Andrea Dean – Page 3 – Ian Louis Harris

More Work, Rest, Play, Including Some Record Buying & Rescuing Grandma Anne From The Nightingale, 22 July to 2 August 1981

The Nightingale – photo by Ewan Munro from London, UK, CC BY-SA 2.0

Lunch seemed to be the most important part of my working life back then. At least, it was the most recorded item in the diary about my working days.

Wednesday 22 July 1981 – work not too bad – met Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] for lunch…
…Friday 25 July 1981 – Met Karen [Davies] for lunch…

etc.

Andrea Dean came over on that Saturday.

-> pub etc. Stayed night.

I’ll guess that we met up with several of the Streatham BBYO crowd in that pub. Possibly The Horse & Groom, possibly The Greyhound or possibly The Pied Bull.

I went to see Grandma Anne on that Sunday (26th July) while she was still in Nightingale temporarily on a respite care/check it out basis.

Wednesday 29th July 1981 was Royal Wedding Day – that’s the Charles & Di wedding. I love my diary entry on the matter:

Royal Wedding day – off work. Lazy day not watching wedding.

On Saturday 1 August…

Went to RTE [Record & Tape Exchange] with Paul [Deacon] in day – successful trip…

I have no pictures of such visits to the exchange shops with Paul from those days, but the following picture is a “reconstruction” from Paul’s memory lane visit with me in 2017

Paul studying singles with his game face on, while I peruse the albums – just like in the old days

I think the following chunk from my RTE listings is the batch I bought that day:

Some stuff that I wouldn’t boast about now and/or that hasn’t dated well in that lot, but two of my all time favourite albums in that batch: Germfree Adolescents by X-Ray Spex…

…and Kimono My House by Sparks.

The diary entry for 2 August contains some mystery and does not adequately report the most memorable story of the day:

Mark Stevens dropped in. Got Grandma out of home – reinstated in flat. Paul [Deacon] popped over in eve.

I don’t remember why Mark Stevens dropped in on a Sunday morning. Perhaps Mark remembers.

There was a story to getting Grandma Anne out of Nightingale, though.

I remember this very clearly. We turned up to collect Grandma but she was nowhere to be found. She’d been staying at Nightingale for a few weeks, so we knew where she tended to hang out and where her room was…no joy.

Dad got quite worried and stressy.

We started asking people at random, until one person casually said, “I think she’s gone down the pub with Sid”.

This did not sound like Grandma Anne.

I doubt if she had ever, in her nearly 90 years by then, been in a pub before.

I scurried to The Nightingale, where indeed Grandma Anne was sitting with her new gentleman friend, quite oblivious to the fact that her respite stay was over and that she had an appointment to return to her flat with us.

Equally, she seemed nonchalant about simply saying goodbye to her new gentleman friend and zimmering slowly back to Nightingale with me.

A couple of weeks later, Grandma Anne was taken ill. She died three weeks after her impromptu pub outing. That event, which might have been her first pub visit, was also her last hurrah.

Perseverance With Work & Meeting Up With Friends, 28 March To 10 April 1981

The Perseverance, then named The Sun, Edwardx, CC BY-SA 4.0

My working life that Easter vacation seemed to revolve around lunching and spending evenings with friends. I have already remarked on that in the preceding piece, which culminated in a wonderful Elvis Costello concert which was a highlight of my 1981 concert-going:

Elvis Costello And The Attractions, Hammersmith Odeon, 27 March 1981

Prior to returning to work, lunches and occasional boozy evenings:

Saturday 28 March – went to David [Wendy’s brother] Robbins’s barmitzvah in morning and Ivor’s [Heller] in afternoon. Mays [neighbours George and Winifred] came in evening.
Sunday 29 March – Lazy day. Went to Barmitzvah party in evening.

Wendy Robbins sporting her Streatham BBYO tee-short in 1979

In truth I don’t remember too much about that weekend – others (e.g. Wendy) might have stronger memories of it. The hospitality will for sure have been warm.

Back to work on Monday:

Monday 30 March – Work OK, Lazyish evening.
Tuesday 31 March – Work OK. Spoke to people in eve etc.
Wednesday 1 April – not bad day. Went to [The] Sun [latterly renamed The Perseverance] with Jimmy in evening.

I’m not sure whether Jimmy was also doing a holiday job that Easter, but I think he probably was. For sure he spent several summer holidays working for the UCL Bubble Chamber Group at the main UCL campus in Bloomsbury. Just in case there is anyone reading this who doesn’t have a comprehensive grasp of what a bubble chamber group might do, allow me to deconstruct by saying “high energy physics” and linking to this piece about the UCL Bubble Chamber Group.

What I do know for sure is that the scientists with whom Jimmy was working had no truck with bubbly beer – they were a real ale crowd and I would be invited to join Jimmy and the team for a drink or two in their UCL bar until the early closure there led us to trek for 15 minutes or so to The Sun, which sold a vast array of real ales at any one time.

“Stop wasting valuable drinking time – let’s go to The Sun!” would be the cry from one or two of the bearded researchers with a central casting look and tone if anyone dared to drink up too slowly at the UCL bar.

Thursday 2 April – Work not bad. Lunched with Andrea [Dean]. Easy evening.

You’re probably getting the gist of this now. The diary is depicted above. I’ll pick up the translation story again the following Wednesday:

Wednesday 8 April – Went out with Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] for lunch. Went on the booze with Jimmy in the evening.
Thursday 9 April – Met Jilly [Black] for lunch. Paul [Deacon] popped in, in evening with records etc.
Friday 10 April – Busy day at work. Relaxed in evening.

By the end of this fortnight was clearly focussed on producing mix tapes for Paul Deacon, while he was clearly hard at work doing the same for me. 11 April 1981 was a big mix taping day for both of us, as my archive will reveal in the next posting.

A Week Of Serious Training For University Life Ahead Of Heading Up To Keele, 28 September To 4 October 1980

OK, so it seems that I somehow managed to blag my way in to Keele University…with a little help from my friends (in particular Simon Jacobs) and teachers (in particular Colin Page).

I returned alone from a week in Bournemouth with my parents (a one anecdote story about that trip will appear on Ogblog in the fullness of time), while my parents went on to explore the South-West of England for a week.

So, I had the run of Woodfield Avenue for my second and last week of holiday before steeling myself to the arduous task of student life.

I needed to do some training to get fit for the specific Herculean labours that the early part of my student life was likely to involve.

Fortunately I had plenty of friends to help me. Here, with just a little shame as well as pride, is my diary of that week.

Sunday 28 September. Left [Bournemouth] for London with [Dina? Nina?]. Advisors doobrie. Simon & Caroline came back. Went out for food. Drank.

Out for food in Streatham in those days probably meant Italian at Il Caretto or Chinese at the Blue Whatnot. I’ll guess Il Caretto.

29 September 1980. Simon & Caroline left. Went to Grandmas. Easy evening.

Not sure if there is an apostrophe catastrophe there, as it is quite possible…even likely…that I did a round trip of both Grandmas; Anne and Jenny.

Tuesday 30 September 1980. Went to office. Helped Jay [Marks]. Came home., read, slept.

A relatively gentle start to my training. One evening on, two evenings off. A bit feeble, actually. Then, mercifully, my friends rallied around and matters got serious.

Wednesday 1 October 1980. Easyish day. Simon came over early evening, stayed over, drank.

Thank you, Simon.

Thursday 2 October 1980. Simon left. Easy day. Lewis [Sykes, I assume] came over – stayed over, drank.

Picture “borrowed” from David Menashe. I’m sure David won’t mind, but if there is ever a blank space where the picture once lived, then you’ll know that David did mind..

Friday 3 October 1980. Lewis remained. Anil came over. Anil & Lewis stayed. Drank.

Saturday 4 October 1980. Anil & Lewis left. Simon, Caroline, Richard [Marks, I assume], A.N. Other [I can only apologise to this forgotten person], Melisa [yes, I remember Melisa, Hendon BBYO I think, but I shall need to do some more archaeology on my archive], came over, & Andrea & Wendy who stayed. Drank.

I am wondering what we drank. My dad usually had a handy stock of more than half-decent Bulgarian red wines in those days, as he was friendly with his importer neighbour near the shop on St John’s Hill, Battersea. I’m guessing that dad left me a case for that week with a nod and a wink. He was that kind of dad.

Forty years later, I’m still in touch with most of the people who helped me train that week. Thank you so much, folks, for helping me prepare for University. So kind and the kindness is not forgotten.

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