Hackgrass – Ian Louis Harris

After The Hackgrass Reveal…Later That Same Day…A Strange Sort of Committee Meeting, 10 June 1985

Hackgrass Reveal in Pub Circ, Keele, 10 June 1985

On top of my Hackgrass reveal antics on our last morning in office, it seems we held some sort of bogus committee meeting later in the afternoon. More a symposium than a mere meeting, by the looks of it.

It looks as though I completed the minutes that December, ahead of our January 1986 appearance at the UGM I shouldn’t wonder, so I’ll publish the typed version at that date. The hand-written version that follows must have been part-written on the day and then concluded later.

Looks as though my Daily Mail rebuttal might have been around the same time.

Experts at handwriting analysis forensics might be able to work out exactly what went on. John White – I suggest you might choose not to apply for this role, if your attempt at the Hackgrass cypher is anything to go by.

Hackgrass Reveal in Pub Circ, Keele, 10 June 1985

When signing out Hackgrass from Concourse in February 1985, I left my name hidden in a not very complex code of initials in the final sentence of that piece.Hackgrass Signs Out, Concourse The Juicy Bits, February 1985 Part Two

Hackgrass Signs Out, Concourse The Juicy Bits, February 1985 Part Two

Most of my fellow committee members didn’t know that I was Hackgrass. Indeed the only person on the committee who did know was Pete Wild, as the only people still at Keele who did know my identity were my remaining former Barnes L54 flatmates (hence Pete), Petra Wilson and Annalisa de Mercur.

For the last day of our office as sabbaticals, I wrote a final Hackgrass one-pager and revealed myself to the lovely Pat Borsky in the print room. (As Hackgrass, I mean; please retain some decorum and concentrate, dear reader). Pat agreed to print the one-pager as a publicity circular (pub. circ.) special and the rest is history.

The one-pager caused more than a bit of a stir that day in students’ union circles. I thought best to lie low in my office.

Soon enough, John White plonked himself in my office with pub. circ. and a copy of the February Concourse, saying that he wanted to break the code.

I said that I didn’t much care who Hackgrass was and that I wanted to finish off some work, as I was still very busy.

John laboured with the puzzle for some time in my office, concocting some highly convoluted theories such as:

a=1…z=26, reverse the number series and rework the letters

Once I got irritated enough, I suggested to John that whoever Hackgrass was, he or she probably wasn’t that sophisticated a cipher-wright, so John might be better off trying something really simple like the initial letters of the words in the sentence.

About 10 seconds later, I received an unrepeatable (indeed forgettable) stream of invective from John. I have forgiven him for the invective and I believe he has forgiven me for keeping my identity as Hackgrass a secret during our sabbatical year.

Post script – John White has left an extensive comment on the above few paragraphs, but for reasons known only to himself (perhaps cognitive dissonance between a need to vent his spleen in public while simultaneously hoping no-one will find and read the venting) has posted the comment on a different posting – click here to read both posting and comment.

In all the excitement, I don’t seem to have kept a copy of the printed pub. circ. itself, but I do have the original text, a scan of which follows.

Obiter Dicta, Concourse Juicy Bits, February 1985 Part Five

The Concourse team seemingly wanted its own gossip column to replace the now marginal/retiring Hackgrass, so came up with this Obiter Dicta column. Not sure who was behind it, but I’d guess that Krista Cowman (new editor) had a hand in it herself, possibly Quentin Rubens (the outgoing editor).

Something tells me that Ali Dabbs was involved. Partly the style, partly the strangely positive reference to his physique.

Obiter Dicta is a pale imitation of Hackgrass in my humble opinion. But whoever he/she/they was/were, I suppose the Obiter Dicta column might be described as the metaphorical Blücher or Goschen that Hackgrass forgot.

Hackgrass Signs Out, Concourse The Juicy Bits, February 1985 Part Two

It soon dawned on me that it was both impractical and inappropriate to be H. Ackgrass while a sabbatical on the Union Committee. But I kept it going through that first term and I think even wrote one more column early in the second term, which was brutally butchered by the editor. I probably have both the original and butchered versions to post in the fullness of time.

Anyway, I decided enough was enough in the second term and wrote a short farewell piece, although I did set up a pay-off piece for the end of the summer term with a hidden puzzle at the end of the attached column.

Hackgrass Reveal in Pub Circ, Keele, 10 June 1985

But the column below was the last time my Hackgrass words were published in Concourse.

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

I told the story of H Ackgrass’s birth and first column (February 1984) in a piece linked here and below:

Keele Gossip Columnist H Ackgrass is born, Concourse, February 1984

For completists, here and below is a link to my article containing the second, ruthlessly pruned, Hackgrass column.

H Ackgrass Column From Concourse March 1984

This current piece shows H Ackgrass’s third column, which was published in May 1984. Somewhat irritatingly, I have the carbon copy of this one, which was more or less reproduced in full, but not the second, pruned one. I set out my grievance in excruciating detail at the start of this third column. Quentin chose to publish the grievance in full.

Here it is, firstly in its published form, from Page 11 of Concourse May 1984, then in its unexpurgated (not that it was much expurgated) carbon copy form.

If by any chance some readers want to know what Steve Cleary had to say in complaint about my second column, here is a copy of the letter as published in the same edition of Concourse:

Amongst my Keele papers I also have the original of Steve Cleary’s letter to Concourse. I cannot fathom how that came into my possession. Either Steve placed a copy in the “Ha” pigeon hole for Hackgrass to pick up or possibly genial Uncle Quentin gave it to me as a souvenir once I outed myself as Hackgrass in the summer of 1985. Steve might know…and Steve might, by now, have forgiven me.

H Ackgrass Column From Concourse March 1984

I told the story of H Ackgrass’s “birth” and initial column in the article linked here and below:

Keele Gossip Columnist H Ackgrass is born, Concourse, February 1984

The extract from Concourse that follows contains the second published column. Unfortunately, I either failed to keep or mislaid my carbon copy of the submission. That second column was cruelly edited, as my whinge in the third column (May 1984) attests.

Unless I find the carbon copy misplaced amongst other papers (vaguely possible but unlikely 40+ years hence) we shall never know the detail of the scurrilous scribbles that were edited out, nor shall we discover which good jokes were cruelly pinched and inserted into other people’s articles in that March 1984 edition of Concourse. Naughty Uncle Quentin (Quentin Reubens, then editor of Concourse).

Anyway, here is the column that did get published on Page Seven of the March 1984 Concourse.

Keele Gossip Columnist H Ackgrass is born, Concourse, February 1984

1983/84 was my finals year. I was Chair of Constitutional Committee that year (somewhat press-ganged into running I might add), so I was strangely on the inside of the students’ union politics without really being part of its core.

I thought it would be fun to have an anonymous gossip column, so came up with the idea of H Ackgrass, or “Hackgrass”. Many myths about that column spread in the years following about the column’s antiquity, but I know I made the name up myself. There had been others, such as Molesworth, in earlier years, but this name was new, as was the somewhat visceral nature of the humour. I know the name was subsequently re-used by others. I am flattered.

I knew the Concourse (and Union Committee) lot would want to know who H Ackgrass was and I thought I’d be a prime suspect. Thus I was rather harsh on myself, in this first column and subsequently, in order to try and divert attention. This approach pretty much worked.

I had a spare old portable typewriter, so battered about that I didn’t really use it any more; it was very obvious in its idiosyncratic type, so I thought that using it would add to the mystery and might put people off my scent, as long as I kept the offending machine hidden. Indeed, I know at least one Concourse person sneaked into my flat at one time to check out my (regular) typewriter, only to conclude that Hackgrass couldn’t be me.

Quentin Rubens, the Concourse editor at the time, hardly edited anything out of that first piece. I thought he would tone it down a lot; there were certainly a couple of edgy lines I expected would go. Surprisingly, Quentin did edit out one descriptive phrase I made about myself, “arch lefty”. I don’t know whether that reflected his feelings about my politics or his own sense of what is an insulting term. In later pieces, he got the redline pen out a lot more. Deservedly so in several cases.

Anyway, here is the very first column, both in published form and then its original submission form. My submission copies are clearly photocopies but I know they were originally carbons. I must have made photocopies just before I left Keele and disposed of the carbons.

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