Tag: John White

Choosing Beers & Amusements & Other Keele Students’ Union Efforts, Plus A Short Trip To Merseyside, Early-To-Mid August 1984

Photo by Clemensfranz GNU FDL 1.2 and CC 3.0

My sense is that the Students’ Union in August was traditionally a quiet place. However, our committee was shaking several trees, which meant a fair bit of work to do, perhaps beyond the norm.

Having dismissed the bar managers…

When The Keele Students’ Union Bars (aka Tommy And Ralph) Saga Came To A Head, Early August 1984

…we still needed to keep the bars open, albeit a limited service during August. We needed temporary bar management – enter stage left John “Beaky” White (not to be confused with John S White, the sabbatical secretary) and Pete Cumberland from the KRA (postgraduate bar). We also needed to get on with the process of finding new permanent bar managers before the new term.

In any case, I think there was a regular requirement for the new committee to renew or replace extant agreements with beer and amusements companies, which involved an element of due diligence, some of which was, I must admit, quite pleasurable. John White and I were prepared to take the sabbatical lead on those tasks.

Here’s what my diary had to say about that early August period:

Sunday, 5 August 1984 – Went down Sneyd/Joanne’s [Jo Gadian] for lunch – got wrecked and spent most of the day and evening giggling uncontrollably.

Monday, 6 August 1984 – Busy day – still loads of things to sort out etc. Came down bar in eve – met lots of reps etc.

Tuesday, 7 August 1984 -Busy day packed with meetings etc – UC (Union Committee meeting) in afternoon – worked till late. Had meal. Went round finding advertising, union etc.

Wednesday, 8 August 1984 – Fairly busy day in office – went over to Ashley’s {Fletcher] in eve – drank a lot and dossed out there.

Thursday 9 August 1984 -Fairly busy getting stuff done before going away – worked till late – went to disco.

I took some long weekends/”few day breaks” during that summer vacation. During that August period, I went to the Wirral/Merseyside to stay with Bobbie Scully.

Friday, 10 August 1984 – Met senior tutor {Eddie Slade] in morning and then left for Liverpool – had a lazy afternoon and eve. Went to a pub in the eve.

Saturday, 11 August 1984 – Got up late – went into town [Liverpool from Wallasey] in afternoon – returned to town in evening to see play – stayed up late.

Sunday, 12 August 1984 – Late again – went bowling in New Brighton – drank in a pub in Eve – stayed up late watching videos etc.

Monday, 13 August 1984 -Got up late – went to Southport for the afternoon & evening – had meal – very pleasant – late night again.

I guessed that we went to see Alan Bleasdale’s Having A Ball. The Theatr Clwyd production we saw – here is the Theatricalia link – was reviewed thusly in the Liverpool Echo:

Ball EchoBall Echo 26 Apr 1984, Thu Liverpool Echo (Liverpool, Merseyside, England) Newspapers.com

…but that production closed before 13 August, so we must have gone to see that one on one of my earlier visits or when it came to Stoke.

I’m guessing we therefore saw Cavern Of Dreams at the Liverpool Playhouse on that occasion, which picked up this interesting preview in The Post:

Cavern Post KeyCavern Post Key 23 Jul 1984, Mon Daily Post (3 a.m. ed.) (Liverpool, Merseyside, England) Newspapers.com

I don’t think we were wild about that play/production.

Tuesday, 14 August 1984 – Returned to Keele the UC in afternoon. John boy and I did disco in eve – good fun and quite successful.

Wednesday, 15 August 1984 – busyish day in office – got quite a lot done. Spent evening in union and KRA.

Thursday, 16 August 1984 – Quite a busy day in the office – went to Burtonwood piss up with Frank [Dillon] in eve.

Friday, 17 August 1984 – Busyish day in office etc. Went down KRA in evening.

Pady Jalali (Social Secretary) was determined to break a “disco DJ cartel”, which meant that a select group of students were paid to DJ discos. Pady’s view was that the gig was so popular she could auction the spots and get people to pay for the privilege of being DJ. Although she wasn’t going to go that far, she was going to stop paying people and anticipated a “strike”, which we agreed that the committee would “break” by DJ-ing the discos ourselves until enough willing students put their hands up for the gigs.

Hence me and John “doing the disco” for the first time that Tuesday evening. We almost certainly had just a small gathering of Open University students that evening. Good fun probably means that John and I enjoyed it as much or more than the punters. Quite successful must mean that we got the punters dancing.

We got better at DJ-ing as we went along.

There’s more to it than just a couple of knobs and a dance floor… Photo by Tristan Schmurr from Luxembourg, Luxembourg, CC BY 2.0

John & I didn’t have to DJ for long into the term, but, having learnt the art during the summer we put our hands up a few times during the academic year. More on that anon.

When The Keele Students’ Union Bars (aka Tommy And Ralph) Saga Came To A Head, Early August 1984

University Of Keele Students’ Union Bar, Early 1980s, with grateful thanks to Peter Meade, Keele Alum & Photographer – check out his amazing work through this link.

There was a great deal to learn when we started our Keele Union Committee roles, not least our own portfolios (in my case Education & Welfare) but also the general management of the Students’ Union as a business. One issue dominated those early weeks of our tenure in the summer of 1984 – the matter of significant stock losses across the three bars in the union – sums that were turning a potentially profitable (or at least break even) business into a significantly loss-making one.

The subject was well covered in Concourse by Vanessa Kent while I was busy doing my finals:

I recall that we were advised by the Unions’ Permanent Secretary, Tony Derricott, that our predecessor committee had started but not concluded a disciplinary process against the bar managers, Tommy Armour and Ralph Newton. It was, we were advised, imperative that we concluded that process one way or another in a reasonably timely fashion.

I don’t mention the problem directly in my diary until the matter came to a head, but some of my diary notes indicate roughly when things panned out.

I mention a long Union Committee meeting 8 June and use the word “corruption” to describe a central topic. I want to say from the outset that we concluded in the end that management/permanent staff corruption was not involved. The problem, as we identified it, was to a large extent, management’s inability to control part-time student bar staff, some of whom would support their friends’ drinking habits through low charging or no charging.

The sums of money were very significant. We estimated the stock losses to be running at £10,000 to £15,000 per annum at that time – in beer purchasing power terms that’s more like £100,000 to £150,000 per annum in 2024 money.

Each mention of Union Committee in my June and July diaries talks about the meeting being long and/or “dragged on”. It was this topic that dominated the agenda, although there were of course many other items to discuss as well.

At least one or two of those meetings in July were also interim disciplinary hearings. We took the view that our committee needed to examine all the evidence and allow Tommy and Ralph time to explain the substantial stock deficits and their plans for rectifying them. This required us to allow enough time for subsequent stock takes to occur and then be reported back to us.

Measure for measure

Kate and I visited the Union’s solicitor in late July for advice on process, knowing that the matter almost certainly could not fairly be concluded before Kate Fricker was going to be in the USA on holiday.

The upshot was, a meeting on 31 July at which the committee agreed to issue a final warning based on incapacity – i.e. that the managers seemed incapable of explaining the losses and/or producing a plan of action to solve the problem.

We set a deadline and meeting to review any subsequent findings/explanations that the managers might produce, in consultation with their trades union reps, timetabled for 3rd August. We (Union Committee) agreed that I would chair that meeting in Kate’s absence. I recall that Kate was not at all happy about needing to devolve that responsibility, but it was clear from the legal guidance that we needed to progress using that timetable, rather than wait for Kate’s return..

My diary page for the preceding day, the day of the concluding hearing itself and the day after reads as follows:

Thursday 2 August 1984 – Busy day at the office – getting things ready for tomorrow etc. Melissa [Oliveck] came up – cooked her a meal and went down union after and [Melissa] stopped over.

Friday 3 August 1984 – Gruelling day. – UC [Union Committee] meeting went on for over four hours – sacked Ralph and Tommy. Changed locks etc – then went out in evening with Ashley [Fletcher] Frank [Dillon] and Melissa to KRA [Keele Research Association – postgraduate bar].

Saturday 4 August 1984 – Most of the day in the office sorting stuff out – came down union in evening.

I put a great deal of effort into making sure that I was fully prepared for either eventuality – a decision to dismiss or a decision not to dismiss. While we thought it unlikely that Tommy and Ralph might produce explanations and or plans of significantly higher quality than before, I wanted to be ready to announce either possibility with clarity and conviction. I wrote quite detailed notes on “what to say if we dismiss” and “what to say if we do not dismiss”, not least because I was so darned nervous I thought I might freeze without prompts. I wrote those notes slowly in block capitals too, to ensure that I could read my own handwriting, even when feeling nervous.

The fact that I note cooking for Melissa and her “stopping over” at the flat suggests that Pete Wild, the Treasurer, must have been away at that time, as Pete also lived in that flat. But apart from Kate and Pete I think the rest of the committee was there for that gruelling 3 August meeting.

The matter came to a head

I didn’t shirk from my responsibility – looking those employees in the eye – Tommy who had served for 16 years, Ralph for six – telling them that they no longer had jobs and explaining why. I firmly believed and still believe that it was absolutely the right decision for the Students’ Union. But I, along with the other members of the committee, felt a great deal of sympathy with the sacked employees, who, we felt, were victims of circumstance. The scale of the Students’ Union bar business “had got big on them” and they simply were incapable of managing a large three-bar outlet of that scale. Both had started as part-time bar mangers.

I spent a long time in the office the following day, Saturday, not least formally typing up the decision and getting that into the post that day, in order to comply as fully as I knew how with the rule in the staff handbook that letters of dismissal should be sent as soon as possible after a dismissal hearing.

The matter was far from resolved in early August. Tommy and Ralph’s NUPE (National Union of Public Employees, now part of UNISON) rep, Derek Bamford, told us in no uncertain terms that they would be pursuing every possible avenue of appeal, which they did. There will be plenty more about this matter in my Ogblog pages covering the period right up to the end of 1984.

The experience has had a profound effect on my attitude towards employment matters for the decades since. In my management consultancy years, late 1980s until around the turn of the century, I was always hard on colleagues who “played fast and loose” with company reorganisations, especially in circumstances when they would not have to see through their recommendations and were disparaging about clients’ reluctance to dismiss people. “Have you ever looked long-standing employees in the eye and told them that they no longer have jobs?”, I would tend to say, to ensure that such decisions were well thought through, made only when necessary, and delivered sensitively. In my own firm, we have very rarely dismissed a member of staff – I could count the times over the decades on the fingers of one hand – and I consider such rare occurrences primarily to be a fail on our part as employers.

I’d be really interested to hear from other members of that Union Committee on how they remember this aspect of our work together, and how it affected them. Either privately or in a form that I might publish as a postscript here.

What I Did As Keele Education & Welfare Officer In The Summer Holidays Part One: One Or Two Tough Cases, Getting To Know Colleagues, A Short (Unexpectedly Sad) Visit To My Family, Plus, Least Interestingly But Most Importantly, Sorting Out The Filing System, July 1984

The headline image is from Watergate. Keele SU ones looked startlingly similar. Cornellrockey, CC BY-SA 4.0

You want to know more than the headline reveals? Bless you.

Sunday 8 July 1984 – Rose late – Kate came over for lunch (curry) looked into PS&D [Policy Staffing & Development Committee – the main sub-committee of Senate, the latter mostly rubber-stamping recommendations from PS&D] stuff – watched tennis & video. Truda [Smith] came over later – went to union after.

I hope Kate (now Susan) Fricker remembers the magnificence of that curry. In those days, my curry recipe tended to be either mince or chicken, with lots of onion, tomato puree and (luxury item) sultanas. Usually the curry would be based on garam masala or madras spices, with a sauce base of chicken stock. I would sometimes add bhindi (okra) – if I could get hold of them. Patna rice, almost certainly – the budget didn’t stretch to basmati on student grant money. Basic, but tasty.

The tennis on the TV would have been a very short final between John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors. We might also have watched John Lloyd and Wendy Turnbull win the mixed doubles, while preparing for our first major University Committee meeting; PS&D.

I have no recollection of ever having a video machine in the flat – someone must have left it with me for safe-keeping over the summer and I don’t suppose I used it very much.

Kate (Susan) Fricker with Truda Smith in 1985 – thanks Mark Ellicott

Monday, 9 July 1984 – Busyish day – Hayward [Burt] et. al. came to VC’s garden party in early eve – all went back to John’s [White – presumably still in his Barnes flat at that time] and on to union after.

Tuesday, 10 July 1984 – Busy day – meetings [not least that PS&D, presumably] etc – went to union committee afternoon etc. John and Hayward came back for curry ->to Betley boozing.

Wednesday, 11 July 1984 – Busy day at work – worked late – went NSP [North Staffs Poly – presumably to meet their union committee sabbaticals] for lunch. Played tennis with Kate -> McDonald’s – worked late – stayed in bar.

John White recalls us all going out to Betley in someone’s car [Hayward perhaps?] for a booze after dinner. But did we go to the Hand And Trumpet or The Swan Inn? My diary is silent on this and, sadly, John took a sabbatical from diary writing as well as a Union sabbatical that year.

I don’t remember ever playing tennis with Kate, but the diary says that we did, so we did. It almost certainly won’t have been the sort of exhilarating, nail-biting experience I was used to with Alan (Great Yorkshire Pudding) Gorman and I was certainly not yet experienced enough to deploy handicapping to enhance the excitement of a tennis game.

Thursday, 12 July 1984 – Horrid day – [name redacted] theft case took most of the day. Went to Kate’s for dinner – very pleasant evening – late night.

John White remembers that horrid day well, although his angle on it was somewhat different. John heard a kerfuffle by the pigeon-holes and went out to interrupt a ferocious argument between two students, one of whom had caught the other student red-handed stealing his incoming mail from the pigeon-holes. I ended up spending much of the day providing pastoral care, initially to the victim (who was easily placated once the police had been called) and then to both the culprit and the police. Suffice it to say that the culprit’s room was chock-full of evidence that the pigeon-hole incident that had been interrupted was far from a one-off.

I only had a handful of those very difficult and emotionally draining cases during my year – that one was an early baptism of fire.

I didn’t run away to London as a result of that trauma – the week off in Streatham with my family had been planned, although the sad event that occurred while I was with my family was not part of the plan.

We Interrupt This Sabbatical For A Ten Day Break In London

Friday 13 July 1984 – Fairly busy day at office – finished early to travel to London with John – long haul due to strike. Got back late.

Saturday 14 July 1984 – Lazy day – shopped in Streatham – spoke to people – taped etc. Stayed in evening.

Sunday, 15 July 1984 – Lazyish day – went for Indian lunch – went on to visit Grandma Jenny and Uncle Louis. Stayed in evening.

Grandma Jenny, Grandpa Lew & Uncle Louis, late 1930s

Grandma Jenny was my step-grandmother, although you would never have known the “step” element from the amount of care, love and attention I received from her and her (Barst) family. My Grandpa Lew died before I was born. Uncle Louis was Jenny’s brother, my step-great-uncle. Louis was widowed in the early 1980s, soon after which he and Jenny, who were great pals, decided to live out their days together in a flat in Surbiton. Uncle Louis was a really lovely man; I’d be surprised if anyone had a bad word to say about him.

Grandma Jenny, mid 1980s, in the Dolphin Close, Surbiton flat

Monday 16 July 1984 – Lazyish day – Shopped in Streatham etc – met Jimmy {Bateman] for drinks in evening.

Tuesday 17 July 1984 – Went to town late morning – went Annalisa’s [de Mercur] (met her from hospital) [If I recall correctly, Uncle Louis was taken ill and hospitalised just a day or so after our “regular” visit that weekend]. Met Simon [Jacobs] after in afternoon – went home. Stayed in evening.

Wednesday, 18 July 1984 – Lazyish day – did some taping – read etc. – went to Brixton in afternoon – stayed in evening.

Thursday, 19 July 1984 -Heard Uncle Louis died this morning – met Caroline for lunch as arranged, then -> Grandma Jenny for afternoon – met Jilly [Black] for Chinese meal etc. in evening.

Friday, 20 July 1984 – Went to shop with dad – wrote up books – went to funeral – went back with Grandma Jenny afterwards – went home for dinner –> Pam & Michael’s [Harris] in the evening.

Saturday 21 July 1984 -Paul [Deacon] came over in afternoon for a while – had dinner then went over to Andrea’s [Dean] for evening – stayed up late – stopped over [at Bushy House].

Sunday 22 July 1984 – Went back to Streatham quite early – had Italian lunch, then photo sesh, then returned to Keele – went union in evening for drink.

I had been racking my brains to try to work out what “photo sesh” might mean. I wasn’t aware of any pictures of that vintage in mum and dad’s collection. But then, by 1984, dad had become positively reckless in the matter of labelling pictures and/or keeping negatives with prints. A photographer/photographic dealer for pity’s sake. Talk about cobblers’ children.

Anyway, a trawl of the muddle that is the post 1980 photo estate, forty years on, has, unfortunately for the viewer, uncovered this:

I am surely sporting the very finest mid 1980s sportwear that a limited budget could buy in the sales in Streatham High Street back then.

If any readers/viewers have been troubled by this disturbing image, please contact the Ogblog Action Line, where trained trauma counsellors are standing by.

Moving Swiftly On: Back At Keele Sorting Out The Students’ Union – Last Week Of July 1984

Monday 23 July 1984 – Busy day in office – getting backlog of work done – etc. Work till fairly late and went for a drink after work.

Tuesday 24 July 1984 – Busy day today – working on filing system, etc. Annalisa came up – cooked her a meal etc.

Wednesday 25 July 1984 – Very busy day – worked till very late – Annalisa stayed and helped – Kate worked late too.

Annalisa was a great help as well as a very good friend, not only in those early days of the sabbatical but throughout my sabbatical year

Thursday, 26 July 1984 – Still busy with stuff. Annalisa finished her bit and left. Frank [Dillon] and Kate came over for dinner and much booze.

Friday, 27 July 1984 – Extremely busy day today – sorting stuff out for tomorrow etc. Shopped. Worked till late. Stayed up till very late.

Saturday 28 July 1984 – Union committee meeting this morning – dragged on – stayed in office tied up etc – union evening – disco.

That will have been the first time that John White and I DJ’d the Keele SU disco. It was far from the last time. I don’t suppose our efforts were masterful that first time, but they won’t have been bad and there would have been a fair smattering of Motown/Northern Soul involved. More on that topic anon.

Sunday 29 July 1984 – Spent most of the day cooking and lazing around – John, Pady [Jalali] and Kate came over dinner.

Monday, 30 July 1984 – Very rushed today – lots of customers – stayed in office till late and finished files.

Tuesday, 31 July 1984 – Busy day out – Civic offices and union solicitors in the morning. Union committee in afternoon – went Union in evening.

“Went Union in evening” sounds like a busman’s holiday for those of us working there, but we didn’t get out much (other than the Union) that year.

The mention of the visit to solicitors foreshadows the “elephant in the room” from these July diaries, unmentioned but soon to come to a head: the massive problems we inherited from our predecessors regarding the management of, and stock losses from, the several Union bars. The next episode will explain.

Festivities, Results, “Graduation” & Equality At Keele, Late June To Early July 1984

With thanks to Jean-Marc Alter for permission to use this picture of the Economics Department graduating from our year. I’m hiding towards the back.

As someone who had completed his finals and was also a new sabbatical, this period was quite a strange one. We wanted to hit the ground running as an incoming Union Committee, but those of us who had just completed our finals (me, John White and Pady Jalali) also had some celebrating to do with our fellow finalists.

Here’s the transcription from my diary for the last week of June 1984

Sunday, 24 June 1984 – Lazy day – Rose etc. Went to International Fair – had Chinese takeaway after – came back to mine.

The International Fair made Page 5 of the Evening Sentinel, whereas my Chinese takeaway did not:

Sentinel International FairSentinel International Fair 25 Jun 1984, Mon Evening Sentinel (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England) Newspapers.com

Monday 25 June 1984 – Busyish day with meetings etc. Went to town in eve – went to Ritzys [?] do for a while. Went back to B’s.

As always, my writing is hard to read in places. I don’t remember a place named Ritzys – but equally I couldn’t swear that my scribble is that word. Feel free to judge for yourselves.

Postscript: Julia Taylor writes in to confirm that “Ritzy’s was a nightclub. North part of Newcastle town.” Thanks Julia.

Tuesday 26 June 1984 – Busy morning – played political cricket afternoon – good fun. Went to town for McDonalds – stayed in at Bobbies – came back to mine.

I wrote up the “Political Cricket” match some while ago – click here or below for that article:

O Captain! My Captain! – Gentlemen Of The Right v Players Of The Left – Keele Festival Week Cricket Match, 26 June 1984

Wednesday 27 June 1984 – tense morning waiting for results – 2:1 – had quite a lot to drink. Went to Plesch’s – Bobbie’s after – stayed.

Thursday, 28 June 1984 – busyish day work – Politics do lunch. Went to Law finals party early eve – watched film – union ball – did duty – went home late.

I made no notes about that year’s ball. I’d love to be reminded by someone who played that ball etc. Pady – do you remember?

Postscript: Summer Ball 28 June 1984

Who needs memory when your Newspapers.com subscription now includes the Evening Sentinel Archive? We saw Bad Manners (for a second time, I think, in my case), New Sweet (playing old Sweet songs) and The Shillelagh Sisters. I remember especially liking the latter. Their Wikipedia entry tells us: “The group was founded in early 1983 in a men’s restroom at a party.” Say no more.

Sentinel Ball line up 28 June 1984Sentinel Ball line up 28 June 1984 19 Jun 1984, Tue Evening Sentinel (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England) Newspapers.com

Friday 29 June 1984 Rose early – meetings most of day – very tiring. Got Chinese takeaway – went to Liz party – came back here after.

Saturday 30 June 1984 Rose late – lazyish day – Annalisa [de Mercur] came over – went to town for tea – went to graduand’s dinner after – stay in (after union business bar closure) – B stayed.

Sunday 1 July 1984 – Lazyish day – rose quite late. Did little all day (popped into office, laundered etc). Went for Indian meal in eve – came back to mine.

Monday 2 July 1984 – Busy day for meetings – Senate in morning – Union Committee/finance in afternoon. Lazy evening at Bobbie’s – drank some – came back to my place.

That would have been my first Senate meeting. I have some specific memories about goings-on at Senate, which I shall enjoy sharing in the coming months, but I have no specific recollections from that first meeting.

Tuesday3 July 1984 – Graduation day – I {slepflated??} early afternoon – easy time – went down to lawns for tea – Bobby’s mum etc – went for dinner – Bobby opted to stay – packed!

I cannot fathom the word or two after the word “I” on Graduation Day. John White has had a go at studying a magnified printout of the diary page with no joy. Some amongst the hive mind of cryptographer-readers out there might be able to decipher it.

To my subsequent slight regret, I decided some months before graduating that I would graduate in absentia, choosing not to “bow and scrape” to Princess Margaret at a ceremonial function which i felt had little or no meaning to me. My regret, in hindsight, is that I denied my parents the opportunity to attend such a thing. I had told them that it would be a long and boring ceremony in which I would play a minuscule part. That much was probably true.

I also missed out on the hoity-toitying opportunity afforded to sabbaticals on such occasions. Fortunately John White took up that offer and has written up his experience of graduation day for you, making my absence less important in the matter of historical record:

John White Guest Piece: Graduation Day With Princess Margaret & Viscount Tonypandy, 3 July 1984

If I recall correctly, it was the invitation to that pre-graduation event that got me into some deep water with the press. In my defence, I don’t think I was well-advised by the unions’ permanent secretary. When I asked how I should decline such an invitation, Tony Derricott shrugged and suggested that I simply state that I was otherwise engaged. I realise now that I should have bigged-up the excuse for missing out on a Royal invitation. “An unavoidable family commitment” or some such.

Someone in Princess Margaret’s office must have found my note uppity and tipped off Nigel Dempster at The Daily Mail. Being dumped on by “Dumpster” was a badge of honour in many respects. All the more so, on this occasion, because Dumpster got every material fact about me and the situation wrong, apart from my name and the fact that I didn’t attend. The Daily Mail even printed my rebuttal letter a short while later, which added a little to the badge of honour…or possibly detracted from it.

“One was a little disappointed not to meet the infamous Mr Harris…”

Let us move on.

Wednesday 4 July 1984 – Busyish day – Bobby left – worked till quite late – got McDonalds and went to union after.

Thursday 5 July 1984 – Hard work today to do – sorting stuff out et cetera. Worked till quite late – cooked John [White] curry – went down union after.

Friday, 6 July 1984 Busy day at the office – work till quite late – went to McDonalds with Kate – went to union after.

Saturday 7 July 1984 – Lazyish day – went to CRE [Commission For Racial Equality] meetings in afternoon – watched tennis – met CLC/CRE [Community Relations Commission/Commission For Racial Equality] people again after -> Union for drinks.

I now remember that Saturday rather well…

…yes, I know, John, I couldn’t recall what CRE stood for when I met you, only five days before publishing this piece…it all flooded back into my head when I started to write this up.

The tennis will have been the Wimbledon Ladies Final – Martina Navratilova v Chris Evert Lloyd (as the latter was then known):

The Commission for Racial Equality conference at Keele was right up my street, as I had just graduated in Law, including a good paper for Professor Don Thompson’s Civil Liberties module. Don was also Acting Vice Chancellor at that time and asked me to help host the visiting CRE.

I remember in particular meeting Herman Ouseley at that event and having a long chat with him during one of the more social opportunities during or after the conference. He was a most engaging and interesting person…probably still is.

I believe I also met the trades union leader Bill Morris for the first time at that conference. I’m not sure whether Kate and/or John joined us for some of the social activities around that conference. Perhaps one or both will remember.

Subsequently Lord Ouseley – picture by Chris McAndrew, CC BY 3.0.

I realise with hindsight how privileged we were, as sabbaticals, to meet and socialise with such folk at Keele. At the time, as a 21-year-old, it just seemed to come as part of the deal.

John White Guest Piece: Graduation Day With Princess Margaret & Viscount Tonypandy, 3 July 1984

John White mid-1980s – with thanks to Mark Ellicott for the picture

While I chose to graduate in absentia and write something indecipherable in my diary about that day (more on that anon), John White, without the aid of diary postings, recalls that day well and has written a cracker of a guest piece about it.

Many thanks, John.

THE DAY WE WENT TO HANLEY

It was graduation day 1984. As the newly elected Keele Student’s Union Secretary, I and President, Kate Fricker, found ourselves in the unexpected position of joining Keele’s Chancellor, Princess Margaret, and other University luminaries for lunch before that year’s Graduation Ceremony.

Uncomfortably dressed up, Kate and I were stuck on the end of a long line to be introduced to the Queen’s sister as the least important of the guests on display. She slowly made her way down the obsequious line of bowers, scrappers and curtseyers until she eventually arrived at the end where we were introduced. As a republican I was a tad nervous the security service would be on my case for any signs of protest. I did not plan to make any and frankly just felt I had to do what I had to do – and in any case I would get some free alcohol and some nice nosh.

After the “what did you study?” conversation, there was a pause as no-one seemed to know what would happen next. This presented Kate and I with a few extra seconds of air time with royalty, much to the chagrin of the people back up the line, who were clearly bothered about the shorter amount time they got with Keele’s very own Royal. I distinctly remember jealous heads leaning forward and eyes staring at the two uppity and undeserving students who were only there because they had to be. It made me smile and I can’t remember at all what was said. Sadly The Crown did not capture this moment so, unless Kate can remember, I think the no-doubt-erudite-and-witty [verbal] jousting with Princess M will have to remain lost to history.

Lunch was good. Lamb I think and a few glasses of vino. I was smoking then and extremely miffed that a waiter kept offering the Princess a fag from a nice looking box but never looked like flashing the ash to the rest of us. I kept my own Bensons [other brands of cigarette were and still are available…but not recommended – ed.] safe for later – maybe she would fancy one if I got the chance to offer, I mused. Well there was no chance as she got whisked away as soon as lunch was over for a chauffeur driven ride to the Victoria Hall in Hanley, Stoke, where the degree ceremony took place.

“By George!” George Thomas c1955, aka Viscount Tonypandy by the time John White met him.

Kate was not graduating that year so went back to the Union whilst I was placed in a coach with the other lunch guests to be taken to Hanley. I got to sit with George Thomas, Lord (Viscount) Tonypandy who had been a well-liked and respected speaker of the House of Commons up until the June 1983 election when Mrs Thatch won a landslide after the Falklands War. He took genuine interest in me, was not in the least bit patronising and spoke eloquently about the value of democracy and the privilege of being elected, congratulating me on my recent election. I felt like I had just made it to the House of Commons. His kindness has stuck with me.

The rest of the ceremony was mundane. All the students were lined up and marched across the stage to bow with varying degrees of enthusiasm to Princess Margaret and we got handed a certificate if I remember correctly by someone else before shuffling off the other side of the stage.

Photo from 1983 ceremony by Caroline Sene (Caroline Shannon) “borrowed” from the Keele Oral History Project site, with thanks.

I met mum and dad afterwards and we drove to a lay-by on a country road near Madeley to consume a bottle of champagne before they dropped me back at Keele and went home. There were a bunch of people drinking in the Union that night but I guess with all the mums and dads around and the sense that this really was the end of student life it wasn’t at all raucous, unlike results day.

Ah yes, results day. I’ll cover that and my own indecipherable graduation day activities in my next instalment.

Many thanks once again to John White for this lovely guest memory piece.

What The Paper Said Forty Years Ago: Concourse Articles On & By The New Union Committee, June 1984

Kate Fricker

I kept copies of Concourse from the tail end of my Keele career – I have most if not all from 1984 and the first half of 1985.

I’m glad I have copies of these papers, as they are very helpful memory joggers for that Students’ Union heavy period of my Keele time.

I shall be peppering Ogblog with extracts from Concourse as well as my diaries as I write up this period.

Concourse Writing On The New Sabbaticals, June 1984

The following two page spread from the June 1984 issue of Concourse was a preview piece about the four sabbaticals who had just taken office for 1984/85:

  • Kate (formerly and latterly known as Susan) Fricker – President;
  • John S White – Secretary;
  • Pady Jalali – Social Secretary;
  • Me – Education & Welfare.

Re-reading that material after all these years, I think Ralph Parker gave us a warm-hearted preview and a fair amount of leeway for our “honeymoon period”.

There was an element of editorial line involved, I sense. The previous committee had been much criticised for being disorganised and self-serving. Seeking extra pay at the end of their tenure didn’t help their cause with either the media or the Keele masses. Hence there was a prevailing view that the new lot couldn’t be worse and needed some space to grapple with the issues…

…writing this in July 2024, it reminds of the mood regarding the change of government in the UK!

Further, the Concourse line was somewhat celebratory about the new committee containing so many Concourse folk past and present: both John White and Ali Dabbs were on the Editorial Board when elected and I was well-known to have been a Concourse writer for several years…as well as, unbeknown to them, undercover gossip columnist H. Ackgrass.

Concourse Writing By The New Committee, June 1984

Quentin Rubens – granting us space

Putting aside my June 1984 H Ackgrass column, which I shall publish separately, here are the three articles that Concourse Editor Quentin Rubens generously granted to his old pals in that issue. Would he have given me a full half page had he known that I was also H Ackgrass? Would he have even spoken to me?

First up, a page containing John White’s report on a campus fire incident and Ali Dabbs’s investigative reporting (which it seems had been ongoing for some months) about that perennially important student issue: bar licence extensions:

My piece was more in keeping with the notion of guest space for committee members with something to say to the students. Mine was about the grant cuts and academic staffing.

O Captain! My Captain! – Gentlemen Of The Right v Players Of The Left – Keele Festival Week Cricket Match, 26 June 1984

Toby Bourgein. Picture “liberated” from the 1980/81 Keele Prospectus

I am sadly motivated to write up this story having learnt, a few days ago (September 2020), that Toby Bourgein has died. Toby captained the Players cricket team in all three of the festival matches I played. I had been intending to write up this glorious 1984 match for a couple of years, since I wrote up the tale of my surprise appearance in the 1982 match..

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

…and the 1983 match…

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

For those not motivated to click the above link, I was a late selection for the 1982 match (for reasons that, alone, make the 1982 link worth clicking). I did not bowl and I did not bat in that historic victory, but I did, more by luck than judgement, take a stunning catch.

It won’t have looked this good, I wouldn’t have been so suitably attired, but it was a diving (in my case left-handed) catch. This picture from school five years earlier. I was better at taking pictures than at playing cricket. Still am.

Toby Borgein had a long memory and a good heart. I ran into him a week or two before the 1984 match and he told me he wanted me to play again and have a proper go this time.

We have a solid opening batsman, Ian Herd, this year. I’d like you to open the batting with him.

Ian was on Somerset CCC’s youth books – i.e. he was way above “our” scratchy festival knock-about cricket pay grade. But I didn’t know that until later.

Several of my friends came along to watch this time around, not least because I knew more than 30 minutes before the start of the match that I’d be playing. Anyway, there were worse places on earth to spend a glorious summer afternoon than the Keele Festival Week Beer Tent.

With thanks to Frank Dillon, this picture of an earlier “Players” team, probably 1981

We (The Players) fielded first. I neither distinguished myself nor embarrassed myself in the field – unlike 1982, during which my fielding had met triumph and disaster; naturally treating both of those imposters just the same.

I was mostly fielding in the long grass where I was able to nurse my pint of ale and seemingly play cricket at the same time. Who says men cannot multi-task?

Keele University Playing Field

The Gentlemen scored a little over 100 in their innings. A respectable but hopefully not insurmountable score for that fixture, based on previous experiences.

Then to bat. Sadly I have no pictures from the 1982, 1983 nor the 1984 event – if any are subsequently uncovered/scanned I shall add them. Here is the earliest photo of me going in to bat I can find; from 1998:

If you imagine Barnes Hall to the right of me and the tennis courts, beer tents etc. to the left, this could almost be the Keele playing fields. Almost, I said.

I still hadn’t picked up a cricket bat since school, unless you count the 1983 net and subsequent nought not out without facing a ball. But I was quite fit that summer, having played tennis regularly before (more or less during) and after my finals.

Anyway, Ian Herd could bat. We rattled along. I helped to see the shine off the new ball. I suspect that Ian made a greater contribution towards seeing off the shine by knocking the ball to all parts, but we’ll let that aspect pass.

The crowd was probably more heavily weighted towards Players’ supporters than Gentlemen’s supporters, but in any case by the second half of the match vocal chords were more lubricated.

In what seemed like next to no time, there was a cry from the crowd…

50-up

…allowing me and Ian a joyous moment of handshaking celebration in the middle.

“I think I’d better ‘hit out or get out’ to give some of the others a go this year”, I said.

“Good idea”, said t’other Ian

It didn’t take long (one ball) for me to loft one up in the air and get caught.

More tumultuous applause as I came off, with the score on 53/1.

“Fifty partnership – great stuff”, said Toby, ever the encouraging captain

I remember Bobbie Scully and Ashley Fletcher both being there. and both expressing joy in my performance and surprise that I could play. I’m pretty sure that several of my fellow Union Committee members, not least John White, Kate Fricker and Pady Jalali were around too.

Remember, folks, that everyone was quite well oiled by then and no-one was REALLY watching…

…apart from the scorer.

The scorer was Doreen Steele’s son. Doreen was the Students’ Union accountant and the NUPE shop steward for the union staff. Her son clearly aspired to similar careers.

“How many of the 53 did I score?”, I asked.

“Three”, said the lad.

“Are you sure it wasn’t four?” I asked, having counted to four in my head.

“You’re probably including a leg bye…”

“…I hit that ball onto my pad, actually…”

“…the umpire signalled leg bye. It was a leg bye…

…you scored three.”

You can’t argue with that schoolboy logic.

Nor can you argue with the fact that I had been part of a fifty partnership in a cricket match.

Nor can you argue with the fact that Toby Bourgein had pulled off a captaincy masterstroke…or at least a warm, generous gesture that meant a lot to me.

But did The Players win the match, I hear you cry? You bet your sweet pint of Marston’s Pedigree we won.

This story has subsequently been further immortalised on the King Cricket website:

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

Toby Bourgein will be better remembered at Keele for many other things, not least his student activism. The one other picture I have of him, below, is from a protest we attended together in 1982. But I remember Toby especially fondly for these silly cricket matches, for which he was, O Captain! My Captain!

Toby bottom left, looking suitably senior and serious about fighting the cuts.
Me towards the right, in trope-inducing donkey jacket, holding diagonal corner of the campus model

Strolling Bones, John White’s Election & My “Photo Sesh” At Keele, Late February & Early March 1984

John White nearly 40 years later

In truth, the first week of this two-week write up is not the most exciting week I spent at Keele. But for the record:

Here’s a translation of that week’s scrawl:

Sunday, 19 February 1984

Rose, quite late – ate – took Jilly to Stoke – returned – Malc [Malcolm Cornelius] came over in eve – went union

Monday, 20 February 1984

Busyish day – UGM etc. to prepare. UGM went quite badly at first – went back to B’s [Bobbie Scully’s] after.

Tuesday, 21 February 1984

Busyish day – did some work etc – went shopping. Cooked K 41 meal in eve. Popped over to B’s in eve.

Wednesday 22 February 1984

Not bad day – worked on Constitution etc – did some work also. B came over quite late – stayed.

Thursday, 23 February 1984

Not bad day – in union – distributed AP [Alternative Prospectus?] quite a bit – did little work. Came back. Went over B’s for awhile.

Friday, 24 February 1984

Busyish day – got lots of odd ends done (??). Went to see Strolling Bones in eve – B came back here.

Saturday, 25 February 1924

Easyish day – went shopping. Didn’t work – went over to Bobbie’s in eve – stayed

I’m struggling to remember who the K41 crowd were. I think possibly Andrea Collins (now Woodhouse) and her gang. Or possibly Viv Robinson’s mob.

Malcolm Cornelius recently commented, when matters of revising the constitution came up on a facebook posting:

I remember spending hours with you going thru line by line and rewriting it into plain(er) English. Pretty advanced for the time. I also still recalling moving procedural motions 38b2 and the like !

That comment of Malcolm’s might qualify as the geekiest comment ever on the Forever Keele Facebook Group 🙂

Regarding the Strolling Bones, or perhaps I should more accurately say Mick Swagger & the Strolling Bones, in truth I didn’t remember having seen them until I found that diary entry. But the description of them – in particular Mick Swagger’s gyrating, brought it back to me.

Image borrowed from Fairways Entertainments Tribute Act Site

An extraordinary thing about this act, I suppose, is that part of the conceit of that tribute act playing the student circuit back then was that the Rolling Stones had been going for nearly 22 years – i.e. since before I (and almost all of us) at Keele at that time had been born. Who would have guessed that, 40 years after that, The Rolling Stones would still be going?

Weird.

But not as memorable to me as The Bootleg Beatles had been in December 1980:

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

Sunday, 26 February 1984

Lazyish day – Malcolm came over – wrote essay early eve – went over Malcs -> Bobbie’s for eve.

Monday, 27 February 1984

Busyish day – rotten cold – busy round union etc. Constitutional Committee in eve etc – Bobbie stayed.

Tuesday 28 February 1984

Fairly busy day – did some work etc – popped over to Bobbie’s for a while in eve.

Wednesday, 29 February 1984

Busyish – shopping – working – etc. Popped over to B’s, briefly, in eve.

Thursday, 1 March 1984

Busyish day working etc. Did quite a lot of things. With J-Soc in eve – worked after – B came over late.

Friday, March 1984

Busyish day – election today – and EAP [election appeals] committee – went over to Bobbie’s for while after.

Saturday, 3 March 1984

Shopped etc today – easyish day – photo session in afternoon etc – went to Hanley for Chinese with B– went back there after.

At some point around that time – I think probably on that Sunday in late February, Bobbie and Malcolm turned the tables on me and persuaded me that I should run for Education & Welfare Officer. My plan had been for Bobbie to fulfil that role – she’d have been bloody good at it and was certainly popular enough to get elected – but she had no intention of sticking around at Keele for another year.

I remember at one point hedging, by saying that i would only do it if the right people got elected in that week’s elections. That meant John White as Secretary and Pete Wild as Treasurer.

“I won” says John – photo thanks to Mark Ellicott

“So did I” says Pete – photo also thanks to Mark Ellicott

That election on the Friday confirmed their election and I had run out of road with the Malcolms and Bobbies of this world.

I’m pretty sure it was Annalisa De Mercur who did the “photo sesh”. The Hanley Chinese with Bobbie will have been the same one we went to before Christmas with Malcolm and Ruth. No-one remembers the name but Malcolm recalls:

That Chinese was for the time pretty good, I remember red flock wallpaper and the first time I ever had fresh lychees was there.  No idea what its name was!

Next time I’ll share with you the results of the photo sesh and other ephemera from that era. I’ll also explain why my campaign was nearly nipped in the bud by an attack of the Germans. Watch this space.

Robert Plant’s Secret Gig, Room 14, University of Keele Students Union (UKSU), 11 March 1981

Katie Turner, Rick Cowdery, Robert Plant, Frank Dillon & Carol Downs, with many thanks to Frank Dillon for the photograph (added June 2017) – also thanks to Steve A Jones for restoration work on the e-pic (October 2018)

In many ways this is a darned simple story.

Robert Plant secretly arranged to play a warm up gig with his new band, The Honeydrippers, at the UKSU Ball on 11 March 1981. The gig was in one of the smaller performance rooms, Room 14, despite the fact that Robert Plant was the former lead singer and lyricist of Led Zeppelin, among the biggest names in rock then and indeed ever.

I was at that ball. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time when one of Robert Plant’s roadies was getting some drinks in just before the start of the gig.

I politely let the roadie go ahead of me at the bar; he returned the favour by tipping me off to get upstairs to Room 14 before word spread. I remember partly doubting the roadie’s word, but he did have a roadie lanyard and he also surreptitiously showed me a Robert Plant badge, so I thought, “if this is a practical joke, it’s a clever one and I don’t mind falling for it”.

I am extremely lucky to have seen that gig; Room 14 is small, so I don’t suppose more than 100-150 of us saw the gig. Even that will have blown the fire limit; once word spread most people who tried simply couldn’t get through the door. Far more people claim to have seen the gig than actually saw it.

The gig became a big news story at the time.

With thanks to Steve A Jones for sending me this image…several times, increasing the quality each time. This version hopefully good enough quality for most/all Ogblog readers.

The intriguing, complicating factor is that, back in 2013, I stumbled across a reference to this gig on-line and discovered that on-line sources, of the “rock history” variety, were all quoting the wrong date for this gig. Some 10 March, some 9 March, none 11 March.

My diary was not always a totally reliable source of dates back then – heck, whole days could disappear at Keele and sometimes I would “back-write” a few weeks if I got behind.

But this was at a ball and balls normally happened on Wednesdays. In any case, there was enough going on in my diary that week to suggest that I was…on the ball at that time (pun intended).

I posted some corrective comments on-line which triggered contact from the relevant Led Zep archivists. They were appropriately helpful but sceptical at first. They wanted additional evidence, so I sought the help of John White (who for some reason I recalled was at that gig, although I didn’t know him all that well back then).

John sent me a redacted copy of his diary page – John specialised in existential angst in his diary back then apparently – but I must say this is one of the most heavily redacted diary pages I have ever seen:

Many thanks to John White for his efforts digging out this page and redacting…almost all of it. We do learn from that note that Dr Feelgood was the main act at that ball. We also learn that John, back then, preferred the cabaret to Feelgood and Plant.

Our diary trawling efforts, together with the redoubled efforts of those real archivists once they had some more leads to go on, got to the bottom of the matter. There was a private, secret gig in a pub in Stourbridge on 9 March, but the secret gig that blew the story open was indeed at Keele two days later, So the Robert Plant Secret Keele Gig is now “officially” confirmed to have happened when it did happen; 11 March 1981. Some on-line sources might not yet have caught up with this news.

In short, as a result of our efforts, the date sources for this gig now go up to 11 – click here only if you don’t get this joke or cannot resist seeing this Spinal Tap clip for the eleventh time.

Prior to our temporal triumph, I also tried to engage the help of Daniel Rushton, a Keele alum who had worked at Z/Yen for a while but had recently returned to alma mater. Dan drew a blank, but subsequently said:

extremely happy to hear that this has all been cleared up and that a slight weight has been removed from my weak shoulders. Now I can go back to imagining having been there!

One further intriguing matter from an Ogblog perspective. In my correspondence with the Led Zep archivists back in 2013 I wrote the following:

I might write this business up for the Keele Alumni mag – some of the stuff in my diary has reminded me of some ripping yarns from that end of term week, not least that Robert Plant gig.  I envisage a sort-of pseudo blog/diary – what would I have written back then if blogs and Twitter had existed?  If/when I do write it up, I’ll let you all know.
This small matter might have planted (pun intended) the thought seed for the entire Ogblog project. Reading that 2013 e-mail again has certainly tweaked my interest in that week of my 1981 diary…there must be quite a bit of other juicy stuff in there.
Watch this space.

“No Law, Molly Badcock’s Instead” & Responding To Concourse’s Shout Out, 6 November 1980

Frankly, writing up my early days at Keele University forty years on, I was baffled when I read, in my diary for that day:

No law, Molly Badcock’s instead.

To be honest, my diary is not especially helpful for that November/early December period of my life. It’s pretty clear from the scrawl and my own graffiti, that I was writing up several weeks later, in some manner of inebriated state.

It crossed my mind that “Molly Badcock’s instead” sounds like a euphemism, somewhat along the lines of “Ugandan discussions” in Private Eye.

But in truth I couldn’t remember who Molly Badcock was, so I tried Googling her. I am sorry to report that, at least initially, this only made matters worse, as Google did that, “surely you mean Lolly Badcock” thing, allowing me to discover that Lolly Badcock is a porn actress; Molly’s less appetising twin, perhaps.

Clicking (or rather, mostly not clicking) very carefully indeed by this stage, I tried Molly Badcock Keele as a search term and found Molly Badcock’s diaries on the Merchant Taylors’ Alumni Network site – Item 30. There I learnt that Molly was a cultured girl, who became a biologist, teaching ecological science at Keele.

Ah, yes. Now I remember.

Although Molly Badcock didn’t teach me at Keele, I was allocated to her for “pastoral care”, I believe as something known as a “resident tutor”. She lived in an academic’s house or apartment in Lindsay Hall, near to my humble fresher diggings in F block (long gone; possibly her place has also gone).

I think Molly had set up a series of “pop around for tea and a chat” slots for her fresher charges. I believe I met (amongst others) a lovely lass named Mary Keevil that day; another of the people who became a chatting & nodding acquaintance for many years. I certainly didn’t hike the Appalachian trail or discuss Uganda with Mary. I do remember running into her in London mid to late 1980s by which time she was working for SportsAid. I also have a funny feeling I first met Rob Whitehead there that day; we subsequently became work colleagues at BDO Consulting.

My visit to Molly Badcock’s that day might have been my only resident tutor encounter that year, although I have a vague memory of returning at the end of my first year for another informal session at Molly Badcock’s.

Fascinating to learn that Molly, like me, kept diaries as a school kid. But look how neat and tidy Molly’s were compared with mine. She was 12 in 1934 (roughly the same age as I started) and 15 in 1937.

Photos above borrowed from and linked to that Merchant Taylors’ Alumni site – item 30. I do wonder what “massage” might have been; the MT archivist’s theory is unconvincing.

Postscript To My Molly Badcock story: Karen Walsh reports on the KUSU Facebook Group that:

I was a biology student so had molly as a lecturer – and escort for a field trip to aberystwyth where she patrolled the corridors to ensure there was no “mixing” 😂😂”

Enough said.

Concourse Needed Me

Although it is not mentioned in my diary, I recall that I (along with Simon Jacobs) responded to the above shout out in the October 1980 issue of Concourse, the students’ union newspaper.

There I met, for the first time, John White. I recall that John was sitting on a bar table looking rather sinister with a football scarf around his neck (Tottenham Hotspurs for some reason; he has been relentlessly Leyton Orient for decades) and Doc Martin boots.

I now realise that John was somewhat shy or at least introverted back in those very early Keele days. The problem was, his look fitted the exact stereotype I had been warned about; racist (or at least very right wing) students who seek to disrupt student life, often by getting involved in student politics and student journalism. I so clearly remember thinking, “be careful of him”.

I now know, of course, that John is a gentle fellow; we worked tremendously well together in student politics and have been firm friends ever since. Actually it didn’t take long for my “John stereotype” to collapse in a heap, as John had been quick off the mark to sign up for the Labour Club and for Concourse – he was already credited although not bylined in the October edition that contained the shout-out:

In fact none of us new arrivals got bylines until the January 1981 edition, apart from David Perrins, who coincidentally was Simon Jacobs’s next door neighbour in Barnes, who was so quick off the mark he had become the “Arts Correspondent” on arrival, presumably by dint of dressing in a dandified fashion and talking in an Oscar-Wilde-stylee…

David Perrins – the first of our batch to get a big column (as it were) – October 1980

…or perhaps because no-one else put their hand up to review the drama.

Anyway, I must have made a huge impression when we were asked if we had any previous experience of journalism by admitting that I had edited the national magazine for BBYO – an organ with a circulation in the hundreds or low thousands, much the scale of Concourse – albeit a much simpler style of publication – Gestetner printed rather than “proper” letterpress printing.

But I could type fast with two fingers (still can) and was credited in the next issue which came out in early December…

…by which time John White had dropped off the chart, although just for one issue…and Simon Jacobs hadn’t yet got a mention. Like me and John, Simon got his first byline in January 1981. But that part of my past is still in the future, as far as my Ogblog write-ups are concerned.

Meanwhile, returning to 6 November 1980, the other thing I remember doing that evening (although the diary is silent on this point) is queing up for ages to get a turn on one of the handful of payphones and calling home to speak with my parents. It was a hugely onerous, time-consuming and expensive routine, which lives long in the memory of those of us who had to put ourselves through all of that just to make a phone call. A phone call is now so cheap, so casual, so simple…

…anyway, the reason I know that I subjected myself to that routine on that evening is because 6 November 1980 was my parents’ silver wedding anniversary and I couldn’t let an occasion like that pass without a phone call.

Mum & Dad, 6 November 1955