Jon Gorvett on the far right (pictorially, not politically) next to Simon Jacobs (also a Keele alum), together with me and Jon’s partner Stephanie in 2018
In August 1982, during the Keele summer break, Jon Gorvett visited my family home in Streatham for the weekend.
The diary is a little low on detail. It looks as though we focussed on wine more than beer (unusually for me at that time) and we seem to have focussed on trendy London places – Brixton, Camden Lock & Notting Hill – how cool is that!?
Somewhat higher on detail is my log of tape recordings, which lists a whole heap of albums with Jon’s name beside them. How we found the time to rip all those albums onto tape while doing the listed activities from the diary is a mystery to me. I’m guessing that Jon might have left that pile of albums with me and I returned them to him at the start of term. Either that or there were some recording sessions deep into the early hours.
There were some singles too, which I used to fill up the tapes, but I was not so meticulous about logging who lent me which singles and I know I had a similar (smaller) recording session with Wendy Robbins later that summer break; she also had some cool singles. But I think the following classics were from Jon:
Yet still questions remain about that visit. Why was Jon delayed on arrival on the Friday? How scary did he find my mum? Which wine bar did we go to in South London – I don’t remember such places existing in those parts in those days.
Memorable sounds though, for sure. I listened to those recordings one heck of a lot in the subsequent years and still rate several of those albums very highly indeed.
I have discovered a cassette tape of “contemporary” music which Mark Ellicott made for me in the summer of 1982. I remember little of the background to this tape, but I did play it a fair bit during that summer break from Keele and quite a lot during the ensuing academic year 82/83, which Mark missed.
During his first year at Keele, Mark was, self-confessedly, going through a bit of a transformation, from “Tory Boy” at the Keele Royal Ball…
…to becoming a more iconoclastic figure in Keele circles, going on to become Social Secretary later in the 1980s and subsequently managing some of the best-known venues in the UK.
I think Mark might have given me this tape right at the end of the summer term in 1982, perhaps by way of an apology for getting me roped into playing cricket on his behalf – long story told here and below:
Below is the tape listing from Mark’s one-side of a C90 offering, which I labelled “ME Batch” with a clear note on my log that Mark had made this for me:
Some fascinating choices there, which I have attempted to find in the best versions possible on the web. It will be interesting to learn Mark’s thoughts about this mix tape (or what people latterly would call a playlist) forty years on.
To add a little to the intrigue, the second side of the cassette is a recording of Changestwobowie, which my log says was made for me by Andrea Collins (now Woodhouse). Did Mark and Andrea collaborate on making this cassette for me, or did Andrea offer to fill in the second side of the tape for me after Mark gave me a one-sided cassette? My diary and logs are silent on such details and my memory only retains the extent to which I played this cassette quite a lot in the second half of 1982.
To close, here’s one of my (many) favourite tracks from that Bowie album:
Forty years on, just in case I didn’t express sufficient gratitude at the time: thanks Mark, thanks Andrea.
At Keele in those days we had to take two subsidiary courses during our first degree year. I’ll write about those in time, but for now I want to write a trilogy of pieces about the informal subsidiary education I enjoyed around contemporary music at Keele that year.
My source for these pieces, for once, is not the diary – it is my collection of music; in this instance mostly cassettes that Keele people made for me.
I only had a radio cassette player at Keele – see image below for the one I had for the first couple of years – while my record and reel-to-reel collection at my parents house also burgeoned during my Keele years.
My system at Keele back then, a Philips Spatial Stereo Ghettoblaster/Boombox
Of all the pieces I shall write about friends influencing my interest in music, this is the most mysterious and perhaps the Keele alum community can help me identify Dave.
I don’t think I mention him at all in the diary – nor can I trace the particular evenings when, as my memory stores it – I went to his room with my blaster and he recorded several of his records onto cassette for me while we drank, smoked and chatted music.
Listing “the Dave Eight” just before my March-June charts rip tape sort-of dates it
I’m pretty sure he was Lancastrian – I can hear in my mind’s ear him saying “Depeche Mode” with the word “mode” sounding like the past tense of a cow making noise…”mooed”. Indeed, until recently I had assumed that Depeche Mode was a Northern electro pop band – only forty years on have I learnt that they were from Basildon. Dave was strangely attracted to their sound and style – I think he had cognitive dissonance about them. I was not a fan and have none of their music in my collection, but I must say, forty years on, the video below just oozes 1981/82 and I felt bound to share it with you.
Dave thought Depeche Mode had hidden depths, I thought hidden shallows
I think my fleeting, casual friendship with Dave sprung up around the topic of Van Morrison, whom I had discovered in the summer of 1981. I played Astral Weeks incessantly and I think Dave might have first introduced himself to me by knocking on my Lindsay F Block door on hearing Astral Weeks blaring from my room.
I think Dave was involved with social committee to some extent – perhaps on the technical side. Unusually, he had connection leads to enable us to connect my blaster to his “gramophone”.
I guess we made a din recording those albums
The two Van Morrison albums that comprise the first Dave tape – TB Sheets and Into the Music, while interesting and informative, did not get air play in my room to anything like the extent of Astral Weeks.
The tape with Surrealistic Pillow by Jefferson Airplane and The Best Of Grace Slick & The Great Society on it got played so much, it is a miracle that it survived. For the Airplane heads amongst you, Dave’s “Pillow” was the 1967 UK release – I subsequently acquired decent copies of both the UK and the US version of the album. I also now have the digitally remastered Grace Slick & The Great Society collection.
Here are a couple of samples to whet your appetites:
In truth, I did not listen much to Crown Of Creation or Baron Von Tollbooth – perhaps I should give them a proper try now and see what I make of them in my dotage.
The other album I listened to oh so many times at Keele (and subsequently) was Goodbye Pop by National Lampoon. Much as I liked Not The Nine O’clock News, the sketches and especially the song pastiches on Goodbye Pop are of the very highest quality.
The Gilder Ratner song/sketch I’m A Woman is superb and seems just as relevant forty years on…
…and if you think the Sid Gormless character at the start of the Art Rock Suite reminds you a bit of Nigel from Spinal Tap, that might just be because it is indeed Christopher Guest playing that role. Oh, stuff it, here’s a link to the whole album. You can get it on Spotify and Apple and all those places now.
So thank you, Dave, whoever and wherever you are now.
Question for advanced students among the Keele alums of the time – any thoughts on who the mysterious Dave might be and where he might be now?
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.
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.
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].
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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 May1981
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:
some time off after the exams before starting my holiday job – I came back to London for a while to see friends then back to Keele to enjoy the end of academic year festivities. I recall reading Catch 22 in the glorious sunshine, sitting on the grassy knoll (Keele’s grassy knoll is a safe space), in front of the library and chapel. I read loads, for the pleasure of reading and had a really good time for several happy weeks.
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.
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.
