With thanks to Rachelle Gryn Brettlerfor snapping us in Rossmore Road, preparing to do our FoodCycle run on a wet winter’s day
We don’t get out much in Lockdown 3.0, other than to buy food and do our charity work.
That is giving me a chance to crack on with my retro-blogging; I’m working through 1995 & 1996 to cover the Ged & Daisy (Ian & Janie) “25 years ago” story. I’m needing to give more thought, though, to the formerly less well-documented, “40 years on” story of my early days at Keele University.
Strangely, 1981 and 2021 seem to have collided, forty years on.
…mentioning the superb tapes Graham Greenglass used to make for me, including quirky numbers such as Rossmore Road by Barry Andrews. I still hum it or sing it more often than not when Daisy and I do FoodCycle from there:
Dreamy use of sax and double bass on that track.
Last week, I wrote up the very weekend during which several visitors descended on Keele and Graham presented me with a few cassettes, including that very track. The piece below is a thumping good read, even if you weren’t there, including an excellent undergraduate recipe for spaghetti bollock-knees:
On Wednesday, before Daisy and I did our FoodCycle run, I did an NHS Responder gig to collect a prescription. Strangely the prescription was to be collected at the Tesco Hoover Factory in Greenford. Strange, because also on that little collection of quirky recordings given to me in February 1981 was the song Hoover Factory by Elvis Costello:
So, by some strange quirk of fate, forty years after being given recordings of those two rather obscure (but wonderful) recordings about lesser-known places in West London, I found myself doing charity gigs from those two very places.
I have already written up the ear worm I got from Hoover Factory a few months after first hearing the song:
But the early 1980s connection this week does not stop there.
While I have been cracking on with the NHS Responder/GoodSAM app as well as FoodCycle, Daisy has been training to become a Samaritan and this week moved on from being a course trainee to becoming a mentee (i.e. doing real sessions with real calls under the supervision of a mentor).
Towards the end of her course, Daisy had been waiting with a little trepidation to find out who her mentor might be. Mentors work closely with their mentees for a few weeks. She knew that it might be one of her course trainers or possibly someone she hadn’t encountered before.
A couple of weeks ago Janie announced that her mentoring instructions had come through and her mentor was a new name to her: Alison Shindler.
GED: Oh, yes, I know Alison Shindler.
DAISY: What do you mean?
GED: She was a leading light in BBYO towards the end of my time there.
DAISY: Might not be the same person…
GED: …Ealing BBYO – bet it is!
Of course it is.
What a pleasant surprise.
Less of a surprise though, after their first session together, is that Alison & Daisy seem to be getting along really well. I’m confident that the mentoring partnership should be a very good one.
Meanwhile Alison has furnished me with a photo from so far back in the day, the biggest surprise is that we were in colour back then:
With thanks to Alison Shindler for this photo
That’s a c17-year-old me turning around, next to me Simon Jacobs who was central to my “going to Keele” story and part of the “cooking weekend”. In the red scarf I thought was Jilly Black (who has remained friends with me, Daisy and Alison throughout those decades – in fact it is a little surprising we haven’t overlapped before now )…but it turns out to be Emma Cohen disguised as Jilly. Opposite Simon is Lauren Sterling plus, slightly upstaged by Simon’s head, Caroline Curtis (then Freeman) who visited me and Simon at Keele the February 1981 weekend following the “cooking” one.
But now, after all that excitement, Daisy and I are in temporary exile at the flat. The replacement of the Noddyland boiler has over-run by a day, making Daisy right and me wrong, as usual.
Stock boiler image: neither the actual old nor the actual new boiler
I’ve been grasping for a quirky early 1980s musical connection for a boiler replacement. So my earworm for the tail end of this tale is by that early 1980s mainstay, The Human League – Being Boiled:
Ah, so it was the equivalent Saturday two years ago – that’s a bit uncanny.
This time we enjoyed lavish hospitality at Caroline and Alan’s place. We also enjoyed son Alex’s company for much of the evening. Alex is now a strapping young man, which was somewhat predictable when you think about it, but always comes as a bit of a shock when you haven’t seen a youngster for a few years.
I tried to avoid saying, “haven’t you grown since I last saw you”, but that phrase came out anyway – at least half in jest.
Yummy nibbles before dinner with a very jolly Viognier. Caroline tried to assess which of the nibbles we liked best, but we were wise to the risk of saying, e.g. “the salmon ones”, because that would have enabled Caroline to say, “oh, so what’s wrong with the asparagus ones and the avocado ones?”. Janie and I are old hands at that game, even when the host/hostess isn’t actually playing it. Then a yummy main meal of:
red pepper soup;
herb-crusted lamb rack with poshed-up rice and roasted vegetables;
chocolate tart and fruit cocktail.
A very tasty Châteauneuf-du-Pape complemented the main meal, especially the lamb.
Conversation naturally covered the biggest issues of the moment – i.e. cricket, with me, Alan and Alex all in the same room. We also discussed politics and world affairs to some extent – without any irony whatsoever, of course.
Alex stuck around for a higher proportion of the evening than was necessary for good manners, but when he returned downstairs having gone upstairs after dinner to watch a movie, Janie and I both realised that the time had flown, it was getting really late and that we were in danger of outstaying even the warmest welcome.
Ossobuco – picture by Stu Spivack via Wikipedia Commons
Since I published my “25th anniversary of meeting Janie” piece last week, I have had, literally, several people ask me how Janie and I ever got it together after she refused to give me her telephone number the first time we met.
The answer, of course, is “ossobuco”.
It happened like this.
After Janie’s refusal to give me her telephone number, I simply assumed that she wasn’t interested at all and I got on with my next week. My next week looked like this.
My guess is that I was actually out every evening that week apart from the Monday – I probably had impromptu drinks/food with work colleagues Thursday and Friday evening.
Saturday evening I can see was a dinner with Caroline at the Pavilion in Poland Street. This will have been her birthday bash on the eve of that landmark day. (Happy birthday, Caroline, if by chance you read this piece on the day I post it).
I have had an exchange of messages with Caroline to establish what happened – I’m sure there were quite a few of us there at The Pavilion that evening. She replies:
I have to say that with the help of your diary your memory is much better than mine. The restaurant is in fact exactly the same now as then. It was a local from when I was working at the Burton group. Vasco and Piero ran it all those years ago. The food was always excellent. The decor was very pink! It’s amazing how quickly 25 years go.
I’m not sure what I ate at the Pavilion but I am sure that it was an Italian dish but not ossobuco.
The other thing I remember clearly, although the diary is silent on this matter, is that I went out for an impromptu lunch on the Sunday with Annalisa. We went to Lee Fook on Westbourne Grove, a Chinese restaurant near my flat which was very much one of my favourites at the time. The excellent chef there was named Ringo, I remember that wonderful fact too.
If that review ever bites the dust on the ES site, I’ve saved the Wayback machine the trouble on this one by scraping it here.
In short, by mid-afternoon I had eaten my fill that weekend and ambled home after lunch.
The telephone was ringing off the hook as I walked through the door.
I should point out, at this juncture, that, in those days, I had no answering machine for my phone. No cellphone either. Just the one, old-fashioned telephone.
“At bloody last”, said a female voice.
“Hello”, I said, “who’s calling?”
“It’s Janie, we met at Kim’s party last week.”
“Oh, hello”, I said, intrigued.
“You are impossible to get hold of”, said Janie, “I have tried to call you loads of times. Your answering machine isn’t switched on.”
“I don’t have an answering machine”, I said, while thinking to myself that if she had given me her telephone number in the first place she might have spared herself these difficulties.
“I have been out rather a lot this week”, I continued, “in fact, if I sound a little out of breath, it’s because I have just been out to lunch and heard the phone ringing as I came up the stairs.”
“Oh, that’s a bummer,” said Janie, “I was going to invite you over for ossobuco with Kim and Micky this evening, but if you have already eaten you obviously don’t want…”
“…no, hold on a moment”, I persevered, “I love ossobuco and I’d very much like to join you, Kim and Micky for dinner. But if I don’t eat a vast quantity of food, you’ll know the reason why. Is that a deal?”
“OK”, said Janie.
“You’ll have to give me your address and telephone number now”, I said, trying hard not to sound triumphal about it.
Given that the only way to resolve the matter was now for Janie to phone me, they came up with this “chaperoned Sunday evening meal at Janie’s place” idea. The only problem with that grand scheme was that Janie had tried and failed many times to phone me; basically because I wasn’t at home much and only took telephone messages through work in those days.
But all’s well that ends well.
The evening was a great success. I didn’t have room for seconds but I did discover that Janie can cook a mean ossobuco. Even to this day, we think of slow cooked shin of veal (not always done ossobuco style but all variants qualify in our book) as “our dish”.
Just feast your eyes on it again. Yum.
Osso Bucco – picture by Stu Spivack via Wikipedia Commons
This was the second go that BDO Consulting (Binder Hamlyn’s management consultancy) had at sponsoring a Music At Oxford gig. I wrote up the frenetic first year of this exercise some while ago – click here and below:
Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] came along… We all stayed at the Moat House which was less fun than the Randolf.
The programme summarises the musical element of the gig neatly on one page:
If you want to hear the music, I have saved The English Concert’s recording of the version they performed in that Oxford concert as a playlist on YouTube Music. Click here. Don’t be put off if the link is crossed out. You can hear the music regardless of whether you have a YouTube Music account or not. You’ll just get adverts if you don’t.
As for the event itself, one of my main memories of it is connected to my agonising back injury at the time, which had only slightly lessened in pain level in the weeks between the injury and this event. I was going through one of my “soldiering on” phases in July.
Caroline no doubt tolerated my pained mood with grace but I don’t suppose I was at my best in terms of being good company.
We stayed at the Moat House that year, as indeed we did in 1991 as well. It felt like a bit of a come down from the Randolph from 1989, not least because the Moat House seemed less accommodating to us partying for much of the night.
The other thing I remember about the corporate entertaining aspect of the event itself was feeling that I fell short in terms of being the in-house know-all in the matter of the work we were going to hear. Trevor Pinnock and The English Concert – no problem at all. I could talk about them without difficulty. But the piece itself, Belshazzar, which colleagues felt was, on the surface, a story from a bit of the Bible that I was supposed to know about…I remember drawing a near blank.
Belshazzar’s feast…writing on the wall…Book of Daniel I think…not really my thing, the Bible…
Or you can instruct an AI to produce a suitably amusing, entertaining synopsis of the story. Here’s ChatGPT’s excellent effort produced with 30 seconds of instruction from me and fewer than 30 seconds of word spew by the software:
Handel’s oratorio Belshazzar is a richly dramatic retelling of the biblical story of the doomed Babylonian king who meets his fate amidst a whirlwind of prophecy, divine intervention, and questionable party etiquette. With a libretto by Charles Jennens, this musical spectacle features a colorful cast of characters and explores themes of hubris, faith, and the consequences of bad decisions—all wrapped up in Handel’s glorious score.
The curtain rises, metaphorically speaking, on the city of Babylon, which is under siege by the Persian king Cyrus. But Belshazzar, the Babylonian king, isn’t the sort to let a little thing like a military crisis cramp his style. As the besieging armies gather outside the city walls, Belshazzar is busy inside indulging in a grand banquet. This isn’t just any feast; it’s a celebration of excess, arrogance, and a bold defiance of the gods—a recipe for disaster if ever there was one.
Belshazzar’s mother, Nitocris, is the voice of reason in the chaos. Wise, devout, and thoroughly unimpressed by her son’s antics, she tries to persuade him to temper his arrogance and take the threat of Cyrus seriously. Naturally, Belshazzar ignores her sage advice, because what’s a good tragedy without someone doubling down on their hubris?
Meanwhile, outside the city, Cyrus is not your average conqueror. He’s portrayed as a virtuous leader, guided by divine providence and a sense of justice. Alongside him is Gobrias, a Babylonian nobleman with a personal vendetta against Belshazzar, who had his son executed. Gobrias’s hatred burns hotter than the desert sun, and he’s all in on Cyrus’s plan to overthrow the Babylonian king.
Back in Babylon, Belshazzar’s party is in full swing, and things take a dramatic turn when he orders the sacred vessels plundered from the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem to be brought out and used as drinking cups. This act of sacrilege is the ancient equivalent of poking a very angry bear with a very short stick. As the wine flows and the revelry peaks, a mysterious, disembodied hand appears and begins writing on the wall. The text, cryptic and foreboding, sends the partygoers into a panic. Belshazzar, for all his bravado, is understandably shaken and calls for his wise men to interpret the writing.
Enter Daniel, the Hebrew prophet, who has a knack for decoding divine messages. He’s summoned to explain the ominous graffiti, and his interpretation is anything but reassuring. The writing—“Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin”—translates to a grim prophecy: Belshazzar’s reign is over, his deeds have been weighed and found wanting, and his kingdom will be divided between the Medes and the Persians. Not exactly party talk, but it’s a showstopper nonetheless.
While Belshazzar processes this bad news (or rather, doesn’t), Cyrus and his forces execute a cunning plan to enter the supposedly impenetrable city. They divert the Euphrates River, lowering the water level and enabling the Persian army to sneak into Babylon under the cover of night. It’s a heist worthy of an action film, complete with suspense, strategy, and a dramatic payoff.
The climax comes swiftly. Cyrus and his troops storm the city, and Gobrias, fueled by vengeance, confronts Belshazzar. The once-mighty king meets his end, and Babylon falls into Persian hands. Cyrus, magnanimous in victory, proclaims freedom for the Jewish exiles, allowing them to return to their homeland and rebuild their temple in Jerusalem. It’s a triumphant conclusion for some and a dire cautionary tale for others.
Handel’s Belshazzar is a feast for the ears and the imagination. The music captures every nuance of the story, from the swaggering arrogance of Belshazzar to the solemn wisdom of Daniel and the heroic resolve of Cyrus. The choruses are particularly noteworthy, ranging from the jubilant praise of the Persians to the somber lament of the Babylonians. It’s a rollercoaster of emotions, with plenty of drama, divine justice, and a hint of schadenfreude as Belshazzar gets what’s coming to him.
In summary, Belshazzar is a tale of epic proportions, blending history, theology, and theatrical flair. It’s a story where the writing’s literally on the wall, hubris meets its match, and redemption shines through the rubble of a fallen empire. Handel’s music ensures that this timeless story continues to resonate, entertaining audiences with its grandeur, poignancy, and occasional moments of dark humor. So, the next time you’re tempted to throw a wild party in defiance of the gods, remember poor Belshazzar and perhaps reconsider the guest list.
That sounds well cool. I’ll give it another listen.
Trevor Pinnock and his gang did the show again at the Royal Albert Hall a couple of week’s later (Prom 3). Here are a few (mixed) reviews from that performance:
No-one said it was going to be easy, switching from freshly qualified Chartered Accountant to hot shot management consultant as soon as I qualified.
But there was one low point towards the end of my first consultancy assignment for Binder Hamlyn, trying to resolve a seemingly irreconcilable problem for Save The Children Fund (SCF), thus named back then, when I spread all of my hand-written notes and attempted spaghetti-looking work flow and data flow diagrams all over the living room of my little then-rented flat in Clanricarde Gardens…
…and burst into tears.
Quite a lengthy burst if I remember correctly. Four minutes, possibly, which you might choose to time by listening to the following while reading on:
Why hadn’t I listened to the recruitment agent who said that I needed a lot more work experience before I’d be ready for management consultancy?
Why didn’t I walk out of the job on day one, when I learnt that I had been recruited as part of a turf war and that the person who was now to be my boss, Michael Mainelli, had been angered by other partners recruiting me while Michael was away on a short break?
And of all the tough “sink or swim” assignments Michael might have allocated me to at the very start of this seemingly-soon-to-be-foreshortened career, why did it have to be something my heart really was in – a project that might, if successful, substantially help SCF, one of the most important charities in the world?
Of course, you realise, the story has a happy enough ending. Michael and I are still working together thirty years later (as I write in January 2019) – for most of that time in the business we founded together in 1994: Z/ Yen:
I also met Ian Theodoreson, then a young, up-and-coming Finance Director at SCF. Ian continued to be a client on and off throughout the decades and we have remained in touch even since he gave up on major charity roles – e.g. this get together last year.
Yes, somehow the project did turn out to be a success. After the tears, I realised that I needed to focus the report on the evidence-based conclusions I had reached and the single bright idea I had come up with in the several weeks I had spent with SCF.
Little did I know back then that:
having even one bright idea during a 20 day assignment is a significant success if that idea is helpful/valuable enough and finds enough favour to be implemented;
the seemingly irreconcilable problem I encountered at SCF was an example of a perennial problem in all organisations that have potentially complex relationships with their customers, members or donors. If you can even partially solve or make progress despite that “natural fault line”, you’ve done well;
this single assignment would prove to be career-defining for me in so many ways. In part because it cemented my place at Binder Hamlyn working with Michael as well as other partners. In part because I still spend much of my working time with charities and membership organisations (albeit looking at wider issues). In part because many of the things I learnt on that challenging assignment stood me in good stead for later challenges in the subsequent decades.
Ogblog is primarily a “life” retroblog, not a “work” one, so this piece is a rarity – perhaps even a one-off – being more work than life. But this period was such a major change for me, not least in shifting my work-life balance substantially towards work for several decades, that I feel bound to write it up. I also spotted some intriguing notes on the diary pages for those first few weeks of January 1989.
Compared with late 1988, this is almost all work, not much life.That meeting with Ian Theodoreson on 10 January will have been my first formal meeting with Ian and possibly even the first time I met him at all, although we might have had a “canteen chat” in Mary Datchelor House (the SCF offices back then) before we met formally. I was making a point of being visible in the canteen for informal chats throughout the project; a technique I had leaned from my Student Union sabbatical experience just a few years earlier. I also note that I had spelt Ian’s surname incorrectly back in 1989, a mistake I was to repeat (differently) on the acknowledgements page of the hard cover edition of Price of Fish. Sorry, again, Ian. Again, lots of work, not all that much life there. A second meeting with Ian, now mis-spelling his name in the same way as The Price of Fish error – at least some sort of consistency set in. Hannah and Peter on the Thursday evening are my neighbours from downstairs. Peter is still downstairs – Hannah (Peter’s mum) returned to Germany some years ago and is spending her dotage there. I cannot remember the evening of 22 January 1989 with Caroline – I’ll guess that I cooked Caroline dinner at Clanricarde given the time and lack of other information in the diary. Caroline has reciprocated – most recently at the time of writing a week or so ago!The amusing entry on this page is the morning of 25 January. Someone suggested that I visit Barnardo’s by way of comparison with SCF. I’m not sure who provided the above assistance for my journey, but it reads:
Barkingside St. [Station] Church – beside it c60s US “Prison”
Anyone who has visited the Barnardo’s campus would recognise that “1960s US Prison” description and it should make them smile. It would be ironic if it had been Ian Theodoreson who provided that helpful description for my journey, as he subsequently spent many years as Director of Corporate Services there and I did several assignments at that Barnardo’s campus, in the late 1990s and early years of this century.
Please also note “G Jenny” in small writing for 26th evening and then again on the Saturday afternoon. I know that I deferred my visit to Grandma Jenny 26th because I had a report deadline looming…
…in fact the “evening of tears” might have been 26th not 27th…
…but I also know that the report deadline was really for the Monday morning, when I needed to go into the office with the report ready for review. So I also remember postponing Grandma Jenny again on the Saturday, while dinner with Jilly I think went ahead after I finished my draft report on the Saturday.
I put Grandma Jenny back into the book for the following Tuesday and I’m sure I will have gone that evening. She forgave me for the multiple rescheduling I’m sure, especially when she learnt that I was doing work for a charity in which she believed strongly. I also remember her imparting the following worldly advice to me several times during that era:
all work and no joy makes Jack a dull boy.
Well of course there was joy as well as work during those “hard yards” weeks and months at the start of my consultancy career. But I don’t suppose there was much joy inside my tears on that evening, when I thought it was all going horribly wrong.
Maybe I even cried for the six-and-a-half minutes it takes to listen to this Dowland-ish Stevie Wonder song.
The end of 1988 was a momentous time for me. I’ll have quite a lot to write about those weeks on Ogblog.
The brace of events I am recalling in this piece, reflecting briefly on that time thirty years later, are the core happenings. I changed job and moved house within the space of a couple of weeks.
Clanricarde Gardens
A few doors down, picture linked from (and clickable to) Philip Wilkinson’s wonderful blog piece about our street
I shall write up my flat hunting experience on a separate piece in the coming weeks. Suffice it to say here that my Clanricarde Gardens flat was the first place I saw and that I liked it straight away.
It was only the fact that I had nothing with which to compare it that kept me flat hunting for several more days. I have some interesting yarns to tell about some of the other places I saw. I asked to take a second look at Clanricarde Gardens on the Thursday and took Bobbie Scully with me to help me decide. “What are you waiting for? Just take it,” is a reasonable paraphrase of her sound judgement.
By way of context, I should explain that I was renting, not buying in late 1988. Some friends at that time thought I was bonkers by not jumping on the home ownership bandwagon “before it is too late”. But then some friends suffered some serious negative equity for several years after jumping on that bandwagon when it peaked back then.
Unusually, when I decided it was time for me to buy, in 1999, it was also an opportune time for the owners to sell, so I was able to buy the flat I had been renting for over 10 years. Try before you buy.
From Newman Harris To Binder Hamlyn Management Consultants (BHMC)
Again, I shall write more in separate pieces about these events over the coming weeks.
With the benefit of hindsight, taking just eight working days off between jobs with a view to:
finding a flat to rent;
moving into that flat;
learning to drive;
seeing friends and family in relatively large quantity;
going to plenty of theatre & stuff;
doing exam marking for Financial Training to help pay for all that…
…was a little ambitious, to say the least.
I rather like my only diary note on the day I started at BHMC:
Started at BHMC today – drink at lunchtime
Frankly, I probably needed a drink after that fortnight. But what a very 1980’s tradition for a new joiner at a City firm – the drink at lunchtime.
At Binder Hamlyn (BDOC) c1992
BHMC soon changed its name to BDO Consulting (BDOC). Five-and-a-half years after I joined the firm, Binder Hamlyn “merged” with Arthur Andersen (AA) and I concluded that the latter firm would not like my hairstyle. Michael Mainelli, who had not recruited me to BHMC but with whom I was mostly working by then, felt similarly about not wanting to persevere in Andersens, although not for hairstyle reasons…
…and thus Z/Yen was born.
I don’t remember meeting Michael on that first day or two at Binders – my memory of meeting him really starts at the Christmas lunch on 14 December. But Michael is pretty sure that he at the very least spent a few minutes saying “hi & bye” to me (probably to check that I didn’t have two heads or something) before packing me off the following week on a tough assignment with Save The Children Fund…from which the rest is history.
Reflecting On Those Weeks And Events
Further, when I look at my diaries and see what else I did during those momentous weeks, I still see many familiar names and activities.
Here are just two examples.
I went to Jacquie and Len’s place for dinner with Caroline on 30 November 1988. Janie and I are going to dinner at Jacquie’s tonight (1 December 2018) and only a couple of days ago, Caroline got in touch to arrange a get together.
27 November 1988, had John, Mandy, Ali, Valerie and Bobbie to lunch
I’m still in touch with most of them and am seeing John on Monday.
Those two momentous things I did in late 1988 have in essence been sustained for thirty years and still going. Also many of the people who were central to my being back then are still there too.
So I shall soon write up the many and various events of those frantic weeks.
Some of the tales will be about characters who entered my life only fleetingly – such as Larry the Drummer, the larger-than-life character I met through the Streatham Hill Driving School people, who became Larry the Man With A Van to help me move.
But some stories will benefit from the reflections of those people with whom I am still very much in touch.
And although, if I recall correctly, Michael Mainelli and I didn’t actually meet until I had been at the firm for a couple of weeks…
…1 December 1988 was, technically speaking, the date we started working together. So happy thirtieth anniversary, Michael.
…yet still I cooked dinner that evening for six of us: me, Bobbie, Vivian Robinson, Andrew (her beau), Neil Infield and Michelle Epstein (soon to be Infield). All of those people were living in the vicinity of Woodfield Avenue at that time, so I guess it was a sort-of goodbye to friends in that neighbourhood.
No idea what I cooked – I hope for my own sake that I tried to keep it simple – I probably did. If anyone who was there can remember details of that particular evening, I’d love to hear about it from someone else’s perspective.
The Wednesday was also a pretty packed day. Here’s my page of notes for that day.
That page doesn’t even mention the two driving lessons – one at 9:00, the other at 11:00.
Nor does it mention the ordering of a washing machine (perhaps I had already done that the previous day, as Pratts (Streatham’s John Lewis store) was specifically mentioned that day. I wrote copious notes, too detailed even for me and Ogblog, listing various makes, specs and prices of washing machine. I settled on Zanussi and the thing was delivered to Clanricarde Gardens on the Saturday.
A weird quirk of that era; a purportedly fully-furnished flat did not come with a washing machine and I recall that Tony Shaw said at that time that he was happy for me to have one there but that I would have to pay for it and own it. These days, unfurnished flats are the thing but a washing machine is seen as a standard utility item in an unfurnished flat.
I have also retained my shopping list from that Wednesday, which reads like something The Flight Of The Conchords might include in one of their lyrics. Cereal, coffee and wine – what else does a bachelor flat need?:
That page of notes also includes a note of Jackie and Len’s address for that evening (redacted in green on the above picture) plus a note to remind myself to take my Newman Harris P45 with me for Binders the next morning – good thinking.
I know I also left a chirpy note for mum and dad to find when they returned from their holiday on 6th December. Words to the effect of:
Have moved out, as promised.
If you are lucky, I’ll call and let you know where I’ve gone. Hope you had a great holiday.
Lots of love
Sonny Boy.
So, then on to dinner at Jacquie and Len’s place, joined by Caroline Freeman. How can I be so sure? Here”s the diary page:
I wonder whether Caroline remembers this particular evening? I cannot remember what we had for dinner but I don’t think it would have been a herring fest. More likely poultry was involved – for sure it will have been a splendid meal whatever we ate. This much later picture does show the actual table, although not the precise contents:
One thing I do remember about that evening is that Len, on the matter of me having qualified as a Chartered Accountant and then immediately having moved away from that profession (his), seemed decidedly less perturbed than some. I remember him saying repeatedly:
The world is your lobster. Not just your oyster. Your lobster.
I was watching very little television by that time, so it was many years later that I discovered that this cute phrase was not Len’s own, but is an Arthur Daleyism. Not a very kosher metaphor, that oyster/lobster one. But “the world is your pickled herring” just doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?:
With thanks to Dave Lee for the “loan” of this frosty Horwood picture.
For those who haven’t been avidly following this saga, the Shrewsbury Industrial Tribunal relating to our Union Committee’s dismissal of the Students’ Union bar managers was supposed to conclude 19 December…
…but required two additional days, which were set as Friday 28th and Monday 31st December.
Keele was bitterly cold when I returned to the campus on 27 December and remained so until we left on 31 December. It also felt incredibly bleak too, with almost nobody around.
The diary barely tells the tale, but let me translate my scrawl:
Thursday 27 December – Got up quite early [at parents’ house] – came back to Keele. Kate came over for a while.
I recall that Kate (now Susan) Fricker and I were a little spooked by the bleakness and the fact that Ralph was wandering around the campus. I don’t think he intended to spook or intimidate us, I think more likely Ralph was struggling to come to terms with what was happening to him and was walking a lot, as people with heavy weights on their minds often do.
In my (I now think false) memory, Kate asked to stay at the flat and I slept on the floor, but the diary says “came over for a while”, so on reflection I think the idea of her staying was mooted, but Kate decided in the end to spare me the floor and returned to her own flat for the night.
Friday 28 December – went to Tribunal – seemed to go OK – lazy evening in.
Saturday 29 December – shopped and read in day. Went to Koh-I-Noor with John & co in eve.
I think we sensed that Friday, perhaps for the first time, that the Tribunal was going our way. It was mostly Kate under the cosh that day, plus summing up from both sides, if I remember correctly. I certainly got the impression that Kate was fending off the cross-examination questions well and that the members of the panel were getting more than a little frustrated with interrogation by cross-examination that wasn’t really getting anywhere.
Would you believe the Koh-I-Noor restaurant is still there, forty years later, in Newcastle-Under-Lyme – click here. “John & co” suggests that Kate didn’t opt to join us that evening but that some other members of the committee were with us. Pady and Andy I’d guess. Perhaps also Pete & Melissa. The Koh-I-Noor was a good choice when we had vegetarians with us, as, in those days, Indian restaurants tended to be the only type of meat-serving restaurant that really “got” vegetarianism.
Sunday 30 December – Lazy day in reading etc. Kate & I went to see Ghostbusters in eve. Latish night.
Ghostbusters was THE movie to see in December 1984. I remembered that I had seen it “around the time the movie came out”, but did not remember, until I saw this diary entry, that I had seen it with Kate on the night before the tribunal judgment.
Forty years on, I have “cog. dis.” as to whether that particular movie on that particular evening was especially appropriate or especially inappropriate in the circumstances.
Great movie. The theme song had charted at the end of that summer, so John & I had been playing it at regular discos (i.e. not our 60s/Motown/Northern Soul ones) for some months. It charted again over Christmas when the movie came out. You know you want to hear it…and maybe even shimmy around your living room to that infectious rhythm:
When we returned to Shrewsbury on the Monday morning, we were given the judgment quite quickly, in summary form, with the promise of a full judgment to follow in writing. Basically the tribunal had unanimously found in our favour.
The Evening Sentinel summarised that oral judgement the next (publishing) day:
Of course we were all relieved, not least Tony Derricott, the Permanent Secretary, who must have felt especially exposed – as to a great extent did I – if the judgment had gone against us.
When we got back to the Students’ Union late morning/early afternoon, I remember Tony getting out cigars and offering them to us, which felt inappropriate to us student reps. We were relieved but not celebratory.
John and I had arranged to meet Annalisa de Mercur and Petra Wilson in London for New Years Eve, so we were also in a hurry to head down to London.
Rushed back to London with John to meet Annalisa and Petra…
…says the diary.
I remember far more than the diary tells. John might remember yet more or other details.
We had arranged to meet the girls at the Albert Memorial. No idea why there, other than it being a well-known landmark which all of us felt reasonably able to find easily and which we felt wouldn’t be a crowded place early evening on New Years Eve. It wasn’t.
John and I had a drink or two (or in John’s case possibly more than two) on the train down. Perhaps we can explain John’s, previously undisclosed, identification blooper as, at least partially, a result of the drink.
As John & I strode along Kensington Gore, John and I had a conversation along the following lines:
JOHN: (excitedly) I think that’s Annalisa in the distance, standing in front of the railings…
ME: (unconvinced)…I don’t think so…(even less convinced)…whatever it is, it’s not moving…
JOHN: (embarrassedly)…oh gawd, it’s not Annalisa. It’s a large pile of bin bags.
ME: Don’t worry, John, I won’t tell her.
Now let me be crystal clear on this point. Annalisa doesn’t and never did resemble a pile of bin bags. John’s excited outburst was no doubt enthusiasm for the anticipated evening with the girls. We were at a ridiculous distance to try to identify anyone – or to distinguish between objects and people.
Also in John’s defence, his optical delusion might have been born of eagerly looking forward to telling Annalisa and Petra that we had won our case. In those pre-mobile-phone days, there was no sensible way to get messages out ahead of meeting up – hence the pre-arrangement to meet at the Albert Memorial.
In fact, John & I had arrived at the Albert Memorial well ahead of the girls, leaving us quite literally in the cold for a good few minutes.
In the February 1985 issue of Concourse, in H Ackgrass’s final/parting newspaper column, I…or rather, better to say, H Ackgrass…wrote:
It’s all coming back to me. John will no doubt claim that he was simply finding imaginative ways to try and keep warm.
Soon enough Annalisa and Petra joined and the mood soon lightened once they learnt that the tribunal judgment had gone our way.
I am 99% sure that we ate at Melati in Great Windmill Street that evening, which was one of my/our favourite places at that time, although the diary is silent on that detail.
I’m pretty sure we then ventured in the cold to get as close to Trafalgar Square as we could – which in those days I think meant so darn close that we were actually in the square. For sure we could hear Big Ben striking loud and clear. For sure we celebrated the New Year with the crowds. I vaguely remember hugging and kissing rather a lot of strangers on that occasion. In those days, such conduct was not micro-aggressive or inappropriate – it was simply doing what everyone else was doing in those circumstances.
Petra had arranged for the two of us to stay in a flat in Kennington – her brother, Christian had friends there – they were away and were happy for us to stay. Christian had sensibly advised Petra that we would want to be walking distance from wherever we were going to stay if we were going to do the “midnight in Trafalgar Square” thing. Kennington fitted that bill.
It was actually quite a long walk in the cold after such a long day. I also recall clearly a long cold night at that flat as well. Either the heating in the flat didn’t work or we couldn’t work out how to make it work…we found imaginative ways to try and keep warm. We just about managed to avoid hypothermia.
Tuesday 1 January 1985 – went home mid morning. Lunch. Lazy day at home.
Wednesday 2 January 1985 – went to town – met Caroline lunch. Went NH [Newman Harris] then shopping then met Pete Roberts for dinner.
Thursday 3 January 1985 – rose late. Went Junction [Dad’s shop] in afternoon after taping etc. Lazy evening in taping etc.
I’ll talk some more about the taping in a separate piece about music.
I often met Caroline Freeman (now Curtis) for lunch in those days. I’m intrigued that I visited Newman Harris that day. I sense that I had told someone (Stanley Bloom, presumably, by then) that if the tribunal went against us, I would resign from the Students’ Union and be looking for work in January. I’m just guessing that this visit was to tell them that we had won and to arrange a start date in September.
The only other possibility is that I was already, by then, helping dad keep his shop’s books, in order to help keep his costs down (goodness knows, dad wasn’t doing much business by that time). This visit might have been to deliver or collect something pertained to dad’s accounts, which might explain me visiting the shop the next day.
Dinner with the Pete Roberts will have been fun and interesting. Pete was my predecessor’s predecessor’s predecessor Education & Welfare Officer (in other words 1981/1982). He had become a friend and mentor before he left Keele, and we met up/kept in touch for several years after we both left. I think he was living in Parsons Green by this time or perhaps he was still around Pimlico.
Pete will no doubt have helped me to reorient my thinking about my role post Tribunal. I remember bouncing ideas off him and really valuing his experience and wisdom in matters E&W. He was also reliably good company with an interesting and often amusing take on most subjects.
I thought he’d gone quiet on Facebook of late and was saddened to learn that he died in December 2023.
My time in London was short yet again, as I shortly returned to Keele ahead of a Union Committee team bonding long weekend in the Somerset countryside. What could possibly go wrong with that sort of idea?
…the diary suggests that I spent a couple of weeks seeing friends, buying records and making tapes – the perfect preparation for the 1983/84 academic year that would be my P3 year (i.e. fourth year at Keele, third and final year of undergraduate studies).
It seems I was enjoying myself so much I even got my days mixed up in the diary:
Wednesday 28 September 1983 – …went out for dinner with Jilly – came back here [Woodfield Avenue] after – late night
Thursday 29 September 1983 – Went to Brixton with Jilly in morning – lazyish afternoon – Andrew [Andy Levinson] came over late afternoon – dinner – wine bar
Frankly I wouldn’t have remembered that Streatham Hill had such a thing as a wine bar in those days. Perhaps it was new and we wanted to try it. I vaguely remember one in the 1980s on Sternhold Avenue – perhaps that was the one.
Saturday 1 October 1983 – went to visit Marianne [Gilmour] – pleasant lazy evening
Sunday 2 October 1983 – went to Makro with Dad in morning. Wendy [Robbins] came over in afternoon
My “business ” at Makro on that occasion was probably limited to a few record albums at discounted prices (see link to my October 1983 album purchase list) and some stationery for the forthcoming academic year. Goodness only knows what Dad wanted there.
Monday 3 October 1983 …went up West & to R&T today…
R&T meant “Record & Tape Exchange” as it was then named.
I bought lots of albums on that visit – the use of a different colour of ink listing them on my log tells me exactly which ones, so I have listed them in a separate article – click here or below.
6 October 1983 – went to shop with Dad in morning – went to office – met Caroline for lunch
I suspect I helped Dad prepare his books that morning, hence stopping at the office (Newman Harris) on my way to lunch. Efficient, I was, even back then.
7 October 1983 – …went to G Jenny’s in afternoon. Paul came over in evening.
8 October 1983 – Busy day packing etc. taping too – getting ready to come back to keele
9 October 1983 – Left early – came to Keele lunched at Post House – unpacked some – went to Union – quite dull
I can only imagine that this meant that Dad drove me up on this occasion, as I cannot imagine why else I’d have eaten at a roadside convenience place such as The Post House. Of course nothing much up at Keele would have been open on a Sunday. In the circumstances, The Sneyd would not have been a diplomatic choice.
I love my comment that the Union was quite dull – yet again, in my enthusiasm, I had come back to Keele ahead of the excitement. But there was plenty of fun, as well as hard work, to come in that Autumn 1983 term. watch this space.
Keele Students’ Union – only dull when there is no-one around.
My last few weeks of work that summer were a busy time. I was mostly working on Laurie Krieger’s various enterprises during the second half of that summer, which included Price Buster Records in Rupert Street (the one bit of the Harlequin Records empire he retained), Leisureplay (which was an arcade games business) and Centre Point Snooker Hall (depicted above), which at that time he was expanding also to include a gym venture, one within Centre point and the other out east (Barking if I remember correctly).
I spent most of my time for him pulling together various accounting records at the empire’s nerve centre – a modest former retail unit in Kenton. The team there was governed by a wonderful administrator named Marge who had a trusty part-time assistant (Jean I think), occasionally interrupted by Laurie’s former majordomo Mossy (Mr Moss) who ran Leisureplay and the occasional visit from Laurie himself.
You’re a young man. What do you think of this idea…
…he’d say, bouncing some new commercial idea off me. I usually didn’t much fancy the offer, but would always caveat my answers by saying that I’m probably not his target audience.
…yes…alright, but do you think young people in general will go for that?
…Laurie would often persist. He was a relentless entrepreneur.
The previous summer I had endeared myself to Marge and the team at Kenton by proving to be more than useful at the daily quiz on Radio London, which seemed to please them no end:
Anyway, we’re here to talk about the tail end of the 1983 summer in this piece, so here are the diary pages and some comments/links to explain the interesting bits
Wednesday 31 August…Marianne [Gilmour’s] for dinner
Thursday 1 September…met Jilly [Black] went on to proms..
Sunday 4 September 1983…[Uncle] Michael for lunch [he’d have visited my grandparents’ graves as was traditional at that time of year]…Paul [Deacon] came over later.
Friday 9 September 1983 – …helped Mum – Jacquie, Len & Mark [Briegal], Michael & Pam [Harris] came over for dinner – v nice
Sunday 11 September 1983 – Stanley & Doreen [Benjamin] came over for lunch – went over to Wendy’s [Robbins] in evening.
Basically the Jewish holidays Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur dominated these weeks.
Monday 12 September 1983 – Busy day Kenton – went out with Caroline in evening.
Tuesday 13 September 1983 – Finished P/B [Price Buster] today – went to office. Took mum and dad to The Rivals in eve.
Friday 16 September 1983 – busy day of work – lunch with Ashley [Michaels]…
Saturday 17 September 1983 – Yom Kippur – broke fast with G Jenny & Uncle Louis [Barst]…
Sunday 18 September 1983 – Nice lunch – Wendy came over in afternoon…
Tuesday 20 September 1983 …went to Annalisa [de Mercur’s] for lunch – went out with Jilly in eve – Pastels [was that a wine bar or something?] -> Joy King Lau [a favourite Chinese restaurant near Leicester Square]
Wednesday 21 September 1983 …worked late – boozing with Mike [King] till late
Thursday 22 September 1983 Felt grotty today! [see worked late / boozing till late the day before – what did you expect, kid?] Went to lunch late with [Sandy] Yap…cold coming on [this all reads a bit self-inflicted to my older eyes forty years later]
Friday 23 September 1983 – Last day. Went Stockpot lunch Yap – after work Phoenix -> Mayflower for feast – v nice.
Either I was now seen as part of the team or the gang wanted to make absolutely sure I was gone. You, dear reader, can decide.
Saturday 24 September 1983 …went to Caroline [Freeman’s…now Curtis] party – stayed at Simon’s [Jacobs]…
Sunday 25 September 1983…left about midday. Had Chinese meal at home…
The Chinese meal at home was probably from Mrs Wong. Not quite the same ass Mayflower feast, but it would have been good enough. Anyway, 40 years later, Mrs Wong is still there…
…well, the restaurant is, possibly not the middle-aged woman who ran the place abck then…
