Busy day at work – went to piano recital with Jilly in evening at QEH.
This one stumped me as I didn’t keep a programme and had no record of it on my other logs. Not even Gemini could help me, but I guessed correctly that the Queen Elizabeth Hall might advertise concerts through listings and found the atatched detailed one in The Daily Telegraph through my Newspapers.com subscription.
What is it about visits to theatres named Theatre Royal with Bobbie Scully, I wondered?
My log records the following from our 1986 visit to the Theatre Royal Haymarket:
This production was notable for the overlapping dialog to speed it up. Despite that mercy, we attended on one of the hottest days of the year and the air conditioning was poor or non existent. Quite literally, a fight broke out in the audience (just in front of us) at one point. Luvvie rage?
Ah yes, I remember it well.
I liked Jonathan Miller’s idea to use overlapping dialogue. While Long Day’s Journey is regarded as a great play, it is normally incredibly long for a play in which pretty much nothing happens. The overlapping dialogue shortens the play a fair bit. Further, it added a sense of realism to the drama. A family pretty much at war with itself probably would comprise people speaking a lot without really listening to anything the others are saying.
This was a Broadway production on transfer to the West End – the Haymarket was doing quite a few of those back then.
Jack Lemmon played the lead in this production and I thought he was very good.
A young unknown (to us) named Kevin Spacey played James Jr – I thought he overacted a fair bit, but then what do I know. In fairness, when Janie and I saw him 10-12 years later play the lead, Hicky, in The Iceman Cometh, I felt he had come on leaps and bounds as an actor.
As for the heat and the poor air conditioning and the flight – that for sure is my most abiding memory of the Long Day’s Journey evening.
The fight broke out towards the end of the interval. I think someone simply stepped on someone’s foot while trying to get back to their seat. So much so normal in those poorly designed, ludicrously-expensive-yet-space-restricted-seats in theatres housed in illustrious 19th century buildings such as the Theatre Royal Haymarket.
I seem to recall that both of the combatants were Americans. Perhaps the stomper was belatedly or insufficiently apologetic to the stompee, but anyway they actually stood there fighting for a while.
I especially remember a rather camp usher rushing to the end of the offending row, waving his arms and shouting,
Stop it! Stop it at once! Please stop fighting!…
…as if arm waving and pleas were likely to stop a couple of audience rage pugilists at that stage of the dispute.
I don’t suppose the fight lasted all that long, nor was anyone seriosuly hurt. Nor did either of the antagonists refuse to sit close to the other once they had calmed down – I think they were only two or three seats away from each other. Far enough, I suppose.
I do recall Bobbie and I deciding that the fight was the most action-packed dramatic incident of the evening. Long Day’s Journey is, in truth, a play in which almost nothing happens.
I had logged this incorrectly as 4 August but actually we went 16 August.
My diary also reminds me that Bobbie and I went to Inigo Jones for a pre-theatre meal, which I describe as:
…fab nouvelle cuisine meal.
Remember Inigo Jones restaurant in Covent Garden? Remember nouvelle cuisine?
I also note that we…
…had coffee at Swiss…
…[i..e. The Swiss Centre] after the show.
Bobbie might now remember some or all about the evening, but last time I asked (17 February 2020) she drew a blank, other than remembering having seen this production with me.
Wednesday 16 July – Fairly hectic day at work – met Annalisa for lunch. Met Bobbie after work – had meal at Mayflower & went on to Woody Allen Film after – v nice.
Mayflower was one of the better Chinese restautrants in Chinatown – now (writing in 2020) resurrected as New Mayflower.
The Woody Allen film in question would have been Hannah And Her Sisters, which went on general release in the UK a couple of days later. No doubt we went to a preview at the Curzon West End (just opposite the Mayflower).
I still think Hannah And Her Sisters is a great movie. But gone are the days that I’d complain about a hectic day at work in which I had lunch with a friend and left work early enough to have a meal and then see a movie. Such a snowflakey-sense-of-entitlement-youngster, I was.
Pretty busy at work today. Went to LC [Laurence Corner] etc.
Met Graham Watson for a drink – Mike came too (is leaving office).
(Met Jon Graham on way home).
Earlyish night.
I hasten to add that Laurence Corner was, for me, work – not a fun outing at lunchtime. Mike (he who was leaving the office) must be Mike King, who, by that time, I think was doing much of the work on the Laurence Corner account and who was, presumably, handing over some of the reins to me.
Graham Watson was an old friend from school. I vaguely recall running into him in London and thus meeting up. Coincidentally Jon graham was also a friend from school and (if I recall correctly) I didn’t realise he was still hanging in Streatham until this chance encounter. Jon and I met up again more than once, IIRC. I’m not sure whether Graham and I did. Perhaps Graham gave me the bumps…again!
Several years earlier, Graham Watson & Paul Deacon giving me the bumps, Tim Church feigns a lack of interest, picture “borrowed” from Paul’s facebook posting with grateful thanks.
With thanks to Martin Cook, from whom I have “borrowed” the above photograph, depicting Wayne Manhood with soccer ball and trophy, front-centre. Link available only to Alleyn’s Facebook alumni – hence the crossed-out appearance of this link..
Prescript
This posting has generated a lot of discussion on the Alleyn’s 1970s Alumni Facebook Group, not least people pointing out that Wayne died 1985 or 1986 – consensus coalescing around 1986. As I have said on the group:
It’s extraordinary how memory plays tricks. I so clearly remember a maudlin conversation with Jimmy Bateman about the fragility of life on that very first occasion that he and I went to that UCL Bar and then The Sun, summer 1981, but I now realise THAT conversation must have been triggered by the sudden death of my uncle a few weeks earlier…
…I’ll update/correct the blog piece once I have gathered more thoughts – not least my own. Some of the comments are very moving and so many interesting thoughts. Thanks again.
Below is that updated piece, with the original, jumbled piece below that, just for the record.
21 February 2020 – A Better Informed Reminiscence Of How I learnt the News Of Wayne Manhood’s Demise
The collective brains of the Alleyn’s School alums suggest strongly that the tragic event happened in the spring or summer of 1986. At that time, less than a year after I had come down from Keele, I was spending almost all of my time with Keele friends and work colleagues. In fact my first reference for meeting up with anyone from school in 1986 was late June, when I met up with Andrew (Andy) Levinson in Streatham:
What I now know for sure though is that, despite my suggestion that I clearly remembered the event of learning the news about Wayne, the truth of the matter is that I do NOT recall the actual learning of the news. What lives on, though, is the effect the news had on me. The first one of our generation to go. The senselessness of it. Those emotions unquestionably stuck.
As Steve Butterworth so eloquently put it in the e-mail he sent me – I’m sure he won’t mind me reproducing these words:
…It was not fair but Wayne was the unlucky one that night.
I still visualise the flowers that we’re strapped to the offending lamppost that he crashed into, when travelling on the South Circular!
I expect you’re right about June, as the sun shone brightly at his funeral, but the year was 1986.
None of the above detail (or at least my memory of it!) changes the sentiments in your piece. Thank you for that.
Below is the original, flawed, jumbled-memory piece below unchanged, just for the record.
My 13 February 2020 “Original”, Jumbled Memory Posting
I’m not entirely sure why this tragic event has popped into my head lately. Possibly because I have recently learnt of the demise, or near demise, of several contemporaries (from walks of life other than school).
Wayne Manhood was the first of my contemporaries I learnt had died.
People of our parents’ generation often talk about “remembering what they were doing when they learnt that John F Kennedy had died”. My generation has a similar thing with “the day Princess Diana died”. My guess is that many people from my Alleyn’s School cohort can remember what they were doing when they learnt that Wayne Manhood had died.
I learnt that Wayne Manhood had died from James “Jimmy” Bateman in a bar in UCL, where Jimmy was doing a holiday job in a bubble chamber research laboratory.
I’m pretty sure it was the first time we thus met up that summer, 30 June 1981, because I think the tragic event had occurred before I got back from University. But I will stand corrected if I have got the actual dates confused.
Don’t ask what I’d been doing in Braintree, Essex that day. That’s a different story.
Neither Jimmy nor I knew Wayne Manhood all that well…but everyone in our year knew Wayne. Almost everyone in the school knew Wayne Manhood, not least because he represented the school in so many sports. And also because he was an outgoing and thoroughly nice fellow. Wayne and I had been in the same class in the first year:
In truth, I don’t remember whether or not we were in the same class again after that. Was he in 4AT/5AT? Someone out there will know.
In the later years, I only really remember talking to him at cricket matches, on those rare occasions that he wasn’t on the field of play for more or less the whole match. He could bat, could Wayne, much as he could play football and field hockey to very high schoolboy levels.
I remember Wayne encouraging me to play cricket rather than score and umpire so much, refuting my suggestions that I was no good, wisely saying that I could enjoy playing that game (and other games) at a reasonable level.
Yes, it was Jimmy Bateman who broke the news to me that Wayne had died. I’m not sure how he had heard the news, nor even how much detail he was able to share with me. I still don’t know much about what happened. A night out with some old boys from the school. A motorcycle. A fiendish bend in the road in Forest Hill. Am I remembering this correctly? Others might correct me or add detail. The detail matters little.
I remember Jimmy Bateman and I sinking quite a few beers that night. We’d no doubt have done that anyway. I suspect we started in the UCL bar and progressed on to The Sun in Lamb’s Conduit Street, a favourite real ale pub with a fine selection of ales back then (no more, in February 2020), which I continued to frequent for many years.
I remember the song David Watts as an earworm for the news of Wayne’s death. I had acquired a second-hand copy of All Mod Cons by The Jam a few weeks earlier and had been listening to it a lot in the preceding weeks. It was not the tone of envy nor the gay subtext of the David Watts song that resonanted about Wayne, of course, but the notion of a boy most likely from school, a young fellow who was good at everything he attempted:
…he is the captain of the team…
… I dream I could fight like David Watts…
Lead the school team to victory,
and take my exams and pass the lot…
Of course, we are a lucky generation. My father, who was 20 when the second world war started, lost many friends who were in the flower of their youth. Our grandparents’ generation similarly lost so many of their young in one or other of the world wars.
But in some ways, the very fact that losing a compadre at such a tender age was so rare in our generation made Wayne’s death all the more tragic, unexpected and shocking. Life isn’t fair and life is fragile. I hadn’t yet reached the age of 19 in June 1981, but I learnt a little more about those aspects of life when I learnt about Wayne Manhood’s death.
It will soon be 40 years since my cohort left Alleyn’s School. It makes no sense that Wayne saw hardly any of that time.
I have no idea why this subject popped into my head a week or so ago and refused to budge without me writing it up. But write it up I now have. I very much welcome other people’s memories of Wayne Manhood and his passing.
Saturday 28 June – Worked hard today – went to Levinsons briefly – [squiggle] etc. Mainly work.
Sunday 29 June – Did exam in morning – went to G [Grandma] Jenny in afternoon – watched cup final early evening – went for drink with Andrew after – met Mary etc.
I was working hard at that time, doing my accountancy exams (presumably that Sunday morning thing was a self-administered mock) while working full time and helping to bring dad’s business (he had sold the shop in Feburary) to a graceful closure with the tax authorities.
This was still less than a year after I left Keele; my diaries suggest that I almost exclusively spent my spare time with old friends from Keele apart from my work crowd and some of my old BBYO crowd.
This reference to spending time with Andrew Levinson is the first reference to an old friend from the street or school in 1986 (unless I’ve missed something on the skim).
“Mary etc.” I think must be a lovely young woman I knew at Keele named Mary Keevil who kept popping up wherever I happened to be in that first year after I left Keele. I remember bumping into her when I was doing accountancy courses in Latimer Road and also that she ended up in Streatham for a while.
I dread to think where Andrew and I went for that drink and therefore where Mary etc. were also hanging out back then – our end of Streatham was not great for pubs and I doubt if we wandered far. Horse and Groom most likely – it’s had a makeover fairly recently (he writes in 2020) but was well grimey back then.
I went to see this one with Marianne Gilmour. Unfortunately I didn’t get/keep a programme, but I do remember it being a long, but very entertaining, evening of theatre.
My first sighting of Antony Sher live, no doubt. I vaguely recall that the idea of going to see this show was entirely predicated on the notion that both Marianne and I wanted to see Anthony Sher on stage.
Here’s my diary entry for that day:
Thursday 2 January 1986 – Went to Finsbury Park to do stocktake at Sam Phillips – ok – spent most of day there + then went back to office. Met Marianne – went round shops -> Chinese food meal -> Torch Song Trilogy (Antony Sher) – V. good indeed. Went back to Stanmore with Marianne & stayed there.
There was more to it than Anthony Sher. My sense is that the whole cast and production was very good, although I found the musical element of it a bit camp and shmaltzy. But you can hardly complain about that if you go to see a show named Torch Song Trilogy, can you?
Nano Banana 2.1 has reimagined the scene for me based on my instruction, although I placed us, from memory, on Waterloo Bridge, but Nano Banana wanted us on Westminster Bridge
Tuesday 31 December 1985 – Had lazy day taping and lounging around – met Petra in afternoon – > John’s -> Poons -> bridge
“John’s” in those days was the flat in Bow that he shared with Mandy, Rachel and I think one or two others.
I don’t list the people who joined us for that meal in Poons and for the celebrations on the bridge afterwards, but it is just possible that either John or Petra will remember.
I’m pretty sure that John’s number one choice of Chinese in those days would have been Joy King Lau. I am guessing that Joy King Lau was full and/or had a longer waiting time than Poons, which I remembered (correctly) was immediately next door in Leicester Street.
My profound love of The Original Poons restaurant in Lisle Street came a little later – other Ogblog pieces might oblige with details of that ultra low key but very high grade Cantonese food place.
As for the bridge in question, my vague memory suggests it was Waterloo Bridge, not Westminster Bridge. I took up this matter with Nano Banana, which responded with the following image, which strikes me as a scene with a view of the Palace Of Westminster that suggests it is roughly where Waterloo Bridge might be:
I’m sure we were all better looking than the youngsters depicted, but maybe we weren’t.
Anyway, here is what I said about the hours following the tolling of the bell:
Wednesday 1 January 1986 – Wandered round the south bankside – took cab – Petra + I hitched back to Bow – bedded down at John’s – hung around at John’s a while in afternoon. Went & had something to eat in Covent Garden – saw Petra off – went home & had lazy evening + early night.
I can’t quite reconcile “took cab” and “Petra & I hitched back to Bow”. Something’s missing in that statement. Perhaps we took a cab to one place, where we dropped some people off, then we hitched the rest of the way.
Here is the typed up version, scanned from what I think must be carbon copies. Is there anyone else left on the planet who remembers what carbon copies were?
I guess I prepared these for our glorious return visit in January 1986 for the traditional UGM/AGM thingie.
Saturday 7 December 1985 – Met Petra in morning – breakfast etc. (Lost handbag). Stopped off at shop – stayed in the evening.
I remember the “Petra lost handbag” incident quite well, but with some gaps. I think Petra took an early train down from Keele, having arranged to meet me in the morning and then go on to see her folks down in Sussex. We went to quite a swish place in Piccadilly for “brunch”.
Petra and I got about five or ten minutes down the road when Petra realised that she didn’t have her handbag. We returned to Richoux to discover that the bag had gone.
Despair.
But wait!
A waiter said he thought he had seen another customer spot the left-behind handbag and thought that the gentleman had handed it in to the police. The waiter suggested that we visit the local cop shop.
In those days, that meant a short stroll to Savile Row. And in those days, only very limited questions were asked of Petra to prove that she was the owner of the bag.
And in those days, believe it or not, the copper handed over the contact details for the gentleman who had spared Petra no end of trouble, as we said we wanted to get him a gift to thank him.
Back to Richoux we went for some chocolates and then up to Albany Street to The White House Hotel. In those days, no questions asked, we simply strode to the appropriate floor and knocked on the door.
The gentleman, half-opening the room door, seemed a little taken aback to be confronted by two smiling, grateful youngsters and a box of chocolates, which he rather sheepishly accepted before closing the door.
I’m sure the “Do Not Disturb” sign had been invented by then, even though GDPR had not.
Sunday 8 December 1985 – stayed at home today – went to Grandma Jenny’s – did some work, etc.
Monday, 9 December 1985 – started FT [Financial Training] course today – okay. Stayed in and worked in evening.
I spent quite a lot of time at Financial Training in Bramley Road those years I was articled and studying for my ACA exams. That building is now an abandoned, graffiti-ridden wreck, visible from the Western Avenue flyover, reminding me how dilapidated I might look after all those years if I didn’t take care of myself or have someone to take care of me.
I asked Google Flow to produce an artist’s representation of what the place looked like in the mid 1980s and I must say it (via Nana Banana 2.1) has done a cracking job, albeit an architect-style artist’s impression.
I do recall finding the course work extremely dull, especially in that first year as I had to do a lot of modules that were merely repeating stuff I had studied before (e.g. statistics, basic law) or was familiar with from years of doing practical accounting (e.g. basic book-keeping).
I remember spending breaks writing imaginary skits and songs about my fellow “kids in college” to relieve the boredom, sending them by post to Petra at Keele. I’m not sure that this comedy worked particularly well but it was possibly useful training for my post-qualification avocation as a comedy writer.
Tuesday, 10 December 1985 – course ok – worked at home in evening.
Wednesday, 11 December 1985 – FT went okay (evening messed up by call etc) – early night.
Thursday, 12 December 1985 – course ok – finished. Went up to Keele this evening.
Friday, 13 December 1985 went to union – did exam etc – went to Ben’s [Benita Wishart] for dinner in the evening – ok.
Saturday, 14 December 1985 – went to kiddie’s party in the afternoon for awhile – had a nice meal in evening.
Sunday, 15 December 1985 – lazy day at Keele reading papers eating etc- very pleasant.
At that stage, I was still very much enjoying the weekend visits to Keele and didn’t seem to mind catching a very early train from Stoke to Euston and going straight into the office. The very thought fills me with dread now.
Monday, 16 December 1985.– Came down from Keele. Back to work today – computer etc. – work ok! Had an early night.
Computer etc. will be to do with the regular problems Newman Harris was having at that time with its computer set up. The main machine (which was used primarily for payroll services) had a tendency to glitch out. Payroll was a very time sensitive affair in those days. The service was offered to quite a few retail and hospitality sector clients who paid their staff weekly and mostly in cash.
I think the firm lost patience with the “manager” who was supposed to be looking after the computer services and asked me (purportedly bright and young) to help hold the fort while they decided what to do.
A bit of common sense and an obsessive compulsive approach to backing up data regularly…which I have never quite got over since…meant that I ended up holding that fort for rather a long time.
(I have just pressed the “save draft” button, just in case. Even though WordPress auto-backs-up very regularly. I just pressed “save draft” again. To be sure, to be sure). Let’s move on.
It looks as though I used that run up to Christmas to catch up with lots of my friends.
Tuesday, 17 December 1985 – at Setty today – popped in to office etc. Bobbie [Scully] in evening had Indonesian meal etc. Very nice.
Wednesday 18 December 1985 – work etc – at Setty – went over over to Kate’s [Fricker] in the evening – had meal etc.
Thursday, 19 December 1985 – went to Setty -> office – ok – met Petra in evening – had Chinese meal etc.
Friday, 20 December 1985 – work okay – very tired in evening – had an early night.
Saturday, 21 December 1985 – lazyish day – library etc. Went to Andrea’s [Dean] party in the evening – ok – stayed over.
Sunday 22 December 1985 – hung around for a while. Went to Jilly’s [Black] in the afternoon and evening. Very pleasant.
Monday 23 December 1985 – work ok – did nothing in the evening.
Tuesday 24 December 1985 – work in morning – finished at lunchtime – met Annalisa [de Mercur] for lunch – went home – had lazyish time.
Wednesday, 25 December 1985 – lazy day at home – went to [Doreen & Stanley] Benjamin’s for evening – quite pleasant.
Thursday, 26 December 1985 – at home – worked most of the day. Watched some television also.
Friday 27 December 1985 – stayed at home and worked mostly – taped – went shops with dad in afternoon – worked in evening also.
Saturday 28 December 1985 – stayed in and work for most of the day and evening. Watched a film in evening also.
Sunday, 29 December 1985 – worked for most of the day – had Chinese lunch etc. Got quite a lot done.
Monday 30 December 1985 – Did home exam in morning – went to shops, taped etc in afternoon – lazy evening.
I was really into classical music by that stage of the autumn/winter and I have no doubt that the taping I talk about over those weeks will have been classical music.
But one track from the charts that late autumn does stick in my mind as having been a bit of an earworm:
I might have some notes or other artefacts from the meeting itself which I’ll post separately if/when I find them. I know I did attend the meeting. I’m pretty sure several/most of us did. If June said you had to be there, you had to be there.
Anna Maria Stanczyk QEH 5 Nov 1986 1 Nov 1986 The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
