NH & Co is Newman Harris & Co, SB is Stanley Bloom. I don’t recall where we went for lunch.
Had leaving do in eve. Drinks at Phoenix. Meal at Melati.
I’ll write more about Newman Harris elsewhere no doubt. The Phoenix on Cavendish Square was often the pub of choice by virtue of being the nearest, not the dearest. Thirty years on, a Google search finds the description…
…Shabby chic pub with worn-in tables…
…which surely applied back then too.
Melati was one of my favourite South-East Asian eateries back then – gone now it seems:
The location would have pleased the several South-East Asian colleagues I had at NH&Co and also would have pleased me as an echo of my “leaving do” ten years earlier when, as a 15 year old finishing my first holiday job, at NH, we went to a Malaysian restaurant named Rasa Sayang – I believe long gone and unrelated to any current restaurant of that name.
I cannot remember who joined me for the 1988 leaving do, but I shall list a few names of those I am pretty sure would have been there. Ashley Michaels, Mike and Sandra King, Dilip Vora, Terry, Duncan, Lelash Shah, Varsha Yadav…
…perhaps someone who was there and who has a phenomenal memory will stumble across this piece and help fill in the details.
…one might have expected the week to have become less exciting as it went on – not a bit of it:
Here follow transcriptions and explanations of the highlights:
Wednesday 17 August 1983 – …Chinese meal for lunch – met Jim [Bateman]after work in Bloomsbury – quite pleasant. [This was no doubt similar to after work “meetings” reported previously]
Thursday 18 August 1983 – Lotsa work to do today – went to Daquise with Ashley [Michaels] after work in evening.
Ashley had an approved, private evening job arrangement with one of the firm’s client’s, Daquise Restaurant, to keep the books of account in good order ahead of audit. Over the years I went there with Ashley after work a few times – a symbiotic combination of mentoring and helping him to get his tasks done.
The following wonderful video shows more, for those who like this sort of thing. Very slow start (the first two minutes is very dull) but after that the acrobatics is simply stunning and the “interview” hilarious:
Serge Ganjou was ever present at Daquise in those days, so I got to know him quite well on the back of my visits with Ashley. Serge’s wife, Juanita, was also there in the restaurant sometimes. Ashley and I were always fed on those occasions – I already had a taste for that sort of Central/Eastern European food.
Friday 19 August 1983 – Work OK – Chinese lunch – quick drink after -> [then on to] Andrea’s New Mansion – stayed over.
Andrea Dean a few years earlier
Andrea’s dad Paul headed the National Physical Laboratory, which resulted, around that time, in the family taking up rather grand residence within Bushy House.
I love the casual mention of it in my diary at that time, “->Andrea’s new mansion” as if I thought I’d get used to visiting folk in mansions. Mind you, forty years later, in the autumn of 2023, for one reason…
I remember a good few fun parties and sleepovers at Andrea’s grand place – no doubt they will come up in future diary notes.
Saturday 20 August 1983 – …got back lunchtime. Lazyish afternoon – Mays [George and Winifred] came over in evening for dinner
Sunday 21 August 1983 – …Angela & Vivienne [Kessler] came to tea…
Angela & Vivienne 1980 at Auntie Francis’s place
I have no idea why (or whether) John wasn’t there. My diary squiggles are almost illegible, but I think he was away on business on that occasion.
The following week was very quiet by comparison:
Tuesday 23 August 1983 – …went over to Jilly’s for evening – most pleasant
Friday 26 August 1983 – drinks at lunch – went home – lazy evening [those were the days, eh? Half holiday ahead of a bank holiday]
Sunday 28 August 1983 – birthday – went to Inn On the Park for lunch – v nice.
All that ahead of a significant change in work pattern after the bank holiday, as I was then assigned to Laurie Krieger’s Harlequin, Pricebuster & Leisureplay empires. All will be explained in the next instalment.
That holiday weekend, my head was probably still full of adagio acrobats and mansions.
Actually I worked in 19 Cavendish Square, not 19a (depicted). I subsequently (many years later) went to the dentist/hygienist in 19a. Any resemblance between tooth pulling and me working as an accounts clerk in the university holidays is purely coincidental.
The summer of 1983 was to be the last of my summer holiday jobs working for Newman Harris in London. Two-and-a-bit years later I started working for that firm full time as a trainee, but that’s another story.
As with previous summer jobs, I spent an awful lot of time meeting up with people for lunch and after work. I also visited Keele during that summer – a benefit of having retained the Barnes L54 flat, along with Alan Gorman and Chris Spencer, for a further year.
I’ll set out my diary pages below and try to translate/transliterate them. The very first reference on my first day of work, “VL”, refers to Laurence Corner (the V stood for Victor), where I spent a fair chunk of that summer, as I had done previously in my summer jobs. Forty years on, I am still in touch with DJ and Kim from there – not least because I met Janie through Kim in 1992 and the rest, as they say, has been history.
In July 1983 though, I was struggling with my sophomoric romantic travails with Liza. I did not want to seem to be pandering to my mum’s unreasonable aversion to the relationship…in truth I think mum had an aversion to me having ANY romantic relationship at that time…while in truth I had emotionally “checked out” by the end of the summer term, as reported in the last instalment…
…I just couldn’t see the Liza relationship working for me the following academic year.
There’s the context, so hold on to your hats for the deeds extracted from the diaries.
Monday 4 July 1983 – Started work – v busy. VL etc – unpacking etc evening
Tuesday 5 July 1983 – Work – v busy. Met Jilly [Black] for lunch [probably that Italian place on Henrietta Place where you could sit and eat in a railway carriage]. Unpacked till late
Wednesday 6 July 1983 – Busy day at office – Paul [Deacon] came over in evening. [I think there’ll be some good “mix tape” pieces from the summer of 1983, as Paul was in top form that summer with his record finds etc – my own form was not bad that summer either]
Thursday 7 July 1983 – Lots of work – stayed in this evening
Friday 8 July 1983 – V Busy – stayed in eve & relaxed
Saturday 9 July 1983 – Lazy day today – went shopping in Brixton -> G Jenny for tea – lazy eve
Sunday 10 July 1983 – Lazy day – did some reading – relaxed, ate, etc.
Grandma Jenny still lived in Sandhurst Court, Acre Lane, in those days, making a shopping trip to Brixton ahead of visiting her for tea a natural progression.
I expect you’ve got the gist of these summer diary pages by now, so I’ll only extract the highlights that might use some explaining from now on.
Tuesday 12 July 1983 – …met Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] for lunch…Paul [Deacon] came round in evening – went over to Andrew [Andy Levinson, who also lived in Woodfield Avenue]
Friday 15 July 1983 – Office Ok – much work – left early. Went up to Keele – stayed in eve…
Saturday 16 July 1983 – went pub in morning – afternoon Ashley [Fletcher] came over – v tired crashed out early…
Sunday 17 July 1983 – then up late – ran late – brekker – lazy day – left in eve – got back a little late.
Forty years on, I’m struggling to process that weekend in my mind. I sense that I was finding full time work tiring that summer – I think there was a bit of a heatwave on that year – but the weekend in Keele looks quite topsy-turvey to me and I’m guessing that some aspects are unwrit and unremembered, at least by me. Ashley might remember a bit more once he sees the diary write up. Perhaps that weekend was the “dancing and mud cricket in the rain” occasion:
Wednesday 20 July 1983 – …went to Wendy’s [Robbins – in Bromley back then] in eve – v pleasant.
Thursday 21 July 1983 – …met Caroline for lunch …
Friday 22 July 1983 – Work OK – deadlines. Went to Annalisa’s [de Mercur, who lived in Harley Street in those days] for lunch and went for a drink with Marianne [Gilmour, daughter of Geoffrey, also doing holiday work at NH those summers] – Paul came over later.
Saturday 23 July 1983 – …had haircut… [a rare and therefore diary-worthy event back then]
Sunday 24 July 1983 – Lazy day – nice lunch (Chinese) [probably at Mrs Wong’s] Finished with Liza in eve – not nice.
I vaguely recall seeking counsel from several friends in the run up to the Sunday call with Liza, which possibly in part explains the social whirl of the end of the week. I’m not going to pretend that I handled the matter well, but I was bringing little or no experience to the matter. In any case, it isn’t a situation that lends itself to being handled well.
Monday 25 July 1983 – …Ashley [Michaels, from NH, not Fletcher from Keele] took me to lunch…
Thursday 28 July 1983 – …met Hamzah [Shawal, my departing Keele flatmate – I think this was the last time I saw him] for lunch…
Friday 29 July 1983 – …went for drink with Ashley [Michaels] and Dilip Vora] after work …
Saturday 30 July 1983 – …went over to Paul’s for afternoon…
Sunday 31 July 1983 – Did little today. Set up hi-fi. Met Liza in Edgware – drank quite a lot!
I vaguely remember that evening in Edgware. I think Liza’s brother Sean and sister-in-law Marlene had invited her down with a view to setting up a face-to-face between me and Liza. Possibly they wrongly envisaged a possible reconciliation if Liza and I met in person. In any case it was a grown-up ploy, because breaking up by phone had been far from ideal; I think (hope) Liza and I parted on better terms as a result of that very boozy evening.
Sunday 30 August 1981 – went to Rasa Sayang for birthday treat – walked town – lazy evening
I’m guessing this will have been an outing with mates from work – I wouldn’t have “walked town” with my folks.
Several of the Newman Harris juniors were from Malaysia and they had introduced me to Malaysian cuisine at the Rasa Sayang in Chinatown three years earlier when I did my first summer job. [A link will be inserted here when I write up that seminal event.] I had fallen in love with that cuisine and would often choose it as a treat…still do 40 years on.
Malaysian style food became a significant part of my cuisine at Keele, not least because I shared flats at one time or another with Mohammad Mohd Isa from Malaysia and Hamzah Shawal from Brunei. Not only did I enjoy the food prepared by the Malaysian gang at Keele but I learnt to cook some Malaysian dishes myself – satays becoming one of my signature dishes. Grilled chicken thighs in a Malaysian-style marinade was another of my specialities. Here’s a link to anot dissimilar recipe, except that my marinade had a secret ingredient or two…naturally. 😉
In August 1981, Sandy Yap will have been involved in the trip to Rasa Sayang no doubt, as would Andrew Choo. I think some from the Alan Prince, Dilip Vora, Lailash Shah, Mike King and Duncan group would have been party to that too.
The word “lazy” features a great deal in my diary for the next few weeks, as does the word “work”, which I was apparently starting to find “tough” by that stage of the summer. I think the managers had worked out that, if they gave me more and increasingly challenging work to do, that I would actually knuckle down and get it done.
Paul [Deacon] gets a couple of mentions that first week; bank holiday Monday at ours and then the Saturday at his place. Caroline for lunch midweek (Thursday).
Sunday 6 September 1981 – Went to Wendy’s [Robbins] in afternoon -> BBYO thing in evening.
I think Wendy was top banana at Streatham BBYO at that time – just coming to the end of her tenure before going off to Leeds Uni. I have no idea what the “thing” that evening was about or even where it took place. I think the club might have been meeting in Norwood by then.
Thursday 10 September 1981 – Hard work today. Went to Hillel after work – met Lloyd [Green] – saw the lads.
Meeting Lloyd Green at Hillel I think was connected with the Anti-Fascist Day we were involved in organising for the coming term at Keele. There had been a groundswell at Keele against a small but venal outbreak of extreme right wing, racist activity on campus and a committee had been formed dedicated to an education campaign against that sort of thing. Joe Andrew, I recall, was heavily involved with that group, as were several other academics and the University chaplains.
The idea morphed latterly, partly at my bidding, into a more positive idea – the International Fair, which became a twice-yearly feature in the Keele calendar and my small part in it was one of my proudest achievements. But at that early stage, the idea was to have an awareness day. Lloyd and I had taken on the task of mining Jewish resources for educational materials against racism; a worthy but thoroughly depressing task.
“Saw the lads” will refer to the students who resided in Hillel House, with whom I had lived briefly the previous summer while filling the inter-regnum in the BBYO office.
Friday 11 September 1981 – Work tough. Ashley [Michaels]’s last day – lazy evening (phone etc.)
Yes, part of my hard work those weeks might have been related to helping Ashely Michaels (who was Stanley Bloom’s manager and who had supervised much of my work that summer) finish off his jobs before leaving Newman Harris. I think he had already returned to the firm by the time I went back the following summer. Ashley was certainly a feature there throughout my articles in the mid to late 1980s.
Saturday 12 September 1981 – Lazyish day – shopped in afternoon – bought suit – lazy evening
The purchase of a suit towards the end of the summer suggests that I knew by then that I would return to Newman Harris and work several more summers, which I did.
…which made The Phoenix, just across the square, the nearest pub by a long chalk.
Sunday 26 September 1981 – OK day. Pincus family came to tea – easy evening.
Monday 27 September 1981 – Work OK. Met Helen [Lewis] for lunch. Easy evening at home.
Arnold Pincus and his family were long-standing “lands-leit” friends of the Harris family. They probably came to pay their respects regarding Grandma’s passing a few week’s earlier.
Wednesday 23 September 1981 – Discovered we’d been burgled in the morning. Got to work late. Busy day and evening.
My beloved Sony TC377 and all the hi-fi was gone
The thieves took all of the hi-fi. The big loss for me personally was the Sony TC377, which I loved. We replaced it with a Phillips, which was good but not the same. Years later I bought a second hand replacement (depicted above). We stuggled even more to replace the rather grand Yamaha amp and preamp that dad had bought in 1973; the mid-range Sansui replacements were not of the same quality.
My prevailing memories of the burglary are two-fold.
Firstly, I remember my strongest emotion being relief that none of us had been disturbed by the burglars. I could imagine mum going downstairs and confronting intruders, which might have just scared them away but might have been truly disastrous.
Secondly, I recall dad telling me a story from later in the day, after the police had arrived and long after I had gone to work. Dad bemoaned to one of the policemen that the burglars had taken all of our lovely hi-fi, but had left behind the TV which, as it happened, had recently broken down and was awaiting an expensive repair. The policeman said,
if I’d been in your shoes, I’d have taken that TV out the back and put my foot through the screen before the police got here…
…which absolutely horrified dad, who simply wouldn’t and couldn’t have conjured up that dishonest thought.
Friday 25 September 1981 – Last day at work – OK. Went for drink after -> home for dinner & lazy evening.
Saturday 26 September 1981 – Lazy day. Went over to Anil’s in evening – got back very late…
…looks as though I was starting to ease myself back into student-style life as soon as I finished my summer work.
