John White loves a bit of existential angst, so what could be a better choice for a Saturday night out than Huis Clos? Mandy was up for it. Annalisa was up for it. Off we went to the Lyric Hammersmith – the small Studio theatre there.
The play is set in hell, which is said to be a hot place.
It really was o-t ‘ot that evening. Clammy August and naturally the air conditioning system in the Studio wasn’t working.
Here’s my database/diary note for this evening:
The air conditioning had broken down on one of the hottest days of the year. The Lyric gave us all free squash in the interval because it was so bad. It did make the play about hell truly multi-sensory. The line “it’s so hot in here” had the whole audience in stitches.
This was the famous (or perhaps infamous) National Theatre production of Hamlet which took Daniel Day-Lewis to the very edge of reason and from which he quit part way through the run.
I went very early in the run – in fact it might even have been a preview – with Annalisa. I suspect that I had booked the thing with Bobbie in mind, but so long before the appointed date that Bobbie could no longer make it.
Let’s just say that, back then, I thought of Shakespeare as more Bobbie’s thing than Annalisa’s thing. Annalisa has latterly assured me that theatre, including Shakespeare, was very much her thing.
Anyway, I recall that we sat right at the front of one of those side wedges in the Olivier – you are very close to the action there, especially when the action is on your side of the stage.
I also recall that Daniel Day Lewis was a very wet Hamlet – by which I mean sweating and spitting his lines. Annalisa remarked afterwards that we should have taken umbrellas with us had we known.
It was a superb production, with a great many big names and several names that weren’t big then but went on to be big. National productions were a bit like that in those days – some still are I suspect.
I was motivated to write up this theatre visit while sitting at Lord’s in September 2018 watching, for the first time, Ethan Bamber bowl live. His father, David, was Horatio in this Hamlet production, nearly 30 years earlier.
Other big names/fine performances included Judi Dench, John Castle, Michael Bryant, Oliver Ford Davies & Stella Gonet. A young Jeremy Northam had a small part in the version we saw but stepped up to the plate when Daniel Day-Lewis walked out. Later in the run, Ian Charleson took on the role to much acclaim, just before he died.
I think this was still quite early in Richard Eyre’s tenure at the National and he directed this one himself, extremely well.
My only other recollection is a quote that Annalisa picked up from an American visitor to the National, who told his wife that he didn’t think all that much of the play – “too many of the lines were clichés”. I guess you can’t please everybody.
Postscript: An Enthusiast From Across The Pond Sought Help…
…in March 2024 I received some unusual correspondence from a gentleman in the USA, wondering whether I still had the programme (or playbill in his terms) as he was keen to see Daniel Day-Lewis’s biography notes from that production.
I have mentioned before that Ogblog serves as a fifth emergency service on occasions and this felt like such an occasion. No sirens or speeding vehicles through the streets of London needed, but I fortuitously was able to lay my hands on this particular programme with relative ease, having not yet returned that batch to deep storage.
If you simply go by my diary notes, I spent the ten days in the run up to Christmas eating and drinking that year. What’s changed/who knew?
I’m going to be a bit light on details with several of these:
Thursday 15 December: Went over to Bobbies for dinner
I’ll guess that there were other people involved, but the diaries are silent on the matter, beyond the above information
Friday 16 December: Went to Ma and Pa for dinner
One thing I do remember about this visit was me gently but firmly letting mum know that, now that I’d moved to Notting Hill, I wasn’t suddenly going to be making Friday evening visits for family dinner a regular thing.
Saturday 17 December: Driving lesson. Annalisa came over for meal in evening
That was my second driving lesson in Notting Hill (I’d had one the previous Saturday). I think that meal I cooked for Annalisa that evening might well have been the first time I cooked for someone other than myself at Clanricarde Gardens. No idea what I cooked for her. There are some Thai recipes on my jotter but I can see, from the context of the other notes, that those were jotted after Christmas, probably after I discovered Tawana.
Monday 19 December: Driving lesson in evening.
My instructor in Notting Hill Gate was a gentle fellow. I remember his girlfriend (or wife) was an orchestra musician from East Germany and he spent much of our chatting time railing against the Honecker regime, little knowing how close we were to its demise.
Tuesday 20 December: Bobbie came over for meal in evening
This might well have been the first time I cooked for Bobbie at Clanricarde. This will have been a meatier affair than cooking for Annalisa and/but probably a simpler meal being an after work job rather than a weekend job.
Wednesday 21 December: Radius lunch in afternoon. BHMC [Binder Hamlyn Management Consultants] & drinks after work
I cannot remember exactly who Radius were, but I am guessing that they were a software supplier. That week, and the week before, I had switched away from Save The Children Fund (who wanted me to return to do most of my assignment in the new year, after their massive Christmas Appeal surge was over), so I joined colleague/mentor Lars Schiphorst at Holland & Holland. My guess is that I was brought in at that place to look at the financial/accounting systems aspects of a project long since forgotten by all involved.
Thinking about Lars, who, despite having to tolerate teaming with me on that assignment and others, went on to be a good friend for several years at Binders before he emigrated to Australia…I wondered if it would be possible to trace Lars 30 years later.
Lars Schiphorst – ludicrously still recognisable/barely changed all these years later.
Friday 23 December: Pub lunch with BHMC mob – little work after
The thing I remember most about that lunch was chatting with Geoffrey Rutland, RIP, who was especially friendly, welcoming and helpful with advice. He also turned out, strangely, like myself, to have been a former scholarship boy at Alleyn’s – although in his case a few years earlier.
Actually I remember everyone at Binders being friendly and welcoming that December – I felt quite at home in that firm quite rapidly, despite the fact that I knew I had been recruited as canon fodder in a turf war between a handful of partners.
Obviously I was better from my 48 hours of food poisoning by the Saturday. I’m pretty sure I went in to work on the Friday and then a full weekend of activities.
Now I have had written complaints from Jilly already about my handwriting, so the above page is only for artistic effect. Here is the entry for the Saturday:
Saturday 10 December: Driving lesson & Orpheus Descending With Jilly & Annalisa Party
There – that wasn’t so challenging, now, was it?
I remember really liking this play and production. What a fabulous cast.
They made a film based on that Peter Hall production with some (but not all) of the cast we saw in it. Here is the trailer for that movie – far more melodramatic looking than the stage production I remember, but still it should give you some idea:
For that particular evening, I’m sure that the original idea was that Bobbie would join me to see this play/production. But when she had to pull out for some reason, it made a great deal of sense for Jilly to act as sub, especially as we were both invited to Annalisa’s party and were given leave to be fashionably late arrivals.
In truth, I cannot remember specific details of this particular party at Annalisa’s place in Hinde Street, but her parties were always popular, always lavish in hospitality and always late nighters. At that time, just a couple of years after Annalisa had finished at Keele, I suspect it was a very Keeley crowd that night.
As the diary says, on the Sunday, I:
…went to G Jenny with Ma & Pa…
…the next day, quite probably a little tiredly and sore-headedly. But Grandma Jenny no doubt wanted to know all about my new flat and my new job, so I’ll guess that I was centre of attention that Sunday afternoon.
Wednesday 16 July – Fairly hectic day at work – met Annalisa for lunch. Met Bobbie after work – had meal at Mayflower & went on to Woody Allen Film after – v nice.
Mayflower was one of the better Chinese restautrants in Chinatown – now (writing in 2020) resurrected as New Mayflower.
The Woody Allen film in question would have been Hannah And Her Sisters, which went on general release in the UK a couple of days later. No doubt we went to a preview at the Curzon West End (just opposite the Mayflower).
I still think Hannah And Her Sisters is a great movie. But gone are the days that I’d complain about a hectic day at work in which I had lunch with a friend and left work early enough to have a meal and then see a movie. Such a snowflakey-sense-of-entitlement-youngster, I was.
Pretty busy at work today. Went to LC [Laurence Corner] etc.
Met Graham Watson for a drink – Mike came too (is leaving office).
(Met Jon Graham on way home).
Earlyish night.
I hasten to add that Laurence Corner was, for me, work – not a fun outing at lunchtime. Mike (he who was leaving the office) must be Mike King, who, by that time, I think was doing much of the work on the Laurence Corner account and who was, presumably, handing over some of the reins to me.
Graham Watson was an old friend from school. I vaguely recall running into him in London and thus meeting up. Coincidentally Jon graham was also a friend from school and (if I recall correctly) I didn’t realise he was still hanging in Streatham until this chance encounter. Jon and I met up again more than once, IIRC. I’m not sure whether Graham and I did. Perhaps Graham gave me the bumps…again!
Several years earlier, Graham Watson & Paul Deacon giving me the bumps, Tim Church feigns a lack of interest, picture “borrowed” from Paul’s facebook posting with grateful thanks.
My appointments diary remained ridiculously full of meetings right up until my term of office ended…and indeed for a while after it ended doing handover.
Sample from the appointments diary.
This article covers the two weeks ahead of the final day of our term of office.
Tuesday 28 May 1985 – rushed today with interviews, meetings etc etc. Cooked Petra some food in evening.
Wednesday. 29 May 1985 – busy in meetings all day – worked late. Cooked Annalisa a meal in evening.
Thursday, 30 May 1985 meetings all day – including NUPE over staff. Petra [cooked me a] meal in evening.
Friday 31 May 1985 – very busy day – hassled etc. Made Petra a meal late.
Saturday one June 1985 – Rose fairly early – went shopping (proper). Worked after. Cooked Petra meal
Sunday to June 1985 – Rose quite early – went to office for most of day – saw Petra later.
The question of who cooked whom dinner seems to have been my main personal diary concern that week.
Coincidentally, forty years on, Janie is cooking a pork stroganoff this evening of a very similar specification to the “strog” I used to cook back then. Obviously ingredients such as “shitake mushrooms” hadn’t been invented in 1985 and “three kinds of mustard” is at least two kinds more than I would have mustered back then, but still. We have no pictures of the food from 1985, as taking pictures of food hadn’t been invented. So here is a picture of the 2025 strog in the making:
Digression over – let’s move on to week two.
OK, I’ve heard you – you can’t read that diary page. Here’s a transcript:
Monday, 3 June 1985 – rushed today – meetings etc. Constitutional committee etc in evening – got back quite late.
Tuesday 4 June 1985 – choc-a-block today – meetings etc till late – cooked Petra a late meal.
Wednesday, 5 June 1985 – busy day – Union Committee, Ringroad meeting. Easyish evening at home – Petra came over.
Thursday, 6 June 1985 – worked hard & late today – Petra exams – made her grub – early night.
Friday, 7 June 1985 – busy day in office – not feeling too good. Cooked Petra meal in evening – stayed in.
Saturday, 8 June 1985 – lazy day – rose late – went shopping – had theatre supper around Having A Ball – very nice evening.
Sunday, 9 June 1985 – got up late had breakfast went to office for a while. Went to Kate’s for dinner.
Ah yes, Having A Ball at the Theatre Royal Hanley.
I’m glad that Petra and I had a pleasant evening. My memory of the play & production itself was of a very corny comedy, which was, in truth, not to my taste. Nor Petra’s, I should imagine, but we clearly enjoyed the “end of exams/end of tough week” escapism of it. I do especially remember thinking that the “having a ball” pun about being in a vasectomy clinic started to grind very quickly and was used far too many times.
I wonder if I might find a review of the production we saw…
…yup, from Newcastle a few days later. The critic’s view from 1985 concurs with my memory forty years on:
Having run myself down in the early spring of 1985, doing the Keele Students’ Union sabbatical thing, I took a bit of a break during the Easter holidays and then returned to Keele for a relatively calm period before the storm of my final term.
“Holy Week” & Passover Resting/Convalescing At My Parents House
Of course Holy Week had no meaning in my family, but the week or so in question was the run up to Easter and the Easter weekend. It coincided with Pesach (Passover) that year.
Monday 1 April 1985 – Lazy day – went shops – stayed in mainly taping, reading and feeling low.
Tuesday to April 1985 – Lazy day in – taped, read etc – feeling grotty and lazy. Stayed in evening also.
Strangely, although the diary is silent on this matter, I very clearly remember reading Something Happened by Joseph Heller during that particular Easter break. It didn’t cheer me up, but I remember finding the book jaw-droppingly good. I had loved Catch 22 and had not expected to be that impressed by Heller’s so-called difficult second novel. Something Happened is a much under-rated classic in my opinion, but I digress.
Wednesday 3 April 1985 – Went to town [West End of London] today – went Newman Harris & Co – Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] for lunch – shopped etc. Lazy evening in.
Thursday 4 April 1985 – Went to Edwina [Green, doctor] in morning. Went to Dad’s shop in the afternoon and had an easy evening in.
Friday, 5 April 1985 – Did little today – went for a [traditional bank holiday, with Dad] walk etc. Had a nice dinner and watched TV etc. – lazy day.
Saturday, 6 April 1985 – Easy day – did some taping etc – went to seder that evening with Grandma Jenny. Very pleasant evening.
Sunday 7 April 1985 – Lazy day – nice lunch – went to Briegals [Jacquie, Len, Hilary & Mark] afternoon and evening – had a nice time there.
Monday, 8 April 1985 – rose quite late. Had a nice lunch. Went to Auntie Frances [Harris] in the afternoon. Lazy evening in on phone and in front of box.
No doubt Angela, Vivienne & John (Kessler) will also have been there – this picture is of the former two a few years earlier in Auntie Frances’s flat:
Returning To Keele & Preparing For The New Term
Tuesday, 9 April 1985 – rose quite early – Winfred [May – neighbour & Mum’s friend] came over for lunch. Petra [Wilson] came over – returned to Keele – had dinner and early night.
That will have been the first time that my parents encountered Petra. I recall that dad was quite taken with her and that mum didn’t have a clue that we were going out with each other, probably because mum was so weird still about that sort of thing. Mum – I was 22 years old FFS.
Wednesday 10 April 1985 – rose late – lazed around. Went shopping in afternoon. Met Ashley [Fletcher] had a drink and stayed in. Lazy evening.
Thank goodness. Another Ashley mention to keep Ashley happy.
Thursday, 11 April 1985 – rose early – Union Committee in morning – lazy afternoon – went to union. Had a drink with John [White] in evening and then home for dinner, etc.
Friday, 12 April 1985 – Lazy-ish morning. Rose late. Had lunch – went SC – busy afternoon and evening – had nice meal etc.
If any of you Keele alum detectives can fathom what SC means in this context, please help me out. I am clueless.
Saturday 13 April 1985 – rose quite early went to Chester for the day – lunch – Toy Museum – drinks etc. Stayed in evening had a nice dinner etc.
I do remember an enjoyable day trip to Chester with petra, but I don’t in truth remember the Toy Museum there. Perhaps the place wasn’t all that memorable as it permanently closed down some years ago, as I write 40 years on.
Sunday, 14 April 1985 – Rose quite late had nice food went for a walk, etc. Big meal in the evening – did little. Nice day.
Monday 15 April 1985 – More or less worked all day – sorted some things out. Petra and I went for a very nice walk after. Lovely evening.
Tuesday, 16 April 1985 – Took day off – went Mainwaring. Shops – did some work etc. Ashley popped in. Lazy evening very pleasant.
Don’t panic – The Mainwaring Arms is still there in Whitmore.
I don’t find it extraordinary that my mood was clearly much better when recuperating at Keele in Petra’s company, compared with convalescing at my parents’ place. But what I do find interesting is how clearly the changed emotions ring out (and how well my memory can be triggered forty years later) by so few words in my diary entries.
Wednesday, 17 April 1985 – Easyish day in office – union committee morning – Petra went home – easy evening – walked with Annalisa early eve, stayed in evening, early night.
Thursday, 18 April 1985 – Fairly light day in office today – did a little work in the evening. Ashley and Co came around – cooked them a meal etc.
Friday, 19 April 1985 – Busyish day at work getting odds and ends done. Went over to Kate’s in the evening – got drunk and stayed late.
Saturday 20th of April 1985 – Rose late – shopped with Kate – did a little work and then did disco [with John White] in evening.
Sunday 21 April 1985 – Stayed in most of the day – saw Kate and Annalisa for a while and did work on birth control leaflet.
I really must get around to putting up some more “John & Ian Disco Playlists” after the success of the Bust Fund Disco one. Watch this space.
Interesting that, in April, I was still referring to the publication that became “Sexplanations” as a birth control leaflet, as it became more than that between April and its publication in June. Watch this space for that too.
Thursday, 21 March 1985 went to doctors and onto CGH [City General Hospital?] etc. Went to see Ashley [Fletcher] and Co – after back to office. Not feeling too good. Did some work etc.
I was working on two publications that Easter Holidays. I was completing an update of Wot Subsid, and I was also starting research into an idea of my own – a publication on sexual health for students – which gained the title Sexplanations. More on the latter publication over the coming months.
Ashley gets very uppity if his name is missing from these “40 years on” pieces for too long, so it was a relief to see him mentioned twice in the space of 10 days in late March 1985. I am trying to remember who “and Co” might have been at that time. Helen Ross? Simon Legg? Ashley might remember.
Friday, 22 March 1985 – busyish day with Wot Subsid etc – not feeling too industrious. Stayed in evening – early night.
Saturday 23 March 1985.– Worked on What Subsid – shopped and worked some more – popped in to union and met Annalisa [de Mercur].
Annalisa is one of the two people I thanked especially for helping with Wot Subsid. The other person so named in my introduction is Sarah Heatherley.
Annalisa (above) & Sarah (below). Pictures by Mark Ellicott.
Annalisa and Sarah must have been incredibly tolerant, if that thank you is anything to go by, although I cannot imagine either of those two being silently tolerant! Both of them will have been among the un-named page collators, back in the days when that sort of thing had to be done by hand. I did my fair share of the collating and I recall Graham Pitt was a great help whenever collating was needed.
Graham Pitt – again from the Mark Ellicott collection
If you want to read the whole Wot Subsid booklet – and I find it almost impossible to imagine Ogblog readers not wanting at least to have a skim of the thing – I have scanned and uploaded Wot Subsid 1985/87 in all its glory.
Sunday, 24 March 1985 – Rose quite late – worked on Wot Subsid. Played host to Margaret [Gordon] and Simon unexpectedly due to Contact lockout – fed & sheltered them and did some work.
In truth, although I remember Margaret Gordon well I don’t remember Simon. I’m not sure whether he was Margaret’s significant other at that time or a co-volunteer with her at Contact.
Contact was Keele’s Samaritans-like service managed and run by student volunteers. I’m not quite sure what went awry for Margaret & Simon that evening/night. Perhaps they had planned to use the Contact room as temporary accommodation for the night but discovered that it had been locked up for the vacation.
My little Horwood flat was not exactly proportioned for several overnight guests, so I can only wonder how we dealt with that, but there was some sort of a sofa and some floor space as well as my modestly proportioned single bed.
I also recall Margaret interviewing me at length about the Foundation Year (FY) for a piece she was writing for Concourse. Whether she took the opportunity to conduct the interview that night, or whether she just set up the interview at that time, I don’t remember. But here is the result of that piece of journalism, which was published in the May 1985 Concourse:
Let me see if I can track Margaret Gordon down and find out if she remembers anything about this.
Monday 25 March 1985 – busyish day in office today – stayed until quite late finishing Wot Subsid etc.
Tuesday 26 March 1985 – Easy sort of day in office – did very little work. Jilly nearly came to Keele, but didn’t. Had quiet evening.
Wednesday, 27 March 1985 fairly easy day in office. Jilly [Black] came today – had trauma with Kate [Fricker]’s flat etc – had nice meal tho and Kate stayed also.
I have no idea why Jilly nearly came but didn’t on the Tuesday, but clearly her change of plan was merely a delay of one day.
I also have no idea what went wrong at Kate (now Susan) Fricker’s flat to cause “trauma”, but Kate was quite a robust person, so I suspect it was something quite serious, such as a burst pipe or electricity failure, rendering the place temporarily uninhabitable.
Stretching my food supply out to feed multiple people was never too difficult in those days, as I always had plentiful supplies of grub in the flat and my choice of dishes tended to be expandable ones.
I should really produce an additional booklet for the Keele Students’ Union, full of my delicious, nutritious and eminently-expandable recipes, to assist future students in their choices of home-cooked meals. I think I shall name that booklet “Wot Subsist”:
In addition to eating, I am pretty sure that Jilly, Kate and I spent some time that evening listening to the records that Jilly had helped me to buy on my visit to Cardiff a couple of week’s earlier.
As for the sleeping arrangements in those, once again, unexpected and overcrowded circumstances, I don’t suppose any of us can remember.
Jilly – I’m pretty sure from an earlier visit to Keele – there is an autumnal look about the place.
Thursday, 28 March 1985 – Union Committee in morning – lazyish afternoon – Jilly and I went to Ashley’s for dinner. Very nice. Left quite early.
I have quite a strong memory of that very enjoyable visit to Ashley’s place for dinner. Jilly and Ashley had enjoyed meeting each other on a previous occasion. Ashley was keen to host us when he found out that Jilly was going to visit. In particular I remember a conversation about whether Marmite was a suitable product to use as “vegan stock” or not. Some elements of that conversation would not pass the student acceptability test today.
Friday 29 March 1985 – Rose early – Jilly left early – [I] tied up loose ends – came down to London – had a lazy evening in with folks.
Saturday, 30 March 1985 easy day – went to High Street – did very little today – stayed in evening.
Sunday 31 March 1985 Rose late – had nice Chinese lunch – lazy day in with folks – had a walk and watched TV.
A few days with the folks – other people spoiling me for a brief change. That Chinese meal can only possibly have been at Mrs Wong’s.
I asked DeepAI to reimagine the RingRoad gang desperately searching for family friendly sketches in the “RingRoad cornflake boxes”, where the sketch archive lived.
My diary doesn’t even mention the RingRoad show that we put on, with only limited success in the February Food Fest, which we held in the Students’ Union. The Food Fest was a spin off idea from the summer International Fair, which I had, as a cub student activist, helped to establish back in the early 1980s…
The idea of the Food Fest was to have a winter “international festival”, indoors in the Students Union, as well as the summer outdoorsy one. Among the main organisers for the Food Fest (as with the International Fair) were friends of mine from the Arab cultural community, mostly postgraduate Iraqui students at that time, many of whom were at Keele with their spouses and families.
A couple of the guys approached me and wondered whether RingRoad, the Keele students’ in-house comedy troupe of which I was, by then, an intrinsic part, might put on a show as part of the Food Fest.
It seemed like such a simple request and how could I say no to friends and colleagues who were putting so much energy into a festival idea that I supported wholeheartedly? Of course I said yes. Of course the warm-hearted RingRoad team said yes.
But when it came to wading through the archive of RingRoad sketches, we realised that the show comprised almost entirely of material that was, to use the modern parlance, politically incorrect and or NSFW. In short, only a handful of sketches in our collection were family friendly or lent themselves to minor edits to become family friendly.
Intro to “Romantic Novel”, one of dozens of sketches we didn’t use in the family friendly show.
The result was a flurry of sketch writing, mostly by David Griffiths, to produce a few new sketches for that show. I also remember going through tapes of my favourite radio sketches and transcribing a few of those for the family friendly show.
It was not our finest hour as RingRoad, but nor was it our darkest hour…
…as the Food Fest show served its purpose and seemed, if only mildly, to amuse. Fortunately, a family-friendly show’s audience tends to be friendly, so the feedback we received was, if not effusive, at least kind.
The above palaver barely gets a mention in my personal diary for that weekend, which reads:
Saturday 23 February 1985 – rose quite early – shopped etc – went to Union for Food Fest all day and evening – went okay. Drink after – Petra [Wilson] came over.
Sunday 24 February 1985 – rose reasonably early – Kate’s [Kate, now Susan Fricker] for lunch – very nice. Stayed till late. Went to Petra’s briefly in the evening.
Indeed, for the week that followed, my appointments diary says far more than the personal diary:
Hell’s bells, that’s a lot of meetings. No wonder I have been somewhat allergic to committees and meetings since my Keele Students’ Union sabbatical year!
The first meeting of the week, regarding Wot Subsid, I shall write plenty on that matter in a few week’s time, as the run up to publishing that booklet started to feature more in my diary. The “A” no doubt stands for “Annalisa de Mercur”, who did lots of the hard yards with me on that publication. More anon, I promise!
The rest is probably best left to the artwork that is the above scan. If any readers want to know more about what happened in some of those individual committees and/or meetings, by all means pop a message in the comments or “contact us” and I’ll try to answer your questions. I’m not expecting to be inundated with requests.
Here is my personal diary for the same period:
Monday, 25 February 19 85 – very rushed/busy with meetings all day and evening. Petra came over after.
Tuesday 26 February 1985 – very busy with meetings etc – morning noon and night. Petra came over after hustings.
27 Wednesday 27 February 1985 – rushed like crazy – not feeling too good today. Went home to bed early.
Thursday 28th of February 1985 – very busy day rushing around – meetings etc. Cooked Petra a meal in evening – stayed – very pleasant.
Friday 1 March 1985.– Very busy morning to get all out of way – left Keele early…
I recall that Petra was not too keen on the Horwood refectory food. As time went on, when timetables allowed, I tended to cook for her (as well as myself) more often.
Petra’s taste in food was quite different from that of Kate (now Susan) Fricker and John White, for whom I also cooked a fair bit. Both Kate and John were quite partial to spicy food. Petra was not keen on spices, so I tended to cook “pan casseroles” for her, although she was also partial to several of my Chinese dishes, which tended to need more ingredients and preparation time, so I would tend to cook those at the weekend. Kate and John also liked my Chinese style dishes.
I have a mind to produce a mini-series of recipes from that era, once I find the time to browse through my yellowed recipe sheets and delve a little deeper into my memory about the food.
I also am minded to write a small mini-series about the music that was the soundtrack of that era for me. Not just the discos that John White and I used to do in the ballroom (although we are working up some wicked playlists for nostalgics and/or fans of those genres to enjoy), but also the classical music that helped me to unwind from all of the hustle and bustle that year. I’ll stick those classical pieces into some public playlists too.
All those ideas are for later, for now let’s bring Petra in for her dinner…or as they would say in the Potteries, “tea”.
Lots of juicy bits from the February 1985 issue of Concourse. Here’s the first of them.
Annalisa de Mercur, bless her, was very concerned that the Student Union’s bar licence might get scuppered, which would indeed have been a near-existential problem for the union. The storm was very much of the teacup variety, I’d have thought, for the reasons described in the article.
How Pady Jalali and Hayward Burt ended up in an intra-article debate with the Vice-chancellor, Dr Harrison, is anybody’s guess. Methinks Annalisa might have been trying to big up her piece, as it were.
The health centre fee had been an ongoing issue, if the 1984 manifestos are anything to go by. John “Memory Man” White will hopefully chime in on the comments to describe in intricate detail the nature of the new-look campaign he planned. I don’t remember a thing about it, although welfare was my bailiwick.
Listings Huis Clos Fri, Aug 4, 1989 – 30 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com
Huis Clos Listing Mon, Aug 7, 1989 – 35 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com
