Tag: Grange Farm Centre

BBYO Convention 1980/81 Recovered Memories, Skits and Songs

I asked the hive mind of the BBYO alums from back then to help try to recover some memories of the BBYO convention 40 years ago:

BBYO Convention 1980/81, Grange Farm Centre, 29 December 1980 to 3 January 1981

Oh boy did some of you deliver! Many thanks for all the contributions.

Several of those contributions referred to skits and songs. This one from Jilly Black, for example:

…this is the one where I remember Jonny Rose doing lots of guitar playing and also acting as a sort of security guard (taking us out to check in the fields one evening with a torch, saying “check in the corners”!) throughout. I also remember there being an awful lot of women who were in love with and falling over Simon Jacobs. That happened quite a bit anyway, but specially at this convention, and I’m also wondering if it’s the one where Pinner did it’s unforgettable welfare-based skit, with Alan Tucker playing the part of our unforgettable Mrs Kushin, re-enacting one of the visits we made, where I think she’d accused someone of breaking a window with a stone from her lawn mower (amazing, what you remember).

Simon Jacobs being “oh so cool” with the girls (18 months or so earlier)

Unusually, Simon chimed in with a stunning memory from that convention. I had chided that Simon, “usually pleads amnesia on stuff that far back, unless Elvis Costello was involved”…

…but I didn’t count on Dave Edmunds. Here’s Simon’s recollection:

…hark, there is one crystal clear memory from 80/81 and it absolutely involves Jilly because it was a duet. Of Jilly and me. I don’t remember the context or how the words were altered, but, because I really loved the song, I managed to force a version of ‘Baby Ride Easy’ into the proceedings. Jilly and I became Carlene Carter and Dave Edmunds respectively. I remember being on a stage with Jilly belting this out and loving it.

Jilly doing country (Keele as it happens) three or four years later

If anyone is struggling to visualise Simon and Jilly singing that song, the following video of the original by Dave Edmunds and Carlene Carter might help you. I must say, on seeing the vid, the Simon and Jilly performance came racing back into my brain:

You can visualise Simon Jacobs & Jilly Black…can’t you?

The other thing that came racing back to my brain was the Streatham effort at a skit that year. I can’t remember the details of it, but something had gone wrong and we were bereft of a performable script. I remember sitting up till all hours with Wendy Robbins hurriedly throwing together a script.

Skittish Streatham on a previous occasion. I’m the goon in the green leotard.

Wendy and I had a couple of things on our minds to use. Firstly, the US Presidential election had just happened. Reagan had been elected. Also, we both had seen the recent Hal Ashby film, Being There, with Peter Sellers as a sort-of innocent savant who is mistaken for a wise man and inadvertently becomes an advisor to the President of the USA. Worth seeing if you missed it at the time; a sort of enduring classic. But I digress.

Anyway, we wrote a skit with a convoluted plot about Wendy being a sort-of innocent savant BBYO chapter president who inadvertently, while applying to the USA for some sort of club presidency, finds herself running for the Presidency of the USA…and winning.

It was ludicrously complex, not really suited to a thrown together, unrehearsed skit. Yet somehow, with Wendy’s bravura performance in the lead, the skit passed some sort of “so bad it’s good” benchmark and it all went down rather well.

Wendy in a charitable role, Nightingale, c18 months earlier

Anyway, these happy memories might help to trigger similar ones from others who enjoy looking at this stuff.

So two questions for “advanced students”:

  • Does anyone else have skit an/or song memories from that convention to share?
  • Did anyone take photographs that year? I don’t think I’ve seen a single photo from the 80/81 convention. It would be super to share pictures if there are any.

BBYO Convention 1980/81, Grange Farm Centre, 29 December 1980 to 3 January 1981

Help!

I have almost no memory of my last BBYO convention.

Clearly I spent a lot of time at Hillel House between my return from Keele University (13 December) and the start of convention helping to plan/prepare the thing.

I think I might have made some separate notes at the time, but if I did they have been lost with the other memorabilia from that era that my mother threw out at one time, because she “didn’t think anyone would want to keep all of those old jottings and such rubbish.” I’m still not over it.

The diary says I stayed at Howard’s the night before convention. I’m trying to remember which Howard that must have been. I’m sure I thanked you and your parents at the time, Howard, but thanks again.

Update: Jack Gilbert chipped in to suggest that this was probably Howard Wiseman, as I knew him well from events passim. A skim through my old, ragged address book suggests that it almost certainly would have been Howard Wiseman. Thanks Jack.

I think I sort-of acted as returning officer for the elections that year, as I do recall feeling that I had experience of such matters when I got involved with election appeals and such at Keele a few years later.

I know that we elected Lewis Sykes as President.

I know I was awarded life membership at that convention. I probably cried upon receipt.

The diary says that I went to Portsmouth with Jenny (must be Jenny Council) after convention and stayed at Barry Laden’s place. In truth I don’t really remember that specific visit although I do remember visiting Portsmouth several times. I’m sure I thanked you and your parents at the time, Barry, but thanks again.

But beyond the thin gruel in my diary, most of it is just a blur.

So this time, I am shouting out the the BBAK (BBYO alte kackes) community for help. Please chime in with your memories, however slight. They might trigger some of mine – my memory is quite good at being triggered these days.

For those who find that music helps trigger memories, here is a playlist (we called them mix tapes back then) that I made up at the time. It’s helped me with Keele stuff more than with this convention, to be honest, but it might help you.

Mix Tape Recorded Just After My First Term At Keele, c28 December 1980

So once again, my plea. Help! Please chime in with memories of that convention. Once those are gathered, I might be able to write a better piece than this.