Category: Music

The Cure, Clint Eastwood & General Saint – An Excellent Musical Start To A Keele Summer Term, Late April To Early May 1982

Robert Smith photo by Andwhatsnext, CC BY-SA 3.0

Forty years on, I realise that Keele student life is not all about parties and gigs…

…except in some ways it is. The most memorable stuff in my diary around the start of that summer term of 1982 is all about parties and gigs.

If some Keele alums from that era are reading this and thinking, “crumbs, I REALLY don’t remember The Cure coming to Keele that term”, you can relax. The Cure didn’t come to Keele – I went with some Keele mates and got to see them play in Leicester.

Blooming marvellous they were, thank you for asking.

It happened, as best I can recall it and transcribe my hand-writing, like this:

Wednesday 28 April 1982 – Easyish sort of day – did quite a bit of cooking etc. Rana, Paul, Rick ate at mine & stayed till quite late – Diplomacy etc.

I don’t recall playing the board game Diplomacy with those fellas, but it seems I did. I suspect I showed no more aptitude for Diplomacy with those fellas as I had shown for Risk with other friends a few week’s earlier.

If I recall correctly, those Diplomacy fellas were quite heavily involved in the Rag Week and one of the things we talked about was going off in Rick’s car for the weekend to sell Keele rag mags to poor, unsuspecting students in other universities. The fellas had identified Leicester as a suitable place for Friday night as there was to be a Cure gig there and one of the guys had access to a crash pad for us in Leicester that night, from whence we could go on and sell more in Nottingham.

That’s what we did, after I spent Thursday attending many meetings so interesting I didn’t bother to describe them and a “busy morning” on Friday – lectures and tutorials I would guess.

Friday 30 April 1982 – Set off in afternoon for Leicester…sold mags there – went to pub -> Leicester Union – The Cure – more mags – stayed over in empty house.

Actually I don’t think the venue was Leicester Union – I suspect the gig was held at De Montfort Hall under the auspices of the Leicester Students’ Union. (Correction – The Cure Gig list tells us that it was Queen’s Hall Leicester that night – that hall was part of the Students’ Union in Leicester.)

My recollection is that going door to door around the halls on a Friday afternoon was hard work and not very effective for sales – mostly because few rooms were occupied at the time – whereas we hit pay dirt in the evening at the concert venue – selling loads of rag mags in a short space of time.

The students at the venue were very welcoming to us and the organisers absolutely insisted that we went in to the hall and watched the concert in consideration of our efforts towards the rag cause. This was an unexpected bonus, not least because The Cure were utterly superb live.

Here is The Cure song that sticks in my mind from that experience:

While here is a recording of a concert held just four days earlier in Edinburgh – the one we saw & heard will have sounded mighty similar:

Saturday 1 May 1982 – Rose quite early – went to hall -> Nottingham campus & town. Went on to Uttoxeter – pub and then on to party. Decided to return to Keele therefrom.

I didn’t realise that I used archaic adverbs like “therefrom” back then. I’m not sure about it. One for the adverb colander next year perhaps.

Anyway, I don’t think the return to the hall or the Nottingham campus proved all that fruitful for rag sales – at least not compared with the door of The Cure gig. I have a feeling that the Uttoxeter party was something to do with Rick and something to do with pre-nuptials for someone-or-other – his brother or sister perhaps.

Monday 3 May 1982 – Busy sort of day – sorting out for evening etc. Motion at UGM went through – Simon [Jacobs] & Jon [Gorvett] came back after.

Aha – so our collective recollection that the motion failed, as reported in my Festering & Fomenting piece, was incorrect.

Festering & Fomenting At Keele Late In The Easter Break of 1982

The “failure” of it, I suspect, was that it was insufficiently specific to guarantee that the Union Committee did anything sufficiently radical for our taste, as we took an all-too specific occupation motion to the Union early the following academic year – with predictably hilarious results to be reported when those events become “forty years on”.

Tuesday 4 May 1982 – Busy day working. Went to film (9 To 5) in evening – quite good. Rana & Chevonne came back after for coffee.

I’m not sure how well all this “having people back” was going down with my new finalist flatmates – more on them anon.

The rest of the week reads relatively quiet. “Helen’s in evening – crowd there” on Wednesday 5th is probably Helen Ross, a big personality who was very friendly with Ashley Fletcher. I choose to mention Ashley in this context because he complained recently that he was getting insufficient coverage in the more recent Ogblog pieces.

Saturday 8 May 1982 – Lazyish day around campus. Went to Union in evening – Clint Eastwood & General Saint. Very good. Went back to Mark’s [Bartholomew] with loads of others – rolled back early hours [Sunday, presumably].

I really do remember the Clint Eastwood & General Saint concert fondly. Dave Lee also gives it a very good review in his book The Keele Gigs!

It seems they appeared on the Old Grey Whistle Test just a couple of weeks before our gig, so their rendering of the anthemic Another One Bites The Dust shown below is probably quite similar to the version we saw:

I certainly recall them getting all to shout out “another one bites the dust” in the stylee depicted in the above video.

Good times.

The Soundtrack Of My Early Days In A Barnes Flat At Keele, Spring 1982

With thanks again to Paul Browning for this photo

The pop music of the time would mostly reach my ears through the Union disco and/or the juke box in the main bar of the Students’ Union. I didn’t listen to much pop radio in those days – Radio One didn’t please me much at that time – nor was there much alternative back then outside London.

My habit was to tape from the radio at my parents house onto reel-to-reel…

…then make a cassette copy to play at Keele on my trusty Philips Spatial Stereo Ghettoblaster/Boombox:

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

Here’s the track listing of the spool I made during that Easter break – the first dozen during that Easter break – which I took back to Keele on cassette – the rest on my next visit to my parents:

  • Blue Eyes, Elton John
  • Party Fears Two, The Associates
  • The Damned Don’t Cry, Visage
  • More Than This, Roxy Music
  • Ghosts, Japan
  • Ever So Lonely, Monsoon
  • Give Me Back My Heart, Dollar
  • Just An Illusion, Imagination
  • Fantastic Day, Haircut 100
  • Six Months in a Leaky Boat, Split Enzz
  • Black Coffee in Bed, Squeeze
  • Really Saying Something, Bananarama & The Funboy Three
  • Papa’s Got a Brand New Pig Bag, Pig Bag
  • I Can Make You Feel Good, Shalamar
  • Night Birds, Shakatak
  • Is It a Dream, Classix Nouveaux
  • Ball and Chain, XTC
  • Perfumed Garden, The Rah Band

It’s an eclectic list. As usual when I revisit these tapes, some of the choices make me cringe, while others please me and might even become ear worms again, forty years after their first wriggle inside my head.

By the time you get to this article, some of the links below might have gone, but you should be able to hear and see most of the items from the list if you wish.

https://youtu.be/KybfTKNl2NM

Some stand the test of time far better than others. But oh, the synthesisers…oh, the hair styles.

Mix Tape Recorded From Radio, Mostly In February 1982

I have been a bit remiss lately, while writing up my forty years on series, about the early 1980s, in the matter of sharing my soundtracks from that era.

Two mentions of “taping” while in London, having a rare weekend away from Keele, in mid February 1982 made me reach for my spool catalogue and unearth the material I can be sure I was taping at that time. Music from chart shows and similar, which bear tell-tale dates.

An interesting mix, you might say. I make no apologies for my eclectic taste (or lack thereof) at that time.

Oh, the synthesisers!

Only a few of these would make my early 1980s playlist, were I to make one of those up for a forty years on party…not that we do parties any more, post pandemic. A theoretical, hypothetical early 1980s party.

For calligraphically-challenged readers unable to read my handwriting above, below is a version of the above list transcribed:

  • Showroom Dummies, Kraftwerk
  • I Travel, Simple Minds
  • Stick It Where the Sun Don’t Shine, Nick Lowe
  • Poison Arrow, ABC
  • Trouble, Lindsay Buckingham
  • Had Enough, Earth Wind and Fire
  • Cardiac Arrest, Madness
  • Easier Said than Done, Shakatak
  • Senses Working Overtime, XTC
  • Love Plus One, Haircut 100
  • The Model, Kraftwerk
  • Golden Brown, The Stranglers
  • A Town Called Malice, The Jam
  • Micky, Toni Basil
  • Fool if You Think It’s Over, Elkie Brooks
  • Say Hello, Wave Goodbye, Soft Cell

Hopefully most of the following YouTube embeds will still be here when you get to this piece, if you fancy hearing one or more of the tracks.

Many A Slip (On An Icy Keele Campus) Between Jazz & Lip: Ronnie Scott & Friends At Keele, 16 January 1982

Image from Wikipedia with same “fair use” rationale.

The especially cold and icy weather, which had plagued Keele before Christmas, persisted into the early days of the 1982 Spring Term.

Early that term, I recall taking a tumble on the slope that led to the Chancellor’s Building from the Lindsay Hall end, while rushing to get to a lecture or tutorial on time.

A little dazed, I soon realised that someone had hoicked me up and I was being stared at by none other than “ABC” Dick Hemsley, asking me if I was alright. “Yes, I’m fine”, I said, embarrassed to have found myself in such a vulnerable circumstance with one of the better-known right-wing villains of the campus. “No”, said Dick firmly, studying my reactions carefully, “I think you might have bumped your head. Really, are you OK?” Thankfully I hadn’t banged my head and most of the bruises were to my “left ego”. That incident stuck in my mind, because it made me realise that Dick, despite our opposing political views, when it came to the crunch, was instinctively concerned about my welfare.

I sense from my diaries that I was a bit irritable/tetchy after the historic, publicity-attracting protests outside the UGC offices on 6 January:

Protest Outside the UGC Offices Against Grant Cuts, University of Keele, 6 January 1982

Possibly term seemed like an anti-climax; possibly the weather got to me – I have never much liked icy-cold weather and this was a proper cold spell.

The diaries – which are shown at the bottom of this piece but upon which I shall not expand this time – suggest a relatively dull phase – at least in my mind…

…until the Ronnie Scott & Friends Jazz Night on 16 January, which was a hugely memorable event in all sorts of ways.

Ronnie Scott co-founded the legendary Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in the late 1950’s. It was already an institution by the early 1980s and we were truly blessed that Ronnie liked visiting student venues and especially liked the vibe in the University of Keele Students’ Union Ballroom. I saw him perform there several times while at Keele – this was the first of those times.

Dave Lee’s excellent book The Keele Gigs! has a fine account of this gig.

The following clip, from some time in the early 1980s, is pretty close to what the ensemble looked and sounded like at Keele that night:

For those who know little about Ronnie Scott/Ronnie Scott’s and would like to know more, the following hour-long Omnibus film from 1989 is quite comprehensive and almost of that time:

There is am even more comprehensive 2020 documentary movie, which I have seen and can confirm is a very interesting watch, which you can find out about on IMDb here.

My memories of this particular January 1982 evening at Keele are a strange mixture of clear and blurry. The diary entry only tells a small part of the story:

…went to Jazz Night in the evening. ** got pissed during and after!!

This suggests that only alcohol was imbibed at our table, although in my mind there was also whacky backy involved. Perhaps that was because Ronnie kept saying, “I must stop smoking this stuff” whenever he muffed his jokes/lines, which he did with charming frequency.

We sat at tables in the style of a jazz club like Ronnie Scott’s and I remember it all seeming very grown up and sophisticated at the outset. I think we drank wine and cocktails rather than beer at our table, which is probably why we got pissed unusually quickly.

I was at a table with, I am pretty sure (in reducing order of sureness): Miriam Morgan, Heather Jones, Ashley Fletcher, Helen Ross and one or two others. One person who was certainly at our table was a rather exotic-looking (to me) gay female with whom, for reasons I cannot with hindsight fathom, I started to dance. I’ll guess it was initially her idea, because dancing isn’t something I can imagine myself ever having spontaneously initiated.

Mercifully, this Jazz Night was long before the age of smart phones, pocket video cameras, TikTok and the like, so there are no moving pictures of our “performance” – indeed not even any stills to my knowledge.

It probably looked a little like the following clip at first, except that John Travolta is a very capable dancer trying to look awkward, whereas…

We danced in an increasingly frisky manner as time went on, until a pivotal moment when I suddenly felt drenched. Someone from a nearby “Tory Boy” table tipped a jug of water over us with the entreaty, “you two need to cool down”.

I’m not sure who did the tipping; it might have been Mark Ellicott (who still sat at Tory Boy tables back then) or it might even have been ABC Dick. Whoever it was, the gesture was done without menace and with a witticism thrown in, such that we and everyone at the tables around us found the joke funny, so we joined in the laughter and redoubled our frisky efforts.

Strangely, I ran this story by Simon Jacobs and Jon Gorvett just the other evening – forty years on. Both of them confirmed that they were not there on this evening.

Yet Simon, who usually claims not to be able to remember anything about our Keele days, immediately identified the young woman in question as “Nicola from Crewe and Alsager College”, which of course was the right answer. Respect, Simon, respect.

Nicola ended up going out with Miriam, which I think brought the Miriam and Heather era to a close, although I might be muddling the sequencing and/or duration of that episode. Others might well be able to put the record straight.

My diary states clearly that we all carried on drinking after the Ronnie Scott Jazz Night had concluded, but the frisky dancing with Nicola was definitely merely a “moment in time” thing during the jazz night.

Postscript – Remembering Nicola

Within minutes of me posting this piece, Ashley Fletcher commented on FB, reminding me that, a couple of years later, he shared a place in Newcastle with Miriam & Nicola, who became and were still very much an item after that January 1982 time.

Ashley also recalls that, ironically, Nicola looked like an androgynous new romantic performer named Ronny – indeed she did – click this link or the picture below to see pictures and even a vid of exotic-looking Ronny.

Borrowed from and linked to Lord Bassington-Bassington

The Rest Of the Diary

Diary pages for the week or so leading up to Ronnie’s below. For the completists. There’s a prize if anyone can work out who or what I went to see on Tuesday 12th!

Postscript – Remembering Nastassja

Following an entreaty from Kay Scorah that she wouldn’t sleep until the 12 January diary entry mystery was solved, I gave the matter some deeper thought. Then I looked at the Rosetta Stone for a while. Then I concluded that the pathetically scrawled four-letter word, which I had thought all along was probably the title of a film, given that Tuesday evening was film night…

…must have been “Tess”. No really.

The 1979 Roman Polanski marathon version of Tess of the d’Urbervilles.

My teenage hormonal head would have been full of Nastassja Kinski for a few days…until Nicola came along. Sorry Nastassja.

You can sleep now, Kay.

Postscript To The Above Postscript – Remembering Tash, Tess & Nastassja

The mention of Tess generated quite a postbag and I realise that I was mistaken in attributing the 12 January scribble to that film. John White writes:

 Don’t think that says Tess btw. The word begins with an s and ends with an h. Sure it wasn’t a person?

But I was buoyed by Jon Gorvett’s memory flash, inspired by my mention of Tess:

Anyway, also bizarre that you should mention Heather Jones, Tess, Nastassja Kinski and crushes all in the same post, Ian, as I recall both myself and Heather taking a sudden interest in Thomas Hardy around then, after Kinski had appeared on the cover of the version of Tess of the d’Urbervilles on sale in the Keele bookshop. Noticing this, we both later confessed to a massive crush on the said daughter of the great director (and massive child abuser, I see now), leading ultimately to enormous enthusiasm for Cat People, when that hit the screens later that year. 

…so I responded as follows:

100% sure it was Tess. Memory flash corroborated by Jon Gorvett, who said that note brought a flood of memories. Gilted Jon (by Truda) and gilted Heather (by Miriam) both salivated over Ms Kinski at that time. My handwriting was truly appalling at the best of times and I often wrote up diaries when pissed or stoned.

However, I now realise and am 100% sure that the pesky word on 12 January was Tash, not Tess. The Tash reference is explained in the subsequent “Forty Years On” piece.

But I did see Tess around that time – I’m guessing it must have been the film shown 15 January, which I don’t name – I simply describe it in my diary as “boring”. Frankly, I do recall finding the excruciatingly long Tess movie boring in every regard except for the visual charms of Ms Kinski.

The Free Bonus LP, A Reel-To-Reel Tape Gifted To Me By Paul Deacon, 26 September 1981

I have managed to rescue an old reel-to-reel tape, nearly 40 years after it was made and given to me by Paul Deacon.

I went through a process of digitising all my old reel-to-reels around 2008, but this small spool, which Paul named The Free Bonus LP, was accidentally missed out of that process.

I realised the mistake a couple of years ago, when Paul and I were corresponding about some other silliness of ours from an even earlier era:

Execution Scenes, Coin Tossers And Miscellaneous Silliness Recorded With Paul Deacon, 12 April 1977

Being me, though, I hadn’t scrapped the box of tapes, nor had I scrapped the trusty Sony TC377 tape recorder, I had merely decommissioned the machine and put all the stuff into storage in the City.

Then, a few weeks ago, my good friend John White asked me if I still had a reel-to-reel, as he and his sister Pippa had found some old reels while clearing his late parents’ house. In good pal mode, I went to the storage basement, rescued the machine and schlepped the weighty object back to my flat.

While in the storage room, I thought I’d have a quick look for the missing Paul Deacon spool which, for kind reasons of its own, had found its way to the top of the first box of spools I opened.

Fate.

The John White reel rescues have uncovered a treasure trove of stuff…

A Reel Good Evening With John White, 21 January 2020

…including, even more recently, a mystery third spool which turns out to be John & Pippa’s parents’ wedding.

Having completed the White stuff, I ventured this morning to The Free Bonus LP and what a treat it was to hear it again after all these years.

Side One comprises Paul talking me through some dreadful versions of well-known songs, out-takes, bloopers and the like. Some of it I still found very funny. The highlight…or are we talking lowlights here?…the lowlight, then, is towards the end of Side One. A gentleman named Paul Marks who was working with Paul at that time on the hospital radio station Radio Kings. Paul Marks’s blooper about a Renaissance dance troupe’s costumes is comedy gold, as is Paul Deacon’s seething interview with Paul Marks about it for a single listener, me, on The Free Bonus LP.

Ladies, gentlemen and children, I give you, Side One:

Side One in all its glory

Side Two is a collection of five comedic/novelty recordings.

I especially like the first one, Bo Dudley, while recognising today how very un-PC is some the language used.

Hearing this tape again also reminded me how very funny The Heebie Jeebies were…indeed still are.

So here it is….Side Two:

Side Two

Paul and I used to spend hours putting compliation tapes together for each other – Paul I think more prolific in doing so than me. I have digital copies of all of those and this is, I think, the only recording that had, until today (7 February 2020) remained undigitised.

I realise that this one in particular must have taken ages to pull together. I probably never thanked you properly or enough for those efforts, Paul…

…again, until today. Many, many thanks for The Free Bonus LP, Paul.

…and how do you know to date the thing 26 September 1981?…

…I hear you cry. Because Paul, helpfully, stuck a label with the date on the spool. Thanks again, Paul.

Uncle Manny’s Funeral & The Hoover Factory, 15 May 1981

I recovered this Hoover Factory memory vividly at a pilot of Rohan Candappa’s new performance piece on 31 October 2017:

What Listening To 10,000 Love Songs Has taught Me About Love. It’s an exploration of love, and music, and how the two intertwine. it’s also about how our lives have a soundtrack.”

Here is a link to my review of that performance piece.

Somewhat unexpectedly (to me), one of the songs Rohan featured in the show was Hoover Factory by Elvis Costello.

In case you are not familiar with the piece (and/or the building), less than two minutes of divine vid, below, will give you all you need:

I came across the song in March 1981- click here for the story of my cassette swaps with Graham Greenglass and my trip to see Elvis (sadly a Hover Factory-free concert) with Anil Biltoo, Caroline Freeman and Simon Jacobs.

I listened to the cassettes Graham made for me a lot in that final term of my first year at Keele. I especially liked the Hoover Factory song, even before the events of mid May.

Wednesday 13 May 1981

I was in the Students’ Union that evening (as usual) when I got tannoyed.

The sound of Wally across the tannoy saying:

would Ear Narris come to reception please. Ear Narris to reception…

…became a commonplace in my sabbatical year…

…I even have a towel emblazoned with the legend “Ear Narris”, a gift from Petra…

…but this was probably the first time I had ever been tannoyed in the Students’ Union.

It was my mum on the phone. My father’s older brother, Manny, had died suddenly of a heart attack. I was needed at home. Rapidly. Traditional Jewish funerals are conducted very soon after death and that branch of the family was/is traditional. I went to bed early, knowing I would need to make a very early start (by student standards) the next day.

Thursday 14 May 1981

A flurry of activity.

Early in the morning, I went round to see a few academics to reschedule my essays and excuse myself from a tutorial or two. I recall the topology tutor (professor?) seeming incredibly strange. Twice I told him that my uncle had died and twice he said back to me, “I’m sorry to hear that your father has died”.

Once I had agreed my absences and extensions, I legged it to London, having arranged to stop off at the place near Euston where the religious paperwork for births, marriages, deaths and stuff used to get done. Woburn House if I remember correctly.  Anyway, I was suitably “family but not immediate family” (the latter are officially in mourning and are not allowed to do stuff) to help get the paperwork sorted out.

I learnt that Uncle Manny was (officially) born in Vilnius, although the family hailed from the “twixt Minsk and Pinsk” Belarus part of the Pale of Settlement. The family might have already been on the move by the time he was born or that answer might, at the time, have seemed more acceptable when the UK arrivals paperwork was being done.

When I got home, I recall that Grandma Anne, 88/89 years old, was in our house and in the most shocking state. Apparently Uncle Manny had collapsed in her kitchen and she was unable to get past the collapsed body of her son to try to call for help. A nightmarish scenario that would seem unlikely & overly melodramatic if used in fiction. Grandma Anne never really recovered from the shock of this event and didn’t survive that calendar year.

It was the first time I had witnessed death at close hand. I was very small (8 or 9) when Uncle Alec, the oldest of the four brothers, died; in truth I had been shielded from it. But this time I was very affected by witnessing and being part of this family bereavement.

From left to right, Uncles Manny, Michael and Alec

Friday 15 May 1981

The funeral, at Bushy Cemetery. We were driven out as part of the funeral cortege of course.

I had only been to one funeral before – as it happens at the same cemetery – that of Bernard Rothbart, a teacher at Alleyn’s – perhaps two years earlier. I’ll write that one up for Ogblog when I come to it.

I’m not sure I had ever been out on the Western Avenue before – at least not knowingly and not with senses heightened. In fact, I’m pretty sure I had no idea where we were until I saw that magnificent Hoover Building loom into view.

Oh my God. That’s it. That’s the Hoover Factory…

“Yes, dear”, said mum. “Your ‘Uncle Josh’ used to work for Hoover”.

I don’t think mum got the point.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the line from the song, “it’s not a matter of life or death. What is? What is?”  Because my family was suddenly experiencing something that really was a matter of life or death. And people really did, profoundly care who does or doesn’t take another breath. I wanted to understand, but Elvis wasn’t helping; his song was just stuck in my head.

Hoover Factory remained stuck in my head for the rest of the day…the rest of the week…the rest of the term.

And the rest of that term turned out to be a very eventful few weeks indeed for me:

The Six O’Clock Alarm Would Never Ring, Starting My First Keele Summer Term, 24 April to 9 May 1981

It’s sometimes difficult to get up in the morning when you are a first year Keele student. Who knew?

Back then, I had an alarm clock a bit like the one depicted above. I could easily sleep through the ringing of that alarm. I remember bringing back a metal biscuit tin after the Easter holidays with the sole purpose of increasing the volume of the ringing, by placing the alarm clock within the biscuit tin. Didn’t work, I know, I know.

The Key To Getting A Good Night’s Sleep As A Keele Undergraduate

Mind you, it doesn’t help if you start the term as described above. Here is a transcript for any readers not so well versed in the rarefied script that is my handwriting:

24 April 1981 – Exams today. After dinner went to Mark’s [Bartholomew] -> Union. Talking till late with Sim [Simon Ascough], [Mad] Harry & Dave [Johnson, I think].

25 April 1981 – Easy day. Went to Union in evening -> Roy’s for drinks – Melanie [Print], Ashley [Fletcher] & Louise [Lorenc] – locked out – stayed…

26 April 1981 – …overnight. No sleep. Found keys in morning- had lunch – wandered aimlessly & slept from 6 pm until 8 am.

With thanks to Ashley for recalling Melanie & Louise’s names. Neither of us really remember what passed that night, other than a lot of bullshit chat no doubt and Ashley probably went to town with his Adolf Hitler and Ian Paisley (senior) pastiche/parody speeches.

“The flag of my country is hanging upside down outside this building”.

I simply cannot imagine sleeping 14 hours straight through any more. It’s not just that I know I couldn’t do it; I really cannot even imagine it.

Still, that extended night’s sleep got me up in good time for the first FY lecture of the term. What a fresh start.

My First Rolo & My Last Rolo

That peculiar sleep pattern got me up in time to see Professor Paul Rolo’s 9:00 history lecture and Professor David Adams’s 11:00 American Studies lecture.

I recall being fascinated by both of those lectures. Peculiarly, the allure of Russian and Fascist revolutions did not enable the alarm to rouse me on the Tuesday, but the idea of another Paul Rolo lecture somehow enabled the alarm to interrupt my slumbers on the Wednesday and get me to the FY Lecture Theatre for 9:00.

Similarly, the prospect of order in the post-war international system, combined with the alarm clock, failed to get me out of bed on the Thursday morning, yet the subconscious thought of another David Adams lecture woke me and got me to the Chancellor’s Building for the 9:00 lecture on the Friday for the third time that week.

This is the first sign of a pattern that persisted throughout my student years; I was able to get up for lectures, even at 9:00, if I thought they’d be worth the candle. Otherwise I tended to skip the lectures, read up on stuff at leisure (if need be) and sleep in like a teenager…which is what I was.

I didn’t get to know Professor Paul Rolo – he left a year or so after I did FY – but he could lecture and he sounds like a fascinating chap.

Professor David Adams I did get to know when I sat on Senate and also prior to that, when I sat on the train from Stoke to Euston or from Euston to Stoke. He must have gone to London quite a lot because I remember encountering him several times. A really interesting and lovely chap.

What Else Did You Get Up To, Kid?

Ok, ok, I’m getting to it.

Monday 27 April 1981 – First lectures etc. – finished moving etc [all the way from pokey Lindsay F1 to salubrious room with a view Lindsay F4] after dinner -> Union, quite pleasant

Tuesday 28 April 1981 – Light day. Went to see film in evening (Fame – v good,) -> on to union with gang – quite good.

Wednesday 29 April 1981 – OK day. Went to Concourse meeting – on to Mis [Miriam Morgan] & Heather [Jones] for heavy evening

Thursday 30 April 1981 – easyish day. Did little. Short stay in Union – reasonably early night.(Simon [Jacobs] & Sim [Ascough] came back after)

Friday 1 May 1981 – not bad day. Busy afternoon (Kallah photos). Went to see film (yuk). Went back to union – bon.

I’d started going to Film Society by the end of the second term and went a lot in this third term. I am pretty sure the 1 May film which I did not name but described as “yuk” was Fellini Satyricon. If I remember correctly, there weren’t all that many of us in the FY lecture theatre at the start of the movie and by the end I think just three or four of us had stuck it out.

Saturday 2 May 1981 – Easy day. Shopped in Newcastle – went to see David [Perrins] & friends, supper they came over -> Sneyd, Union bop -> Amanda’s.

Sunday 3 May 1981 – Lazy day – went to Lloyd’s [Green] and Amanda’s -> Union in evening.

I feel bad saying this, but I cannot remember who Amanda is/was, but she was unquestionably a diary highlight that weekend. Simon might remember. Lloyd might remember. But I feel that it is me who should remember. Apologies. If you are out there, Amanda, please do get in touch and jog the memory…if by chance you remember anything about it.

Tuesday 5 May 1981 – Busyish day. Saw All That Jazz in the evening. Simon’s [Jacobs] for coffee after – good.

Wednesday 6 May 1981 – OK day. Went to see Discipline and Lounge Lizards in evening – v good.

Dave Lee’s forthcoming (as I write in April 2021) book The Keele Gigs! will no doubt review Discipline (whom in truth I don’t really remember), and The Lounge Lizards (a gig I remember well and very fondly). You can see something quite similar to the gig we saw on YouTube – click here:

Thursday 7 May 1981 – Easyish day. Laundry etc. Easyish evening.

Friday 8 May 1981 – Busyish day. Went to Burslem in evening. Enjoyable evening. (Came here for coffee).

Saturday 9 May 1981 – Late start, Newcastle shopping – ate – Union in evening – back here after.

That new room of mine, Lindsay F4, was salubrious enough to become a focal point to the extent that people had started coming back to my place. It might also have had something to do with the fact that I was going in to Newcastle on the weekend to buy food so always had something to eat – possibly even some left overs of cooked food but at the very least plentiful biscuits. My mum would have approved.

I should highlight the fact that Simon Jacobs gets a couple of mentions in this piece – he wrote to me saying that he was mightily put out that he didn’t get a mention in the previous Keele piece.

Bless my cotton socks, I’m in the news…

Side Two Of Paul Deacon’s 7″ Spool Mix Tape, 15 April 1981

We had a Sony TC377: I think Paul had an Akai or a Philips

Here is Side Two of Paul’s larger tape from that Easter vacation. I have explained the story of these tapes in the earlier postings; the piece about the smaller mix tape that Paul dated on 11 April 1981…

A Mix Tape Fest With Paul Deacon, 11 April 1981

…and the piece that sets out Side One of this larger tape:

Side One Of Paul Deacon’s 7″ Spool Mix Tape, 15 April 1981

So here is Side Two:

Here is the play list, as best I can make it up from YouTube links at the time of writing, forty years on from that Easter of 1981:

https://youtu.be/AeaZ3DEQEyo
https://youtu.be/HOUPbKuYMbU
https://youtu.be/upg5Pj5PW8k
https://youtu.be/OgtQj8O92eI
https://youtu.be/XhAec0h4lds
https://youtu.be/4naoG2z4Zcc
https://youtu.be/Z4XGqcB19sw

Side One Of Paul Deacon’s 7″ Spool Mix Tape, 15 April 1981

Paul Deacon really went to town that 1981 Easter holidays, making me a couple of seriously superb mix tape spools. The 5″ spool came with a fact sheet dated 11 April 1981:

A Mix Tape Fest With Paul Deacon, 11 April 1981

The 7″ Spool (twice as long) has a fact sheet dated 15 April 1981. I’m splitting the sheet into Side One and Side Two to make these Ogblog postings just about manageable in size.

Splitting the two spools into three postings in this way more or less equates with the three cassettes I ripped from the two spools. Those cassettes got a lot of play at Keele over the years, especially that summer of 1981. But more on that anon.

Here is the play list, as best I can make it up from YouTube links at the time of writing, forty years on from that Easter of 1981:

https://youtu.be/rts7Qdew3HE
https://youtu.be/UQU4sIn96M4
https://youtu.be/VS-_nnJ-QD4
https://youtu.be/EUY2kJE0AZE
https://youtu.be/0e0qYP_PTlY
https://youtu.be/Y64211sjSko

No recording available for Contrast, Hey That’s No Way To Say Goodbye.

https://youtu.be/zXeRB-3nDR8

A Mix Tape Fest With Paul Deacon, 11 April 1981

This is one heck of a good mix tape, if you like interesting sixties and early seventies music.

The diary tells me that Paul popped around with records etc. on the Thursday evening (9th). My diary entry for the 11th reads:

Lazy sort of day. Shopped etc. Taped for Paul. Lazy evening.

My guess/vague recollection is that Paul popped around with a sample of the records he had been acquiring since we left school. I would have shown him the records I had acquired since he last had a look at my (by his standards) minuscule collection. So we agreed to do a mix tape swap.

Unquestionably I’ll have got the better end of the deal. I suspect that the mix tape I made for Paul is lost in the mists of time. Whereas the above tape is an absolute cracker. Not the only mix tape from Paul that week either; there is an even longer tape dated 15 April 1981 in my collection. And a great many others from the following two or three years. More on those anon.

This tape, along with the longer one that I shall write about over the next few days, was a huge part of the soundtrack of the summer term at Keele that followed and way beyond. I still listen to Paul’s mix tapes occasionally; these from Easter 1981 surprisingly often.

Great stuff Paul. Thanks again, forty years on!

To the extent I am able, I have made up that mix tape below with YouTube links. Some might get broken over time, but I’m sure you can find the items for yourselves if you are interested.

https://youtu.be/OuUpOerfT2I
https://youtu.be/f7eJSdpMEnI
https://youtu.be/f3mUO268OkY