Category: School Life

So much wrong with that technique – but the enthusiasm is there for all to see

After all the excitement of my summer, I went into a very subdued diary mood for some weeks/months after our return.

This diary page, which covers the week between returning from Europe and school restarting, sets the tone.

It barely needs transcribing, but I am a diligent transcriber:

Monday, 1 September 1975 settled in. Watched test. Went to library. [TV] Angels, The High Chaparral.

Tuesday, 2 August 1975 – uneventful day. TV Tarzan, New York, Quo Vadis.

Wednesday, 3 August 1975 – uneventful

Thursday, 4 September 1975 – uneventful

Friday, 5 September 1975 – uneventful

Saturday, 6 September 1975 – Rosh Hashanah [Jewish New Year].

I think we need to do some more forensics on that cricket photo. Here’s a link to the test match scorecard. The umpires were Tom Spencer and Dickie Bird (whom I had the honour and pleasure to meet once – some 40 years after the events of this piece):

I’m 98% sure that the umpire on the TV screen is Tom Spencer and I’m 100% sure that the wicket-keeper was Rod Marsh, who kept all day that Monday.

But who batting? Yes, me, obviously, in front of the screen. I mean on the screen. I have narrowed it down to being John Snow or Barry Wood and I think the answer is John Snow. Cricket lovers – chime in with your thoughts.

It was an unusual match, as they had put aside six days for that Oval test match, used all six but still ended up with a draw.

I sense that even I lost interest after a burst of watching (and having my photo taken), probably quite early on the Monday.

As an only child, one of my favourite pastimes was working out how to play solitaire versions of the board games in my collection. I have no idea what this game was, let alone how I had worked out a solitaire version of it. My favourite solitaire game was my very own version of Cluedo – the conceit of the solitaire version is long-since forgotten but I remember being fascinated by it for some while.

I suspect that the test match was on the TV while I was indulging in this additional activity. In that respect, I don’t suppose I have changed much, although the additional activity has changed.

As for the TV viewing – I don’t remember the TV drama Angels about student nurses at all. But I certainly remember The High Chaparral. My dad was very keen on it too. Do you fancy getting the theme tune stuck in your head – only click the YouTube embed if you do.

On rehearing The High Chaparral theme, it sounds very much like Joe Meek’s extraordinary instrumental Telstar (famously performed by the Tornados), in the style of Elmer Bernstein’s wonderful theme music for The Magnificent Seven.

I learn, on doing a little further research, that the resemblance between The High Chaparral theme and Telstar has been discussed at length over the decades. One surprising thing, to me, is that I didn’t notice the similarity when Paul Deacon first played me Telstar, which must have been around or very soon after my High Chaparral watching era.

Ironically and tragically, Joe Meek never saw the royalties for Telstar, as a French composer, Jean Ledrut, sued Meek for plagiarism – without success but to some extent understandably – on account of La Marche d’Austerlitz.

Meek died just three weeks before that law suit was found in his favour. Thus he never got a chance to test his own claim against David Rose, who composed The High Chaparral theme, if indeed Meek would have chosen to try such a claim.

Thoughts on these matters will, as always, be much appreciated, whether from my contemporaries or indeed from anyone who stumbles across this page and has a view on any of these topics.

Me & Grandma Anne A Few Weeks Later

So much happened in that week, which was the last of my second year at Alleyn’s. Here’s the diary page.

Naturally, readers are already writing in to complain that they cannot read my scribble, even though I haven’t even finished writing up this piece yet. Here’s a transcript:

Sunday, 6 July 1975 – Went to classes. Grandma Anne gave me £100. Great.

Monday, 7 July 1975 – more relaxing. Fives good. TV Sportstown, Star Trek, Waltons, Horizon.

Tuesday, 8 July 1975 – classes good. No bar mitzvah class. Uneventful.

Wednesday, 9 July 1975 – we won cricket. I got a hat-trick and eight runs. TV The Ascent of Man.

Thursday, 10 July 1975 – classes good. Picking up mix-up. TV Jacques Cousteau, Comedy of Marriage.

Friday, 11 July 1975 – broke up from school hurrah. TV Walt Disney, Celebrity Knockout. England flop in first test.

Saturday 12 July 1975 – shule in the morning, Andrew in the afternoon. Aussies dish out more punishment. Susan’s wedding.

£100 was a princely sum in those days. This was my bar mitzvah present. Of course I was allowed nowhere near it – straight into a savings account where it probably ended up making a small but significant contribution to the first deposit I made on a flat nearly a quarter-of-a-century later.

Still, no wonder I have a dreamy expression on my face in the headline photo, which was taken at the bar mitzvah party a few weeks later. I have previously written up one quirky aspect of that party. It was Candappa’s fault, sir…

I have also previously written up my hat trick taking heroics in the cricket at Alleyn’s school. A relatively common topic of my conversation, even 50 years later, when talking about my own cricket playing “career”…because there’s not much else of note to talk about.

The phrase, “broke up from school hurrah” sounds like something out of a Billy Bunter book and doesn’t read like me – but it does indicate my enthusiasm for that Alleyn’s school year to have ended – an annus mirabilis (by my standards) in sport but annus horribilis academically.

I had been eagerly anticipating the opportunity to follow England in the 1975 Ashes. I had not fully engaged with cricket aged 9/10 when Australia had previously visited, in 1972. By 1975, I was a proper cricket-mad youngster.

The remarks “England flop” and “Australia dish out more punishment” read like headlines from tabloid newspapers that I couldn’t possibly have seen. Here’s a link to the scorecard from that first test.

I suspect that I spent more time than was good for me watching that cricketing road crash unfold in slow motion. 50 years later, I realise that my habits, in that regard, have not changed much.

I didn’t much follow popular music back then, but I do recall that Van McCoy’s The Hustle was riding high in the charts that summer and was my earworm around the time we broke up from school.

Can you listen to and watch the following vid without trying some of the moves and getting the whole tune stuck in your head as an earworm? Of course you can’t.