…and went to Sicily with my parents, turning 12 while I was there… [Ogblog yet to be writ on this topic. Alleyn’s pals didn’t want to know all about it in autumn 1974, I doubt if anyone is desperate to know about it in autumn 2024]. The photos can be viewed through this link or below.
Then I went back to school, joining 2AK. By the end of November, I was ready to be a diarist again – indeed I kept a diary pretty much unbroken for the next 14 years, after which I switched to event logs to accompany my appointment diaries.
I think I might have taken some guidance from my parents or friends on what to write about, in the immediate aftermath of my return to diary writing. I talk a lot about what I saw on TV and for a while prefaced each daily report with a one word summary of the weather. The latter habit soon passed. The watching much TV habit passed once I finished school, so my knowledge of soap operas and comedy shows is extremely patchy for the 1980s and almost non-existent by the 1990s, when for many years I had no TV at all!
My handwriting was truly terrible back in my school days, made worse by the use of coloured Tempo felt tip pens (or occasionally pencil or goodness-knows-what-sort-of-writing-implement) for the diary.
I am reliably informed by educationalist friends that my bad handwriting and terrible spelling would no longer justify a clip around the ear and recriminations about my laziness by school-teachers. Apparently it is a condition known as dysgraphia, which would open up all manner of possibilities for my special needs, including the provision of IT equipment in class and at home to assist me, plus, presumably, pity rather than opprobrium.
Anyway, let me try to transliterate the first few days of my return to being a diarist:
Saturday, 30 November 1974 – Performed whodunnit play. Afternoon uneventful. Dick Emery and Upstairs Downstairs good.
Sunday, 1 December 1974 – Classes started a Hanukah play. Afternoon Grandma Anne’s. Planet of the Apes on TV v good.
Monday 2 December 1974 – Inter-form soccer v good. Extra + Rothbart. TV Likely Lads, Waltons and Call My Bluff v good.
Tuesday, 3 December 1974 – French, maths and Latin tests. Classes v good. TV Paper Moon and Mighty Continent.
I cannot remember anything about the whodunnit play, but I think Michael Lempriere was our English teacher that year (other 2AK folk might confirm or deny) – if so, then drama-oriented English class activities were very much his thing.
Weirdly, although I report that the inter-form soccer on the Monday was “v good”, the rear of the diary also records, dutifully, that our opponents were 2AS and that we lost 2-6. Was I really that good a loser back then?
I have no idea what “Extra + Rothbart” means, other than a sneaking suspicion that Bernard Rothbart must have refereed that game and presumably gave us some extra practice and/or coaching after the match, that pleased me. I remember Mr Rothbart a chess and hockey master, not soccer. And of course I will never forget about his sad demise just five year’s later:
Thursday, 5 December 1974 – 40 out of 50 for Latin test – good. No other positions. Learnt Hanukkah baruchas [prayers] with Mr Morris. Mastermind and Monty Python v good.
Friday, 6 December 1974 – Rather uneventful. PE good. Ken Dodd quite good.
The PE was more likely to have been with Mr Sherlock or Mr Berry than with my form master, Tony King. But they were all of the sporty teachers, for sure.
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.
Although my 1974 diary fell silent for a few months in April 1974, I recall some aspects of my musical education from that period rather well. Alleyn’s School played a major part in that, but not the only part.
Pop Kennard, our Alleyn’s music teacher, did not do a great deal for my singing voice that year either. I recall him getting us to listen to and then try to sing Schubert’s Das Wandern in an English translation “To wander is the miller’s joy…”, which did not sound like the following in our unbroken and untrained voices:
“Take me to your lieder” – that’s what I would have said had I been familiar with the word “lieder”
My contribution to such singing in those days would have provided enthusiastic volume but would have lacked desirable sound, I am pretty sure.
I have subsequently been taking singing lessons by Zoom with “Miss Honey” since early in the pandemic and have improved beyond measure – my early efforts at improvement blogged about here:
I noted in my diaries early in 1974 that my dad invested in a high quality hi-fi at that time. He plumped for that ahead of a colour television set, which we did without for another couple of years while he saved up for one of those as well.
A fair chunk of dad’s enthusiasm for a hi-fi will have been to do with my musical education and the sense my parents will have had that my most impressive musical skill would be listening to music rather than performing it.
I’ll write separately about the small but neat collection of classical gramophone recordings my parents acquired for me and helped me to acquire. Mostly middle-brow stuff, getting me familiar with the conventional classical canon.
But one evening, dad spotted a concert being broadcast on BBC Radio and decided to get busy properly rigging up the hi-fi so that the concert might be recorded to a (then) high quality on the reel-to-reel for future listening.
Connect this beauty to the tuner and the speakers and the Sony TC377 depicted above. Simples.
Monteverdi’s eighth book of madrigals – The Madrigals Of Love And War – performed by the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra under John Elliot Gardiner.
Why dad was so keen to record this particular broadcast I don’t really know. I think he liked the sound of Renaissance music but found it hard to relate to sacred music from that period. High quality secular music of that period was not to be heard on the radio every day.
Dad made this recording on a 5 3/4 inch spool which I still have in a dungeon somewhere and have digitised along with all of the other spools from the Harris collection.
If you want to hear what those madrigals sound like, the following recording by the Consort of Musicke is a very decent quality version – frankly more to my taste now than the Eliot Gardiner style.
Anyway, fact is that this stuff became my ear worms at the end of my first year at Alleyn’s.
What Were Supposed To Be My Ear Worms In Early June 1974? The Top Five In the Charts, That’s What.
To close this piece, here are the top 5 UK chart hits from that week in 1974.
5: There’s A Ghost In My House by R Dean Taylor became an ear worm of mine many years later, when I got into Motown and Northern Soul, but I doubt if it even entered my consciousness in 1974:
4: The Streak by Ray Stevens went on to be number one for a while and was certainly the subject of our schoolboy chatter back then. “There seems to have been some disturbance here” was a catch phrase that did the rounds then, along with the Monty Python ones. I wonder what Pop Kennard would have had to say about the music therein:
3: Hey Rock ‘n’ Roll by Showaddywaddy was most certainly an ear worm back then. This number had entirely escaped my consciousness until I reheard it just now. Now it is stuck in my ear again. It was a seriously retro number even in 1974, although not as retro as Monteverdi madrigals, obviously:
2: This Town Ain’t Big Enough For The Both Of Us by Sparks. In truth, I don’t remember this track from that 1974 period. A few years later I had a copy of this track on a compilation album and then sought out a copy of Kimono My House (the album from whence it came) which was and remains an all-time favourite of mine. Kimono My House was very much my earworm in March 1981, when the story described in the following ThreadMash performance piece was live:
1: Sugar Baby Love by The Rubettes. Another ridiculously retro sound topped the charts that week.
How did that get to number one in the charts in 1974? Yet – listen closely. Do I detect a variant of the folia progression in there? Is Sugar Baby Love, in a sense, a setting for six voices based on a tradition pioneered in 17th century madrigals? Might Paul de Vinci of the Rubettes possibly have been related to Leonardo?
Monteverdi and Pop Kennard might be turning in their respective graves.
Back then, if I wrote “Herbie” I meant this anthropomorphic vehicle…
I ran out of steam for diary entry writing towards the end of April 1974. Well, I had been doing it for nearly four months by then. I suppose I had earned a sabbatical, or perhaps I was afflicted with juvenilia-writer’s-block.
When I returned to diary-writing at the end of November 1974, I think my efforts were pretty much continuous for a further 15 years. I regret the absence of entries between May and November 1974, but there’s not much I can do about that now.
Ian Sandbrook (who was my 1S form master and is now my e-mail-pen-pal) suggests that I could ask a chat-bot to make up some entries. But that strikes me as a rather low grade task for such a pinnacle of technology. If vast amounts of processing power is going to produce confabulatory text, it should do so on matters of greater import than my 11/12 year old’s diary entries.
I might try trawling my memory and the memories of other Alleyn’s alums for tales of derring-do in the summer term of 1973/74 and the autumn term of 1974/75. I certainly have a few summer holidays memories to share from that year.
Anyway, let’s make the most of what we have left, a few rather sketchy days bringing up the end of the Easter break and the start of the summer term:
Sunday, 21 April 1974 – Classes morn. Afternoon G[randma] Anne.
Monday, 22 April 1974 – Russell [Holland] – Herbie and Run Cougar Run. A good day.
Tuesday 23 April 1974 – New [term] at school, G Jenny afternoon, Classes.
Wednesday, 24 April 1974 – Sports – fives and tennis – uneventful – all ok.
Thursday, 25 April 1974 – Latin ok.
Russell Holland was a friend from my primary school, Rosemead.
There’s Russell at our Rosemead passing out parade, left of picture. Alan Cooke (both Rosemead and Alleyn’s) is the other boy in this picture
It’s quite a childish idea, an anthropomorphic car with a mind of its own, but then the Herbie movies were Disney films. My anthropomorphic car, Dumbo, writes sensibly about all manner of things when the fancy takes him, sometimes on my blog and sometimes on King Cricket, such as the following piece about his run in with the police…
It seems I played a bit of tennis as well as cricket that summer term at Alleyn’s and it seems we started learning Latin, I think with Doggie Johnson, the junior school head.
Perhaps I am confusing my Hebrew classes with my Latin classes, but I think the lessons might have gone a bit like this:
OK, in truth my memory fades, but I still find that Life of Brian sketch one of Python’s very best. If other alums from my year wish to chime in with memories from that third term at Alleyn’s, real, false or just funny, now would be a good time.
If you need a musical memory jogger, the following was Number One and a sound you just couldn’t avoid at that time:
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.
Election cliff hanger. Water polo, good. Drama, good.
Saturday 2 March 1974
School morn, good. Penalty prize good. Exam tomorrow – prepared.
Sunday…Visited Motel In Hospital…
Motel was someone my Grandma Anne had picked up along the way. Goodness knows where she found him…probably in a kosher hotel in Bournemouth. Or in central casting having asked for “an alte kaker from the schmutter trade”.
“…even a poor tailor is entitled to some happiness!”Presumably Motel, Fiddler On The Roof, Otterbein University Theatre & Dance from USA, CC BY-SA 2.0
Grandma Anne’s friend Motel was always nice to me but consistently promised more than he ever delivered. On one occasion he told me that he was going to make me a little velvet suit…I’m still waiting. Not that I think, in retrospect, that I was or am the little velvet suit type.
I’m pretty sure it was on this occasion, in hospital, wired up to a cardiogram machine, that Motel, hand shaking, “gave me a little something”, probably 10p, which, according to my father, sent Motel’s cardiogram readings haywire. Perhaps my dad exaggerated for effect.
Monday…The Banson Mystery
Until this week, my cricket training reports had been either pithy – “good / v good” or explaining my own derring-do such as taking catches or wickets. This week I mention something pertaining to Mr Banson and I cannot for the life of me read the word. Here’s the entry blown up and enhanced as best Photoshop can:
So what was “Banson in…?” My memory of him is mostly as an impatient, old school games master whose motivational technique was primarily based on applying his hand to the boys’ heads with some force.
I would really appreciate it if the hive mind of Alleyn’s alums were to transliterate the offending word/words.
Rest Of the Week
A rare mention of loss in the fives on Wednesday. The unnamed warrior who beat me was almost certainly Alan Cooke.
Thursday and Friday I am clearly pre-occupied with the general election. I have no idea what 440-700 means in that context on the Thursday – possibly the number of people they estimated to have voted at that Synagogue-annex-cum-polling-station in Brixton. Marcus Lipton prevailed in that constituency, which will have pleased my mum who always spoke very highly of him.
No idea what “Penalty prize” means. I don’t think it was a TV show – perhaps it was something we did as games on a Saturday at school.
Sunday, 3 March 1974
Exam went well. Andrew [Levinson] came for lunch, editing learned how to splice.
Monday 4 March 1974
Cricket good. HEATH RESIGNED.
Tuesday, 5 March 1974
Art papier-mâché. Classes good. Okay walk.
Wednesday, 6 March 1974
Fives, v good. Instruction from elderly man – played in old and new courts.
Thursday, 7 March 1974
Physics 9 out of 10. Classes paper. Purim at Bolingbroke – female singer.
Friday, 8 March 1974
Water polo scored and saved goal. Drama v good.
Saturday, 9 March 1974
School morning. Typed play in afternoon. Doctor Who v good.
I’m a little surprised to see “learned how to splice” at such an age – I thought I’d been editing tapes from an earlier age than that. But on reflection, I realise that the splicing method required for reel-to-reel tape included an open blade and my guess is that my dad needed convincing that I was ready to use something as potentially dangerous (to myself I hasten to add) as an open blade.
I love the fact that “Cricket Good” is trumped by, in block capitals, HEATH RESIGNED on the Monday.
Tuesday: Spelling Bee
My attempt to spell papier-mâché has to be seen in the original to be believed. Still, how would you have spelt it, dear reader, had you not seen my spell-checked version in this article?
Wednesday: Rugby Fives Tuition From Elderly Man, Aged 41
When I raised the matter of this “elderly man” with Mike Jones a few years ago, he informed me that it must have been John Pretlove, a name that rang a bell. A fine county cricketer and doyen of Rugby Fives, John was, at that time, often at a loose end and would come down to his alma mater, Alleyn’s, to watch and give informal instruction to the boys.
I was a little shocked when Mike told me that John was 41 in early 1974.
“But I seem to remember having to help the elderly man down from the viewing bench when he offered to help me”, I said. “He was already not in good shape by the early 1970s”, said Mike, “he’d worn out a lot of parts playing multiple sports”..
This might have been the occasion that Barry Banson had clipped me around the back of the head and called me “uncoachable” in front of John. I was upset, as I had been humiliated in front of this senior fellow. But after I helped John Pretlove down from the viewing bench he showed me what he thought Banson was trying to show me – getting my front leg well forward, getting right down to the ball and using my shoulder to give the ball some humpty around the walls. It became my best shot, both left and right-handed.
Rest Of The Week
I’m not sure which was the greater miracle – me scoring 9/10 in a physics test or me scoring and saving a goal at water polo. Several of the people in my year who really were good at water polo might read this piece at some point. Please let me know what you think…as if you guys need any encouragement to let me know what you think.
I’m not sure which of our “plays” this might have been, but this was the fruit of our drama class so it is just possible that this “typing of play” reference is about the Greek classics piece I have previously written about.
Sir (Ian Sandbrook) certainly won’t remember, but he might just be able to make out what I was saying about Mr Banson on that first Monday of this fortnight. After all, Mr Sandbrook had a lot of practice trying to make out my scrawl (and that of others) 50 years ago. Here’s the extract again, in colour this time.
A strange mixture of interesting, baffling and mundane diary entries in this chunk of my second term at Alleyn’s.
27 January To 2 February 1974
Sunday 27 January 1974 – Still no Mr Freed [Hebrew classes]. Grandma Anne’s. Made dad a blue moon egg.
Monday 28 January 1974 – Cricket with Banson v good batting and bowling.
Tuesday 29 January 1974 – Art good. Classes good.
Wednesday 30 January 1974 – Fives with Cookie – from 11-3 down to 16-14 up. He one [sic] other game.
Thursday 31 January 1974 – BAD DAY IN ALL
Friday 1 February 1974 – Maths test. Form drama, The Cave. PE basketball match.
Saturday 2 February 1974 – scool [sic] morning. Afternoon played filter paper.
“Blue moon egg” – my dad liked fluffy omelettes and I learnt how to make them when I was still quite small. They were (are) difficult to get absolutely right in terms of fluffiness – a bit like making a soufflé in a pan – but if I got it right, dad would announce that the egg was a blue moon egg.
I’ll talk about cricket in January at Alleyn’s separately in more detail elsewhere. At this seminal stage of our cricketing careers, I suspect that Barry Banson held back on head-cuffing as his modus operandus for “encouragement”.
In the matter of fives (Rugby fives), to be fair on Alan Cooke (aka “Cookie”), it is clear from other diary entries that I was usually the victim of his more able performances. During that early effort in January 1974, I must have found a little something extra to turn a match around thusly. Interesting that we were already playing to 15 rather than to 11. I’m pretty sure that our “proper” junior matches were played to 11.
When a bad day is all in block capitals, it must have been pretty bad. I might well have thought it needed no further exposition, as I would remember the details of its badness for the rest of my life. However, I can now report categorically that I have no idea what made that particular day bad. I can only say with some certainty that, at the time, that Thursday had not been a good one.
By Friday all was well again, with Drama Friday to enjoy and a basketball match in PE. I’m struggling to work out what “The Cave” might have been. I have already asked “Sir” (Ian Sandbrook) who is equally baffled.
There is a play called The Cave by Mervyn Peake which was written in the 1950s but not formally published until after 1974. It is possible that Alleyn’s had some “for school” copies of that piece, as some of the resources we used were not formally published books. Ian Sandbrook says:
The Mervyn Peake hypothesis has some merit as I think the English Dept did consider the Titus Groan trilogy as a candidate for the Mode 3 English Syllabus – although that is perhaps rather a fragile link.
If anyone out there remembers, then do chime in.
The late John Clarke (chemistry teacher) would no doubt have been proud of me playing with filter paper on Saturday after school. Just the sort of thing he would have wanted (perhaps even expected) boys from his chemistry class to do.
3 To 9 February 1974
This week has some even more obscure or difficult references in it. Some of it is handwriting related but some items are simply, to my mind now, truly weird things to write in one’s diary.
Sunday 3 February 1974 – Classes, Freed in March. Bechat Hamazon [grace after meals] v good.
Monday 4 February 1974 – cricket great bat good eye a hit bowl straight and good catch 4 v good, 1 good, 1 bad.
Tuesday 5 February 1974 – Art painting on wall. Classes good. Alf Garnet [sic] good.
Wednesday 6 February 1974 – Fives v Cookie. Man About The House v good.
Thursday 7 February 1974 – Very bad day. Horrible H’s in bad mood. I got the bad.
Friday 8 February 1974 – Monitor for entrance exam. Learnt some magils and /`read] a chapter second WW. Timeslip v good.
Saturday 9 February 1974 – scool [sic] in morning. Changed shoes Tuf /` + reinforcers 400] Dr Who v good.
“Freed in March must mean that I was told that I would transfer from Miss Aarons’s class to Mr Freed’s in March. Not that I was due to be released in March, nearly 18 months before my bar mitzvah. That wasn’t going to happen. Why I was so keen to mention the grace after meals I have no idea. I vaguely recall the Brixton Synagogue Hebrew Class including a sweet, calorific elevenses with Danish pastries, challah bread, jam and the like. This was partly to motivate attendance and partly to teach the meal graces in a happy context. I’ll write more on this topic in a specific piece or two and direct it towards the several friends from that era with whom I am still in touch, 50 years later. I think Andy Levinson was the only other Alleyn’s boy from our year who also attended those classes.
I’m not entirely sure what all of the Monday cricket entry means, but the England selectors might want a look at that young man, based on my description.
The Tuesday diary entry suggests that the art teacher, Mr Brew, liked one of my pieces. This wouldn’t be the last time that Mr Brew took to my crude drawings, despite my near hopelessness. My Dad, being a genuinely good artist with a steady hand and fine eye, tutored me a little at home, rendering me a bit less than useless and very keen.
Alf Garnett was the main character in Till Death Us Do Part – a comedy that wouldn’t pass muster in the modern era because, although it was ridiculing racist and misogynistic opinions, the Alf Garnett character spouted them with abandon. Here is the episode I watched that night with my parents:
Wednesday – the fact that I say “fives v Cookie” without mentioning the score tells you that Cookie must have won – probably won well.
Man About The House was a much gentler comedy than Till Death Us Do Part. Below is the episode we watched that night.
Interesting to read that 1st year pupils did monitoring for entrance exams. I have no idea what “learning magils” means. It might have been some homework for my bar mitzvah class. Also unsure what the second world war reading was about, as for sure we were studying ancient history that year. Perhaps just reading for general interest.
I had to Google “Timeslip”, but when I did so remembered that children’s programme. Unlike the above two shows, which first broadcast the above episodes on the day of the diary mentions, Timeslip was first broadcast three or so years’ earlier. Below is a short trailer which might trigger some of your memories:
I had to Google Tuf to realise that my note about changing shoes included a brand name. Back then, the brand was meant to be indestructible footwear for kids…
“Reinforcers 400” can only be a reference to buying a packet of 400 hole reinforcers. This might be the geekiest diary entry ever and surely confirms my membership of the Dull Men’s Club. We’re only a few weeks’ in to my diary and no doubt there are some well geeky entries to come.
Dr Who very good – who knew? The Doctor was Jon Pertwee at that time and Invasion of the Dinosaurs was the mini series at that time. Here is a short explaining how that season of Doctor Who worked:
Some of this TV stuff might be in colour for you (and for me now) but in 1974 the Harris household was still strictly black and white.
I’d forgotten all about hole reinforcers…I wonder whether I can find some in my draw and repair some damaged holes in my file pages?…
Sometimes the handwriting in my juvenile diaries is hard to decipher.
Other times, the scrawl is legible but the text is hard to interpret. The entry for 25 January 1974 is such an instance, rereading it 50 years later.
P.E. good + drama good. trial me a witness Downing made a mess of it.
Let us not fret about my pre-teen punctuation and sentence structure…or lack thereof.
My main concern here is with the reference to Downing.
There was no-one named Downing in 1S.
I asked a few 1S pals to hive mind this problem. Who was Downing and what on earth might Downing have done to “make a mess of it”?
Dave French suggested:
I remember that Drama class well, it was in the afternoon. Mistakenly, the dinner ladies served up magic mushrooms with lunch that day. That probably explains it – Downing was just ‘in your head’. It was quite embarrassing really; I still have nightmares.
Rohan Candappa offered an alternative theory:
Actually I remember the boy ‘Downing’. Downing was his nickname. It was a Cockney rhyming slang thing: Downing Street – Warwick Frearson.
To be honest, I think none of us really knew how rhyming slang worked.
Hmmm. The half-century-old 1S hive appears to be a bit of a struggling colony these days, especially in the matter of remembering the finer details of class activities. I can’t imagine any of the above evidence holding up in a jury trial.
“Erase from your minds inadmissible, hearsay evidence…”
I decided instead to seek help from the internet. I put the name “Downing” into the Alleyn’s 1970 Facebook Group search and found “Mike Downing” in our group, stitched up (or should I say “introduced”) by Steve Williams some years ago.
A Google Search of “Mike Downing Alleyn’s” found the gentleman on LinkedIn, asserting that he spent 1972-1979 at Alleyn’s (a year above us) and again a visible connection with Steve Williams.
There was nothing else for it. I contacted Steve Williams. Steve confirmed that Mike Downing was indeed a year above my 1S year, two years above Steve. Steve also confirmed that Mike was and still is a top bloke, who would no doubt enjoy the fifteen minutes of fame (or infamy) and rise to the challenge of trying to recall what might have happened.
Frankly, I can only imagine a few possibilities for this mystery diary entry.
The most plausible in my mind is that Mike Downing inadvertently entered our classroom half way through a double lesson. Opening the wrong classroom door by mistake during another class’s lesson was not an uncommon occurrence at Alleyn’s.
But in order to make it into my diary – a very rare mention of a specific event – the interruption was, presumably, during a key dramatic moment while I was giving evidence. I imagine myself fully in character. Lost within my back story and the highly-charged dramatic circumstances in which my character found himself. Such an interruption would, in those circumstances, have utterly demolished the fourth wall. My potentially monumental acting career thus cruelly interrupted, never again to find the giddy artistic heights that were just that moment about to blossom. A mess of it indeed.
The other possible answer to the Downing mystery is that Downing was part of that drama class and somehow muffed his lines. Perhaps he got tongue-tied or incriminated himself or failed to cross-examine me well enough to expose the implausibility of my evidence.
Is it possible that we occasionally (or even regularly) combined forces with a second year class on drama Friday? Or might Downing have been attending remedial first year drama classes, having made a mess of drama when he was a first year…only to go and make a mess of it again as a remedial member of our class?
I put it to you, dear readers (aka members of the jury) that we need to call at least two additional witnesses to the infamous “made a mess of it” event. Mr Ian Sandbrook (Sir) and Mr Mike Downing. Unless someone else who was there on that fateful day has memories to share.
For sure the sentencing needs to be a lot more incisive than the 25 January 1974 diary entry
Postscript One: Mike Downing Writes:
I seem to recall that I was in the end of year production of Dr and the Devils by Dylan Thomas for which I received critical acclaim in the school magazine but that may have been 1973. A later foray into Drama spanning some 40 years revealed that I was always late to put my book down and could paraphrase with the best of them when the lines were not forthcoming! I was also in the G & S society production of Trial by Jury so maybe that makes sense and I may well have messed up but old age has reduced it all to a vague blur! Shame you didn’t get to critique some of my later efforts as I definitely got quite good at the whole drama thing in the end. Came close to going professional at one stage but rather preferred the security of a regular pay cheque. Does that jog your memory at all? I doubt it refers to my older brother 1968-75 who never went near a stage in his life.
Postscript Two: Ian Sandbrook (“Sir”) Responds:
IAN SANDBOOK: I am very sorry, but I have absolutely no recall of Downing’s intervention in the drama class of Jan 25th 1974…
IAN HARRIS: Don’t worry about your lack of memory. It’s my diary and I cannot remember this stuff, so I cannot realistically expect others to remember it for me.
I started to keep a diary in January 1974. The 23 January entry is my first record of visiting the theatre, although I went with my parents to see pantomimes and children’s shows before then.
This visit I’m sure was my first school trip to the theatre, an Alleyn’s School outing. I think just for my class; 1S, probably Ian Sandbrook’s initiative. It was a revival of the first production at the Young Vic Theatre, which I think therefore makes it the Young Vic’s first production as an independent theatre company. It seems the revival was a precursor to a glittering US transfer.
All the 11 year old “critic” wrote at the time was:
“Scapino v good indeed. Jim Dale good. Got to bed very late.”
Yet the evening stays quite clearly in my memory. I remember liking the patter song about Italian food and I also recall catching a plastic facsimile of a glass of wine and keeping it in a bottom drawer for years and years. It survived many clear outs, but I think it came a cropper in the end. Who knows, it might turn up in one of my junk boxes some day.
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.
but that may have been 1973. A later foray into Drama spanning some 40 years revealed that I was always late to put my book down and could paraphrase with the best of them when the lines were not forthcoming! I was also in the G & S society production of Trial by Jury so maybe that makes sense and I may well have messed up but old age has reduced it all to a vague blur! Shame you didn’t get to critique some of my later efforts as I definitely got quite good at the whole drama thing in the end
. Came close to going professional at one stage but rather preferred the security of a regular pay cheque. Does that jog your memory at all? I doubt it refers to my older brother 1968-75 who never went near a stage in his life.
