This turned out to be our last family summer holiday together. The following year dad was brassic (skint) so we just did some day trips and stuff, e.g. Greenwich:
Then the year after that, I did BBYO camps while mum and dad went off and did their own thing early autumn.
I turned 14 on this La Manga holiday and I do remember feeling, even at that tender age, that I had sort of outgrown those family holidays. I sensed that mum and dad wanted some prime time together and I was no longer intrigued by going off and doing stuff with random youngsters who just happen to be on holiday with you.
We stayed in the Hotel Entremares – not the sort of place I might stay in now, but it is still there and looks OK. Mixed reviews now.
The hotel (and to some extent the resort) was brand new then and I suspect my dad picked up a late booking at low cost for a place that hadn’t yet gained a reputation.
Clearly we were treated like visiting celebrities:
There is a movie for this holiday which, believe it or not, actually did yield some “famous for 15 minutes material” many years later, when Visa rewarded me handsomely enough and used some clips in one of their adverts and vines. Here is the whole movie:
Here’s the Visa ad, which shows dad slapping on the tanning oil:
This blond girl features in the movie too. I wonder whether I had latched on to the blond girl or whether she had latched on to me. Rohan Candappa probably wants me to track her down and write a story about her.
In those days La Manga was positioning itself for tennis in particular…
It seems I spent a fair bit of time with Andy Levinson in the few days between my Bar Mitzvah and going on holiday. Here’s the transcript of the headline picture’s diary scribble
Monday, 11 August 1975 – Andy all day. TV Star Trek, My Honourable Mrs, Yuri Geller and psycho film.
Actually the “psycho film” was Pressure Point with Bobby Darin & Sidney Poitier:
Tuesday, 12 August 1975 – Andy morning. TV Tarzan. Uncle Dick in the evening.
Guess who’s coming to dinner? Uncle Dick! He wasn’t my uncle, but was, I think, next door neighbour Rose Beech’s brother. Very nice chap who had been a POW during the war and needed careful feeding as a result. I’m guessing the the Beeches went away straight after my Bar Mitzvah and mum promised to feed Dick at least once in the days before we also went away.
It was that sort of neighbourliness in that area in those days.
Wednesday, 13 August 1975 – uneventful day. All OK.
Thursday, 14 August 1975 – went to West End to get tickets.
Friday 15 August 1975 – fired Jeanette. Went to Grandma Anne’s.
What on earth can “fired Jeanette” mean? I can only surmise that she was our cleaner for a short while, as I have no recollection of her. Mrs Nugent “Nu-Nu” was our cleaner for many years – most of childhood, followed by Mrs Main who also stuck with mum (and vice versa) for donkey’s years. I’ll guess that Jeanette was one that didn’t work out between the two I remember.
Just to be clear, it will not have been me who did the firing. It will have been mum. I just dutifully recorded the HR proceedings in my diary.
Saturday 16 August 1975 – uneventful. Preparation. TV [Sgt.] Bilko and Crown Court.
I don’t mention watching Days One to Three of the Headingley test, but I know I watched some of it. On the Saturday, Bilko was on the TV before the start of play; Crown Court after stumps. What else would I have done on an uneventful day?
The reason I am sure I saw some of it is that I recall my sense of horror when I learnt, on holiday, what had occurred while I was away from the match after those first three days. England looked very well placed at that stage.
Actually, I wrote up the centre piece of the party – the limbo dancing – some five years ago (he says, writing now in December 2025) – click here or below:
But there was more to this party than just the limbo dancing. Oh yes.
There was a meal, for a start. A meal that is bound to have been baked salmon, although I really don’t remember the meal. But in a non-kosher venue with some observant people present, fish would have been the order of the day for sure. Then you could also have some creamy deserts and stuff like that.
Then speeches. The camera only caught the important ones – me as the star of the show and Andy Levinson as my warm up or warm down act, I cannot remember which way round we spoke.
I certainly win the award for the more skew-iffy tie.
There was also regular dancing for regular people, as well as limbo dancing.
Cousin Angela and John KesslerNext door neighbours Rose & Bill BeechMum with Norman Levinson – Dr Edwina Green looks disapproving, perhaps because mum’s new hip was only three months old at the time
Mum had put enormous effort into rehab after her hip replacement in May, motivated by a desire to dance at my Bar Mitzvah party, which she sure did. My perspective on this has shifted in the past year, having been through the hip replacement and hard yards for rapid rehab myself in 2025.
Mum, Denise Lytton and Rose Beech, as Marjorie and Fiona Levinson look on. Don’t overdo it, mum and whatever you do, don’t fall over……and don’t try to emulate cousin Colin Jacobs.
Of course, these events are family affairs and most of the family was there:
Grandma Jenny & Me above, Me & Grandma Anne belowPam & Michael front, Auntie Francis standing, flanked I think by Lieba and Sam Aarons…Mum liked this picture.
You can see all of the photos from both days of the Bar Mitzvah weekend through this Flickr link, here or below:
This event came to me as a memory flash while in e-conversation with Rohan Candappa in December 2020 on the topic of that “limbo period” between Christmas and New Year. Rohan pointed out:
Limbo is a strangely schizophrenic word. It’s either a time when nothing is going on, or the most extreme dance you can imagine.
Suddenly it all came flooding back to me. The dinner & dance the day after my Barmitzvah. The Peacock Club in Streatham. The limbo dancer my parents arranged as entertainment for said evening. My limbo dancing “career”, not just remembered but I knew for sure that I have photographs.
Why the choice of limbo dancer for a Barmitzvah party? The answer to that question is truly lost in the mists of time. Some would suggest that it was a very “South London” choice. Others that it was an inappropriate choice steeped in cultural appropriation.
My guess is that someone dad knew through his photographic shop business was connected with the charming young lady in question.
Dorothy.
I know that she is/was named Dorothy because the pictures in my parent’s memory book / photo album have clearly been labelled “Dorothy”.
[Infantile readers may insert their own version of the joke revolving around the idea that “Ian was a friend of Dorothy when he was thirteen years old” here.]
Dorothy [Thinks]: What a funny little boy he is. Ian [Thinks]: I could be in here…whatever “being in” might be.
Dorothy showed us how it should be done.
Steve Lytton was one of several people who had a go. Unfortunately for him, his photo survived and has lived peacefully in my parent’s memory book for 45 years and counting:
Friends from the neighbourhood and school might recognise Andy Levinson in the background of the above and following picture. He’s hiding behind is mum. It seems he didn’t have a go at limbo dancing.
My technique showing real promise there. If only I had persevered with the practice, I could have been a contender.
Then Dorothy started to show off.
I mean, really, was that completely necessary?
Seriously, I do remember Dorothy being sweet with me and making the whole event feel special. She was clearly very talented at limbo dancing.
One day I’ll write up other aspects of my Barmitzvah. Sadly, for lovers of music and theology, there is a recording of me singing my rite of passage passage and I’ll feel Ogblog-honour bound to upload it, if only for the sake of completeness.
Anyway, the limbo dancing was great fun. Dad clearly felt that he had pulled off a blinder by booking Dorothy…
…while mum did far more dancing than was good for her, just three months after having a hip replacement:
Update/Footnote Post Publication
I managed to track down and get in touch with Steve Lytton after publishing this piece – it seemed only polite to let him know that his youthful limbo dancing efforts were now in the public domain.
It was really nice to catch up with Steve and e-chat after so many years.
One thing that Steve said solved at least part of the “why a limbo dancer at my Barmitzvah party” mystery:
…what a coincidence. We had a limbo dancer at MY Barmitzvah party…
…said Steve. The penny dropped. We had a limbo dancer at my celebration because I/we had so much enjoyed the limbo dancer at his, a year or so earlier. So the question now really should be, “why did Steve have a limbo dancer at his Barmitzvah party?” Or maybe it was simply the fashion for such parties at that time.
Truth to be told, dear readers, most people who, like me, were brought up in non-religious, or, at the most, quasi-religious households, thought of the Bar Mitzvah as an event which would result in lots of super presents and a big party in your honour…
…with a religious ceremony inconveniently taking place between the presents and the party.
Hence, I felt the need to separate out the Bar Mitzvah itself for an Ogblog page, because I did put in the effort to do the thing properly. My parents would have expected nothing less.
Had I succeeded in recusing myself eighteen months or so earlier, I don’t suppose the presents and the party would have been forthcoming, so…thank you, Rabbi Ginsbury.
I still have a handful of the presents, in particular the gramophone records and books (things I never throw away), a letter writing box/set from Jacqueline and Maurice Swain (still with me but rather fershimmeled to be truthful), a rather splendid onyx chess set in Aztec style (from Monty & Vivienne Phillips, I’m pretty sure)…plus money, of course – I still have some of that – not the actual cash or cheques tendered at that time of course, although several people insisted on their money being converted into premium bonds and I will still have those actual bonds as I have never sold a premium bond.
I digress. Anyway, it wasn’t just me who thought the eating, drinking and making merry was the bigger part of the process. The invitation below, which stretches to ten lines, uses four of them to cover the religious service, then six lines to describe the ensuing libations, feasting and terpsichorean celebrations.
To an even greater extent, the surviving photographs are heavily oriented towards the celebratory events the following day, although this can in part be explained by the prohibition of photography in shule and indeed anywhere on the sabbath.
Dad was no doubt breaking multiple rules when he snapped me in my state of readiness on the morning of my Bar Mitzvah before we set off for shule.
I’m pretty sure I still have that yarmulke and it looks suspiciously un-fershimmeled given its vintage, unlike my writing case. I have clearly spent more time writing than praying in the intervening 50 years. Who knew?
Another breach of protocol, although this breach will not have been made on that Saturday, but some days earlier, was a recording of the passages I was to read and sing for my Bar Mitzvah.
The Bar Mitzvah is, in a religious sense, a coming of age ceremony, around the age of 13, when the initiate reads the weekly passage from the Torah (in my case a dollop of Deuteronomy) and that week’s chunk of additional Old Testament material (in my case an iota of Isaiah), along with some ceremonial prayers. All sung in Hebrew using some of the oldest musical notation known to man.
Having done that, the initiate is a fully fledged “man”, in the sense that their presence in the synagogue now counts towards the minyan – i.e. the quorum of ten adult males required for certain prayers.
The idea of a minyan is not to be confused with cute but despicable creatures, minions, who appear in several of my favourite movies. (I never did grow out of loving animated films).
Anyway, with the trigger warning that this sound file is less than special aesthetically, here is the recording of me singing my passages and prayers:
Ten minutes of unimaginable sound.
Had you asked me ten minutes ago what those passages were and what they were about, I’d have shrugged, other than the “dollop of Deuteronomy & iota of Isaiah” line.
But thanks to Mr Google (other AI-enabled searches are available), I can be far more specific:
On August 9, 1975, which was a Saturday (Shabbat), the weekly Torah portion read was Parashat Shoftim.
This Torah portion is the 48th in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading and is found in the book of Deuteronomy, specifically Deuteronomy 16:18–21:9.
The main themes of Parashat Shoftim include:
Guidelines for leadership and the appointment of judges, officers, priests, and a king.
Laws concerning the integrity of the judicial system.
Rules regarding prophets, cities of refuge for accidental killers, and false witnesses.
Specific laws for warfare and the procedure for an unsolved murder case.
Reading about that, fifty years later, I sense that “my” portion could come in handy given the conduct of many notable and notorious world leaders, and their hench-folk, in the modern era.
My Isaiah passage covers the late, prophetic stage of the “twixt the temples” exile:
Isaiah 51:12-52:12 is a powerful prophetic passage where God comforts His fearful people, reminding them He is their sole protector, not mere mortals (grass) or oppressors; He calls Jerusalem (Zion) to “Awake, awake!” to cast off shame and put on strength, promising redemption from exile (“sold for nothing”) and the beautiful arrival of good news of peace and salvation from the Lord, telling them to leave Babylon and be purified.
Peace, salvation and purification sound like good ideas, as long as they apply even-handedly to all concerned.
Only mum could have taken photos that were THAT skew-iffy, so my guess is that dad couldn’t be bothered when we got home but mum wanted some more pics from the day.
Worse yet, on the “dad couldn’t be bothered” front, is that the negatives from the events of both days have all been lost. Given that dad was in the photographic business, that is bizarre. The negatives from several holidays around that time are also lost. My guess is that he lost a whole batch together – probably those he had taken to the shop in order to obtain extra prints for sending around to friends and family.
…I have a few more references to Paul Deacon in my early 1975 diary, at least one of which for sure was a recording session.
The relevant passage reads:
19 February 1975: went to Paul Deacon’s house. Played all day. “One sir, humanoid or similar”.
I do remember making that recording. The phrase came from Star Trek and for some reason we latched on to it. I even remember the second section of the phrase: “low level of activity”.
We derived a little tune from these phrases and made silly recordings, long since lost. I can even remember the tune, but I feel loathe to attempt a retrospective recording.
Paul might remember it all himself or use various methods of bribery, intoxication or both to get me to give a rendition.
Postscript/Update: Overnight, after sending Paul this piece, not only did Paul submit a comment (below), he also sent me an audio file. Clearly this rendition is an octave or two lower than the pre-teen original, but needless to say, the tune is note perfect. The recording is, it is, in its own way, authentic:
Thank you, Paul. Of course, that 2018 rendition will have been recorded, with ease, using whatever simple recording gadgetary comes as an essential, basic component in Paul’s computer.
Back then, in February 1975, I think Paul was using a cassette deck for his recordings, but perhaps he was already using reel-to-reel – he was certainly well into the latter eventually.
But, by then, we the Harris family had no ordinary reel-to-reel – we had a brand new Sony TC377…
…which looked like the above image and had, amongst its many features, a wonderful feedback/echo chamber facility. With that facility, Paul and I recorded a sort-of psychedelic version of Some Enchanted Evening on one occasion. It might have been the occasion registered in the following diary entry:
Wednesday 9 April 1975. Paul Deacon came for day. Nice time.
The details are lost in the mists of time, but for sure I was enjoying those school holiday muck around with tape recorders days.
Such a shame the tapes seem to have been lost forever.
With thanks to Paul for his comment below, I’m guessing his book look like this image – which you can click through to a well-known on-line store
Denise Lytton’s excellent chocolate mousse might have looked a bit like this
My handwriting did not improve as I graduated from my 1974 diary to me 1975 one.
Sunday 29 December 1974 – cloudy, sunny intervals. Played at home in morning. Dined at Feld’s & tea at Grandma Anne’s. TV Annual Lectures For Children & Robinson Crusoe v good.
The historic, world record-breaking, events of Monday 30 December, with Paul Deacon, have already been recorded in a special piece on the topic – click here or below:
How I also had the time and energy to watch Call My Bluff & Churchill’s People on TV at the end of that record-breaking day I cannot quite fathom.
Tuesday 31 December 1974 -fair. Went to West End with Andrew [Levinson]. TV Engineer Through Looking Glass, Till Death Us Do Part v good indeed. SAW IN NEW YEAR.
That will have been the first time I was allowed to stay up to see in the new year. These days (50 years later), Janie and I see it as a badge of honour to try and get to bed and get to sleep before the worst of the noise kicks off.
Wednesday 1 January 1975 – cloudy. Uneventful morning. Dined at Schmidt’s. Grandma Anne at home in afternoon and evening. Helped mum win Kalooki.
Thursday 2 January 1975 – cloudy. Cleared out room. Went to barber. TV After That…This and Two Ronnies very good.
Friday 3 January 1975 – cloudy. Went to Brixton – v tiring. TV Crown Court, The Houndcats, Paper Moon, Ken Dodd & MASH v good.
Saturday 4 January 1975 – TV Dr Who, Bruce Forsyth, Match of the Day, v good. Went to Lytton’s. Played with Steven. Denise’s choc. moose was excellent.
I can hardly believe how much TV I watched back then. Match of the Day was not a feature in our house and I suspect I saw that because we were at The Lytton’s place. I think we were still Black and White TV at the start of 1975 – I think the colour TV “arrives” at some point in my 1975 diary, unless it arrived during my diary-writing-sabbatical in mid-1974. Point is, I remember quite a lot of the TV I describe here in black and white. I also remember colour seeming such a luxury.
Aficionados of my juvenile writing as a food critic might note my description of Denise Lytton’s chocolate moose as “excellent”. Praise indeed.
Mum, Me, Denise, Steve & Tony – guzzling peaches in Bulgaria, 1972
My very first diary entry, a year earlier, described Schmidt’s chocolate moose as “nice”.
Denise’s “excellent” sure beats Schmidt’s “nice”, and I remember Schmidt’s chocolate moose fondly. Big ups to Denise, albeit 50 years after the event, for that stunning chocolate moose. Never forgotten…or at least, now remembered in writing for posterity.
But I had clearly forgotten that, 30 years previously, I was involved in another world record feat. The reference in the diary dated 30 December 1974 clearly reads:
Paul Deacon came for day – we broke world coin catching record.
Ok, so perhaps that record was not independently authenticated and certified. Perhaps the world coin catching record is not quite so prestigious as longest running live comedy show.
But a world record IS a world record and we broke it.
I have no recollection of the rules of coin catching and how the world record was established. The 1977 recording might contain some clues, but only to the extent that “rules” and “establishment” probably played a very small part indeed. I’ll guess that the coin was tossed in a conventional “start of a match” stylee and then caught (or not),
More importantly, this diary entry is the first mention of Paul Deacon in my diaries and I actually think that day might well have been the very first time that the two of us got together during the school holidays to lark about.
In which case it was genuinely a milestone or seminal event, even if not genuinely a world record.
Postscript One
Paul Deacon has chimed in with some essential additional details:
Haha. I seem to recall I was good at stacking coins on the back of my elbow then catching them with a flick of the arm downwards. Also spinning a coin one handed. What a sad lad
Postscript Two
A link to this posting kicked off quite a controversy on the Alleyn’s 1970s Alumni Facebook Group. A veritable Coincatchgate.
Angela & John Kessler, this photo just nine months after their wedding
The diary page for this week is as colourful as it is (almost) unintelligible:
It is my profound belief that, although artificial intelligence can read the charred remains of 2000-year-old Herculaneum scrolls, the technology would still struggle to make sense of my diabolical writing and spelling from 1974
Allow me to try to interpret the above scrawl for you:
Sunday, 8 December 1974 – First light in play [Hanukah play at chedar, presumably]. Dined at Schmidt’s. The Great War, Sykes, David Copperfield and A Change Of Ground.
Monday, 9 December 1974 – Last full day of term. Uneventful. TV Waltons, Call My Bluff, and Horizon v good indeed.
Tuesday 10 December 1974 – Christmas dinner v good. Classes rehearsal. Mission Impossible and Rhoda v good.
Wednesday, 11 December 1974 – Rather uneventful. Left school 2 o’clock, Carol rehearsal. Disappearing World – Ongka’s Big Moka Rather amusing?????
I don’t much review television programmes (probably just as well given the amount of TV I was watching back then), but a few years ago I wrote up my memories of Ongka’s Big Moka, because it had such a profound effect on me, sparking my interest in South-East Asia/Oceania.
Thursday, 12 December 1974 – Left school 2:20 carol service. Classes good. TV Mastermind good.
Friday, 13 December 1974 – Broke up today. Not a very good report…
…hardly surprising given the amount of TV I was watching in the evenings when I should have been doing my homework. Honestly…
TV Dad’s Army, Ken Dodd and MASH v good.
Saturday, 14 December 1974 – Went to ooof roof [John & Angela’s aufruf]. Meal was excellent. TV Run Wild Run Free film, Stanley Baxter, and Candid Camera very good indeed
I didn’t at the time spot the juxtaposition of watching the Melanesian tribal ceremony, Ongka’s Big Moka, and, a few days later, attending the Jewish tribal ceremony that was Angela and John’s aufruf. For those who don’t like to click, the aufruf is a tradition of calling up the groom in synagogue on the Saturday before the wedding.
I am glad that I gave that aufruf meal an “excellent” review 50 years ago, as that should please Angela and John ahead of their impending golden wedding anniversary. I do remember enjoying the aufruf event very much, conversing with the grown ups and feeling a little more grown up myself for the experience. I distinctly remember finding the film Run Wild Run Free rather childish and mawkish, perhaps in comparison.
What might seem a lot less grown up…and might please Angela and John a bit less, is my abiding memory that I insisted, in the build up to the day, on pronouncing the word “aufruf”…
woof-woof
…to the extent that I recall mum telling me, wagging finger style, that I was not to make that silly joke at the event.
Playing cricket in the back drive behind our houses in Woodfield Avenue.
There was nowhere suitable to erect my stumps. Propped against the garage door was unsatisfactory.
There was one vaguely suitable pot-holey area but that meant bowling up hill with little run up and the holes were not well placed for the even distribution of stumps.
That same yard some 50 years later, with thanks to Ayres Treefellers for the picture
Until, one day, the kindly gentleman next door in 3a, Cyril Barnett, proudly produced for me a piece of plywood with three holes in it specifically designed for the insertion of the stumps.
This device – which was a rudimentary version of the above Salford loo stump device and which bears some resemblance, in design terms, to the beer-carrying device King Cricket has named The Device…
…worked brilliantly for yard cricket, enabling the stumps to be placed wherever made sense – which was different placement depending on whether it was simply bowling practice or a game of yard cricket with a mate.
The best thing about this form of stump device was the ability to make the entire thing fall over if you really did hit the stumps flush and with reasonable force. This I rarely managed myself with my floaty donkey-drops – it was more a thing that my opponents might do to me with a bit of medium pace, full and straight.
Sadly no photos survive of Cyril Barnett’s device but I have found a picture of Cyril, probably taken two or three years after he manufactured my stump-thingie.
Cyril teaching me pancake making while my dad was teaching me a bit about photography.
What a kindly neighbour he was. He would have appreciated the two night visit to Manchester in March 2019 that triggered this memory, in part because Cyril was from Manchester himself. Also because I went there to see Rags The Musical and the rag trade was precisely the thing he was in…when he wasn’t doing carpentry or pancake making with and for me.
