I got involved with “proper drama” at Alleyn’s for a couple of productions. Andorra by Max Frisch was the first of them, when I was just 15. Here are my diary extracts.
The first block, from January, shows little emotion or detail at having got a decent part in a Bear Pit production:
Friday 13 January 1978, Got a talking part in the school play – I’m the innkeeper – V pleased,
16 January 1978, should have rehearsed – cancelled,
17 January 1978, first Andorra rehearsal,
20 January 1978, rehearsed for Andorra, 23 January 1978, rehearsed for Andorra,
24 January 1978 Andorra rehearsal,
26 January 1978, rehearsed for Andorra,
27 January 1978, rehearsed for Andorra,
30 January 1978, rehearsed for Andorra,
31 January 1978, Andorra rehearsal.
Two weeks in, by the start of February, I’m a critic as well as a performer. Didn’t I know about hubris? I was way overconfident anyway – “perfected” is not a term I would ever use now:
Thursday 02 February 1978, rehearsed for Andorra – OK,
03 February 1978, rehearsed for Andorra – OK,
05 February 1978, first Sunday rehearsal for Andorra – not bad,
06 February 1978, rehearsed for Andorra,
07 February 1978, Andorra rehearsal – good,
09 February 1978, rehearsed for Andorra – good – seems to be OK,
10 February 1978, rehearsed in evening for Andorra,
12 February 1978 rehearsal for Andorra in afternoon – a good one,
13 February 1978, rehearsed for Andorra – not bad,
14 February 1978, scene 11 of Andorra perfected.
Matters were bound to take a turn for the worse after that and so they did:
Friday 15 February 1978, Dennis [Galvin] rushed to hospital last night with colitis – Mick Lemp [Michael Lempriere] has taken over,
16 February 1978, rehearsed for Andorra – not bad rehearsal but still looks poor,
17 February 1978, field day and rehearsal,
19 February 1978, rehearsal cancelled as Mick Lemp visits relatives in Exeter,
20 February 1978, Mick stuck in snowdrift, Dan [Shindler] in bed with flu, disaster for play,
21 February 1978, Rehearsed all day for Andorra – Mick & Dan & Den all absent,
22 February 1978, flop dress rehearsal this evening – does not look good.
But the show had to go on:
Thursday 23 February 1978, Yesterday’s flop dress rehearsal lead to an almost empty house [tonight] watching a great performance,
24 February 1978, 2nd night of Andorra – even better than last night – 3/4 house – enjoyed it,
25 February 1978, Last night of Andorra – 7/8 house – performance good – party afterwards – got drunk.
I’m pretty sure my parents came to see Andorra on the middle (Friday) night of the run. And I’m fairly sure the following dialogue (or something like it) took place on the drive home after the show.
MUM: I wasn’t very impressed by some of your school chums in the audience behind us.
ME: What happened, Mum?
MUM: Well, during the interval one of them said to his pals, “I’m looking forward to the bit where Harris has to run around the stage yelling ‘I’m not a Jew, I’m not a Jew.” Then they were giggling. I wasn’t going to let that pass without comment.
ME: Oh, God, Mum, what did you say to them?
MUM: I turned around and asked them why that was so funny. One of the boys explained, “because Harris is a Jew. But he has to run around the stage saying “I’m, not a Jew”. Then the boys giggled some more.
ME: …and then…
MUM: I said, “I’m well aware of all that. I’m his mother and I’ve helped him to learn his lines. I’m just trying to understand what makes it funny.” They went very quiet after that.
ME: Oh, Mum. I’m going to get mercilessly teased on Monday when I get back to school. Or worse. Why couldn’t you just let it go?
DAD: I knew it. I could have told you he’d be upset.
To be fair on the poor boys involved (and I do wonder who they might have been – any confessions?) it was an ironic, rather funny matter. Indeed, with the benefit of hindsight, my casting in the role of the Innkeeper might well have been based more on my physiognomy than my stagecraft. In any case, we cast had all had a bit of a laugh about the irony of me yelling “I’m not a Jew” during rehearsals and I saw little malice in the remarks as reported by my mum.
But to be fair on my mum, although I did get some serious ribbing on the Monday (as recorded in my diary), it was not at all to do with my mother’s intervention. Indeed the poor boys who got my mother’s tongue-lashing were probably more embarrassed than I was about that matter.
No-one would relish a tongue lashing from my mum. Cruel spectacles and cut glass voice to go with them.
No, the ribbing I received resulted from reports of my drunkenness at the after show party on the Saturday.
As to the exact details of my ribbing-inducing party antics, I recall very little. I do remember drinking far too much cheap party cider – a once-in-a-lifetime mistake (drinking cheap cider, not the occasional over-drinking). I think the party was at Tiggy’s house, mostly in a rather large garage/out-house. Or am I am confusing the Andorra party with the Twelfth Night party?…
Others who were a bit older (I was only 15-and-a-half) and a bit wiser (almost everyone else who was there) might recall the Andorra after show party better.
Still, my mother’s parental intervention was a pretty cringe-making one.
On 23 September 2016, I was honoured to witness live Toby Roland-Jones taking a hat-trick for Middlesex, sealing the County Championship for my beloved county – naturally I Ogblogged about it – here…
…but that wasn’t the first time I had witnessed a hat-trick live. Indeed, it wasn’t the first time that month, September 2016, that I had witnessed a hat-trick live – I saw Middlesex on the wrong side of one at Trent Bridge, Nottinghamshire – Ogblogged about here – just 17 days before the day of glory…
…but that Trent Bridge one wasn’t the first hat-trick I had witnessed live, although it was the first professional one.
The first hat-trick I witnessed live (and the last one for more than 40 years) was, remarkably, my own.
I don’t have many glorious feats of cricket to report. Let’s be honest about it; I’m not much good at playing cricket. I love it, but I’ve never been much use at it. But on 9 July 1975, the last match of 2AK’s trophy-winning season, I reported with little ceremony in my diary the following:
The irony of having watched The Ascent Of Man after such an auspicious sporting achievement is not wasted on me.
I remember the hat-trick remarkably well. I am pretty sure we were playing up on Alleyn’s top fields – not the very top one but the large, “lower top field”. That was mostly used as the second eleven pitch, but for the juniors I recall that field was divided in two, with a couple of strategically located mini-squares, so all four classes could play at the same time.
I can’t remember the name of the master who was umpiring. I do remember that my first wicket was a clean bowled and the second was a caught and bowled. The master and I then had the following conversation:
“Do you realise that you are on a hat-trick, Mr Harris?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“What are you proposing to do about it?”
“I’m going to try and bowl the same ball again, Sir.”
Which I did.
The “same ball” being pretty much my only ball. A moon ball, ludicrously slow, with an attempt at spin on it; probably a bit of top spin but nothing else in its favour other than being straight.
You see, I was very keen, so I used to practice bowling in the back drive against the garage door for ages. I didn’t get much better at bowling, but I was usually at least able to bowl the ball straight in those days.
Clean bowled.
In my memory (undoubtedly a falsy) the master was rolling on the floor laughing when I took the third wicket in three balls. I’m sure he really did laugh, anyway.
9 July 1975, a truly memorable date in (my personal) cricket history. The ill-fated 1975 Ashes series started the very next day; I don’t think this fact is even faintly relevant to my story, but I wanted to write it nonetheless. I can write what I like on Ogblog.
A lot of very good bowlers have played an awful lot of cricket without ever taking a hat-trick. I know that I’m not and wasn’t ever a good bowler. My hat-trick was at a very elementary level and only has significant meaning to me. But it is a memory I have carried with me all my days since and I shall continue to cherish that memory until I am gaga and/or dead.
I wonder who the hat-trick victim was? That much has slipped my mind completely. His too, almost certainly.
Michael Lempriere had arranged for our drama class to go and see Entertaining Mr Sloane by Joe Orton. It would have been the mid 1970s Royal Court revival production (probably the West End transfer thereof), with Beryl Reid as Kath, Malcolm McDowell as Sloane, James Ottaway as Kemp and Ronald Fraser as Eddie.
Anyway, when my mum got wind of it that we were going to see THAT play, she went into high horse mode, for reasons I cannot quite work out. I think she just felt that we were far too young for…whatever it was…not that she really knew anything about it, other than the fact that she probably mentioned it to a friend and that friend looked horrified at the thought. perhaps a sample of two priggish friends.
Mum was probably in a grumpy mood generally at that time – she was in and out of hospital for the first half of that year, culminating in a hip replacement in May. Anyway, she decided not merely to ground me from this one – I might have got away with just minor embarrassment for that. She got on to the school and got the outing cancelled. How un-hip was that?
Several of my drama pals were mightily unimpressed with this, as was I. We were all very disappointed as much as anything else. Michael Lempriere handled the matter with great dignity I’m sure, but that couldn’t prevent the ribbing. In particular, I recall Bob Kelly giving me a hard time; not least suggesting my mother’s physical as well as behavioural similarities with Mary Whitehouse. As my mother had chosen to go down the cruel spectacles line during the mid 1970s (illustrated with a 1977 picture below) this was a difficult charge to deny.
I’m not entirely sure when the theatre trip that never was should have happened. My diary is silent on the whole matter. I am guessing it was supposed to be an after exams jolly at the end of my second year, but it might just have been a start of the next academic year jolly for our drama group. If the latter, we didn’t miss out on Ottaway and McDowell, we missed out on Harry H. Corbett as Ed and Kenneth Cranham as Sloane.
I made three mentions of the very first cricket world cup (which was billed as the Prudential Cup) in my 1975 diary. I have already Ogblogged the very first match…
Even I have had to do some Photoshop forensics on that 21 June entry:
West Indies won first P Cup by 17 runs. Had a day off school for founders day. TV: Cannon, That’s Life. Still swotting.
I’m not sure why I got a Saturday off on Alleyn’s School Founders Day. Perhaps it was because my year was still swatting for exams so we were exempted. Perhaps I was exempted on religious grounds, as that Saturday was just a few weeks before my barmitzvah.
In any case, I can’t imagine when I did the swotting boasted in the diary entry. I don’t have any recollection of swotting that day. I only recall being glued to the telly, not least for most if not all of that cricket match.
I certainly recall seeing Roy Fredericks getting out hit wicket, which was very early in the match…and seeing that partnership between Clive Lloyd and Rohan Kanhai…and seeing the Aussies struggle against that West indies bowling attack…
I do also recall the match going on late…indeed past the time that dinner was normally served in the Harris household. There was a golden rule that meal times took precedence over ANYTHING on television.
I remember arguing my corner. This was the first ever cricket world cup final and there would never, ever be another “first ever” and it was building up to a really exciting ending.
I managed to get a temporary stay of execution for the family dinner, much against my mother’s better judgement.
Below is a highlights package of the match – I especially dig the floppy hats donned by Fredericks and Greenidge at the start of the innings:
Beyond the final, I know that first cricket world cup had a profound effect on me.
I saved newspaper clippings of the scorecards from the various matches and I remember replaying the world cup with my friends (and on my own) in various formats over the summer:
I especially remember looking at the names of players and trying to understand what the different types of names meant for those different places. The mixture of Portuguese and Southern Asian names from Sri Lanka especially sparked my interest.
I wondered whether I would visit some of those exotic-seeming (judging by the cricketers’ names) places. I have now visited most.
Writing this article on the eve of the 2019 Cricket World Cup Final, I am still wondering when England will win the tournament.
This was the summer in which I took a hat trick at cricket; at the culmination of a league-winning tournament in which my class, 2AK won all but one of the league matches:
But when you are as sporadic at sport as I am, no amount of enthusiasm nor occasional high achievement is going to protect you from the bad days.
18 June 1975 seems to have been such a day. And not just for me.
Just in case any readers are as sporadic at reading finely crafted handwriting as I am at sport, let me transcribe that 18 June diary entry for you.
We lost in cricket league. Boo hoo. Some hot revision. Had to catch 37 train home. Out of fives competition. TV Ascent of Man, Only On Sunday. England out of Prudential Cup.
That loss in the cricket league will have really hurt at the time. I have all of the scores neatly recorded in the back of my diary (I’ll write up the tournament at some point) so can confirm that we lost that game to 2BM by three runs (90 played 93). They were the other form team in the league – we had beaten them once before in our run of six wins at the start of the tournament. A seventh win on 18 June would have confirmed the tournament for us, but that loss kept our main rivals in the race – we were to face them once more a couple of weeks later.
It appears that I not only had to vice-skipper the cricket team that day but I also had to play my fives tournament semi-final. I dont record who my fives nemesis was that day, but I have a feeling, thanks to John Eltham’s extraordinary memory for our school’s sporting legends, that it was Neil Hodson.
The 18 June 1975 diary entry, I must say, is extraordinarily bleak, even in its brevity. “Some hot revision”, I sense, was my juvenile attempt to record that sense of being hot and bothered all day at Alleyn’s. Clearly even my preferred route home from school on that day of sporting disaster was confounded.
Then, to cap it all, “England out of the Prudential Cup”, that first cricket world cup that I had been following avidly since the very first day of the tournament.
England’s nemesis that day – a left arm swing bowler named Gary Gilmour. 1975 was to be his annus mirabilis too. But Gilmour’s sporting heights were mirabilis electi while mine were mirabilis ordinarius.
I wrote the words “boo hoo”, cynically I suspect, but I wonder whether or not the 12-year-old me really did cry at some point during that day or evening. I must admit that, writing this up now, aged 56, I welled up a little imagining my much younger self going through and then reflecting on that awful sporting day.
Without doubt my favourite game in the early days at Alleyn’s was fives. Specifically at Alleyn’s we played Rugby Fives.
It was the only sport at which I was good enough to represent the school and no doubt that selection only came through my comparative ability with the left-hand as well as the right. Let’s not call this ambidextrous, in my case more like ambiclumsy. In any case, my doubles partner was Alan Cooke and he was good. I probably got my team berth more on the back of Alan’s skills than my own.
Still, I wasn’t bad and there are lots of references to my successes and failures throughout my diaries, especially 1974 & the first half of 1975.
But looking back today, early February 2016, I thought I should write a short piece about this simple entry I found for 9 June 1975.
Uneventful day. Beat Eltham 11-5, 11-5 in Q-Finals.
Now in my book, John Eltham was good at sport. Really good at sport. I’m not sure John played fives much, but he was generally good at sport.
I was not good at sport. Really, really, really not good at sport. There was the occasional success, of course, not least one goalkeeping tale of derring-do that I have promised not to blog about…
…for the time being…
…until I can find the reference and/or unless the promised hush money proves not to be forthcoming…
…but my point is, looking back, I don’t see how the two sentences in the above quote could possibly be talking about the same day. Beating John Eltham at any sport made it an eventful day. Heck, just having got to the Q-Finals of any sport made it an eventful day for me.
But perhaps my young mind, turned by some fleeting success, was by then looking beyond a semi-final appearance to greater glory than that achieved.
The diary is silent on fives for the rest of the term apart from a fleeting mention of my semi-final loss a week-or-so later, with no mention of the score or the opponent – click here or below – clearly I couldn’t even bear to write down that particular losing result.
Anyone care/dare to own up to ruining this poor kid’s day by destroying his one chance at glory in the internal fives competition? I fancy a rematch.
Postscript One
John Eltham, on seeing this posting, e-mailed me the next day to say:
You modestly left out the fact that we had at least two national Rugby Fives champions in our year ! Hodson & Stendall.
Indeed we did, John. And indeed Jumbo Jennings latterly. I’d forgotten about Neil Hodson in that context.
I have a strange feeling that it might well have been Hodson who beat me in the semis – I have always had a sense of unfinished business with him and I probably would have been too gutted to report the loss. Whereas Chris Stendall was, like Alan Cooke, an old mate from primary school; I took my (more often than not) losses against them on the chin and regularly recorded those in the diary.
Postscript Two
After writing the above line “I fancy a rematch” and posting this piece, I then knelt down to put the 1975 diary back in the box under the bed and then…felt my left hammy twinge when I got up again. Perhaps a fives rematch at the age of 53 is not such a good idea after all.
Postscript Three
For reasons of his own, Rohan Candappa presented me with a trophy commemorating this historic fives victory, in December 2018, described here:
In the same notes space at the back of my 1975 Letts Schoolboys Diary, I recorded the names and nicknames of the boys in my second class, 2AK:
This material is even harder to decipher than the 1S equivalent – my use of bold tempo pens playing havoc with the thin paper of those diaries. So, I set the text out below – apologies for replicated spelling errors, inability to decipher errors and for some of the ghastly nicknames:
Allott
Athaide
Bateman – Batman
Bedford – Bedders
Bradshaw – Brad
Brassell
Dalloway – Dallers
Deacon – Doormouse
Dwelly – Bone
Feeley
Forrest
French – Frog
Geere – Gottle
Goodwin
Gurney – LEFT
Handy
Hanton – Brucy
Harris
Hollingshead – Beachhead?
Jennings – Jumbo, Juggernaut, Jet
Johnson
Kelly
Masson – Chimpy (thanks to David French for the correction).
Pullinger – Tug
Proctor – Superproc
Reeves
Rowswell – Sandy
Spence – Spike
Stevens
Wahla – Gob
I don’t think Gurney was nicknamed “Left”, I think that is a note to say that he left the school.
Now many of the above nicknames are weaker and thinner than a supermodel on a crash diet. I know some of them were genuinely used, but I find it hard to believe that all of them had common currency…
…and surely the rest of us must have had nicknames of some sort at one time or another. My work in early 1975 was only part done and then I got bored – typical kid.
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.
What a sporty day Wednesday 4 December 1974 must have been for me. Just in case you cannot read what the day’s entry says:
11th in chemistry.
Fives lost 15-3 to Wrightson & Weber, beat Mason & Candappa 15-7 and beat Pavasi & I Goodwin 15-3, 15-0.
Fridge ball 533.
Some of this perhaps needs explaining. “11th in chemistry” is and perhaps will remain a bit of a mystery. 11th in the year would be quite good; whereas 11th in the class more predictably mediocre in that subject. It’s not well explained in the diary; much like my answers in the chemistry test, no doubt.
No, it is the fives and the fridge ball that caught my eye for further exposition.
Looks as though Cookie and I warmed up as the afternoon went on; perhaps this was a breakthrough afternoon for our nascent doubles pairing. Earlier references to fives in my diary seem to be singles games.
Apologies to David Pavesi – firstly for the surprising mis-spelling of his name, as we knew each other well from primary school as well as at Alleyn’s. But also apologies to him and Ian “Milk” Goodwin for the drubbing. Why we played a second set against those two after a convincing first set I really cannot imagine. Perhaps they requested another chance. Perhaps we four wanted to play some more and everyone else had disappeared.
Fridge Ball
I suppose I do need to explain the magnificent and extraordinary sport of fridge ball, just in case the reader is unfamiliar with the game.
In short, fridge ball is to table tennis what real tennis is to modern (lawn) tennis, but instead of a medieval courtyard, which is the theatre of play for real tennis, the theatre of play for fridge ball is a modern kitchen. Fridge ball is played with a ping-pong bat and a ping-pong ball.
Sadly, there are no photographs of the 3 Woodfield Avenue, London, SW16 fridge ball court as it looked in 1974, but there is a photograph of the court from 2012, when the house was being refurbished in preparation for letting – see below.
In front of the visible wall (to the left of the picture) stood a large 1960’s-style fridge-freezer; the surface against which the ball has to be hit. The floor surface back then was linoleum of a rather insipid hue. In the photograph you can actually see a layer of blue glue awaiting some fancy modern flooring substance, the suitability of which for fridge ball was not even tested.
The game, simply, is to hit the ball against the fridge door as many times as possible, ideally getting some interesting bouncy business off the floor and/or the jauntily angled pantry door (shown open in the photo but naturally closed for play) and/or the panel doors below the sink,and/or divider doors (just out of shot at the bottom of the photo, which at the time had helpfully unobtrusive recess slots rather than potentially rally-ruining handles).
If the ball is accidentally hit to the left of the fridge (to the kitchen entrance), the ball is out and the rally is over. If the ball is hit to the the right of the fridge (an entrance that leads to a little laundry area and side door to the house), the ball is out and the rally is over. If the ball is hit above the fridge, gawd help you because the ball will probably get stuck behind the fridge and is the devil’s own job to retrieve. Needless to say the rally is over but also, almost certainly, your enjoyment for the evening, as mum and dad take matters into their own hands to terminate the game at that juncture.
If you hit the ball hard enough for it to get some action off the back surface or the cooker, the ball is still in play but that is a dangerous tactic given the strange bounces you might get back there. Aficionados of real tennis might enjoy the idea of hitting the grill/grille – a winning shot in realers but merely part of the ongoing fun/difficulty in fridgers.
Where you can see drawers at the back of the court/right hand side of the photograph, in my day there was a recess under a surface there and a stool kept in that space. If the ball went into that recess it was out and the rally was over, making the back of the court even more treacherous than it would be today.
A second bounce does not necessarily terminate the point, although most second bounce situations tend to lead to the ball not bouncing at all and ending up dead, which thus ends the rally.
It really is a magnificent game, full of skill and playable as an addictive solo game, not entirely unlike the pinball addiction that subsequently grabbed me for some time. Indeed given the size of our family kitchen, it worked best as a solo game.
But here’s the thing.
Fridge ball 533.
Just think about that for a moment. A 533 stroke rally. That is a remarkable score.
I think there was also a playing condition that allowed for externalities (such as mum wanting to do the washing up or dad wanting a cup of tea), such that the player could catch the ball in the non-bat hand (not scoring a stroke for the catch, btw) and then continue the rally once the interruption was over. Frankly, I can’t imagine having had the run of the kitchen for long enough to score 533 without such a playing condition. Not on a midweek evening after playing four sets of fives at school.
What a marathon sporting day.
Does anyone reading this piece remember playing fridge ball with me or similar games in their own (or other people’s) homes? I’d love to hear all about it if you did.
I have put the main highlights into the headline, but it was a full tilt time for me, the last three weeks of March 1974. Not only the above things but I also did “senior work with Morris” (whatever that might be), a load more drama with Ian Sandbrook, played cricket & fives & tennis & chess & Subbuteo…and got super-excited (as the young folk now say) about the hi-fi my dad procured that month.
But I am getting ahead of myself, let’s trawl those diary pages and try to make sense of them.
Sunday, 10 March 1974 – Classes party. Bar mitzvah – Mark Briegal, very good indeed. Got drunk.
Monday, 11 March 1974 – Drama good, stamp swapping. Cricket good.
Tuesday, 12 March 1974 – Saturday periods one to four. Art good. Navy display in pool v good. Senior work with Morris.
Wednesday, 13 March 1974 – Chemistry, good. Fives v good – more tuition from elderly man. World At War, good. Benny Hill.
Thursday 14 March 1974 – Not bad day. Classes good. All is okay.
Friday, 15 March 1974 – Drama, good. Hi-fi amplifier, tuner and speakers.
Saturday, 16 March 1974 -Exeat. Listened to hi-fi. Subbuteo after. Mum in a peeve.
Mark Briegal is my second cousin once removed (one of many such cousins). I am quite sure that Mark will feel honoured that my first diary reference to getting drunk (and quite possibly the very first time I felt drunk) was on the occasion of his bar mitzvah party. I vaguely remember cousins from the Jacobs branch of that family encouraging me to partake. Also rather a lot of dancing emanating from the Jacobs side. The following example from my own bar mitzvah party nearly 18 months later.
Let’s move on.
Not too sure where stamp swapping came from; I was never really into stamps. I do recall a neighbour giving me quite a sizeable box of miscellaneous stamps from the length and breadth of the dominions, some of which, for all I know, might have real value now. I still have them somewhere and should probably let someone who knows what they are doing have a look at them one day. In short, the sun never sets on my stamp collection, nor does it ever see the light of day. I might have swapped away the best of them, of course.
I cannot fathom what a navy display in the pool might have been, nor what “senior work with Morris” might have comprised…or even who Morris might have been in this context – Colin perhaps?
This was a big deal for me. I loved that hi-fi. Dad loved that hi-fi. I think he spent quite a lot of money on it, perhaps unaware that there were desperately difficult financial times just around the corner for him. Dad prioritised the hi-fi over the purchase of a colour TV – the latter purchase being beyond his means for a year or so after the purchase of the hi-fi.
I’m all of a quiver having found an image of that wonderful beastie.
Not sure what I was doing with Subbuteo and/or the hi-fi that put mum in a peeve – presumably playing for too long and/or playing music too loud while playing for too long. Mum would need to get over that – such conduct, although not recommended to younger readers who might stumble across this piece, became quite common in our household.
The Next Week Including The Mikado With Trevor Tindale
Sunday, 17 March 1974-Classes good. Feld’s lunch. Home after Kalooki 3p.
Monday, 18 March 1974 – Drama play Sherlock Holmes. Cricket good. Waltons good.
Tuesday, 19 March 1974 – Art good. Classes good. Likely Lads good.
Wednesday, 20 March 1974 – Fives v good indeed. Mikado – Tindale, extremely good as Ko-Ko.
Thursday, 21 March 1974 – Classes good. Uncle Cyril for chess – nice one Cyril.
Friday, 22 March 1974 – Acted play. Drama v good. Stereo player v good.
Saturday, 23 March 1974 – 27th in class. In afternoon, listened to record player.
This lifted from the Alleyn’s performing arts book – hoping that Mike Jones might dig out the full programme
The Alleyn’s Performing Arts book suggests that the school’s Gilbert & Sullivan was revived around 1973, primarily by Iwan Davies and Trevor Tindale, with the blessing of the Music Master Frank “Pop” Kennard. The Mikado would have been the second production.
My memory is clear that the first G&S I ever saw was the Pirates of Penzance, but whether that was the Alleyn’s production (either in my first term or perhaps before I started but once it was known I was to join the school), or possibly a professional production with my parents, I cannot recall. I can clearly visualise Iwan Davies and Trevor Tindale in their Mikado roles. I remember my folks being very impressed with it and loving it myself.
I went on a bit of a G&S binge in the aftermath of this show, borrowing any G&S I could find in the Lambeth Public Library and scraping it onto reel-to-reel tape at a rather shocking 1.875 IPS speed, which rather defeats the object of having a classy amplifier and a decent quality reel-to-reel recorder, but there you go.
I’d love to hear and see more memories of this event and am hoping that Mike Jones can lay his hands on some additional bumf and perhaps share his own memories.
27th In Class
How did I come 27th in a class that only had 26 people in it? OK, maybe there were 29 people in the class. Perhaps counting things was part of my problem at that stage.
But actually I now would like to challenge the basis of that assessment. I know that 50 years have passed and that most people might have more important things to do than re-hash old scores…
…but I am not most people, am I?
I would like to know how this somewhat embarrassing position was assessed. There is no reference to exams in my diaries. Continuous assessment had surely not been invented back then. So how were the class positions determined? Mr Sandbrook might or might not choose to respond to this question.
Was this some sort of rating/ranking system based on the teachers’ assessment of our performance in each subject using that rather subjective method of allocating the letters A to E with pluses and minuses attached?
Did Sir (Mr Sandbrook) apply numerical scores to those modal assessment classifiers? If so, was he aware that the application of conventional quantitative statistical methods to qualitative modal data is flawed for oh so many reasons. Machine learning algorithms, which can help with this type of classification and prediction problem, were mostly yet to be postulated, let alone of practical use, in 1974.
Tuesday, 26 March 1974 – Art good. Classes good. Likely Lads v good.
Wednesday, 27 March 1974 – chemistry, good. Fives v good – Cookie won as usual !!!
Thursday, 28 March 1974 – broke up from school. G Jenny’s, missed classes, report q. good, art A- excellent.
Friday, 29 March 1974 – Uneventful, Andrew not available, wargame, Subbuteo, five-a-side cup snag.
Saturday 30 March 1974 – joined tennis club. Learnt forehand and backhand. Shopped in p.m.
I’m struggling to work out why I was so motivated to write down that I caught Nick Jarmany out at cricket. I don’t remember sporting rivalry (or indeed any rivalry) with Nick. Perhaps he had been doing very well in that particular game – the moment seeming noteworthy in that context. It’s a badge of honour, getting a sporting mention in my diaries, Nick. A badge of honour.
Interestingly, in the Wednesday entry, Alan Cooke finally gets the mention he deserves with respect to fives. My memory of it was that invariably won, although the diary documents a couple of (I suspect rare) Harris victories before this end of term confession.
Alleyn’s branded gloves hadn’t been invented back then
How did I get quite a good report for coming 27/29 in class? Sadly, mum threw away all of my old school reports without asking me if I wanted to keep them…”yes please, mum”, I’d have said…so the details are now lost in the mists of time.
I might politely ask Mr Sandbrook to try to replicate his summary in that end of term two school report, but I thought I’d ask Chat GPT to have a go first:
Despite ranking 27th in the class, Ian has shown commendable dedication and enthusiasm towards his studies and extra-curricular activities. While his academic performance may not currently reflect his efforts, his attitude towards learning is admirable. He has actively participated in various school activities, displaying a keen interest in broadening his horizons beyond the classroom. With continued perseverance and focus, Ian has the potential to improve his academic standing and excel in his studies. Keep up the good work and maintain your positive attitude towards learning.
Oooh, I rather like that. I feel inspired to buck up my ideas and work a bit harder next term. That report might even stave off my mum’s peevishness.
School’s Out
I love the reference to Andrew [Levinson] not being available and a Subbuteo five-a-side cup snag. Presumably the latter caused by the former, as there is no sign of anyone else to play with that day.
Contrast with “joining tennis club” the next day, which I am pretty certain also involved Andrew and Fiona Levinson, plus some other kids from our street. I have written a whole entry to commemorate the 50th anniversary of me starting tennis, as that feels rather important given the amount (and varieties) of tennis I have been playing avidly since that day.
