Tag: Chris Spencer

We Interrupt This Keele Student’s Union Sabbatical For A Short Visit To London Including A Bagel Hunt And A Heap Of Ringroad Show Rehearsals, 16 to 23 November 1984

A well used copy of The Clearing Song from Ringroad

What possessed me, given that I was so darned occupied that year as an SU sabbatical, to persevere with performing Ringroad? I guess I caught the bug during the summer, doing mini Ringroad gigs for the Open University students with Frank Dillon (and occasionally also Adrian Gorst).

My First Ringroad Performance and Related Memories, Keele, 18 August 1984

Further, it probably didn’t occur to me that semi-rehearsing and winging our way through Open University gigs in the summer was all very well, but Ringroad proper, during the term, would be large audiences, who had an expectation of evident preparation.

But before I get into all that, I’ll talk about the end of a momentous week and a short visit to London:

Friday, 16 November 1984 – Busy day – UC and getting staff out of the way. Went to London – arrived quite late. Had a drink and earlyish night.

I blush at the phrase “getting staff out of the way”, which sounds like dismally bad management practice. Looking at my appointments diary, it looks to me as though I had lined up a meeting with the cleaning staff for the Monday morning but also had a plethora of other meetings thrust upon me that day. My guess is that the staff agreed to bring the meeting forward to the Friday to lighten my – and probably also that of Kate Fricker and John White – Monday load.

“London” would have been Bobbie’s new place up in Finchley at the top of the Archway Road. She was sharing in a large house with several other trainee lawyers (mostly solicitors; Bobbie was a pupil barrister).

Chinese Dining & Bagel Hunting

Saturday 17 November 1984 – Rose late – did nothing in particular in afternoon – then went to Joy King Lau for evening.

Kake 新醉瓊樓 (Joy King Lau), Chinatown, London WC2 CC 2.0

Joy King Lau was one of my favourite Chinese restaurants back then. John White reckons that a visit he and I made (probably with others) was his first taste of “proper” Chinatown Chinese food. But the 17 November 1984 occasion will have been with Bobbie and possibly one or two of her new flatmates.

Sunday, 18 November 1984 – Late start again – went bagel hunting and meal then returned to Keele – arrived back quite late and did some work.

A brace of bagels that succumbed to a bagel hunt, many years later, displayed as trophies in my flat prior to their dénouement in one of my cricket picnics

I cannot believe that Bobbie would have been front and centre in seeking a bagel hunt. I think the impetus came from at least one of her other flatmates and for some reason my faint memory points, perhaps unfairly, at Sharma Gupta as the possible ringleader of the “lets go on a bagel hunt” idea. The hunt probably got no further than Finchley or Hendon. Even back then, the London Borough of Barnet was a pretty sensible place to hunt for the big five (bagels, blintzes, kugels, rye bread and matzo balls).

Back To Keele For Meetings Galore & Ringroad Rehearsals

Monday, 19 November 1984 -Busy day interrupted with meetings etc. Carol Holder’s in early evening and on to UGM evening – Petra came back.

Tuesday, 20 November 1984 – Hard-working office today – meetings et. al. Rehearsed Ringroad in evening also.

Each of those days included three or four meetings. I was SO “committeed out” and “meeetinged out” by the end of that sabbatical year – looking at my appointments diary I can see why. I get a headache just thinking about it.

The Ringroad team at the start of the 1984/85 year comprised Olu Odunsi (a comparative veteran of Ringroad), Dave Griffiths, Jo and Jackie [if someone can remind me of their surnames I’ll insert the full names]…plus me.

As the year went on, we beefed up the team, adding:

  • John Bowen (who was a relatively junior academic at that time, subsequently Professor of Modern Literature at Keele and currently – forty years on – Professor of 19th Century literature at York)
  • Warwick Cairns, who also went on to more serious and arguably greater things post Keele
  • Karen [again, to my shame, her surname escapes me. Jo and Jackie were both very good at playing assertive, strident women; Karen, with a gentle Scottish accent, tended to take the more subdued female parts].

Meanwhile our initially small Ringroad team of five’s first big project – and my goodness this was provisionally conceived as a ridiculously big project – was to support a Lenny Henry gig in the Students’ Union with a warm up act and a warm down act for the evening. Suffice it to say that this idea, on its original scale, was biting off more than even the most seasoned metaphorical bagel-munchers could metaphorically masticate in one go.

Image produced using DeepAI. No actual people or bagels were harmed producing this image.

Some Events Including Mystery Meetings

Wednesday, 21 November 1984 – Went to Stafford Demo in morning – committees in afternoon. Did disco with John in evening – went Petra’s after.

According to my appointments diary, I had Welfare Committee at 1.00 and Policy Staffing & Development Committee at 2;15, so that trip to Stafford (presumably to support a North Staffs Polytechnic demo) will have been an early start and a relatively short demo. It didn’t make the press (not even The Sentinel) by the looks of it. Crumbs – that Wednesday reads like a very full day.

Correction: the demo did make one paper…a Concourse Freebie. That freebie also had a full page write up of the Monday UGM, which I think must have been the one Ashley Fletcher remembers as a particularly raucous debate about the miners’ strike:

Additional Evidence From Concourse On Stafford Demo & Keele UGM, Mid November 1984

Thursday, 22 November 1984 – Busy day with meetings etc. Had quiet drink in evening – Petra came over later.

The appointments diary for that day lists four meetings:

  • 1.15 WPAR Room 13 [answers on a postcard please as to what WPAR might have been – I have no idea]
  • 2.15 DVC [that will have been Deputy Vice Chancellor which presumably means Professor Don Thompson who was Acting Vice Chancellor that term. I got on well with Don, who had been my Civil Liberties professor. He pretty much always came up with a fair determination when I had to appeal dodgy disciplinary matters with him]
  • 4.30/5.00 Farm & Fricker. [“Farm” was my former flatmate Chris Spencer. “Fricker” was Kate…now Susan…Fricker. I am in touch with both of them again now and can ask them why I was meeting the two of them about something that day. I think it is unlikely that either of them will remember. And unless something crops up in a future diary entry that provides clues, the matter will remain a mystery]
  • 7.00 Mergers. [I’m not sure what might have been merging with what. Sounds like something Kate and John might also have attended. I’m no more expecting either of them to remember the subject matter of “mergers” than I am expecting Farm and Fricker to remember the content of their meeting.

Friday, 23 November 1984 – UC in morning – busy in office all day – rehearsed Ringroad in evening.

I shall go into more detail about that Ringroad/Lenny Henry gig in my next piece, which will report on the week leading up to the Lenny Henry gig and the gig itself. For now, I’ll whet your appetites with one sketch I remember performing jointly with Olu in our capacity as a pair of newsreaders:

I think, on at least one occasion with that sketch, I announced myself to be Trevor McDonald and Olu announced himself to be Alastair Burnett…

…maybe you had to be there.

Good-Bye To Barnes L54 And All That, Summer 1984

Image borrowed from studentcrowd.com

I spent two of my five years at Keele in Barnes L54, as reported on these pages in several past pieces. I have happy memories of my time there, not least because my time sharing a flat at Keele was the only time in my life that I have flat-shared in that “Home Of Multiple Occupation” sense.

I was really touched when I stumbled across the following letter from the June 1984 edition of Concourse.

In truth I barely remember the four of us deciding to write that letter to Concourse. Part of the motivation was mine, to make a public goodbye to the flat. the other three, after all, were to stay on in the flat after I had departed, with Hayward Burt joining them in my place:

Hayward quite literally in my place: in 1985, Barnes L54 as THAT’S EXACTLY where I used to sit. Thanks Mark Ellicott for the picture.

The references in Concourse to Barnes L54 being a Machiavellian Students’ Union political stronghold mostly emanated from my H Ackgrass column, ably assisted by my spies, three of whom were my flatmates. So the argument is more than a little bit circular and the “gripe” was really an in joke amongst us, not least becuase my identity as H Ackgrass remained a secret for a further year.

The gossip-fest to which I refer was mostly in my third Ackgrass column, although I think there was also at least a mention in the previous column.

H Ackgrass’s Third Column In Concourse, Plus A Carbon Copy Of The Original Submission, May 1984

I have managed to re-engage with the West Country contingent (Chris Spencer and Hayward) as part of my Ogblogging process. Pete Wild seems harder to contact – if anyone out there is in touch with him, I expect he’d enjoy seeing this letter again.

Sadly, Alan “The Great Yorkshire Pudding” Gorman died several years ago, having moved to the USA quite soon after graduating. His widow, Susan and sons have been following these Barnes L54 reminiscences and I hope they find this letter as touching as I did. It reads, to me, like mostly Alan’s writing, informed/tweaked by the rest of us. It oozes his sense of humo(u)r.

Moved I was. Physically moved, at the end of August 1984, to a small tutor’s flat in K-Block Horwood. Emotionally moved, by re-finding this letter in that old copy of Concourse, during August 2024.

Never A Cross Word Over The Crossword: Newspaper Habits in Barnes L54, Keele, 1982 To 1984

Livy and let Livy, that was our motto

My series of pieces about my somewhat distracted run up to finals at Keele in 1984 might have given readers the impression that I was doing very little reading and paying little heed to my papers.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Indeed, reflecting on my two happy academic years living in Barnes L54, 1982/83 and 1983/84, I realise that there is an element of that lifestyle that has gone unmentioned in these pieces so far.

The newspapers.

From the outset, we took The Guardian as a flat through our kitty during term time. We also, if I remember correctly, took both The Sunday Times and The Observer on a Sunday.

Everyone in the flat at least dipped into the papers. The main beneficiaries of the paper habit were undoubtedly me and Alan “The Great Yorkshire Pudding” Gorman. In part, this is because we probably did more reading and dipping than anyone else, but also because we became addicted to doing The Guardian crossword.

“I’ve done most of it, Bagel Boy, see if you can finish it off”

Quite often, one or other of us would be up earlier, if we had lectures or classes to attend while the other did not. More likely Alan would get to the paper first, as he more often had early classes and I would quite often stay at Bobbie’s and return in the morning. A note, along the lines of the above picture caption, might well be waiting for me in those circumstances.

Sometimes the earliest riser couldn’t get very far and the second-dipper would make most of the progress. The second-dipper’s note might have a more competitive tone to it in those circumstances.

It was an exercise in co-opetition rather than competition, though. Our mission was to complete the crossword between the two of us. We would regularly spend time on the puzzle together to finish it off, perhaps late afternoon or over our evening meal. Quite often we would succeed in completing the puzzle. Only occasionally would we be seriously confounded and fail spectacularly. Fairly often, we would struggle with just one or two clues at the end.

We became familiar with the compilers – some easier than others. Often our nemesis was Araucaria, who was known as a difficult compiler. An example from our era is shown below;

Araucaria May 1984Araucaria May 1984 16 May 1984, Wed The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

In those days, there was no Google or ChatGPT to resort to if we were stuck. We might check the spelling of a word in the dictionary or resort to my trusty copy of Roget’s Thesaurus if desperate, but the clues that confounded us tended to be factual items.

I remember one occasion when we were both struggling to work out where Tanganyika Territory was, to try to resolve a clue. I think Alan might even have ventured to the library to get intelligence on that one and I vaguely recall that the intelligence did not help us solve the clue. That was probably one of Araucaria’s. Forty years later, I have only just learnt the significance of the compiler’s name.

Araucaria araucana (Monkey Puzzle Tree) 
BillyKwiki at the English-language Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0

One other vain attempt to solve a sole remaining clue lives clearly in my memory. The clue was something to do with a Roman writer/historian and the answer only required four letters – blank-I-blank-Y. The answer, to spare you the agony that Alan and I went through, was LIVY. But neither of us were familiar with the works of Livy. Indeed, the only four letter word Roman writer either of us could think of was Ovid. I became convinced that Ovid might well have been known as “Vidy” to his friends, after which we explored many different permutations of “blank-I-blank-Y”. We had a good laugh over some of the possibilities we invented. We would advocate a name and then extemporize the tale of this imagined Roman’s character and works.

One or two of the ideas we explored, tongue in cheek, would not pass the political correctness test. The only Roman historian I could think of was Flavius Josephus – who knows how his detractors might have nicknamed him? Alan and I spent an inordinate amount of time and effort coming up with possible answers to this crossword clue, one of which was probably Livy, but we gave that idea no more credence than any other permutation we could invent.

“Maybe you had to be there”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Back to the drawing board, Malc.

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

The Immaculate Conception Of H. Ackgrass: At Keele With Pete Wild & On Merseyside With Bobbie Scully, Early January 1984

Pete Wild c1985 – with thanks to Mark Ellicott for the picture.

As had become my habit, I returned to Keele very early in the year, well ahead of the start of term, after lunching with Caroline on the Tuesday and Jilly on the Wednesday.

5 January 1984 – Got up early – bought amp – lazed around – returned to Keele – v tired.

6 January 1984 – did v little all day. Visited Andrea [Collins, later Woodhouse] – she came back for dinner – went on to Union

7 January 1984 – Did litle today – lazed and shopped – visited Michelle [Epstein, later Infield] – went union with Hippo in eve

The “amp” will have been for my parents’ house. I still only had a ghetto blaster at Keele that year.

I don’t remember nicknaming Pete Wild “Hippo”, but I write it that way twice in the diary around that time so it must have been a thing. His initial nickname was “Hippy” on account of his long hair. but there was a certain hippo quality about him, clumsily rushing about the flat, sometimes causing carnage.

The thing I do remember is that I had decided over Christmas to vent my frustration with the Students’ Union committee by writing secretly a gossip column for Concourse. I’m not sure that I had, by early January, settled on the name, “H Ackgrass”, but I had done a fair bit of thinking about my methods of secrecy.

Espionage-Style Tricks: Two Typewriters & Several Collaborators

I had two portable typewriters at Keele. One that I was using for my work, which was a decent quality item, I think acquired second-hand from a departing student the year before. It was a Smith-Corona that looked a little like this:

Image borrowed from ebay – this item for sale here at the time of borrowing

My other typewriter was a cheap generic which I had bought/been given several years earlier and had bashed into decrepitude – hence my procurement of a better one for my studies. The old generic (ghastly orange case) languished in a cupboard and almost certainly no-one at Keele had seen the tell-tale skew-iffy-look typing that emanated from it. In my earlier, Concourse journalist, days…

A Five Day Marathon To Produce Concourse With Dave Lee, The Result Being A Student Union Lock-In & Near Death Experience, Late February/Early March 1981

…I had always used Concourse’s own typewriters.

The quirky old generic was to be the gossip columnist’s tool (as it were). It was to remain hidden except when used for producing the Ackgrass column.

I also worked out that I would need collaborators…aka spies…to help gather information for the column and help keep my identity a mystery. By necessity, I would need to take all of my Barnes L54 flatmates and Bobbie into my confidence about this idea, as it would be nigh-on impossible to hide it from those people anyway.

That much I’m sure I discussed with Pete on my return to Keele in early January. Pete loved the idea and was keen to be one of my spies. He had already set ambitions to run for Union Committee 1984/85, as had his girlfriend, Melissa (Mel) Oliveck. I recall that those nascent conversations included the idea that Melissa should also be one of my spies, as she was spending so much time at the flat it would be awkward to keep the secret from here. Also, Mel could probably could acquire intelligence on some union people that the rest of us would not be able to access.

Our other flatmates, Chris Spencer and Alan Gorman, were not really involved with the union at all, but would still be helpful foils for testing material and honing jokes. Alan, in particular, enjoyed lampooning student politics and had a wicked sense of humour.

8 January 1984 – busyish day cataloguing etc. Went Union in evening with Hippo

9 January 1984 – Left Keele – went to Liverpool. Went with Bobbie to Karate Club – went on to pub with friends after.

10 January 1984 – Went to Chester in afternoon & stayed in Wallasey in evening – went to pub etc.

11 January 1984 – Went into the City today – shopped etc. In eve B[obbie] graded Karate & I went on after – we went to several pubs etc.

The cataloguing was probably to do with my music – not least my cassette collection at Keele, which was getting large enough that I needed documentary help to find things.

A Brief Interlude On Merseyside With Bobbie

Bobbie was an exponent of Shotokan karate. Rather a good exponent of it. I seem to recall that the grading she took while I was hanging around was for brown belt with two stripes. I had no idea what that really meant, other than the fact that “rather a good exponent” becomes a fair description at that level.

Alan Gorman also took up Shotokan karate at Keele and I understand he continued his interest in it when he moved to the USA some years later. I cannot remember whether Alan was already doing karate when I got together with Bobbie or whether it was Bobbie’s inspiration that got him into the sport. Bobbie can’t remember either, but is sure that Alan was far enough behind her in the karate progress that they didn’t really overlap (e.g. as sparring partners) at the Keele karate club.

I think that early evening session at a Liverpool Club was the only time I watched Bobbie practicing karate.

My recollection of the evening out with her Liverpool karate mates is of a friendly, mostly working class bunch of lads (I think Bobbie might have been the only lass). They made me feel very welcome when we all went to the pub afterwards, while at the same time letting me know that I was incurably southern and “posh”. Bobbie, on the other hand, rather like the character Zelig in the then recent film, slowly but surely morphed from a middle-class-accented lass from Wallasey into a scouse-accented Liverpudlian, “one of the lads”, especially by around the third drink.

The following day in Chester was more genteel, of course.

Citroen Dyane, Alexander Migl, CC BY-SA 4.0

Bobbie pootled us around in a Citroen that looked a little like the one depicted above. I vaguely remember seeing her in my second year (her first) peering up from below the steering wheel of her dad’s Jag, which seemed a rather incongruous vehicle in Lindsay Hall, but it did get Bobbie noticed. Bobbie’s dad worked abroad a lot and thought (perhaps mistakenly) that the car would be safer in Bobbie’s hands at Keele than untended on a suburban street in Wallasey.

Let’s just reflect for a moment on the fact that, in the karate guys eyes, I was deemed posh, while Bobbie was deemed one of the lads.

Let’s move on.

I don’t really remember the pub in Wallasey, but that is one detail that Bobbie might actually remember when she reads this. Bobbie still spends much of her time up there these days (forty years later), when she is not in London.

I remember warm hospitality from Bobbie’s mum and dad (I think just her mum on that occasion, as dad was away), plus a font of wisdom in the form of their “family retainer”, a Merseyside lady you might choose from central casting to fulfil that role, slightly confusingly named Robbie.

The final day in Liverpool was great fun. Bobbie gave me a guided tour, then left me to my own devices for a while when she went for her karate grading. Successfully graded, we then went on a bit of a pub crawl.

I don’t remember all the pubs we tried – I doubt if Bobbie remembers all that much about it – but I do recall that we ended up in The Grapes.

Sue Adair / The Grapes, Mathew Street

I’m pretty sure it was in The Grapes where we got roped in to an impromptu Irish sing song, which would not have looked out of place in a Disney-style movie depicting such a place and event.

I vaguely knew what was going on in Whiskey In the Jar and The Wild Rover, but got more than a little confused when “Mush-a ring dumb-a do dumb-a da” and/or “right up your kilt” came into play. I remember trying to get Bobbie to explain to me what I was supposed to be doing/singing and Bobbie telling me not to worry about it and just join in making noise.

I probably sounded as Irish singing those songs as Dick Van Dyke sounded cockney singing Chim Chim Cher-ee. But then I’m not sure how Irish everyone else sounded in that pub.

I didn’t visit Liverpool again for several decades…

Southport Day Two: A Day Out In Liverpool, Tate Liverpool, International Slavery Museum, The Cavern Club and More, 10 June 2017

…yet still felt a bit of an old hand/expert when visiting Liverpool all those years later. It’s that sort of unforgettable place.

…Then Back To Keele…

I expect I broached the matter of H Ackgrass and the proposed spy network with Bobbie while we were in Liverpool…or at least on the way back to Keele on the Thursday. I think she quite liked the idea without really wanting to be involved, other than as a sounding board and one of the group that was in the know.

12 January 1984 – Left Liverpool today – returned to Keele – shopped etc. Met Ashley [Fletcher] in Union & drank – Bobbie came back – had restless night – felt bad.

13 January 1984 – Felt really funny all day – had loads of visitors today etc. Not very well at all. Feverish all night.

14 January 1984 – Didn’t feel too bad in the morning. Shopped and did a few things. Took Bobbie out for dinner in eve – very pleasant evening.

There is a wonderfully memorable episode in I Claudius, when Caligula falls ill and then emerges relatively soon after his indisposition refreshed, announcing that he has, in the meantime, become a god.

Reading those three diary entries, I just wonder whether I emerged from short but nasty-sounding fever fully formed in the matter of my nom de plume, Herbert Ackgrass.

Parenthetically, I also wonder where I might have taken Bobbie for that very pleasant “out for dinner”. I do remember one acceptably good bistro in Newcastle-Under-Lyme but I cannot remember the name. Perhaps the hive mind of readers will help me out with that one.

I, Ackgrass…I mean, Caligula

Be that as it may, having emerged from my fever alive and therefore stronger, the fruits of those H Ackgrass scribbles, or should I say skewiffy typings, would start to emerge soon enough.

Oh Balls! Two Balls & A Pub Crawl In One Keele December Week, 12 to 18 December 1983

The big ball was the union ball, of course

Crumbs, what a busy week. Forty years later, the equivalent week, “just a few sleeps before Christmas” remains so for me, with deadlines to meet and lots of socials to attend.

My business with classes etc. is what one might expect for a finalist at the end of the autumn term. The business with Constitutional Committee will have been about agreeing the process for me to rewrite the union constitution over Christmas. The things I would take on back then! Not sure whether the visit to Malcolm on Monday would have been that sort of student political machination or a chance to decompress over a drink or two…or both. Malcolm might remember but I doubt it.

Lindsay Ball, 13 December 1983

More importantly, does anyone remember who headlined at the Lindsay Ball that December? I was quite a cynic by then, so “v good” as a verdict means that the ball was very good. But who did we see perform? Answers, if anyone remembers, please.

Main Union Ball , 15 December 1983

Oh Gawd…him! Gary Glitter, photo by AVRO, CC BY-SA 3.0 NL

I had managed to avoid Gary Glitter on two previous ball occasions at Keele. My very first freshers’ ball was glitter free due to his indisposition – we had Stardust instead:

In The Absence Of Glittering Prizes…Stardust Memories, Keele Freshers Week, 12 To 18 October 1980

Then when Gary Glitter did show up to the freshers’ ball the follwing year, I decided I was too grown up and/or otherwise engaged to go:

Lakes, Films, Parties, A Five Day Visit By Andrea, But Seemingly No Glitter For Me That Freshers Week At Keele, 11 to 20 October 1981

But on this occasion in 1983 I finally got to see Gary Glitter perform. His subsequent disgrace for unconscionable behaviours aside, I must say that his show at that time was very much a crowd-pleaser for a student union ball.

Bev Howarth made an interesting choice of support act in King Kurt. They had a wild reputation for food fights and the like at their gigs around that time. Rumour has it that Pady Jalali (who at first sight does not look like someone who could boss King Kurt around) managed to keep them in check for that gig, a display of courage that might have helped her to get elected Social Secretary for the following year.

Here’s a sample of their most famous song and video – which would not come close to passing a political correctness test today, I feel bound to add:

https://youtu.be/aS9uPvAvqc0

Any band with a lead singer named Gary “The Smeg” Clayton is bound to be close to the edge…or over that edge hurtling towards the rocks of opprobrium. Still, next to his namesake Glitter, Gary “The Smeg” looks like a paragon of virtue, I suppose. And I can hardly talk, having gone on to write a parody song about the Zulu leader, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, 10 years later:

Roll Out Those Hazy Crazy Mangosuthu Buthelezi Days Of Summer, NewsRevue Lyric, 9 August 1993

Friday 16 December 1983: Barnes L54 Pub Crawl


The Victoria – Photo by Rept0n1x, CC BY-SA 2.0

I have no recollection which pubs we crawled around, but I’ll guess that The Victoria was one of them and one of the few that is still there. The group that crawled will have been the four of us who actually lived in Barnes L54 at that time: Me, Alan “The Great Yorkshire Pudding” Gorman, Chris Spencer, Pete Wild, almost certainly also my then girlfriend Bobbie Scully (never one to say no to an end of term pub crawl), Melissa Oliveck (Pete’s then girlfriend) and possibly others. If anyone recalls, I’d love to include more details on that event.

I think I can safely say that we visited several pubs in the vicinity and all had too much to drink. Students, honestly.

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

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

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

I cannot remember what would have led to the phrase:

…UGM in eve – sabotaged…

…but that will for sure have irked me.

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

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

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

Thursday – A Liberal Array Of Activities

A moving story if ever there was one

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Wild First Week Of The 1983/84 Year At Keele: Pete Wild, Amazulu, The Man Upstairs, Bobbie Scully, The Meaning Of Life & More

Pete & Me, c1985, photo thanks to Mark Ellicott

A hyperactive week to say the least, from Monday onwards, following my “Union – quite dull” diary comment on the preceding Sunday.

The diary page for that week will need some unpicking, forty years on. Stuck together with ancient, yellowing Sellotape, some aspects might best be left unpicked.

Monday 10 October 1983 – Busy sorting things out today – went to town etc. Ashley [Fletcher] came for dinner -> Union – saw loads of people.

Tuesday 11 October 1983 – Lots to do today – did a little work – etc. Went to Union in eve – saw more people.

Hello people! I’m sure you all know who you are…who you were…whoever you are/were. Sometimes I really wish I’d written more down.

Wednesday 12 October 1983 Busy day – did a little work – went to [New] ‘Castle [Under-Lyme]. Showed Pete [Wild] around – went to Freshers Union do in eve.

Pete Wild was a fresher, allocated to us in Barnes L54 quite by chance. Aficionados of this Ogblog series might recall that Alan Gorman was such an allocated fresher the previous year, when my former flatmate Ahmed Mohd Isa was not invited to return for the 1982/83.

Enter Stage Left, My New Neighbours & Flatmates At Keele In Barnes L54, 4 to 7 October 1982

For 1983/84, the Barnes L54 line up was supposed to be me, Alan Gorman, Chris Spencer and “A. N. Other-Person”, the name of whom escapes me. Indeed I cannot recall anything about that fourth person other than the fact that they, like Ahmed before them, failed to make the cut for the 83/84 academic year and we had a vacancy. Chris Spencer might remember and I am now in touch with him again. Alan is sadly no longer with us, although I have made contact with his family in the USA.

One might be forgiven for wondering whether Barnes L54 was cursed, as a 25% drop out rate was way above the Keele norm at that time. But certainly those of us who remained were blessed rather than cursed, as these happenstance thrown together flatmate groupings somehow worked and thrived. Chris, Alan and Pete stuck with it the following year, when Hayward Burt signed up for the fourth place in Barnes L54 and **SPOILER ALERT** all of them actually took up residence as planned!

My immediate take on Pete was that he was fun and would fit in, which he did. The rest of us already had flat nicknames and his emerged pretty quickly and obviously:

  • Alan Gorman – The Great Yorkshire Pudding…or just “Pudding”;
  • Chris Spencer – “Farmer” – from Devon, you understand;
  • Me – “Bagel Boy” – I could probably have them all arrested for that now;
  • Pete – “Hippy” – see hair in headline photo.

Thursday 13 October 1983 – Busyish day – Exam in afternoon etc. Union in evening – drank a little went to see Amazulu.

I cannot recall what the exam might have been right at the start of term. The only thing I can imagine was that it was an econometrics exam, as that discipline was meant to test our ability to analyse numbers from our instinctive/unconscious competency in economics rather than from swatting.

Amazulu were great live, I recall. A good choice for Freshers week. They were little known at that time, but certainly lit up the ballroom that night. Here’s a clip of Amazulu live in London a few months later:

https://youtu.be/HYPD24des44

Friday 14 October 1983 – sorted things out departments etc. – went to town in afternoon. Went to Michelle’s [Epstein]. Went to see [Monty Python’s The] Meaning Of Life in evening -> Lindsay – The Man Upstairs – Ros came back

Saturday 15 October 1983 – Got up late. Liza [O’Connor] came around – stayed until early evening – went to Union in eve – Bobby [sic – ie Bobbie Scully][ came back stayed till late

Sunday 16 October 1983 – Easyish Sunday – rose v late- did some things – went union in eve with Ash [Ashley Fletcher]

I’m not blooming surprised I “rose v late” on the Sunday.

Sometimes I’m really glad that I didn’t write more down. To my shame I cannot even recall who Ros was in this context.

Ashley Fletcher might remember, at least in terms of who came with us to see The Meaning Of Life – I know it was a reasonably sized group of us and for the saddest of reasons, which I’ll write about in a couple of week’s time, I recall at least one of the people who was with us that night.

Anyway, the upshot of my metaphorical revolving door weekend was that I settled in to a relationship with Bobbie, who forty years later, is still talking to me…at least she was a month ago when she came along to Hampton Court…

Gresham Society Visit To The Royal Tennis Court, Hampton Court, 14 September 2023

I guess “forty years on” history pales into insignificance when you lose yourself in “400+ years on” material.

I also want to write a bit about The Man Upstairs, which was a band comprising Keele students hat did many gigs around the campus in the early 1980s. They were a good bunch and were able to get the Keele students going with their fashionable live sound. Warmly remembered by many of us.

I think they had left Keele by the autumn of 1983, so were returning as a touring band that happened to comprise Keele alums. Here are links to some of their stuff…

…and here’s a link to an interview with Nigel, whom, I always thought of as their leader. (If that link has gone, click this scrape).

Keele Student’s Summer Working In London 1983, Part One: A Social & Emotional Whirl…With Some Work Thrown In, July 1983

Actually I worked in 19 Cavendish Square, not 19a (depicted). I subsequently (many years later) went to the dentist/hygienist in 19a. Any resemblance between tooth pulling and me working as an accounts clerk in the university holidays is purely coincidental.

The summer of 1983 was to be the last of my summer holiday jobs working for Newman Harris in London. Two-and-a-bit years later I started working for that firm full time as a trainee, but that’s another story.

As with previous summer jobs, I spent an awful lot of time meeting up with people for lunch and after work. I also visited Keele during that summer – a benefit of having retained the Barnes L54 flat, along with Alan Gorman and Chris Spencer, for a further year.

I’ll set out my diary pages below and try to translate/transliterate them. The very first reference on my first day of work, “VL”, refers to Laurence Corner (the V stood for Victor), where I spent a fair chunk of that summer, as I had done previously in my summer jobs. Forty years on, I am still in touch with DJ and Kim from there – not least because I met Janie through Kim in 1992 and the rest, as they say, has been history.

https://www.allinlondon.co.uk/directory/surplus-stores/5766-laurence-corner

In July 1983 though, I was struggling with my sophomoric romantic travails with Liza. I did not want to seem to be pandering to my mum’s unreasonable aversion to the relationship…in truth I think mum had an aversion to me having ANY romantic relationship at that time…while in truth I had emotionally “checked out” by the end of the summer term, as reported in the last instalment…

The Sneyd, The Jedi, The Parents & The Return To London At The End Of My P2 Year At Keele, 1982/1983

…I just couldn’t see the Liza relationship working for me the following academic year.

There’s the context, so hold on to your hats for the deeds extracted from the diaries.

Monday 4 July 1983 – Started work – v busy. VL etc – unpacking etc evening

Tuesday 5 July 1983 – Work – v busy. Met Jilly [Black] for lunch [probably that Italian place on Henrietta Place where you could sit and eat in a railway carriage]. Unpacked till late

Wednesday 6 July 1983 – Busy day at office – Paul [Deacon] came over in evening. [I think there’ll be some good “mix tape” pieces from the summer of 1983, as Paul was in top form that summer with his record finds etc – my own form was not bad that summer either]

Thursday 7 July 1983 – Lots of work – stayed in this evening

Friday 8 July 1983 – V Busy – stayed in eve & relaxed

Saturday 9 July 1983 – Lazy day today – went shopping in Brixton -> G Jenny for tea – lazy eve

Sunday 10 July 1983 – Lazy day – did some reading – relaxed, ate, etc.

Grandma Jenny still lived in Sandhurst Court, Acre Lane, in those days, making a shopping trip to Brixton ahead of visiting her for tea a natural progression.

I expect you’ve got the gist of these summer diary pages by now, so I’ll only extract the highlights that might use some explaining from now on.

Tuesday 12 July 1983 – …met Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] for lunch…Paul [Deacon] came round in evening – went over to Andrew [Andy Levinson, who also lived in Woodfield Avenue]

Friday 15 July 1983 – Office Ok – much work – left early. Went up to Keele – stayed in eve…

Saturday 16 July 1983 – went pub in morning – afternoon Ashley [Fletcher] came over – v tired crashed out early…

Sunday 17 July 1983 – then up late – ran late – brekker – lazy day – left in eve – got back a little late.

Forty years on, I’m struggling to process that weekend in my mind. I sense that I was finding full time work tiring that summer – I think there was a bit of a heatwave on that year – but the weekend in Keele looks quite topsy-turvey to me and I’m guessing that some aspects are unwrit and unremembered, at least by me. Ashley might remember a bit more once he sees the diary write up. Perhaps that weekend was the “dancing and mud cricket in the rain” occasion:

Remembering The Heatwave Of Summer 1983 At Keele, Late June or July 1983

Wednesday 20 July 1983 – …went to Wendy’s [Robbins – in Bromley back then] in eve – v pleasant.

Thursday 21 July 1983 – …met Caroline for lunch …

Friday 22 July 1983 – Work OK – deadlines. Went to Annalisa’s [de Mercur, who lived in Harley Street in those days] for lunch and went for a drink with Marianne [Gilmour, daughter of Geoffrey, also doing holiday work at NH those summers] – Paul came over later.

Saturday 23 July 1983 – …had haircut… [a rare and therefore diary-worthy event back then]

Sunday 24 July 1983 – Lazy day – nice lunch (Chinese) [probably at Mrs Wong’s] Finished with Liza in eve – not nice.

I vaguely recall seeking counsel from several friends in the run up to the Sunday call with Liza, which possibly in part explains the social whirl of the end of the week. I’m not going to pretend that I handled the matter well, but I was bringing little or no experience to the matter. In any case, it isn’t a situation that lends itself to being handled well.

Monday 25 July 1983 – …Ashley [Michaels, from NH, not Fletcher from Keele] took me to lunch…

Tuesday 26 July 1983 – …Met Jim [Jimmy Bateman] after work – boozed & ate in eve [almost certainly a Sun in Great Ormond Street/Lambs Conduit Street event] along the lines of evenings during holiday jobs passim…

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

Thursday 28 July 1983 – …met Hamzah [Shawal, my departing Keele flatmate – I think this was the last time I saw him] for lunch…

Friday 29 July 1983 – …went for drink with Ashley [Michaels] and Dilip Vora] after work …

Saturday 30 July 1983 – …went over to Paul’s for afternoon…

Sunday 31 July 1983 – Did little today. Set up hi-fi. Met Liza in Edgware – drank quite a lot!

I vaguely remember that evening in Edgware. I think Liza’s brother Sean and sister-in-law Marlene had invited her down with a view to setting up a face-to-face between me and Liza. Possibly they wrongly envisaged a possible reconciliation if Liza and I met in person. In any case it was a grown-up ploy, because breaking up by phone had been far from ideal; I think (hope) Liza and I parted on better terms as a result of that very boozy evening.

Keele Festival Week, With Infeasible Levels Of Cricket, Movie Watching & Social Activities, Late June 1983

Image produced in collaboration with Dall-E

It’s hard to believe quite how much went on in that one frantic week at the end of the Keele 1982/83 academic year. Let me divide the story/stories into their several component parts.

First Part Of The Week – Cricket On & Off

Cricket has played an important part in my life, on and off, throughout my life. But it played only a tiny part in my life at Keele. Still, I did participate in three festival week “Players Of The Left v Gentlemen Of The Right” cricket matches over the years, 1983 being the second of the three. These have each been written up on Ogblog and also as a single piece about my cricket nom de plume, Ged Ladd, on the King Cricket website:

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

Aficionados of “noms de plume” might enjoy the idea that my 1980s Keele Concourse non de plume, H Ackgrass, is writing a cricket biography of my subsequent nom de plume, Ged Ladd.

My participation in the 1983 match started with a net session on the Monday before the match. How I performed in the nets is lost in the mists of time, but my “thanks for coming” level of involvement in the fixture was probably the result of that net performance. The late, great Toby Bourgein, bless him, was loyal to the extent that he selected me again, given that I played as a last minute substitute in 1982…

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

…but not so loyal as to risk his plans for a Players victory in 1983. Toby’s plans succeeded that year. If you want to read all about it, click here or the block below:

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

Yet there was more to that week for me than cricket, as the diary attests…

…despite the fact that the 1983 Cricket World Cup was coming to its exciting (and probably cricket history transforming) conclusion. I wrote up Wednesday 22 June 1983 a few years ago, the concluding phrase, “tired and pissed off after” still resonating with my older (but perhaps not much wiser) psyche:

The Day England Were Knocked Out Of the Cricket World Cup By India, While I Made A Three-Hundred Mile Round Trip Visit, Probably Against My Will, 22 June 1983

Second Part Of The Week – Movies

There are references to seeing several movies that week, which certainly warrants a mention. Not least because the least famous of them sticks in my mind peculiarly.

Thursday 23 June 1983 …went to see Young Frankenstein and Wild Women Of Wongo.

I probably don’t need to say much about Young Frankenstein, other than the fact that this 1974 film was already deemed a comedy classic by 1983 and I do remember all of us who went that evening finding it uproariously funny. I still remember it fondly.

This 1958 film was a memorable part of the “classics double-bill” experience because it fell into that category of low budget films that amused young people like us because they were “so bad, they were almost good”. By gosh, this film was bad… but we laughed.

Thursday 24 June 1983 …went [The] Secret of NIMH…

Probably chosen by Liza and her art school gang, although I have always been a sucker for animated films and I remember this one being very well animated, although not really my first choice of subject matter. I should try and see it again some time.

Third Part Of the Week – Wendy Robbins Visits & The Keele Festival Week Socialising Is In Full Sway

Wendy Robbins c1979

In fact Wendy Robbins had arrived ahead of us all going to see The Secret Of NIMH so undoubtedly was with the group that went to that movie and then came back to L54.

Wendy was an old friend of mine from Streatham BBYO (youth club) and even earlier. When you are 20, people whom you have hung out with throughout your teens are “old friends”.

As was his wont, my flatmate, Alan Gorman, had fled Keele as soon as his study commitments had concluded, allowing me to invite Wendy and provide her with a room in our flat. I think Hamzah had already gone too. Indeed, Chris Spencer might also have disappeared ahead of festival week that year, so perhaps I and my friends had the entire run of the place.

Whoever else might have been there, the flat for sure became “festival week/end of year central” in my Keele world for that weekend.

Saturday 25 June – Went shopping in morn – Ashley [Fletcher] came over in afternoon – we all went to Candles – P? came over after

Sunday 26 June – Lazy day – late rise. Played cards etc. Ashley ? went to union in eve – I went meet Liza – pissed off ???

I’m not 100% sure what the pissed-offness was about. I know that Liza had taken a job to help pay off her share of rent for Shelton and I know this put strain on her participation in the end of Keele year social activities.

I also recall that Liza didn’t take too kindly to Wendy, for reasons I could and still can only surmise.

The diary for the next week says that Wendy left on the Monday – I took her to Hanley so I guess she came up by coach.

Forty years on, Wendy and I are still in touch, although i haven’t seen her for a while.

Me, Jilly, Simon [Jacobs], Andrea & Wendy in 2017. Janie took the picture so once again she isn’t in it!