I started keeping a diary on 1 January 1974. A little Letts Schoolboys Diary.
In the back of the diary, in a notes section, I wrote down the names of all the members of my class, which was 1S. Against some of those classmates’ names I also wrote a nickname.
Just in case my handwriting, scanning and Photoshop skills are inadequate for your purposes, I set the text out below – apologies for replicated spelling errors and for some of the ghastly nicknames:
Allott
Athaide
Barrett – Bass, Titchbass
Burgess
Candappa – Candyfloss
Corrin
Dallaway – Dallers
Feeley
Foord
Forest
French – Frog
Frerson – Dreary-Frery
Goodwin
Guildford
Handy
Harley – Charley
Harris
Hayes
Hollingshead
Manhood – Manhunt
Masson
Mayne – Miles-Of-Mainline-Railway
Moore
Payne – In The Neck
Rickett – LEFT
Romain
Sim
Stendall
I don’t think Guy Rickett was nicknamed “Left”, I think that is a note to say that he left the school.
Now some of the above nicknames are weaker and thinner than a pound-shop condom; I find it hard to believe that many of them had regular currency at the school, although one or two I remember did.
Further, the rest of us must have had nicknames of some sort at one time or another – frankly my juvenile nickname survey lacks quantitative as well as qualitative merit.
Surely some people out there can help fill in the blanks or put matters right, even after all these years? Comments and suggestions, please. Those from other classes are welcome to add their names and nicknames to the pile.
I started keeping a diary in 1974 and I wrote my class timetable in that diary, as shown above.
Unfortunately, I wrote the 1973/74 timetable for 1S in the space where the 1974/75 timetable was supposed to go.
That was not a great start.
I must have spotted my error when the 1974/75 academic year began; I marked in purple and brackets my 2AK timetable.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I have tried to decode the 1S timetable as best as my memory can manage in December 2020, nearly 47 years after I first wrote it down. See below.
The only bit of code I struggled with was double GC (I think that’s what it says) on a Thursday afternoon. I think it might have stood for “General Class”, as I do recall doing fun stuff like drama, skits and the like with Mr Sandbrook that year and can’t work out when else we might have done that.
Someone out there might remember – I’m sure GC won’t have just been a 1S thing.
Specifically for 1S, though, I cannot recall who taught us what in several cases. My memory gets as far as (and there might be mistakes in my plugs):
English – Ian Sandbrook
PE & Games – Alan Berry (sometimes Harry Wale, sometimes Paul Sherlock)
Handicraft – Mr Evans and David Midgely
Maths – Mr McCartney
RE – ?
Music – Pop Kennard
History – ? [Rohan Candappa reckons Doggie Johnson & I think he’s right]
French – Trevor Tindale
Biology – Bernard Rothbart
Art – James Brew
Chemistry – John Clarke
Physics – ?
GC – well if I knew what it was…but I think Ian Sandbrook
Geography – ?
Of course this isn’t just a 1S thing – who taught what, to whom, when, might be a fun memory game for people regardless of which class/year we might talk about. But perhaps for now we can stick with people who taught us in our first year.
Anyway, point is, I’d like to engage the hive mind of our cohort on this problem, so I am posting this piece in early December 2020, a few days ahead of one of Rohan Candappa’s Virtual Buttery evenings.
It’s a bit like homework really, but without the risk of censure if you turn up without having done any.
I’ll update this posting once the hive mind has built its metaphorical honeycomb.
Sherlock surely could work out whodunnit? Paul Sherlock, Alan Berry & Tony King
I started keeping a diary in January 1974. So exhausting must have been the process for eleven-on-twelve-year-old me, I took a sabbatical between May and late November that year.
The 1970s diaries cover my secondary school years, at Alleyn’s School. I shall write them up fifty years after the event, in the same way as I have been writing up my Keele University years of the 1980s as a “Forty Years On” series.
The juvenile writing needs some interpretation, both in terms of deciphering the strange symbols that comprised my handwriting back then and in terms of matters stated and omitted. I’ll try to explain and interpret as best I can, fifty years after the event.
I apologise for my atrocious spelling back then. Spellcheck has spared my blushes incalculably often in the IT era that followed my school years, while also drumming in some improvement to my ability at spelling.
Here’s that first page in all its glory.
Tuesday 1 January 1974 – …”Dined At Schmidt’s”…
Dad was at home. Dined at Schmidt’s. Chocolate moose was nice. In evening watched a film. P.S. Traditional walk 6th year.
Schmidt’s was an extraordinary place on Charlotte Street. It was a German Restaurant trapped in time from the early part of the 20th century, operated by an aging gentleman named Frederick Schmidt and his moustached sister, Marie Schmidt. I knew them as Mr Schmidt and Miss Schmidt.
We ate there quite often, mostly when Grandma Anne was not with us, as she was kosher and Schmidt’s was quintessentially not so. I recall that Grandma would occasionally come there with us and eat fish there, while dad would choose his favourite dish, eisbein, a Berlin style of schweinshaxe, with dad pointedly asking for the “VEAL knuckle” as he pointed at eisbein on the menu. Naughty daddy.
I would almost certainly have gone for the liver and onions or the schnitzel as my main course. Both of those dishes came on a platter with some pease pudding and sauerkraut as well as potatoes and vegetables. More or less everything came on such a platter, now I come to think of it. The fact that I comment on the chocolate moose suggests that it might have been a new one to me, but whatever desert I chose there, I would insist on lashings of whipped cream, which, at Schmidt’s, was a highly aerated form of whipped cream which I absolutely loved, both in its look, its taste and its texture. Mum loved that stuff too, on her coffee.
We would sometimes see Esther Rantzen in the delicatessen section of the establishment, where we would usually spend some time after eating, perhaps choosing some delicacies to take home with us or just browsing. When I met Esther properly some 20 years later, I mentioned that I remembered seeing her in Schmidt’s several times and we had a joyous reminisce about that lost world.
The traditional walk was something I did with my dad over the festive season every year for many years – initially I suspect it was mum’s way of getting a bit of peace for an hour or so and giving us the chance to walk off all the food we’d eaten. I think of Boxing Day as the usual day for that event, but it seems it was held back until 1 January that season – perhaps a weather-related change.
Wednesday 2 January 1974 – …”bought 5 History Books”…
Uneventful yet bought 5 history books. I cannot quite reconcile those two phrases.
I can, however, identify the books. They were from the “Everyday Life” series. I still have them:
The eagle-eyed amongst you will have spotted that there are nine books from that series depicted above, but the diary entry reports me buying five books. The even-more-eagle-eyed amongst you might be able to spot that the five “Everyday Life” books to the right of the picture look considerably more thumbed than the four to the left, which I’m sure I purchased at a later date.
I suspect that I spent my own money on those books (I’d have been flush with Christmas money or Hanukkah gelt at that time of year). The list price of the five books I bought that day comes to the princely sum of £1.45, but I’d wager a good few bob that these books were discounted after Christmas and I might have scored the batch of five for around £1 in W H Smith. I loved those books, which is why I have not been able to part with them, even when I cleared out most of my childhood books.
I especially loved the two about life in the stone ages. These related to the period of history we were being taught that year at school.
In both of the Stone Age books, I have written:
Ian Harris 1.S.
If found please return to 1.S.
I must have been taking these books to school with me on history days – possibly leaving them at school overnight sometimes. Only those two have that inscription, but inside the one about Roman Times, I discovered…
…an ancient, small piece of blotting paper, with one quite large blot on it, marking the place between pages 64 and 65 which, judging by the spine of the book, is as far as I got with that one 50 years ago. This discovery felt like a bit of a Pompeii moment, my juvenile reading trapped within a moment of time many years ago, providing evidence of reading interrupted and never resumed. I feel a relentless desire now to finish reading the book, which I think, fifty years later, will require me to start again from the beginning. I’m guessing that I’ll be able to whizz through the 130 or so pages quite quickly. But again I have put off the task to another day. It won’t be another 50 years, that’s for sure.
…”Saw Tommy Cooper”…
The Tommy Cooper Hour will have been this one – Episode 3 – click here. It will have looked a bit like the vid below, an episode from the same series, shown a few months later:
Thursday 3 January 1974
Went to dentist. No fillings yet. Drawn darts match. 5p Kalooki. 2 Rons [The Two Ronnies] good.
The dentist will have been Harry Wachtel, a slightly eccentric Austrian-Jewish refugee dentist who practiced in Streatham for several decades.
How a darts match ends up drawn I have no idea. Neither do I know who I played in that drawn match. Can’t have been one of my parents (dad would have gone back to work and mum would never go near my dartboard…come to think of it, nor did dad). Possibly Andy Levinson came round. Ot possibly I had a game of my own devising which enabled me to play against myself and secure a draw.
Kalooki probably did involve my mum and it seems that I got lucky, skilful or both, making 5p (that’s a shilling in real money).
The Two Ronnies was this episode. Interesting that I was allowed to watch TV that late at that age – it was possibly my starting secondary school that got my bedtime shifted towards and beyond the watershed.
Friday 4 January 1974
1×2 + bull at darts. Saw Fantasia for a third time – it is great.
I’m guessing that Fantasia was not shown on TV that week, so it would have been a visit to the cinema. I don’t say who I went with, but that might have been with mum (she loved Fantasia too) as I think I would have named my companion if I had gone with a friend or even if I had gone with Grandma Jenny. Probably local, at the Streatham ABC or Odeon.
My burgeoning darts career tails off soon, at least in the matter of diary mentions. I suspect that the dart board was a new toy for Christmas 1973.
Saturday 5 January 1974
Mum bought coat £22 reduced to £9.95. Went to Lytton’s. Played Striker with dive goalies.
Striker with dive goalies. That sounds amazing. I have re-established contact with Steve Lytton in the 50 years since that epic event. I wonder whether he still has his Striker set and is up for a rematch.
I only kept my diary for the middle term of the formative year that was my first year at Alleyn’s School. I was given my first diary at the turn of 1974, after the first term. I lost interest in being a diarist after just four months. then I regained that interest and kept a diary constantly for the next 14 years.
Anyway.
One feature that pervades my diary during that second term of my secondary schooling is mentions of “drama” on Fridays. I clearly loved that class. My diary also shows that we had two English slots on a Friday morning, which I suspect encouraged Ian Sandbrook, our class and English teacher, to use that section of our English itinerary for the drama stuff.
Smart idea, giving us exciting stuff to do on a Friday morning; a slot that might otherwise be a graveyard slot. I never mentioned Mr McCarthey’s maths lessons, for example, in my Friday diary.
Some fellow 1S-istas might remember some aspects of those lessons. Mr Sandbrook might too. I’d love to hear about such memories. There are a few clues in my diary which I shall try to unpick as I go through the diaries. They might trigger some more memories from others.
But one aspect has stuck in my brain all of these 50 years. Just one couplet remains, but I know that, one week, Ian Sandbrook asked us to explore Greek myths as a source of drama and to write a short piece.
The Apple Of Discord, The Judgment Of Paris And The Drama Of 1S
I’m not sure whether Mr Sandbrook allocated us each a myth, or possibly got us all to explore the same myth, but my myth was the story of the “beauty contest” between Hera, Athena and Aphrodite, triggered by an angry goddess of discord, Eris, setting a challenging question on an apple. The contest was judged by Paris of Troy.
Paris was a prince unsuited to such a role, having been raised by peasants in ignorance of his regal origins. The gods had to send Hermes out to the middle of nowhere to get Paris for the judging. The modern me wonders whether Hermes initially left a card at the peasant hut, “sorry we missed you – we tried to collect you but you weren’t in…”. But Hermes must have collected and delivered fairly promptly, as he did whisk Paris to the party in time to be the impromptu judge.
Hera offered Paris wealth and power if he voted for her. Athena offered him knowledge and warrior-status. Aphrodite offered him the most beautiful mortal woman. Guess what?
Helen Of Troy
The rest is history…or rather, the rest is Greek myth and saga.
My mum must have helped me to write my script. Of course almost all of it is lost in the mists of time and the late 1980s clear out of my juvenilia which my mum chose to implement without consulting me. I’m not yet over it.
But I remember one couplet from the piece, which has stuck in my head for these 50 years. It was a musical intro to the skit, set to the tune Eye Level by the Simon Park Orchestra, which was a big hit at the time. I suspect that this skit was probably a first term effort, because Eye Level was Number One in October 1973.
If you are Zeus or Hera or Ceres,
If you are Bacchus or Aphrodite;
If you are a Greek god,
Come dance with me.
A few things to unpick there, about which I was probably blissfully ignorant in 1973. Some interesting melisma on the words Ceres, Greek and god. Gives the thing a slightly ancient, plainchant-like quality. Almost certainly an accidental inclusion back then.
The names of a couple of Roman gods have got mixed up there with Greek ones. Ceres and Bacchus (Demeter and Dionysus respectively). I have no idea whether any of us in the Harris household knew or cared about that distinction. “Artistic licence” was my dad’s answer whenever some element of (in his case normally painting) work was called into that sort of question. I might have been very keen to have the word Bacchus in there, as we had visited the Temple of Bacchus in Baalbek (Lebanon) just a few weeks earlier:
If you are struggling to remember the tune, struggle no more. Here’s a vid of the Simon Park Orchestra performing Eye Level on TOTP back then…against the will of many of the musicians, judging by the expressions on their faces, Simon Park and an enthusiastic-looking tambourine-player aside:
Apart from the couplet, I think “my” skit was basically a sketch and meant to be a comedy rendering of the story. I have no idea whether or not it worked. The fact that I remember the couplet suggests that it might have gone down very well…or very, very badly. Actually all that my recollection of the couplet proves is that my mum probably got me to rehearse that bit over and over again so it wouldn’t sound too bad.
Fifty Years Later…We Can (Sort Of) Reconstruct This Performance Piece
Now, here’s the thing.
The above godly couplet might well have been my first attempt (albeit assisted by my mum) at writing comedy lyrics to a well known tune.
But it was far from my last.
Let’s put aside some sophomoric attempts in the 1980s, but by the early 1990s (and for most of the rest of that decade) I was regularly writing such material for NewsRevue, the world’s longest running live comedy show. My canon of silly, mostly topical, lyrics extends to several hundred pieces, almost all of which are published here on Ogblog, if you care to delve.
But can I still cut it? I decided, in January 2024 to set myself the challenge of writing a single lyric to cover the entirety of the Apple Of Discord/Judgment of Paris story.
After all, if I could successfully summarise the Balkan Wars in a comedy lyric, Mad Frogs And Englishmen, the initiation of the Trojan War should be similarly manageable.
Early in that second term of my first year at Alleyn’s, Eye Level was long gone from the charts. January 1974’s big hit was Tiger Feet by Mud.
Using Tiger Feet did prove to be a real challenge. With all due respect to “Chinnichap” songs, hugely successful though they were, the lyrics were not exactly the central conceit. Think Blockbuster, Devil Gate Drive and Mickey. Far from the style of Noel Coward’s Mad Dogs And Englishmen – a patter song with loads of space.
Still, I’ve been more than 50 years in the parody lyrics business now, so I should be able to give it a go. My lyric is written from the point of view of that much maligned character, Paris. It is by necessity a little sparse on detail, but I think I have managed to summarise the whole story in two short verses and choruses.
VERSE ONE
All night long, you’ve been enjoying a fest,
While Hermes brought me here to judge your beauty contest;
I’m publishing this piece on Friday 12 January 2024, in the hope that it revives the Alleyn’s tradition of Drama Friday from 50-years ago, at least for one day.
I’ll send a copy to Sir (Ian Sandbrook), but it would be unfair to expect him to mark my homework and/or lead the class at such short notice.
But, as it happens, I am seeing my friend, John Random, a bit later in the day. He was the first NewsRevue director to use my material in the early 1990s and is now part English teacher, part thespian. I’ll ask John to mark my homework and I might even, eventually, let readers know how I got on.
John might say, “your lyric is too hot to Trotsky”…or perhaps he won’t.
Postscript: John Random Awarded The Lyric 10/10, While “Sir” (Ian Sandbrook) Marked My Homework That Very Day
Hi Ian – thought I should get back to you while it is still Friday… love the poem/song ! not sure how it would work as a piece of drama but I dare say IS would have made something impressive out if it. I am having some difficulty believing that we were so erudite back then. Happy new year. Best wishes, Ian”
I remember little about my first term at Alleyn’s School. I didn’t start writing my diaries until January 1974. The fragments of memory that I retain are part-true, part-false and part-plagiarised, in that conversations with friends from that era tends to dredge stuff from the memory that wouldn’t otherwise have been dredged.
But a review of the Top 50 charts from the week that my cohort started Alleyn’s has certainly recovered some earworms for me. In truth, nothing that really reminds me of those vital first few days, but certainly a few that remind me of the summer and build up to that first term and some that I do remember being “very much a thing” during those early weeks.
Me? I was actually listening mostly to classical music by the autumn of 1973. My “golden era” of listening to pop/chart music relentlessly had faded in the latter years of my primary school education, as my parents desperately encouraged me to listen to “proper” (i.e. classical) music – mostly middle-brow stuff.
I’ll write more on that separately when the mood takes me.
This article is about the charts in the first week of September 1973. Here’s the chart, with some comments and embedded files for you to see and hear:
Number 50, Snoopy Versus The Red Baron, Hotshots
Number 49, Angel, Aretha Franklin
Number 48, Gaye, Clifford T. Ward
Number 47, Nutbush City Limits, Ike And Tina Turner
In truth, this one is not an earworm from the late summer of 1973, but it is a truly wonderful record, so here it is, with a very 1973 vid:
Number 46, Natural High, Bloodstone
Number 45, Hypnosis, Mud
Number 44, Caroline, Status Quo
I definitely remember this Quo number stuck in my ear at that time…or was it a slightly different Quo song…or was it at a different time…
Number 43, Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Old Oak Tree, Dawn Featuring Tony Orlando
Number 42, The Free Electric Band, Albert Hammond
Number 41, And I Love You So, Perry Como
Number 40, All The Way From Memphis Mott The Hoople
Number 39, Joybringer, Manfred Mann’s Earth Band
Number 38, Skywriter, The Jackson 5
Number 37, All Right Now, Free
Number 36, Going Home, The Osmonds
Number 35, Bad Bad Boy, Nazareth
Number 34, Everything Will Turn Out Fine, Stealers Wheel
Number 33, Ying Tong Song, Goons
Number 32, Electric Lady, Geordie
Number 31, Our Last Song Together, Neil Sedaka
Number 30, Monster Mash, Bobby (Boris) Pickett And The Crypt-Kickers
This novelty record was for sure doing the round that first term. I have found a version with Pans People “dancing” to it…it wouldn’t be 1973 without Top Of The Pops and Pans People
Number 29, Life On Mars, David Bowie
In truth, this one is one of my main earworms from the summer before staring Alleyn’s. I remember Russell Holland (a friend from primary school) having a copy and we played it over and over one day when i visited his house that summer. I still think it is a truly great song:
Number 28, Alright, Alright, Alright, Mungo Jerry
Number 27, I Think Of You, Detroit Emeralds
Number 26, For The Good Times, Perry Como
Number 25, Touch Me In The Morning, Diana Ross
Number 24, I’ve Been Hurt, Guy Darrell
Number 23, 48 Crash, Suzi Quatro
Number 22, Oh No Not My Baby, Rod Stewart
Number 21, I’m Doing Fine Now , New York City
Number 20, I’m Free, Roger Daltrey, London Symphony Orchestra And Chamber Choir
Number 19, Fool, Elvis Presley
Number 18, Dear Elaine, Roy Wood
Number 17, I’m The Leader Of The Gang (I Am!), Gary Glitter
Number 16, Smarty Pants, First Choice
Number 15, Welcome Home, Peters And Lee
Number 14, The Dean And I, 10 C.C.
Number 13, Rising Sun, Medicine Head
Number 12, Say Has Anybody Seen My Sweet Gypsy Rose, Dawn Featuring Tony Orlando
Number 11, Summer (The First Time), Bobby Goldsboro
Number 10, Pick Up The Pieces, Hudson-Ford
Number 09, Angie, The Rolling Stones
Number 08, Like Sister And Brother, The Drifters
Number 07, You Can Do Magic, Limmie And The Family Cookin’
Gosh – I’m not sure I have given this one much thought since that late summer/autumn of 1973, but it absolutely brings back sights, sounds and smells from those early days at Alleyn’s
Number 06, Rock On, David Essex
Number 05, Spanish Eyes, Al Martino
Why did someone give a tune named “Moon Over Naples” lyrics about “Spanish Eyes”? Had no-one heard of cultural appropriation back then? This was a rerelease from the late 1960s:
Number 04, Yesterday Once More, The Carpenters
I like this song. Yes it is a bit cheesy but that doesn’t stop it from being a good song:
Number 03, Angel Fingers, Wizzard
Roy Wood was off the scale weird. I only vaguely remember this one from that era:
Number 02, Dancing On A Saturday Night, Barry Blue
Why does Barry Blue sample Zorba’s Dance in the middle of this song, years before “sampling” was “a thing”?
Number 01, Young Love, Donny Osmond
It’s a shame that Nigel Godfrey didn’t start Alleyn’s the same year as us, as he would LOVE to be able to boast that Donny was Number One when he started, whereas the rest of us…
Tara pop-pickers, as that great man, Alan Freeman, used to say.
The cruise was advertised as a fifteen day holiday, but as I named the initial travel day “Day Zero” I think I have accounted for them all.
I have no idea whether the pirate party was actually the last night party, but they are the only photos I haven’t yet used.
We have fewer than 90 photos of the whole trip – times have changed. More recently, I have a feeling I have had meals that have yielded more photos than that, albeit perhaps adding together the snaps taken by several diners.
I look as jolly as a jolly rogerThe quality of my dancing has been consistent throughout the decades
I remember almost nothing about the journey home. We were tired. We had very much enjoyed our holiday. I was super-excited (to use the modern phrase) about starting at Alleyn’s School a few days after our return.
The tenth and final port of call (before the return to Rimini) was Dubrovnik.
Mum, Dad & I all really liked this place. Indeed, we returned to Dubrovnik a couple of year’s later, so we must have liked it a lot. I also have a feeling that the touring time for Dubrovnik was quite limited, so we felt that we hadn’t had a chance to take a good look at the place.
Dubrovnik From The RampartsBeside Orlando’s Column (right of picture)Me On Main Street With Orlando’s BeyondThe Old HarbourDubrovnik From AboveCustoms House (left, presumably)
There’s also two or three minutes of cine, from 15’30” until around 18’00” or so.
It seems my young friend joined us in touring Dubrovnik – possibly her mum wasn’t feeling good or just didn’t fancy touring that day. You can see my mum buying a plaque facsimile, which ended up on the dining room wall at Woodfield Avenue for nearly 40 years. I think it depicts the Exodus or something of that kind.
In the remaining minute or two of the film, you can see us back on the boat, at one point speaking with the girl and her mother. The film beyond the 20 minute mark is of the following year’s holiday.
It looks from the photos and the cine footage that we toured in a fairly relaxed manner.
Achilleion top, Governor’s Residence bottomCafe view of Mouse Island
Dad had clearly “fixed ” his cine camera, even though that meant losing some of the footage that had got jammed within it. He took a lot of cine on our last two stops, presumably because he had a lot of film left!
There is four whole minutes of film from Corfu, between 11’30” and 15’30”. I very much remember the sweet girl you can see between 15’00 and 15’30” – we became good friends towards the end of the cruise. I cannot remember the girl’s name – unfortunately we don’t have stills of her – mum was very good at labelling up the stills.
Farewell Corfu
Actually I failed to keep in touch with any of the friends I made on that cruise. I started Alleyn’s a few days after our return and I suppose the experience felt like ancient history very soon after it ended.
I remember almost nothing about this day and the only photo we have that proves we went there is the headline photo above.
I think we were all toured out at that point and it was another hot day. I suspect we went for a walk and meandered around the nearby shops, but apart from that we used it as a rest day ahead of our last two ports of call.
The seventh port of call was Crete. I have a feeling this was another very hot and humid day. I also have a feeling that it was here that the film jammed in dad’s cine camera, leading to the loss of several minutes of film from Baalbek, Jerusalem and Knossos.
I don’t remember all that much about Crete, other than exploring the Knossos at some length. Dad had a bit of a thing about Knossos. We had a painting of dad’s at home, Theseus and the Minotaur which Dad had imagined from that legend. The main action in that legend supposedly took place at Knossos.
I think I had some difficulty imagining Theseus and the Minotaur from the ruins at Knossos, not least because Dad had rather built this one up in my mind.
I don’t think we toured all day, though, as it was too hot. Nor do I think we explored the Phoenician castle in the harbour.
