I remember Pady telling us about this “Thorns Cock-Up” last time she visited, a few years ago, so it made me smile coming across this article about it when going through this February 1985 issue of Concourse.
I had forgotten (or perhaps Pady even had forgotten) that the unfortunate band that got dicked around was none other than The Pogues.
The Concourse team seemingly wanted its own gossip column to replace the now marginal/retiring Hackgrass, so came up with this Obiter Dicta column. Not sure who was behind it, but I’d guess that Krista Cowman (new editor) had a hand in it herself, possibly Quentin Rubens (the outgoing editor).
Something tells me that Ali Dabbs was involved. Partly the style, partly the strangely positive reference to his physique.
A two page spread on the Union General Meeting (UGM) – presumably the 28th January one), about which I am silent in my own diary other than confirming that I prepared for it. I get a bit of stick in the attached piece for being over-prepared, perhaps.
My serious efforts get reported in one column on page 10, whereas adverts for various forms of hair removal get two columns. I suppose journalism was always thus.
Most of the column that covers my activities is about recreational drugs, mostly cannabis. My views on legalising cannabis haven’t really changed since the 1980’s, although I haven’t indulged personally for decades.
A letter criticising my stance (page 15) is also attached here, partly for balance and partly because I love the headline the new editor, Krista Cowman, gave the letter.
The reference to the Industrial Tribunal judgement in the same column should not pass unmentioned, although I shall have plenty to write about that formative but traumatising experience in the fullness of time. I have a copy of the entire judgement, which I’ll up in similar fullness, but attach here just that closing note. It was possibly Anthony Gordon’s closing note in every sense, as his obituary was in the papers the same day that the judgement came through in late January 1985. It might have been the very last thing he wrote.
It soon dawned on me that it was both impractical and inappropriate to be H. Ackgrass while a sabbatical on the Union Committee. But I kept it going through that first term and I think even wrote one more column early in the second term, which was brutally butchered by the editor. I probably have both the original and butchered versions to post in the fullness of time.
Lots of juicy bits from the February 1985 issue of Concourse. Here’s the first of them.
Annalisa de Mercur, bless her, was very concerned that the Student Union’s bar licence might get scuppered, which would indeed have been a near-existential problem for the union. The storm was very much of the teacup variety, I’d have thought, for the reasons described in the article.
How Pady Jalali and Hayward Burt ended up in an intra-article debate with the Vice-chancellor, Dr Harrison, is anybody’s guess. Methinks Annalisa might have been trying to big up her piece, as it were.
The health centre fee had been an ongoing issue, if the 1984 manifestos are anything to go by. John “Memory Man” White will hopefully chime in on the comments to describe in intricate detail the nature of the new-look campaign he planned. I don’t remember a thing about it, although welfare was my bailiwick.
A strange artefact, this one. My initial, cursory look led me to guess that this must be from the 1985 summer ball. But I don’t think Pady booked Bad Manners and The Sweet. Also, I recall performing Ringroad in the Main Ballroom for the 1985 Summer Ball.
Pady might remember both of those balls and more besides, if that memory of hers lasts 30+ years. We’re seeing her in a couple of weeks’ time (this post authored March 2016), so I’ll be sure to ask her.
In any case, the notes on the back of the Summer Ball Events Menu have a January 1985 look about them, not least my (rather ordinary) disco guest spot playlist.
So I’m guessing the Summer Ball in question was 1984 and that I was recycling a piece of paper for notes a good six months or more later.
Here’s both sides of the artefact. You, dear reader, might wish to chime in with comments if you were there and it triggers a memory or three.
The Theatre Royal Hanley wanted to encourage Keele University students to attend their theatre. They offered me a pair of free tickets to see any show I fancied over the summer. I was a new Student Union sabbatical and it was a new (or I should say revived) venue. I suppose they thought people like me might have some influence over the “yoof” audience.
I spotted what looked like quite an interesting play – with Tom Conti in it if I’m not mistaken, which I thought Bobbie and I would both enjoy when she was up for a long weekend at the end of August/start of September.
Problem was, I chose the Sunday evening (probably because we were otherwise engaged on both the Friday and Saturday evenings) and failed to check whether the Sunday evening show was the same show as the Monday to Saturday show.
It wasn’t.
You cannot blame the box office – they had been instructed to issue me with comps for whatever evening I chose…and I chose the Sunday evening.
The Life And Music Of Rodgers And Hammerstein. I am 95% sure that the show we saw was Hella Toros and her ensemble. A grande dame by 1984, widow of John McLaren, who had been in the original cast productions of Rodgers and Hammerstein shows in the 1950s…
…here’s how she looked and sounded in 1940, before sadness and illness struck her life for some while:
It was the most stilted show imaginable. Imagine a heavy European accent dramatically stating
Rodgers and Hammerstein, the most wonderful musicals in the whole world…
…I bet she said that about all the composers of such works in all of her shows…
…Ivor Novello – the most wonderful writer of musical shows in history…Sigmund Romberg, the most exquisite operettas ever written…
Between numbers, Hella gave us bits of her life story tentatively connected to Rodgers and Hammerstein. Her late husband’s involvement in the original stage productions of the musicals was bigged up to the extent that one might have imagined that John and Hella were round Oscar and Richard’s places all the time back in the 1950s.
In short, Bobbie and I had turned up at the theatre expecting to see “our sort of play” and found ourselves instead watching a static recital of songs from musicals, delivered in an exceptionally old-fashioned style.
The audience was almost as stilted as the performances. Not that everyone in the audience was about three times our age. Dear me no. Some of them were at least four times our age.
Bobbie and I didn’t know where to look. Actually we did…not at each other, lest the giggles get the better of us.
To be fair, we mostly won the struggle to keep straight faces for most of the first half of the recital…
…until the rather elderly and minimally mobile grande dame of the show, Hella Toros, attempted to sing Happy Talk with appropriate movements…lifted from the movie…
…our struggle with retaining our composure was lost. For good.
We felt we owed it to the audience, who were, after all, our elders and betters, to withdraw during the interval, ahead of the second half of the show, rather than inflict the inevitable giggly disturbances on the audience throughout the second half.
The exact nature of the Hanley-based Indian meal we devoured in place of the second half of the show is lost in the mists of time. It was probably quite good food and reasonably priced – there were some decent Indian restaurants in the Potteries by then.
Is it possible that, but for my choice of night/wrong show error, I might have been able to influence the student body to frequent the Theatre Royal Hanley and helped turn around the disaster-prone institution? Unlikely.
On reflection, Bobbie & I probably shouldn’t go to any theatre with “Theatre Royal” in its name…I recall a peculiarly incident-rich visit to the Theatre Royal Haymarket with Bobbie to see Long Day’s Journey Into the Night. There’ll be a link here once I have written that one up.
I was reminded of my early Ringroad performances the other day (May 2017) while chatting with Paul Spence at an informal, curry-oriented gathering of the old school clan.
When Paul mentioned that his extensive energy sector interests include nuclear power, I found myself reciting the Ringroad Windscale poem from memory – the first and last verse simply flowed as if I had read or performed it just the other day.
Paul asked if I had a copy of the poem. I said I probably did – see below.
I didn’t write the poem. I’m not sure who did. Possibly Frank Dillon; at least Frank would probably know who wrote it. I’d like to credit it if anyone reading this can let me know the name of the author.
That chat with Paul brought back a flood of memories about my sabbatical year summer and my first Ringroad performances.
Over the summer, Keele would get waves of Open University students passing through for short face-to-face courses. This was rich pickings for a depleted Ringroad troupe, as you could redeploy the same material, show after show, secure in the knowledge that it was new to the frequently-changing audience.
Further, the Open University audience had money. Ringroad was traditionally performed on an “entry free, pay what you like on exit” basis. Our own impoverished students would tend to chip in with a couple of bob at best (nothing at worst), whereas the OU students would happily toss 50p pieces or pound coins/notes into the hat. One OU performance could easily generate a week’s-worth of beer money for two or three performers.
Frank Dillon, who was a seasoned Ringroad writer and performer, was around that summer and we spent a lot of time with him. I guess I was the only sabbatical mad enough (or perhaps I should say keen enough on a bit of extra-curricular performance and beer money) to agree to give Ringroad a try with him.
I recall Adrian Gorst joining me and Frank in performing Ringroad on occasions that summer, but I’m pretty sure that my first attempt was just me and Frank, an idea possibly hatched by Frank because Adrian was away. Frank probably sealed the deal with me a couple of nights before:
Thursday 16 August…went to Burtonwood piss up with Frank in eve
John White was also around that summer but didn’t want to perform Ringroad. It was just a few days earlier (14 August) that John and I started doing Union discos together – I’ll cover the discos and much more about that summer in other Ogblog pieces.
Still, it seems that my first attempt at Ringroad went well enough:
Saturday 18 August…did Ringroad in the evening – good larf
Frank and I did it again the next day:
Sunday 19 August…spent afternoon going over Ringroad stuff with Frank. Performed Ringroad in evening.
But perhaps I was over-stretching myself taking on all this novel activity at the same time:
Tuesday 21 August…did Ringroad and disco – both went down rather badly.
I recall that the OU students had somewhat of a reputation in the eyes of the regular Keele people. Let me merely say that many an OU student’s ring finger would show evidence of very recent ring removal, especially in the evenings.
From: http://www.flickr.com/photos/askjoanne/390246275/ Photographer: AskJoanne This file is gratefully licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
Indeed, had the term “cougar hunter” been invented back then, performing Ringroad to the OU students might have been described as, “like wielding a two bore rifle in a jungle densely inhabited by felines of a particular species”.
Not that I am suggesting that Frank Dillon and I were “two bores”. Far from it. Moreover, neither of us were interested in that particular fringe benefit.
In fact, I recall, after one of those early performances, Frank was relentlessly chased after the show by a very enthusiastic middle-aged OU woman who said she loved the show and clearly took a particular shine to Frank. I think it might have been the night that John and I also did the disco, so John and I only had limited opportunities to rescue Frank and help steer proceedings to a reasonably dignified conclusion.
If Frank had shown a more open-minded attitude to such matters, of course, he might have become President of France by now. Or at least Merseyside Metro Mayor.
Still, bunny boiling hadn’t yet been invented then either, so, as far as I know, no animals, (feline, lapine or indeed of any species) were harmed in the making of Ringroad that summer. Pady Jalali, our social secretary, a well-known protector of live fauna and carrion alike, will be much relieved to learn this.
Why did I recall all of this?
Oh yes, Windscale, Sellafield and the poem that I doubtless learned that first weekend of doing Ringroad and which has stuck in my brain ever since. The corn flake box which protected my collection of Ringroad scripts has long since disintegrated, but I have preserved the scripts as best I can in a file.
To be credited to the author as soon as that person’s identity is established. If you click through to the image, you can then download the file from Ogblog.
The author, if/when that person’s identity does come to light, might wish to explain their idiosyncratic spelling of Sellafield, but we’ll let that pass for now.
Toby Bourgein.Picture “liberated” from the 1980/81 Keele Prospectus
I am sadly motivated to write up this story having learnt, a few days ago (September 2020), that Toby Bourgein has died. Toby captained the Players cricket team in all three of the festival matches I played. I had been intending to write up this glorious 1984 match for a couple of years, since I wrote up the tale of my surprise appearance in the 1982 match..
For those not motivated to click the above link, I was a late selection for the 1982 match (for reasons that, alone, make the 1982 link worth clicking). I did not bowl and I did not bat in that historic victory, but I did, more by luck than judgement, take a stunning catch.
It won’t have looked this good, I wouldn’t have been so suitably attired, but it was a diving (in my case left-handed) catch. This picture from school five years earlier. I was better at taking pictures than at playing cricket. Still am.
Toby Borgein had a long memory and a good heart. I ran into him a week or two before the 1984 match and he told me he wanted me to play again and have a proper go this time.
We have a solid opening batsman, Ian Herd, this year. I’d like you to open the batting with him.
Ian was on Somerset CCC’s youth books – i.e. he was way above “our” scratchy festival knock-about cricket pay grade. But I didn’t know that until later.
Several of my friends came along to watch this time around, not least because I knew more than 30 minutes before the start of the match that I’d be playing. Anyway, there were worse places on earth to spend a glorious summer afternoon than the Keele Festival Week Beer Tent.
With thanks to Frank Dillon, this picture of an earlier “Players” team, probably 1981
We (The Players) fielded first. I neither distinguished myself nor embarrassed myself in the field – unlike 1982, during which my fielding had met triumph and disaster; naturally treating both of those imposters just the same.
I was mostly fielding in the long grass where I was able to nurse my pint of ale and seemingly play cricket at the same time. Who says men cannot multi-task?
The Gentlemen scored a little over 100 in their innings. A respectable but hopefully not insurmountable score for that fixture, based on previous experiences.
Then to bat. Sadly I have no pictures from the 1982, 1983 nor the 1984 event – if any are subsequently uncovered/scanned I shall add them. Here is the earliest photo of me going in to bat I can find; from 1998:
If you imagine Barnes Hall to the right of me and the tennis courts, beer tents etc. to the left, this could almost be the Keele playing fields. Almost, I said.
I still hadn’t picked up a cricket bat since school, unless you count the 1983 net and subsequent nought not out without facing a ball. But I was quite fit that summer, having played tennis regularly before (more or less during) and after my finals.
Anyway, Ian Herd could bat. We rattled along. I helped to see the shine off the new ball. I suspect that Ian made a greater contribution towards seeing off the shine by knocking the ball to all parts, but we’ll let that aspect pass.
The crowd was probably more heavily weighted towards Players’ supporters than Gentlemen’s supporters, but in any case by the second half of the match vocal chords were more lubricated.
In what seemed like next to no time, there was a cry from the crowd…
50-up
…allowing me and Ian a joyous moment of handshaking celebration in the middle.
“I think I’d better ‘hit out or get out’ to give some of the others a go this year”, I said.
“Good idea”, said t’other Ian
It didn’t take long (one ball) for me to loft one up in the air and get caught.
More tumultuous applause as I came off, with the score on 53/1.
“Fifty partnership – great stuff”, said Toby, ever the encouraging captain
I remember Bobbie Scully and Ashley Fletcher both being there. and both expressing joy in my performance and surprise that I could play. I’m pretty sure that several of my fellow Union Committee members, not least John White, Kate Fricker and Pady Jalali were around too.
Remember, folks, that everyone was quite well oiled by then and no-one was REALLY watching…
…apart from the scorer.
The scorer was Doreen Steele’s son. Doreen was the Students’ Union accountant and the NUPE shop steward for the union staff. Her son clearly aspired to similar careers.
“How many of the 53 did I score?”, I asked.
“Three”, said the lad.
“Are you sure it wasn’t four?” I asked, having counted to four in my head.
“You’re probably including a leg bye…”
“…I hit that ball onto my pad, actually…”
“…the umpire signalled leg bye. It was a leg bye…
…you scored three.”
You can’t argue with that schoolboy logic.
Nor can you argue with the fact that I had been part of a fifty partnership in a cricket match.
Nor can you argue with the fact that Toby Bourgein had pulled off a captaincy masterstroke…or at least a warm, generous gesture that meant a lot to me.
But did The Players win the match, I hear you cry? You bet your sweet pint of Marston’s Pedigree we won.
Toby Bourgein will be better remembered at Keele for many other things, not least his student activism. The one other picture I have of him, below, is from a protest we attended together in 1982. But I remember Toby especially fondly for these silly cricket matches, for which he was, O Captain! My Captain!
Toby bottom left, looking suitably senior and serious about fighting the cuts. Me towards the right, in trope-inducing donkey jacket, holding diagonal corner of the campus model
