Tag: Alleyn’s

South London Nah Nah Nah by Rohan Candappa, Alleyn’s School, 12 November 2016

The following piece, South London Nah Nah Nah, was written and delivered by Rohan Candappa at the Edward Alleyn Club Annual Dinner 2016, in honour of Chris Grant’s Presidency coming to an end. I Ogblog reviewed the event here.

Chris Grant. This image was liberated from the Sport England web site with grateful thanks - we're SO South London.
Chris Grant. This image was liberated from the Sport England web site with grateful thanks – we’re SO South London.

Rohan has kindly permitted the circulation of the piece. If you quote from it, please give Rohan Candappa the credit – he deserves it.

Thank you Mavis.

Recent events have proved to me that the two most important things in this world are ‘words’ and ‘geography’. I’ve always known this as I’m a writer, and I studied ‘geography’ at university.

Now, I know you’re probably thinking ‘what on earth is this fool on about?’ I mean, you’ll probably give me words, but ‘geography’?

Okay, let me prove my point, consider this sentence ‘2016 will always be remembered as the year in which a popular black president stood down, and was replaced by an idiot’.

Oh. Maybe I should have said ‘2016 will always be remembered as the year in which, IN AMERICA, a popular black president stood down and was replaced by an idiot.’

Words and geography. Make all the difference.

Anyway, I’m a writer, and what I’m going to do is read some stuff out to you. And the way I’m rationalising the kind of performance that I’m developing  – is that I’m having a thought, and then taking it for a walk.

And I’d like to invite you all on that walk. To see where we end up.

But before I do ….David, you didn’t tell the joke. I thought you were going to tell the joke….

That’s a shame. It was a good joke.

Okay, a slight aside. When we first got together to discuss this evening David told a particular joke, and we all laughed, and then Chris said we can’t use it.

Probably because it was in poor taste. Or politically incorrect. Or both.

Now, obviously I can’t tell the joke because I am too sensitive and well mannered – but it was good joke…

So here’s what I suggest you do, over the course of the evening, go up to David when he’s on his own and say ‘What do we want?’, he’ll say something, then you come back with ‘When do we want it?’ and he’ll deliver the punch line.

That’s alright isn’t it David?

Anyway moving, on.

I’ve got a piece to read, take about 15…hours. No, minutes, minutes. I know you’re hungry.

So let’s have a thought, and take it for a walk, and see where we end up.

 

——————

 

It’s funny what we remember.  It’s not always what other people remember.

Take this evening.

When Chris first started talking about it he brought up the following incident.

When we were at school the football team made it to a final. The final was held at the ground of Dulwich Hamlet. And during the match, there was a point, or there were several points where we, as supporters of that well known Sarf Lunnun football firm of ‘Alleyns’ started chanting ‘South London, Nah, Nah, Nah!’

Then, apparently, when we got back to school, our behaviour in chanting this chant was berated by Mr Fenner, the Head Master, in no uncertain terms.

And, in part, this incident is what Chris has based his theme for his year as President.

Now the thing is, I was at that match. I was in that crowd. And I have no recollection of the ‘South London, Nah, Nah, Nah’ chant happening.

So it’s funny what we remember, because what we remember, isn’t always what other people remember.

But that’s the glory of being alive. We are individuals. We see the world and interpret the world individually. But we live collectively. And part of our challenge as individuals is to find a way to live collectively.

That’s one of the thing school does for us. In part, in this place, within this school, I learned how to be an individual, but also to function as part of a society. And that played a big part in forging my identity. And I guess I’m not alone in that, or why else would we all be here?

So if a school is a key factor in defining personal identity, which it is, – then what defines the identity of a school.

And does the fact that this school, my school, our school, is in South London have any bearing on that identity?

But before we get to a decision on that, let’s consider the whole concept of ‘South’.

For a start what does it even mean?

Well, that’s fairly obvious – it’s a direction. It’s one part of that set of directions that helps us navigate the world, helps us locate ourselves in the places we live. North, South, East, West. The John, Paul, George and Ringo of directions.

Or, and who else remembers this – Naughty, Elephants, Squirted ….. Water.

South was ‘Squirted’.

Look at a map of the world. Look at a globe, and ‘south’ is, the bit at the bottom. Everyone can agree upon that.

Everyone that is, except me.

Thanks to the power of independent thought that this school encouraged in me, I have stumbled upon this, quite literally world changing, revelation:

The world is a sphere. It floats in space.

There is no right way up for it to be. Given that, then what’s to stop ‘South’ being located at the top?

The only thing to stop it is convention.

Or picture a map of Britain. Well, why don’t we ever draw it, or imagine it, upside down? After all, it exists on the surface of a globe, and a globe is a sphere, and a sphere doesn’t have a top or a bottom.

So ‘south’ is a convention that we have invented, that we all agree upon, because if we didn’t agree on it how would we ever know where we truly are.

But let’s go further in this dissection of the concept of south. Let’s go further because one of the glories of the English language is that words don’t only have ‘meanings’ they also have associations.

So ‘south’ isn’t just a direction.

Things ‘go south’. Meaning they go off the boil, they fall apart.

Or there’s the concept of ‘The South’ in America – the Southern states, all confederate flags, slave owners mansions, and fried chicken.

Or that divide between Europe’s northern states, and its southern ones. That’s a concept wrapped up in all kinds of sub-concepts of power, economic development, even life-style.

Or what about Cockney rhyming slang. North and South. Mouth.

Or, let’s get even more granular – how do you even pronounce the word. Is it ‘South’? Is it ‘Souf’ as in S O U F? Or is it ‘Sarf’ as in S A R F?

I guess the answer to that depends on where you’ve come from.

Or, where you’ve ended up.

For me, as a kid, growing up just off Peckham Rye Park. I lived in S A R F, Sarf Lunnun. Lunnun, as in L U N N U N.

Now I’m older, and wiser, and much stupider, I will say that I grew up, and went to school, this school, in South London.

Clearly the school is still in the same place that it was. So equally clearly it must be me that has moved. In some way.

Anyway, delving deeper into the whole concept of South London, I discovered something really quite surprising. For most of the time South London did not exist.

London, was London, and that was north of the river. The bit to the south was an afterthought, an overspill, a poor relation.

I mean, just look at the buildings in north London. The Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, The Tower Of London, The Natural History Museum, St Paul’s, even the City Of London itself. It’s all north of the river.

What do we get? The short lived County Hall. Southwark Cathedral – which is just a very big church. And Dave Wellbrook’s house in Beckenham.

This isn’t the stuff of a major Metropolis.

South London wasn’t London.

So the pre-Uber, cab drivers legend of ‘ Sarf of the river, this time of night, you ‘avin’ a larf mate…’ isn’t an aberration. It’s how the world was. How the world was perceived.

South London was the wrong side of the river, south London was the Badlands, south London was ‘Here be Monsters’.

And you know what, South London Doesn’t Care. If it is the outsider, the underdog, the unacknowledged that’s just fine. Because that gives South London character. Strength. Maybe even ambition.

And it meant things could happen here.

Take Vauxhall, for instance. From about 1650 for 200 years it was one of the leading venues for public entertainment in the capital. 1785 the Vauxhall Gardens opened with attractions like tightrope walkers, concerts, fireworks, hot air balloon ascents and wooded walkways noted for… ‘romantic assignations’. Apparently, for 150 years, references to Vauxhall were as ubiquitous as, and have the same context as,  references to ‘Broadway’ would later be. That was it’s cultural significance.

Or what about something with closer link to this school – The Globe. Shakespeare’s theatre, built in  1599 – closed by the Puritans in 1642. The Globe was at Bankside. The south side of the river.

The south, the outsider, the renegade, the challenger to the old order.

Or what about the founder of this school – Edward Alleyn. Yes, he was established, yes he was successful, yes he was wealthy. But he was an actor.

And acting, I would argue, is the South London of all the professions.

The outsider, the renegade, the risk-taker.

And isn’t that a perfect description of arguably the most creative person this country has produced in the last 100 years.

David Bowie was born in Brixton. He moved to Bromley. He is an individual born, and bred, and buttered, in South London.

So how does all this relate to this school? This institution?

I mean, look at it. It is a place of privilege. How on earth could it be the outsider, the other, the renegade?

Well, in my opinion, it can. Or at least in a sense it can.

Because we did come late to the party. God’s Gift had been given to many, many people before the first brick of this school had been laid.

We always were the outsider, the other, the renegade because we were not Dulwich College. So guess that what I’m arguing is that in this particular small universe, with its own particular laws of physics, and gravitational fields, I’m arguing that Dulwich College is North London, and we, we being Alleyn’s – is South London.

We are the outsider, the upstart, the challenger.

And that might sound like an irrelevant, contrived, spurious notion, but I think that it’s an important one. And one that isn’t just about looking backwards, but also about looking forwards. And here’s why.

I’ve said that this is a place of privilege – and it is. I’ve seen how much the school has developed since I was an inmate. I look at the academic results and have an absurd, totally unjustified sense of pride.  I mean what’s it got to do with me?

I know that anyone would be lucky to come here. In so many ways it bestows advantages on its pupils. Or confirms the advantages those pupils already have.  And I don’t mean that as a political judgement, I mean it as an observation.

But I think, embrace the concept of Alleyn’s as a South London school – with south being a construct that contains within in it ideas of being the outsider, the other, the renegade – then there is something else that comes into the mix for the school’s pupils.

Yes, advantage is an advantage for young people trying to find their way in an increasingly, and insanely, competitive world.  But I believe that if you want to get on, if you want to really push the boundaries of what you have it in you to become, then what you need is not advantage, but edge.

North London doesn’t give you edge. South London gives you edge.

And that’s why I would argue that the fundamentally South London nature of this school is worth recognising, understanding, and celebrating. It’s a part of its heritage as much as the phrase ‘God’s Gift’, or the cornflower, or that time Mr Jenkins got pushed in the swimming pool on the last day of term.

——————

Now, I mentioned at the start that I would be having a thought, and taking it for a walk, and what I’ve discovered is that when you do that you sometimes spot something off the path you’re on that’s worth checking out.

And what I spotted, on this occasion, was the phrase ‘God’s Gift’.

Now ‘God’s Gift’ is the motto of the school, the foundation. The first time I was really aware of it as a pupil, and thought about it, it felt slightly uncomfortable. That’s because it sounded, to me, arrogant. It sounded like we, the pupils, were saying we were ‘God’s Gift’.

There was also the fact that, at the time, the only other awareness I had of those words was in the disparaging phrase ‘He thinks he’s God’s Gift, to women’.

It was a put down.

But, I also knew that the phrase in the motto was actually referring to ‘education’ – education was God’s Gift.

Anyway, writing this piece I was thinking about the phrase and I have come to the conclusion that it needs redefining. Re-imagining.  So I want to give it a context that makes sense to me. And maybe it’ll make sense to you.

I’m here tonight because Chris asked me to speak. This is not an event I have ever been to before. It never really appealed. But Chris asked me to come. And Chris is my friend.

And I thought about that.

And I realised that gift I received from this school wasn’t education. I would have got an education somewhere else. We all would.

The gift I received from this school was the friends I made while I was here. So John, Steve, Nigel, Ian, Olly, Chris, David. I’ve known all of you for the best part of forty years – you’re the gift. Thank you.

And I would imagine for others of you in this audience, who had the good fortune to go to this school, and also for those who have the good fortune to work here, the same holds true. This school has been, this school is, a crucible of friendships. And we forge bonds here that are hard to break.

I know that for a fact, because I’ve known these people for 40 years – and I’ve been trying to shake them off for at least 35. But they’re persistent…

We forge bonds here that are hard to break. And I would say to the headmaster, nurture that, cherish that, celebrate that. There is no exam results table that it features on, but to my way of thinking it paints a picture on a far bigger canvas. And it’s a beautiful picture.

Now I’ve wandered off the path for too long and need to find a way to get back to my central thesis and wind things up.

The central thesis being that Alleyn’s is a South London school, and that gives it, and its pupils, an edge.

Well if the concept of ‘South’ is all about being the outsider, the other, the renegade – if it’s all about not only about having an edge, but also, occasionally, going to the edge and jumping off. Doing the thing you’re not supposed to do, just to see what happens next, then there is only one logical place for me to finish this talk.

So here’s the joke Chris didn’t want us to tell…

 

A Most Unusual, Multi-Media, Transatlantic, Partially On-Air, Pop-Up Gathering by Part of the Old School Clan, 7 May 2016

I had been corresponding with my old school friend Paul Deacon on Facebook for the previous couple of days, sparked by:

As an aside, Paul asked me if Janie and I had listened to his weekly broadcast on The Grand At 101 lately. I had to admit we hadn’t. The show is on Saturday afternoons in Ontario, therefore Saturday evening here. Janie and I are almost always out on a Saturday evening – Ogblog postings passim attest to this fact. It must be more than a year; perhaps even a couple of years since we last tuned in.

However, our Saturday evening plans – feeding friends Kim, Michel and David – had, for practical reasons, been switched to Sunday lunch instead. As it turns out, Sunday 8 May is scheduled to be “sunny, hot, sit in the garden” weather, so the switch was fortuitous in many ways.

In short, we would be around, so I told Paul we’d tune in at least to some of the show. In the course of this correspondence, Paul Hamer (another old school friend) said that he would also tune in “while cooking his risotto”. At the start of the show, Paul Hamer evidenced the fact that he was listening and cooking risotto with this picture:

Paul Hamer Risotto Evidence
Photo courtesy of Paul Hamer

Indeed, Paul Deacon’s posting about his show and all the ensuing Facebook correspondence can be found here.

Once we were listening in, I mischievously sent Paul the following private message, which relates closely to the rag, tag and bobtail records we procured at the Slipped Disc all those years ago:

Ian and Janie messaging in from warm and sunny London. Would you be able to spin a 45 for us today? Ideally a Melodisc classic, such as Jolie La Ville Curepipe by the Alain Permal Mauritius Police Band, Agbogun G’Boro by Tunde Nightingale and his HighLife Boys, Bulgarian Betrothal by the Bulgarian Variety Orchestra or the classic Stop For The Music by The Nutrons. We and your listeners deserve nothing less.

Melodisc was a most unusual label – probably the first truly “Indie” label around – read more about it here.

Of course, I should have known better than to challenge Paul to play an unbelievably obscure 1960s record.

Soon after 20:00 our time, Paul Deacon broadcast a shout-out to Paul Hamer and played some rather unappetising sound effects in honour of Paul Hamer’s jumbo prawn risotto. Paul Hamer’s retort; a photo of said risotto in all its glory – makes better Facebook/Ogblog than it does radio…but it does look very appetising:

Paul Hamer Risotto Full Glory
Photo courtesy of Paul Hamer

I showed Janie the jumbo prawn risotto picture; she suggested I take a picture of the remains of our dinner and upload it. I made an executive decision not to do that. Even if people could imagine that fine meal from the messy carnage of (what had only recently been) a most impressive-looking roast duck…I wouldn’t have wanted to upstage Paul Hamer.

Then a few minutes later Paul Deacon broadcast a shout-out to me and Janie. Much to my embarrassment, he actually played Stop For The Music by The Nutrons as a request for us. “Truly terrible”, was Janie’s verdict on that obscure musical masterpiece.

When Paul (wisely) interrupted the track before the full 125 seconds of noise had completed, he played The Grand at 101 jingle. “Oh, so Paul also has a Room 101 for crappy records then?”, asked Janie. “No”, I replied, “101 is the FM broadcasting frequency of Paul’s radio station”.

To explain, if I put something on a music playlist that Janie really doesn’t like, it doesn’t simply get deleted from that playlist, it gets moved to a playlist named “Janie’s Room 101 Playlist”. The latter playlist would, in extremis, be played continuously on a loop if Janie ever were so badly behaved as to require sending to Room 101 for re-education.

Readers will, I’m sure, be unsurprised to learn that Janie’s Room 101 is more a theoretical construct or “empty threat” than anything approaching reality. She’s stronger than me for a start. Paul Deacon would be a little disappointed by some of the tracks that have ended up in Janie’s Room 101, but there’s no accounting for taste.

Meanwhile, Paul’s radio show. While simultaneously joking with several of us on Facebook, digging out obscure 1960’s Melodisc records…oh, and of course actually broadcasting a show an hour longer than his usual slot to cover for someone…

…Paul Deacon also told us that John Eltham (another old school friend of ours) would be joining him at the studio “any minute”, along with Rich Davies – yet another old school friend, who lives in Ontario near the Deacons.

I was aware that John Eltham was due to visit Paul and Rich this month, as John had mentioned the visit in correspondence with me a couple of weeks ago. I hadn’t twigged that the visit was so imminent. Indeed, while the broadcast was still going on, Paul wrote:

He’s here now! Just telling us about Rohan…

…the Rohan reference is to Rohan Candappa. I suppose in particular the “telling” was about a gathering we had a few months ago to see Rohan’s wonderful one-man show, which we now learn will be going to Edinburgh this summer – click here to read about it.

So, I woke up this morning to see these wonderful postings on Paul’s Facebook Area:

Johnny & Pauly On The Grand
Johnny & Pauly On The Grand – Photo courtesy of Christine Deacon (I think) via Paul Deacon
A Grand Quartet
A Grand Quartet – Photo courtesy of the waiter via Paul Deacon

I reflect that this connected world of ours is truly marvellous. We can banter with old friends and listen to radio broadcasts across continents. Face-to-face visits across such distances are now affordable, practical realities also. But by gosh it helps if you can multi-task like Paul Deacon!

 

How I Said ‘F*** You’ To The Company When They Tried to Make Me Redundant by Rohan Candappa, Z/Yen Offices, 28 January 2016

Moncada Barracks or the old Z/Yen offices? One or the other.

Back in December, Rohan Candappa wrote to me asking if he could by any chance use the big Z/Yen meeting room on 28 January to try out his latest piece of performance writing early evening on the motley bunch of Alleyn’s alumni (I include myself in that epithet) who gather occasionally in the City for beer, curry and old times’ sake.

Strangely, Z/Yen’s big meeting room is not much used at 19:00 in the evening, so it would have seemed churlish to say no, especially when Rohan agreed to sponsor some beer and nibbles. Linda Cook, our Z/Yen practice manager, was hurriedly elected an honorary Alleyn’s alum for the evening, so the organisation of the event was practically resolved, even with John Eltham out of the country for much of January.

It felt incongruous (in a pleasant way) to have the Alleyn’s gang at the Z/Yen office for the evening. For one thing, I didn’t realise how well behaved we could be when gathered together in the right environment. There weren’t even any teachers to keep us in check.

But to Rohan’s extraordinary piece. The title basically divulges the plot. Rohan expresses in poignant terms the emotions he experienced when told that he was being made redundant. There is nothing funny about the way being made redundant makes someone feel, but the circumstances of this attempted redundancy are quite ludicrous. In the hands of Rohan Candappa, who is highly skilled at bitter-sweet humour as well as the more standard comedy variety, this sad story generated a remarkable amount of laughter. It is a very funny piece.

The humour builds once Rohan reaches the point in the story where, having had time to reflect on his seemingly hopeless situation, he decides to try and win against the odds. He initiates this twist brilliantly by telling the story of the Cuban rebels attacking the Moncada Barracks in 1953 – click here if you want to see the Wikipedia version of the story – although Rohan’s version is more pertinent to his story and far more fun.

Click here if you want to see the pictures Janie and I took of the Moncada Barracks in 2007.  Indeed feel free to hang around in Flickr looking at our Cuba pictures generally.  It’s one heck of a photogenic place.  As long as you promise to come back here afterwards and finish reading this blog piece.

Once the “fight back” part of Rohan’s story starts to unfold, the piece becomes even funnier and has terrific momentum to it. I almost felt sorry for [Insert name here] (the boss behind the attempted redundancy) and his human resources hench-woman…

…I said ALMOST felt sorry for them. Cut me some slack guys. Or say how you felt about it with your own words in the comments section. Don’t just yell at the screen.

There are precious few pieces of theatre about the workplace and even fewer good ones. With all due respect to Vaclav Havel, who wrote several absurdist pieces about work places, I have seen more than one but never got much out of those Havel plays. Indeed, the only really good play about the workplace that comes to my mind is David Mamet’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Glengarry Glen Ross.  In an intriguing echo of Rohan’s title, btw, the film version of Glengarry Glen Ross (which is a very good movie) has the phrase “F*** You” articulated in an infeasible number of different ways for a two-syllable phrase. But I digress. My point is that the workplace is a big part of our lives but is wicked hard to turn into good drama. Rohan has succeeded in producing some very good drama indeed in this piece, which is a commendable achievement.

In short, the piece is a triumph and I really hope that Rohan progresses with it and gets it a wider audience. It is really thought-provoking as well as entertaining.

We sat in the meeting room chatting for ages after the performance; some of the group are people who have been made redundant, others of us people who have been in a position where we have dismissed staff ourselves. Everyone had experiences, thoughts and points to make. Eventually we realised that we were late for our meal and that our restaurant booking might go south unless we quickly headed south to the Rajasthan. So we migrated and continued our conversations there. A very special evening.

A Rare Latterday Visit To NewsRevue, For A Very Good Reason, 29 October 2015

A message from our fellow NewsRevue writing alumnus Colin Stutt to our informal “Ivan Shakespeare” group on 22 October:

In years to come, wise old newsrevue historians will ask the trivia question – which writer once saw one of his sketches performed by his own son in the show?

Answer: MEEEEEEEEEEEEE!   My son and heir Alex is in the current show, which runs up to Sunday 22nd November.  And it’s a good’un too.  So that seems to me like a good reason for us all to get writing again and to think about going along to the show.  Thursday 12th November (9.30) looks like a possible day – if anyone would like to come along, please let me know.

I had already committed to the Tate Modern with Janie for that 12 November date, but an exchange of e-mails with Colin revealed that I was not the only friend of his who wanted to see the show with him, but not on 12 November.

So, a small group of us, including Colin, Mark Keagan and a friend of Colin’s named Vanessa together with a couple of her friends wined and dined at The Bridge House before watching NewsRevue, a couple of weeks before the larger group’s outing.

As coincidence would have it, Alexander Stutt is not only an emerging Newsrevue performer but also an Alleyn’s School alumnus; solid cv, that.

To my relief, Alexander (and indeed the whole show) was very good, so I was able to heap genuine praise upon Colin and (briefly) Alexander, before retracing my steps from years gone by, walking home using that oft-used route.

Alleyn’s Alum Gathering, The Fine Line & The Rajasthan, 4 March 2010

With thanks to Paul Deacon for this and the following photos.

In truth, until this event, I had been pretty rubbish at keeping in touch with people from school.

I’d certainly avoided formal gatherings over the years, relenting just once for a Saddlers’ Hall do a few moons/years before this event, which I shall write up for  Ogblog in the fullness of time.

But this one grabbed my attention, not least because one of the ringleaders was John Eltham (with whom I had already re-established contact through quasi-business stuff).

Also because it was billed as an informal gathering of the “Class of 1980”; a rehearsal for some formal thing that was coming up that summer (which I resolved not to attend).

Also because Paul Deacon (one of the few people with whom I had kept in touch over the years) pipped me an e-mail letting me know that he’d be there and hoping that I’d be there too.

I have “borrowed” the photos from Paul’s Facebook postings – which can be seen in their original splendour by clicking here if you are a Facebooker – ahead of asking Paul’s permission to replicate them.

Please my I borrow your photos Paul?

So, if all the photos have disappeared from this Ogblog piece before you read it, that means that Paul has said no to my request and I have zapped his photos. But if the photos are still here, thanks Paul, for the photos.

Now where was I?

The Fine Line in Monument Street, that’s where. At the time of writing (and linking) I believe it has been renamed The Hydrant.

I remember taking along a couple of pieces of memorabilia which caused some mirth; namely my slide rule and a pair of sports socks into which my mum had sewn little patches with my name on them. The slide rule is no longer much use to man or beast (apart from explaining to youngsters how lucky they are to have computers doing all that stuff for them). The socks might come in handy as I approach the other end of my life – e.g. if I start to forget my own name.

I remember meeting Susie Schofield, who was then the new alumni person, chatting with her for some time. I’m not sure I let on that I wasn’t really the most alumni-amiable person at the event…in fact I think I got away with it.

Milk, Peanut, the nicknames all came flooding back…

It was a very convivial gathering and I got to chat with lots of people. Lots of people got to chat with lots of people. Convivial gatherings tend to be a bit like that.

Why I cultivated the most pompous face on earth for this photo is anyone’s guess…perhaps because I appear to be balancing a speaker precariously on my head, to the amusement of Paul Deacon, David Wellbrook and Facebook commentators at the time

I know this next bit sounds almost unbelievable to the uninitiated, but after the drinks, many of us ended up a few doors away in The Rajasthan for a curry. Yes, really.

You want evidence?

The Rajasthan…evidently.

I tried to settle my account with a fifty-billion dollar financial instrument. Yes, really.

You want evidence?

50 Billion here and 50 Billion there soon adds up to real money.

I look a bit tired and emotional in that last photo; parting company with money sometimes has that effect on me. But in truth I had very much enjoyed that evening, which in many ways kicked off my rejoining of the fold and joining in many subsequent convivial evenings with the old school clan.

Saddlers’ Scholars Dinner At Saddlers’ Hall, 17 April 2008

Photo lifted from the Edward Alleyn Club Website with thanks.

Some months before this event, I dined with the Worshipful Company of Weavers, courtesy of Mark Yeandle. There I met some of the grandees of the Worshipful Company of Saddlers, who seemed delighted to meet me in my capacity as an Alleyn’s School Saddlers’ Scholar. I got the impression that they had never met a real live scholar of theirs before.

So when, a few months later, I received an invitation to dine with the Saddlers’ at a gathering of Saddlers’ Scholars from across the years, I thought that my chance encounter at the Weavers’ dinner might have kicked something off. In any case, it would have seemed churlish and even a little rude to say no; the Saddlers had paid all my Alleyn’s School fees for seven years.

Actually I was glad I went along. I met quite a few old friends from school, in particular several who had been with me in form 1S, where I believe in those days they had congregated that year’s scholars.

Seeing those people again after all that time years made me realise that, as the years go on, I have more in common with my old contemporaries than I have with most of my staff and work colleagues, most of whom are now quite a bit younger than me.

So in many ways it was this evening that spurred me into, subsequently, reconnecting with several people from the old school crowd. Rohan Candappa is one example who rapidly springs to mind, with whom I have kept in touch since – leading to stuff like:

Hats off to the Saddlers’ for their part in reuniting some of us and helping to make that sort of thing happen.

Saddlers’ Hall is a grand venue for a dinner, despite the inauspicious sounding address, Gutter Lane – click here for more on the Hall and the Company.

Naturally it was a fine meal with excellent wine. Naturally there were lots of speeches, although mercifully not interminably long ones.

There is a slide show with lots of photos from the event on the Edward Alleyn Club website – click here.

Naturally a few of us went for a quick decompress in a nearby bar before parting company that evening.

The Enchantment by Victoria Benedictsson, Cottesloe Theatre, 11 August 2007

My recollection of this one is extremely limited. We saw this on the Saturday evening between my father’s death and the funeral. The programme helps my memory, as does Janie’s recall (also dredged with the help of the programme) and the reviews.

Victoria Benedictsson was a Swedish writer who had a difficult time as a modern woman in the early days of women’s liberation. She killed herself relatively young, but not before writing this loosely autobiographical play in the late 1880s. The play is now seen as a precursor to Scandinavian works such as Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler and A Doll’s House.

I note from the programme that Nancy Carroll played the lead; I subsequently discovered that she is an Alleyn’s alum; good for her. She is an excellent actress. I also spotted in the programme that Paul Miller (now taking the Orange Tree Richmond from strength to strength) directed this production. In the round too; good training for the Orange Tree.

It was clearly one of those slow build, late 19th century dramas. Probably just as well given my/our state of mind that weekend; a frantic, high octane play such as Cyprus Avenue – the piece we saw the other night as I write – would not have gone down well in the circumstances.

Clare Bayley, who wrote the version of the play which was performed in this production, has a good page on this project, including interviews and stuff, on her site – here.  She also includes some good quotes from the critics in her piece.

Indeed, it seems to have gone down well enough with the critics that matter:

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

Photo: PAUL FARMER / The Crown and Greyhound Dulwich Village (aka The Dog)

My diary, from forty years ago as I write, tells me that this was one crazy weekend, during which I zig-zagged my visiting Keele friends, Sim & Tim (Simon Ascough & Tim Woolley), hither and yon across London for a couple of days.

I had been spending a fair amount of time with those two towards the end of that academic year, much of it in the Student’s Union snooker room:

Essaying With Exams, Girls & Snooker Towards The End Of My Foundation Year At Keele, 31 May to 8 June 1981

Sim was from Doncaster and Tim was from Moseley, South Birmingham. I have an inkling that they had never been to London before…or at least “not visited a Londoner” before.

Reading my diary and assessing the activities I inflicted upon them, they might have formed a lifelong skewed opinion on what London life is like. I’m not sure I had a weekend quite like it before or since.

Friday 7 August 1981 – A Mini Pub Crawl Following In My Alleyn’s School Footsteps

Fox On the Hill Jwslubbock, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0g

7 August – Work OK – Sim & Tim arrived -> ate -> Fox -> Dog -> met Mark from Keele -> his place ’till late

Mum will have given us all a hearty family meal on the Friday evening ahead of the mini pub crawl. I cannot remember whether we did all of our dashing around London by car or by public transport. I think it must have been the former; if so it must have been Tim who had a car with him.

That first evening, I wanted to show Sim & Tim the places I used to drink with my friends before I went to Keele. The Fox On the Hill (aka The Fox) on Denmark Hill and The Crown & Greyhound (aka The Dog) in Dulwich Village. I thought we might bump in to a few old friends from Alleyn’s in at least one of those places, but that didn’t happen.

Indeed, my most vibrant memory from that whole visit was my embarrassment in The Fox when, for the first time ever, the barman questioned whether I was old enough to buy drinks in the pub.

I remember feeling like saying…

…but I’ve been buying drinks in this pub for years…since I was fifteen… and no-one has ever questioned it before…

…but I feared that such an admission might prevent me from being served or get me barred, so I simply asserted myself as a University student down after my first year at Uni and had my word accepted.

No ID cards for pub-going youngsters in those days. Why The Fox had started asking questions all of a sudden back then I have no idea – perhaps they had experienced some youngster trouble since my previous visit.

As for “Mark from Keele” whom we met in The Dog, I’m not sure which Mark this might have been. I don’t think it was Mark Bartholomew – perhaps it was a mate of either Sim or Tim’s who lived in or near Dulwich and was named Mark.

Diary says we didn’t return to my parents house until late – in fact I am trying to work out what the sleeping arrangements might have been. There was a studio couch in the small (fourth) bedroom which was ample for one sleeping visitor but would not have been comfortable for a couple, let alone two individual sleepers. Perhaps one of them slept on the floor in a sleeping bag.

Saturday 8 August 1981

The Saturday really was a crazy day of haring around town. Allow me to translate that diary note – I needed a bright light, a magnifier and a cold towel around my head to work it all out:

8 August – Earlyish start -> Knightsbridge -> Notting Hill -> Soho – met Mark Lewis -> Ivor’s -> eats -> Hendon -> Ivor’s -> home (knackered).

Frankly, I’m knackered just reading about that day.

I’m hoping that this article will help me to track down either Sim or Tim or both of them – perhaps their memories of this day will help me to unpick it.

I suspect that we went to Knightsbridge because one (or both) of them had a crazy craving to see that place, with its Harrods & Harvey Nicks reputation.

Possibly the same applied to Notting Hill and Soho. Possibly I encouraged the Notting Hill idea, as it was, even by then, a place with a hold on my heart, not least for the second hand record stores, which I had been visiting for a few years by then.

What we got up to in Soho I have no idea. Given that, whatever it was, we did it with my old BBYO friend and now media law supremo Mark Lewis, I suggest that readers keep their baseless allegations to themselves.

I’m not even sure whether Mark joined us on our subsequent BBYO-alums crawl to visit Ivor [Heller, in Morden, where I had enjoyed warm hospitality for many years]…

Ivor Heller’s Fifteenth Birthday Party, 20 to 21 May 1978

…then Hendon, where I imagine we visited Melina Goldberg, as I don’t recall staying in touch with anyone else from that BBYO group…

…then back to Ivor’s – why the diary doesn’t say – perhaps Ivor had organised a bit of a gathering of old friends from Streatham BBYO – it wouldn’t have been the first time nor the last.

Sunday 9 August 1981 – Lunch & Then Wendy’s Place Before Sim & Tim Left London

Took it easy in morning -> lunch -> Wendy’s -> Sim & Tim left, I returned home & slept a lot!

What a bunch of wimps. We’d hardly done anything the day before.

Anyway…

…I’m sure mum would have wanted the visitors to have another hearty, home-cooked meal before heading off – otherwise what might they think of us?

Eat, eat…

Then on to Wendy (Robbins)’s place, in Bromley, for a final visit of the weekend.

Not sure whether any of the other Streatham BBYO people were there. Andrea possibly, Ivor possibly…

…in any case, Bromley is probably not the ideal location out of all the places we visited that weekend from which to head back to Birmingham and Doncaster on a Sunday afternoon – but those logistical details matter a lot less to 18/19 year olds than they do to me, forty years on, re-treading the tangled maze of visits that was our London odyssey that weekend.

Goodness only knows what Sim & Tim made of it at the time, nor what they might make of it now, if they see this piece and are reminded of the weekend. I’d be delighted if others, e.g. Sim and/or Tim, got in touch with their memories to help me enhance this Ogblog piece. If they do, I’ll publish a postscript.

Please help fill in the blanks.

Mix Tapes From Around The Time That I Left Alleyn’s School, Late May To 28 June 1980

Possibly Christine by Siouxie & The Banshees is the pick of the mix

Ahead of a virtual gathering of the Alleyn’s “Class of 1980” in January 2021, I have decided to share the mix tapes I made right at the end of my time at Alleyn’s School.

Rohan Candappa and Nick Wahla have asked questions for that gathering, which I answered here:

The Day I Left (Alleyn’s) School, 27 June 1980

One of those questions, around “what would you do differently?” might be answered in terms of the choice of music. Or would it?

I have recently (late 2020) enjoyed replicating and sharing the mix tapes I made in the autumn of 1980, around the time I started Keele University and the mix tape I made at the end of that first term at Keele:

Mix Tape Recorded Just After My First Term At Keele, c28 December 1980

Those have led to some debate. Perhaps my “end of school” mix tapes will similarly cause some discussion. At the very least, I imagine they’ll spark some memories. Chart music was part of the soundtrack of many of our lives back then.

Effectively I recorded two batches right at the end of my time at Alleyn’s. One batch around the Whitsun long weekend (end of May 1980) and then another batch right at the very end – late June – mostly the weekend after the ‘A’ levels I’d guess.

Here’s a list of the first batch – the May 1980 batch:

  • Messages, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
  • Dance, The Lambrettas
  • Breathing, Kate Bush
  • I’m Alive, Electric Light Orchestra
  • Teenage, UK Subs
  • Let’s Go Round Again, The Average White Band
  • Over You, Roxy Music
  • The Bed’s Too Big Without You, The Police
  • Theme From M*A*S*H, M*A*S*H
  • We Are Glass, Gary Numan

Here is the list of the late June 1980 batch:

  • Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime, The Korgis
  • Christine, Siouxsie and the Banshees
  • The Scratch, Surface Noise
  • New Amsterdam, Elvis Costello
  • Who Wants the World, The Stranglers
  • Play the Game, Queen
  • Breaking the Law, Judas Priest
  • Let’s Get Serious, Jermaine Jackson
  • No Doubt About It, Hot Chocolate
  • Funky Town, Lipps Inc
  • Crying, Don McLean
  • Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps Please, Splodgenessabounds

Given the amount of time I spent in The Fox On The Hill in that last Alleyn’s week, the final recording on that list comes as no surprise. (Although for sure I’d have been drinking bitter, not lager). Anyway, I don’t think “Two Pints…” will make it onto my Desert Island Discs list. Frankly, I can’t see any of the above making that list. Christine’s a great track, as is New Amsterdam. There’s some good stuff, but it’s not my best mix tape, that’s for sure. I was kinda busy with other stuff at that time.

Anyway, here it is, as a playlist of YouTubes:

The Day I Left (Alleyn’s) School, 27 June 1980

Robert Cutts, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0

I am writing this up in January 2021, in part as a response to a couple of “exam questions” set by friends Nick Wahla & Rohan Candappa, ahead of a gathering of the Class of 1980 in the “Virtual Buttery”.

In Rohan’s words:

Nick Wahla’s suggested a question to ponder: “What advice would you give to someone about to leave Alleyn’s?”

It’s a good question, and one which I am obviously going to claim credit for. But I’d also like to twist it around a bit. My question is: “What advice would you give yourself if you could go back and talk to yourself on the day you left Alleyn’s?”

So, the day I left Alleyn’s was not, by my own account, a good day for me. That whole final week doesn’t read brilliantly in fact:

To transcribe that final day:

What a horrid day!!! Chem (I) -> In comm -> Econ II -> Fox after and got pissed.

I’m guessing that “in comm” means “held incommunicado”, presumably because I took the Chemistry exam before others had taken it…or others had taken the Economics exam before I took mine.

There are three mentions of going to “The Fox” that week, not just the “getting pissed” session after the exams.

Jwslubbock, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0g

The Fox On the Hill, Denmark Hill, was the hang out of choice for Alleyn’s boys like me and Anil Biltoo. I don’t think they had twigged that these fresh-faced besuited youngsters were often well below 18…or if they had twigged, at that time they didn’t care.

That “got pissed” session on my final day would doubtless have included Anil and I suspect a few others who finished their exams that day. Anyone out there remember?

The diary even for that final week of school is peppered with BBYO stuff. I was on a small National Executive with a large portfolio that year. A lot of difficult stuff had kicked off that spring, not least our sole full timer, Rebecca Lowi, was leaving on 30 June. I had agreed to run the office temporarily over the summer, while a successor was recruited, so started work on the Monday after leaving school to have a handover day with her.

It seems I spent the weekend in between leaving school and starting work with Ivor (Heller), Simon (Jacobs) and Caroline Freeman (now Curtis) on the Sunday.

But my ire that last week was mainly directed at the unreasonable requirement for me to do ‘A’ Levels while all of this other stuff was going on. Needless to say my A Levels did not go well and it was only the good offices of Keele University via Simon Jacobs that helped me dodge the bullet of my resulting dodgy A Levels.

Getting In To & Starting At Keele University, 8 October 1980

But at the “day I left school” stage, that Keele element of my past was still in the future.

So, to answer Rohan’s question, “What advice would you give yourself if you could go back and talk to yourself on the day you left Alleyn’s?” I think the nub of my answer is that I would advise myself to be more reflective and thoughtful about the moment.

Yes, I had a lot going on at that time. Yes, I was psychologically in a rush to move on to fresh challenges. But I think I should have paid a little more heed at that time to the significance of the moment and reflected on that major, albeit natural, transition. And reflected on what those seven years at Alleyn’s had been about.

I have reflected on it since. Frankly, I’m not sure that reflection would have been all that profound at the time. I think it was much later that I started really to appreciate what that Alleyn’s education and those friendships, some enduring, others that resumed oh so easily, had done for me. Partly that appreciation came from growing up and partly from re-engaging with friends from school decades later. People like Rohan, Nick and many others.

But still I think that, at the time, I missed out on a “life moment” to which I can never return, by rushing away from the school that day and not looking back for years.

So, to answer Nick Wahla’s question, “What advice would you give to someone about to leave Alleyn’s?”, I’d simply say, “read this piece about the day I left Alleyn’s and try not to do it my way.”