Tag: Ashley Fletcher

A Political Rally With Death Threats: Arthur, The Miner’s Strike & Keele, 22 September 1984

Arthur Scargill, Pit Closure Rally, Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums

While the Keele Students’ Union bars saga was the largest internal issue that subsisted for the first six months of our sabbatical year 1984/85…

When The Keele Students’ Union Bars (aka Tommy And Ralph) Saga Came To A Head, Early August 1984

…the 1984-85 miners’ strike was far and away the biggest UK political/news story of that time.

The dispute had been running for some six months before this day, in September 1984, when Arthur Scargill held a rally outside the pit in Silverdale, which might be described as “Keele’s local” in the matter of coal pits back then. Indeed I think it was that pit that did for my first Barnes flat, in M block, which needed to be demolished in late 1982:

Switching To A Cracking Good Flat In Barnes, Keele, Mid February To Early March 1982

But I digress.

Here is a transcript of my diary note from the day that Arthur Scargill came to town:

Saturday, 22 September 1984 – Got up early. Went to Shelton – Kathy [North Staffs Poly, President? I think], Cath [Coughlin], Andy [Crawford] and I went to Rumours and on to Scargill [Arthur Scargill rally at a closing colliery]. Shopped in afternoon – visited Kevin [“the Guinness”?], Helen [Ross] etc. Went to Union in evening.

Obviously it was a big rally…a very, very big rally – in contrast with the comparatively small rallies (by his own standards) that Donald Trump holds in the USA these days (2024). Joking apart, there were several hundred of us who attended that 1984 Potteries event.

I discover, though, by delving into The Evening Sentinel archive, that Arthur Scargill 1984 did share something in common with Trump 2024: death threats. Indeed, had I known what I now learn from the Evening Sentinel 40 years later, I might have been a little reluctant to attend:

Scargill Rally 22 September 1984 SentinelScargill Rally 22 September 1984 Sentinel 22 Sep 1984, Sat Evening Sentinel (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England) Newspapers.com

In truth I don’t remember a great deal about the rally. I wasn’t a political sabbatical, by which I mean that I wanted to focus on running the Union and my portfolio, Education and Welfare, rather than national or international events. But I do remember that sense of history and wanting to be there when the “show” came to our town.

Arthur Scargill was a charismatic speaker and certainly carried his crowd with him. Thatcher-bashing/Tory-bashing was low hanging fruit for speeches in places like the Potteries at that time. I do remember Scargill’s mantra:

There’s no such thing as an uneconomic pit…

…failing to pass my personal economics test at that time. It was clear to me even then that the coal industry was on its way out, for economic and environmental reasons. The issue, for me, was the way that the Tory Government was going about its industrial policy, like a bull in a China shop, for ideological reasons, rather than a measured, planned approach to industrial change, which might have been achieved with more net benefit and less resulting hardship.

But it wasn’t about me, it was about Arthur. Here’s a video of a similar speech to the one we would have heard at the end of our rally:

Mercifully there was no assassination attempt on Arthur Scargill at the event we attended nor, as far as I know, at any other event during those heady days in the mid 1980s.

But just a few year’s later, comedy writer and performer Brian Jordan …

…to whom I shall always be grateful for premiering my comedy material in Edinburgh, in his wonderfully-named show, Whoops Vicar Is that Your Dick…

The Ultimate Love Song, Whoops Vicar, NewsRevue, Ben Murphy…, 29 February 1992

…assassinated Arthur Scargill’s character in the following lyric which ran and ran in NewsRevue in the early 1990s, reproduced here with Brian’s kind permission. I especially like the couplet:

He may not be to everybody’s liking,

But as a union leader…he’s striking.

Anyway, the September 1984 rally was not to be the last of the Students’ Union’s involvement in the miners’ strike, as the issue found its way onto the UGM agenda several times during our year – on at least one occasion with quite incendiary results.

Ashley Fletcher will help me to pick up on that aspect of the story in the coming months, as he has been busy recently (2024) writing up his own memories of the miners’ strike.

O Captain! My Captain! – Gentlemen Of The Right v Players Of The Left – Keele Festival Week Cricket Match, 26 June 1984

Toby Bourgein. Picture “liberated” from the 1980/81 Keele Prospectus

I am sadly motivated to write up this story having learnt, a few days ago (September 2020), that Toby Bourgein has died. Toby captained the Players cricket team in all three of the festival matches I played. I had been intending to write up this glorious 1984 match for a couple of years, since I wrote up the tale of my surprise appearance in the 1982 match..

“Got Roped In To Playing Cricket All Afternoon”, Gentlemen v Players Cricket Match, Keele Festival Week, 24 June 1982

…and the 1983 match…

My Second “Thanks For Coming” (TFC) Keele Festival Week Cricket Match, 21 June 1983

For those not motivated to click the above link, I was a late selection for the 1982 match (for reasons that, alone, make the 1982 link worth clicking). I did not bowl and I did not bat in that historic victory, but I did, more by luck than judgement, take a stunning catch.

It won’t have looked this good, I wouldn’t have been so suitably attired, but it was a diving (in my case left-handed) catch. This picture from school five years earlier. I was better at taking pictures than at playing cricket. Still am.

Toby Borgein had a long memory and a good heart. I ran into him a week or two before the 1984 match and he told me he wanted me to play again and have a proper go this time.

We have a solid opening batsman, Ian Herd, this year. I’d like you to open the batting with him.

Ian was on Somerset CCC’s youth books – i.e. he was way above “our” scratchy festival knock-about cricket pay grade. But I didn’t know that until later.

Several of my friends came along to watch this time around, not least because I knew more than 30 minutes before the start of the match that I’d be playing. Anyway, there were worse places on earth to spend a glorious summer afternoon than the Keele Festival Week Beer Tent.

With thanks to Frank Dillon, this picture of an earlier “Players” team, probably 1981

We (The Players) fielded first. I neither distinguished myself nor embarrassed myself in the field – unlike 1982, during which my fielding had met triumph and disaster; naturally treating both of those imposters just the same.

I was mostly fielding in the long grass where I was able to nurse my pint of ale and seemingly play cricket at the same time. Who says men cannot multi-task?

Keele University Playing Field

The Gentlemen scored a little over 100 in their innings. A respectable but hopefully not insurmountable score for that fixture, based on previous experiences.

Then to bat. Sadly I have no pictures from the 1982, 1983 nor the 1984 event – if any are subsequently uncovered/scanned I shall add them. Here is the earliest photo of me going in to bat I can find; from 1998:

If you imagine Barnes Hall to the right of me and the tennis courts, beer tents etc. to the left, this could almost be the Keele playing fields. Almost, I said.

I still hadn’t picked up a cricket bat since school, unless you count the 1983 net and subsequent nought not out without facing a ball. But I was quite fit that summer, having played tennis regularly before (more or less during) and after my finals.

Anyway, Ian Herd could bat. We rattled along. I helped to see the shine off the new ball. I suspect that Ian made a greater contribution towards seeing off the shine by knocking the ball to all parts, but we’ll let that aspect pass.

The crowd was probably more heavily weighted towards Players’ supporters than Gentlemen’s supporters, but in any case by the second half of the match vocal chords were more lubricated.

In what seemed like next to no time, there was a cry from the crowd…

50-up

…allowing me and Ian a joyous moment of handshaking celebration in the middle.

“I think I’d better ‘hit out or get out’ to give some of the others a go this year”, I said.

“Good idea”, said t’other Ian

It didn’t take long (one ball) for me to loft one up in the air and get caught.

More tumultuous applause as I came off, with the score on 53/1.

“Fifty partnership – great stuff”, said Toby, ever the encouraging captain

I remember Bobbie Scully and Ashley Fletcher both being there. and both expressing joy in my performance and surprise that I could play. I’m pretty sure that several of my fellow Union Committee members, not least John White, Kate Fricker and Pady Jalali were around too.

Remember, folks, that everyone was quite well oiled by then and no-one was REALLY watching…

…apart from the scorer.

The scorer was Doreen Steele’s son. Doreen was the Students’ Union accountant and the NUPE shop steward for the union staff. Her son clearly aspired to similar careers.

“How many of the 53 did I score?”, I asked.

“Three”, said the lad.

“Are you sure it wasn’t four?” I asked, having counted to four in my head.

“You’re probably including a leg bye…”

“…I hit that ball onto my pad, actually…”

“…the umpire signalled leg bye. It was a leg bye…

…you scored three.”

You can’t argue with that schoolboy logic.

Nor can you argue with the fact that I had been part of a fifty partnership in a cricket match.

Nor can you argue with the fact that Toby Bourgein had pulled off a captaincy masterstroke…or at least a warm, generous gesture that meant a lot to me.

But did The Players win the match, I hear you cry? You bet your sweet pint of Marston’s Pedigree we won.

This story has subsequently been further immortalised on the King Cricket website:

Players (of the left) v Gentlemen (of the right) – match report + wagon wheel

Toby Bourgein will be better remembered at Keele for many other things, not least his student activism. The one other picture I have of him, below, is from a protest we attended together in 1982. But I remember Toby especially fondly for these silly cricket matches, for which he was, O Captain! My Captain!

Toby bottom left, looking suitably senior and serious about fighting the cuts.
Me towards the right, in trope-inducing donkey jacket, holding diagonal corner of the campus model

When Vision & Revision Collide: Including Plenty Of Tennis, Plus Students’ Union Stuff, Psychedelic Furs…Even Some Snooker & Football – How Not To Revise For Finals At Keele Part Three

So many books. so little time put aside for reading them…

OK, I didn’t have quite so many books back then, nor did I need to go through all of them for my finals. Strangely, I have kept most of the books I did read for those exams, as I have always struggled to part company with books, even dull textbook-type books.

This shelf – promoted to the least-touched, hard-to-reach top shelf now, has a lot of the material I went through for my finals.

I had three law papers to do: Civil Liberties, Criminology and Consumer Protection. I remember feeling that the Civil Liberties and Consumer Law material was still reasonably fresh in my mind and just needed a bit of cramming, whereas the Criminology, which I had been taught the year before, was far more evasive.

Because I had decided to defer Criminology until finals, I hadn’t done much on it during my P2 year, so much of the reading I was doing was “vision” more than “revision”. For Criminology, which is a fairly broad-based, sociological subject, perhaps that was just as well. I decided to focus my “vision” on books by the academics who taught the course: Pat Carlen and Mike Collinson, with just a smidge of reading around the topic. This seemed to work.

Don Thompson’s style of teaching Civil Liberties and Michael Whincup’s style of teaching Consumer Protection seemed, to me, to be more oriented towards preparng for exams, so my tutorial notes and just a bit of reading around felt more appropriate.

But let’s be honest about this – even in the 20 days or so running up to and into those exams, I was hardly devoting myself exclusively to the task. Diaries don’t lie.

1 to 6 May 1984 – Tennis The Only Distraction By The Looks Of It

Tuesday 1 May 1984 – Worked a little – played tennis [must have been Alan “The Great Yorkshire Pudding” Gorman, as unnamed] – worked over at Bobbie’s in eve.

Wednesday 2 May 1984 – Shopped today – did some work during day – did some more at B’s in eve.

Thursday 3 May 1984 – Did a little work – played tennis with Viv [Vivian Robinson – strangely I have little recollection of playing tennis with her but it seems I did so more than once]– went to J-Soc in eve -> Bobbie’s to do some work later.

Friday 4 May 1984 – did some work – not much – did some work there [Bobbie’s] in eve.

Saturday 5 May 1984 – Did no work during the day – shopped plus played tennis with Pudding in afternoon. Went Bobbie’s in eve.

Sunday 6 May 1984 – Got up quite early. Did some work today – went over to B’s to do some more work.

Not too bad I suppose. I’m not sure how Bobbie recalls this period – if she recalls it at all. I think she had far better concentration and ability to revise/cram than I had. She might have perceived my restlessness as a distraction, but perhaps we were genuinely good for each other in terms of allocated long evenings to revise together. As a routine, it certainly helped me.

7 to 13 May 1984 – Throw In Some Union Stuff & Even Snooker On TV As Well As Tennis

Monday 7 May 1984 – Did some work – went to Constitutional Committee in eve -> Bobbie’s after – watched snooker and worked.

Tuesday 8 May 1984 – Did some work – played tennis with Pudding in afternoon – worked at Bobbie’s in eve.

Wednesday 9 May 1984 – Went shopping in afternoon – went over to B’s to work in eve.

Thursday 10 May 1984 ,- Did some work – played tennis with Viv in early eve – went over to Bobbie’s in evening.

Friday 11 May 1984 – Did some work today – worked more over at Bobbie’s in eve.

Saturday 12 May 1984 – Went shopping with Bobbie in the afternoon. Worked there in evening.

Sunday 13 May 1984 – got up early to work – worked over Bobbie’s in eve – re [her] first exam…

I don’t suppose many finalists persevered with Constitutional Committee 10 days or so before their finals. Snooker as a further distraction doesn’t really sound like me, however dull the particular chunk of revision I was doing that evening might have been.

I wasn’t much into snooker, but Alan The Great Yorkshire Pudding” Gorman was and I suspect Bobbie must have been too. If snooker was Bobbie’s distraction, I was surely a willing participant in such distraction. Easily distracted from revision, me.

A little bit of Googling tells me that Monday 7 May was the nail-biting climax of the World Snooker Championship Final between Steve Davis and Jimmy White. Here’s a vid for those who like snooker.

14 to 20 May 1984

Monday 14 May 1984 – Did work today – Bobbie’s first exam – Ashley [Fletcher] came round – UGM eve – did a little work after.

Tuesday, 15 May 1984 – Did some work today – tennis with Pud [Alan “The Great Yorkshire Pudding” Gorman]. Worked a little more over at Bobbie’s after.

Wednesday, 16 May 1984 – Went shopping today – worked at B’s in eve.

Thursday, 17 May 1984 – Worked quite hard on elections today – J-Soc also. Worked especially hard at B’s in eve.

Friday, 18 May 1984 – Day before exams – shopped in afternoon – worked hard in eve.

Saturday 19 May 1984 – CIVIL LIBERTIES [paper] in afternoon – did a little work in evening as well – earlyish night.

Sunday, 20 May 1984 – Worked some during day – and worked hard in evening.

A couple of references to working hard in the run up to my first paper, which does suggest that my work on those other days and evenings had not been quite as focussed.

I really did manage to cultivate the ability to focus and work ridiculously hard for several decades after this period…

…but very evidently not while I was preparing for my Keele finals.

21 to 23 May 1984 – Two Law Papers – Lows, Highs, The Psychedelic Furs & Tottenham Hotspurs

Monday, 21 May 1984 CRIMINOLOGY [paper] in morning – low in afternoon – went UC [Union Committee] – very down in eve also.

Tuesday, 22 May 1984 – Rose early. Worked hard on consumer protection – then CONSUMER PROTECTION [paper] afternoon – went Hanley for meal and Psychedelic Furs concert in the evening most pleasant.

Wednesday, 23 May 1984 – Went shopping, Pudding [tennis presumably] etc. in the afternoon – went over Bobbie’s in the evening. Did some work – watched football etc.

I think the low on the Monday after the Criminology paper was two-fold. I know I felt that I hadn’t had a good exam (it can’t have been too bad) but Bobbie came out of her last Law paper (I think European Law or International Law) convinced that she had badly screwed up. Of course she hadn’t, but I do remember that being one of the very few times I saw Bobbie in a blue funk about anything. (If only Bobbie’s distant memory were better, she could no doubt retell many examples of my blue funks).

By the next day I felt much better, not least because I sensed that I had written a decent Consumer Law paper and the added relief that the Law exams were over. Just Economics to go!

The fact that I had completely neglected Economics since completing my dissertation did not prevent me from celebrating the end of the Law finals with Bobbie in Hanley. I think it would have been the Chinese restaurant and then to Victoria Hall for an excellent Psychedelic Furs concert.

If you want to know what The Psychedelic Furs sounded like in May 1984, the BBC recorded and broadcast their concert at Hammersmith Odeon a week after the Victoria Hall concert. Here is that one hour recording:

If you prefer to see what they looked like back then, there is a slightly blurry YouTube from Madrid that year, part of the same tour, which is a very similar if not identical set to the one we would have seen:

The football we watched on Wednesday 23 May 1984 will have been the UEFA Cup Final between Tottenham Hotspur and Anderlecht. Football wasn’t really my thing, but it was Bobbie’s thing. Forever Everton in Bobbie’s case. Also, although I didn’t support Tottenham Hotspur (or indeed any football team), I had spent more time at White Hart Lane than any other ground, taken there as a kid many times by Stanley Benjamin and then later the holiday job work crowd, who also tended to favour that team/ground. You can read all about that UEFA Cup classic and look at clips of it on the Tottenham Hotspur site – click here – I’m not the only person who writes stuff up 40 years on, you know.

A Tale Of Procrastination In Two Cities (And A Campus): How Not To Revise For Your Finals At Keele Part Two, Late April 1984

Last Thursday (by which I mean 25 April 2024), driving home quite late in the evening, I heard a short anthropological programme on BBC Radio 4 entitled “Why Do We Procrastinate?”.

You too can hear that programme, by clicking this link, as long as you don’t put off doing so for too long.

The programme made me think about my procrastination-ridden period 40 years ago, when I should have been revising more profoundly for my finals than I managed. It also reminded me that I wanted soon to publish the second part of my mini-series, based on that experience, “How not to revise for your finals at Keele”.

I must get that piece written and out this weekend,

I thought to myself. But guess what? A different idea hove into my my mind and I wrote something completely different instead.

Having got to Monday, I then resolved to procrastinate yet longer. But that would be too straightforward. So, this evening, I have decided to put off my procrastination until tomorrow and write the piece right now.

Peace, Love & Procrastination, 21st Century style

Trying Revising In Liverpool

Liverpool from across the Mersey

Thursday, 12 April 1984 – Left Keele after sorting out various business. Arrived [at Bobbie Scully’s place in Wallasey] late afternoon – had dinner – did a little work – went to a pub after.

Friday, 13 April 1984 – Very little today – walking dog etc. eating etc. Went Liverpool in eve – didn’t do much – not feeling so good.

Saturday 14 April 1984 – Not feeling too well today – very little work – walked dog etc etc – went to local pub in eve – worked and watched film after.

Sunday, 15 April 1984 – Rose quite late – packed etc – left Liverpool after lunch – got home [Streatham]. Picked up to eat – did little.

It’s quite possible that I set my standards of diligence and industry a little higher now than I did in 1984, but I would rate my performance, in the matter of doing plenty of revision during those few days on Merseyside, as dismal.

Might London have worked better?

Trying Revising In London

London – could I possibly end up even deeper in the poo?

Monday, 16 April 1984 – Did little work today – G[randma] Jenny and U[ncle] Louis came over for Seder Night.

Tuesday, 17 April 1984 – Did some work – went shopping after. Fairly easy day today – easy evening.

Wednesday, 18 April 1984 – Did some work today – went to Kingston Liberal Seder with Grandma Jenny and Uncle Louis in evening.

Thursday, 19 April 1984 – Worked quite hard today – did little else in fact apart from work.

Friday, 20 April 1984 – Did a little work today – went out for Indian meal – family came over an evening.

Saturday 21 April 1984 – Did a little work & taping today. Paul came over in evening.

Sunday, 22 April 1984 – Did very little work today. Makro [Charlton] in morning – big Carretto [Italian Restaurant in Streatham] lunch in afternoon – did little else all day apart from write up dad’s books.

Monday, 23 April 1984 – Did some work today – went for walk with dad in afternoon – evening taped and spoke to people.

“All work and no joy makes Jack a dull boy”, says Grandma Jenny

Hmmm. The Liverpool experiment was no more than one out of ten on the revision front. London possibly scores four out of ten.

Still, Passover and Easter are now done. Time to return to Keele and see the thing through on campus.

Trying Revising At Keele

Keele – I’m trying to remember what that building was for. 😉

Tuesday, 24 April 1984 – Came back to Keele today – went to the union for a drink at last orders.

Wednesday, 25 April 1984 – Tried to do some work – shopped – went to Ashley etc – last orders in union.

Thursday 26 April 1984 – did a little work today – Bobbie came back late afternoon – did little for rest of day.

Friday, 27 April 1984 – Got up quite late. Went shopping in Newcastle – did some work in the evening.

Saturday 28 April 1984 – Tried to do some work today – went over to Bobbie’s – fairly lazy evening.

Sunday, 29 April 1984 – Did a little work today – went and had a game of tennis with Pudding [Alan Gorman aka The Great Yorkshire Pudding] in early evening – went over to Bobbie’s in eve.

Monday, 30 April 1984 – Did some work today (not much) – did a little more over at Bobbie’s in evening.

Let’s not worry too much about this, folks. My first Law paper was set for 19 May, so there were still 18 revision days until then. But let’s also be honest about it; I seemed to be finding distractions wherever I went. Worse yet, those tennis courts were oh so enticing whenever I looked out of my Barnes L54 window and Alan “Great Yorkshire Pudding” Gorman was often on hand to help me get some much needed fresh air and exercise.

DALL-E image depicting me and Alan dallying

Part Three will follow when I can procrastinate no longer and write up the first three weeks of May 1984. Don’t hold your breath, but I’m aiming for publishing it three weeks hence.

How Not To Revise For Your Finals At Keele, Part One: The Start Of The Easter Holidays, Early April 1984

The meaning of this image for this story will become apparent if you read on!

Forty years after the event, I can still give myself the collywobbles by reading my diary entries for the weeks approaching my finals at Keele. Economics and Law, just in case you were wondering.

I never have been much use at revising for exams. These were important exams to say the least. I sense that I distinguished myself for these big ones by being proportionately dreadful at knuckling down to revision.

I was, at least, quite brutally honest in my diary as to what I was – and wasn’t – doing around that time.

This multi-part article on how not to revise for your finals might serve as an object lesson to students everywhere.

Let’s start with a transcription from my diary for the first 10 days of April 1984:

Sunday 1 April 1984 – Got up late! Did little all day – Viv [Robinson] came round in afternoon – had nice meal and early night.

Monday 2 April 1984 – Got up quite late – Ashley [Fletcher] came round. Went into town – shopped and went to Ashley’s – Bobbie [Scully] left – easyish evening – went Union with Mel [Melissa Oliveck] for last orders – early night.

Tuesday, 3 April 1984 – Tried to do some work today – not too successfully. Went to Union in the evening with Mel.

Wednesday, 4 April 1984 – Late start – intermittent work – went to union with Malcolm [Cormelius] in the evening.

Thursday, 5 April 1984 – Did some work today – intermittently -big demo against Police Bill [which became the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984]. Went to KRA in evening with Malcolm.

Friday, 6 April 1984 – worked quite hard today – shopped etc – went to Union in eve – had a bop!

Saturday, 7 April 1984 – busyish day. Worked quite hard on project today. Went to union in eve – disco etc.

Sunday, 8 April 1984 – Worked on project today after late start. Visited Q92 [my Malay friends] etc. Went to Union for last orders.

Monday, 9 April 1984 = Shopped and worked today. Went to KRA with Malc, Farm [Chris Spencer] and Mel – nice evening.

Tuesday, 10 April 1984 – Worked hard on project all day. Went to Careless Talk meeting in evening, then union, then K41 do.

Some points to note here. Firstly, there are some references to working hard, but they are unquestionably linked to finishing my project – i.e. my Economics dissertation on the Economics of the Pharmaceutical Industry. I am proud of that piece of work, which achieved a first class mark, but in truth it should have been finished before revision time came around in April 1984.

My flat, Barnes L54, had just two of us regular residents: me and Chris “Farmer” Spencer. Pete Wild’s girlfriend, Melissa Oliveck, was there, at least for that first chunk of the vacation, while Malcolm Cornelius was occupying Alan “Great Yorkshire Pudding” Gorman’s room.

One aspect, unmentioned in the diary but which I remember very clearly, was a short-lived tradition of making Irish coffee at the end of the evening on return from the Union. I was reminded of this a couple of weeks ago (March 2024) when my wife, Janie, ordered an Irish coffee after our meal in Petworth (see headline image and below).

“You were a role model…on how NOT to revise…”

I recalled that we were trying to get work done for our finals, so were not spending much time in the bar. Instead, Malcolm and I tried many different ways to prepare the Irish coffee in the flat – all in the interests of science of course.

I remarked to the maître d’ in Petworth that Malcolm and I had concluded that the essential component to make the cream float nicely was the sugar content within the coffee. The maître d’ explained that, to get a full-on Irish coffee to look the way the coffee looks in our photos, you also need to bring each ingredient to the right temperature before combining and use cream with the right fat content.

Back to the drawing board, Malc.

The woeful tale of my attempts to revise for finals will continue soon, after a short interlude next time, to describe a visit that Ashley Fletcher and I made to a Keeley food collective group in Newcastle.

Hitsville USA: The Story Of Motown, An Appointment To Listen At Keele January to March 1984

I had been taking an interest in Motown, Stax & Northern Soul music for a few years by the time the iconic BBC Radio series, Hitsville USA: The Story Of Motown, presented by Stuart Grundy, started in January 1984.

The diary is silent on’t, but the cassette recorder was not

I recorded the show every week, all but one on my trusty Grundig RR720, see image below and on this link, from Reverb, where you can try to buy such items.

The story of how this audio-beauty came into my possession is worthy of a piece in its own right. But in short, Ashley wanted to buy an Amstrad “all in one” thingie and offered me his Grundig RR720 for a ludicrously low price in order to raise the last few quid he needed to secure his purchase. I negotiated the price up for him as I couldn’t in all conscience buy the item for the price he quoted. I think the offer price was £12 and the strike price £20.

I continued to use and get pleasure from the RR720 for some 25 years, until its increasing hiss-noise and obsolete look condemned it around 2007 or 2008.

Anyway…

…my habit, most weeks, was to go into Newcastle shopping after listening to and taping this programme on a Saturday. I think it very unlikely that I got much if any work done before the lunchtime broadcast. I probably ate lunch (or some might argue brunch) while listening.

I note that Episode 5 was when Jilly was visiting at the end of an action-packed week:

An Action-Packed Week At Keele In Mid-February 1984

I recall “making” Jilly listen to that episode, arranging our tour of Keele around the Motown programme time. Jilly became quite engaged with the subject after 30 minutes in the masterful hands of Stuart Grundy’s documentary and clips. I’m pretty sure that is where the idea of “The Lesson Tapes” that I made for Jilly started, as she confessed knowing next to nothing about that sort of music, classical music student that she was.

I recorded Week 10 at my parents house while decompressing and getting a little bit of work done there late March:

A Fortnight Of Conducting My Keele Studies In London, Then Assisting Stop The City From Keele, Late March 1984

I remember discussing the series with Paul Deacon when I saw him that evening. Were you already working for the BBC Music Library at that time, Paul, or did that come later?

One or two of the cassettes that I made back then didn’t make it through the decades. I did scrape them all onto reel-to-reel at the time and those spools might still work…although they will be decaying (or already decayed) in storage. But none of that sort of thing matters any more, because a few clicks in the direction of the Internet Archive finds the very thing – all episodes neatly digitised and set out, Items 4 to 14 inclusive, through this link or the picture link below:

There are far worse things that you could do than listen to them all “in a podcast stylee”, as I think it is as good an audio documentary about Motown has yet to be made.

For me it brings back memories of when I should have been finishing my assignments and revising, but was still fiddling around with music and socialising and grub instead. A process I continued for many weeks after this series ended:

How Not To Revise For Your Finals At Keele, Part One: The Start Of The Easter Holidays, Early April 1984

Rare Signs Of Me In A Bad Mood At Keele Towards The End Of The 1983 Autumn Term

These images of Keele thanks to Graham Sedgley. How can you be in a blue funk in a place with red skies like that?

Something irked me in the penultimate week of term that year. The diary has more than its usual smattering of negativity.

I cannot remember what would have led to the phrase:

…UGM in eve – sabotaged…

…but that will for sure have irked me.

I sense that I was pretty busy that week with both studies and union stuff and I suspect that, whatever the sabotage was, I thought it disruptive and a cause of uneccessary work on my part.

I know I was already sensing that the 1983/84 committee on the whole was not very good and that there were aspects of the Union that mattered to me that felt out of control.

I also recall planning with Viv Robinson to promote the election season to try to ensure that the students engaged with that process – more on that will follow early in 1984. Similarly, I took it upon myself as Chair of Constitutional Committee to attempt to revise the constitution in order to remove some of the procedural loopholes that were enabling sabotage. More on that anon too.

Thursday – A Liberal Array Of Activities

A moving story if ever there was one

One of the more strange collections of activities is listed for Thursday:

V busy day – odds and ends – helped Ashley [Fletcher] move bed in afternoon – went J-Soc -> Liberal party in evening

I don’t think I am a good candidate for helping anyone move a bed from one part of Stoke to another, especially not a team comprising me and Ashley.

Just the thought of it brings to mind the following short film:

As for the “Liberal Party” later in the day, that would not be the actual political party, of course, but a party thrown by the bunch of Liberal activists who had arrived at Keele that year, who included my flatmate Pete Wild and Hayward Burt, both of whom depicted in the following picture:

Tony Roberts (Conservative), Pete Wild (then Liberal) and Hayward Burt (then Liberal, now Conservative), photo thanks to Mark Ellicott (formerly Conservative but subsequently radical)

My Barnes L54 flatmate Chris Spencer would no doubt have been there, as would Melissa Oliveck, who was Pete’s girlfriend at the time and a regular visitor to Barnes L54.

Friday 9 December – Busyish day – really pissed off today – went Hanley in eve with Ashley – Bobbie’s for a while in eve

I wonder what pissed me off. The Union business? Writers block for one of those pesky essay deadlines? Back ache from helping Ashley to move his bed? Head ache from overindulging liberally at the previous night’s party? Whatever caused it, I don’t suppose Bobbie enjoyed the experience of my mood on such days. Relatively rare in my case but I must have been REALLY pissed off to have noted such in my diary, which was normally spared such emotions.

Saturday 10 December – Busy sort of day. Shopping etc. Helped Ashley move in evening -> Black Lion -> two parties in eve. Stayed B.

The Black Lion public house, Trent Vale by Colin Pyle, CC BY-SA 2.0

Seems that my mood was more or less restored by the weekend. What a relief for all concerned.

Doing Stuff In The Keele Students’ Union, An Anarchist Bonfire, The Fall Supported By The Stockholm Monsters and Partying In A High-Falutin’ Place, Mid November 1983

Ticket image borrowed from The Fall Gigography

It’s hard to imagine a week getting more exciting after the “Truda Smith incident” on the Monday, reported last time…

A Keele Finalist In Autumn: Visits To Careless Talk, The Financial Times And The SU Women’s Toilet, Early November 1983

…and indeed the rest of that week has little worthy of report in it.

Union Stuff

The diary suggests a fairly settled pattern of work, spending time with Bobbie and spending time in the Union, mostly around elections and such matters. The Chair of Constitutional Committee also chaired Election Appeals Committee and it seems there were elections that week.

I found a stray voting slip some years ago, when rummaging through a file for something else – it might well have been for the election that week.

Keele Students’ Union By-Election Voting Slip, guessing November 1983

The other thing that is clear from my diary that week is that I became good friends with Vivian Robinson around that time. She was SU Secretary (and therefore also returning officer) that year – so we were thrown together ex officio in terms of running elections.

Fortunately we got on well and I think the elections that year ran smoothly – even the one that I ran in…just about. Viv and I remained friends after Keele, not least when she lived on Bedford Hill in the late 1980s, about 10 minutes walk from my parents house. Watch this space for future tales.

Anyway, that week, it seems, Viv cooked me dinner one night and I made her lunch a couple of days later.

Anarchist Bonfire Party, 11 November 1983

I like the reference to going to an “anarchist bonfire party” after dinner with Viv on 11 November. Ashley and/or Sally Hyman might remember some details about that event, but I must admit I don’t remember much about it.

Perhaps it was part of a trend at that time to perceive Guy Fawkes as a radical hero, which, frankly, he wasn’t. Or perhaps it was more an excuse to have a bonfire party a week or so after the conventional Guy-effigy-burning occasion and avoid the unpleasant connotations of all that, by simply having a lively bonfire party, which I’m sure it was.

The Anarchist Bonfire Party won’t have looked like this

The Fall Supported By the Stockholm Monsters, 16 November 1983

This was a pretty memorable Keele gig in my book, as much for the buzz there was around The Fall at that time as the sound itself, which was only sort-of to my taste.

The Stockholm Monsters were a more than half-decent support act, well suited to support The Fall. In 1983 they sounded like this:

The Fall appeared on The Tube just over a week after our Keele gig. Their set on The Tube looked like this:

Andrea’s Party At Bushy House, 19/20 November 1983

By the end of that week I was writing in red ink, reporting on a trip to London. I love the fact that I note that I had a haircut on the Saturday morning. I’m guessing that my mum would have strongly suggested I needed a haircut, probably because of the location of the party I was going to that night.

My friend Andrea Dean was living in Bushy House, Teddington at that time. Her father had become Director of the National Physical Laboratory and a rather sprauncy apartment came with that job.

Andrea c1979

Bushy House is a former residence of King William IV, although I suspect he made use of the whole house.

I remember more than one entertaining party/gathering at Bushy House when it was Andrea’s place. This November 1983 one was especially memorable.

…And Forty Years On?

I rather like the juxtaposition of an anarchist bonfire party one weekend and a party in a formerly royal residence the next in November 1983.

Forty years on, both of those parties were good training for the week that I have just been through:

Pomp Given The Circumstances: Mansion House & The Lord Mayor’s Show, 11 November 2023
After The Lord Mayor’s Show Comes…The Lord Mayor’s Banquet, Guildhall, 13 November 2023

Keele Students’ Union By-Election Voting Slip, guessing November 1983

This is a strange thing to have survived in my document box. I think it has done so because Ashley Fletcher scribbled his telephone number on the reverse.

Still, we see Kate Fricker standing for a minor election, presumably just a few months before she ran for President. Running against someone by the name of Ged, but on this occasion not one of my multiple personalities.

In those days I was very much myself; Chair of Constitutional Committee and Election Appeals Committee. So perhaps I need to ask myself some serious questions about this stray ballot paper. Is that a hanging chad at the top of the slip?

198384 By Election Scrap with Ashleys Number on Reverse

A Keele Finalist In Autumn: Visits To Careless Talk, The Financial Times And The SU Women’s Toilet, Early November 1983

1983 – Long before gender neutrality for conveniences had been invented

I sense from my autumn 1983 diary that I was hunkering down to do a reasonable amount of studying that year. That said, the first two evenings on the page below show me focussed at least as much on student politics. There was a UGM on the Monday, which passed with a mere “OK” from me…

Careless Talk

… on the Tuesday it says I went to Careless Talk. Straining my brain, I think that was an anarchist discussion group, which was colloquially known as “Bob & Sally’s Thing”, much to the chagrin Sally Hyman, and the late (also lovely) Bob Miller.

In truth, it was probably Ashley Fletcher more than anyone who nicknamed the group “Bob & Sally’s Thing”, knowing full well that the idea that the group had leaders or figureheads was anathema to Bob & Sally. It was outrageous for Ashley to nickname the group – it was Bob and Sally’s thing, so really only they should have had the power to name the group. Which they did. Careless Talk.

Photo by Rept0n1x, CC BY-SA 2.0

I think we might have met in The Victoria. Sally or Ashley might remember. I vaguely recall Ashley perpetuating the “power joke” because the chosen place was in Miller Street. I remember Bob especially liking whichever pub it was because it served the best pint of Bass he could find in town. That was an aspect to which Bob would have given a great deal of care and attention.

At the time we possibly thought we might solve the world’s problems through sheer weight of discussion and reasoned debate. Forty years later…it seems we didn’t make a great fist of it. Heck, but at least we tried. And some of us still do charity work to try and patch some of the broken bits back together again – e.g. Sally Hyman and her superb charity CRIBS International – not to be described as “Sally’s Thing”.

The Financial Times

Thursday 3 November 1983 – Lots to do before leaving for London after Election Appeals. Had Chinese meal and stayed up quite late.

Friday 4 November 1983 – Busy day – went to FT [Financial Times] in day – worked on it after. Watched Woody Allen & Richard Pryor film.

I had an Economics dissertation to research (the economics of the pharmaceutical industry – supervised by Joe Nellis – more on that in a future article). My parents were away and the Financial Times, bless them, were prepared to let an undergraduate like me loose on their archive library. In those days, that meant me going to their offices, taking up a desk for a day and the FT allowing me to photocopy and/or print out from microfiche a gazillion articles. Nowadays I suspect they might grant students a free electronic archive subscription for a limited time…or possibly make students pay.

I remember crawling across town to my parents’ house with a couple of bags full of printouts – I probably looked like a bag-person.

Goodness knows where I got the Chinese meal having got back to London after election appeals on the Thursday. I’m going to guess that I stopped off in Soho to eat and got a late bus from there.

I must have got home before 1.00 am because the Richard Pryor Live In Concert movie was shown on Channel 4 at 00:50. I had been dying to see that movie ever since Graham, who worked for a Laurie Krieger’s myriad businesses and who used to drive me to and from Kenton quite often that summer…

Keele Student’s Summer Working In London 1983, Part Four: Twixt Kenton, Centre Point, West End, Streatham, Friends & Family, September 1983

…waxed lyrical about Richard Pryor Live In Concert to me on one of our many long chats over the summer, claiming that it was the funniest movie he had ever seen. It is a good movie and some of it is very funny.

The only clip I can find feels more like prescient and sobering documentary than comedy today – TRIGGER WARNING: Richard Pryor uses the N-word a great deal, especially so in this potentially distressing clip.

The movie The Front, which I watched on the Friday evening, I recall having a profound affect on me and I still remember its poignancy. It is about left-wing people who were blacklisted in the US media, especially Hollywood, in the 1950s McCarthyism scare. US potty politics precedes Trump. The film was mostly made by people who had suffered at that time, including the wonderful Zero Mostel.

https://youtu.be/nL4LYkDKLhc

I remember also working hard on my research project and also doing a fair bit of taping on the Saturday and I saw Paul Deacon on the Sunday, who I’m sure presented me with another tape, which I might well go through separately from this piece if/when I have time.

Constitutional Committee & The Truda Incident, 7 November 1983

7 November 1983 – Returned from London – went to classes – const. comm. in eve – stayed down bar – went back to B’s [Bobbie Scully’s] after Truda [Smith] incident.

I don’t remember why the Truda incident occurred. Truda had been the SU president the year before, with limited success and even less goodwill left in the tank at the end of it all, in my humble opinion. I seem to recall that the immediate past President sat on Constitutional Committee ex officio, which might explain why she was there and why I felt some sense of responsibility for helping her post meeting.

I don’t recall anything in the meeting upsetting her – the meetings were orderly and well-tempered throughout my year as Chair as I recall it – but I think that meeting might have brought home to Truda the past-President’s absence of power.

Private Eye would describe her as “tired and emotional” that evening. I remember that Ashley was around. Bobbie wasn’t. At some point, quite late in the evening, someone (possibly one of the stewards) approached me and Ashley because they (or someone) was concerned that Truda had staggered into the Women’s toilets in the main lobby of the SU some time earlier and…not yet staggered out again. There were no women on hand to check the situation out.

I recall Ashley, quite skittishly, celebrating the opportunity to see inside the Women’s…

…I’ve always wondered what it might be like in there. I don’t suppose you’ve ever seen it either, Ian…

I was not really concerned about the aesthetics of the Women’s loo compared with the Men’s – I was wondering whether there would be blood…or vomit…or blood & vomit…

…actually there were none of those things. Just a very drunk, very weepy Truda who needed consoling – so we did our best to console – although frankly neither of us felt especially sympathetic to her (lack of) plight.

For pity’s sake, give it a rest.