Category: Student Life

The Gift Of Music Albums At Keele, Late December 1982

The Jam In 1982 – Picture by Neil Twink Tinning, CC BY 2.5

Over that seasonal holiday 1982 into 1983, there are several references in my diary to taping and cataloguing tapes at Keele.

The fact that I have kept those catalogues provides me with some clues:

My Bruneian flatmate, Hamzah, had a pretty decent stereo system and a “not so bad” collection of records. Not all my taste, but eclectic. That Christmas, I think he went down early to stay with friends in London and gave me licence to listen to and tape whichever of his albums I fancied.

Veera Bachra, who lived in the flat opposite ours, I think stuck around a while longer and contributed a few albums to my recording session, as did Kev Davis, who is mentioned in my diary during that post term period in December 1982.

The result was some interesting additions to my cassette collection.

But ahead of those, I notice three cassette tapes that I “bought” (or more probably sent away for having collected a sufficiency of vouchers) from Duracell. I still have those cassettes and each of them contained at least one or two tracks that I really liked and previously lacked. I believe I acquired those during that term.

I’ll write about the Comedy Classics tapes separately. I had been working on those the previous summer and I think I completed them (or at least brought them up to Keele) after a visit to my parents during that autumn term. Alan Gorman and I listened to those tapes a lot – especially certain bits of them. As did Liza O’Connor.

Making Movies and Love Over Gold by Dire Straits were huge hits – the latter very much part of my sound track of that autumn term, as Hamzah played the album a lot. Here’s one of the best known tracks:

Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mine – The Doors compilation album – added to my little collection of their wonderful work, as did Veera’s The Doors Vol 2. I seem to recall hearing Riders On the Storm emanating from Hamzah’s room a lot in Barnes L54.

Of all those “Hamzah and Veera” records I got into that winter, I particularly remember enjoying Handsworth Revolution by Steele Pulse. It had sort of passed me by when it came out a few years earlier, but i caught up with it good and proper that winter. Here’s one especially good track – Prodigal Son, performed live:

In truth I listened to East Side Story by Squeeze a lot less, but I did (and still) like several songs from that album, including this one:

Hypnotised by The Undertones was another album that passed me by at the time, but, thanks to Veera, I caught up with it (and it with me) in late 1982. Here’s one choice track:

The Gift by The Jam was a super album, containing hits and some excellent album tracks too. I especially liked this funky track – Precious:

The Jam was actually in most of our thoughts that Christmas, having been topping the charts with Beat Surrender, before that song surrendered to Renee & Renato – I won’t torture you with the latter:

I would have sworn I ripped Abbey Road from Liza’s collection of Beatles albums, but it seems it was from Hamzah’s. There’s something:

I don’t think I listened much to Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, nor The Raven by The Stranglers. But I did have a soft spot for Messages from the former…

…while Don’t Bring Harry reminded me of my earlier Keele existence in Lindsay F Block, where “Mad Harry” held sway:

I did listen a lot to Forever Changes by Love, nearly wearing out the tape listening to Alone Again Or, which I still rate as a truly great track:

Bat Out Of Hell by Meatloaf just struck me as one of those albums that I lacked, despite it’s sounds having been following me around since my school years. This was probably my favourite track from that album:

Kev Davis had introduced me to some pockets of reggae that had escaped my attention. Red by Black Uhuru was one such excellent album. I listened to it a lot at that time.

I subsequently got into Al Stewart’s Year Of the Cat album far more than Time Passages, but the latter was in Hamzah’s collection. The title track follows – sort of appropriate for a “soundtrack of forty years on” posting:

The Sun Sets On The Outside Edge Of 1982 At Keele, 11 to 22 December 1982

With thanks to Graham Sedgley for these photos: Sunset At Keele, Winter 2022

For reasons I probably don’t need to explain in detail, I stayed up at Keele for best part of a fortnight after term finished in December 1982. The diary mostly mentions seeing Liza (who lived at The Sneyd Arms, so of course was still around) and doing a bit of academic work.

For those who haven’t been avidly following this “forty years on” series and weren’t around in the heady days of the early 1980s, students were required to sign on the dole every holiday if they didn’t have a holiday job and needed the financial support. But I especially like my above Tuesday write up:

Rose late. Did little. Union in afternoon & evening -> Kev’s – got very out of it!

Kev in that instance will be Kev Davis, who was quite a character. Alcohol, cannabinoids and amphetamines might well have been involved, although by then I expect I demurred on partaking of the latter, having previously found the experience unpleasant.

More time with Liza and doing some work. Also another mention of shopping – this will have been food shopping only – I have never been through a “retail therapy” phase.

A most unusual diary entry on 19 December 1982:

…watched play on TV in evening…

Alan Gorman had kindly left his portable TV behind in the flat when he went home at the end of term, enabling me to watch some TV when occupying the flat for most of the Christmas break.

Some detective work with Mr Google reveals that the television version of Richard Harris’s wonderful play about cricket, Outside Edge, was first broadcast that night, 19 December 1982. Superb cast, as you’ll see if you click the preceding link. I do remember thoroughly enjoying that play, but I was too polite to name it in the diary!

Paul Eddington & Prunella Scales in Outside Edge – picture grabbed on a “fair use for identification purposes basis” from classictelly.com.

Monday 20 December 1982 …did some taping…

Yes, I can see in my cassette log that I got busy around that time. Hamzah had a “proper hi-fi” including a record player and cassette deck. He also had some records I fancied listening to some more, as did my lovely neighbour from the flat across the way, Veera Bachra and as did Kev Davis.

I’ll write some more over the seasonal break about those music tapes and also about the comedy tapes we (by which I mean primarily me, Liza and Alan) were listening to at that time.

But for now, let’s look at Graham Sedgley’s glorious Keele winter sunset picture once again.

End Of Term At Keele – Several Nights Out Including A “Not Good At All” UGM Plus A Memorable Thunderbirds Evening, 3 To 10 December 1982

As the end of my first P2 term loomed, I spent less time working (getting through my deadlines in decent time, it seems) and more time with Lisa and friends.

“Mike & Mandy” mentioned in the Friday 3 December entry were friends (and soon to be flatmates) of Lisa’s at North Staffs Poly. That evening in the Students’ Union might have been the first time I met them.

I have no recollection of the “not good at all” UGM on Monday 6 December. My guess is that Truda Smith and her reactionary forces were seeking to subvert our Keele Action Group purposes.

The fiends.

Mind you, the thought of any Constitutional Committee meeting followed by a UGM does not fill me with delight, in hindsight. I am reminded of the quote attributed to Oscar Wilde: “The trouble with socialism is that it takes up too many evenings”. Or, in my case, too many meetings.

In that very last week of term, it seems that Alan Gorman joined us for at least a couple of those sociable (kin contrast with the socialism) evenings. I remember Lisa and Alan getting on well; they shared a quirky sense of humour which possibly explains how both of them were able to tolerate me so much.

I recall some late evenings in the flat listening to some of my comedy sketch tapes and laughing like drains together. But I’m pretty sure that kicked off in the second term. I’ll write more about it then.

At the end of this first term, the event that sticks in my mind the most is the Wednesday 8 December entry which mentions the Thunderbirds night.

Fair use of Thunderbirds logo headline & above from Wikipedia for identification and illustration.

I think there must have been some sort of cinema release of a feature length Thunderbirds compilation or something around that time. I think they also repeated the original TV series (but that had been and continued happening periodically for decades).

Point is, there was certainly a bit of a cult following vibe amongst students for Thunderbirds at that time.

We (which means me, Lisa, Alan and I think Ashley Fletcher was with us that night -possibly others too) went to a screening somewhere on the campus. It might have been Film Soc. in the Chancellor’s Building, but I have a feeling that this screening was in the Union or possibly a Horwood Refectory job.

I recall a lot of “audience participation”, for example with students proffering unsolicited advice on romance in the direction of a hapless Tracy youth (I think Alan). Mind you, I think Keele students on the whole had got the hang of such things a bit better than the befuddled marionette.

It was all in good humour and (in our case certainly) a form of reverent mockery. We liked Thunderbirds. We also liked to laugh at Thunderbirds.

I haven’t changed all that much in this regard, forty years on. During lockdown, Janie and I watched a few old episodes through the Wayback Machine to cheer ourselves up. Still good.

If you just want a taster, this launch sequence is wonderful, although it has been much parodied since:

I was also reminded recently, by Pete Roberts of all people, of a wonderful parody of such films by Peter Cook & Dudley Moore: Superthunderstingcar.

On Friday 10 December the term formally came to an end, although I stayed up at Keele for a further 10+ days, which I shall report about in the next enthralling episode of “Forty Years On”.

Dating, Mandating & Catering To Scale At Keele, Mid To Late November 1982

Keele Students’ Union With Thanks To Paul Browning For The Photo

My November 1982 diary continues mostly to document a set pattern of student life that term. I was going out with Liza O’Connor, whom, it seems, I would see two or three times each week. At that time she was still living with her family at The Sneyd Arms, so I quite often describe walking her home late at night; which presumably staved off the wrath of Geoff O’Connor – no student (or offspring) wanted his wrath.

Photo by Glyn Baker: The Village & Sneyd Arms – a peaceful place (as long as landlord Geoff was not wrathful)

There are three noteworthy events in the diary for that mid to late November period:

  • getting Keele Action Group (KAG)’s long-planned mandate for an occupation through the UGM;
  • planning and holding a Jewish Society Friday Night meal;
  • a rather peculiar diary entry for the Saturday after that meal, which suggests, between the lines, some consternation.

Keele Action Group’s Long-Planned Mandate For An Occupation, 15 November 1982

I explained the background to KAG’s UGM mandate for a student occupation in a couple of earlier pieces – click here or below for the first of them:

Keele Action Group Springs Forth Campus-Wide, Constitutional Matters Mingle With A Crucial Culinary Debate In My Barnes L54 Flat, 8 to 11 October 1982

…here or below for the second of them:

Culture & Action At Keele, Late October 1982

In the end, it was me who proposed the motion – much to the chagrin of Union President Truda Smith, who afterwards gave me a metaphorical handbagging…or do I mean “metaphorical hairdryer treatment“…or do I mean a metaphorical “handbagging with hair-dryer within” treatment? Truda was not happy. Pete Roberts seconded the motion, which probably gave the motion the political gravitas we thought it needed, as he was the immediate past Education & Welfare sabbatical and he said that he thought the quality of our education and our welfare was at risk from the cuts.

The diary entry suggests that the result was a solid win on the vote:

Monday 15 November 1982: Busy day – writing speech etc. UGM went well – motion passed well etc. Paul & Mike came in after.

I’m not sure who Paul & Mike were in this context. Was it you, Paul Evans? I don’t remember you being into the politics much but perhaps the issue of the cuts floated your boat. For Mike, a bearded fellow in a duffel coat springs to mind but I don’t honestly remember for sure. Pete Roberts, Simon Jacobs or Jon Gorvett might help me out here. Or perhaps not.

J-Soc Friday Night Meal, Friday 26 November 1982

Whose blithering idea was it to attempt this at Keele – a University with a tiny, mostly secular Jewish community?

Actually I have a funny feeling it was sort-of my idea.

Following the success of the International Fair the previous summer and the “joint venture” I had fostered with Tony Wong of the Chinese Cultural Society, I was very cognisant of the fact that other cultural societies had centred their cultural offerings around food, whereas J-Soc had not really done so.

Further, we had some enthusiasts for doing a meal in the form of, if I remember correctly, Michelle Epstein (who was in her second year) plus a couple of newbies – Annalisa de Mercur (who became a good friend for many years, during and after Keele) plus Julie Reichman.

In short, I think it was my idea that we do food and “the girls” turned the idea into something with deeper cultural significance – a heimisch Jewish Friday Night meal.

Photo by Olaf.herfurth, CC BY-SA 3.0 – our event wouldn’t have looked quite as authentic as this…

…our event wouldn’t have looked or sounded anything like the vid below either:

My recollection is that the event “got big on us”, with a lot of work in the planning and the aftermath. The event dominates my diary from the Tuesday before until the day itself and even seemed to dominate until the Monday after.

I don’t even remember where we held the dinner, although something tells me that there was a facility in Horwood that we could and did use for events like this. Or, if not, possibly the Lindsay Hexagon.

I remember being delighted to leave much of the hands-on running of the event to “the girls” and feeling, by the end of it, that I was happy to leave J-Soc more generally in their very capable (and more enthusiastic than my) hands.

The attendees for the event included several people from the Chinese and Arab cultural societies, plus my own entourage (including Liza O’Connor & my new flatmate Alan Gorman, who came from Catholic backgrounds), which might have been fascinating and/or beguiling for them.

“Hastly” Day After The Big Event, Saturday 27 November 1982

Hastly [by which I think I meant “hassle-strewn”] day. Shopped in afternoon – Liza and Chantelle’s friend stayed for dinner. Went to union – got quite drunk…took L home quite late

The fact that I mention Chantelle’s friend in this context means, I’m pretty sure, that there must have been some sub-text. I don’t really remember, but I suspect that I was pretty “duncatering” by the Saturday and/but ended up preparing the Saturday dinner in question. “Got quite drunk” was probably a way to let off steam in the union after the catering stresses of the preceding few days.

The subtext is probably lost in the mists of time, but if I had a grump on in those days, people around me would have known about it. Actually I’m not sure the obviousness of my grump has changed much in the forty years since.

On the Monday I was “sorting out J-Soc stuff still” which probably irritated me, although I did find time in the afternoon to “visit Anju”.

But it is mostly work for the next few days, so I sense that I felt that I was behind where I wanted to be with my essays and the like. Either that or some sort of interpersonal grump that I was too polite to write down and which is now, mercifully, long-since forgotten.

Busy With A Lexicon Of Learning At Keele Plus ABC At Hanley, 4 to 12 November 1982

ABC depicted in Leicester a day or two before we saw them in Hanley

It seems I had gone into busy mode quite early in that first term of my P2 year (third year at Keele but second degree year):

I explained most of the scribbled terms such as KAG (Keele Action Group) in the preceding “forty years on” pieces, such as this one, click here or below:

Culture & Action At Keele, Late October 1982

The “work busy” stuff would have mostly comprised getting my head around:

  • Development Economics with Peter Lawrence (still an Emeritus Professor at Keele forty years on):
  • Jurisprudence with Philip Rose;
  • Criminology with Pat Carlen (still a doyen of Criminology forty years on) & Mike Collinson (sadly no longer with us).

If anyone out there can decipher the “[something?] plan” on the Sunday, which was conjoined with the KAG I’d love to know. We were proposing an occupation so I have a vague feeling that the plan was to do with advanced planning for that. We (perhaps naively) assumed that, once mandated to carry out an occupation, the Union Committee might swing into action quickly. Oh, the innocence and optimism of youth.

A couple of evenings with girlfriend Lisa during that time, ahead off a big night out to see ABC, who were “that years’s thing” in 1982.

I’m pretty sure we went to Victoria Hall in Hanley for the concert, on the evening that the following review appeared in the Leicester Mercury – presumably the De Montfort Hall gig had been on the Wednesday but this was the very tour/show we saw.

ABC Leicester Mercury ABC Leicester Mercury 12 Nov 1982, Fri Leicester Mercury (Leicester, Leicestershire, England) Newspapers.com

I remember a lot of excitement ahead of the gig and I remember that lots of us from Keele were there. For sure I was there with Lisa and I’m pretty sure Simon Jacobs and Jon Gorvett – they can confirm or deny. I have a feeling that Ashley Fletcher wasn’t there that night, but I could be wrong. I also have a feeling that Alan Gorman didn’t fancy that gig, which was a bit pricey and also (as some might say) a bit arty-farty for some tastes.

Mary Haddon in The guardian described that show as “sophisticated, not “arty-farty” – see below.

ABC HARRON GUARDIANABC HARRON GUARDIAN 19 Nov 1982, Fri The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

If you are too young to have seen or heard ABC at that time, here are some performance vids to help your eyes and ears adjust. Quintessentially early 1980s, they were, ABC, but then it WAS the early 1980s:

They did some proper filmic vids too – seriously arty-farty they were, especially this one – but I do recall this particular number going down especially well live at the gig:

Five Go Mad In Barnes, Keele, Early November 1982

Schubert The Sheep, emulating Timmy The Dog

I have one very clear memory from the first few days of November 1982, about which the diary is entirely silent, plus one discovery on that diary page which baffles me as I really cannot remember the occasion at all.

2 November 1982 – The Launch Of Channel 4

Television played a minuscule part in my life at Keele, until the arrival of Alan Gorman in Barnes L54 equipped with a snazzy “starting University present” from his parents – a portable black and white television set and a licence to use it.

My first recollection of watching that television with Alan was the launch of Channel 4, an event that had been talked about in the news media with great fanfare.

I know that said fanfare had reached my parents, as I remember my mother once telling me that she had been watching Countdown since the day it was the very first broadcast on that new channel. I can imagine my dad having meticulously tuned the family television set to a Channel 4 Test Card days or even weeks before the big day.

My diary is silent on this matter, but I remember one aspect of that event very well.

We, by which I mean Barnes L54, gathered to watch Five Go Mad In Dorset that evening. That Comic Strip film had been trailed at length as a centrepiece of Channel 4 launch day.

The arrival of Channel 4 actually presented a problem to the Students’ Union, which had an extension with several rooms, only three of which were designated television rooms. In a world with only three television stations, this worked rather well, but the addition of a fourth TV channel was the subject of much debate. Should The Quiet Room be converted into a fourth TV room (no). In which case, what method should be used to select which of the four channels would be viewed in which of the three TV rooms? I’m not sure how that was resolved, but I suspect that Five Go Mad In Dorset would have been watched in at least one of the TV rooms that night.

Here is a link to a YouTube of the film. Trigger warning: it is rich in parody of non-woke opinions such that it couldn’t possibly be made without major script revisions today…or a special “licence to offend” from the current Home Secretary, (November 2022) that would no doubt be granted.

It felt very different from the TV comedy I had watched with my parents and I suppose it felt like comedy for our generation…not least because we were laughing at the mores of our parents generation.

In particular I remember Alan and I laughing so much at this film that evening. One other thing I recall well was having to explain rather a lot of the jokes/cultural references to Hamzah, who was from Brunei. Once we explained a joke, Hamzah would laugh, but it was not the same laugh as his natural laugh at universal gags; gags that he understood straight away. His laugh at explained jokes was that slightly forced laughter that one tends to hear at performances of Shakespeare or Greek comedies.

We watched several of those Comic Strip films over the coming months on the days they were first broadcast in an “appointment to view” style, which I’m sure is just what Channel 4 was after with people like us.

3 November 1982 “Repaired Furniture”

US Embassy Sweden, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

I’m struggling to recall an evening repairing furniture. Frankly I’m struggling to recall the furniture to which I might possibly have been referring.

I have a feeling that Ahmed (who didn’t make it as far as ’82/’83 in the end) and I inherited some furniture from Jo and Margaret at the end of the previous academic year, when we resided with them (in my case briefly) in Barnes M65.

I vaguely remember a sort-of two seat sofa of non-descript look and vintage. Perhaps also a chair. I suspect that the furniture was not in the best of repair, so presumably we made a collective decision, as a flat, to repair it.

Now I have to be brutally honest here, especially in the absence of any memory of the evening in which I, according to my diary, “repaired furniture”. It is extremely unlikely that I made any positive, physical contribution towards the repairs.

At Alleyn’s School, handicraft was far and away my worst subject. Mr Evans, whom I recall trying (without success) to provide me with some patient, kindly tuition, gave up on me very early in my first year of secondary school. Actually I believe he gave up on all of us – I think he had some sort of a breakdown, no doubt triggered by his inability to transfer even a modicum of woodwork technique to one keen but relentlessly ten-thumbed new boy. That left me at the mercy of Mr Midgely, whose teaching method, especially when directed at less able boys, primarily involved ear-pulling and back-of-head -clipping.

No.

“Repaired furniture” can only possibly mean that the others – Alan in the main, I’d guess – repaired the furniture, while I directed operations and probably, helpfully, made the tea (aka dinner), something I was pretty good at doing. “Lashings of ginger beer” will not have been involved, but Alan and I might have downed some cans of cheap supermarket pale ale, which, in those days, could still be procured for as little as 26p a can if you were lucky. That I do remember.

RanjithSiji, CC BY-SA 3.0

Oh gosh, that is an improvement. Well done everyone.

Culture & Action At Keele, Late October 1982

Photo by Glyn Baker: The Village & Sneyd Arms

A few years ago, I wrote up the story of the Culture Club Gig and my starting to go out with Liza O’Connor in a ThreadMash style rather than “40 Years On” style – click here or below if you want to read that piece:

(I Married A) Monster From Outer Space – And What That Did For One Of My Earthly Romances, 15 October 1982

Thus, the die was cast in many ways for the Keele year that, in my case, was known as P2 – i.e. my third year at Keele but my second of three principle years of undergraduate study. Liza’s dad was the landlord of The Sneyd Arms. Liza had just started studying design at North Staff Poly but, at that early stage of her student journey, was still living with her folks above the pub.

Liza features a lot in my 82/83 diaries.

I am struggling to remember Chevonne & Rani but I think they were fellow law students. I was studying Jurisprudence and Criminology that year; I think they were working with me on one or other of those disciplines.

I explained what “Constitutional Meeting” and “Keele Action Group (KAG)” was about in this Forty Years On Posting:

Keele Action Group Springs Forth Campus-Wide, Constitutional Matters Mingle With A Crucial Culinary Debate In My Barnes L54 Flat, 8 to 11 October 1982

A fair bit of domestic stuff, “shopping, laundering, cooking etc”. I also recall Ashley [Fletcher] was a very regular visitor that term. He lived off campus (or was it Hawthornes still?) but he was Treasurer that year, so was often about the main campus perhaps seeking refuge from the Union!

Thursday 21 October 1982 – Rushed today – Hassan pulled out of J-Soc last minute…

Much as I had been a bit press-ganged into joining Constitutional Committee, I had been press-ganged into Chairing the Jewish Society that year. Hassan was a shaliach – a sort of roving rabbi – who was supposed to look after student communities and/but – from my recollection – was culturally at variance with the mostly liberal, barely or non-practicing Jewish community at Keele and quite often did not show up when expected…nor did he turn up unannounced.

Saturday 23 October 1982 – Busy day – went shopping for carpet etc. Cooked meal for L[isa] in eve…

I cannot recall buying a carpet. I think it was probably something that people would now call a rug, presumably to try and make the lino-floored living room of Barnes L54 seem more homely. I think I detect Chantelle’s influence on this rather more domesticated tone to my diary than that which followed after her departure from Barnes L54.

Well, there’s some working, there’s some “not going out” and there’s Liza coming over midweek. I seem to have been settling into a slightly less “every night in the Union” pattern and more of a “get the work done during the week” pattern.

I love my description of the UGM as “quite good but dull”. I’m delighted for all our sakes – readers and writer alike – that the detail that led to that adjectival description is lost in the mists of time.

Thursday 28 October 1982 – Busyish day. WPR in afternoon – tutorials etc – Jewish Society – Ashley came along – went to union after

I hope someone out there can let me know what WPR might have stood for in that context. It must have been very important – I noted it in my diary. It must be obvious what WPR stands for, it is just my waning powers of memory letting me down once again.

If ever we needed evidence that Ashley Fletcher was part of the Jewish conspiracy…not that there is or was such a conspiracy of course…that 28 October diary entry is incontrovertible proof.

In truth, I seem to recall that I was on a mission to try to expand the influence of the cultural societies (which were all pitifully small) by making joint membership arrangements with some of the other groups. In particular, I recall plotting this with Tony Wong, who was my opposite number at the Chinese Cultural Society. Ashley was in favour of this and happy for the union grants, which were capitation based, to thus be increased to reflect the expanded memberships. My purpose in bringing Ashley along with me to J-Soc that evening, if I recall correctly, was to demonstrate that my idea had official Students’ Union blessing.

Saturday 30 October 1982 – …went to Chinese evening -> Union ->…

I recall that the Chinese Cultural Society, at that time, was better than J-Soc at ensuring that food was an integral part of a gathering. I decided that evening to try and change up J-Soc in that regard for future events.

Sunday 31 October 1982 – …KAG meeting in eve…

I am pretty sure that this was the evening when we engaged the services of Pete Roberts to help with our KAG master plan. I’m sure there were several of us at the heart of KAG, but I only clearly recall Simon Jacobs and Jon Gorvett being there.

Still plotting after all these years (not Stephanie, obvs) – me, Simon & Jon

Having failed to persuade Truda Smith (President) that she and her new committee should take some direct action to show the student body’s disquiet at the harsh University grant cuts – we would take a resolution to a UGM mandating the committee to take action.

The world as seen by Pete Roberts that evening?

The meeting that afternoon was help in my room in Barnes L54. The rest of us had gathered, then Pete arrived fashionably late, having clearly imbibed or partaken of some mind-changing substance that day.

I especially recall the reaction of Alan Gorman, my nonplussed fresher flatmate, when afterwards we chatted in the living room about Pete’s arrival.

I sensed that he was not all there. He was mumbling about a pink rat…and Simon…or perhaps it was a pink rat named Simon. I pointed him towards your room which seemed to do the trick.

I have ever since used the “named pink rat” line when alluding to someone under various influences, not least in my 1994 lyric about the rave scene:

Those Were The Raves, NewsRevue Lyric, 9 January 1994

Still, despite seeming to be away with the fairies, Pete was cognitively strong and sensible enough to turn the tables on me.

Our plan was to have Pete (who was the most recent former sabbatical Education & Welfare Officer) propose the motion and I would second it.

Pete persuaded us that it would be much better if I proposed it and he seconded it. The logic behind that table turning is lost in the mists of time, beer and goodness knows what else. I fail to see the logic now but that was the deal and that is what happened…

…stay tuned!

Perhaps Pete Roberts remembers or has a different take on this story. I’m still in touch with him…at least I was before this write up!

Postscript

Pete Roberts has indeed been in touch, writing the following explanation, which clears the whole matter up very satisfactorily indeed. Thanks Pete:

Hey kids, never try to explain something when under the influence.

Perfectly reasonable explanation. ‘Rat’ was a flatmate in Barnes. His superpower was that he had a pink rat costume. He only had to go for a short walk in it to be dragged into a party. It wasn’t all fun; he had to hurl drinks into his ‘mouth’ and whatever missed would fill up his wellington boots. I’m amazed he survived Fresher’s Week without drowning..

(I Married A) Monster From Outer Space – And What That Did For One Of My Earthly Romances, 15 October 1982

Ashley Fletcher reminiscing for me in The Sneyd Ams, 35 years later.

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

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

Here is a link to my write up of Rohan’s performance piece.

Somewhat unexpectedly, Rohan used (I Married A) Monster From Outer Space by John Cooper Clarke as one of his examples. If you have never heard a recording of it, here is a vid with an unexpurgated version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbRM-canDOs

It was Paul Deacon who introduced me to the recording (the expurgated version as it happens), in April 1982. I know these exact details because I still have the track listing from the relevant cassette, beautifully typed by Paul as part of the gift:

In October 1982, that cassette would have still been in the recent section of my cassette cases and was still getting plenty of play.

Now turn your mind to Freshers’ Week on the 1982/83 year; my third. Thus spake my diary:

That’s not a bad few days.

I saw The Beat at the Freshers’ Ball on the Wednesday. I’m pretty sure I liked them a lot before I saw them live. But once I’d seen them live I liked them even more. They were a terrific live act. I especially remember the Keele audience going wild for Ranking Full Stop and of course Stand Down Margaret, but pretty much all of the gig was superb as I remember it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFaFVhyjb5Y

Writing in October 2017, I only wish that someone would write something with similar sentiments about our current prime minister. I mean, where’s Simon Jacobs when you need him?…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DM4lSw68-AE

…ah, there he is. Thank you, Simon. But I digress.

Two nights later, with just one evening between gigs for me to recover (by “getting quite intoxicated”, apparently) it was Culture Club. That gig was eagerly awaited. They had been unknowns when booked, but were Number Two in the charts come Freshers’ Week, with the clever money suggesting that they would be Number One by the time the next chart came out – which they were.

Liza was at that gig with Ashley Fletcher and a few others of that Hawthornes Hall crowd. Liza wasn’t a Keele student; she had just enrolled on an art school type course at North Staffs Poly as it then was. Liza lived in The Sneyd Arms; she was landlord Geoff O’Connor’s daughter.

35 years later…Ashley in The Sneyd Arms – with thanks to Ashley & Sal for the picture

I remember being underwhelmed by the Culture Club gig. To be fair, their rise (and therefore the increase in expectations) had been stratospheric – in truth they were still a fairly inexperienced band who would have seemed “better than most” if people hadn’t been expecting overnight superstars. I remember them playing “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me” at least twice. I think it was just twice. Fairly short set, though.

Weird vid, but if you want to see/hear the song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nXGPZaTKik

Anyway, Liza and I went on to the Postgraduate Bar – KRA afterwards – I have a feeling that Ashley and the rest went on somewhere else. Then one thing led to another with Liza.

I was over the moon, I took her back to my place…and we ended up going out for the rest of that academic year, basically.

I vaguely associate the start of my relationship with Liza with Culture Club. Very vaguely. Until I looked at the diary to prepare this piece, I had completely forgotten that Liza and I got started the night of that gig.

But when Rohan spoke about (I Married A) Monster From Outer Space I had a strong memory flash about it. For a start, I realised that I always associate that record with starting out with Liza.

I cannot swear that the following interaction took place that very first evening/night…I’d rather like to think it was…but I clearly remember Liza rummaging through my cassettes, finding the above one and yelping with joy that I had “I Married A Monster”, which she loved.

It was one of those joyous things; the shared pleasure in a rather obscure, let’s face it, weird, recording. It helped to cement Liza’s and my relationship in those early days. We knew that we must have plenty in common, because we both really liked that John Cooper Clarke record. What additional evidence could you possibly need?

In Rohan’s show, he didn’t really explore the business of how we use the discovery of shared taste in songs to help cement our relationships. But I think that happens often and is quite a central part of why music is so important to us, whether we are seeking, starting, in or ending relationships.

But thanks, Rohan, for helping me to recover this memory through “Monster”. And thanks Paul Deacon, for all you did to help me and Liza, without ever knowing it, until now.

By the way, Rohan’s favourite line from “Monster” is:

…and it’s bad enough with another race, but f*ck me, a monster from outer space.

That might be my favourite line too. But Liza’s favourite line was:

…she lives in 1999, with her new boyfriend, a blob of slime.

Perhaps that was Liza’s way of trying to keep me on my toes; “you’re not the only pebble on the beach…if you keep on like that I might prefer to date a blob of slime…”.

I’m done, but you might enjoy this ranting poetry version of I Married A Monster:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6emQpBXe5Y

Keele Action Group Springs Forth Campus-Wide, Constitutional Matters Mingle With A Crucial Culinary Debate In My Barnes L54 Flat, 8 to 11 October 1982

With thanks to Susan Gorman for this c2006 photo of Alan Gorman

These few days lead in to the start of term proper

Friday 8 October 1982 – Easyish day – quite busy sorting things out. Went to union in evening – got quite merry.

Saturday 9 October 1982 – Freshers Mart in morning – prospective students in afternoon. Ashley [Fletcher] stayed to dinner – went on to union.

Sunday 10 October 1982 – Up quite early. Constitutional Committee lunchtime. Planned to stay in evening – quite tired – ended up running around campus with K.A.G [Keele Action Group] leaflets.

Monday 11 October 1982 – 1st teaching day of term – K.A.G at lunchtime. Went to union in evening.

Keele Action Group (KAG) & Constitutional Committee (CC): WTF?

Keele Action Group (KAG) was a grassroots students’ response to “The Cuts” – i.e. the early 1980s reduction in government funding to Universities. While the 1981/82 Union Committee had been reasonably supportive of firm but peaceful protest – e.g. our pseudo-destructive demo in London earlier that calendar year…

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

…we received fewer assurances from Truda Smith and that we would get much support from her and her 82/83 committee. I am pretty sure that the protagonists of KAG were mostly the same gang – Simon Jacobs, Jon Gorvett, me and several others…

…I’m seeing Simon soon and shall update with more names if he can remember specifics…

…who basically wanted to show the University the strength of feeling among the students and encourage the powers-that-were to pressurise the government more.

Who knows whether or not that might have worked, but at least we were making our feelings known.

Constitutional Committee (CC) was a different matter. I cannot remember who it was that lent on me to take on that burden, but in the back of my mind it was people like Spike Humphrey, Frank Dillon & Vince Beasley, all of whom had suffered, while on Union Committee, at the hands of a Constitutional Committee dominated by FCS (Federation of Conservative Students) law students who, as a matter of national policy, were hell-bent on using loopholes in student unions’s constitutions to make it difficult for more enlightened student reps to get anything done. FCS candidates could achieve because the idea of being on a constitutional committee was so mind-numbingly dull that they tended to be appointed unelected…

…as indeed was I when my friends of the left persuaded me to help seize back the initiative by getting a few more enlightened people onto that committee.

Was it a barrel of laughs?

David Brown, Neil Mackay, Jamie Russell of Liquid Image for BBC Scotland., CC BY-SA 4.0

No. Anyway, the debates that ensued around KAG and CC were as nothing to the culinary debate that clearly bedevilled the early days in Barnes L54.

Culinary Debate: Name That Meal

I noticed my use of the term “dinner” to describe Ashley Fletcher’s visit to join us for an evening meal on 9th. I also note my use of the word “lunchtime” on 10th and 11th.

But I was a lone voice with such temporal-culinary nomenclature in L54 at that stage.

Chantelle hails from Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, while Alan Gorman was a Lanky from Chorley…Brinscall actually.

Those two were having no truck with the idea of naming the evening meal – which is the one we had agreed to share the cooking of rota-style most evenings – dinner. Dinner was a word they reserved for the lunchtime meal. The evening meal was to be known as “tea”.

Hamzah didn’t have a vote in this matter, as he opted out of our cooking rota, on the grounds that he ate exclusively Halal food and would have his evening meal with his/our Malay mates in Barnes Q92.

There is lots of material on-line about this sort of debate now, much of it in tongue-in-cheek terms on sites such as King Cricket, not least when discussing North/South and class distinctions:

Them North v South matches start this week

Or the following “expert” piece which seems to suggest that I might have been right all along that lunch/dinner are terms preferable to and more consensual than dinner/tea. (If in doubt, it is surely a good idea to quote The Lad Bible as an authoritative answer.)

Actually, Alan Gorman had a more open-minded and scientific approach to this topic than most people. Firstly, he had no real problem with the lunchtime meal being described as “lunch”. He didn’t major on lunchtime eating anyway – it was the evening that mattered most for food. But Alan did object to naming of the early evening meal “dinner”.

Alan’s nomenclature was to describe the early evening, shared/communal flat meal as “tea” and a later ad hoc meal as “supper”. Both of these meals were important and Alan was most certainly a “four meals a day” person at that stage. The “two evening meals” thing ensured that the stomach was filled early evening ahead of either:

  • an evening of private study which might well go on until quite late, or
  • “a sesh” down the union or boozer.

In either of those instances, there would be a need for a “supper” of some sort that would soak up the booze and/or ensure that there was a satisfied belly for bed time. I joined in this “four meals a day” habit for the two years we flat shared. Remarkably, looking back, we both remained skinny nonetheless.

Photos: thanks to Sue Gorman for Alan and Mark Ellicott for me

Actually, thinking about it, Hamzah would have probably approved of Alan’s logic on linguistic grounds. In Bahasa Melayu, including its Bruneian variety, meals are named after the time of day:

  • “sarapan pagi” means breakfast
  • “makan tengah hari” means midday meal
  • “makan petang” means afternoon or evening meal;
  • “makan malam” means late evening or night-time meal.
16 years later, a bit of basic Bahasa Melayu came in very handy, whatever the time of day

The Next Few Days Included The Beat & Culture Club – 12 to 15 October 1982

I actually wrote up the next few days five years ahead of this “Forty Years On” series based on a memory flash. You can read all about those days (and the memory flash) here or below:

(I Married A) Monster From Outer Space – And What That Did For One Of My Earthly Romances, 15 October 1982

Enter Stage Left, My New Neighbours & Flatmates At Keele In Barnes L54, 4 to 7 October 1982

Barnes flats, as they appear in my cherished memories of living there. The above image, borrowed from https://www.studentcrowd.com/hall-l1004515-s1043587-barnes-hall-keele_university-keele, shows them at their best.

I had arrived at Keele a few days before almost everyone else that academic year, to learn that my flatmate from the preceding few months, Ahmed Mohd Isa, had dropped out of Keele and was to be replaced by an allocated fresher.

Hence, my flatmates for 82/83 were to be:

  • Hamzah Shawal – a Bruneian mate of Ahmed and the Malay crowd, who was to be a finalist that year and who seemed like a very nice chap on the one or two occasions I had met him the previous year;
  • Chantelle Conlon [I think, surname], a “yeller belly” from the latterly-to-be-internet-unfriendly town of Scunthorpe. Ahmed, Hamzah and I had found Chantelle through the flat share notice board at the end of the previous academic year, as flat application forms needed to have four names and none of us had a chosen fourth. She seemed like a nice young woman and passed the interview by dint of agreeing to join us and signing the form;
  • Alan Gorman – the allocated fresher. Provenance entirely unknown until arrival.

This inauspicious sounding team selection resulted in…SPOILER ALERT… a happy final year for Hamzah, two very happy years for me and three such years for Alan in that flat.

Monday 4 October 1982 – Got a few things done today – some new neighbours moved in etc. Went to Union in evening etc. Julia stayed over…

I’m pretty sure the new neighbours in question were Veera Bachra (who became a good friend) and at least one of her flatmates (probably Debbie). Julia was a friend of Veera’s (or perhaps Debbie) who had dropped out of Keele but came up to see her friends there at the start of term. I remember Julia as a sweet young woman whom I had admired from afar in my FY year. The happenstance of Julia visiting my new neighbours presented an opportunity for us to admire each other at closer quarters that night.

This hit from that late summer/early autumn became my earworm for a few days at the start of that term:

A little unfortunate, as I never much liked Duran Duran, but I have for forty years retained a soft spot for that song. I digress.

Tuesday 5 October 1982 – Rose quite late. Hamzah arrived. Kept busy etc. Went to union in eve – the calm before the storm

Wednesday 6 October 1982 – Rose quite early. Alan arrived at flat – lunched etc – showed around – shopped etc etc. Chantelle arrived. Went to union freshers do in evening etc. Up late.

I have an absolute favourite memory of the morning of Alan’s arrival at the flat.

The Gorman family came from (I think still come from) Chorley in Lancashire, not much more than an hour’s drive to Keele. They arrived quite early.

On that October morning, Barnes didn’t much look like the publicity picture I have used as the headline, it looked more like this:

With thanks again to Paul Browning for this picture

On such misty autumn mornings, the playing fields would be populated by a few hippy-ish students in search of psycho-active fungi.

The magical fungi looked a bit like this – photo by Patrick Ulrich

The students probably didn’t look quite so buff as these two – photo by Joe Mabel

I made Harold and Theresa a cuppa and sat them at our kitchen table, which overlooked those playing fields.

Oh look, Theresa, there are some biology students out on the fields collecting samples…

…said Harold, enthusiastically. I didn’t have the heart (nor did I have the guts) to tell Alan’s parents the truth of the matter.

I don’t think I shared this story with Alan on day one. Alan had a fierce and sharp sense of humour – perhaps not apparent in the whirl of arrival with parents, but evident very soon after that. I’m pretty sure I shared the story with Alan soon after that first day; we’d have had a good laugh about it. But did Alan ever tell his parents about those “mycology students”?

Very sadly, my use of the past tense throughout the above paragraph is not a grammatical error; I learnt while researching this piece that Alan Gorman died in 2015. But I have made contact with his widow Susan and, through her, his family might see this and future pieces about Alan. Thus I am hoping for some feedback to help refine my memories, but they will unfortunately not be directly from Alan.

Thursday 7 October 1982 – Rose quite early – still sorting out flat etc. I got somethings done, not too hectically. Went to union in evening – up till late.

It looks as though Alan and I started the “up till late” chatting habit very early in his University career.