…I am delighted to report that Frank Dillon has managed to recreate most of his John Cooper Clarke poem from memory. Just as well, as I do not have a copy of it in my Ringroad scripts collection.
Frank wasn’t even in the country when John Cooper Clarke played that gig at Keele. Frank however writes:
As for John Cooper Clarke, I don’t have a copy of it, but I offer the following recreation, honed (or harmed) by the sands of time (i.e. 40 years).
It’s vitally important to read it in the voice of the great man, and with a hint of hysteria.
(And I do mean the great man – for this was a homage, nay, a pastiche, rather than an attack on JCC, for whom I retain an enduring fondness).
I hope it brings back fond memories. Anyway, here goes:
He runs the whole gamut of feelings, from A right through to B. At school he wore a cone-shaped hat that bore the letter D. He’s the first one, but he’s useless,Just like the word Aardvark, John Cooper Clarke. Where he came from is a mystery indeed. His mam and dad, they must have been too bloody thick to breed. If he’s half the age his jokes are, Then he came from Noah’s Ark, John Cooper Clarke.His so-called style is dissolute, his muse, the commonplace. The burden of banality is etched upon his face. He’s told more boring stories Than a bloody copper’s nark, John Cooper Clarke He’s the new enfant terrible of the trendy literati.His mordant wit is de rigueur at all the coolest parties.But like a puppy, laryngectomised, His bite’s worse than his bark, John Cooper Clarke He’s a Wimpy-bar philosopher, his lines are full of glee. He can find the secret of existence in a cup of tea. But like a wanker with his eyes poked out, He’s shooting in the dark, John Cooper Clarke He thinks he’s T S Eliot, or Keats, or Wilfred Owen And literary publishers will clamour for his poems He’s got more front and chutzpah Than a flasher in the park, John Cooper Clarke John Cooper Clarke John Cooper Clarke
I must say that I don’t remember that last couplet. My recollection of the closing couplet was:
But like a masturbating eunuch,
He’ll never make a mark,
John Cooper Clarke, John Cooper F*****G Clarke, John Cooper F*****G B*****D Clarke…
Still, a pretty impressive bit of brain archaeology from Frank there.
Most of my diary notes from that period suggest that I had my head down working at that time. My impressionistic memory tells me that I was quite urgently seeking to switch from halls in Lindsay to a flat in Barnes at that time, although the diary is silent on that matter until a bit later in the month, when I pulled off that switch.
Still, the diary highlights some interesting events at Keele and an eventful trip to London at that time. Forty years on, it’s time for me to share the highlights.
Friday 5 February 1982 – …stayed in most of evening apart from dreadful film, “The Main Event“.
Yup, that’s not my kind of movie. Never mind.
Saturday 6 February 1982 – Went to Newcastle quite late. Did very little work really. Went to Michelle [Epstein]’s party in evening. Sharon & Louise came back after.
Richard van Baaren &/or Benedict Coldstream might well also have been at that party, as I recall Sharon & Louise being part of that crowd. No mention of Anju on this occasion – perhaps she had something else on. We missed Mari Wilson & The Imaginations for that party, so for sure there were other things to do on campus that night. At that stage, I think Michelle was going out with a character named Joel. I don’t think Michelle got together with Neil [Infield] whom she married – I kept in touch with both of them for many years – until much later in our time at Keele.
Sunday 7 February 1982 – Did some work during day. Went to see Carrie & Scanners in afternoon/evening + did some more work
I have one very clear memory from that psycho-thriller movie double bill at Film Soc. I went to see those movies with a young woman whose name completely escapes me. She was a close friend of Katie’s (aka Cathy) – she of my dad’s embarrassing moment a few month’s earlier. Those two were very close pals of each other and I remained a casual pal with both of them for much of my time at Keele
Update: Katie (Cathy) has put me back in touch with Linda (Jones), who was that young woman at Film Soc 40+ years ago.
In fact, we might not even have gone to those movies “as a date” but possibly both ambled along there solo and simply chosen to sit next to each other, as Film Soc folk often did.
*** Spoiler alert for the movie Carrie ***
At the end of Carrie, the following “jump scare” scene occurs:
…at which point, my young woman friend screamed, jumped and pretty much landed in my lap. Fortunately for me she was quite a skinny, light girl, so she did me no immediate damage. Nor did she injure herself with her jump, other than a little injured pride perhaps as she couldn’t stop apologising for her scare-movie-timidity for the rest of the event.
Ever since then, I haven’t been able to think of the movie Carrie, nor even jump scares in movies generally, without thinking about that young woman and her reaction to that wonderful scene. I was reminded of it the other day (as I write in February 2022), almost exactly 40 years on, when a young woman in front of me and Janie at The Royal Court jumped almost out of her skin at the pre-interval coup de theatre in The Glow:
In February 1982, I didn’t think Scanners was in the same league as Carrie.
Monday 8 February 1982 – …went to [Barnes] G3 for dinner…
It was the G3 crowd (which I think included Rana Sen and Kath), who helped me to find my Barnes flat. I have a feeling that the cunning plan that led to my flat room-for-halls room swap a few week’s later might well have been seeded at that very dinner. More on that swap next time.
Tuesday 9 February 1982 – …went to see Gloria in evening – OK-ish.
Again, not my kind of movie I feel.
Wednesday 10 February 1982 – very busy day – tutorials moved etc. J-Soc committee & Internal Affairs – very busy day all in all. Presidential forum – Simon [Jacobs] & Jon [Gorvett] came back for coffee.
I only vaguely remember being on Internal Affairs committee. Spike Humphrey (who was VP Internal that year) had been a leading light on Concourse the previous year, so I suspect that I was “open to Spiky persuasion” when asked. Forty years on, a simple googling of the fellow, still with his Keele nickname, finds him still doing committees. In the fulness of time that link won’t work, but here is a scrape of it in February 2022.
The controversy-ridden presidential election for 82/83 will have been the following day, but I make no mention of the election in my diary, perhaps because I wasn’t really involved with such things at that time. Yes, Truda Smith, who had, until recently, been going our with Jon Gorvett, was one of the candidates. But I didn’t actually support Truda for that election; I was supporting the official Labour candidate, a lovely lass named Jan Phillips, whose candidacy was ill-fated, perhaps because of Truda’s or perhaps because the power-brokers-that-were (e.g. Toby Bourgein) felt that Jan was unelectable. Meanwhile the Tory contingent, mostly under the Machiavellian guidance of a chap named Chris Boden, were looking to disrupt the election process that year. I’ll explain the resulting hoo-ha next time. Seems that I simply voted on the Thursday (not a noteworthy event) and got ready for my rare London trip.
Thursday 11 February 1982 – Lazyish day – did some work. Went to buffet supper in evening – did some work after.
Friday 12 February 1982 – Left for London early afternoon – Grandma Jenny had come for dinner – injured herself – spent evening in Kings casualty
If I recall correctly, the family crisis had already started to unfurl when I arrived at my parents’ house and we all went straight off to Camberwell. Now THAT’s my idea of a Friday night out in London!
Saturday 13 February 1982 – Got up quite early. Did some taping – spoke to people. Mum & dad went out – had relaxing evening in.
Sunday 14 February 1982 – Got up late. Went to Polyanna’s for lunch. Made tapes and spoke to people for rest of the day – quite enjoyable.
I should return at some point to the tapes I was making back then, some of which catalogue the soundtrack of our lives in the early 1980s.
Not sure who dined at Polyanna’s – probably just me and my parents, as I don’t mention anyone else. Polyanna’s was a rare example back then of a proper European-style bistro restaurant on Battersea Rise. It seemed well-decent back then compared with most suburban fare. Now The Humble Grape.
Monday 15 February 1982 – Met Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] for lunch – > came back to Keele. Went to lousy UGM in evening -> Simon’s for coffee.
The lousiness of the UGM was no doubt linked to the presidential election hoo-ha, about which more next time.
Tuesday 16 February 1982 – Busy day as usual. Worked in evening – got quite a lot done. Didn’t go out at all.
Wednesday 17 February 1982 – Useful day. Spent afternoon in the library. Went to see Andrea [Collins, now Woodhouse] in early evening -> John Cooper Clarke -> Simon & Jon came back – up till quite late.
I am relieved to see several mentions of Simon Jacobs in the diary around this time, as Janie and I are seeing him for lunch tomorrow – Simon doesn’t much like these forty years on pieces unless he gets a few mentions!
I remember the John Cooper Clarke concert very fondly and am really glad I attended it.
Dave Lee’s book The Keele Gigs! has more on the topic of this concert. Dave kindly not only reminded me but sent me a copy of support act, Mightier than Kong, singing their only minor hit, a rather good cover version of Hey Girl Don’t Bother Me.
As for John Cooper Clarke himself, Evidently Chickentown went down extremely well, as did most of his set. Here is an audio of a live performance from around that time (late 1981). Trigger warning: contains…indeed more or less comprises…bad language.
I also recall a Ringroad sketch entitled John Cooper Clarke which was a parody of a JCC poem, each verse of which ended with the line “John Cooper Clarke”, each preceded by an increasingly bizarre simile which rhymed with Clarke. Was it one of yours, Frank Dillon? I might have a copy of it in my “Ringroad cornflake box copies file” at the flat – if so I’ll scan it and upload it in the next week or so.
I have been a bit remiss lately, while writing up my forty years on series, about the early 1980s, in the matter of sharing my soundtracks from that era.
An interesting mix, you might say. I make no apologies for my eclectic taste (or lack thereof) at that time.
Oh, the synthesisers!
Only a few of these would make my early 1980s playlist, were I to make one of those up for a forty years on party…not that we do parties any more, post pandemic. A theoretical, hypothetical early 1980s party.
For calligraphically-challenged readers unable to read my handwriting above, below is a version of the above list transcribed:
Showroom Dummies, Kraftwerk
I Travel, Simple Minds
Stick It Where the Sun Don’t Shine, Nick Lowe
Poison Arrow, ABC
Trouble, Lindsay Buckingham
Had Enough, Earth Wind and Fire
Cardiac Arrest, Madness
Easier Said than Done, Shakatak
Senses Working Overtime, XTC
Love Plus One, Haircut 100
The Model, Kraftwerk
Golden Brown, The Stranglers
A Town Called Malice, The Jam
Micky, Toni Basil
Fool if You Think It’s Over, Elkie Brooks
Say Hello, Wave Goodbye, Soft Cell
Hopefully most of the following YouTube embeds will still be here when you get to this piece, if you fancy hearing one or more of the tracks.
The diary suggests that I was actually doing some work that term too. The choice of Economics & Law joint honours sort-of demanded that; especially law.
Still, I was also spending plenty of time doing the other stuff that students do.
Sunday 17 January 1982 – Rose rather late. Did quite a lot of work. Went over to K Block for a while (Mary [Keevil]’s birthday etc.) Worked on afterwards.
Monday 18 January 1982 – Not bad day – did quite a bit of work really. [A] Few people popped in etc – worked primarily in evening.
Tuesday 19 January 1982 – Lots of class today – did some work in the early evening. Tash. Went to see Ordinary People [movie] in the evening – didn’t like it too much really.
Wednesday 20 January 1982 – Quite a busy day. Work etc. – did a fair amount. Went to see Climax Blues Band in the evening (& The Look), Not too impressed.
Here’s what The Look looked like (did you see what I did there?):
Here’s The Climax Blues Band, who were sort-of Staffordshire local to Keele but played there very rarely:
Thursday 21 January 1982 – Worked quite hard today. Went to library and everything. Worked in the evening as well.
Friday 22 January 1982 – Busyish day – worked quite hard. Went to 2 parties in union in evening & went back to U117 [Barnes]till very late.
Saturday 23 January 1982 – Rose late – went to Newcastle late. Unindustrious day. Went to G3 [I’m 99% sure the flat in which I’d stayed over the winter break] party in evening – * quite enjoyable. Got quite drunk.
Sunday 24 January 1982 – Got up very late. Did quite a bit of work in the afternoon. Jewish Society meeting at Maurice’s in evening – quite entertaining.
Questions for advanced students:
who lived/partied in U117 at that time?
who was Maurice and how could such a meeting possibly be “entertaining”?
Monday 25 January 1982 – Work OK. Did quite a lot in the afternoon. UGM in the evening – sold Concourse. People came back for coffee afterwards.
Tuesday 26 January 1982 – Busy day as usual on Tuesday. Went to Tash. Went to film Chariots Of Fire in evening – very good film. Quite a late night.
Wednesday 27 January 1982 – Work Ok today. Worked quite hard. in fact. Andrea [Collins, now Woodhouse] came around in the evening – but mainly a day of industry.
Thursday 28 January 1982 – Busyish day. Went to buffet supper in evening – went back to David’s [Perrins?] after – chatted until quite late.
OK, I need to explain what “Tash” was – I mentioned it several times in my January 1982 diary. Several of the guys in my Lindsay F Block hall were members of a five-a-side football team named ‘Tempted ‘Tash, in honour of the (usually rather feeble) attempts on the part of 19/20 year-old students to grow and show adornments of facial hair, in particular wispy moustaches. Team members included, I’m pretty sure, Benedict Coldstream, Richard Van Baaren (ringleader/captain), Bob Schumacher and some others. I, along with one or two other non-playing hangers on – was Malcolm Cornelius there once or twice? Some of the Harrowby ”girls” (Sharon, Louise, Anjou) perhaps on one occasion? Simon Ascough was keen on footy, but I think he either played or had dropped out of Keele by then – would go along to chant and cheer…usually with limited success in the matter of coaxing winning performances from our team.
Friday 28 January 1982 – Not too pleasant cold at the moment. Did some work this afternoon. Went to film in evening (Babylon – very good), Went for drink after – didn’t feel too good. Came home.
Saturday 29 January 1982 – Went to Newcastle reasonably early. Did little work. Went to Neil Turner’s party in evening. Got very drunk -> Y13 Hawthorns [Ashley, Mel, Louise & Boris’s place] afterwards where party continued.
Sunday 31 January 1982 – Recovering from last night – finished off questionnaire and did some work in the evening as well – quite creditable under the circumstances.
Monday 1 February 1982 – Work OK. Did quite a bit today & went to visit Andrea in evening. Had quite a late night.
If you cannot imagine the soundscape of that wonderful film Babylon, get the album or simply get yer lugholes around the following track which includes the film’s idée fixe – if a 1980s reggae theme might thus be described.
Questions for advanced students:
Can anyone remember exactly what that Neil party & then on to Y13 was? Ashley kindly chimed in an answer to that question on FB: “Ashley Mel Louise and Boris Lived at 13, it was Gaysoc anarcho-central. That evening I think Neil hosted a meet the new boyfriend party at the Hawthorns Bar. Can’t remember the new boyfriend’s name, but he was a lovely chap working and living on the top floor of Hanley hotel” Subsequent chimes (thanks, Sally Hyman) even uncovered an agreed name for the new boyfriend: Gareth. First class work from the team, there.
What was the “questionnaire”? I’m guessing that it was connected with the anti-cuts campaigning but I cannot remember in truth.
Andrea (Collins, now Woodhouse) gets a couple of mentions in the space of a week at that time. We stayed pals throughout our several years at Keele and I was really pleased to reconnect with her in Westminster relatively recently at a Keele alum gathering…I mean works meeting…I mean event…I mean party:
Early that term, I recall taking a tumble on the slope that led to the Chancellor’s Building from the Lindsay Hall end, while rushing to get to a lecture or tutorial on time.
A little dazed, I soon realised that someone had hoicked me up and I was being stared at by none other than “ABC” Dick Hemsley, asking me if I was alright. “Yes, I’m fine”, I said, embarrassed to have found myself in such a vulnerable circumstance with one of the better-known right-wing villains of the campus. “No”, said Dick firmly, studying my reactions carefully, “I think you might have bumped your head. Really, are you OK?” Thankfully I hadn’t banged my head and most of the bruises were to my “left ego”. That incident stuck in my mind, because it made me realise that Dick, despite our opposing political views, when it came to the crunch, was instinctively concerned about my welfare.
Possibly term seemed like an anti-climax; possibly the weather got to me – I have never much liked icy-cold weather and this was a proper cold spell.
The diaries – which are shown at the bottom of this piece but upon which I shall not expand this time – suggest a relatively dull phase – at least in my mind…
…until the Ronnie Scott & Friends Jazz Night on 16 January, which was a hugely memorable event in all sorts of ways.
Ronnie Scott co-founded the legendary Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in the late 1950’s. It was already an institution by the early 1980s and we were truly blessed that Ronnie liked visiting student venues and especially liked the vibe in the University of Keele Students’ Union Ballroom. I saw him perform there several times while at Keele – this was the first of those times.
The following clip, from some time in the early 1980s, is pretty close to what the ensemble looked and sounded like at Keele that night:
For those who know little about Ronnie Scott/Ronnie Scott’s and would like to know more, the following hour-long Omnibus film from 1989 is quite comprehensive and almost of that time:
There is am even more comprehensive 2020 documentary movie, which I have seen and can confirm is a very interesting watch, which you can find out about on IMDb here.
My memories of this particular January 1982 evening at Keele are a strange mixture of clear and blurry. The diary entry only tells a small part of the story:
…went to Jazz Night in the evening. ** got pissed during and after!!
This suggests that only alcohol was imbibed at our table, although in my mind there was also whacky backy involved. Perhaps that was because Ronnie kept saying, “I must stop smoking this stuff” whenever he muffed his jokes/lines, which he did with charming frequency.
We sat at tables in the style of a jazz club like Ronnie Scott’s and I remember it all seeming very grown up and sophisticated at the outset. I think we drank wine and cocktails rather than beer at our table, which is probably why we got pissed unusually quickly.
I was at a table with, I am pretty sure (in reducing order of sureness): Miriam Morgan, Heather Jones, Ashley Fletcher, Helen Ross and one or two others. One person who was certainly at our table was a rather exotic-looking (to me) gay female with whom, for reasons I cannot with hindsight fathom, I started to dance. I’ll guess it was initially her idea, because dancing isn’t something I can imagine myself ever having spontaneously initiated.
Mercifully, this Jazz Night was long before the age of smart phones, pocket video cameras, TikTok and the like, so there are no moving pictures of our “performance” – indeed not even any stills to my knowledge.
It probably looked a little like the following clip at first, except that John Travolta is a very capable dancer trying to look awkward, whereas…
We danced in an increasingly frisky manner as time went on, until a pivotal moment when I suddenly felt drenched. Someone from a nearby “Tory Boy” table tipped a jug of water over us with the entreaty, “you two need to cool down”.
I’m not sure who did the tipping; it might have been Mark Ellicott (who still sat at Tory Boy tables back then) or it might even have been ABC Dick. Whoever it was, the gesture was done without menace and with a witticism thrown in, such that we and everyone at the tables around us found the joke funny, so we joined in the laughter and redoubled our frisky efforts.
Strangely, I ran this story by Simon Jacobs and Jon Gorvett just the other evening – forty years on. Both of them confirmed that they were not there on this evening.
Yet Simon, who usually claims not to be able to remember anything about our Keele days, immediately identified the young woman in question as “Nicola from Crewe and Alsager College”, which of course was the right answer. Respect, Simon, respect.
Nicola ended up going out with Miriam, which I think brought the Miriam and Heather era to a close, although I might be muddling the sequencing and/or duration of that episode. Others might well be able to put the record straight.
My diary states clearly that we all carried on drinking after the Ronnie Scott Jazz Night had concluded, but the frisky dancing with Nicola was definitely merely a “moment in time” thing during the jazz night.
Postscript – Remembering Nicola
Within minutes of me posting this piece, Ashley Fletcher commented on FB, reminding me that, a couple of years later, he shared a place in Newcastle with Miriam & Nicola, who became and were still very much an item after that January 1982 time.
Diary pages for the week or so leading up to Ronnie’s below. For the completists. There’s a prize if anyone can work out who or what I went to see on Tuesday 12th!
Postscript – Remembering Nastassja
Following an entreaty from Kay Scorah that she wouldn’t sleep until the 12 January diary entry mystery was solved, I gave the matter some deeper thought. Then I looked at the Rosetta Stone for a while. Then I concluded that the pathetically scrawled four-letter word, which I had thought all along was probably the title of a film, given that Tuesday evening was film night…
My teenage hormonal head would have been full of Nastassja Kinski for a few days…until Nicola came along. Sorry Nastassja.
You can sleep now, Kay.
Postscript To The Above Postscript – Remembering Tash, Tess & Nastassja
The mention of Tess generated quite a postbag and I realise that I was mistaken in attributing the 12 January scribble to that film. John White writes:
Don’t think that says Tess btw. The word begins with an s and ends with an h. Sure it wasn’t a person?
But I was buoyed by Jon Gorvett’s memory flash, inspired by my mention of Tess:
Anyway, also bizarre that you should mention Heather Jones, Tess, Nastassja Kinski and crushes all in the same post, Ian, as I recall both myself and Heather taking a sudden interest in Thomas Hardy around then, after Kinski had appeared on the cover of the version of Tess of the d’Urbervilles on sale in the Keele bookshop. Noticing this, we both later confessed to a massive crush on the said daughter of the great director (and massive child abuser, I see now), leading ultimately to enormous enthusiasm for Cat People, when that hit the screens later that year.
…so I responded as follows:
100% sure it was Tess. Memory flash corroborated by Jon Gorvett, who said that note brought a flood of memories. Gilted Jon (by Truda) and gilted Heather (by Miriam) both salivated over Ms Kinski at that time. My handwriting was truly appalling at the best of times and I often wrote up diaries when pissed or stoned.
But I did see Tess around that time – I’m guessing it must have been the film shown 15 January, which I don’t name – I simply describe it in my diary as “boring”. Frankly, I do recall finding the excruciatingly long Tess movie boring in every regard except for the visual charms of Ms Kinski.
He had recently uncovered some old Keele scraps, including the following press clippings:
Page 11 of the Evening Sentinel – can we possibly do any better than this?
Yes we can! Page 3 of the Morning Star
So there we have it. Page 11 of the Evening Sentinel but, more importantly, Page 3 of the Morning Star.
Jon is the young man with the “numerate graduates” placard in the first photo above (naturally Jon has gone on to become a foreign correspondent journalist). Jon is also seen wielding a mallet on the far left of the Morning Star picture.
I can be seen in the first photo struggling to retain hold of both the campus model and my sartorial dignity (wearing THAT donkey jacket). I’m gutted that a photo with me in it didn’t make it to Page 3 of the Morning Star, despite the donkey jacket.
Of course I am still part of the story in the Morning Star. But still, it’s not my image on Page 3. Close but no cigar.
The compensation for my Page 3 disappointment, though, is to be reconnected with Jon Gorvett. He and his treasure trove of clippings might prove very helpful for future Ogblog pieces about the Keele years. I also strongly suspect, based on our e-mail exchanges over the past couple of days, that I shall very much enjoy his company once our paths cross sufficiently for us to meet again in real life.
I resolved to dig out my diaries and see if I could find out some more about it. Soon enough, I found this page:
Actually the diary entry is not too revealing about this protest. Nor are the pages around it, which refer a lot to “meeting up with the usual friends…various people…some people…the crowd…” as if I would naturally remember all the details when I want them, 34 years later.
Indeed, the entries around the time of the protest have triggered many other memories about how I felt at that time and why I started to plot my escape from halls of residence into an on-campus flat in the early months of that year. Another story for another posting or two.
So I must rely almost entirely on memory for this story.
“The Cuts” (to university grants) was the biggest political issue on the higher education agenda at that time. There were marches and things, which I attended occasionally, but I’ve never been a great one for marches.
A few of us decided that we needed to do something a bit more eye-catching, yet unquestionably in the non-violent protest arena. We hatched a plan for a media/profile grabbing event; a dramatic protest outside the University Grants Committee (UGC) offices on one of their big committee days, when Rhodes Boyson would be attending; 6 January 1982.
In simple terms, we would make a crude replica of our Keele Campus and destroy it in front of the UGC building while the committee met, announcing “this is what you are doing to our University”. Naturally we would alert the media in advance to the fact that there would be “a happening” outside the building during the UGC meeting.
In order to implement our plot, several of us returned to Keele immediately after Christmas. I’m trying to remember who was involved. I’m pretty sure Jon Gorvett and Truda Smith were involved and they do get a name drop in my diary 2 January. I’m also pretty sure that Simon Jacobs was heavily involved, although something tells me that he did not return to Keele early, but joined us in London on the day. For some reason my mind is linking Diana Ball with this event, but I might be mistaken. Similarly I think Toby Bourgein had a leading hand in plotting the protest and possibly even drove the minibus down from Keele, but again I might be mistaken. Surely Pete Roberts was involved?
I love the fact that my diary entry says that I signed on before we set off for London to protest. In those days, the ridiculous student grant system meant that the grant only applied to the term-time weeks and that you had to sign on to the dole to get some money for the non-term weeks. What a palaver for the Social Security people to have to administer.
Of course, the social security system for students has been vastly simplified now; the poor students simply get “the square root of nada”.
I recall that we gathered in a pub on the Hampstead Road, near to Laurence Corner. I’m pretty sure it was the Sols Arms, now defunct. I suppose it was possible to park without restriction on that north side of the Euston Road in those days. We enjoyed a drink in that pub and then all went to the cloakrooms to don dark jumpers and balaclava helmets. We then rescued the crude facsimile of the campus (mostly papier mâché and balsa wood, I think) and our mallets from the union minibus, toddled across the Euston Road to the Bloomsbury offices of the UGC and conducted our protest.
I don’t recall how much media attention we got – press I’m sure but I don’t think the TV people bothered with us. I report being very tired on return, so I guess there was enough buzz to keep us talking for a while. Perhaps we retreated to the Sols Arms for a few more jars before returning to Keele a little tired and emotional. What do I mean, “perhaps”?
These days, of course, I don’t think we’d get very far in those dark tops, balaclava helmets and mallets before the armed fuzz would intervene. You’d be lucky to survive such a stunt. They were simpler times in many ways.
Apologies to anyone named (or not named) for the failings of my memory. If anyone else remembers more about this extraordinary day, I really would love to hear some more memories of it in the comments. I’m sure that, with some help, my own memory of the event could improve.
Chris Parkins, who had left Keele by then, came along and took a colour picture. he upped it to Facebook recently and I have asked his permission to show the picture here. If the picture is still here when you read this, Chris has either replied yes or not replied at all. Thanks for the picture, Chris, although I’m a little gutted that I am not in the picture. Serves me right, I suppose, for tiring and having someone else take over my model-holding duties:
Seeing in the new year at Keele was nothing like that.
Indeed, my diary tone is exceptionally flat and irritable-sounding for the period between Christmas and New Year and then the early days/weeks of 1982, apart from the 6 January protest in London…
Keen readers of this “forty years on” series might have noticed that that the protagonists in the grant protests overlapped quite heavily with the protagonists of the snowbound romance dramas in the run up to Christmas – not least Jon Gorvett, Truda Smith and Toby Bourgein:
I recall that Keele was still very cold and snowy on my return to Keele between Christmas and New Year, so the atmosphere was no doubt very frosty in more ways than one. But the cause prevailed and we worked in unison to implement the protest…
…it just probably didn’t need me to be around for 10 days before the big day. And when I don’t have enough to do, I tend to get a bit irritable.
Local hostelries seem to have done well out of me/us – mentions of the Golf Inn (I never much liked that place in truth), the Sneyd Arms (which I did like, but by gosh we went there a lot) and the Mainwaring Arms in Whitmore, which I really did like as a proper country pub for a change and which, I am delighted to see, forty years on, has recently been saved by a friendly takeover. The only problem with the Mainwaring was that it was too far sensibly to walk it, so someone in the crowd needed wheels and a willingness to drive.
Apologies to Maria, with whom I went to The Sneyd on the Saturday – I’m struggling to place you. I also couldn’t possibly identify “the crowd” that went to the Mainwaring on the Sunday – it might have been the protest plotters or it might have been the Barnes G Block crowd who had been my hosts in a flat over the Christmas holidays. Or both groups to make a crowd.
firstly, not to return to Keele twixt Christmas and New Year again – although I ended up needing to break that resolution Twixtmas 1984 for reasons I’ll explain when we get to that story;
secondly, that I really liked living in a student flat on-campus and really had grown out of halls life. I started the search for a flat, certainly for the next academic year, but actually managed to pull that off a switch reasonably quickly – but again that is a story for another day.
I cannot leave behind my first full calendar year at Keele, 1981, without talking a bit about money.
Students were always short of money back then, much as they are now.
For most of us, there was no “Bank of Mum and Dad” (BOMAD), but there was a student grant (and a strange “signing on the dole” rule for the non-term weeks, that meant an element of direct financial support from the state far greater than students enjoy today.
But no student loans from the state. If you couldn’t make the grant go far enough, you needed to be a rare BOMAD-ista, or find a source of income.
Bad Example: The Rise & Fall Of David Perrins
Actually It Was The Bank Manager Who Gave David “The Finger”
I remember David Perrins getting into financial difficulties quite early in our time at Keele (probably around the middle of the second term). He told me and Simon Jacobs that he was going to see the bank manager to explain that he needed a loan so that he could continue to live in the style to which he was accustomed.
I remember Simon and I doubting whether this approach would work.
David returned from his meeting looking a little crest-fallen. The bank manger had told him that he would have to become accustomed to a less salubrious style.
It was an unprecedented, interregnum arrangement. I asked for £30 per week, which had been my previous summer wage in 1978, but after a couple of weeks, my boss (Werner Lasch if I remember correctly) insisted on increasing my wage to £40 per week, which he considered fairer. Especially as the deal included board and lodgings in Hillel House’s student digs, that felt like a good rate back then, from which I was able to save.
But still, even with some savings and an absence of extravagance, I knew I would need to supplement my grant, hence my Easter…
In short, I “washed my face” financially by dint of holiday working and limiting my spending (once Halls fees had been paid) to essentials – drugs (mostly legal ones), rock ‘n’ roll (gigs and discos), and a few other small matters such as food, transport and books.
Two Sets Of Accounting Books
There is an adage in forensic accounting, which is to search for the “other” set of books of account whenever dodgy accounting is suspected yet absent from the visible books of account.
In my Ogblogging of old diaries, I can assure you that there is no intention to conceal, but I have recently, forty years on (Autumn 2021) discovered a second diary in which I kept financial records.
First, have a look at the main diary from which my forty years on ramblings about 1981 have been derived:
For those Keele students “of the right” who were convinced that I must be a Soviet Commie spy, the above image must be gold dust. But in truth my father, who was no Soviet and no Commie, had simply made a commercial decision in the 1960s that his shop in working-class Battersea near Clapham Junction (yes, really, back then) should specialise in cheap, sturdy, reliable, well-serviced equipment, which happened to come from the Soviet Union.
How or why I got a TOE diary that year, I cannot remember. Until then I had always received a Letts Schoolboy diary at Christmas (who didn’t?). Dad might have been sent two that year and handed down his second, as he always used one of those TOE diaries.
But it seems I did also receive a Christmas gift diary – a rather inadequate little Collins thing…
I have just a few additional observations about the money aspect of being a Keele undergraduate in 1981:
I had forgotten about the existence of the £1 note and the fact that you could configure your drawings from a campus ATM to a specific number of individual £1s in those days;
Even with my savings trove, I sailed close to the wind in my second term, with the little book stating “balance at 19-3-81 £10.52” just before I started my Easter holiday job…
…but the next entry reads “balance at 10-4-81 £189.32“. I was only keeping notes of the detailed drawings and occasional top-ups when the dosh was running low.
To that end, I didn’t keep records at all during the summer term of 1981 – I presumably knew that I’d be alright and started keeping records again during the summer to keep tabs on that top-up;
No sign of drawing to the individual £1 in the autumn of 1981 – possibly I had simply got into the habit of drawing money from the ATM to the nearest £5 or possibly the campus machines were reset at that time;
I drew out £65 in the first week of October 1981 – a princely sum back then – it was a long time ago. That will have been for textbooks no doubt – mostly law ones.
There is an internet adage known as Godwin’s Law, which states (I paraphrase) that any internet discussion will eventually descend into a Hitler comparison.
But surely my own safe space, Ogblog, can be a Hitler-free site? Well, up to a point.
I had a massive recovered memory over New Year 2018, because Janie, bless her, decided to treat us to a quiet caviar-fest:
I don’t suppose this is making any sense at all to the casual reader, so I had better get on with it and explain.
Edwina was a GP who went way beyond the call of duty.
For example, because I was…how should I put this?…more than a little fearful of my jabs as an infant, she came round to our house to dispense the vaccinations. On one famous occasion, when I was feeling particularly averse to being stabbed, Edwina indicated to mum that my rump might make a better target in the circumstances. I worked out the coded message and tried to bolt. The end result was a chase around the room and eventually a rather undignified bot shot delivered by Edwina under the dining room table – I was, later in life, oft reliably reminded by my mum.
Not even the trike was fast enough for me to escape Edwina’s needle
This extraordinary level of pastoral care and attentiveness went beyond zealously inoculating reluctant Harris miniatures – Edwina and her family became close friends with our immediate family, Uncle Manny’s branch of the family and especially Grandma Anne:
Grandma Anne With Dad (left) & Uncle Michael (right), c1930
In the early 1970s, at Christmas-time, my parents would go to Edwina’s house for a seasonal party, along with many other patients and members of the local community. Naturally, my parents plied Edwina and her family with gifts…many of Edwina’s other patients and guests most certainly did the same.
A strange tradition arose around that time, in which Edwina reciprocated our present giving by handing down a generous gift she would always receive from a family of wealthy Iranian patients; an enormous jar (I think a pound; probably twice the size of the jar shown in the photo below) of Iranian Beluga caviar:
By Mai Le [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsEdwina and family didn’t like the taste of caviar. Nor did my dad, as it happens. But mum loved it and I acquired a seasonal taste for it too.
Each year, mum and I would eat Beluga caviar on toast for breakfast for the first couple of weeks of the year.
Even back then caviar, especially Beluga caviar, was very expensive. Not equivalent to the “critically endangered, barely legal, hard to get hold of” price levels of today, but still very much a pricey, luxury item.
I remember mum warning me not to tell my friends at school that I was eating caviar on toast for breakfast, because they would surmise that I was a liar or that we were a rich family or (worst of all) both.
There was only one problem with this suburban community idyll; Mr Knipe. Don Knipe. Edwina’s husband.
Don liked his drink. Specifically Scotch whisky. More specifically, Teacher’s, as it happens. A bottle of Teacher’s always formed part of our family Christmas gift offering, but that sole bottle formed a tiny proportion of Don’s annual intake.
By ramkrsna (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ramkrsna/384365364/) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsEven when I was quite little, I remember being warned that Don Knipe was eccentric, that I shouldn’t pay much heed to some of the silly things he says, etc. But I guess as the years went on, Don’s eccentricities gained focus and unpleasantness. Specifically, Don’s views became increasingly and extremely right wing. He joined the National Front, at that time the most prominent far-right, overtly fascist party in the UK.
I recall one year, when I was already in my teens, my parents returned early from the Knipe/Green party. I learned that Don Knipe had acquired a large bust of Hitler, which was being proudly displayed as a centrepiece in the living room. My mother had protested to Don about the bust, asking him to remove it, but to no avail. Mum had taken matters into her own hands by rotating the bust by 180 degrees. When Don insisted on rotating Hitler’s bust back to its forward-facing position, mum and dad left the party in protest.
Mum explained to Don and Edwina that they remained welcome at our house but that she would not be visiting their house while Hitler remained on show.
One evening, just a few weeks or months later, I think, my parents had Edwina and Don (and some other people) around at our house. The topic of Hitler and Nazi atrocities came up. Don started sounding off about the Holocaust not really having been as bad as people made out.
Edwina And Don At My Bar Mitzvah, Natch.
My father stood up and quietly told me to go upstairs to my bedroom. I scampered up the stairs but hovered on the landing out of view to get a sense of what was happening.
My father was a very gentle man. I only remember him being angry twice in my whole life; this was one of those occasions.
“You f***ing c***!”, I heard my dad exclaim.
I learned afterwards that my father, not a big man but a colossus beside the scrawny form of Don Knipe, had pinned Don to the wall and gone very red in the face while delivering his brace of expletives.
I heard the sound of a bit of a kerfuffle, a few more angry exchanges, ending with “get out of my house”. Then I heard Don and Edwina leave the house. Edwina was weeping, apologising and trying to explain that Don doesn’t know or mean what he says.
Dad – a supremely gentle fellow…usually
The story gets weirder as the years roll forward. Edwina remained our family doctor, although social visits were now at an end. Uncle Manny’s branch of the family and Grandma Anne continued to spend a great deal of time socially with the Knipe/Green family.
Most importantly, for this story, the seasonal exchange of gifts remained sacrosanct.
For reasons I find hard to fathom, I became the conduit for the seasonal gift exchange. Why my parents (specifically, my mother, who organised the errand) felt that I would be less defiled then they were by visiting a household that displays a bust of Hitler, I have no idea.
Maybe it shows that mum had great confidence in my judgement such that, even as a teenager, I wouldn’t be corrupted by Knipe’s vile views…or his habits. But perhaps the lure of a huge jar of Beluga caviar was so great that all other concerns and considerations went out of mum’s mental window.
Anyway, for several years I would go to Edwina and Don’s house to deliver our presents and collect the fishy swag. I think there was an unwritten rule that I didn’t go into the large living room where Hitler’s bust lived; the Knipe/Greens had quite a large house – I would usually be received in a smaller front drawing room.
As I got a bit older, Don would ask me to join him for a whisky and a cigarette on these occasions; offers which I accepted.
My diaries are utterly silent on this annual ritual, other than, each year, the mention of the word “shopping” on one day in the run up to Christmas. I vaguely recall that I would always bundle the errand with my single little shopping spree to get small gifts for my immediate family. The shopping trip provided a suitable time window; a smoke screen (as it were) and a bit of a sobering up period from the underage drinking involved.
Don never raised political topics when I made those seasonal visits. He’d make the occasional oblique reference to it being a shame that he didn’t see my parents socially any more. I can’t recall what we talked about. I think he just asked me how I was getting on and we chatted vaguely about my family and the weather.
But I do recall what we talked about on my last full-tilt visit in this ritual. 1981.
Grandma Anne never really recovered from the shock of Uncle Manny’s demise and died in the autumn that same year.
By late December 1981 I had completed four terms of University at Keele and was far more politically aware/sensitive than I had been in earlier years.
Don greeted me at the front door, as usual, but this time said, “come through to the living room and have a whisky with me.”
“Not if Hitler is still in there,” I said.
“Oh don’t start all that”, blustered Don, who I think must have made a start on the whisky before I got to the house that morning. “I really want to chat to you about your late uncle and your grandma.” Don started to cry.
I relented and entered the forbidden chamber.
There was the bust of Hitler, resplendently positioned with books about the Third Reich and such subjects on display around it.
I accepted a generous slug of Teacher’s and a Rothmans; then I reluctantly sat down.
Don was crying. “I miss your Uncle Manny and your Grandma Anne so much”, he said, “you have no idea how fond of them I was. I love your family.”
I remember saying words to this effect, “Don, I understand that you sincerely love my family, but I cannot reconcile that love with Hitler, Nazi memorabilia, your membership of the National Front and you keeping company with those who hold such views. Those are antisemitic, out-and-out racist organisations and people. It makes no sense to me.”
“It’s not about Jewish people like your family. I love your family.”
“So what sort of people is it about?” I asked.
“Other people. You don’t understand”, said Don.
To that extent Don was right. I didn’t understand. I still don’t understand. It isn’t as if members of our family were so secular and Westernised that you wouldn’t recognise the family as ethnic. Uncle Manny’s branch of the family were (I believe still are) traditional, orthodox practitioners of Judaism.
“Godwin’s Law, Godwin’s Schmo, Don Was Always A Mensch Towards Me”
So I don’t understand who or what these “other people” might be, nor why someone like Don Knipe would be attracted to racist ideologies, despite knowing (and even loving) plenty of good decent local people from diverse ethnic groups.
I think I was polite in making my excuses and leaving fairly quickly. The visit certainly didn’t end in any acrimony or hostility. But I did resolve not to run that errand again, at least as far as sitting in the despicable living room of the Knipe/Green house again.
Strange case.
All that memory came flooding back simply as a result of sampling caviar with Janie…
