Early night.
Monday 5 January – Lazyish day. Did v little.
Tuesday 6 January – Another lazyish day. Popped up to Hillel (lunched with Caroline) – early night
Wednesday 7 January – Packed etc. Went To Pinner – AGM -> Caroline’s etc. Stayed at Simon’s.
Thursday 8 January – Simon & I returned to Keele
That tradition of meeting Caroline for lunch (Tuesday) continued through my holiday jobs and my return to London in the mid to late 1980s. If, as I suspect, she was already working for Harrods back then, I would have tubed it from Euston to a location near to her place of work, as she was the one with the fixed lunch hour.
On the Wednesday evening, I suspect the deal was that I dined with Caroline and her family, then stayed with Simon and his. The number of times I must have dined at Caroline’s place in that period goes uncounted. I did at one time work out that I had eaten at Caroline’s house more often than I had eaten at my parents’ house over a period of several months during 1980. (I had probably eaten at Hillel House many times more than at either or even both of those homes!).
I’m trying to recall who at Pinner would have taken up the cudgels at that time. The era of Richard & Ros Marks, Paul Sass, Paul Dewinter, Simon Jacobs, Caroline Freeman, Paul Ley, Graham Greenglass, Alan Tucker and many others was done, I think. Jilly Black, Sue Jacobs and several others of the next BBYO generation were coming to the fore. Between Simon, Sue, Paul, Caroline, Jilly and others, perhaps we can get some names and serial numbers from the hive mind of memory banks.
The installation ceremony would have looked a bit like this regional one from 1979
I have almost no memory of my last BBYO convention.
Clearly I spent a lot of time at Hillel House between my return from Keele University (13 December) and the start of convention helping to plan/prepare the thing.
I think I might have made some separate notes at the time, but if I did they have been lost with the other memorabilia from that era that my mother threw out at one time, because she “didn’t think anyone would want to keep all of those old jottings and such rubbish.” I’m still not over it.
The diary says I stayed at Howard’s the night before convention. I’m trying to remember which Howard that must have been. I’m sure I thanked you and your parents at the time, Howard, but thanks again.
Update: Jack Gilbert chipped in to suggest that this was probably Howard Wiseman, as I knew him well from events passim. A skim through my old, ragged address book suggests that it almost certainly would have been Howard Wiseman. Thanks Jack.
I think I sort-of acted as returning officer for the elections that year, as I do recall feeling that I had experience of such matters when I got involved with election appeals and such at Keele a few years later.
I know that we elected Lewis Sykes as President.
I know I was awarded life membership at that convention. I probably cried upon receipt.
The diary says that I went to Portsmouth with Jenny (must be Jenny Council) after convention and stayed at Barry Laden’s place. In truth I don’t really remember that specific visit although I do remember visiting Portsmouth several times. I’m sure I thanked you and your parents at the time, Barry, but thanks again.
But beyond the thin gruel in my diary, most of it is just a blur.
So this time, I am shouting out the the BBAK (BBYO alte kackes) community for help. Please chime in with your memories, however slight. They might trigger some of mine – my memory is quite good at being triggered these days.
So once again, my plea. Help! Please chime in with memories of that convention. Once those are gathered, I might be able to write a better piece than this.
Feld’s borscht looked absolutely nothing like this
Sunday 14 December. Went to Feld’s ->…
Strangely, I had a memory flash about Feld’s restaurant the other day (December 2020), when Kay Scorah kindly sent over some soup recipes from her Essex Road Recipes collection, including one for beetroot soup (at the time of writing, not yet published on-line)…
…which reminded me of Grandma Anne and the palaver we went through whenever we went to Feld’s eaterie in Mortimer Street in the hope of getting her a decent plate of borscht. I quote myself:
My Grandma Anne was an addict, but even 50 years ago it was hard to find a reliable source of beetroot soup in a hostelry. “Mr Feld – your borscht tastes like vorter today”, she would holler at the top of her voice in that strange eponymous eatery on Mortimer Street, if the beetroot soup was not up to snuff on that occasion. “Shake the jar!!” Dad, Mum and I would yell in unison when Grandma ordered the borscht, imploring Mr Feld to action, in the hope of staving off the voluble accusation of “vorteriness”…
Let’s be honest about this – Feld’s was not a great place. The salt beef was fine and frankly that’s why we were there. The latke was a sort of lottery, where you might get a clump of pepperiness or an unexpectedly chunky bit of potato. The matzo balls were similarly random. I recall he added almond essence to those, but sometimes you’d get a seriously almondy shot and sometimes the almond essence would be undetectable. I was partial to his tomato soup, which for some reason had a consistent quality to it (it probably came out of a Heinz catering tin), with the unusual addition of a matzo ball for good measure. Don’t ask about the lockshen pudding.
…SR Pressies -> dinner & drinks with Caroline .
SR Pressies would be a meeting of BBYO chapter presidents from across the Southern Region. I clearly went to one such meeting in the South that weekend and something similar in the North the following weekend.
Hence Keele to Manchester via London. I was never THAT geographically challenged.
Caroline would be Caroline Freeman (now Curtis).
Monday 15 December 1980 – Went to Hillel all day. YC meeting. “Return to sanity”.
I have no idea what the insanity was and what the “return to sanity” meant. My guess is that this was all connected with pulling together a National Convention in an environment where the National Exec was much depleted and somewhat in disarray.
My 1980 diary falls silent at that point but have no fear – my 1981 diary started in December 1980.
Tuesday 16 December 1980 – Anil came round for day. Busyish evening.
Anil looking quite smug
17 December 1980. Went to Hillel. Grandma Jenny came around in the evening.
Grandma Jenny
18 December 1980. Easyish day at home. Easyish evening.
19 December 1980. Stayed at home again. Did little in evening.
Given the high activity level of most of my time during that first vacation of my University life, I suspect I spent much of that two day break making up cassettes and mix tapes to take up to Keele with me. I recall feeling very short of music compared with most and compared with my usual experience at home with records and reel-to-reels to play with. I’ll revisit the music aspect when I write up the festive season.
Reading my diary references to Caroline’s visit to Keele in late November 1980 gave me a memory flash of an event earlier that term.
Caroline Freeman (now Curtis) was a good friend, through BBYO, of mine and of Simon Jacobs . Caroline chose not to go to university, although from memory she had as many UCCA points from her A levels as Simon & I had put together from ours.
I had long been the beneficiary of Caroline’s mum’s cooking on the many occasions I found myself in North-West London doing BBYO stuff in the year or so before heading up to Keele.
“That poor boy needs a good meal” – c1979
Anyway, I think Caroline must have got it into her head that Simon and I might struggle to feed ourselves properly at the weekends. Keele provided refectory meals to freshers Monday to Friday but at the weekends we had to look after ourselves.
Frankly, I don’t think the self-catering element of student life was a challenging aspect for either me or Simon…
…nor was I in want of food; I was just burning calories at a furious rate back then…
…but early in our time at Keele, Simon and I both received, through the post, from Caroline, an emergency food parcel styled in the mode of a Red Cross jobbie as depicted above. I don’t recall exactly what was inside the parcels, but I suspect it was more like “boarding school kid tuck” than “genuine emergency rations”. Simon and I were both amused, I certainly remember that.
Hawk-eyed readers (especially those with cipher-cracking skills) might have spotted the 17 November entry: “Jay was supposed to come – “did he heck”. Goodness only knows what that visit from Jay Marks was supposed to be for and why it went awry, but it will have been part of a BBYO National Executive unravelling towards the end of our year which makes the last 74 days of the Trump presidency…
…well, on reflection, it was bizarre (but in the grander scheme of things trivial) stuff around resignations, unresignations, with some of us trying to keep the show on the road with sufficient dignity to hand over to a new committee over the new year holiday. So nothing at all like the last 74 days of the Trump presidency.
Anyway, Caroline’s first visit to Keele is quite well documented in the diary:
Friday 21 November 1980 – Not bad day. Met Caroline at Stoke. Went to Lindsay, Union & coffee lounge.
Saturday 22 November 1980 – Simon & Roy popped in early hours. Got up q late. Found Simon., lunch there…
So far so sensible. Simon had met Roy and started going out with him almost as soon as we arrived at Keele. I’m pretty sure Caroline stayed in my pokey room, which was tolerably fine back then and would be unthinkable now considering the size of those student beds and bedrooms. “Lunch there” I guess was in Simon’s block in Barnes (D if I remember correctly), where the facilities for weekend self-catering were marginally better than those in my Lindsay block (F I recall most certainly).
I have used sophisticated computer-aided techniques to decipher the next bit and am pretty sure it must say:
…romped in lakes. Simon left. Spiff dinner (over top) -> over to Roys.
The Lakes at Keele is a rather charming wild garden beyond the ornamental gardens of Keele Hall. Originally planned to be a network of seven substantial artificial lakes, money and/or motivation must have run out for the Sneyd family in the early 19th century as the more far-flung lakes are more like puddles and only two or three have any scale to them. Still, they are pleasant enough to walk around and I dread to think what romping entailed on that occasion. Whether “Simon left” in disgust or simply to go over to Roy’s place is lost in the mists of time. Almost certainly the latter.
No idea what the sentence “Spiff dinner (over top) -> over to Roys” actually means. I sense an in-joke long since forgotten.
Sunday 23 November 1980 – Lounged around all day. Roy, C & I met Simon, went out for dinner. V nice.
Monday 24 November 1980 – Not bad day. Caroline left at 3:00 pm. Relaxing evening.
It would have been helpful if I had noted where we went out for dinner. There were a couple of passable restaurants in Newcastle-Under-Lyme and I suspect it was one of those. The Sneyd Arms didn’t qualify as going out for dinner. Nor did the Union and nor did The Golf. So Newcastle it almost certainly must have been.
Caroline will surely remember every detail and help fill in all the blanks. After all, she was the one with more UCCA points than me and Simon put together.
Mind you, she was almost silent about my write up of her visit the following term, which for reasons of happenstance I wrote up before this one:
…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.
Another holiday without me for my parents…another opportunity for me to hold a house party.
I particularly like the way I describe this party, with all due modesty, in my diary entry for 6 October:
Party v good/described as best ever by some…despite disasters.
I’m not sure that my parents’ house has ever recovered from the “despite disasters” aspect of it.
The disasters were probably due to intense overcrowding. Not only had I been pretty open-ended with my invitations – BBYO club folk descended from the length and breadth of the country – but the party was also quite heavily gatecrashed.
This photo from Easter Weekend 1979 – several of the above were at the October party…none of these were the gatecrashers.
I shall seek counsel from others on some of the details. Also on the extent to which, for some aspects of the evening, names and details should ever find their way to as public a place as Ogblog.
But for the time being here are some fragmentary memories of mine.
It looks from the diary as though Fran helped me to set the party up but didn’t stick around for the party, which was jolly decent of her and/but she must have had something much, much better to do on the Saturday night. I have a feeling that she might have just started/been starting University around then. Fran might remember and chime in with a memory. Anyway, many thanks for the help that day, Fran.
Then the party itself.
For some reason (overcrowding alone shouldn’t have caused this) we had a power failure for a while. No lights, no music…just…whatever a party might be in the absence of those things.
Someone who knew what they were doing (at least to the extent needed to restore light and music to the party) sorted out the problem, but I do recall at one point several people going round with candles, not least Simon Jacobs rattling off quips at a rate of about 16 qpm.
Simon could rap at 20 quips per minute if he wanted to…he just didn’t want to.
One of the gatecrashers broke the frame of my father’s family mosaic piece – depicting us as clowns standing on each other’s shoulders. Mercifully it wasn’t beyond repair. I seem to recall that incident triggering some of the more protective (or perhaps I should say bellicose) guests to take matters into their hands and remove several gatecrashers.
Someone will no doubt be able to explain why the following picture of Jay, one of the welcome guests (like the Simon photo above, taken a few months earlier) popped into my head as I recalled the gatecrashers’ comeuppance.
“…be off with you, fiends!…”
I think there were times during the party when I needed some consoling. I realised what a mess the place was in. But this was not a good party for host romance, although I’m sure it worked well for many guests; not least during the blackout.
One consolation in the damage aspect was the fact that the house had been burgled the day after my parents went away, so it was going to be difficult for them to distinguish burglar damage from party damage.
7 October 1979
…well of course several of the events mentioned/alluded to above might well have been the early hours of 7th…
many stayed, helped clear up. I finished the job…
I’m not sure who Paul S was that Sunday evening (apologies, Paul, if/when your identity comes to light), but the Jeff S who stayed at the house after the meeting was the late lamented Jeff Spector. No doubt he was able to advise me well on dealing with the aftermath of crowded house parties – they had quite a few of those at the Spector house over the years. But those are other memories for other pieces.
I spent several weeks of the summer of 1979 in Mauritius, with my good school friend Anil Biltoo and his dad, staying with many branches of their interesting family.
I want to write quite a lot about this trip, as it was the most amazing experience for a 16/17 year old youngster. It was hugely formative for me in many ways, not least sparking my lifelong interest in travel and cultures other than my own.
This posting is a quick summary and overview piece, linking to artefacts already available on-line:
All of the letters I wrote home while I was there, which doubled up as my diary/travelogue, have now been scanned, uploaded and transcribed as Ogblog entries. They make fascinating reading for me and I hope are providing interesting reading for others.
I also want to write up a few additional stories and thoughts with the benefit of hindsight, including some memories that have been triggered by going through these documents relating to matters undocumented in them.
Postscript
I have subsequently (autumn 2019) Ogblogged my journal and recollections from this whole trip, so the above links can get you started on the whole lot, if you wish to read them.
