Sitting at Lord’s in August 2018, watching what is now a relatively rare Indian batting collapse in a test match, I was reminded of the first Indian cricket tour of England that entered my consciousness, in 1974, which also included an historical collapse at Lord’s.
But in 1974 I was not at Lord’s, I was on the South Downs, at the end of my first year at Alleyn’s, on a 1S field trip led by the Head of the Science Department, John S Clarke.
“Who were 1S?”, I hear you cry. The following diary extract/piece explains:
Several people on that list might have better, or at least different, memories of that field trip. I’d love to learn those recollections.
I remember the trip, on the whole, as an unpleasant experience for me. I don’t think I needed much to put me off camping more or less for life – that field trip did most of the job.
I recall I got stung by a wasp early in the trip and had a nasty reaction to the bite, not only in terms of the wound swelling & the resultant pain/discomfort, but also no little fear. John Clarke was a precautionary fellow who insisted that we keep a close eye on the toxic wound and who, as an educationalist, left me in no doubt and spared me no detail about how serious it could be if the toxins got out of control in my body – which in the end they didn’t.
I also (perhaps as a side effect of the sting – possibly exposure to some rare South Downs pollen I have never encountered since) suffered the symptoms of quite severe hay fever for the only time in my life, which lingered throughout the trip.
I do recall that the actual walking on the South Downs bit, which was the field trip’s main purpose, was nevertheless most enjoyable. The trip probably did as much to forge a lifetime’s love of hill walking as it did to put me off camping.
My other abiding memory of that trip was the test match radio commentary, provided, second hand, by Richard Hollingshead, who had a portable transistor radio held firmly to one ear, on the Monday of the trip, while we walked the Downs.
Those of us who straggled towards the back of the walking party probably looked a little like the following Bergman film extract, with Richard the character at the rear, listening and then calling out the astonishing events from Lord’s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abusPM-9mqQ
India metaphorically collapsed and died in a heap that day. 42 all out in 17 overs – the joyous listening session can’t have lasted all that long. Richard Hollingshead was seemingly ecstatic each time another wicket fell and was full of the stats (presumably being fed to him by the BBC cricket commentary team) of the records that were tumbling and might tumble along with the tumbling of wickets.
I have found a little video that shows that ignoble Indian batting performance/ glorious England bowling performance. Geoff Arnold and Chris Old became my heroes; not just for one day.
But when I got home that evening, there was no point telling my parents about the wonders I had enjoyed, vicariously, on that broadcast from Lord’s. They had no interest in cricket.
I did need to explain the swelling on my body and the precautionary observations and applications still needed (just in case), plus the hay-feverish sniffles. I probably had blisters and muddy clothes to explain too.
I remember my mum saying that the whole episode made her think of the song “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah” by Allan Sherman; I think she had a point:
https://youtu.be/4yFTOvO0utY
Other recollections or corrections about that trip will be most gratefully received.
Although my 1974 diary fell silent for a few months in April 1974, I recall some aspects of my musical education from that period rather well. Alleyn’s School played a major part in that, but not the only part.
Pop Kennard, our Alleyn’s music teacher, did not do a great deal for my singing voice that year either. I recall him getting us to listen to and then try to sing Schubert’s Das Wandern in an English translation “To wander is the miller’s joy…”, which did not sound like the following in our unbroken and untrained voices:
“Take me to your lieder” – that’s what I would have said had I been familiar with the word “lieder”
My contribution to such singing in those days would have provided enthusiastic volume but would have lacked desirable sound, I am pretty sure.
I have subsequently been taking singing lessons by Zoom with “Miss Honey” since early in the pandemic and have improved beyond measure – my early efforts at improvement blogged about here:
I noted in my diaries early in 1974 that my dad invested in a high quality hi-fi at that time. He plumped for that ahead of a colour television set, which we did without for another couple of years while he saved up for one of those as well.
A fair chunk of dad’s enthusiasm for a hi-fi will have been to do with my musical education and the sense my parents will have had that my most impressive musical skill would be listening to music rather than performing it.
I’ll write separately about the small but neat collection of classical gramophone recordings my parents acquired for me and helped me to acquire. Mostly middle-brow stuff, getting me familiar with the conventional classical canon.
But one evening, dad spotted a concert being broadcast on BBC Radio and decided to get busy properly rigging up the hi-fi so that the concert might be recorded to a (then) high quality on the reel-to-reel for future listening.
Connect this beauty to the tuner and the speakers and the Sony TC377 depicted above. Simples.
Monteverdi’s eighth book of madrigals – The Madrigals Of Love And War – performed by the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra under John Elliot Gardiner.
Why dad was so keen to record this particular broadcast I don’t really know. I think he liked the sound of Renaissance music but found it hard to relate to sacred music from that period. High quality secular music of that period was not to be heard on the radio every day.
Dad made this recording on a 5 3/4 inch spool which I still have in a dungeon somewhere and have digitised along with all of the other spools from the Harris collection.
If you want to hear what those madrigals sound like, the following recording by the Consort of Musicke is a very decent quality version – frankly more to my taste now than the Eliot Gardiner style.
Anyway, fact is that this stuff became my ear worms at the end of my first year at Alleyn’s.
What Were Supposed To Be My Ear Worms In Early June 1974? The Top Five In the Charts, That’s What.
To close this piece, here are the top 5 UK chart hits from that week in 1974.
5: There’s A Ghost In My House by R Dean Taylor became an ear worm of mine many years later, when I got into Motown and Northern Soul, but I doubt if it even entered my consciousness in 1974:
4: The Streak by Ray Stevens went on to be number one for a while and was certainly the subject of our schoolboy chatter back then. “There seems to have been some disturbance here” was a catch phrase that did the rounds then, along with the Monty Python ones. I wonder what Pop Kennard would have had to say about the music therein:
3: Hey Rock ‘n’ Roll by Showaddywaddy was most certainly an ear worm back then. This number had entirely escaped my consciousness until I reheard it just now. Now it is stuck in my ear again. It was a seriously retro number even in 1974, although not as retro as Monteverdi madrigals, obviously:
2: This Town Ain’t Big Enough For The Both Of Us by Sparks. In truth, I don’t remember this track from that 1974 period. A few years later I had a copy of this track on a compilation album and then sought out a copy of Kimono My House (the album from whence it came) which was and remains an all-time favourite of mine. Kimono My House was very much my earworm in March 1981, when the story described in the following ThreadMash performance piece was live:
1: Sugar Baby Love by The Rubettes. Another ridiculously retro sound topped the charts that week.
How did that get to number one in the charts in 1974? Yet – listen closely. Do I detect a variant of the folia progression in there? Is Sugar Baby Love, in a sense, a setting for six voices based on a tradition pioneered in 17th century madrigals? Might Paul de Vinci of the Rubettes possibly have been related to Leonardo?
Monteverdi and Pop Kennard might be turning in their respective graves.
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.
Back then, if I wrote “Herbie” I meant this anthropomorphic vehicle…
I ran out of steam for diary entry writing towards the end of April 1974. Well, I had been doing it for nearly four months by then. I suppose I had earned a sabbatical, or perhaps I was afflicted with juvenilia-writer’s-block.
When I returned to diary-writing at the end of November 1974, I think my efforts were pretty much continuous for a further 15 years. I regret the absence of entries between May and November 1974, but there’s not much I can do about that now.
Ian Sandbrook (who was my 1S form master and is now my e-mail-pen-pal) suggests that I could ask a chat-bot to make up some entries. But that strikes me as a rather low grade task for such a pinnacle of technology. If vast amounts of processing power is going to produce confabulatory text, it should do so on matters of greater import than my 11/12 year old’s diary entries.
I might try trawling my memory and the memories of other Alleyn’s alums for tales of derring-do in the summer term of 1973/74 and the autumn term of 1974/75. I certainly have a few summer holidays memories to share from that year.
Anyway, let’s make the most of what we have left, a few rather sketchy days bringing up the end of the Easter break and the start of the summer term:
Sunday, 21 April 1974 – Classes morn. Afternoon G[randma] Anne.
Monday, 22 April 1974 – Russell [Holland] – Herbie and Run Cougar Run. A good day.
Tuesday 23 April 1974 – New [term] at school, G Jenny afternoon, Classes.
Wednesday, 24 April 1974 – Sports – fives and tennis – uneventful – all ok.
Thursday, 25 April 1974 – Latin ok.
Russell Holland was a friend from my primary school, Rosemead.
There’s Russell at our Rosemead passing out parade, left of picture. Alan Cooke (both Rosemead and Alleyn’s) is the other boy in this picture
It’s quite a childish idea, an anthropomorphic car with a mind of its own, but then the Herbie movies were Disney films. My anthropomorphic car, Dumbo, writes sensibly about all manner of things when the fancy takes him, sometimes on my blog and sometimes on King Cricket, such as the following piece about his run in with the police…
It seems I played a bit of tennis as well as cricket that summer term at Alleyn’s and it seems we started learning Latin, I think with Doggie Johnson, the junior school head.
Perhaps I am confusing my Hebrew classes with my Latin classes, but I think the lessons might have gone a bit like this:
OK, in truth my memory fades, but I still find that Life of Brian sketch one of Python’s very best. If other alums from my year wish to chime in with memories from that third term at Alleyn’s, real, false or just funny, now would be a good time.
If you need a musical memory jogger, the following was Number One and a sound you just couldn’t avoid at that time:
Escaping from the Colditz prisoner of war camp…but only for fun
Tennis continued to loom large in my Easter holidays story, although it is clear from my diary entries that others were losing interest, making the visits to the tennis club rarer:
OK, OK, I’ll translate it. Just hold on a tick.
Sunday, 7 April 1974 – Yomtov [Pesach, aka Passover], so no [Hebrew] classes. Not a good day.
Monday, 8 April 1974 – Bought paints. Painted soldiers. Another bad day!!!!
Tuesday, 9 April 1974 – The Black Arrow [1973] cartoon in morn. Afternoon tennis coaching. No classes, so later tennis.
Wednesday, 10 April 1974 – A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court cartoon. Tennis very good Gary and Mark were there only -people are losing interest.
Thursday, 11 April 1974 – very uneventful.
Friday, 12 April 1974 – Good Friday – Dad home. Good fun. Dad had fun too! Shopped for suits.
Saturday, 13 April 1974 – took a rest. Uneventful day.
I managed to find the Connecticut Yankee film on YouTube, but not The Black Arrow one from the 1970s:
I’m trying to work out who Gary and Mark (the last lads standing with me playing tennis) might have been. I’ll guess that Gary was Gary Sugarman who lived in our road. Gary did have a brother whose name escapes me – possibly Mark. I don’t remember a Mark in our street or entourage from thereabouts.
A message from Alan Cooke which I think unequivocally solves the “source of Escape From Colditz” query:
The Cooke household certainly owned ‘Escape from Colditz’. It was an unusual board game as it required one player to be the German Security Officer who essentially had to thwart all the others.
The rules were a bit vague in some areas allowing vibrant ‘discussion’ in family play
I remembered that Andy and Fiona Levinson were involved and several other kids of our age from the street and local area. The following week’s diary is revealing in several additional ways.
I’ll transcribe the diary entries in full at the end of this article, because I want to focus on a couple of key facts that leap out of the page at me.
The first obvious point is that tennis gets a mention in every entry, except the Sunday one which was dominated by (Hebrew) classes and family s*it.
But the item that screamed off this page at me, inducing mixed emotions of joy and embarrassment, is the entry for 3 April:
Wednesday 3 April 1974. Morn uneventful. Afternoon tennis: Gary [Sugarman] Stewart [sic – actually Stuart Harris] and John [almost certainly Davies], M singles & doubles tournament – SH & I won!
The reason for my embarrassment is that I maintained, for best part of half a century, that I had never won anything at hand/racket sports.
…when I again asserted, it seems wrongly, that I had never previously achieved tournament success.
Yet, it seems that my very first tournament, at Woodfield Grove Tennis Club, was, in fact, a winning one.
Just imagine the scale of that tournament and what it must have meant to all concerned. At least four participants (four are named in my diary piece). Further, the tournament was won by a couple of genuinely local boys.
Stuart Harris, my partner in crime for that tournament victory, is not a relative of mine. Our street, Woodfield Avenue, was blessed with a Harris family at each end.
Ours, the smaller Harris family, just me and my parents, at the north end of Woodfield Avenue. Stuart’s family, with multiple children, at the south end of the same road. Stuart’s dad was named Nathan, known as Naff. Stuart’s family were referred to as “The Naff Harrises” to distinguish them from our family, which might thus have been described as “The Tasteful Harrises”, but were probably known as “The Peter Harrises”…or possibly an adjective I would prefer not to learn about after all this time.
Parenthetically [did you see what I did there], calling my family “The Peter Harrises” would subsequently do no good at all, when another unrelated Peter Harris moved in next door to my parents’ house. A nightmare for the postal and delivery services ensued.
The headline photo shows me and Stuart larking around in The Tasteful Harris garden a couple of years later. Sadly, we have no pictures of me and Stuart in action, pulling off our stunning tournament victory that day in 1974, but I did commission DALL-E to reimagine the scene using AI technology and I think it has done quite well:
That tournament success seems to have preoccupied me so much that I simply scrubbed out the following two days. Presumably the celebrations went on deep into the night and then into the next night…
…or perhaps I was starting to lose interest in diary writing for a while, as evidenced by my seven month “sabbatical” between late April and late November that year.
Anyway, I shall use this diary discovery to try and reconnect with Stuart after all these years (I think I have found him) and we’ll see if any amusing memories and/or law suits ensue from him.
Postscript: Stuart Harris And I Are Indeed Now Back In Touch With One Another
Stuart, amongst many other things unrelated to this piece, points out that there was a Stewart in our street: Stewart Starkin, who quite probably was part of our tennis-take-up group that Easter. Indeed, re-reading my diary entry I strongly suspect that the name Stewart does indeed refer to the other Stewart and SH refers to Stuart Harris. That means that there must have been at least five of us in that tournament, which puts the victory on an even more impressive footing, don’t you think?
Here, For The Record, Is That Entire Diary Week Transcribed.
Sunday 31 March 1974 – Classes in morn. G Anne, Ida trouble [that means a family row]. VERY BAD DAY.
Monday 1 April 1974 – Tennis v good in morn. Afternoon OK. Andrew [Levinson] for badminton.
Tuesday 2 April 1974 – Tennis instruction v good. Classes good. Donuts for class notes. [Some form of sweetmeat bribery to do our studies, if I recall correctly]
Wednesday 3 April 1974. Morn uneventful. Afternoon tennis: Gary [Sugarman] Stewart [sic – actually Stuart Harris] and John [almost certainly Davies], M singles & doubles tournament – SH & I won!
Thursday X
Friday X
Saturday 6 April 1974 – Tennis morn. Afternoon uneventful. Seder v good – sung Ma Nishtana – v enjoyable evening.
Oh boy, was I hooked on the tennis early.
Here is another 1976 take on the dynamic duo that won that Woodfield Grove trophy in 1974 – the pictures below taken the same day as the headline picture:
I have put the main highlights into the headline, but it was a full tilt time for me, the last three weeks of March 1974. Not only the above things but I also did “senior work with Morris” (whatever that might be), a load more drama with Ian Sandbrook, played cricket & fives & tennis & chess & Subbuteo…and got super-excited (as the young folk now say) about the hi-fi my dad procured that month.
But I am getting ahead of myself, let’s trawl those diary pages and try to make sense of them.
Sunday, 10 March 1974 – Classes party. Bar mitzvah – Mark Briegal, very good indeed. Got drunk.
Monday, 11 March 1974 – Drama good, stamp swapping. Cricket good.
Tuesday, 12 March 1974 – Saturday periods one to four. Art good. Navy display in pool v good. Senior work with Morris.
Wednesday, 13 March 1974 – Chemistry, good. Fives v good – more tuition from elderly man. World At War, good. Benny Hill.
Thursday 14 March 1974 – Not bad day. Classes good. All is okay.
Friday, 15 March 1974 – Drama, good. Hi-fi amplifier, tuner and speakers.
Saturday, 16 March 1974 -Exeat. Listened to hi-fi. Subbuteo after. Mum in a peeve.
Mark Briegal is my second cousin once removed (one of many such cousins). I am quite sure that Mark will feel honoured that my first diary reference to getting drunk (and quite possibly the very first time I felt drunk) was on the occasion of his bar mitzvah party. I vaguely remember cousins from the Jacobs branch of that family encouraging me to partake. Also rather a lot of dancing emanating from the Jacobs side. The following example from my own bar mitzvah party nearly 18 months later.
Let’s move on.
Not too sure where stamp swapping came from; I was never really into stamps. I do recall a neighbour giving me quite a sizeable box of miscellaneous stamps from the length and breadth of the dominions, some of which, for all I know, might have real value now. I still have them somewhere and should probably let someone who knows what they are doing have a look at them one day. In short, the sun never sets on my stamp collection, nor does it ever see the light of day. I might have swapped away the best of them, of course.
I cannot fathom what a navy display in the pool might have been, nor what “senior work with Morris” might have comprised…or even who Morris might have been in this context – Colin perhaps?
This was a big deal for me. I loved that hi-fi. Dad loved that hi-fi. I think he spent quite a lot of money on it, perhaps unaware that there were desperately difficult financial times just around the corner for him. Dad prioritised the hi-fi over the purchase of a colour TV – the latter purchase being beyond his means for a year or so after the purchase of the hi-fi.
I’m all of a quiver having found an image of that wonderful beastie.
Not sure what I was doing with Subbuteo and/or the hi-fi that put mum in a peeve – presumably playing for too long and/or playing music too loud while playing for too long. Mum would need to get over that – such conduct, although not recommended to younger readers who might stumble across this piece, became quite common in our household.
The Next Week Including The Mikado With Trevor Tindale
Sunday, 17 March 1974-Classes good. Feld’s lunch. Home after Kalooki 3p.
Monday, 18 March 1974 – Drama play Sherlock Holmes. Cricket good. Waltons good.
Tuesday, 19 March 1974 – Art good. Classes good. Likely Lads good.
Wednesday, 20 March 1974 – Fives v good indeed. Mikado – Tindale, extremely good as Ko-Ko.
Thursday, 21 March 1974 – Classes good. Uncle Cyril for chess – nice one Cyril.
Friday, 22 March 1974 – Acted play. Drama v good. Stereo player v good.
Saturday, 23 March 1974 – 27th in class. In afternoon, listened to record player.
This lifted from the Alleyn’s performing arts book – hoping that Mike Jones might dig out the full programme
The Alleyn’s Performing Arts book suggests that the school’s Gilbert & Sullivan was revived around 1973, primarily by Iwan Davies and Trevor Tindale, with the blessing of the Music Master Frank “Pop” Kennard. The Mikado would have been the second production.
My memory is clear that the first G&S I ever saw was the Pirates of Penzance, but whether that was the Alleyn’s production (either in my first term or perhaps before I started but once it was known I was to join the school), or possibly a professional production with my parents, I cannot recall. I can clearly visualise Iwan Davies and Trevor Tindale in their Mikado roles. I remember my folks being very impressed with it and loving it myself.
I went on a bit of a G&S binge in the aftermath of this show, borrowing any G&S I could find in the Lambeth Public Library and scraping it onto reel-to-reel tape at a rather shocking 1.875 IPS speed, which rather defeats the object of having a classy amplifier and a decent quality reel-to-reel recorder, but there you go.
I’d love to hear and see more memories of this event and am hoping that Mike Jones can lay his hands on some additional bumf and perhaps share his own memories.
27th In Class
How did I come 27th in a class that only had 26 people in it? OK, maybe there were 29 people in the class. Perhaps counting things was part of my problem at that stage.
But actually I now would like to challenge the basis of that assessment. I know that 50 years have passed and that most people might have more important things to do than re-hash old scores…
…but I am not most people, am I?
I would like to know how this somewhat embarrassing position was assessed. There is no reference to exams in my diaries. Continuous assessment had surely not been invented back then. So how were the class positions determined? Mr Sandbrook might or might not choose to respond to this question.
Was this some sort of rating/ranking system based on the teachers’ assessment of our performance in each subject using that rather subjective method of allocating the letters A to E with pluses and minuses attached?
Did Sir (Mr Sandbrook) apply numerical scores to those modal assessment classifiers? If so, was he aware that the application of conventional quantitative statistical methods to qualitative modal data is flawed for oh so many reasons. Machine learning algorithms, which can help with this type of classification and prediction problem, were mostly yet to be postulated, let alone of practical use, in 1974.
Tuesday, 26 March 1974 – Art good. Classes good. Likely Lads v good.
Wednesday, 27 March 1974 – chemistry, good. Fives v good – Cookie won as usual !!!
Thursday, 28 March 1974 – broke up from school. G Jenny’s, missed classes, report q. good, art A- excellent.
Friday, 29 March 1974 – Uneventful, Andrew not available, wargame, Subbuteo, five-a-side cup snag.
Saturday 30 March 1974 – joined tennis club. Learnt forehand and backhand. Shopped in p.m.
I’m struggling to work out why I was so motivated to write down that I caught Nick Jarmany out at cricket. I don’t remember sporting rivalry (or indeed any rivalry) with Nick. Perhaps he had been doing very well in that particular game – the moment seeming noteworthy in that context. It’s a badge of honour, getting a sporting mention in my diaries, Nick. A badge of honour.
Interestingly, in the Wednesday entry, Alan Cooke finally gets the mention he deserves with respect to fives. My memory of it was that invariably won, although the diary documents a couple of (I suspect rare) Harris victories before this end of term confession.
Alleyn’s branded gloves hadn’t been invented back then
How did I get quite a good report for coming 27/29 in class? Sadly, mum threw away all of my old school reports without asking me if I wanted to keep them…”yes please, mum”, I’d have said…so the details are now lost in the mists of time.
I might politely ask Mr Sandbrook to try to replicate his summary in that end of term two school report, but I thought I’d ask Chat GPT to have a go first:
Despite ranking 27th in the class, Ian has shown commendable dedication and enthusiasm towards his studies and extra-curricular activities. While his academic performance may not currently reflect his efforts, his attitude towards learning is admirable. He has actively participated in various school activities, displaying a keen interest in broadening his horizons beyond the classroom. With continued perseverance and focus, Ian has the potential to improve his academic standing and excel in his studies. Keep up the good work and maintain your positive attitude towards learning.
Oooh, I rather like that. I feel inspired to buck up my ideas and work a bit harder next term. That report might even stave off my mum’s peevishness.
School’s Out
I love the reference to Andrew [Levinson] not being available and a Subbuteo five-a-side cup snag. Presumably the latter caused by the former, as there is no sign of anyone else to play with that day.
Contrast with “joining tennis club” the next day, which I am pretty certain also involved Andrew and Fiona Levinson, plus some other kids from our street. I have written a whole entry to commemorate the 50th anniversary of me starting tennis, as that feels rather important given the amount (and varieties) of tennis I have been playing avidly since that day.
Election cliff hanger. Water polo, good. Drama, good.
Saturday 2 March 1974
School morn, good. Penalty prize good. Exam tomorrow – prepared.
Sunday…Visited Motel In Hospital…
Motel was someone my Grandma Anne had picked up along the way. Goodness knows where she found him…probably in a kosher hotel in Bournemouth. Or in central casting having asked for “an alte kaker from the schmutter trade”.
“…even a poor tailor is entitled to some happiness!”Presumably Motel, Fiddler On The Roof, Otterbein University Theatre & Dance from USA, CC BY-SA 2.0
Grandma Anne’s friend Motel was always nice to me but consistently promised more than he ever delivered. On one occasion he told me that he was going to make me a little velvet suit…I’m still waiting. Not that I think, in retrospect, that I was or am the little velvet suit type.
I’m pretty sure it was on this occasion, in hospital, wired up to a cardiogram machine, that Motel, hand shaking, “gave me a little something”, probably 10p, which, according to my father, sent Motel’s cardiogram readings haywire. Perhaps my dad exaggerated for effect.
Monday…The Banson Mystery
Until this week, my cricket training reports had been either pithy – “good / v good” or explaining my own derring-do such as taking catches or wickets. This week I mention something pertaining to Mr Banson and I cannot for the life of me read the word. Here’s the entry blown up and enhanced as best Photoshop can:
So what was “Banson in…?” My memory of him is mostly as an impatient, old school games master whose motivational technique was primarily based on applying his hand to the boys’ heads with some force.
I would really appreciate it if the hive mind of Alleyn’s alums were to transliterate the offending word/words.
Rest Of the Week
A rare mention of loss in the fives on Wednesday. The unnamed warrior who beat me was almost certainly Alan Cooke.
Thursday and Friday I am clearly pre-occupied with the general election. I have no idea what 440-700 means in that context on the Thursday – possibly the number of people they estimated to have voted at that Synagogue-annex-cum-polling-station in Brixton. Marcus Lipton prevailed in that constituency, which will have pleased my mum who always spoke very highly of him.
No idea what “Penalty prize” means. I don’t think it was a TV show – perhaps it was something we did as games on a Saturday at school.
Sunday, 3 March 1974
Exam went well. Andrew [Levinson] came for lunch, editing learned how to splice.
Monday 4 March 1974
Cricket good. HEATH RESIGNED.
Tuesday, 5 March 1974
Art papier-mâché. Classes good. Okay walk.
Wednesday, 6 March 1974
Fives, v good. Instruction from elderly man – played in old and new courts.
Thursday, 7 March 1974
Physics 9 out of 10. Classes paper. Purim at Bolingbroke – female singer.
Friday, 8 March 1974
Water polo scored and saved goal. Drama v good.
Saturday, 9 March 1974
School morning. Typed play in afternoon. Doctor Who v good.
I’m a little surprised to see “learned how to splice” at such an age – I thought I’d been editing tapes from an earlier age than that. But on reflection, I realise that the splicing method required for reel-to-reel tape included an open blade and my guess is that my dad needed convincing that I was ready to use something as potentially dangerous (to myself I hasten to add) as an open blade.
I love the fact that “Cricket Good” is trumped by, in block capitals, HEATH RESIGNED on the Monday.
Tuesday: Spelling Bee
My attempt to spell papier-mâché has to be seen in the original to be believed. Still, how would you have spelt it, dear reader, had you not seen my spell-checked version in this article?
Wednesday: Rugby Fives Tuition From Elderly Man, Aged 41
When I raised the matter of this “elderly man” with Mike Jones a few years ago, he informed me that it must have been John Pretlove, a name that rang a bell. A fine county cricketer and doyen of Rugby Fives, John was, at that time, often at a loose end and would come down to his alma mater, Alleyn’s, to watch and give informal instruction to the boys.
I was a little shocked when Mike told me that John was 41 in early 1974.
“But I seem to remember having to help the elderly man down from the viewing bench when he offered to help me”, I said. “He was already not in good shape by the early 1970s”, said Mike, “he’d worn out a lot of parts playing multiple sports”..
This might have been the occasion that Barry Banson had clipped me around the back of the head and called me “uncoachable” in front of John. I was upset, as I had been humiliated in front of this senior fellow. But after I helped John Pretlove down from the viewing bench he showed me what he thought Banson was trying to show me – getting my front leg well forward, getting right down to the ball and using my shoulder to give the ball some humpty around the walls. It became my best shot, both left and right-handed.
Rest Of The Week
I’m not sure which was the greater miracle – me scoring 9/10 in a physics test or me scoring and saving a goal at water polo. Several of the people in my year who really were good at water polo might read this piece at some point. Please let me know what you think…as if you guys need any encouragement to let me know what you think.
I’m not sure which of our “plays” this might have been, but this was the fruit of our drama class so it is just possible that this “typing of play” reference is about the Greek classics piece I have previously written about.
Sir (Ian Sandbrook) certainly won’t remember, but he might just be able to make out what I was saying about Mr Banson on that first Monday of this fortnight. After all, Mr Sandbrook had a lot of practice trying to make out my scrawl (and that of others) 50 years ago. Here’s the extract again, in colour this time.
With thanks to Mike Jones (seated) for this 1975 picture of him with Bernard Rothbart, who, in 1973/74, taught me biology and chess
There are many mysteries in our world, but, as I type this piece, none engaging my mind more than the relatively trivial mystery, what was the “BIG TRIP” on 16 February 1974.
Clearly this matter was so very big, it warranted mentioning its planning at school the day before the trip. Also, it was clearly so very big, in my mind, that I had no need to write down what it was because, obviously, I would remember the details of that trip for the rest of my life.
It’s going to need the hive mind of my fellow former pupils and/or teachers to get to the bottom of this one. I’m holding high hopes that Dave French or Rohan Candappa or Ian Sandbrook will come up trumps for this one…
…and talking of coming up trumps, I had no recollection of learning bridge as early as February 1974. In my memory, I was deeply into chess at that time, with thanks to and encouragement from Bernard Rothbart. Bridge, I think, I was shown by my family (probably Uncle Manny and Anthony) and/but I didn’t really get into it until later.
Enough preamble, here are the diary pages, which, I must admit, presented me with some reading and interpretation challenges.
And, oh, the spelling! Sorry sir. It just goes to prove how much I needed tuition from English teachers such as Ian Sandbrook back then.
Sunday, 10 February 1974 – Lots of papers from Aaron. Ginsbury talk. 14 p. Kalooky [sic].
Monday, 11 February 1974 – Cricket good. Maths test 20 VG. PE wriggly snake. Handcraft Midgley.
Tuesday, 12 February 1974 – Horniman Museum art v good. Pot Black good.
Wednesday, 13 February 1974 – Beat Cooke 6–15, 15–10, 15–13 in fives. Man About The House v. good. World At War, v good.
Thursday, 14 February 197 4 – Chess v Leach and H’s – I won although points down.
Friday, 15 February 1974 – Uneventful. Chess practice. Planned tomorrow’s trip. Beat Andrew in chess match.
Saturday, 16 February 1974 – Whent [sic] ON BIG TRIP.
14p was a big haul for me at Kalooki at that time – more than doubling the pocket money I received from my parents. Grandma Anne was probably the bigger loser although I could also clip my mum on a good day. “Did I pick up yet?” – that was one of Grandma’s catch phrases. “Whose turn is it?”…”YOURS!” – that was another.
Cricket with Mr Banson followed by handicraft with Mr Midgely on the same day – it’s a miracle I didn’t get brain damage from the repeated cuffing around the head!
I very well remember those school visits to the Horniman Museum. I’m sure they helped form my fascination with far-flung cultures, especially those from the south seas.
I have mentioned before that I seemed prone, in my diary, to reporting my fives wins over Alan Cooke in the diary while often omitting to mention the losses. My memory tells me that Alan was the better player by some distance and would win more often than lose against me. This method of recording is contrary to those of noble Renaissance players of jeu de paume (real tennis), such as Philip The Bold of Burgundy or Henry VIII of England. They tended only to have the losses recorded. My theory is that this had more to do with money-laundering than humility, but I digress.
The World At War, an epic history series about the Second World War, was “appointment to view” stuff in our household and I’m sure many others during that 1973/74 academic year. I don’t mention it every week, but I’m pretty sure it was on in our living room every week and that I watched most of them with my parents.
Regarding the chess wins, I have less recollection about my chess progress than my fives progress, other than the fact that I got frustrated with chess after a relatively short while and didn’t really follow through with it, in contrast to my lifelong love of hand/bat and ball games. I’m guessing that there might well have been a fair number of unrecorded chess losses too.
But what, in the name of all that is good and pure, was the BIG TRIP that Saturday? Speculation in the absence of clear memories will be gratefully received. Clear memories will be even more gratefully received.
Sunday, 17 February 1974 – Aaron gave even more prep. Learnt bridge, Queen’s gambit.
Monday, 18 February 1974 – Rather bad day. Barbers, went to library with quiz for music in particular.
Tuesday, 19 February 1974 – Taught Andy [Levinson] bridge. G[randma] Jenny. Trousers. Classes. Geography, v good.
Wednesday, 20 February 1974 – Last day of half term. Bridge with Andrew. Mum had her hair permed. World At War, V good – Reich 1940 to 1944.
Thursday, 21 February 1974 – New half of term. Lost chess match. But on the whole not bad day.
Friday, 22 February 1974 – Swimming v good. Drama, did Candid Camera, v good. Chess v Cyril– Up.
Saturday, 23 February 1974 – School morning. Shopping and learning afternoon. Learning and thriller evening.
Ok, ok, folks, I don’t need you to tell me that bridge is bridge and Queen’s gambit is chess. I’m pretty sure this proves that it was Uncle Manny and or cousin Anthony who showed me bridge and a new (to me) gambit for chess on that Sunday.
Uncle Michael, Me, Anthony, Auntie Pam
“Rather bad day…barbers”. I have written elsewhere about my aversion to having my hair cut when I was a kid – this link – here and below – includes a picture of that very barber shop, Ronnies, in Streatham.
“Went to library with quiz for music in particular”. I think Mr Sandbrook set us all a rather fiendish quiz to keep us occupied over half term. Probably another of his ruses to get us into the habit of going to the public library – a habit for which I needed little additional encouragement – but I think that quiz got me looking at sections I wouldn’t otherwise have explored. Top marks, Sir.
I love the way I ended up teaching (or “tourt” as I put it) Andy Levinson how to play bridge five minutes after I’d been shown the basics. Poor chap didn’t stand a chance with a “tourter”…I mean teacher…like me.
I didn’t have it in me to name my chess nemesis on the Thursday.
It seems that we “did Candid Camera” as our drama Friday session that week. How that might work I cannot quite fathom, unless the idea for our drama class was for us to write the scenarios for candid camera vignettes, and/or act as if we were being surprised by hidden cameras. I’m absolutely sure that Sir knew what he was doing and I am positive that it was very good because I wrote “v good” in my diary.
I am 99% sure that My chess victim on the Friday, Cyril, will have been Cyril Barnett the next door neighbour, not “Cyril” Vaughan the Alleyn’s teacher.
Cyril teaching me pancake making while my dad was teaching me a bit about photography. c1978
I have no idea what the Saturday entries “Shopping and learning afternoon. Learning and thriller evening.” I do remember having educational magazines named “World Of Wonder” and “Look And Learn” – perhaps “learning” was my shorthand for burying myself in those. Thriller might have been a TV programme or film. Thoughts and ideas on this, as with other topics in this piece, would be most welcome.
I’m not sure when the Bolingbroke cheder folded, but it will have been at some point between 1971 and 1973, I suspect it closed in the summer of 1972 or 1973. We survivors form that experience were scattered – some went to Streatham while others of us went to Brixton.
Andy and Fiona Levinson for sure came to Brixton. I’m pretty sure Wendy Ornadel also. Jonathan Davies was there too – I’m not sure whether or not he was a fellow refugee from Bolingbroke. I’m pretty sure Mark and Simon Phillips switched to Streatham not Brixton – hopefully Mark will recall.
Other people I remember from Brixton were the Laikin brothers (Richard and Graham) and Lloyd Green, whom I knew from Rosemead, with whom I wrote/edited a cheder magazine later in our time there and who was at Keele University, overlapping with me for a couple of the years there too. Sandra Corbman was there at Brixton whereas Natalie Calvert was not. In Sandra’s case, she needed to remind me, in Natalie’s case I was pretty sure she’d been at Brixton but I was wrong – I remembered her from Rosemead School. not Brixton cheder. Were you at Brixton or Streatham, Liza Abrahams? (“Neither”, says Liza, she went to West London Reform in Seymour Place). Also I recall knowing Karen Eagles before the BBYO years and suspect that was probably through Brixton cheder. Linda Phillips I think went to Streatham, although she had, a year or so earlier, been at the same Brixton kindergarten as me and Sandra – the latter evidenced in the press as well as Ogblog:
For those of us with bar or bat mitzvah approaching, in addition to Sunday morning classes, we were expected to attend additional classes on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. This started around the time I started secondary school at Alleyn’s. In retrospect, I now realise that my chances of becoming good at any school sport were thus nixed. My limited talent at sport added to the minimisation of my chances at sporting glory.
I started keeping a diary in 1974, although I took a break between April and November that year – needing an early sabbatical before hunkering down to write pretty much daily between late 1974 and 1988.
This piece is an attempt to dredge my thoughts about that 1974 period at Brixton, with the help of my diary mentions and also, hopefully, a little help from my friends who read this piece and chime in with their own memories.
The First Quarter of 1974 Diary Says…
Actually the first mention of “classes” is an absence of them. “Missed” must mean that there were classes that day but I didn’t attend. No reason given. We went out with Grandma Anne after classes regularly. Perhaps I’d had an epiphany after Christmas…or am I reading too much into the above image.
My midweek diary references only refer to my attendance, never with any detail about the session. But my Sunday morning notes are quite informative.
Miss Aaron away. Mr Ragshaw gave teaser. I was right…
In truth I don’t remember Mr Ragshaw. He might have been the “headmaster” of the cheder or he might have been a locum. I do recall that the headmaster fellow, if you went to see him, always seemed to be eating surreptitiously in his office. He was probably just a greedy guts who couldn’t wait for his lunch, but the scoundrel rumour amongst us pupils was that he must have been surreptitiously eating bacon sandwiches. (No way!)
Note the comments in ink by a slightly older juvenile version of me, who went through those early diaries at one time, kibitzing on my own past in a cocky manner.
As January progressed into February, I sense that I was itching to get away from Miss (Ruth) Aaron and into the hands of Mr Freed. Clearly this class change (presumably a promotion) had been promised but was late coming. See the next few entries:
Part of my reason for frustration at the delayed move to Mr Freed’s class was presumably a sense of promotion deferred. But part of it was probably a desire to escape the clutches of Miss Aaron, whom I recall as being a rather shrill-voiced woman who used a sharp tongue in her attempts (not always successful) to maintain discipline.
“Were you born in a barn?” or “were you born on a bus?”
,,,I recall her asking people if they entered the room without closing the door behind them.
“Shut up” or “shechet” [shut up in Hebrew]
…she would often screech.
She insisted on calling us by Hebrew names, but with some of us she chose the name (or part name). My Hebrew name is Avram Leb ben Yitzhok. For some reason, she didn’t want to call me Avram, claiming that there were too many Avrams already. In fact, I think the others were all Avraham (the more Godly version of the name) and her insistence on calling me Leb merely shifted the confusion because Lloyd Green, for example, was also a Leb.
But you didn’t argue with Miss Aaron.
In Miss Aaron’s larynx, “Leb” is a four-syllable name:
Le-ay-eh-buh
She would call out a name in that style, when she thought a pupil was not paying attention, asking them an awkward question and then chastising the child if, as she had suspected, the child had let their mind drift. I got quite good at looking as though I was listening when I wasn’t and making it look as though I was drifting when I thought I could tackle any question that might result from the piercing cry:
Le-ay-eh-buh!
I seem to recall that Mr Freed was a gentler sort, although I’m not sure he was any more effective as a teacher.
I find it hard to assess how much or how well I learnt at cheder.
One impediment to my learning was my scepticism about the whole project.
“Ginsbury Talk”
It seems we were preparing for some sort of exam at that time.
Lots of papers from Aaron. Ginsbury talk.
I’m not 100% sure that my note “Ginsbury talk” here refers to a conversation i remember having with Rabbi Ginsbury on one occasion, but I think it might well be and I might as well write up that conversation here.
Soon after starting at Alleyn’s School I became wracked with doubt about religion. I wanted to attend the religious education classes at school, which were Christianity-oriented at Alleyn’s. My parents were content for me to do so.
But it wasn’t Christianity per se, nor confusion between Christianity and Judaism, that started to trouble me. It was extreme doubt about the whole God business. At one point (I think subsequent to speaking with Rabbi Ginsbury), I took a book out of the public library about religions of the world. Each religion in turn seemed like a fascinating and really good idea to me at first, while the basic moral tenets and social mores were set out. But once it moved on to creation and God and the like, my scepticism would always return.
Anyway, I remember fretting to myself, it must have been around this time, that I quite possibly shouldn’t have a bar mitzvah, which is basically the Jewish form of confirmation, if I didn’t believe in God. So I decided to share my doubts and this moral paradox with Rabbi Ginsbury.
Rabbi Philip Ginsbury died in 2023 – here is a link to his Jewish Chronicle obituary. He was a strictly orthodox Rabbi. Mostly kind and gentle – certainly in his manner towards children at cheder or certainly at least towards me.
It must have taken some courage at that age to raise my moral conundrum with the Rabbi, but it is probably also a testament to Rabbi Ginsbury’s approachable manner that I felt able to do so. How I articulated my question is lost in the mists of time. Probably not brilliantly. But a paraphrase of Rabbi Ginsbury’s answer has stayed with me ever since.
Do you really think that God cares a jot whether you believe in him or not? The Torah instructs you as a Jew on how you should conduct your life. God’s only concern is that you conduct your life in that way.
I remember sensing that this answer did not really get to the nub of my problem, but it did give me a very clear steer on what to do about the bar mitzvah. I needed to put my head down, do the tests, learn my passage and get the bar mitzva done. Which I did.
And So It Goes On…Yes, There Was An Exam
17 February 1974 – Aaron gave even more prep.
24 February 1974 – 10X usual classes.
3 March 1974 – Exam, went well.
10 March 1974 Classes party.
I’m guessing that “10X usual classes” is a slight exaggeration. I can only wonder at the classes party and how wonderful that might have been. It will have been a Purim party – hamantashen will have been involved for sure.
10 March 1974 was a double-party day for me and I note, once again, that I claim to have got drunk at cousin Mark Briegal’s bar mitzvah party. What a disgrace.
…Soon After That, We Are Freed At Last
No classes for two weeks due to Pesach, then:
…after which the diary falls silent until November.
My memories of that time are scratchy, yet it was a significant part of my life those years. If I spent a whole morning and a couple of evenings a week doing anything, even now, I’d consider that to be a substantial chunk of my time.
If others have memories to share about this time, I’d love to house those memories with this piece.
