Tag: Caroline Curtis

Cinema (e.g. Carrie), Casualty At Kings College and Cooper Clarke At Keele, First Half Of February 1982

John Cooper Clarke 1979 by TimDuncan, CC BY 3.0

Most of my diary notes from that period suggest that I had my head down working at that time. My impressionistic memory tells me that I was quite urgently seeking to switch from halls in Lindsay to a flat in Barnes at that time, although the diary is silent on that matter until a bit later in the month, when I pulled off that switch.

Still, the diary highlights some interesting events at Keele and an eventful trip to London at that time. Forty years on, it’s time for me to share the highlights.

Friday 5 February 1982 – …stayed in most of evening apart from dreadful film, “The Main Event“.

Yup, that’s not my kind of movie. Never mind.

Saturday 6 February 1982 – Went to Newcastle quite late. Did very little work really. Went to Michelle [Epstein]’s party in evening. Sharon & Louise came back after.

Richard van Baaren &/or Benedict Coldstream might well also have been at that party, as I recall Sharon & Louise being part of that crowd. No mention of Anju on this occasion – perhaps she had something else on. We missed Mari Wilson & The Imaginations for that party, so for sure there were other things to do on campus that night. At that stage, I think Michelle was going out with a character named Joel. I don’t think Michelle got together with Neil [Infield] whom she married – I kept in touch with both of them for many years – until much later in our time at Keele.

Sunday 7 February 1982 – Did some work during day. Went to see Carrie & Scanners in afternoon/evening + did some more work

I have one very clear memory from that psycho-thriller movie double bill at Film Soc. I went to see those movies with a young woman whose name completely escapes me. She was a close friend of Katie’s (aka Cathy) – she of my dad’s embarrassing moment a few month’s earlier. Those two were very close pals of each other and I remained a casual pal with both of them for much of my time at Keele

Update: Katie (Cathy) has put me back in touch with Linda (Jones), who was that young woman at Film Soc 40+ years ago.

In fact, we might not even have gone to those movies “as a date” but possibly both ambled along there solo and simply chosen to sit next to each other, as Film Soc folk often did.

*** Spoiler alert for the movie Carrie ***

At the end of Carrie, the following “jump scare” scene occurs:

…at which point, my young woman friend screamed, jumped and pretty much landed in my lap. Fortunately for me she was quite a skinny, light girl, so she did me no immediate damage. Nor did she injure herself with her jump, other than a little injured pride perhaps as she couldn’t stop apologising for her scare-movie-timidity for the rest of the event.

Ever since then, I haven’t been able to think of the movie Carrie, nor even jump scares in movies generally, without thinking about that young woman and her reaction to that wonderful scene. I was reminded of it the other day (as I write in February 2022), almost exactly 40 years on, when a young woman in front of me and Janie at The Royal Court jumped almost out of her skin at the pre-interval coup de theatre in The Glow:

The Glow by Alistair McDowall, Royal Court Theatre, 5 February 2022

But I digress.

In February 1982, I didn’t think Scanners was in the same league as Carrie.

Monday 8 February 1982 – …went to [Barnes] G3 for dinner…

It was the G3 crowd (which I think included Rana Sen and Kath), who helped me to find my Barnes flat. I have a feeling that the cunning plan that led to my flat room-for-halls room swap a few week’s later might well have been seeded at that very dinner. More on that swap next time.

Tuesday 9 February 1982 – …went to see Gloria in evening – OK-ish.

Again, not my kind of movie I feel.

Wednesday 10 February 1982 – very busy day – tutorials moved etc. J-Soc committee & Internal Affairs – very busy day all in all. Presidential forum – Simon [Jacobs] & Jon [Gorvett] came back for coffee.

I only vaguely remember being on Internal Affairs committee. Spike Humphrey (who was VP Internal that year) had been a leading light on Concourse the previous year, so I suspect that I was “open to Spiky persuasion” when asked. Forty years on, a simple googling of the fellow, still with his Keele nickname, finds him still doing committees. In the fulness of time that link won’t work, but here is a scrape of it in February 2022.

The controversy-ridden presidential election for 82/83 will have been the following day, but I make no mention of the election in my diary, perhaps because I wasn’t really involved with such things at that time. Yes, Truda Smith, who had, until recently, been going our with Jon Gorvett, was one of the candidates. But I didn’t actually support Truda for that election; I was supporting the official Labour candidate, a lovely lass named Jan Phillips, whose candidacy was ill-fated, perhaps because of Truda’s or perhaps because the power-brokers-that-were (e.g. Toby Bourgein) felt that Jan was unelectable. Meanwhile the Tory contingent, mostly under the Machiavellian guidance of a chap named Chris Boden, were looking to disrupt the election process that year. I’ll explain the resulting hoo-ha next time. Seems that I simply voted on the Thursday (not a noteworthy event) and got ready for my rare London trip.

Thursday 11 February 1982 – Lazyish day – did some work. Went to buffet supper in evening – did some work after.

Friday 12 February 1982 – Left for London early afternoon – Grandma Jenny had come for dinner – injured herself – spent evening in Kings casualty

If I recall correctly, the family crisis had already started to unfurl when I arrived at my parents’ house and we all went straight off to Camberwell. Now THAT’s my idea of a Friday night out in London!

King’s College Hospital by KiloCharlieLima, CC BY-SA 4.0

Saturday 13 February 1982 – Got up quite early. Did some taping – spoke to people. Mum & dad went out – had relaxing evening in.

Sunday 14 February 1982 – Got up late. Went to Polyanna’s for lunch. Made tapes and spoke to people for rest of the day – quite enjoyable.

I should return at some point to the tapes I was making back then, some of which catalogue the soundtrack of our lives in the early 1980s.

Not sure who dined at Polyanna’s – probably just me and my parents, as I don’t mention anyone else. Polyanna’s was a rare example back then of a proper European-style bistro restaurant on Battersea Rise. It seemed well-decent back then compared with most suburban fare. Now The Humble Grape.

Picture borrowed from Christine Eccles in Battersea Memories on FB.

Monday 15 February 1982 – Met Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] for lunch – > came back to Keele. Went to lousy UGM in evening -> Simon’s for coffee.

The lousiness of the UGM was no doubt linked to the presidential election hoo-ha, about which more next time.

Tuesday 16 February 1982 – Busy day as usual. Worked in evening – got quite a lot done. Didn’t go out at all.

Wednesday 17 February 1982 – Useful day. Spent afternoon in the library. Went to see Andrea [Collins, now Woodhouse] in early evening -> John Cooper Clarke -> Simon & Jon came back – up till quite late.

I am relieved to see several mentions of Simon Jacobs in the diary around this time, as Janie and I are seeing him for lunch tomorrow – Simon doesn’t much like these forty years on pieces unless he gets a few mentions!

I remember the John Cooper Clarke concert very fondly and am really glad I attended it.

Dave Lee’s book The Keele Gigs! has more on the topic of this concert. Dave kindly not only reminded me but sent me a copy of support act, Mightier than Kong, singing their only minor hit, a rather good cover version of Hey Girl Don’t Bother Me.

As for John Cooper Clarke himself, Evidently Chickentown went down extremely well, as did most of his set. Here is an audio of a live performance from around that time (late 1981). Trigger warning: contains…indeed more or less comprises…bad language.

I also recall a Ringroad sketch entitled John Cooper Clarke which was a parody of a JCC poem, each verse of which ended with the line “John Cooper Clarke”, each preceded by an increasingly bizarre simile which rhymed with Clarke. Was it one of yours, Frank Dillon? I might have a copy of it in my “Ringroad cornflake box copies file” at the flat – if so I’ll scan it and upload it in the next week or so.

Not A Very Good UGM, Several Weekend Visitors, Work, Convalesce & Play, A Keele Fortnight During November 1981

Ballroom Image Borrowed From Keele Oral History Project – John Samuel

This was the business end of my P1 (first year of actual degree) initial term. It seems I did some work.

But that didn’t stop me from having weekend visitors aplenty – Caroline Freeman (Now Curtis) and Alan Tucker braved the journey to Keele on Friday 13 November 1981.

Caroline
Alan

But before that, on Monday 9 November:

Not a bad day – UGM in eve – not a very good one

UGMs tended to be quite argumentative affairs as I remember them, although (by many accounts) relatively peaceable compared with the political bun-fights at some of the larger University’s Students’ Union meetings.

Was this one “not very good” because it was insufficiently pugnacious for my taste at that time, or because it was too pugnacious. In truth I don’t remember, but with Mark Thomas as President at that time, I suspect it was too tranquil by my taste.

Some of us were “cruising for a bruising” over the painful grant cuts being imposed by the UGC at that time and I suspect that, in November anyway, some of us felt that the Union wasn’t doing enough.

On the Tuesday evening I went to see the movie Brubaker. I must admit to little recall of this movie. Whereas the film I went to see the following Tuesday, Bad Timing, really stuck in my mind as a shocking story about sexual violence.

Simon Jacobs was clearly very much involved in the Caroline and Alan visit; not least because they were very much his “friends from home” as much, or in many ways more, than mine.

We went to a disco in the Union on the Friday evening, to Simons, then the Union, then a “party thing” on the Saturday evening. Then, on the Sunday:

Simon, Heather Caroline & Alan came for lunch.

How I catered for five of us in the tiny kitchen in F Block Lindsay I have no idea. I have even less idea how (or where) we all ate lunch in my study bedroom. Not all at the same time, perhaps.

I have written up a similar, early visit from earlier that calendar year; some of those memories might actually relate to the November 1981 adventure in catering:

The Best Pot I Had In Five Years At Keele, i.e. The First Weekend I Tried Cooking In The F Block Lindsay Kitchen, 11 to 15 February 1981

Then, after Caroline and Alan had gone home, I went down with a rotten cold. It seems I had intended to go to London for a couple of days 18/19 November but didn’t go because of the cold.

The diary says I “watched football” on the Wednesday evening – a World Cup qualifier match – they might have put up a big screen in Lindsay Bar for that. Of course, the sort of screen that qualified as a big screen in those days is the size that many people today would turn their noses up at if proposed for their home. But I digress.

Wendy Robbins arrived for a visit on Friday 20 November.

We “did little” on the Friday night but then made up for it on the Saturday:

Went on cuts march – did work in afternoon, went to two parties in evening – up till late.

Sunday 22 November – Wendy left…

That sounds more like it. A proper Keele weekend day. Guess I must have recovered from that Keele autumn cold quite quickly.

A New Keele Year Beckoned, Once Lloyd Green & I Had Prepared, Atoned & Got To Keele, Eventually, In Lloyd’s “Trusty” Motor, 9 & 10 October 1981

Forty years on, Dave Lee at Freshers Mart selling his wonderful book, The Keele Gigs! – available by clicking here. Picture “borrowed” from Dave Lee’s Facebook posting.

Between finishing my holiday job in late September…

The Last Four Weeks Of My 1981 Summer Job, Including New & Old Friends, Preparing My Return To Keele, A Near Miss & Losses, 30 August To 26 September 1981

…and returning to Keele, I squeezed in quite a lot of activity.

Some of the activity is more than a little illegible or indecipherable. I know that Lloyd Green and I were working hard those last couple of weeks towards a Keele racism awareness day, Anti-Facsist Day as it was badged. That activity, at places such as Hillel House, needed to be co-ordinated around the Jewish Holidays – Rosh Hashanah (New Year) was 30 September/1 October that year. Col Nidre/Yom Kippur 7/8 October.

Interspersed with those activities (with minimal regard for the rigours of the Jewish holidays on my part) were plenty of socials:

Sunday 27 September …Anil [Biltoo]’s for dinner party…

Wednesday 30 September …Met Jim[Bateman] at Rose & Crown…

Friday 2 October …Paul [Deacon] came over in the evening

Saturday 3 October …Anil came over for supper – went on to a party with him & friends -> back to Anil’s till early hours

Tuesday 6 October -…went up to town to look at Hi-fi [to help choose replacements for items stolen in a burglary a couple of week’s earlier] – met Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] for lunch. Buy books…

OMG – “buy books” – at last a mention of something that might be vaguely connected with preparing for a new academic year at Keele. I was certainly preparing well for the social side of it.

In those days, I would attend South-West London Synagogue (colloquially known as Bolingbroke) with my dad for Col Nidre & Yom Kippur services – the latter being pretty much a whole day affair.

Even by 1981 the congregation was on the wane; just a few dozen people. I was one of a handful of younger people who would still show their faces there.

I’ll write more about that congregation elsewhere, but I was reminded recently (forty years on) of one regular attendee on those high-holy days, Miriam Margolyes, who would regularly attend with her partner. Far and away the most interesting “nodding acquaintances” amongst what was mostly a small group of traditional old men.

CelebHeights.com, CC BY-SA 4.0

With all of that effort preparing an honourable education campaign against racism and the many hours spent atoning for my first year at Keele, I might have anticipated an easy time getting back to University the next day.

But no.

Friday 9 October 1981 – Left home midday – [Lloyd Green’s] car broke down – arrived late – key not to be found – stayed at John’s

By my reckoning, the journey to Keele from Streatham would normally be about three hours, so Lloyd and I clearly had quite a lengthy ordeal as a result of that break down. I don’t remember the details – Lloyd might of course and I’ll certainly report back here with his remembrances, if he has any. It might be that breakdowns twixt Keele and Streatham were a fairly regular event for him back then.

I think “The Lloydmobile” was something like this

I owe “John” both thanks and an apology. Thanks for putting me up/putting up with me that night and apologies because I have no idea which “John” this diary mention is talking about. If there is a John out there who wants to put up his hand and claim the merits for this act of charity, please chime in with your claim.

Saturday 10 October 1981 – Rose Early – Freshers Mart – went to town after. Simon [Jacobs]’s party quite good in evening.

Judging from the headline picture above from 10 October 2021 – thanks again Dave Lee – Freshers Mart has not changed much in forty years. Did I mention that Dave is at Freshers Mart forty years on selling his wonderful book The Keele Gigs!?

That book is/will be an invaluable source for my Ogblogging. I learn, for example, that Simon Jacobs’s party saved me from seeing Mud in the ballroom that night. Simon (and his sister Sue) had studiously avoided seeing Mud at Lindsay the previous term, whereas I had seen them then.

Visits & Magical Memories As Clear As Mud: Towards the End Of Summer Term At Keele, 9 to 20 June 1981

Mud, like Morris Dancing, is one of those experiences one should try once at the very most, I feel.

Still, I was back at Keele for another year. Hooray.

The Last Four Weeks Of My 1981 Summer Job, Including New & Old Friends, Preparing My Return To Keele, A Near Miss & Losses, 30 August To 26 September 1981

Satays – Alpha from Melbourne, Australia, CC BY-SA 2.0

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 a not 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.

Sorting Out A Problem Kibbutz, BBYO Hillel House, 21 to 24 July 1980

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.

These last few weeks of the summer were of course punctuated by that summer’s saddest and most significant family event; the death of Grandma Anne:

Twenty Days Of Summer Holiday Work During Which Grandma Anne Died, 10 to 29 August 1981

While the diary for the first couple of weeks of September didn’t show it, the diary for the second couple of weeks did.

Sunday 13 September 1981 – Went to [Grandma Anne’s] flat to clear -> Knipes -> home for supper – v. tiring.

“Knipes” meant Dr Edwina Green and her husband, Don Knipe. I have written about our family’s unusual relationship with the Knipe family elsewhere – see here or below.

Strange Case Of Dr Green And Mr Knipe…And Beluga Caviar And Scotch Whisky And A Bust Of Hitler, c22 December 1981

Thems was strange times.

Tuesday 15 September 1981 – Work OK. Met Jim [Jimmy Bateman] in evening at UCL -> The Sun.

I have written up similar evenings elsewhere.

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

Thursday 17 September 1981. Work OK, Met Caroline for lunch. Lloyd came over in the evening.

Friday 18 September 1981. Work OK. [Sandy] Yap’s send off after. Relaxing evening.

“Yap’s send off” was probably in The Phoenix on Cavendish Square. We were working in this building…

Harcourt House – Nigel Cox / Cavendish Square, W1 / CC BY-SA 2.0

…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.

Good…but not great.

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.

Twenty Days Of Summer Holiday Work During Which Grandma Anne Died, 10 to 29 August 1981

After the frenzied weekend during which I showed my Keele friends, Sim & Tim, my weird world…

When Worlds Collided And A Crazy Social Whirl Resulted: My Keele Friends Sim & Tim’s Weekend To The Alleyn’s & BBYO Version of London, 7 to 9 August 1981

…a rather sedate week of work with very few socials thrown in: lunch with Caroline (Freeman, now Curtis) on the Tuesday and dinner at Anil (Biltoo)’s place on Saturday evening.

“Lazyish day” on the Saturday would have mostly comprised watching the third day of the Old Trafford Ashes test on the TV, much as “relaxing evenings” on the two preceding days would have included hunkering down in front of the old B&W TV in the tiny spare room to watch the highlights.

My faint memory only recalls that Saturday as “Ian Botham going berserk, scoring runs for fun, all-but winning the match for England, as usual”, because, to the youthful me, that was an unremarkable norm in the summer of 1981. The Ridiculous Ashes podcast provides more detail on that match and that day, in particular the contrasting sloth of Chris Tavaré that day. Scorecard ? – the match panned out like this.

Then, on the Sunday, what turned out to be our last visit to Feld’s Restaurant for lunch with Grandma Anne. If you want to know more about Feld’s, I “reviewed” Feld’s “Restaurant” in an earlier Ogblog piece:

A Few Days In London Between Keele & Manchester, 14 to 19 December 1980

I probably discussed the cricket with Mr Feld that day, as was our wont by that time. Feld might even have been listening to the match on his transistor radio behind the counter, as Day Four of this match was played on the Sunday – an experimental thing for some of the tests that year, I believe.

There is no doubt in my mind that Grandma Anne will have implored Mr Feld to shake the borscht jar, eaten her last plate of borscht that day and that she would have berated Mr Feld with the phrase, “your borscht tastes like vorter today” had the borscht not been up to snuff…which, frankly, it almost certainly wasn’t.

As the diary scribbles attest, Grandma Anne was taken into hospital in the early hours of the following Tuesday morning. Apart from a dinner at Anil’s on the Thursday and dinner with Michael and Pam on Saturday (who were no doubt primarily in the area visiting Grandma), my life was all work and visiting Grandma for a few days.

Forty years on, I have written a reflective piece about Grandma Anne’s last visit to hospital for ThreadMash:

All Mixed Up: Age Is Just A Number, ThreadZoomMash Piece, Performed 30 September 2021

Here’s what I wrote in the diary for the following few days:

Sunday 23 August 1981 – Went to hospital – bad news – returned – back to hospital – G. Anne died.

Monday 24 August 1981 – Went round sorting out admin side. Met Uncle Michael – returned home.

Tuesday 25 August 1981 – Lavoyah (funeral) & shivah (mourning) today – tiring and gruelling.

Wednesday 26 August 1981 – Back to work – too much of – did little in evening.

Thursday 27 August 1981 – Met Jilly [Black] for lunch. Spoke to several people in evening.

Friday 28 August 1981 – Nothing special for b’day – work as usual – slap up meal in evening.

Saturday 29 August 1981 – Lazy day – went to Grandma Jenny for lunch – shopped a little – lazy evening.

At that time Grandma Jenny still lived in Sandhurst Court on the Acre Lane in Brixton. I’m pretty sure that shopping spree was “down Brixton Market” to gather some bottles and jars of condiments to take back to Keele with me in a few weeks’ time, in order to try and perk up the otherwise rather bland weekend diet.

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

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

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

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

…Friday 25 July 1981 – Met Karen [Davies] for lunch…

etc.

Andrea Dean came over on that Saturday.

-> pub etc. Stayed night.

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

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

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

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

I wasn’t looking

On Saturday 1 August…

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

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

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

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

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

…and Kimono My House by Sparks.

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

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

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

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

TED 'KID' LEWIS - Nightingale House Nightingale Lane Balham London SW12 8NB

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

Dad got quite worried and stressy.

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

This did not sound like Grandma Anne.

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

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

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

“Pub, shmub”

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

Testing Times: Working, Seeing Alleyn’s & BBYO Friends, Then The Headingley Cricket, 5 to 21 July 1981

A Few Weeks Earlier: John Sutton / Trent Bridge Test Match, 1981: Alderman to Gower

Once my placement in the Far East (Braintree) had been curtailed, I was able to resume my more habitual holiday job routine, which seemed to have more to do with seeing friends for lunch and evening get togethers than head down graft in the audit and accounts factory that was Newman Harris.

A Social Whirl, 5 to 19 July 1981

A few mentions of busy days and hard work, but mostly a catalogue of non-work events:

  • Sunday 5 July – “visited grandma [Anne]”
  • Tuesday 7 July – “popped in to see Andrew [Andy Levinson] in evening”
  • Wednesday 8 July – “met Helen [Lewis] for lunch. Met Anil [Biltoo] and Jim [Bateman] for drinks in evening”
  • Thursday 9 July – “met Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] for lunch”
  • Friday 10 July – “Wendies [sic – Wendy Robbins’s] ->Grannies [Wendy’s granny] for dinner -> Wendies [sic] for night”
  • Sunday 12 July – “met Jilly [Black] in town early evening
  • Tuesday 14 July – “-> Hillel [House] -> Streatham [BBYO}’s installations -> Lauren [Sterling] & Jenny [Council] coffee”
  • Wednesday 15 July – “met Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] for lunch”
  • Saturday 18 July – “Mays [George and Winifred] came in evening”
  • Sunday 19 July – “visited Grandma [Anne] in afternoon”

A few local/Alleyn’s School friends at the start of this period. Andy Levinson lived in our street, so “popped in” really did mean walking two minutes up the road. Anil Biltoo & Jim Bateman for drinks was probably at UCL (where Jim did his summer jobs) and/or The Sun, as described in earlier articles.

Helen Lewis, a couple of years earlier

I’m pretty sure that lunch with Helen Lewis was the occasion that she presented me with Schubert The Sheep. He was named Schubert because there was some classical music playing in the restaurant where we took lunch. Neither Helen nor I could identify the piece but we both agreed that it was not Schubert.

Schubert still lives with me forty years on…in the depicted cupboard

Schubert’s 15 minutes of fame came a few years later, when he appeared on University Challenge as the Keele Mascot. A story for another time.

Visiting Wendy would have been in part as a fun catch up but also probably to help her plan the impending Streatham BBYO installations. I think she must have been outgoing President at that time. With apologies, I cannot recall who succeeded Wendy, but someone might well be able to help jog my memory.

Wendy, a couple of years earlier, at Nightingale

Lauren Sterling and Jenny Council will have attended that Streatham event in their capacities as Regional Grandees. I would have been there in my capacity as a local elder and former National Grandee, now so far past it, I can’t have offered much insight to the local club.

The Grandma Anne visits on Sundays at that time would have been to Nightingale. She had taken the death of Uncle Manny very badly and I think, from memory, that her cleaner/informal carer went away for a few weeks, so she arranged a temporary stay at Nightingale for respite and also as a bit of a tester for possible future need. The latter didn’t materialise as Grandma Anne died later that summer, but I do have an amusing tale from the end of her respite stay at Nightingale – watch this space for the next “forty years on” piece.

And So To Headingley, 20 & 21 July 1981

Hundreds of thousands of people claim to have been at Headingley for the dramatic turnaround and conclusion to the 1981 Ashes test match there, even though only a few thousand people actually witnessed the events.

I am not one of the people making false claims about my attendance…nor am I one of the people who actually attended Headingley on that Monday or Tuesday.

In fact my diary reads as follows:

Monday 20 July 1981 – Work OK did nothing in evening

Tuesday 21 July 1981 – OK Day. Lazy evening.

But I do remember following the cricket at work very clearly, especially on the Tuesday.

I was working in the large, high-ceilinged, “open plan”, Dickensian-look office at the front of 19 Cavendish Square. In that office, there was always a senior whose role it was to supervise/keep order amongst the junior clerks therein.

By the summer of 1981, Newman Harris had replaced Roy Patel (who I think had been promoted to a more interesting role) and hired instead a bespectacled, middle-aged chap, I think he was named John, who spoke with deep-voiced, nasal tones. I don’t think he much liked the idea of summer students – I remember him taking great pains to let us know that he was, “a graduate from the University of Life” and (although not a qualified accountant) he was “qualified by experience”. His management and mentoring style reminded me of Blakey from On The Buses:

Several people in our office were cricket lovers, but in truth there was little interest in the match for most of the Monday. I think word reached us that Botham was scoring runs for fun towards the end of the Monday, but it wasn’t until the Tuesday, after people had seen the highlights on Monday evening, that the interest levels really kicked off.

There were 10 or 12 of us in the office that day – perhaps half of us were interested in the cricket. John was one of the cricket lovers but was also there to maintain order.

Terry, the errand boy, did not reside in our office and I think he kept a small transistor radio in the cubby-hole where he did reside. Terry kept us appraised of the score a couple of times during the morning.

In those days, there was a telephone number you could call to hear the cricket score. It was a sort-of premium rate line. “Dial The Score On 154”.

As the match started to build to a climax, one or two clerks, unable to control their impulses, dialled the score. As a summer lackey, I was too timid to do that but grateful to the others for the news.

John berated the diallers. He explained that there was expense involved in making those calls and that we should all be concentrating on our work. John said that he would dial the score at suitably-spaced intervals and keep us all informed. I think he had 15 or 20 minute intervals in mind.

But as the match came to its climax, John was “Dialling The Score” compulsively, giving us close to ball-by-ball commentary in terms of the score as it progressed. We cheered when John announced that England had won the match. Then he told us all to put our heads down and concentrate on our work for the rest of the day. Goodness knows what John’s dialling did to the Newman Harris phone bill.

My lazy evening will have included watching the test match highlights…probably in black and white on the spare room TV, as neither of my parents cared a fig for cricket.

In case you are wondering, the denouement of that match looked like this.

This is what it looks like as a scorecard and Cricinfo match resources (lots of super pictures).

Below is the Guardian’s take on the matter the next day – a very rare “front page news” day for cricket.

Brearley Bounces CriticsBrearley Bounces Critics 22 Jul 1981, Wed The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Visits & Magical Memories As Clear As Mud: Towards the End Of Summer Term At Keele, 9 to 20 June 1981

Was it Mud at the Lindsay Summer Ball that year?

I have a very strong, impressionistic memory of enjoying myself thoroughly during the last few weeks of the summer term of my Foundation Year at Keele.

Unfortunately…perhaps because I was having such a good time…my memories of specific details are less than special and my diary entries pithy to say the least.

I’ll do my best, but could seriously use some help from the hive mind of those who were also there at the time.

A Short Trip To London, Then Caroline Came Up To Keele With Me, 9 to 12 June 1981

Tuesday 9 June 1981 – Up quite late – had lunch came home. Supper – early night.

Wednesday 10 June 1981 – Haircut in morning – met Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] for lunch – Cyril Monty. Job – early night.

Not many mentions of haircuts in my diaries from that era – a rare event which, I suspect, came as a result of some serious emotional pressure from mum, combined with the reality that I would need shorter hair for my summer job and was not allowing time between coming down from Keele on the last Sunday of June and a presumed work start date of the Monday!

Meeting Caroline for lunch was quite a regular thing in those days. I think she was at Harrods then, so it would have been one of those quite up-market but affordable eateries in Knightsbridge, of which there were plenty at that time.

Caroline: “let’s lunch” – with thanks to Jilly Black for this photo.

Cyril Monty was an orthopaedic surgeon who, along with his family, were friends of my family. I had suffered an industrial injury while working during the Easter holidays that year:

Industrial Injury In Cavendish Square, c26 March 1981

Cyril Monty told me that I was likely to be prone to back problems throughout my life, but if I did plenty of exercise and avoided injury I might get away with it. I invested in a second hand exercise plan book (along with many other books) on the following Friday…

…and did exercises from that book for the next few years. But I am getting ahead of myself.

“Job” will simply mean that I popped around from Cyril Monty’s Harley Street consulting room to 19 Cavendish Square to confirm my summer job starting arrangements.

Thursday 11 June 1981 – Dentist [Harry Wachtel] in morning – shopping – cataloguing tapes etc. Early night.

Friday 12 June 1981 – Up for lunch – taping etc. – met Caroline. Came up to Keele – lazy evening.

On reflection, the taping sessions I described for my unscheduled visit to London in May…

We Interrupt This Keele FY Summer Term: Matters Of Life & Death, Plus A Couple More Mix Tapes, 8 To 19 May 1981

…were probably undertaken (or at least were completed) on this June visit.

Caroline’s Visit, Segueing Into Richard’s Visit, 12 to 16 June 1981

Saturday 13 June 1981 – Hanley for lunch – Gladstone Museum – Mis’s party in evening.

MartynDavies, CC BY-SA 3.0

I was rather hoping that Caroline would remember some details about this visit and Mis’s party. Simon Jacobs (as usual) drew a blank. Caroline’s response to my request for further information:

I’m with Simon, if you think my memory is going to be better than your diary!. I do remember the weekend as described, particularly a boozy party, but unable to add anything to enhance the description!

I describe the next (Sunday) morning as an early start, although what one did with an early start at Keele on a Sunday is a mystery to me. “Early” might be a relative term, of course and I suspect that we went to the campus store to get some food in, as Simon apparently made lunch and I made dinner that Sunday.

Sunday 14 June 1981 – Early start – buying…lunch at Simons [D Block Barnes], lazy afternoon. Dinner here [F Block Lindsay] lazy evening.

Monday 15 June 1981 – Late start. Lunch – Caroline left in afternoon. Richard [Marks] came. UGM -> party – up till late, v drunk.

Richard remembered…but not for this visit

Neither Simon nor I remember this visit from Richard. I clearly remember his earlier visit during the first term;

Richard Marks Visits Me & Simon Jacobs At Keele, Not Least For Stoke v Manchester United, 19 & 22 October 1980

I wonder what he made of a Keele UGM and the “v late, v drunk” party. I suspect Richard only stayed around for a day or so (the diary is silent on this) as I suspect he was visiting us as part of a road trip which included friends in Manchester and/or Leeds.

Tuesday 16 June 1981 – Good for nothing today – did likewise. Lazy evening etc. Film bad.

Wednesday 17 June 1981 – Earlyish rise – cat etc. Went to disco etc. in eve – played snooker

Thursday 18 June 1981 – Up really early for J-Soc exec meeting. Went to Sneyd in evening.

I wonder how early “really early” was for that meeting. I didn’t have anything else to report until the evening, which might be a clue.

Sue Jacobs Visit & The Mystery Lindsay Ball, 19 & 20 June 1981

Simon Jacobs’s sister Sue – with thanks to Jilly Black for this photo

Friday 19 June 1981 – Lazy day. Bought Books. Susan came in evening. Film Salon Kitty, Lindsay Ball. Mark [probably Bartholomew] & [Liz?] came & stayed late

That book buying session did a great job of getting me started with summer holiday reading plus some basic texts for my impending P1 year.

Salon Kitty was an X-rated movie and Sue was only 16 at the time, but the experience does not seem to have done Sue any harm, nor does it seem to have stuck in her memory.

I have a feeling that this Lindsay Ball must have been the one at which Mud played, but neither Sue nor Simon reckon that they have ever seen Mud. Then again, Simon didn’t even remember that Sue visited us that year. Forty years on, Simon says:

Just because you claim that my younger sister paid us a visit, doesn’t necessarily mean that we attended the Lindsay Ball. Which brings us back to Mud. If they were the top attraction of the night, I might well have found a reason to do something else… x

Sue’s “forty years on” take on all this was as follows:

Fancy Simon not remembering me visiting….no surprise there! I did visit, although no idea of the details at all. Except that we saw a hypnotist show? Simon also did take me back to his room to put me to bed and then to go off again himself…I have no idea about his return…! Happy days!

The hypnotist would have been at the ball and I have a feeling that we did all go to the ball and/but that Simon (& thus Sue) dipped out ahead of the band. So I’m sticking with Mud, as it were, as my best guess for the band for that occasion.

That’s right, that’s right, that’s right, that’s right…

I certainly did see Mud there on one occasion and cannot find another Lindsay Ball mention in my diary that might have been Mud. Hopefully someone amongst the Keele alums out there can confirm or deny my theory.

On the occasion I did see Mud, I recall the Keele audience all-but ignoring the band until they played the only hit of theirs that tended to catch the imagination, at which point everyone danced and chanted wildly:

Muddy Postscript

Helen LeGrand has helped to confirm that Mud’s visit to Lindsay must have been that summer ball in 1981. She adds a very specific memory of her own: “Don’t think it was the original Mud line-up. Memorable for the encore when the lead singer [Les Gray – the only survivor of the original Mud line-up by then] came back on stage completely naked. I’m sure I’m not misremembering that. 😲“

I am pretty sure I didn’t hang around long enough to see the encore, which explains why that mental picture (more smutty than muddy) mercifully does not form part of my own memory.

Saturday 20 June 1981 – Simon & Susan for lunch – went to Newcastle shopping – lazy evening – late night.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday 29 March – Lazy day. Went to Barmitzvah party in evening.

Wendy Robbins sporting her Streatham BBYO tee-short in 1979

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

Back to work on Monday:

Monday 30 March – Work OK, Lazyish evening.

Tuesday 31 March – Work OK. Spoke to people in eve etc.

Wednesday 1 April – not bad day. Went to [The] Sun [latterly renamed The Perseverance] with Jimmy in evening.

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

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

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

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

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

Wednesday 8 April – Went out with Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] for lunch. Went on the booze with Jimmy in the evening.

Thursday 9 April – Met Jilly [Black] for lunch. Paul [Deacon] popped in, in evening with records etc.

Friday 10 April – Busy day at work. Relaxed in evening.

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

A Short Visit From Caroline To See Me And Simon At Keele, 20 to 22 February 1981

While trawling the diary for Concourse memories, I spotted a few entries that brought back memories of a visit by Caroline during our second term at Keele. When I say “our”, I mean me and Simon Jacobs.

Allow me to translate:

Friday 20 February: Not bad day – went to meet Caroline – went to see Too Many Chefs – Simon’s for coffee – not too late a night.

Saturday 21 February: Late start – went to Sneyd for lunch – lazy afternoon – went to “O” party in evening // late night snowballing and making…

Sunday 22 February: …pancakes. Late start. Simon’s for ploughman’s and booze. Romped in snow – lazy evening.

Caroline will have dossed out at mine on this visit – Simon was with a really nice chap named Roy at that time.

“Too Many Chefs” will have been this movie – actually named Who Is Killing All the Great Chefs Of Europe – at Film Club. Reading the synopsis, I remember this kitsch, eminently forgettable movie surprisingly clearly.

Sneyd for lunch, eh? How many times did I end up eating a meal there during my time at Keele. Often. It wasn’t at all bad, as I recall. Landlord Geoff O’Connor knew and liked his food…but not in a Too Many Chefs sort of way.

“O” party in the evening is not a reference to a 1950’s erotic novel. I think it was the block in Hawthorns where Miz and Heather lived…or perhaps the one in Barnes where Roy lived. Anyway, it will be the name of a block.

I really like the notion of late night snowballing and making…pancakes – spilling from Saturday night to Sunday morning. My guess is that I was trying to reflect the actual timings of those things. Such simple, youthful pleasures. Romped in snow was, I’m sure, similarly innocent fun.

I don’t mention Caroline’s departure, but she must have departed at some point – at least I’m pretty sure she isn’t still visiting Keele as I write. I hope I took her back to Stoke in much the same way as I went down to Stoke to meet her. I’ll guess that Caroline’s departure was between the romp in the snow and the lazy evening.

If anyone else (Caroline? Simon??) remembers this weekend, please do chime in with your memories.