Category: Student Life

Keele Student’s Summer Working In London 1983, Part Two: Work, Friends, Music & Car Theft, First Half Of August 1983

Photo by Kieran White from Manchester, England, CC BY 2.0 – image not Paul’s actual car I hasten to add…

I was working, I was going out a lot, I was making, receiving and listening to mix tapes for and with Paul Deacon – I even found time to do some studying it seems, according to the diary.

Let me transcribe and explain the highlights of that first week of August

Monday 1 August 1983 …met Marianne [Gilmour] for lunch…

Wednesday 3 August 1983 …Paul [Deacon] came over in evening…

I attribute Paul’s wonderful Summer 1983 mix tape to around this time. I have posted two pieces about this mix tape with embeds of the tracks – you can click through the image links below to see those:

Paul Deacon’s Summer 1983 Mix Tape, Side One, c.August 1983
Paul Deacon’s Summer 1983 Mix Tape, Side Two, c.August 1983

Thursday 4 August 1983…had Chinese lunch [probably at the wonderful Lee Ho Fook No 2 in Macclesfield Street] with the chaps

“The chaps” would be my fellow Newman Harris accounts clerks, several of whom were of Chinese origin – mostly Chinese Malaysians

Friday 5 August 1983…work OK – drink after with Michael …

…Michael King, who would doubtless have joined us for the Chinese lunch and who ended up marrying Sandra, who was one of the Chinese Malaysian clerks. We might have deemed her to be “one of the chaps” back then – she was, I think, the only female in that clerks’ room at that time

Saturday 6 August 1983…met Jilly [Black] in eve – went Rasa Sayang – v nice

In Soho, but not to be confused with the Rasa Sayang currently (40 years later) in Macclesfield Street (coincidentally, I think where Lee Ho Fook No 2 used to be) – the Rasa Sayang I frequented back in the 1970s and 1980s (thanks again to my Chinese Malaysian holiday job colleagues) was on the corner of Bateman Street and Frith Street. Mentioned in the book Waterloo Sunrise as a place frequented by students…well, yes!

Sunday 7 August 1983 – went to Anil’s [Biltoo] 21st in afternoon & evening – much booze

Anil, cousin Shahil Soniassy and me, four years earlier to the day

…and now the second week…

Monday 8 August 1983 – …met Simon [Jacobs] for lunch,,,

Wednesday 10 August 1983 – …Paul [Deacon] popped over in evening

Thursday 11 August 1983 – …Chinese lunch…

Friday 12 August 1983 – …had drink after work [that will have been with “the chaps”]

Saturday 13 August 1983 …did academic work. Watched films in eve…

…film watching will have been on the TV with dad. Judging by the on-line listings, I think we saw The Last Married Couple In America followed by Arsenic & Old Lace.

I must say, reading this 15 August diary entry caused me to make a sharp intake of breath and sense that “oh no” feeling I no doubt had at the time. In truth I only vaguely recall Paul’s car being stolen from outside our house, but I suspect that Paul has stronger memories of it. Any thoughts to share on that, Paul?

Paul Deacon’s Summer 1983 Mix Tape, Side One, c.August 1983

Paul some 34 years later – still crazy (about records) after all these years

The reel-to-reel mix tape that Paul made for me in the summer of 1983 was a true belter. Most of his mix tapes were terrific, of course, but this one I especially remember listening to a great deal that summer and during the 83/84 academic year at Keele, having ported the material onto cassettes.

Here’s Side One. I’ll up Side Two soon.

Below I have embedded them all – hopefully most/all will still be here when you get to this piece, if you want to listen (and/or, in a few cases, watch).

https://youtu.be/LJBbinPkAEM

I feel compelled to interrupt this playlist to heap praise on the brilliant selection of the above three tracks as a sequence. It’s hard for me to explain (Paul might be able to do so) but it worked brilliantly for me. I realise, with hindsight, that any smidgeon of ability I brought to DJ-ing at Keele the following year was to a large degree attributable to what I learnt from Paul. What a pro.

So for you, Paul, as I know you will enjoy this, here is a live version of Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band at The Marquee introduced by a young German woman in a mixture of German and English that we might easily have made up:

And now, back to the playlist:

Keele Student’s Summer Working In London 1983, Part One: A Social & Emotional Whirl…With Some Work Thrown In, July 1983

Actually I worked in 19 Cavendish Square, not 19a (depicted). I subsequently (many years later) went to the dentist/hygienist in 19a. Any resemblance between tooth pulling and me working as an accounts clerk in the university holidays is purely coincidental.

The summer of 1983 was to be the last of my summer holiday jobs working for Newman Harris in London. Two-and-a-bit years later I started working for that firm full time as a trainee, but that’s another story.

As with previous summer jobs, I spent an awful lot of time meeting up with people for lunch and after work. I also visited Keele during that summer – a benefit of having retained the Barnes L54 flat, along with Alan Gorman and Chris Spencer, for a further year.

I’ll set out my diary pages below and try to translate/transliterate them. The very first reference on my first day of work, “VL”, refers to Laurence Corner (the V stood for Victor), where I spent a fair chunk of that summer, as I had done previously in my summer jobs. Forty years on, I am still in touch with DJ and Kim from there – not least because I met Janie through Kim in 1992 and the rest, as they say, has been history.

https://www.allinlondon.co.uk/directory/surplus-stores/5766-laurence-corner

In July 1983 though, I was struggling with my sophomoric romantic travails with Liza. I did not want to seem to be pandering to my mum’s unreasonable aversion to the relationship…in truth I think mum had an aversion to me having ANY romantic relationship at that time…while in truth I had emotionally “checked out” by the end of the summer term, as reported in the last instalment…

The Sneyd, The Jedi, The Parents & The Return To London At The End Of My P2 Year At Keele, 1982/1983

…I just couldn’t see the Liza relationship working for me the following academic year.

There’s the context, so hold on to your hats for the deeds extracted from the diaries.

Monday 4 July 1983 – Started work – v busy. VL etc – unpacking etc evening

Tuesday 5 July 1983 – Work – v busy. Met Jilly [Black] for lunch [probably that Italian place on Henrietta Place where you could sit and eat in a railway carriage]. Unpacked till late

Wednesday 6 July 1983 – Busy day at office – Paul [Deacon] came over in evening. [I think there’ll be some good “mix tape” pieces from the summer of 1983, as Paul was in top form that summer with his record finds etc – my own form was not bad that summer either]

Thursday 7 July 1983 – Lots of work – stayed in this evening

Friday 8 July 1983 – V Busy – stayed in eve & relaxed

Saturday 9 July 1983 – Lazy day today – went shopping in Brixton -> G Jenny for tea – lazy eve

Sunday 10 July 1983 – Lazy day – did some reading – relaxed, ate, etc.

Grandma Jenny still lived in Sandhurst Court, Acre Lane, in those days, making a shopping trip to Brixton ahead of visiting her for tea a natural progression.

I expect you’ve got the gist of these summer diary pages by now, so I’ll only extract the highlights that might use some explaining from now on.

Tuesday 12 July 1983 – …met Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] for lunch…Paul [Deacon] came round in evening – went over to Andrew [Andy Levinson, who also lived in Woodfield Avenue]

Friday 15 July 1983 – Office Ok – much work – left early. Went up to Keele – stayed in eve…

Saturday 16 July 1983 – went pub in morning – afternoon Ashley [Fletcher] came over – v tired crashed out early…

Sunday 17 July 1983 – then up late – ran late – brekker – lazy day – left in eve – got back a little late.

Forty years on, I’m struggling to process that weekend in my mind. I sense that I was finding full time work tiring that summer – I think there was a bit of a heatwave on that year – but the weekend in Keele looks quite topsy-turvey to me and I’m guessing that some aspects are unwrit and unremembered, at least by me. Ashley might remember a bit more once he sees the diary write up. Perhaps that weekend was the “dancing and mud cricket in the rain” occasion:

Remembering The Heatwave Of Summer 1983 At Keele, Late June or July 1983

Wednesday 20 July 1983 – …went to Wendy’s [Robbins – in Bromley back then] in eve – v pleasant.

Thursday 21 July 1983 – …met Caroline for lunch …

Friday 22 July 1983 – Work OK – deadlines. Went to Annalisa’s [de Mercur, who lived in Harley Street in those days] for lunch and went for a drink with Marianne [Gilmour, daughter of Geoffrey, also doing holiday work at NH those summers] – Paul came over later.

Saturday 23 July 1983 – …had haircut… [a rare and therefore diary-worthy event back then]

Sunday 24 July 1983 – Lazy day – nice lunch (Chinese) [probably at Mrs Wong’s] Finished with Liza in eve – not nice.

I vaguely recall seeking counsel from several friends in the run up to the Sunday call with Liza, which possibly in part explains the social whirl of the end of the week. I’m not going to pretend that I handled the matter well, but I was bringing little or no experience to the matter. In any case, it isn’t a situation that lends itself to being handled well.

Monday 25 July 1983 – …Ashley [Michaels, from NH, not Fletcher from Keele] took me to lunch…

Tuesday 26 July 1983 – …Met Jim [Jimmy Bateman] after work – boozed & ate in eve [almost certainly a Sun in Great Ormond Street/Lambs Conduit Street event] along the lines of evenings during holiday jobs passim…

Perseverance With Work & Meeting Up With Friends, 28 March To 10 April 1981

Thursday 28 July 1983 – …met Hamzah [Shawal, my departing Keele flatmate – I think this was the last time I saw him] for lunch…

Friday 29 July 1983 – …went for drink with Ashley [Michaels] and Dilip Vora] after work …

Saturday 30 July 1983 – …went over to Paul’s for afternoon…

Sunday 31 July 1983 – Did little today. Set up hi-fi. Met Liza in Edgware – drank quite a lot!

I vaguely remember that evening in Edgware. I think Liza’s brother Sean and sister-in-law Marlene had invited her down with a view to setting up a face-to-face between me and Liza. Possibly they wrongly envisaged a possible reconciliation if Liza and I met in person. In any case it was a grown-up ploy, because breaking up by phone had been far from ideal; I think (hope) Liza and I parted on better terms as a result of that very boozy evening.

Remembering The Heatwave Of Summer 1983 At Keele, Late June or July 1983

In July 2022, we’re having a heatwave. The brain addles, but also the odd memory flash arrives.

39 years ago we also had a heatwave, right at the very end of the 82/83 academic year, at Keele.

It was probably the only period in all my years at Keele when I (and many of us) felt stifled by the heat up on that hill.

I have one very clear memory of that heatwave, from when the weather broke. The sky darkened, there was thunder and it started to pour with rain, much like a tropical storm.

Ashley Fletcher

There were very few students still around. It was either right at the very end of the summer term or possibly even after term had finished; I returned to my Barnes flat (L54) at Keele for a weekend or two that summer, as I was going out with Liza O’Connor from The Sneyd at that time.

I remember that Ashley Fletcher was around at the flat when the weather broke; Ashley immediately said, “let’s go outside and dance in the rain”.

Several other people came out of other flats onto the edge of the playing fields and danced with us.

Although it was 1983, I don’t think we quite managed to emulate Flashdance…

…but still – what a feeling!

Anything to add, Ashley?

Postscript: Yes, Ashley Did Have Something To Add…

…pseudonymously – only because it is my tradition for King Cricket to provide noms de guerre for my friends…or should I say, for Ged Ladd’s friends:

Rain starts play (a 1983 ‘Thunder Match’ report)

The Sneyd, The Jedi, The Parents & The Return To London At The End Of My P2 Year At Keele, 1982/1983

The last few decadent days of my P2 year at Keele, 1982/1983, revolved quite a lot around The Sneyd Arms.

By the end of June, my girlfriend Liza O’Connor was back at the Sneyd, working off the rent money she had needed to move in with friends Mike and Mandy in Stoke for the second half of her first year at North Staffs Poly (see Ogblogs passim).

Festival week was over, so there was a real “end of year” laziness about Keele by then.

Seems I got my Tuesday and Wednesday mixed up at one point

Tuesday 28 June 1983 – Lazyish day. Ashley [Fletcher] came over in afternoon -> graduation -> Hanley – Return Of The Jedi -> Chippy.

“Graduation” was neither mine (I graduated in absentia in 1984 – more on that anon) nor Ashley’s (Ashley in the end chose not to complete his degree). But it was quite traditional to turn up at the back of Keele Hall and help those whom we knew who were graduating to celebrate their occasion.

The way the diary note is phrased, I’m guessing that Ashley must have joined us on that trip to Hanley to see Return Of the Jedi. I remember Liza being so incredibly keen on all things Star Wars and insisting that I simply must see that film with her that I don’t in truth remember anyone else being there apart from the two of us. Probably there were several of us, including Ashley and others.

I can still in truth say that I have never seen Star Wars and indeed that the only film from the entire franchise that I have ever seen is Return Of The Jedi on that historic occasion in Hanley.

This type of movie didn’t float my boat then and still doesn’t.

Wednesday 29 June 1983 – Part One results. Lazy day – Ashley came – got pissed -Liza and Martin came over – watched TV in evening -> Sneyd.

[Might that Martin have been you, Martin Ladbrooke?]

I watched very little TV in those days, but my flatmate Alan Gorman had left his TV behind in the flat for us to use during those bits of the summer when we were around, so on that evening we watched some TV. Couldn’t tell you all we watched but I’m pretty sure we did watch an episode of Blackadder, or more accurately The Black Adder, which I remember finding very funny.

I simply wouldn’t have imagined, back then, that 20 years later I’d get to know that show’s producer, John Lloyd, quite well:

A Quite Interesting Sunday Evening In A Television Studio, 26 January 2003

Thursday 30 June 1983 – Lazy day – shopped by day – spent lazy and decadent afternoon & evening.

Friday 1 July 1983 – Easy day. Went to see Phil Rose [my law tutor] in morning – easy afternoon & evening.

Saturday 2 July 1983 – Packed during day. Lazy afternoon. Went to Micky’s Bistro in evening.

I only have the vaguest memories of Mickey’s Bistro. Newcastle-Under-Lyme I am pretty sure. Not the best but not the worst either.

Sunday 3 July 1983 – Mum & Dad came up. Lunch at Sneyd. Came down to London.

Now there was an awkward situation. Mum was totally discombobulated by me going out with pub landlord’s daughter who did not exactly fit my mother’s image of the nice Jewish girl mum was hoping for. Not that mum ever approved of nice Jewish girls she got to meet through me either, as I recall pointing out to her on the several occasions we argued over this matter in the early stages of that summer.

To add to my confusion over the matter, I was mentally checking out of the relationship with Liza myself, but sure as hell didn’t want mum to think that she could kick up a stink over my choice of girl and get her way by making a fuss.

“So what happened?”…I hear hundreds of readers cry. You’ll have to read the next instalment or three of this epic. It’s like the Star Wars saga…except without the action and without the violence and without creatures from other planets and without the cosmological dualism.

But still, epic. Watch this space.

Ying-Yang Symbol, Vivoterra, CC BY-SA 4.0

Keele Festival Week, With Infeasible Levels Of Cricket, Movie Watching & Social Activities, Late June 1983

Image produced in collaboration with Dall-E

It’s hard to believe quite how much went on in that one frantic week at the end of the Keele 1982/83 academic year. Let me divide the story/stories into their several component parts.

First Part Of The Week – Cricket On & Off

Cricket has played an important part in my life, on and off, throughout my life. But it played only a tiny part in my life at Keele. Still, I did participate in three festival week “Players Of The Left v Gentlemen Of The Right” cricket matches over the years, 1983 being the second of the three. These have each been written up on Ogblog and also as a single piece about my cricket nom de plume, Ged Ladd, on the King Cricket website:

Players (of the left) v Gentlemen (of the right) – match report + wagon wheel

Aficionados of “noms de plume” might enjoy the idea that my 1980s Keele Concourse non de plume, H Ackgrass, is writing a cricket biography of my subsequent nom de plume, Ged Ladd.

My participation in the 1983 match started with a net session on the Monday before the match. How I performed in the nets is lost in the mists of time, but my “thanks for coming” level of involvement in the fixture was probably the result of that net performance. The late, great Toby Bourgein, bless him, was loyal to the extent that he selected me again, given that I played as a last minute substitute in 1982…

“Got Roped In To Playing Cricket All Afternoon”, Gentlemen v Players Cricket Match, Keele Festival Week, 24 June 1982

…but not so loyal as to risk his plans for a Players victory in 1983. Toby’s plans succeeded that year. If you want to read all about it, click here or the block below:

My Second “Thanks For Coming” (TFC) Keele Festival Week Cricket Match, 21 June 1983

Yet there was more to that week for me than cricket, as the diary attests…

…despite the fact that the 1983 Cricket World Cup was coming to its exciting (and probably cricket history transforming) conclusion. I wrote up Wednesday 22 June 1983 a few years ago, the concluding phrase, “tired and pissed off after” still resonating with my older (but perhaps not much wiser) psyche:

The Day England Were Knocked Out Of the Cricket World Cup By India, While I Made A Three-Hundred Mile Round Trip Visit, Probably Against My Will, 22 June 1983

Second Part Of The Week – Movies

There are references to seeing several movies that week, which certainly warrants a mention. Not least because the least famous of them sticks in my mind peculiarly.

Thursday 23 June 1983 …went to see Young Frankenstein and Wild Women Of Wongo.

I probably don’t need to say much about Young Frankenstein, other than the fact that this 1974 film was already deemed a comedy classic by 1983 and I do remember all of us who went that evening finding it uproariously funny. I still remember it fondly.

This 1958 film was a memorable part of the “classics double-bill” experience because it fell into that category of low budget films that amused young people like us because they were “so bad, they were almost good”. By gosh, this film was bad… but we laughed.

Thursday 24 June 1983 …went [The] Secret of NIMH…

Probably chosen by Liza and her art school gang, although I have always been a sucker for animated films and I remember this one being very well animated, although not really my first choice of subject matter. I should try and see it again some time.

Third Part Of the Week – Wendy Robbins Visits & The Keele Festival Week Socialising Is In Full Sway

Wendy Robbins c1979

In fact Wendy Robbins had arrived ahead of us all going to see The Secret Of NIMH so undoubtedly was with the group that went to that movie and then came back to L54.

Wendy was an old friend of mine from Streatham BBYO (youth club) and even earlier. When you are 20, people whom you have hung out with throughout your teens are “old friends”.

As was his wont, my flatmate, Alan Gorman, had fled Keele as soon as his study commitments had concluded, allowing me to invite Wendy and provide her with a room in our flat. I think Hamzah had already gone too. Indeed, Chris Spencer might also have disappeared ahead of festival week that year, so perhaps I and my friends had the entire run of the place.

Whoever else might have been there, the flat for sure became “festival week/end of year central” in my Keele world for that weekend.

Saturday 25 June – Went shopping in morn – Ashley [Fletcher] came over in afternoon – we all went to Candles – P? came over after

Sunday 26 June – Lazy day – late rise. Played cards etc. Ashley ? went to union in eve – I went meet Liza – pissed off ???

I’m not 100% sure what the pissed-offness was about. I know that Liza had taken a job to help pay off her share of rent for Shelton and I know this put strain on her participation in the end of Keele year social activities.

I also recall that Liza didn’t take too kindly to Wendy, for reasons I could and still can only surmise.

The diary for the next week says that Wendy left on the Monday – I took her to Hanley so I guess she came up by coach.

Forty years on, Wendy and I are still in touch, although i haven’t seen her for a while.

Me, Jilly, Simon [Jacobs], Andrea & Wendy in 2017. Janie took the picture so once again she isn’t in it!

The Cricket World Changed That Day And I Totally Missed It, Keele, 25 June 1983

The cricket world cup final of 1983 changed the world of cricket pretty much overnight. Spoiler alert: India beat the mighty West Indies, at which point the entire population of India, which previously had not really seen the point of one day cricket, suddenly got it and adopted the shorter form of the game, for ever.

Meanwhile I was at Keele enjoying Festival Week and the entire event went unmentioned in my diary and probably largely unnoticed by me, other than reading about it in the newspapers afterwards.

That Saturday diary entry reads:

Went shopping in morn – Ashley came over in afternoon – we all went to Candles – Pat came over after.

“All” will have included Liza O’Connor (then my girlfriend) and Wendy Robbins who was visiting for a few days, as well as Ashley Fletcher.

Candles was a restaurant – in Hanley if I remember correctly.

I owe Pat a massive apology but I cannot recall who he (or she) might have been. Pat has other similar mentions in the diary around that time but those mentions aren’t helping my memory. Perhaps someone else (or Pat personally) might find this piece and chime in.

I do recall a bit of an atmosphere during that Wendy visit; I’m not sure that Liza appreciated Wendy’s presence and I’m pretty sure that I didn’t appreciate Liza’s lack of appreciation.

Wendy was (and still is) a big personality and I suspect that Liza felt somewhat upstaged. We were all very young then.

Me And Wendy Robbins On Westminster Bridge

I have no pictures with Liza and the above picture, from about four years earlier, probably taken by a visiting American and sent to me, is the only one I have of me and Wendy around that time.

But I digress. Point is, it was festival week, I had visitors, so apparently I took no interest in the cricket world cup final. Tut, tut.

Here is a link to the scorecard and other cricinfo resources for the match.

While below is a YouTube of highlights:

My Second “Thanks For Coming” (TFC) Keele Festival Week Cricket Match, 21 June 1983

The Players Team In A Previous Year – c1981 – Thanks Frank Dillon

I made a right pigs ear of writing up this match originally, combining memories of the 1982 and 1983 games. It took the good offices of Mark Ellicott to put matters right in the matter of the 1982 match.

“Got Roped In To Playing Cricket All Afternoon”, Gentlemen v Players Cricket Match, Keele Festival Week, 24 June 1982

On the back of my 1982 derring-do (one catch, following a series of mishaps), presumably I qualified as an incumbent (Mark Ellicott was absent all year 1982/83) and was therefore invited along to the Players net session, which my diary shows taking place on Monday 20th; the day before the match.

If our captain, the late Toby Bourgein (who sadly died in 2020) had hoped, on the back of my willingness and enthusiasm to contribute, that there was some innate cricketing ability to be teased out in the nets, he was probably sorely disappointed.

Hardly surprising, given my relative lack of ability and the fact that I probably hadn’t played for five years or so. Even house games at school had resorted to using me as a neutral umpire towards the end of my schooldays. I was keen on the game but out of practice & quite useless by 1982 (and 1983). Latterly I got a little bit better again.

But Toby was the loyal sort and anyway probably only had eleven volunteers from which to pick his team, so I was in again.

As in 1982, I didn’t expect much of a role and yet again got pretty much what I expected.

Again I fielded, almost certainly with my trusty skiff of ale for company, but I recall nothing of note this time around.

The 1983 Keele Festival match proved to be an historic win for the Players. I recall Toby holding back a couple of our better batsmen who were more or less able to finish the job when we were six or seven down. I recall one of the match-winning batsmen fell just before the target,  so I was sent in to achieve a glorious 0* without even facing a ball.

As I put it in my diary:

…famous left-wing victory.

Toby, being Toby, remembered my derring-do from 1982 and TFC record from 1982 & 1983, so asked me to open the batting in the 1984 fixture. But that is another story of another great win for the mighty Players.

O Captain! My Captain! – Gentlemen Of The Right v Players Of The Left – Keele Festival Week Cricket Match, 26 June 1984

I have no photos from the 1982, 1983 nor the 1984 match, but this one from a couple of years earlier, thanks to Frank Dillon, should give the reader a pretty good feel for the look of the mighty Players team.

With thanks to Frank Dillon, this picture of an earlier “Players” team, probably 1981

If anyone out there has more memories and/or photographs of our festival week beer matches, especially this game, I’d love to hear from you.

Towards The End Of 1982/83 At Keele, In Which I Do A Literally Dopey Thing Ahead Of A Law Exam, Then Lazily Start To Get Into The Keele Festival Week Spirit, June 1983

John Stuart Mill, Of His Own Free Will, On Half A Slice Of Hash Cake…

I did, with the benefit of hindsight, a really silly thing ahead of my Part One Finals Jurisprudence (Law) exam paper. It can only have been the election evening/night when we all sat around in Rectory Road Shelton watching the Tories romp back home and leave the Labour party in disarray.

While some drowned their sorrows in cheap beer (or perhaps something stronger) and puffed away at cigarettes, I had quit smoking and was not going to drink any booze (which was still often upsetting me a bit post glandular fever).

So Liza, Mike and Mandy decided, in order for me to be able to do something intoxicating with my sorrows, that they would bake a cake, infused with lashings of hashish sprinklings, thus mellowing my and everyone else’s mood.

Dall-E has tried to help me replicate the scene in an image.

It was done an act of kindness, but perhaps at least one of us should have known a rather important, basic, biological fact about the mind-affecting substance in question. When smoked, the effect wears off in a few hours at the most. When ingested, the effect lasts a good deal longer – 12 to 24 hours.

The Next Day – 10 June 1983

I basically ended up sitting my Jurisprudence paper feeling high as a kite. I don’t think I got a great mark…but nor did I flunk the exam. Philip Rose might have thought I was still icky from my glandular fever and taken pity on me. Or possibly my scribblings were enhanced by my relaxed state of mind, such that my paper really wasn’t at all bad.

A reasonable chunk of what I know about jurisprudence has subsequently been captured for posterity in the Gresham Lecture I gave in 2008 on Commercial Ethics. The video seems to have gone, but the transcript, sound file and pictures are all still on the Gresham site here. I wrote and delivered that lecture without the help of mind-affecting substances.

Returning to June 1983 at Keele – after doing two law papers (I think the other paper I cognitively-floated through was Torts) I went to see Victor/Victoria in the evening.

This film was highly acclaimed but I remember not liking it much. There were one or two good set pieces, such as the cockroach scene at the start of the film, but ultimately I found the conceit of it – a failing actress pretending to be a male female impersonator – a little irksome. I remember especially disliking the trailer for the film, which laboured the point about the Julie Andrews character being “a woman…pretending to be a man…pretending to be a woman” – just in case the audience was too thick to work out what was going on.

After The Exams – 13 to 19 June 1983

Monday 13 June – Last exam today -> Newcastle afternoon -> UGM in eve – stayed up late after

Tuesday 14 June – Lazed around all day. Stayed in eve drinking etc.

Wednesday 15 June – Lazy day again. Shopped – lazy evening

Thursday 16 June – Did little today – went to Shelton & NSP [North staffs Poly] – lazy evening. Cooked meal.

Friday 17 June – Lazyish day, Shopped – in evening went to see Diva – v good.

I do especially remember that movie Diva. I thought it was stunning. Not what I would now think of as my kind of movie, but the visuals and sounds were an explosion of sensory extremes that I rarely feel in the movies. Here’s the IMDb link. Below is the trailer:

Saturday 18 June – Did little today – Liza working most of the day and evening – stayed in cooked meal.

Sunday 19 June – Rose late – went Int [International] Fair – wet lunch at Sneyd – went Newcastle in eve – Liza v ill after

Lazy is the key word for the week after my exams. The following week was different again, as you’ll discover next time…

My First General Election, A Student’s Eye View 34 Years On, 9 June 1983

Oh dear! Image by BSMIsEditing, CC BY-SA 4.0

Writing 34 years later, on the morning of another general election (today is 8 June 2017), a bit of me wonders “what has changed”?

It was not, in fact, the anniversarial relationship between the 2017 election and my first, in 1983, that triggered me into writing this short piece.

It was Jon Gorvett.

Jon got in touch out of the blue a few days ago, having spotted an Ogblog piece about a protest we orchestrated/attended in 1982 – click here. Jon sent me some wonderful clippings from that event, which you can find if you persevere with the preceding link.

Yesterday, Jon sent me an e-mail with some more scans that made me smile even wider, relating to some student union election shenanigans in February 1983. I wrote a brief note of those a few years ago for the Keele Oral History Project – click here – but now, thanks to Jon and his scanning machine, I can relate the story far more accurately and colourfully for Ogblog. I’ll write that up soon – something for Ogblog enthusiasts and lovers of student politics to look forward to.

So Jon’s documents sent me to my 1983 diary and that got me thinking about the 1983 general election, our very first one as voters.

There are many similarities between 1983 and 2017; an aging, unpopular Labour leader, splits in the Labour party, a Tory woman Prime Minister looking to increase her majority and power…

…there are also many differences. I’m not so fearful of the far right parties this time, whereas we were genuinely (but mistakenly) worried that the National Front and/or British National Party might make ground in 1983. Perhaps the Tories have simply moved onto much of that turf now, albeit with less visceral policies. I’m not so sure that Theresa May will achieve a 1983 Maggie style result – certainly the polls are less clear (or less trusted) in 2017. For sure all the main parties have put up dreadful campaigns in 2017 – I didn’t feel that way in 1983 – the Tories at least seemed like an unstoppable election machine back then.

Before I looked at the relevant page in my 1983 diary, I would have sworn that I remembered following election night in Liza O’Connor’s Rectory Road Shelton digs with a mixture of my Keele friends and Liza’s North Staffs Poly art & design flatmates.

But it wasn’t quite like that and now I do remember.

Thing was, I was bang slap in the middle of my Part One law degree finals.

As I now recall it, I had voted by post in my parent’s constituency (Streatham) where we felt that there was a chance that Labour might win, whereas John Golding (for whom even then I would have struggled to hold my nose and vote) had a safe as houses seat in Newcastle-Under-Lyme. My Streatham plan didn’t work in 1983 – by the time Streatham switched from Tory to Labour in 1992, I was voting in Kensington North.

Now, through boundary changes, my constituency is Kensington, with a Brexity Tory MP in a strongly non-Brexit but utterly safe seat. I’m finding it hard to hold my nose and vote for anyone today, but of course I shall and it won’t be for Lady Brexit-Borwick.

My 9 June 1983 diary note is quite pithy:

Did some work in day. Jon, Simon & Vince came to Rectory Road for tea – we came back to Keele in eve. Panicy.

“Jon” is Jon Gorvett, “Simon” is Simon Jacobs, “Vince” is Vince Beasley.

So my abiding memory of sitting around for hours debating politics with those people was correct – but it was during the day, not election night.

The reason I was “panicy”/panicky was because I had a couple of part one finals papers the very next day. I suspect that the others had finished their finals exams by then. Jon might remember his circumstances. Simon always claims to remember nothing at all.

So I think we held our 1983 election post mortem…pre mortem. I remember debating what next and all that sort of post mortem stuff.

So in 1983 we really knew (or thought we really knew) the result before polls closed – we just wondered exactly how bad it was going to be.

Political life doesn’t feel so certain to me now. Is that my age/experience showing or does that tell us more about the political age we now live in?

Thanks for triggering the memories, Jon Gorvett.

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