Tag: Annalisa de Mercur

Project, Plesch, “Bloody Party In Union” & How The Great Yorkshire Pudding Got His Name, Late February To Early March 1983

Thanks to Susan Gorman for this photo of Alan Gorman

A week after my discharge from the Health Centre, my post-glandular-fever student life reads, in my diary, a little like my pre-glandular-fever student life, with just one or two clues hinting at the differences.

Project

Several mentions of “project”, which can only be the statistical/econometric assignment that we were set as part of our economics course that year. Peter Lawrence would have supervised it and I’m sure he remembers all the intricate detail.

Peter Lawrence

Actually, I remember my chosen assignment quite well. I looked at national statistics, examining the correlation between factors such as GDP and per capita GDP and numbers of radios and television sets per capita. The main conceit of the assignment was to consider whether I was finding true correlation or spurious correlation, primarily using the Durbin-Watson statistic which, as it happened, was available on the University Mainframe computer.

The analytical part of this project was fairly straightforward as I recall it. The grunt work involved setting out the data in a highly-specific format to enable the computer to pronounce on its Durbin-Watson statistic. What are, today, “work of a moment” tasks took hours of painstaking (and sometimes trial and error) data preparation and data processing work.

I have asked Dall-E to help me envisage what that 1980s University mainframe computer might have looked like:

Dall-E reminisces about 1980s computing

For those readers dying to know whether there is (or rather, was) true correlation between GDP and numbers of radios and TVs, the answer is, basically, yes; especially when using GDP per capita data and especially in the matter of radios. In the developing world, at that time, televisions were sparse enough that I suspected the numbers were more to do with government policy on whether to have a state broadcaster and the like. Also there did tend to be some interesting outliers in the data – for some reason there were an enormous number of radios sold in Gabon in the late 1970s and early 1980s, relative to the GDP per capita.

I think Peter liked my little study, because, while “answering the exam question” pretty well, it also raised far more questions than it answered.

Plesch, Monday 28 February 1983

Traudi & Peter Plesch – picture borrowed from the tribute linked here.

I have written previously about the hospitality provided by Professor Peter Plesch and his lovely with Traudi, which I enjoyed when they occasionally played host to J-Soc (Jewish) students.

Memories, Angels, Wizards & Plesches, Keele University, 1 to 7 November 1981

I have but one memory specific to this occasion, which I recall Annalisa de Mercur referring to many times subsequently, because she thought it so funny and typically Plesch.

One student asked if our hosts would mind if they smoked. (It was certainly not me by then, as I had quit smoking on the back of my glandular fever. I don’t think it was Annalisa either).

Oh yes, of course, please make yourself at home…

…said Traudi, ever the hostess, who then spent at least five minutes bustling around the room opening windows (this was February, at Keele!), moving away precious-looking porcelain ashtrays, replacing them with utilitarian-looking ones. In short, despite her instinctive desire to make the smoker(s) feel at home, Traudi’s actions made it quite apparent that smoking was not exactly what she wanted in her living room.

They were in truth charming and generous hosts, the Plesch couple. The above-linked November 1981 article says plenty more that doesn’t need repeating here.

“Bloody Party In The Union – Left Early” Friday 4 March 1983

Not like me to be snippy about a party, but I guess I was not myself still at that time.

Dr Scott had told me to stay away from alcohol for six months following my glandular fever. He subsequently reduced my sentence to three months, for good behaviour.

The mention of the “bloody party” comes after a note about a rushed day and an election appeals meeting, both of which might have set my teeth on edge ahead of that particular bloody party.

I have no idea whose party it was, nor why I found it bloody. I apologise to the host of the party if someone reading this happens to be such a person. I don’t think it was about you/.the party, it was me.

In truth, at that time, quite possibly I found all parties a bit of a drag. Seemingly everyone else having a good time and getting noisily paralytic, while I nursed some ridiculously expensive yet ghastly-tasting soft-drink, which had no doubt been dispensed through a soda gun like the one below…

Soda Gun wka, CC BY-SA 2.0

…those carbonated soft drinks never tasted like “the real thing”, if you get my meaning, even if they were sold as such. In the SU Main Bar at that time, indeed, they all tasted like a bit of an amalgamation of each other, which is probably what they were.

When not in bars or at parties, I had standardised at home on Sainsbury’s Tropical Fruit Drink (still available 40 years later)…

…and giant cans of Coca Cola known as Supercans – now no longer made, I believe, so to see such a thing, you’ll need to click this “can museum” link.

I wondered out loud with Dr Scott on one occasion whether it was OK to be drinking all this sweet stuff. He said he thought I was close to dangerously underweight at the end of my glandular fever experience; thus he was keen for me to put on some weight. I persevered with Supercans of Coke throughout the rest of my Keele years, even after I had reverted to drinking alcohol.

How the Great Yorkshire Pudding Got His Name, Early March 1983

The Great Yorkshire Pudding

There is no mention of the events that led to Alan Gorman acquiring the nickname “The Great Yorkshire Pudding”. At the time, I probably found the matter that led to it too painful to write down. Even now, I’m finding it hard to compose my thoughts about it and reflect on the matter fairly and faithfully. It doesn’t help that Alan Gorman sadly died in 2015, so cannot add his own thoughts on this matter forty years after the event.

The bare facts are these. Chantelle announced that she wanted to move out of the flat, Barnes L54, and that we should seek a replacement fourth person. Alan and I had already agreed that we would continue to flat share the following year. Hamzah, who was about to do his finals and had planned to go home as soon as they were done made it clear that it was entirely up to me and Alan to choose Chantelle’s replacement.

Ashley Fletcher was spending a lot of time at the flat in those days. He was Union Treasurer but living off campus, so it was a convenient place to hang out. He was good friends with my girlfriend, Liza (indeed Liza and I had more or less met through Ashley and his gang) and seemed to get on very well with Alan too.

Ashley wanted to move in to the flat. I wanted Ashley to move into the flat. I put the idea one evening to Alan.

Ashley back then

Alan basically said no. He was uncomfortable with the idea of having a gay flatmate. At one point he said that he wouldn’t be able to explain it to his friends back home. When I said that I thought that was not a good reason, he agreed that he had given a very poor reason, but still, without really being able to articulate why he felt uncomfortable, that he was resolute on the matter.

I remember feeling that I didn’t have the strength to argue and also at the same time realising that debating the matter for longer would in any case have been futile. I remember going to bed that night very upset and I also so clearly remember dreading telling Ashley the news.

Strangely, Ashley didn’t take the news as hard as I thought he would…nor as hard as I took it. In my naivety, perhaps, I had assumed that the idea would fly and hadn’t expected that outcome. Ashley had strongly suspected and at least half-expected that response.

When I told Ashley what Alan had said, Ashley just paused for thought momentarily and said:

The Great Yorkshire Pudding!

Those readers who don’t know anything about Alan Gorman might look at the picture I have used in this piece – Alan was even skinnier in 1983 than he was when that picture was taken a few year’s later. He was also from Brinscall, near Chorley, which is, unequivocally, in Lancashire, not Yorkshire.

The nickname, The Great Yorkshire Pudding, stuck, at least for the remainder of that academic year and the next one. Alan accepted with good grace that the expletive nickname had come from Ashley’s heart and that he sort-of deserved it. Alan would respond with a nickname of his own for me, “Bagel Boy”, which could get him into a spot of trouble today, not only with the authorities (had someone chosen to complain) but with Alan’s own wife and children!

Alright already, I like bagels…who doesn’t?

The epilogue to this story is, I suppose, not so bad. I remained friends with Alan and Ashley. Chris Spencer moved into Barnes L54 with us instead and proved to be a very suitable flatmate, staying on in the flat for the rest of my time there and I think until he graduated.

When Ashley dropped out of Keele the following year, I wondered whether that would have happened had he moved into our flat. Ashley of course is still around to debate that point and/but Ashley might argue that leaving Keele at that juncture was the right thing for him to do in any case. He has certainly gone on to do many worthwhile things, not least his laudable and often charitable work as a therapist.

But at the time, the story of How The Great Yorkshire Pudding Got His Name affected me deeply. I wish the older and wiser version of me could discuss it now with the older and wiser Alan. Perhaps over a smoked salmon bagel or two…and a glass or two of fine Californian white wine.

Isolation, “Socially-Distant” Visits, Steroids, Peculiar Reading Matter & Strange Happenings: A Week In The Keele Health Centre With Glandular Fever, Mid February 1983

Annalisa (right) & Others, Keele Campus Store, c1985, with thanks to Mark Ellicott

I hadn’t had flu. I didn’t get better after being sent home from the Health Centre with some tablets. I got worse.

Saturday 12 February 1983 – Variable health – Liza [O’Connor] shopped for me – Annalisa [de Mercur] visited. Early night.

Reading that passage, plus some of the subsequent ones during my illness, I am reminded that I had several kind people in my circle, in addition to the attentiveness of my girlfriend Liza, who I particularly remember as having been considerate during my extended indisposition.

Sunday 13 February 1983 – Felt bit better this morn/afternoon. Evening came over all ill. Early night.

Monday 14 February 1983 – Schlepped straight back to [Health Centre] HC – pretty ill. Liza visited in evening.

I don’t think that was in line with the plans Liza and I had laid for Valentines Night. I was mightily hacked off as well as ill.

I have collaborated with Dall-E to create this virtual-artist’s impression of me looking ill and hacked off in the Keele Health Centre.

Dr Scott now suspected that I had infectious mononucleosis, also known as glandular fever. His suspicion was soon confirmed with a blood test.

Glandular fever was sort-of the 1980s equivalent of Covid 19 – it was not as well understood then as it is now. The medics were very fearful of epidemics amongst student populations, for some unknown reason. It was also known colloquially as French-kissing disease, although I’m sure there were other ways of getting it and no doubt French people knew of it colloquially as the English-something-or-other.

One side effect of that illness is to make the patient feel low, to the point of feeling depressed. I have to say that my only ever experience of feeling what I might describe as “depressed” was when I had glandular fever.

Tuesday 15 February 1983 – Still pretty ill today – bored and depressed – won’t let have visitors.

Didn’t they know who I am?

I was not a good candidate for isolation. Nor was I a good candidate for some of the clinical interventions required, such as blood tests and injections. Dr Scott – Scotty – was sympathetic yet firm. But there was one matron/nurse I particularly remember as being dragon-like, whose method was more of the cruel-kindness variety.

“If you don’t stop making a fuss, I’ll go and get my long rusty needle and use that on you instead”.

Who’d imagine such inhumane words in such a benevolent setting?
Picture “borrowed” with thanks from the Keele University website

Note to students of psychology: that sort of shock therapy doesn’t work on trypanophobic people – at least it didn’t work on me.

Scotty at that time had a “kill or cure” therapy for glandular fever – a short sharp (high dose at first but rapidly decreasing) course of steroids. His theory was that it helped most people to get better quickly enough that their studies needn’t be deferred, whereas without his treatment many students ended up deferring their exams – in effect taking a year out of their studies, which I certainly didn’t want to do. For some people, the cure made their symptoms worse, but “kill” is too strong a term, as the drugs were only given under health centre supervision and would be stopped/reversed if serious adverse effects came into play.

The steroids worked on me without any serious side-effects, although they did have a strange effect on my being, which I’ll return to explain a bit later.

Wednesday 16 February 1983 – Moved into a room with James – got visitors today – Liza and Michelle [Epstein] – feel somewhat better.

Thursday 17 February 1983 – Several visitors today inc. Liza – feeling much better today – fair bit bored still.

James was a rather strange fellow. He was not merely depressed about having glandular fever and being isolated in the health centre with me. He absolutely hated Keele. He had a girlfriend who also absolutely hated Keele. Together, they had found a way of making their University life tolerable – basically by going away from Keele together every weekend – primarily to visit historic churches, if I remember correctly.

e.g. St Peter’s Church, Wormleighton, Warwickshire

“Got visitors” was a rather strange, socially-distanced thing while I was in this isolation wing with James. The visitors were not allowed into the health centre to visit us – they could stand at a window outside our room and we could talk to them through that window. I vaguely remember that there was an element of elevation to our room, with an inadequate mound upon which our visitors might stand. Thus it was harder for me to chat with vertically-challenged visitors, such as Annalisa, than it was to speak with the more vertically-assured, such as my lanky (in several senses of the term) flatmate, Alan Gorman.

James’s only visitor was his young-lady-friend, who would join him for a mutual moan about once a day. Their shared beef was that they would be unable to escape the Keele campus together at the weekend and visit churches again until James was better.

My visitors were more numerous (several daily) and a more diverse bunch.

Friday 18 February 1983 – Still bedridden – feel much better – getting a fair bit agitated. Liza and others visited today.

I’m not sure which of the “multiple visitors” days included Ashley Fletcher, but I do remember him bringing with him some reading matter for me – I suppose technically he smuggled it in to me by throwing the reading materials to me, where I caught them at the window. It was either Miriam or Heather who was, through Ashley, lending me the booklets in an attempt to help relieve my boredom. The booklets were basically lesbian porn story magazines.

I’m not sure I was ever qualified to offer lit-crit of that reading matter…nor lit-clit come to think of it. Forty years later, the memory is dim, but I did read a few of the stories which were, to my mind, very predictable tales with almost identical plot lines. An unlikely encounter would suddenly, “unexpectedly” result in a shared realisation followed by an almost identical outcome – **SPOILER ALERT** – a sex romp. Sometimes it was two females, sometimes two females and a man, sometimes several people with a focus on the females. I suspected that the same stories were probably gender-reassigned for other similar publications targeted at other groups, with some “characters” (characterisation was in truth almost entirely absent) simply having the name, gender and some small aspects of their dénouement activity changed.

The reading material was absolutely nothing like this wonderful novel

I do remember trying to discuss with my sole companion in isolation, the church-loving James, how peculiar and dull, rather than exciting, I found these story books. But James was simply horrified and disgusted by the presence of these booklets in our room.

Still, I was really touched by the thought and the effort that Ashley and the lenders of the material put in to try to cheer me up and help alleviate my boredom. I do remember Liza finding the whole episode hilarious.

Meanwhile, my use of the word “agitated” might well have been written to remind me of the peculiar effect the steroids had on me. I think that effect might have come to its peak the next day, by which time I think James had been released.

Saturday 19 February 1983 – Let me get up for first time today. Sat in lounge – very exciting. Liza visited.

Dragon Matron – yes she of the long rusty needle threat- came in to my room. I remember suddenly feeling a hot flush and thinking, “she’s not actually that bad looking”…

…the outcome was extremely swift, hands-free, involuntary and I am pretty sure indiscernible to anyone other than me. But it was a seriously weird feeling.

I have asked my friend, Dall-E, to help me to illustrate the scene:

Nothing to see here

In truth the care team in the Health Centre were very kind and really were trying their best to make our lot tolerable.

That Saturday evening, when they let me sit in the lounge, I remember that they had identified another student, a Spanish guy who was, I think, called Miguel (I knew him through Rana Sen and that lot), who knew me. So they arranged for us to watch TV and have a juice together in the lounge, before they served us dinner together restaurant style. It really did feel like a release from isolation by then, although in truth Miguel and I didn’t know each other all that well and mostly discussed how nice it was of the staff to be making that effort for us.

The Tv programme we watched together was Dynasty, which I had never seen before nor have I seen it since. I thought it was incredible – by which I mean that I could not really suspend my disbelief to engage with the programme. I think Miguel quite liked it.

Sunday 20 February 1983 – Let me out for a walk or two today. Very exciting.

Monday 21 February 1983 – Discharged from HC today – got busy laundry etc. Liza came over in evening…

In my impressionistic memory I was isolated in the Heath Centre for ages. Intolerable ages. It came as a bit of a surprise to work out, from my diaries, that a week was all it took to be “intolerable ages” when I was 20 years old.

Dating, Mandating & Catering To Scale At Keele, Mid To Late November 1982

Keele Students’ Union With Thanks To Paul Browning For The Photo

My November 1982 diary continues mostly to document a set pattern of student life that term. I was going out with Liza O’Connor, whom, it seems, I would see two or three times each week. At that time she was still living with her family at The Sneyd Arms, so I quite often describe walking her home late at night; which presumably staved off the wrath of Geoff O’Connor – no student (or offspring) wanted his wrath.

Photo by Glyn Baker: The Village & Sneyd Arms – a peaceful place (as long as landlord Geoff was not wrathful)

There are three noteworthy events in the diary for that mid to late November period:

  • getting Keele Action Group (KAG)’s long-planned mandate for an occupation through the UGM;
  • planning and holding a Jewish Society Friday Night meal;
  • a rather peculiar diary entry for the Saturday after that meal, which suggests, between the lines, some consternation.

Keele Action Group’s Long-Planned Mandate For An Occupation, 15 November 1982

I explained the background to KAG’s UGM mandate for a student occupation in a couple of earlier pieces – click here or below for the first of them:

Keele Action Group Springs Forth Campus-Wide, Constitutional Matters Mingle With A Crucial Culinary Debate In My Barnes L54 Flat, 8 to 11 October 1982

…here or below for the second of them:

Culture & Action At Keele, Late October 1982

In the end, it was me who proposed the motion – much to the chagrin of Union President Truda Smith, who afterwards gave me a metaphorical handbagging…or do I mean “metaphorical hairdryer treatment“…or do I mean a metaphorical “handbagging with hair-dryer within” treatment? Truda was not happy. Pete Roberts seconded the motion, which probably gave the motion the political gravitas we thought it needed, as he was the immediate past Education & Welfare sabbatical and he said that he thought the quality of our education and our welfare was at risk from the cuts.

The diary entry suggests that the result was a solid win on the vote:

Monday 15 November 1982: Busy day – writing speech etc. UGM went well – motion passed well etc. Paul & Mike came in after.

I’m not sure who Paul & Mike were in this context. Was it you, Paul Evans? I don’t remember you being into the politics much but perhaps the issue of the cuts floated your boat. For Mike, a bearded fellow in a duffel coat springs to mind but I don’t honestly remember for sure. Pete Roberts, Simon Jacobs or Jon Gorvett might help me out here. Or perhaps not.

J-Soc Friday Night Meal, Friday 26 November 1982

Whose blithering idea was it to attempt this at Keele – a University with a tiny, mostly secular Jewish community?

Actually I have a funny feeling it was sort-of my idea.

Following the success of the International Fair the previous summer and the “joint venture” I had fostered with Tony Wong of the Chinese Cultural Society, I was very cognisant of the fact that other cultural societies had centred their cultural offerings around food, whereas J-Soc had not really done so.

Further, we had some enthusiasts for doing a meal in the form of, if I remember correctly, Michelle Epstein (who was in her second year) plus a couple of newbies – Annalisa de Mercur (who became a good friend for many years, during and after Keele) plus Julie Reichman.

In short, I think it was my idea that we do food and “the girls” turned the idea into something with deeper cultural significance – a heimisch Jewish Friday Night meal.

Photo by Olaf.herfurth, CC BY-SA 3.0 – our event wouldn’t have looked quite as authentic as this…

…our event wouldn’t have looked or sounded anything like the vid below either:

My recollection is that the event “got big on us”, with a lot of work in the planning and the aftermath. The event dominates my diary from the Tuesday before until the day itself and even seemed to dominate until the Monday after.

I don’t even remember where we held the dinner, although something tells me that there was a facility in Horwood that we could and did use for events like this. Or, if not, possibly the Lindsay Hexagon.

I remember being delighted to leave much of the hands-on running of the event to “the girls” and feeling, by the end of it, that I was happy to leave J-Soc more generally in their very capable (and more enthusiastic than my) hands.

The attendees for the event included several people from the Chinese and Arab cultural societies, plus my own entourage (including Liza O’Connor & my new flatmate Alan Gorman, who came from Catholic backgrounds), which might have been fascinating and/or beguiling for them.

“Hastly” Day After The Big Event, Saturday 27 November 1982

Hastly [by which I think I meant “hassle-strewn”] day. Shopped in afternoon – Liza and Chantelle’s friend stayed for dinner. Went to union – got quite drunk…took L home quite late

The fact that I mention Chantelle’s friend in this context means, I’m pretty sure, that there must have been some sub-text. I don’t really remember, but I suspect that I was pretty “duncatering” by the Saturday and/but ended up preparing the Saturday dinner in question. “Got quite drunk” was probably a way to let off steam in the union after the catering stresses of the preceding few days.

The subtext is probably lost in the mists of time, but if I had a grump on in those days, people around me would have known about it. Actually I’m not sure the obviousness of my grump has changed much in the forty years since.

On the Monday I was “sorting out J-Soc stuff still” which probably irritated me, although I did find time in the afternoon to “visit Anju”.

But it is mostly work for the next few days, so I sense that I felt that I was behind where I wanted to be with my essays and the like. Either that or some sort of interpersonal grump that I was too polite to write down and which is now, mercifully, long-since forgotten.