Tag: Cathy Emerson

My Top Embarrassing Parent Moment At Keele, 30 September 1982

Dad, what were you thinking?

I suspect that many people have been embarrassed by their parents when the old-‘uns visit the young-‘uns at university. This particular memory stands out in my mind.

My parents didn’t drop me off or visit me much at Keele. This drop off, for the start of my P2 (third) year, was organised around what was supposed to be a short break for them in the Lake District.

But Mum had injured (it turned out, broken) her foot around that time, so they postponed their trip but dad brought me up to Keele anyway.

On their only previous visit to Keele, I hadn’t shown them around much, so I agreed to show dad around the union and stuff before he returned to London.

Mark Ellicott’s 2016 picture of The union

While wandering across the main car park, dad and I ran into a friend of mine from FY, Katie (aka Catherine or even, as she is now known, Cathy), whom I hadn’t yet seen since arriving back.

In traditional Keele student-friend fashion, Cathy and I greeted each other warmly, exchanged a few bants about our respective summers and agreed it would be good to catch up properly soon.

Within a few moments of Cathy going her separate way, dad exclaimed, in a stentorian voice:

gosh, that was a beezer girl you were chatting with just then.

I was pretty sure that Cathy would still have been in earshot, given the shortness of the interval and the uncharacteristic loudness of dad’s voice at that moment. So that’s the sort of thing that happens when you release dad from mum’s clutches for even one day.

Collins Dictionary defines the adjective “beezer” as “excellent, most attractive”; some other sources date the adjective to the 1950s, although I’d guess my dad acquired that archaic adjective as a young man (late 1930s or 1940s).

Cathy was (and assuredly still is, forty years on) a beezer girl. I didn’t remember her second name when I first wrote this up, but I did recall that she was from Leicester and I remember her going out with another friend of mine, Rana Sen, for some time…quite possibly still at that time. She is (forty years on) known as Cathy Butcher.

I never found out at the time whether or not Cathy heard my dad’s outburst and therefore have no idea whether she was amused, offended or totally oblivious to this tiny but memorable event. It certainly didn’t seem to upset our casual friendship, which was sustained throughout Cathy’s/our time at Keele.

If this short piece does find its way to you, forty years on, Cathy – I hope you are well and thriving and…

…sorry about dad. You know what they can be like.

Oh dad.

Postscript: I have subsequently been reintroduced to Cathy who is (forty years on) a Facebook Friend and claims no recollection of the dad outburst. Phew.

The Day The Bootleg Beatles Came To Keele’s Lindsay Ball & John Lennon Died, 8 December 1980

My first term at Keele.

My first Hall Ball; Lindsay Christmas Ball.

The main act; The Bootleg Beatles.

Writing this up forty years after the event, I learn from Wikipedia that The Bootleg Beatles were relatively new in 1980 and/but are still going more than forty years since they started in some Beatle-oriented show.

Anyway, I clearly had a good evening. The diary reads:

Lindsay Ball in eve, brilliant. Went on from there to Karen’s for partyette // v good.

I really must apologise to Karen who I’m sure was and probably still is a lovely lass, but I really don’t remember you, nor do I remember what a “partyette” might have been. I’m guessing it was a small group of people in one student room continuing to enjoy the entertaining night. The // symbol in my diary tells me that cannabis was involved and my inability to remember anything much that occurred after seeing The Bootleg Beatles might be attributed to that.

Anway, a belated thank you to Karen for her hospitality after the Ball.

I was hungover the next morning and I recall staggering off to the campus store to buy some milk in an attempt to breakfast my way out of my stupor.

Before I had left the confines of Lindsay, I ran into Katie, a super girl I knew reasonably well, whose surname has now escaped me, but I do recall that she was from Leicester. Katie told me that John Lennon had been shot dead overnight.

I so clearly remember staggering on towards the campus store wondering whether I was sleepwalking or even still in bed having a nightmare based on the show I had seen the night before. It just didn’t seem possible that John Lennon was dead.

While we were watching The Bootleg Beatles, the soon-to-be killer, Mark Chapman, cadged an autograph from John Lennon in front of The Dakota Building. A few hours later, probably while I was still at “Karen’s partyette” (the early hours of 9 December GMT), Chapman returned to The Dakota and shot John Lennon dead.

Below is from the front page of The Guardian 10 December; the news broke too late for 9 December by the looks of it.

John Lennon shotJohn Lennon shot Wed, Dec 10, 1980 – 1 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

The incident was a global phenomenon and it certainly was the talk of the Keele campus for the rest of that term…i.e. the next few days. I wonder how other people who were at Keele then remember that strange coincidence?