Tag: Keele University Students’ Union

Many A Slip (On An Icy Keele Campus) Between Jazz & Lip: Ronnie Scott & Friends At Keele, 16 January 1982

Image from Wikipedia with same “fair use” rationale.

The especially cold and icy weather, which had plagued Keele before Christmas, persisted into the early days of the 1982 Spring Term.

Early that term, I recall taking a tumble on the slope that led to the Chancellor’s Building from the Lindsay Hall end, while rushing to get to a lecture or tutorial on time.

A little dazed, I soon realised that someone had hoicked me up and I was being stared at by none other than “ABC” Dick Hemsley, asking me if I was alright. “Yes, I’m fine”, I said, embarrassed to have found myself in such a vulnerable circumstance with one of the better-known right-wing villains of the campus. “No”, said Dick firmly, studying my reactions carefully, “I think you might have bumped your head. Really, are you OK?” Thankfully I hadn’t banged my head and most of the bruises were to my “left ego”. That incident stuck in my mind, because it made me realise that Dick, despite our opposing political views, when it came to the crunch, was instinctively concerned about my welfare.

I sense from my diaries that I was a bit irritable/tetchy after the historic, publicity-attracting protests outside the UGC offices on 6 January:

Protest Outside the UGC Offices Against Grant Cuts, University of Keele, 6 January 1982

Possibly term seemed like an anti-climax; possibly the weather got to me – I have never much liked icy-cold weather and this was a proper cold spell.

The diaries – which are shown at the bottom of this piece but upon which I shall not expand this time – suggest a relatively dull phase – at least in my mind…

…until the Ronnie Scott & Friends Jazz Night on 16 January, which was a hugely memorable event in all sorts of ways.

Ronnie Scott co-founded the legendary Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in the late 1950’s. It was already an institution by the early 1980s and we were truly blessed that Ronnie liked visiting student venues and especially liked the vibe in the University of Keele Students’ Union Ballroom. I saw him perform there several times while at Keele – this was the first of those times.

Dave Lee’s excellent book The Keele Gigs! has a fine account of this gig.

The following clip, from some time in the early 1980s, is pretty close to what the ensemble looked and sounded like at Keele that night:

For those who know little about Ronnie Scott/Ronnie Scott’s and would like to know more, the following hour-long Omnibus film from 1989 is quite comprehensive and almost of that time:

There is am even more comprehensive 2020 documentary movie, which I have seen and can confirm is a very interesting watch, which you can find out about on IMDb here.

My memories of this particular January 1982 evening at Keele are a strange mixture of clear and blurry. The diary entry only tells a small part of the story:

…went to Jazz Night in the evening. ** got pissed during and after!!

This suggests that only alcohol was imbibed at our table, although in my mind there was also whacky backy involved. Perhaps that was because Ronnie kept saying, “I must stop smoking this stuff” whenever he muffed his jokes/lines, which he did with charming frequency.

We sat at tables in the style of a jazz club like Ronnie Scott’s and I remember it all seeming very grown up and sophisticated at the outset. I think we drank wine and cocktails rather than beer at our table, which is probably why we got pissed unusually quickly.

I was at a table with, I am pretty sure (in reducing order of sureness): Miriam Morgan, Heather Jones, Ashley Fletcher, Helen Ross and one or two others. One person who was certainly at our table was a rather exotic-looking (to me) gay female with whom, for reasons I cannot with hindsight fathom, I started to dance. I’ll guess it was initially her idea, because dancing isn’t something I can imagine myself ever having spontaneously initiated.

Mercifully, this Jazz Night was long before the age of smart phones, pocket video cameras, TikTok and the like, so there are no moving pictures of our “performance” – indeed not even any stills to my knowledge.

It probably looked a little like the following clip at first, except that John Travolta is a very capable dancer trying to look awkward, whereas…

We danced in an increasingly frisky manner as time went on, until a pivotal moment when I suddenly felt drenched. Someone from a nearby “Tory Boy” table tipped a jug of water over us with the entreaty, “you two need to cool down”.

I’m not sure who did the tipping; it might have been Mark Ellicott (who still sat at Tory Boy tables back then) or it might even have been ABC Dick. Whoever it was, the gesture was done without menace and with a witticism thrown in, such that we and everyone at the tables around us found the joke funny, so we joined in the laughter and redoubled our frisky efforts.

Strangely, I ran this story by Simon Jacobs and Jon Gorvett just the other evening – forty years on. Both of them confirmed that they were not there on this evening.

Yet Simon, who usually claims not to be able to remember anything about our Keele days, immediately identified the young woman in question as “Nicola from Crewe and Alsager College”, which of course was the right answer. Respect, Simon, respect.

Nicola ended up going out with Miriam, which I think brought the Miriam and Heather era to a close, although I might be muddling the sequencing and/or duration of that episode. Others might well be able to put the record straight.

My diary states clearly that we all carried on drinking after the Ronnie Scott Jazz Night had concluded, but the frisky dancing with Nicola was definitely merely a “moment in time” thing during the jazz night.

Postscript – Remembering Nicola

Within minutes of me posting this piece, Ashley Fletcher commented on FB, reminding me that, a couple of years later, he shared a place in Newcastle with Miriam & Nicola, who became and were still very much an item after that January 1982 time.

Ashley also recalls that, ironically, Nicola looked like an androgynous new romantic performer named Ronny – indeed she did – click this link or the picture below to see pictures and even a vid of exotic-looking Ronny.

Borrowed from and linked to Lord Bassington-Bassington

The Rest Of the Diary

Diary pages for the week or so leading up to Ronnie’s below. For the completists. There’s a prize if anyone can work out who or what I went to see on Tuesday 12th!

Postscript – Remembering Nastassja

Following an entreaty from Kay Scorah that she wouldn’t sleep until the 12 January diary entry mystery was solved, I gave the matter some deeper thought. Then I looked at the Rosetta Stone for a while. Then I concluded that the pathetically scrawled four-letter word, which I had thought all along was probably the title of a film, given that Tuesday evening was film night…

…must have been “Tess”. No really.

The 1979 Roman Polanski marathon version of Tess of the d’Urbervilles.

My teenage hormonal head would have been full of Nastassja Kinski for a few days…until Nicola came along. Sorry Nastassja.

You can sleep now, Kay.

Postscript To The Above Postscript – Remembering Tash, Tess & Nastassja

The mention of Tess generated quite a postbag and I realise that I was mistaken in attributing the 12 January scribble to that film. John White writes:

 Don’t think that says Tess btw. The word begins with an s and ends with an h. Sure it wasn’t a person?

But I was buoyed by Jon Gorvett’s memory flash, inspired by my mention of Tess:

Anyway, also bizarre that you should mention Heather Jones, Tess, Nastassja Kinski and crushes all in the same post, Ian, as I recall both myself and Heather taking a sudden interest in Thomas Hardy around then, after Kinski had appeared on the cover of the version of Tess of the d’Urbervilles on sale in the Keele bookshop. Noticing this, we both later confessed to a massive crush on the said daughter of the great director (and massive child abuser, I see now), leading ultimately to enormous enthusiasm for Cat People, when that hit the screens later that year. 

…so I responded as follows:

100% sure it was Tess. Memory flash corroborated by Jon Gorvett, who said that note brought a flood of memories. Gilted Jon (by Truda) and gilted Heather (by Miriam) both salivated over Ms Kinski at that time. My handwriting was truly appalling at the best of times and I often wrote up diaries when pissed or stoned.

However, I now realise and am 100% sure that the pesky word on 12 January was Tash, not Tess. The Tash reference is explained in the subsequent “Forty Years On” piece.

But I did see Tess around that time – I’m guessing it must have been the film shown 15 January, which I don’t name – I simply describe it in my diary as “boring”. Frankly, I do recall finding the excruciatingly long Tess movie boring in every regard except for the visual charms of Ms Kinski.

Mark Ellicott Guest Piece: A Right Royal Keele Ball, Starring Princess Margaret, But At What Price?, 3 December 1981

Mark Ellicott has managed several of London's iconic venues, including Dingwalls, The London Astoria and more recently Heaven.  He cut his teeth as Keele Students' Union Social Secretary in the mid 1980s. But Mark arrived at Keele as a clean-cut, Tory-boy. The Royal Ball in December 1981, Mark's first term at Keele, might have seeded Mark's dramatic transformation. I am thrilled to host Mark's guest piece, in which he reflects on that starry night, forty years on.

The naiveté of youth!

As a Fresher in my first term at Keele, in the autumn of 1981, I was weirdly excited, as were many others, about the prospect of the Royal Ball in the Students Union almost exactly 40 years ago to the day.

At the time Princess Margaret was Keele’s Chancellor and she had periodically in the past ‘graced’ the Union with an attendance at one of its events. I wasn’t particularly pro or anti monarchy at the time, but as an eighteen year old still adjusting to an independent life it did appear to be a vaguely thrilling thing to be a part of. So I eagerly bought my ticket and a day or two before the event headed into Newcastle to hire an evening outfit.

Ticket holders – the cost was £8- were advised to arrive before HRH at a certain time – ostensibly for security reasons but I suppose also because it would have looked a bit weird if Mags had had to jostle her way into the Union building competing with hundreds of students and getting asked by the SU porters for some photo ID in order to gain admission. 

Everyone was  dressed in outfits that veered from the completely over the top to the over formalised absurd.  I count myself in the latter category. Sort of Primark meets Brideshead Revisited meets a downmarket magician about to perform in a provincial working mans club.

Some unsavoury looking guests at the ball

HRH arrived resplendent in pink at eight and the then Social Secretary Eric Rose, dressed in a natty black and white suit, introduced her to the Union Committee.

Margaret Rose & Eric Rose

Some members of the Committee, like Treasurer Steve Townsley, took a stand objecting to the whole circus and stayed away boycotting what they and many others felt to be shameless kowtowing to a discredited person of enormous privilege. That was not my view at the time but it was a view that I came to share.

Margaret, once she had worked out who the VP Internal and NUS Secretary and the Chair of Constitutional Committee etc. all were, was then led onto the dance floor by SU President Mark Thomas for an awkward ‘dance’. Mark, a genial Welshman who it was impossible to dislike, looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him up whilst HRH just looked indifferent and blandly into the distance with a thousand yard stare etched into her face no doubt having had much experience of similar situations. She shimmied around the floor quite fluently but would periodically flap her arms  so that she semi resembled a goose or a swan  preparing for flight.

Mark & Marge – Mark wasn’t normally the clenched fist type

I’m not sure she was entirely aware she was doing it but it did look quite funny.  I tried to get close to the couple but I got too close and  a burly looking security man intervened  and shot the sort of look at me that you would normally reserve for those things you see laying on their back at the bottom of a pond.

The intention was I suspect for the look to reduce transgressors to a pile of smouldering ash and to think twice about any possible future  spatial intrusion. My friend Paul, a Wolverhampton lad, and already drunk intimated to me he was going to try and ‘get off’ with her. He was optimistic about his chances following her recent fling with a twenty something young man called Roddy Llewelyn. Naturally I encouraged Paul to pursue his dream but I was not confident of his success given the goons around her.

Once five or ten minutes of this nonsense was concluded Margaret was led upstairs to meet the star performer for the event, Newcastle born Alan Price.

Alan Price a few years earlier

Price sang sort of music hall stomping pop anthems that in the 60s were inexplicably  popular and who retained for whatever reason some popularity on the student circuit long after his heyday had come to an end. Rather like Gary Glitter and Edwin Starr  in that respect. Although I obviously was not invited myself to join Mags and Pricey in their enclave away from the masses downstairs, I was a witness to her much later emerging onto the balcony to watch his performance wobbling unsteadily and needing to be supported by one of the security men, who had shot me the filthy look a while earlier. I’m told she and Mr P indulged in a vast quantity of whisky and that she was flirtatious to the point of nigh on asking him to unzip her dress at one point. That I would have paid extra to see.

Alan Price’s performance was immediately forgettable. Just turgid tuneless fairground ditties that like those bubbles kids make with those bubbles machines which  are there one minute and then……pah…just disappear the next. Five minutes after he had finished his entire show had been forgotten.

HRH was supported out of the building looking a little bit like she found something hilariously amusing. It was very apparent that she was pissed out of her head. She seemed to be cackling at one of the bins at one point. This sort of thing happens when you are drunk. I have been there myself. For some reason when off your nut a banal everyday inanimate object can suddenly appear like the most amusing, laugh out loud, clutching your stomach thing ever.

She dropped her cigarette holder as she left. The holder was about a foot long and looked like the sort of thing Noel Coward would have used. One of her flunkies picked it up for her and as he got up he lightly banged his head on her chin. She was peering down at him watching him retrieve it and stood just a little too closely. She smiled at the collision, although again this would have been because she was soused. Had she been sober he would no doubt have been whipped and beaten and made to crawl around on all fours for a month or two.

The Ball continued without her but it was by now a rather dull anti-climax. I went home whenever it finished feeling vaguely deflated.

It wasn’t my last interaction with our Chancellor.

Barely six months later as an indirect consequence of me and a friend trying to sack her from this titular position I got myself suspended for a year from the University.

But that is a different story. For another time.

Ellicott transforming…

…Ellicott transformed.

Ellicott, the hair presumptive

My Keele Interview With Patrick Moore, Conducted In My Little Study Bedroom (Lindsay F4), circa 27 May 1981

My memory of this event was triggered at lunch the other day (October 2017) when Patrick Moore came up in the conversation.

“Oh yes, I interviewed him when I was at Keele”, I said, “I didn’t find him all that impressive”.

Janie ticked me off afterwards for being (or at least seeming) churlish about the matter, especially as Alan and Sue (who had brought Patrick Moore into the conversation) were obviously keen on him.

On reflection, I couldn’t recall why I had been unimpressed by him. But I could recall that I had recorded the interview and had digitised the tape a few years ago, without really listening to it again at that time.

I promptly listened to it carefully – you can hear it too if you wish:

Listening to the interview brought back a flood of memories and also made me feel very badly about my teenage impression of Patrick Moore. Because I realise, on listening to the recording, that the unimpressive contributor is me, not him.

I was under-prepared for that interview and Patrick Moore to some extent interviewed himself.

In my defence, the reason I was under-prepared was because I hadn’t expected to conduct the interview until later that day. I certainly hadn’t expected to conduct it in my own little study/bedroom.

This is what happened.

I was the Concourse (Student Union newspaper) journalist assigned to interview Patrick Moore and was due to interview him early evening before he delivered a talk to students. This was arranged through Dr Ron Maddison, who was a good pal of Patrick Moore’s and was the Astronomy lead on Keele’s rather impressive observatory.

Being me, I went to Ron Maddison’s office early afternoon on the day of the interview/talk just to confirm all the arrangements. It turned out that Patrick Moore was already there with some time on his hands. They both suggested that I could conduct the interview there and then. I explained that I would need my tape recorder and notepad, at which point Patrick Moore volunteered to come with me and be interviewed in my room.

I told him that my student room was less than salubrious, especially when I was not expecting guests, but my protests seemed to make him all the more eager to take this opportunity to observe how students really live.

Patrick Moore, the man who usually wielded the telescope towards the stars, was choosing to observe student life under the metaphorical microscope.

So we marched from the Astronomy Department to Lindsay and my very humble little room, F4.

I remember telling him, along the way, that I had planned to prepare the questions that afternoon so was under-prepared. He told me not to worry and that between us he was sure we’d cover plenty for my article.

I remember making us both a coffee when we got to my room. I possibly even had some biscuits to offer.

If you listen to the interview, it sounds a bit like a John Shuttleworth interview, but without the music. You can hear the sound of the coffee mugs being moved around. It is very folksy sounding, which indeed it was.

Some of my questions and interjections are positively cringe worthy, but on the whole I sense that I had roughly worked out a skeleton for the interview in my head and we worked through it – perhaps not as methodically as I would have planned, but the interview does cover a lot of ground. He was clearly a seasoned interviewee who could have conducted his own interview without me.

The recording runs uninterrupted for over 15 minutes, until c17:20, at which point I began stopping the tape periodically to try to make sure we were covering everything I wanted/needed for my article.

At 21:25 I ask a particularly ill-phrased question about black holes, followed by, during the embarrassing seconds that followed, the clear sound of someone knocking and entering the room. I remember this clearly. It was my neighbour, Simon Ascough (Sim), who was quite taken aback to see Patrick Moore in the room.

Sim had presumably popped in on a matter of extremely urgent student importance. Perhaps to recommend that we listen to In A Gadda Da Vida (yet again), possibly to suggest a mid afternoon spliff or quite possibly both. But I think (mercifully) that Sim’s request went unspoken; in any case I turned the recorder off at the moment of the knock.

At 23:55 comes the laugh out loud moment on the tape, when you can clearly hear the sound of a female (or females) being chased around the corridor of F Block. Again I turned off the recorder. I remember Patrick Moore asking me if my friend, having found me otherwise engaged, had decided to chase girls instead?

What I should have said was, “no, that’ll almost certainly be Richard Van Baaren and Benedict Coldstream chasing girls around the corridor”. But I didn’t say that. In fact, I think both Patrick Moore and I had a fit of the giggles for quite a few moments before I switched the recorder back on.

My only other profound memory of this interview was playing the recording to Paul Deacon during the summer holidays soon after the event. Paul is a DJ, voice recording artiste and a superb mimic; Patrick Moore is certainly one of Paul’s voices.

I remember Paul playing over and over again the bit at the beginning of the interview when Patrick Moore says, “and then along came Mr Hitler”, mimicking it better and better each time, until I begged Paul to stop. Perhaps it was the Paul comedy aspect that dampened my enthusiasm for Patrick Moore.

Subsequent contribution – May 2019: Dave Lee, who was the interim editor of Concourse in the months prior to the interview, has been in touch by e-mail to remind me, “If I remember you said at the time of Patrick Moore that he farted and stunk the room out. That might have been a distraction!”  Oh yes, I now recall Paul Deacon including fart noises in his impersonation. Maybe it was the flatulence that diminished my opinion of the fine  communicator that was Patrick Moore.

One of the strangest things about this very memorable event was that I didn’t register it at all in my diary, so I cannot be 100% sure of the date on which his lecture (and therefore my interview) took place.

It looks to me as though my diary got quite a long way behind at that stage of that term. To be fair on my 18-year-old self, it was a busy time. Uncle Manny (dad’s older brother) died suddenly a couple of week’s earlier, so I needed to go home unexpectedly to help with family duties and attend the funeral & shiva.

It was also essay and exam time – not ridiculously onerous in Foundation Year (FY) but I had been behind anyway (show me the FY student who wasn’t) and the Uncle Manny business had set me behind further.

I do recall, indeed my diary shows that, I was doing my own fair share of girl chasing at that time – not the screaming and corridor running type of chasing I hasten to add – with a kindly third year named Sandra. But that is another story – now to be found by clicking here or below:

From Morecombe To Wise(r) Via A Linguistically Out Of Key Note, Keele, 29/30 May 1981

Forensics on the scrap of paper emblazoned with the legend “Patrick Moore Interview” inside the cassette box reveals the following on the adverse side:

I’m guessing that the interview would have been a couple of days before the Jazz Night, as the following week there were lots of exams, so I am guessing that the interview was one of those quieter days between the essay deadlines and the exams; 27th or 28th May.

Here is a picture of the tape, box and legend itself:

If anyone reading this has any more information (or recollection) of that Patrick Moore visit, not least the date, please do chime in.

For some reason, I don’t seem to have kept the article that emerged from the interview, although it might yet emerge from some further archaeology through my old note pads and scrap files. If anyone has a copy of the Concourse article that resulted from the recorded interview, I’d love to see it again.

So, having dredged back the memories, I take back unreservedly my sense that Patrick Moore was unimpressive. Patrick Moore was the commensurate professional and incredibly natural/unassuming in the peculiar circumstances of this interview. My teenage self possibly mistook unassuming for unimpressive; that was poor judgement on my part.

The recorded interview is also an interesting thirty minutes in itself. Here’s the recording again.

Uncle Manny’s Funeral & The Hoover Factory, 15 May 1981

I recovered this Hoover Factory memory vividly at a pilot of Rohan Candappa’s new performance piece on 31 October 2017:

What Listening To 10,000 Love Songs Has taught Me About Love. It’s an exploration of love, and music, and how the two intertwine. it’s also about how our lives have a soundtrack.”

Here is a link to my review of that performance piece.

Somewhat unexpectedly (to me), one of the songs Rohan featured in the show was Hoover Factory by Elvis Costello.

In case you are not familiar with the piece (and/or the building), less than two minutes of divine vid, below, will give you all you need:

I came across the song in March 1981- click here for the story of my cassette swaps with Graham Greenglass and my trip to see Elvis (sadly a Hover Factory-free concert) with Anil Biltoo, Caroline Freeman and Simon Jacobs.

I listened to the cassettes Graham made for me a lot in that final term of my first year at Keele. I especially liked the Hoover Factory song, even before the events of mid May.

Wednesday 13 May 1981

I was in the Students’ Union that evening (as usual) when I got tannoyed.

The sound of Wally across the tannoy saying:

would Ear Narris come to reception please. Ear Narris to reception…

…became a commonplace in my sabbatical year…

…I even have a towel emblazoned with the legend “Ear Narris”, a gift from Petra…

…but this was probably the first time I had ever been tannoyed in the Students’ Union.

It was my mum on the phone. My father’s older brother, Manny, had died suddenly of a heart attack. I was needed at home. Rapidly. Traditional Jewish funerals are conducted very soon after death and that branch of the family was/is traditional. I went to bed early, knowing I would need to make a very early start (by student standards) the next day.

Thursday 14 May 1981

A flurry of activity.

Early in the morning, I went round to see a few academics to reschedule my essays and excuse myself from a tutorial or two. I recall the topology tutor (professor?) seeming incredibly strange. Twice I told him that my uncle had died and twice he said back to me, “I’m sorry to hear that your father has died”.

Once I had agreed my absences and extensions, I legged it to London, having arranged to stop off at the place near Euston where the religious paperwork for births, marriages, deaths and stuff used to get done. Was it Rex House in those days? Anyway, I was suitably “family but not immediate family” (the latter are officially in mourning and are not allowed to do stuff) to help get the paperwork sorted out.

I learnt that Uncle Manny was (officially) born in Vilnius, although the family hailed from the “twixt Minsk and Pinsk” Belarus part of the Pale of Settlement. The family might have already been on the move by the time he was born or that answer might, at the time, have seemed more acceptable when the UK arrivals paperwork was being done.

When I got home, I recall that Grandma Anne, 88/89 years old, was in our house and in the most shocking state. Apparently Uncle Manny had collapsed in her kitchen and she was unable to get past the collapsed body of her son to try to call for help. A nightmarish scenario that would seem unlikely & overly melodramatic if used in fiction. Grandma Anne never really recovered from the shock of this event and didn’t survive that calendar year.

It was the first time I had witnessed death at close hand. I was very small (8 or 9) when Uncle Alec, the oldest of the four brothers, died; in truth I had been shielded from it. But this time I was very affected by witnessing and being part of this family bereavement.

From left to right, Uncles Manny, Michael and Alec

Friday 15 May 1981

The funeral, at Bushy Cemetery. We were driven out as part of the funeral cortege of course.

I had only been to one funeral before – as it happens at the same cemetery – that of Bernard Rothbart, a teacher at Alleyn’s – perhaps two years earlier. I’ll write that one up for Ogblog when I come to it.

I’m not sure I had ever been out on the Western Avenue before – at least not knowingly and not with senses heightened. In fact, I’m pretty sure I had no idea where we were until I saw that magnificent Hoover Building loom into view.

Oh my God. That’s it. That’s the Hoover Factory…

“Yes, dear”, said mum. “Your ‘Uncle Josh’ used to work for Hoover”.

I don’t think mum got the point.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the line from the song, “it’s not a matter of life or death. What is? What is?”  Because my family was suddenly experiencing something that really was a matter of life or death. And people really did, profoundly care who does or doesn’t take another breath. I wanted to understand, but Elvis wasn’t helping; his song was just stuck in my head.

Hoover Factory remained stuck in my head for the rest of the day…the rest of the week…the rest of the term.

And the rest of that term turned out to be a very eventful few weeks indeed for me:

The Six O’Clock Alarm Would Never Ring, Starting My First Keele Summer Term, 24 April to 9 May 1981

It’s sometimes difficult to get up in the morning when you are a first year Keele student. Who knew?

Back then, I had an alarm clock a bit like the one depicted above. I could easily sleep through the ringing of that alarm. I remember bringing back a metal biscuit tin after the Easter holidays with the sole purpose of increasing the volume of the ringing, by placing the alarm clock within the biscuit tin. Didn’t work, I know, I know.

The Key To Getting A Good Night’s Sleep As A Keele Undergraduate

Mind you, it doesn’t help if you start the term as described above. Here is a transcript for any readers not so well versed in the rarefied script that is my handwriting:

24 April 1981 – Exams today. After dinner went to Mark’s [Bartholomew] -> Union. Talking till late with Sim [Simon Ascough], [Mad] Harry & Dave [Johnson, I think].

25 April 1981 – Easy day. Went to Union in evening -> Roy’s for drinks – Melanie [Print], Ashley [Fletcher] & Louise [Lorenc] – locked out – stayed…

26 April 1981 – …overnight. No sleep. Found keys in morning- had lunch – wandered aimlessly & slept from 6 pm until 8 am.

With thanks to Ashley for recalling Melanie & Louise’s names. Neither of us really remember what passed that night, other than a lot of bullshit chat no doubt and Ashley probably went to town with his Adolf Hitler and Ian Paisley (senior) pastiche/parody speeches.

“The flag of my country is hanging upside down outside this building”.

I simply cannot imagine sleeping 14 hours straight through any more. It’s not just that I know I couldn’t do it; I really cannot even imagine it.

Still, that extended night’s sleep got me up in good time for the first FY lecture of the term. What a fresh start.

My First Rolo & My Last Rolo

That peculiar sleep pattern got me up in time to see Professor Paul Rolo’s 9:00 history lecture and Professor David Adams’s 11:00 American Studies lecture.

I recall being fascinated by both of those lectures. Peculiarly, the allure of Russian and Fascist revolutions did not enable the alarm to rouse me on the Tuesday, but the idea of another Paul Rolo lecture somehow enabled the alarm to interrupt my slumbers on the Wednesday and get me to the FY Lecture Theatre for 9:00.

Similarly, the prospect of order in the post-war international system, combined with the alarm clock, failed to get me out of bed on the Thursday morning, yet the subconscious thought of another David Adams lecture woke me and got me to the Chancellor’s Building for the 9:00 lecture on the Friday for the third time that week.

This is the first sign of a pattern that persisted throughout my student years; I was able to get up for lectures, even at 9:00, if I thought they’d be worth the candle. Otherwise I tended to skip the lectures, read up on stuff at leisure (if need be) and sleep in like a teenager…which is what I was.

I didn’t get to know Professor Paul Rolo – he left a year or so after I did FY – but he could lecture and he sounds like a fascinating chap.

Professor David Adams I did get to know when I sat on Senate and also prior to that, when I sat on the train from Stoke to Euston or from Euston to Stoke. He must have gone to London quite a lot because I remember encountering him several times. A really interesting and lovely chap.

What Else Did You Get Up To, Kid?

Ok, ok, I’m getting to it.

Monday 27 April 1981 – First lectures etc. – finished moving etc [all the way from pokey Lindsay F1 to salubrious room with a view Lindsay F4] after dinner -> Union, quite pleasant

Tuesday 28 April 1981 – Light day. Went to see film in evening (Fame – v good,) -> on to union with gang – quite good.

Wednesday 29 April 1981 – OK day. Went to Concourse meeting – on to Mis [Miriam Morgan] & Heather [Jones] for heavy evening

Thursday 30 April 1981 – easyish day. Did little. Short stay in Union – reasonably early night.(Simon [Jacobs] & Sim [Ascough] came back after)

Friday 1 May 1981 – not bad day. Busy afternoon (Kallah photos). Went to see film (yuk). Went back to union – bon.

I’d started going to Film Society by the end of the second term and went a lot in this third term. I am pretty sure the 1 May film which I did not name but described as “yuk” was Fellini Satyricon. If I remember correctly, there weren’t all that many of us in the FY lecture theatre at the start of the movie and by the end I think just three or four of us had stuck it out.

Saturday 2 May 1981 – Easy day. Shopped in Newcastle – went to see David [Perrins] & friends, supper they came over -> Sneyd, Union bop -> Amanda’s.

Sunday 3 May 1981 – Lazy day – went to Lloyd’s [Green] and Amanda’s -> Union in evening.

I feel bad saying this, but I cannot remember who Amanda is/was, but she was unquestionably a diary highlight that weekend. Simon might remember. Lloyd might remember. But I feel that it is me who should remember. Apologies. If you are out there, Amanda, please do get in touch and jog the memory…if by chance you remember anything about it.

Tuesday 5 May 1981 – Busyish day. Saw All That Jazz in the evening. Simon’s [Jacobs] for coffee after – good.

Wednesday 6 May 1981 – OK day. Went to see Discipline and Lounge Lizards in evening – v good.

Dave Lee’s forthcoming (as I write in April 2021) book The Keele Gigs! will no doubt review Discipline (whom in truth I don’t really remember), and The Lounge Lizards (a gig I remember well and very fondly). You can see something quite similar to the gig we saw on YouTube – click here:

Thursday 7 May 1981 – Easyish day. Laundry etc. Easyish evening.

Friday 8 May 1981 – Busyish day. Went to Burslem in evening. Enjoyable evening. (Came here for coffee).

Saturday 9 May 1981 – Late start, Newcastle shopping – ate – Union in evening – back here after.

That new room of mine, Lindsay F4, was salubrious enough to become a focal point to the extent that people had started coming back to my place. It might also have had something to do with the fact that I was going in to Newcastle on the weekend to buy food so always had something to eat – possibly even some left overs of cooked food but at the very least plentiful biscuits. My mum would have approved.

I should highlight the fact that Simon Jacobs gets a couple of mentions in this piece – he wrote to me saying that he was mightily put out that he didn’t get a mention in the previous Keele piece.

Bless my cotton socks, I’m in the news…

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.

Krokus Concert, Keele Ballroom, 18 February 1981

I remember this particular evening surprisingly clearly. It has been brought back to mind in the spring of 2019 by correspondence with Dave Lee, with whom I and other friends worked on Concourse, the student newspaper.

My diary records the event:

18 February 1981: Easyish day – in evening went to Labour Club. Simon then forced me to see Krokus – yuk.

“…forced me to see” is not a phrase you’ll often see in my diary. But I do recall on this occasion that I did not want to see the Swiss hard rock (or should I say heavy metal) band Krokus, but Simon had agreed to review the concert for Concourse, so he had to go.

I remember Simon exerting some “more than gentle” emotional pressure, along the lines that he really didn’t want to attend this particular heavy rock gig on his own. Something about fear was mentioned, as if Simon attending along with an eighteen-year-old, eight stone weakling like me was going to make the evening any safer.

Of course, being a Keele Ballroom gig, there was no real danger of the gig being over-run by packs of Hells Angels intent on causing trouble for weedy students anyway, but I suppose we were newbies still and had not been to such a gig before, so didn’t really know what to expect.

Simon reviewed the gig in the famous “Film Star Makes President” March 1981 issue of Concourse, about which I shall write plenty in the fullness of time.

For now, please just enjoy Simon’s review, headlined “live or dead?”:

I think it is fair to say that Simon didn’t like the concert much.

I especially like the line that describes:

three overpowering guitarists with about as much style as an airbourne [sic] rhinoceros.

As it happens, I have subsequently been to visit rhinoceroses in person (in the jungles of Assam in 2005) and can confirm the resemblance:

The airborne one can just be seen in the distance through the undergrowth.

In any case, I think my single word diary entry review – “yuk” – says enough. Although possibly my take would have been insufficient detail for Dave Lee’s editorial needs at that time.

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.