Category: Work Life

Twenty Days Of Summer Holiday Work During Which Grandma Anne Died, 10 to 29 August 1981

After the frenzied weekend during which I showed my Keele friends, Sim & Tim, my weird world…

When Worlds Collided And A Crazy Social Whirl Resulted: My Keele Friends Sim & Tim’s Weekend To The Alleyn’s & BBYO Version of London, 7 to 9 August 1981

…a rather sedate week of work with very few socials thrown in: lunch with Caroline (Freeman, now Curtis) on the Tuesday and dinner at Anil (Biltoo)’s place on Saturday evening.

“Lazyish day” on the Saturday would have mostly comprised watching the third day of the Old Trafford Ashes test on the TV, much as “relaxing evenings” on the two preceding days would have included hunkering down in front of the old B&W TV in the tiny spare room to watch the highlights.

My faint memory only recalls that Saturday as “Ian Botham going berserk, scoring runs for fun, all-but winning the match for England, as usual”, because, to the youthful me, that was an unremarkable norm in the summer of 1981. The Ridiculous Ashes podcast provides more detail on that match and that day, in particular the contrasting sloth of Chris Tavaré that day. Scorecard ? – the match panned out like this.

Then, on the Sunday, what turned out to be our last visit to Feld’s Restaurant for lunch with Grandma Anne. If you want to know more about Feld’s, I “reviewed” Feld’s “Restaurant” in an earlier Ogblog piece:

A Few Days In London Between Keele & Manchester, 14 to 19 December 1980

I probably discussed the cricket with Mr Feld that day, as was our wont by that time. Feld might even have been listening to the match on his transistor radio behind the counter, as Day Four of this match was played on the Sunday – an experimental thing for some of the tests that year, I believe.

There is no doubt in my mind that Grandma Anne will have implored Mr Feld to shake the borscht jar, eaten her last plate of borscht that day and that she would have berated Mr Feld with the phrase, “your borscht tastes like vorter today” had the borscht not been up to snuff…which, frankly, it almost certainly wasn’t.

As the diary scribbles attest, Grandma Anne was taken into hospital in the early hours of the following Tuesday morning. Apart from a dinner at Anil’s on the Thursday and dinner with Michael and Pam on Saturday (who were no doubt primarily in the area visiting Grandma), my life was all work and visiting Grandma for a few days.

Forty years on, I have written a reflective piece about Grandma Anne’s last visit to hospital for ThreadMash:

All Mixed Up: Age Is Just A Number, ThreadZoomMash Piece, Performed 30 September 2021

Here’s what I wrote in the diary for the following few days:

Sunday 23 August 1981 – Went to hospital – bad news – returned – back to hospital – G. Anne died.

Monday 24 August 1981 – Went round sorting out admin side. Met Uncle Michael – returned home.

Tuesday 25 August 1981 – Lavoyah (funeral) & shivah (mourning) today – tiring and gruelling.

Wednesday 26 August 1981 – Back to work – too much of – did little in evening.

Thursday 27 August 1981 – Met Jilly [Black] for lunch. Spoke to several people in evening.

Friday 28 August 1981 – Nothing special for b’day – work as usual – slap up meal in evening.

Saturday 29 August 1981 – Lazy day – went to Grandma Jenny for lunch – shopped a little – lazy evening.

At that time Grandma Jenny still lived in Sandhurst Court on the Acre Lane in Brixton. I’m pretty sure that shopping spree was “down Brixton Market” to gather some bottles and jars of condiments to take back to Keele with me in a few weeks’ time, in order to try and perk up the otherwise rather bland weekend diet.

Chant No 137, A Memory Flash Of New Romance, When Keele Concourse And Sloane Square Collided, From The Summer Of 1981

With thanks to Mick Hough for sparking my memory with this picture

I grew up riding the 137 bus for various reasons. We lived in Woodfield Avenue, Streatham, near the Sternhold Avenue 137 stop.

As a young child, it was mostly to go to primary school (Rosemead, then on Atkins Road) or to visit my Grandma Jenny who lived in Acre Lane, a short walk from a 137 stop.

A bit later, when I was at Keele University but doing holiday jobs in Cavendish Square, the 137 became my route of choice. It was one bus all the way from Sternhold Avenue. I could sit up top, read lots of stuff while being transported and smoke a few cigarettes while so doing…at least in those early years before I saw sense and stopped smoking.

Carcharoth, CC BY-SA 4.0

In the summer of 1981, I had an additional secret pleasure in the 137 bus journey home, on those rare occasions (only once or twice a week) when I went straight home from work at a civilised hour.

When the bus approached Sloane Square I would stop reading and take a good long look at the New Romantics who had made it their habit to congregate early evening in Sloane Square, in what I might describe as a pose-fest.

Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-1984-1018-012 / CC BY-SA 3.0 DE

For those unfamiliar with the genre…and for those who would like their memories refreshed…by the summer of 1981 the following sound and video rather encapsulates (at least to me) the sound track of that summer and the (to the likes of me) unattainable style/swagger of the New Romantic fashion:

When Keele Met Sloane

On one occasion, a sunny early evening, I suspended my reading and eagerly awaited sight of Sloane Square and what I expected to be a large collection of New Romantics to observe.

Yes, there they were…

…but wait…

…I know those two! The unmistakable visages of fellow Keele students, Owen Gavin and Paul Rennie.

Paul Rennie and Owen Gavin were definitely among the trendy students at Keele; Owen for example had recently taken over as editor of Concourse, the student newspaper for which I was writing juvenilia along the following lines:

The “Film Star Makes President” Edition Of Concourse, 9 March 1981

…but I had no idea that Paul and Owen had Sloane Square credentials in trendiness.

The 137 bus goes very slowly around Sloane Square in the evening, so I did consider waving and hollering out of the window at the pair of them.

But New Romantics wouldn’t want to be associated with a boy on a bus, would they? It would be different if I was driving around the square in a flashy sports car dressed like Tony Hadley from Spandau Ballet.

So I just watched in awe, as the statuesque figures of Owen and Paul mingled effortlessly and seamlessly with the New Romantic throng.

To be fair on those two, on reflection, they might well have been curious tourists observing the genre, rather than formal participants.

Actually, I don’t suppose such fashion has formal participants. Almost everyone there was probably just wandering along to have a look, see what there was to be seen and enjoy the moment of being seen.

I had and still have no idea.

Owen Gavin, Louise Marshall (Gray), Paul Rennie & Chris Parkins, early 1980s, with thanks to Chris Parkins for the picture.

So what became of those two? Did they remain cultural icons?

Well, it turns out, yes.

Forty plus years later, I find Dr Paul Rennie listed and pictured on the books of Central St Martins, an expert in Graphic Communication Design.

(Just in case anything becomes of that link before you see it, here’s a scrape of it.)

Owen Gavin is a little harder to find, but with a little help from my friends and Google, I learnt the following:

Respect to both of you fellas.

I was never even faintly fashionable. Here’s a picture of me around that time, curating my cassette collection in my bedroom in Streatham, a few hundred yards away from the 137 bus stop:

Fashion? I don’t need that pressure on…

Postscript: Paul Rennie Has Subsequently Been In Touch

I notified Paul of his 15 minutes of fame on Ogblog and have engaged in some very enjoyable correspondence with him since. On the specific matter of Sloane Square happenings, he writes:

I had a job, during the summer of 1981 at Sotheby’s Belgravia at the top of Sloane St. I think I was probably just hanging out, I don’t recall anything as organised as meeting up. It was all very hap-hazard as I remember.

Hence the truth of the matter at the time was far less interesting than my juvenile wonderings…but in a way that fact simply makes this piece differently interesting!

Testing Times: Working, Seeing Alleyn’s & BBYO Friends, Then The Headingley Cricket, 5 to 21 July 1981

A Few Weeks Earlier: John Sutton / Trent Bridge Test Match, 1981: Alderman to Gower

Once my placement in the Far East (Braintree) had been curtailed, I was able to resume my more habitual holiday job routine, which seemed to have more to do with seeing friends for lunch and evening get togethers than head down graft in the audit and accounts factory that was Newman Harris.

A Social Whirl, 5 to 19 July 1981

A few mentions of busy days and hard work, but mostly a catalogue of non-work events:

  • Sunday 5 July – “visited grandma [Anne]”
  • Tuesday 7 July – “popped in to see Andrew [Andy Levinson] in evening”
  • Wednesday 8 July – “met Helen [Lewis] for lunch. Met Anil [Biltoo] and Jim [Bateman] for drinks in evening”
  • Thursday 9 July – “met Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] for lunch”
  • Friday 10 July – “Wendies [sic – Wendy Robbins’s] ->Grannies [Wendy’s granny] for dinner -> Wendies [sic] for night”
  • Sunday 12 July – “met Jilly [Black] in town early evening
  • Tuesday 14 July – “-> Hillel [House] -> Streatham [BBYO}’s installations -> Lauren [Sterling] & Jenny [Council] coffee”
  • Wednesday 15 July – “met Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] for lunch”
  • Saturday 18 July – “Mays [George and Winifred] came in evening”
  • Sunday 19 July – “visited Grandma [Anne] in afternoon”

A few local/Alleyn’s School friends at the start of this period. Andy Levinson lived in our street, so “popped in” really did mean walking two minutes up the road. Anil Biltoo & Jim Bateman for drinks was probably at UCL (where Jim did his summer jobs) and/or The Sun, as described in earlier articles.

Helen Lewis, a couple of years earlier

I’m pretty sure that lunch with Helen Lewis was the occasion that she presented me with Schubert The Sheep. He was named Schubert because there was some classical music playing in the restaurant where we took lunch. Neither Helen nor I could identify the piece but we both agreed that it was not Schubert.

Schubert still lives with me forty years on…in the depicted cupboard

Schubert’s 15 minutes of fame came a few years later, when he appeared on University Challenge as the Keele Mascot. A story for another time.

Visiting Wendy would have been in part as a fun catch up but also probably to help her plan the impending Streatham BBYO installations. I think she must have been outgoing President at that time. With apologies, I cannot recall who succeeded Wendy, but someone might well be able to help jog my memory.

Wendy, a couple of years earlier, at Nightingale

Lauren Sterling and Jenny Council will have attended that Streatham event in their capacities as Regional Grandees. I would have been there in my capacity as a local elder and former National Grandee, now so far past it, I can’t have offered much insight to the local club.

The Grandma Anne visits on Sundays at that time would have been to Nightingale. She had taken the death of Uncle Manny very badly and I think, from memory, that her cleaner/informal carer went away for a few weeks, so she arranged a temporary stay at Nightingale for respite and also as a bit of a tester for possible future need. The latter didn’t materialise as Grandma Anne died later that summer, but I do have an amusing tale from the end of her respite stay at Nightingale – watch this space for the next “forty years on” piece.

And So To Headingley, 20 & 21 July 1981

Hundreds of thousands of people claim to have been at Headingley for the dramatic turnaround and conclusion to the 1981 Ashes test match there, even though only a few thousand people actually witnessed the events.

I am not one of the people making false claims about my attendance…nor am I one of the people who actually attended Headingley on that Monday or Tuesday.

In fact my diary reads as follows:

Monday 20 July 1981 – Work OK did nothing in evening

Tuesday 21 July 1981 – OK Day. Lazy evening.

But I do remember following the cricket at work very clearly, especially on the Tuesday.

I was working in the large, high-ceilinged, “open plan”, Dickensian-look office at the front of 19 Cavendish Square. In that office, there was always a senior whose role it was to supervise/keep order amongst the junior clerks therein.

By the summer of 1981, Newman Harris had replaced Roy Patel (who I think had been promoted to a more interesting role) and hired instead a bespectacled, middle-aged chap, I think he was named John, who spoke with deep-voiced, nasal tones. I don’t think he much liked the idea of summer students – I remember him taking great pains to let us know that he was, “a graduate from the University of Life” and (although not a qualified accountant) he was “qualified by experience”. His management and mentoring style reminded me of Blakey from On The Buses:

Several people in our office were cricket lovers, but in truth there was little interest in the match for most of the Monday. I think word reached us that Botham was scoring runs for fun towards the end of the Monday, but it wasn’t until the Tuesday, after people had seen the highlights on Monday evening, that the interest levels really kicked off.

There were 10 or 12 of us in the office that day – perhaps half of us were interested in the cricket. John was one of the cricket lovers but was also there to maintain order.

Terry, the errand boy, did not reside in our office and I think he kept a small transistor radio in the cubby-hole where he did reside. Terry kept us appraised of the score a couple of times during the morning.

In those days, there was a telephone number you could call to hear the cricket score. It was a sort-of premium rate line. “Dial The Score On 154”.

As the match started to build to a climax, one or two clerks, unable to control their impulses, dialled the score. As a summer lackey, I was too timid to do that but grateful to the others for the news.

John berated the diallers. He explained that there was expense involved in making those calls and that we should all be concentrating on our work. John said that he would dial the score at suitably-spaced intervals and keep us all informed. I think he had 15 or 20 minute intervals in mind.

But as the match came to its climax, John was “Dialling The Score” compulsively, giving us close to ball-by-ball commentary in terms of the score as it progressed. We cheered when John announced that England had won the match. Then he told us all to put our heads down and concentrate on our work for the rest of the day. Goodness knows what John’s dialling did to the Newman Harris phone bill.

My lazy evening will have included watching the test match highlights…probably in black and white on the spare room TV, as neither of my parents cared a fig for cricket.

In case you are wondering, the denouement of that match looked like this.

This is what it looks like as a scorecard and Cricinfo match resources (lots of super pictures).

Below is the Guardian’s take on the matter the next day – a very rare “front page news” day for cricket.

Brearley Bounces CriticsBrearley Bounces Critics 22 Jul 1981, Wed The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

The First Week Of A Working Summer: The Joys Of Braintree & Wimbledon, 29 June to 4 July 1981

Rob Croes / Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

In truth, any summer job would have seemed like an anti-climax after the last few weeks of my first summer term at Keele.

A Very Special Week, The Last Week Of My First Year At Keele, But There Was A Catch… 21 to 28 June 1981

Being sent out on audit to a furniture factory in Braintree just brought home the lifestyle contrast.

Travel broadens the mind…even a daily commute from Streatham to Braintree

Strangely, I remember rather liking the commute, as I had acquired a taste for reading on the move during my National BBYO period (1979-1980) and was reading voraciously by the summer of 1981.

Only one night out during the week that first week – the Tuesday – an evening with Jimmy (Bateman), a friend from Alleyn’s School. I have described a similar evening with Jimmy in an earlier piece, from my Easter holiday job:

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

I say in the diary that I was summoned back to the office from Braintree before the end of the working day on the Friday. My mum had complained to “the authorities” (via my Uncle Michael no doubt) that my lengthy commute was too onerous a duty for her little one. Her motivation for this unwanted intervention was the delay my long commute caused to the family meal. Dad’s drive from the shop to the house only took 10-15 minutes.

I was really irritated when I discovered that mum had intervened, but the die was cast and I was back in the office for the rest of the summer, with only London-based clients in my auditing-orbit. That did enable me to socialise with my friends a bit more, I suppose, which I most certainly did that summer.

On the Saturday I spent much of the day watching Wimbledon finals day. In those days, the whole tournament was a week earlier than it is today and the men’s finals day was on the Saturday.

That Borg/McEnroe final was an absolute classic and I remember it well. I also remember watching the subsequent doubles matches too. In those days, my mum was keen to watch and probably watched much of it with me.

Below is David Irvine’s take on it all from The Guardian on the following Monday.

Wimbledon Finals Day 4 July 1981 Reviewed In GuardianWimbledon Finals Day 4 July 1981 Reviewed In Guardian 06 Jul 1981, Mon The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

I also mention taping charts and Paul (Deacon – also a friend from Alleyn’s) visiting in the evening. There’ll be some more playlists to follow in the fulness of time, but for now I shall sign off this piece, exactly forty years on.

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

The Perseverance, then named The Sun, Edwardx, CC BY-SA 4.0

My working life that Easter vacation seemed to revolve around lunching and spending evenings with friends. I have already remarked on that in the preceding piece, which culminated in a wonderful Elvis Costello concert which was a highlight of my 1981 concert-going:

Elvis Costello And The Attractions, Hammersmith Odeon, 27 March 1981

Prior to returning to work, lunches and occasional boozy evenings:

Saturday 28 March – went to David [Wendy’s brother] Robbins’s barmitzvah in morning and Ivor’s [Heller] in afternoon. Mays [neighbours George and Winifred] came in evening.

Sunday 29 March – Lazy day. Went to Barmitzvah party in evening.

Wendy Robbins sporting her Streatham BBYO tee-short in 1979

In truth I don’t remember too much about that weekend – others (e.g. Wendy) might have stronger memories of it. The hospitality will for sure have been warm.

Back to work on Monday:

Monday 30 March – Work OK, Lazyish evening.

Tuesday 31 March – Work OK. Spoke to people in eve etc.

Wednesday 1 April – not bad day. Went to [The] Sun [latterly renamed The Perseverance] with Jimmy in evening.

I’m not sure whether Jimmy was also doing a holiday job that Easter, but I think he probably was. For sure he spent several summer holidays working for the UCL Bubble Chamber Group at the main UCL campus in Bloomsbury. Just in case there is anyone reading this who doesn’t have a comprehensive grasp of what a bubble chamber group might do, allow me to deconstruct by saying “high energy physics” and linking to this piece about the UCL Bubble Chamber Group.

What I do know for sure is that the scientists with whom Jimmy was working had no truck with bubbly beer – they were a real ale crowd and I would be invited to join Jimmy and the team for a drink or two in their UCL bar until the early closure there led us to trek for 15 minutes or so to The Sun, which sold a vast array of real ales at any one time.

“Stop wasting valuable drinking time – let’s go to The Sun!” would be the cry from one or two of the bearded researchers with a central casting look and tone if anyone dared to drink up too slowly at the UCL bar.

Thursday 2 April – Work not bad. Lunched with Andrea [Dean]. Easy evening.

You’re probably getting the gist of this now. The diary is depicted above. I’ll pick up the translation story again the following Wednesday:

Wednesday 8 April – Went out with Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] for lunch. Went on the booze with Jimmy in the evening.

Thursday 9 April – Met Jilly [Black] for lunch. Paul [Deacon] popped in, in evening with records etc.

Friday 10 April – Busy day at work. Relaxed in evening.

By the end of this fortnight was clearly focussed on producing mix tapes for Paul Deacon, while he was clearly hard at work doing the same for me. 11 April 1981 was a big mix taping day for both of us, as my archive will reveal in the next posting.

Industrial Injury In Cavendish Square, c26 March 1981

The room in 19 Cavendish Square where the accounts clerks were housed looked a little like the above image, only with about 10 desks and lots of shelves for box files all the way up to the high ceiling.

One day that week, I’m guessing the Thursday, a big Greek clerk propped a stepladder at the side of my desk (rather than opening the ladder properly) while attempting to retrieve a box file.

The next thing I knew, the big lad was falling backwards and I instinctively dived forward to break his fall. He might have landed dangerously hard on the edge of my desk had I not done so.

The big lad was slightly shocked but unscathed. I felt a surge of pain through my back.

My scoliosis is a little lower than the image above

I was in quite a lot of pain with my back for some weeks thereafter. It might well have been the root cause of my serious multiple prolapse nine years later.

I remember it being especially painful on the day of the Elvis Costello concert, which is why I think the incident was just a day or two before the concert. I also remember Elvis’s music seeming to dull the pain.

A Week In Bournemouth: “Nothing To Do Here” (Apart From Master Blaster Jamming), 21 to 27 September 1980

I do hope that residents and lovers of Bournemouth forgive me for my damning four word review of the place…or at least understand the context of that diary statement from the 18-year-old me.

I had just completed an exciting three months over the summer, running the BBYO office, dashing up and down the country visiting BBYO projects, learning in late August that I had messed up my A-Levels and yet somehow (with Simon Jacobs’s & Colin Page’s help) blagging my way into Keele University by mid September.

I was eagerly anticipating the next phase of my life by late September and I don’t think I was especially keen on a “Jewish holidays” stay in Bournemouth with my parents and Grandma Anne.

The compromise we agreed (not least because I had BBYO commitments) was that I would join them for a week in Bournemouth and then travel back to London for a Sunday commitment and then my own holiday week “training to be a student”:

A Week Of Serious Training For University Life Ahead Of Heading Up To Keele, 28 September To 4 October 1980

I went to the Bournemouth BBYO meeting on the Sunday. The phrase “nothing to do here” was clearly a reference to Bournemouth as a town, not the warm hospitality I was no doubt afforded by the youth group there.

I suspect that the phrase “there’s nothing to do here” was handed to me by one or more of the BBYO-niks when I asked them on the Sunday for suggestions that might spice up my week.

We stayed at the Cumberland on this occasion…

…until I found the above photo, labelled “The Cumberland” by my mum, I mistakenly thought we had stayed at the New Ambassador, as we had three years earlier – a mini-holiday from 1977 that I shall certainly write up in the fullness of time.

But whereas the fifteen-year-old me had revelled in the company of fellow youngsters in a Jewish hotel during the half-term week of October 1977, this 1980 visit was clearly not to my taste.

To add to the boredom factor for me, this holiday coincided with Sukkot, which, to religious Jews, is a major festival, observed strictly at kosher hotels such as the New Ambassador.

The food would have been plentiful and all-inclusive; breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner, with several courses both to lunch and dinner. Grandma Anne will have massively over-eaten, especially at lunchtime. Then, every day, she would have gone through the four stages of post-lunch gastro-grief: irritability, wind, sleep and finally hope (i.e. hope for a few hands of kalooki before tea and cakes are served).

On the main Sukkot festival days (the Thursday and Friday that year) plus shabbat (Saturday every week), games like kalooki were forbidden, thus worsening Grandma’s afternoon mood when her kalooki hopes were dashed.

Grandma Anne – “I’m forcing myself to eat”

Still, a week in “Borschtmouth” was quite a pleasant change for someone, like Grandma Anne, in their late 80’s.

But not what I was looking for in my early 18’s.

In fact, if we go by the diary, nothing at all memorable happened during that week in Bournemouth. But I have one very strong, abiding memory from that trip.

Master Blaster Jamming Revolving Doors

Image “borrowed” from a defunct catawiki listing on fair use basis for identification

Neither my parents nor I were particularly interested in the religious holiday element of the visit. Grandma Anne was a rabbi’s daughter and dad had been raised in a very traditional Jewish household. Mum far less so. Once I had shown little and diminishing interest in the religious side of things, our household had become pretty secular.

Anyway; we had one mission while we were in Bournemouth which was to sort out my combined 18th birthday and going away to University gift. I wanted a ghetto blaster, so I could listen to radio and cassettes in the confined space I knew was to be my lot for several years at University.

Having left matters until late in the week, mum, dad and I hatched a cunning plan to get this piece of shopping done during Sukkot. The hotel basically acted as a synagogue for such a high-holiday and the vast majority of residents – not least all of the religious ones – would attend the service.

We worked out that we would have plenty of time to sneak out of the hotel, procure a suitable item and get back with the booty while all the religious lot were still ensconced in ritual and prayer…

…except that…

…shopping expeditions with my family were never particularly timely affairs and this purchase required thought and due diligence.

I bought a Philips Spatial Stereo Ghettoblaster/Boombox (see above picture) and very pleased with it I was too, all packaged up in its great big box .

We realised that we had cut it a bit fine and hurried back to the hotel.

Get yer skates on, Dad!

We realised that we had goofed as we saw people started to come out of the makeshift hotel synagogue. But rather than slowing down and unobtrusively braving our way in by sneaking through the doors and up the stairs while the assembled frummers were preoccupied with chat and thoughts of lunch…

…we panicked. In our rush, Dad and I got in the same section of the revolving door – a potentially door-jamming mistake at the best of times, but with the additional space-taking-device that was my ghetto-blaster in its box, we were stuck.

Not as posh-looking as this one, but you get the gist

Mum tried to rectify matters by pulling the revolving door in the reverse direction, but revolving doors don’t work like that – or at least this one certainly didn’t. I think a receptionist spotted our embarrassing circumstances and helped to rescue us. Goodness only knows how many people saw us and if any of those who might have seen us really cared. No-one said anything to us about it.

In later months and years, mum, dad and I would joke about the incident. It would have made a good scene in a sit-com or sketch in a comedy TV show.

Anyway, I had my ghetto blaster and it gave me good service at Keele for my first two or three years, until I traded it up for an armour-plated Grundig one…but that’s another story.

Master Blaster Jamming…We’ll Be Jamming The Revolving Door…

A Most Mysterious Evening In Or At Crystal Palace With Paul DeWinter, 12 August 1980

The diary is pretty clear on this matter:

12 August 1980. Not too bad a day. Went to Chrystal [sic] Palace with PDeW in evening.

Let’s not talk about my inability to spell the word Crystal at the age of seventeen.

Let us instead try to work out, just over forty years on, what the blithering heck might have been going on here.

The not too bad a day would have been at Hillel House working; I was trying to run the BBYO office that summer in the absence of a proper grown-up full-timer, as Rebecca Lowi had left and not yet been replaced.

I do recall an impending governance crisis on the National Executive around that time, which inevitably embroiled both me and Paul, as we were both on that National Executive. We had things to talk about and I do remember having several after work discussions with Paul that summer.

But if you had asked me, the day before yesterday, if I had ever been to Selhurst Park to see Crystal Palace play football, I would have said, categorically, no.

Football is not really my thing. Never really was, although in my youth I could be persuaded to go to football matches and certainly went to a few.

But Crystal Palace with Paul DeWinter on 12 August 1980 makes no sense for several reasons.

Firstly, my Googling of the 1980/81 football season reveals that the season didn’t even start for Crystal Palace until 16 August 1980.

More importantly, despite my limited knowledge of football and Paul DeWinter, one thing I do know for sure is that Paul is a lifelong devotee of Brighton & Hove Albion FC (The Seagulls), not Crystal Palace FC (The Eagles).

Several of my South London friends are devotees of Crystal Palace and I am aware that there is intense rivalry between the two teams. I have often enjoyed, from the metaphorical sidelines, many enjoyable bants between the fans of those two teams, especially when Paul DeWinter is around.

Indeed, as I understand it, there is intense speculation as to whether representatives of the two species (eagles and seagulls) might be observed cross-fertilizing. I’m no ornithologist, but eagles are from the order of Accipitriformes (birds of prey), whereas seagulls are from the order of Charadriiformes, a diverse order which includes waders and auks as well as gulls, so I think it highly unlikely that those two species would even attempt cross-breeding. Certainly not visibly. But I digress.

So did Paul and I go to Crystal Palace to do something other than watch a football match? Perhaps we went to one of those open air concerts I remember my parents taking me to at Crystal Palace Bowl. Handel’s Water Music, Elgar’s Enigma Variations, Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik…that sort of thing. But I doubt if those concerts would have been Paul’s bag.

What about Bob Marley…didn’t Bob Marley play “The Bowl” that summer? But the bowl was done weeks before August in 1980 and anyway my diary would certainly have noted (and my memory would have retained) such an event.

No. For sure it would have been football.

I’m guessing it must have been some sort of pre-season friendly between Crystal Palace & Brighton; the intense fan rivalry belying an actual spirit of co-operation between the two clubs at an operational level.

Paul might actually remember what happened and put my feeble memory out of its misery.

Anyway – forty plus years on – thanks again for taking me to the footie in 1980, Paul.

Sorting Out A Problem Kibbutz, BBYO Hillel House, 21 to 24 July 1980

I spent the summer of 1980 trying to run the BBYO office in Hillel House. Rebecca Lowi, our wonderful full-timer, had left. I was on the National Executive, had just finished my ‘A’ Levels and had made no plans for the summer. The arrangement made sense for everyone.

I’ll have plenty to write about that summer in the fullness of time. The diary is rich with clues and the memory still holds some intriguing details. I was 17 going on 18 and that is surely a good age for seminal, memorable stuff.

This piece, though, is very specifically about a hoo-ha that kicked off very early in my time running the BBYO office, concerning that year’s kibbutz groups.

I shall try to extract the relevant scribbles:

Monday 21 July – Not too bad a day. (Kibbutz trouble though).

Tuesday 22 July – Hardish day. More bad reports about the Kibbutzniks

Wednesday 23 July – Hard day. Still worried about Kibbutz lot…

Thursday 24 July – Not too bad a day. (Afek sorted out).

Now the fact of the matter is, I really need some help from some of the people who were on those Kibbutz groups to piece together exactly what happened.

From memory, there were two groups i.e. two Kibbutzim. One Kibbutz seemed fine, whereas the other Kibbutz didn’t seem to recognise that groups of young teenagers from England (I think these were 14 to 17 year old groups) could not be expected to work full adult worker hours in Israeli summer weather.

I received several calls – I think from worried parents – saying their kids were very unhappy and that there did not seem to be equivalence between the Kibbutzim. I was concerned on the first day reports came in but things really kicked off on the second day.

I was 17 years old, I had been a schoolboy three weeks earlier, but it was my job to try intervening and helping to resolve this problem.

Would you want the fate of your kid to be, to any extent, in the hands of this…er…kid?

I remember talking to some sort of shaliach – i.e. a liaison officer from the agency through which the tours had been organised; The Jewish Agency, if I recall correctly. I think he was quite negative about the situation, suggesting that the problem Kibbutz (which I think must have been Afek given my diary note, but possibly was the other one) was not a suitable venue for teenage kibbutz experience tours.

I remember talking to the agency on the telephone in quite animated terms. Those readers who know me well, especially those who knew me well back then, can imagine how arsy I might have sounded. Did the person at the other end of the phone realise that he was talking to a kid? Possibly. That might have made their predicament seem scarier.

I remember saying that I had really angry parents on the phone constantly, some of them lawyers, who were already threatening to sue anything that moved if the problem wasn’t resolved rapidy.

I remember thinking that I was laying it on a bit thick. I also remember thinking that the “ach, so what do you expect us to do?” attitude I was getting back from my initial enquiries was not getting me anywhere. So laying it on thick with a metaphorical, oral trowel was probably the best approach.

If Afek really was the problem site, then the whole incident panned out (from my point of view) within 72 hours. Word soon reached me that conditions had been changed. Did some youngsters switch Kibbutz? – I think that might have happened in some cases. Or were arrangements made for the groups to meet up some more and have shared leisure time?

Anyway, I do recall that the returning youngsters seemed to have had a good experience in the end and that my intervention was perceived to have helped solve the problem.

I’d love to hear from people who were actually on those kibbutz groups and find out what memories you have of those trips.

I’d love to see some photos, if anyone has them to share.

Coincidentally, there was a play at London’s Royal Court that year, Not Quite Jerusalem, about British youngsters going off to experience Kibbutz life and it not being what they expected. Even more coincidentally, it had its initial public airing through rehearsed readings that very weekend, 25 and 26 July.

Thu, Jul 24, 1980 – 24 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

I didn’t get to see that Royal Court production, but 40 years on…a few days after writing these words, I shall see the play’s first revival at The Finborough Theatre:

Not Quite Jerusalem

Unsurprising, then, that my memories of that 1980 experience came to mind and I was keen to get my thoughts written down before my weak memories morph with the play!

Postscript: seeing Not Quite Jerusalem at the Finborough turned out to be our (my and Janie’s) last visit to the theatre before lockdown:

Not Quite Jerusalem by Paul Kember, Finborough Theatre, 13 March 2020

Anyway, if you were one of those 1980 BBYO kibbutzniks, please do get in touch and share the experiences from your perpective.

Afek – reproduced from Wikimedia Commons with the kind permission of Ori

Mum’s Economy Meal Of The Week, 10 January 1978

I was dealt another food-induced involuntary memory at the time of writing. It comes hot on the heels of my bizarre “caviar on toast for breakfast” childhood memory, recovered on new year’s eve.

Strange Case Of Dr Green And Mr Knipe…And Beluga Caviar And Scotch Whisky And A Bust Of Hitler, c22 December 1981

Anyway, the lunchtime special of the day (10 January 2018) in my client’s staff canteen was baked mackerel with onions. Very tasty it was too.

I remembered, so clearly, that my mother’s baked mackerel with onions was one of my favourite dishes.

Awaiting onions

I also remembered that it was one of mum’s “economy meals”. Times were hard in the mid to late 1970s. Mum shopped very carefully to help make ends meet. In addition, she had a routine which was to include one meal per week described as the “economy meal”.

Sometimes it would be a fish economy meal on a Tuesday. Sometimes it would be a meat economy meal on a Wednesday. Monday was leftovers from weekend roast day. Thursday was always fish day. Friday night was friday night. That’s how it worked.

Mum was almost apologetic about the economy meal, but the strange thing is, I used to look forward to them, because the economy meal was often, e.g. the baked mackerel dish, a real favourite of mine.

Here’s a recipe for baked mackerel – this is a modern recipe from the Guardian, so it is a bit “sexed-up” compared with mum’s, but looks good.

Thoughts of other “economy meal of the week” dishes started to flood into my head:

When I got home from my meetings, I wondered whether I might have eaten that very baked mackerel dish exactly forty years ago to the day and looked at my old diary. Turns out that 10 January 1978 was a Tuesday, so I might very well have done.

I also realised that Tuesday 10 January would almost certainly have been a “caviar on toast for breakfast…economy meal for dinner” day. Bizarre, but that’s how it was.

What I also learned about that evening, after the second day of the school term, was the following:

gave talk at BBYO with Graham [Majin] on the cartoon. Went down well.

Ah yes, the cartoon. I really need to try to patch that thing together digitally. Graham’s attempt, a few years ago, to get the BBC properly to copy the 8mm film itself shredded the celluloid. Another Ogblog project to add to the list. Watch this space.

Anyway, all that foodie memory came flooding back simply as a result of tasting baked mackerel again in a style so similar to my mum’s…

…Proust can keep his madeleines – pah!