Tag: Dave Lee

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

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

Between finishing my holiday job in late September…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CelebHeights.com, CC BY-SA 4.0

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

But no.

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

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

I think “The Lloydmobile” was something like this

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The “Film Star Makes President” Edition Of Concourse, 9 March 1981

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the “Film Star Makes President” edition of Concourse, I have republished the whole paper in the form of high-quality scans in a Flickr album – click here or the embedded image at the bottom of this page.

Dave Lee edited this edition and I provided him with a great deal of help, including a near-fatal lock-in for the deadline.

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

Dave had generously given me a great deal of editorial control over the political pages, so the front page and the next two pages were very much mine, content-wise.

Presentation-wise, I think it was entirely down to Dave that we went for an audaciously eye-catching front page – big headline, big photo and election results table only. This was not the regular Concourse way but I think it did help us sell.

I was very proud of the headline; a nod to Ronald Reagan’s recent election and the fact that Mark Thomas headed up the Film Society.

I realise also on re-reading the paper that I interviewed almost all of the protagonists from that early part of the election season: Mark Thomas, Frank Dillon, Anna Summerskill, Ric Cowdery, Steve Townsley, Vince Beasley, Jon Rees…

…I already knew some of them reasonably well and got to know most of them a lot better as the next year or three went on.

Other highlights include:

  • Dave Lee editorially eating his own liver over the previous editors’ resignation scandal and the Katy Turner column faux pas, on Page 4 and then again at length on Page 13;
  • Jon Gorvett & David Perrins fret-piece about fire risk, following a Dublin disco fire, on Page 7;
  • Some Concourse memorabilia on Page 11, looking back 10 years (which now is 50 years), including a snippet about Neil Baldwin from 1971;
  • A couple of damning album reviews, one by me and one by Simon Jacobs, which I have previously Ogblogged about – here, or see it in printed form on Page 14;
  • A couple of damning gig reviews on Page 17, including the Krokus one by Simon Jacobs which I have Ogblogged about here and the Rob Blow & Di Ball one from deadline night;
  • I rather like Phil Avery’s hockey team review on the back page, not least because I had to read the entire thing to the end to work out which sport he was reporting. If only his weather forecasts were so suspenseful.

If you want to browse/read the whole thing, simply click the link below and you will find all the pages in high quality digital form, easy to read/navigate on most devices and for sure downloadable.

March 1981 Concourse P1L

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 have already written about the star-crossed relationship between SU President Katy Turner & Concourse editors Paula & Hugh, which came to a head in early February 1981…

Keele Concourse Controversy, A Weekend Back In London, Plus Several More Late-Nighters, 1 to 10 February 1981

The upshot of all that was the resignation of Paula & Hugh, the interim appointment of Dave Lee to edit the March edition (hot on the heels of the ill-fated February one), the rapid appointment of Owen Gavin and Gerry Guinan to take over the editorship immediately after the March edition, to alternative applicant Dave Lee’s chagrin …

Dave Lee, trying not to look displeased

…you might well be thinking to yourself, “none of this commentary bodes well for the harmonious and timely production of that March issue”.

What Does the Diary Say?

Never wanting to be seen as a rat who leaves a sinking ship, I offered Dave Lee my whole-hearted support to produce that March issue and/but found myself as part of a core team of two on the production side. To his credit, Dave steeled himself to the time-sensitive task with great determination.

Many other contributors of course; Simon Jacobs, Gerard O’Kane, Julia Parkes, Moira Neish, David Perrins, Jon Gorvett, Diana Ball, Robert Blow, David Bakhurst, Dexter…

David Perrins indicating that someone was out?

…but not a great deal of company in the Concourse office itself. To be fair on the others, it was a ridiculous post-shenanigans deadline, towards the end of term. I could just about get away with it as a Foundation Year student, but for most that level of commitment at that time of year was impractical.

Saturday 28 February – got up very late – went into Newcastle – ate & Concoursed

Sunday 1 March – late start – Concourse office most of the day and evening

Monday 2 March – OK day – busy with Concourse in evening

Tuesday 3 March – Not bad day – in Concourse office in evening.

Wednesday 4 March – Tough day working on Concourse. Nine Below Zero Concert…

I wrote a lot of copy – I was the political editor and there had been a whole swathe of union elections during February to report. I also did one heck of a lot of typing of my own and other people’s articles. My spectacularly fast four-finger technique was without question the best typing skill on offer…well, probably it was all that was on offer.

Yes, I remember matters becoming increasingly fraught as the days went on. Financially, missing the print deadline would mean ruination.

The set pages needed to go to the printers on the designated day, otherwise the printers would charge for the print run regardless but there would be no paper to sell.

Steve “Spike” Humphrey, a lovely, gentle chap whom I got to know quite well in other walks of Keele life afterwards, was the business manager of Concourse. Spike took pains to remind me and Dave that the print deadline really was just that; an immoveable deadline.

I’m not sure if this is William Randolph Hearst or Spike Humphrey in later life.

On that evening of 4 March, I’m pretty sure Dave & I were already well aware, even as we took a break to see the Nine Below Zero concert, that to get the pages ready for the printers the next morning, we’d be working much of the night to get the job done.

Nine Below Zero, Thirty After Three…

As for the Nine Below Zero gig, I’m sure Dave Lee’s forthcoming (due Summer 2021) book, The Keele Gigs – click this link for more details, will have more to say about that. They looked and sounded like this:

The other point to make about that gig, the very night of our deadline, was that Dave had commissioned and was determined to use, a review of the gig from Di Ball and Rob Blow.

That deadline upon deadline resulted in a little whimper of a hidden plea from me to Dave Lee at the end of that (quite lengthy) piece, when the copy finally arrived and when I finally got it ready for setting:

I apologise unequivocally, forty years on, to Dave, Di and Rob, none of whom were ever guilty of producing rotten articles. I must have been tired and emotional in the early hours of the morning, so, unforgivably, I mis-spoke.

I think Di & Rob kept us company for some time late that evening, as they completed their copy while Dave & I busied ourselves typing and setting other stuff.

But it was just me and Dave who remained once the porters (two from Ted, Walter & Wally no doubt) told us that they had to lock up and we agreed to being locked in.

With thanks to Mark Ellicott for this picture of Walter & Wally

Locked In…

In those days there were no CCTV cameras or anything like that. Yet I have somehow managed to uncover a couple of photos that seem to be pictures of me and Dave at work during that night.

I’d never done any page-setting before, so I think that’s a tentative me
Yup, I’m fairly sure that’s Dave Lee putting the finishing touches on a page

I’ll guess that my 3:30 am plea in that article was accurate but also that it marked the near conclusion of our work. I think we had set everything else by then and simply needed to slot in the material from that night’s concert to be done. In fact, I suspect that my joke paragraph was in part a device to use up the space we had estimated for that article.

So I’ll guess that we were done around 4:00 or 4:30 am.

I’ll guess we expected the union to be opened up around 7:00 am.

I recall that we both had a little bit of silver in our pockets and chose to decompress after our labours using the amusements available.

We might have played table football…

…but I have a feeling that Dave was more a pinball person…

…or perhaps my extensive experience playing table football with Simon Jacobs most evenings put me in a different league for table football…

…or perhaps we quickly landed on the notion that table football is a game where you try to use up your goes as quickly as possible, whereas pinball is a game in which you rejoice in your opponents success – especially if it yields free balls and free games so you can continue to play.

I was an enthusiastic pinball player in those days. here is one of the games we might have played – for sure UKSU had this one at that time:

Once we had blown all the silver in our pockets, I think we both felt the onset of fatigue and so we decided to retire to the quiet room at the end of the union extension to grab forty winks before the sun would go up and the union would re-open.

…Then Nearly Knocked Out!

I think we both woke up to the same sound – that of shouting.

“All right you scallywags, where are you? I know you’re in here!”

Words to that effect.

We dozily wandered out of the quiet room, to see Pat Lyons, the building manager, hurtling along the extension passageway towards us.

It’s possibly a false memory, but I remember him wielding something a bit like the above implement.

My life flashed before my eyes. I imagined a Cluedo-like synopsis of our demise: “Mr Lyons, in the Union Extension, with the pipe wrench”.

Dave and I had but a few seconds to advocate for our very survival. Fortunately, as skilled communicators, used to summarising key facts into few words for journalistic purposes, we somehow managed to convince Pat Lyons during that short period of time that we had been deliberately locked in to produce Concourse.

Again my doubtlessly false memory has Pat upon us, about to wield a killer blow just a fraction of a second before our story rang true to him and he disarmed.

“You scared the bloody living daylights out of me,” said Pat

Words to that effect.

The feeling was entirely mutual.

Still, in the end no harm was done and in fact I think we produced a pretty darn good edition of Concourse, all things considered.

We put the paper to bed (unlike ourselves) in the early hours of 5 March and it returned from the printers for sale on Monday 9 March 1981.

In the spirit of this “forty years on” Ogblog journal, I intend to publish scans of those Concourse pages on 9 March 2021. Watch this space…

The “Film Star Makes President” Edition Of Concourse, 9 March 1981

…ah, there it is. Click the above link – or here.

Keele Concourse Controversy, A Weekend Back In London, Plus Several More Late-Nighters, 1 to 10 February 1981

Concourse, Classes, Council & Concert

Oh dear!

Now I admit that I did much of the typing for that early February 1981 edition of Concourse. I was deemed to be a bit of a whizz with two fingers on the old keyboard. Still am, though I say so myself.

But I did not get involved with laying out the paper in preparation for the printers for that edition. That was, in theory, more experienced work. That was often the editors’ role. It was certainly the editors’ role to check that all the pages were well set.

Something went awry and I’m not sure that my writing about the controversy now will extract the true story.

One rumour had it that the skewiffy setting of Katy Turner’s Presidential Column was a deliberate snub to her by the editors, Hugh Peart and Paula Higginson. One rumour had it that it was an honest mistake by someone setting the paper in a mad rush to get the proofs to the printers.

It was always a mad rush to get the proofs to the printers.

Dave Lee might be able to shed some light on the cause.

Anyway, my diary suggested that I was busy on Concourse from 31 January to 3 February with little else to report. My FY Programme suggests I went to a few lectures & classes that week, but still I deemed such days “easy”. Easy meant “no essay deadlines and no exams” in my mind back then.

On Wednesday 4th February my evening comprised:

Local Authority meeting in eve. Au Pairs live – not too good.

I cannot imagine why I went to a Local Authority meeting other than a recommendation from Richard Kimber to do so as part of my Politics sessional. I don’t remember a thing about it, but I suspect that some Councillors would say the same thing about their entire career on the Council.

I’ll leave the review of the Au Pairs concert to Dave Lee in his forthcoming (due Summer 2021) book The Keele Gigs – click this link for more details.

I did become reconciled with The Au Pairs and grew to like their album Playing with a Different Sex. The following track, which is on that album,  shows what they looked and sounded like:

Rumour had it that a couple of The Au Pairs had been students at Keele. I’m not sure whether I can get that “fact” confirmed or denied. I can confirm that lead singer Lesley Woods went on to become a practicing barrister.

After my classes on the Friday I went to my parents’ house for the weekend; my only such visit that term.

A Weekend In London 6 to 8 February

Friday 6 February – arrived about 7:00 – ate, phoned – turned in earlyish

Saturday 7 February – easy day, taping etc. Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] came over for supper ->town for coffee and cakes.

Sunday 8 February – easy day – lunch locally with Grandma[Anne] – got back to Keele about 8:00 – had a few drinks

The diary entries are intriguing. I mention that I phoned. These days no youngster would consider phoning to be “a thing”, but it was time consuming to queue up for the payphones at Keele and expensive. So it was “a thing” to me that I could spend some time that weekend calling people.

I shall write a separate piece on the chart music I taped on that Saturday. I’m pretty sure I also taped some of my albums and such to increase my mini collection of cassettes up at Keele.

I don’t remember Caroline coming to the house for supper but I know for sure that my mum would have felt that she owed Caroline and her family many, many meals for all the hospitality I’d had from them when doing my BBYO stuff in the year or so prior to Keele, mostly in North-West London, with Caroline’s mum Jacquie providing warm and wonderful hospitality of the edible kind regularly.

I don’t know why I recall the trip up town with Caroline for coffee and cake (and a chance to chat), but I have a strong memory of a place near or possibly even in Whiteleys. From the late 80’s onwards, I didn’t think of that Bayswater/Notting Hill Gate neighbourhood as “town”, I think of it as “home”.

Lunch locally with Grandma Anne was probably at Il Carretto in Streatham.

Skewiffy-Column-Gate

On the Monday, 9 February, the concourse controversy kicked off proper. The diary reads:

Not bad day. Concourse came out. UGM in eve – spoke about Concourse etc. Went back to Mark’s [Bartholomew] for coffee – stayed chatting all night…

In many ways I think the controversy passed us by at the time.

I had seen my first piece in print, as had Jon Gorvett [his New Block At Lindsay piece which I showed in December 1980 I now discover was actually from this February 1981 edition] and as had Simon Jacobs – a lengthy review of Trust by Elvis Costello:

Trust by Elvis Costello, Concourse, Simon Jacobs’s Review, 9 February 1981

So we Concourse “cub reporters” were simply thrilled to see our pieces and credits in print. Also, the very fact that Concourse was the centre of attention at that evening’s UGM only added to the sensation that the University of Keele Students’ Union’s fourth estate, in the form of Concourse, was terribly important.

In the aftermath of that day, the controversy about the Concourse skewiffyness was quite fierce; the result was that both of the editors resigned. I don’t think that happened publicly on the night (otherwise I’d have written about it differently in the diary). That hoo-ha and multiple resignation incident had momentous and amusing consequences for me (and for interim editor Dave Lee) a few weeks later – watch this space.

Coffee Afterwards…Or Did I Mean “Coffee”?

I don’t think I went back to Mark Bartholomew’s place for all-night coffee and political chat on many occasions, so I suspect this might have been the day (night) that I met Neil Infield, who became a good friend, to some extent during the Keele years, to a greater extent after Keele. More on that anon.

Anyway, the location of that gathering was, if I remember correctly, L Block Lindsay.

I did not use the word “coffee” as a euphemism for other stimulants or relaxants. I used a little “//” marking in my diary for those. So on this occasion, I am pretty sure that the phrase “coffee and chatting all night” was literal and descriptive. If we were lucky the coffee would have been freeze-dried granules of the Nescafe variety. If we were less lucky, it would have been cheap powdery stuff with a generic supermarket label that had an insipid, bitter taste that vaguely resembled coffee.

Simon Jacobs reminded me (February 2021) that Mark Bartholomew, at that time, held himself out to be of the Polish nobility or something of that kind. The more inebriated he became, according to Simon, the more elaborate those Polish royalty stories became…see what I mean?

I remember Mark berating me for being unable to pronounce Łódź properly. I can do that now. Sounds more like “Woodge”. Never forgot it.

Sound file of Łódź from Wikipedia Commons, with thanks.

I’m not sure whether either Simon Jacobs or Jon Gorvett were part of that particular all-nighter – they’ll doubtless deny all knowledge of the occasion anyway, whether they were there or not.

10 February -> brekky -> 9.00 -> bed -> got up for dinner -> union for drinks

I love that little diary note – I can see from my FY Programme markings that I went to Stephen Banfield’s 9.00 lecture on Romantic Music but then went to my bed rather than attend Roger Marsh‘s 20th Century Music lecture.

Glad to see that my untimely slumber enabled me to revive in time for dinner and some drinks in the Union. Priorities.

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


AVRO, CC BY-SA 3.0 NL, via Wikimedia Commons

I didn’t hang around long after getting to Keele and enjoying my first few days.

Getting In To & Starting At Keele University, 8 October 1980

I was still on the National Executive of BBYO and spent my first weekend in Glasgow. Travelling to and from Glasgow from Keele for the weekend is not a brilliant idea but according to the diary I got back to Keele early enough on the Sunday evening to show up at the Union bar. Yes, really that is what the Sunday entry (below) says.

Monday 13 October – First lectures – OK. Went to Union in evening. Quiet day.

Tuesday 14 October – Lectures OK, Politics OK. Went to drama workshop in eve – good.

I was doing the Foundation Year (FY). In those days most Keele undergraduates did four year courses, starting with FY. It is was a wonderful course which helped me to learn how to learn and also enabled me to decide what to study for my degree. Politics was one of my two sessional courses (the other was History).

Simon Jacobs did a three year degree without FY. Simon and I threw ourselves into the drama workshop in our first term.

Simon Jacobs throwing himself into something, 1979

The brains behind that drama workshop group was Brian Rawlins, whose picture and cv nearly 40 years later can be found through this web link…

…or, if anything ever goes awry with the above Wirral Festival link, click here for a scrape thereof.

Several of us who had enjoyed doing drama at school wanted to do a bit of performance stuff without getting involved in the formalities of the drama society and full scale productions. This group proved to be just the ticket for us. We were very lucky to be led by someone of Brian Rawlins’s quality for such a group. That story ends with this piece of street theatre…

Street Theatre, Princess Margaret and The Ball Debacle, Keele, 10 December 1980

…but I’m getting way ahead of myself there.

Wednesday 15 October 1980 – dull lectures today. (??) Pleasent [sic] afternoon. Went to J-Soc & Freshers Ball till very very late.

Didn’t take long for the novelty of foundation year lectures to wear off, did it?

Our Freshers Ball was supposed to be headlined by Gary Glitter, but apparently he fell ill, so Alvin Stardust was wheeled out at the last minute as a replacement. This event was long before Gary Glitter’s infamy as a child sex offender, of course. Indeed Glitter did show up at one of the balls I attended some time later in my Keele journey. Unlike Glitter, there was nothing edgy about Alvin Stardust, neither in performance nor, as far as we know, in real life.

There are two Concourse pieces about the Freshers Ball. The first one a damning news piece with no byline…

…the second a rather more upbeat music review by Dave Lee. Do you know who wrote the first piece, Dave? If so, do tell.

Dave Lee talks highly of Glass Torpedoes. I certainly recall enjoying the warm up act more than the Alvin gig. Embedded below is the Glass Torpedoes Peel Session from earlier that year:

Dave Lee also talks up the Tour de Force gig in Room 14 upstairs, which I also vaguely recall enjoying more than Alvin. I have managed to find some interesting material on the former, including a rare recording on the following embedded vid.

Thursday 16 October 1980 – V tired today. Law v good. Got some letters written, received some letters as well. Went to bar with Simon in evening.

Law was a four week topic with Michael Whincup. We needed to do several such topics during FY. So inspired by that law topic was I, that ended up switching to study law (along with economics) as my degree the following three years.

Going to the bar with Simon in those early weeks/months of Keele not only included beer drinking but invariably a few games of table football. I have no pictures of me playing table football with Simon, sadly, but more than a quarter of a century later, when visiting Jinka in the South Omo Region of Ethiopia, I learnt that I hadn’t mis-spent that aspect of my youth at all; I was able to call on the skills acquired in those all-too-frequent games in the Keele Students’ Union to great effect:

Friday 17 October 1980 – Not bad lectures today. Disco in eve, bad.

Saturday 18 October 1980 – Easy day. Went to disco in eve, good.

How was I assessing the discos in those days? I doubt if I was doing the “disco aficionado” thing at that stage. Admittedly, I had experienced an Ian Levine special at Mecca in Blackpool by then…and a few good ones in London no doubt. But my guess is that “bad” and “good” would have been determined by the extent to which I had managed to perk up any interest among the female freshers who were still in the market by the Friday and Saturday of that week.

Not that I had really worked out what to do about it when I got a bit lucky. As much as anything else, I was committed to traipsing up and down the country for the rest of that term still. I do recall getting friendly that week with a pretty girl with a turned up nose from the North-East named Jo. Her father was a vicar and she was even more shy with that sort of stuff than I was. We didn’t get far. I think we went back to her place for a cup of coffee and had…coffee. But we remained smiling, nodding acquaintances for several years at Keele. Bless. That pleasing non-event might well have been after the “good” disco.