Tag: Keele University

Keele Action Group Springs Forth Campus-Wide, Constitutional Matters Mingle With A Crucial Culinary Debate In My Barnes L54 Flat, 8 to 11 October 1982

With thanks to Susan Gorman for this c2006 photo of Alan Gorman

These few days lead in to the start of term proper

Friday 8 October 1982 – Easyish day – quite busy sorting things out. Went to union in evening – got quite merry.

Saturday 9 October 1982 – Freshers Mart in morning – prospective students in afternoon. Ashley [Fletcher] stayed to dinner – went on to union.

Sunday 10 October 1982 – Up quite early. Constitutional Committee lunchtime. Planned to stay in evening – quite tired – ended up running around campus with K.A.G [Keele Action Group] leaflets.

Monday 11 October 1982 – 1st teaching day of term – K.A.G at lunchtime. Went to union in evening.

Keele Action Group (KAG) & Constitutional Committee (CC): WTF?

Keele Action Group (KAG) was a grassroots students’ response to “The Cuts” – i.e. the early 1980s reduction in government funding to Universities. While the 1981/82 Union Committee had been reasonably supportive of firm but peaceful protest – e.g. our pseudo-destructive demo in London earlier that calendar year…

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

…we received fewer assurances from Truda Smith and that we would get much support from her and her 82/83 committee. I am pretty sure that the protagonists of KAG were mostly the same gang – Simon Jacobs, Jon Gorvett, me and several others…

…I’m seeing Simon soon and shall update with more names if he can remember specifics…

…who basically wanted to show the University the strength of feeling among the students and encourage the powers-that-were to pressurise the government more.

Who knows whether or not that might have worked, but at least we were making our feelings known.

Constitutional Committee (CC) was a different matter. I cannot remember who it was that lent on me to take on that burden, but in the back of my mind it was people like Spike Humphrey, Frank Dillon & Vince Beasley, all of whom had suffered, while on Union Committee, at the hands of a Constitutional Committee dominated by FCS (Federation of Conservative Students) law students who, as a matter of national policy, were hell-bent on using loopholes in student unions’s constitutions to make it difficult for more enlightened student reps to get anything done. FCS candidates could achieve because the idea of being on a constitutional committee was so mind-numbingly dull that they tended to be appointed unelected…

…as indeed was I when my friends of the left persuaded me to help seize back the initiative by getting a few more enlightened people onto that committee.

Was it a barrel of laughs?

David Brown, Neil Mackay, Jamie Russell of Liquid Image for BBC Scotland., CC BY-SA 4.0

No. Anyway, the debates that ensued around KAG and CC were as nothing to the culinary debate that clearly bedevilled the early days in Barnes L54.

Culinary Debate: Name That Meal

I noticed my use of the term “dinner” to describe Ashley Fletcher’s visit to join us for an evening meal on 9th. I also note my use of the word “lunchtime” on 10th and 11th.

But I was a lone voice with such temporal-culinary nomenclature in L54 at that stage.

Chantelle hails from Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, while Alan Gorman was a Lanky from Chorley…Brinscall actually.

Those two were having no truck with the idea of naming the evening meal – which is the one we had agreed to share the cooking of rota-style most evenings – dinner. Dinner was a word they reserved for the lunchtime meal. The evening meal was to be known as “tea”.

Hamzah didn’t have a vote in this matter, as he opted out of our cooking rota, on the grounds that he ate exclusively Halal food and would have his evening meal with his/our Malay mates in Barnes Q92.

There is lots of material on-line about this sort of debate now, much of it in tongue-in-cheek terms on sites such as King Cricket, not least when discussing North/South and class distinctions:

Them North v South matches start this week

Or the following “expert” piece which seems to suggest that I might have been right all along that lunch/dinner are terms preferable to and more consensual than dinner/tea. (If in doubt, it is surely a good idea to quote The Lad Bible as an authoritative answer.)

Actually, Alan Gorman had a more open-minded and scientific approach to this topic than most people. Firstly, he had no real problem with the lunchtime meal being described as “lunch”. He didn’t major on lunchtime eating anyway – it was the evening that mattered most for food. But Alan did object to naming of the early evening meal “dinner”.

Alan’s nomenclature was to describe the early evening, shared/communal flat meal as “tea” and a later ad hoc meal as “supper”. Both of these meals were important and Alan was most certainly a “four meals a day” person at that stage. The “two evening meals” thing ensured that the stomach was filled early evening ahead of either:

  • an evening of private study which might well go on until quite late, or
  • “a sesh” down the union or boozer.

In either of those instances, there would be a need for a “supper” of some sort that would soak up the booze and/or ensure that there was a satisfied belly for bed time. I joined in this “four meals a day” habit for the two years we flat shared. Remarkably, looking back, we both remained skinny nonetheless.

Photos: thanks to Sue Gorman for Alan and Mark Ellicott for me

Actually, thinking about it, Hamzah would have probably approved of Alan’s logic on linguistic grounds. In Bahasa Melayu, including its Bruneian variety, meals are named after the time of day:

  • “sarapan pagi” means breakfast
  • “makan tengah hari” means midday meal
  • “makan petang” means afternoon or evening meal;
  • “makan malam” means late evening or night-time meal.
16 years later, a bit of basic Bahasa Melayu came in very handy, whatever the time of day

The Next Few Days Included The Beat & Culture Club – 12 to 15 October 1982

I actually wrote up the next few days five years ahead of this “Forty Years On” series based on a memory flash. You can read all about those days (and the memory flash) here or below:

(I Married A) Monster From Outer Space – And What That Did For One Of My Earthly Romances, 15 October 1982

Enter Stage Left, My New Neighbours & Flatmates At Keele In Barnes L54, 4 to 7 October 1982

Barnes flats, as they appear in my cherished memories of living there. The above image, borrowed from https://www.studentcrowd.com/hall-l1004515-s1043587-barnes-hall-keele_university-keele, shows them at their best.

I had arrived at Keele a few days before almost everyone else that academic year, to learn that my flatmate from the preceding few months, Ahmed Mohd Isa, had dropped out of Keele and was to be replaced by an allocated fresher.

Hence, my flatmates for 82/83 were to be:

  • Hamzah Shawal – a Bruneian mate of Ahmed and the Malay crowd, who was to be a finalist that year and who seemed like a very nice chap on the one or two occasions I had met him the previous year;
  • Chantelle Conlon [I think, surname], a “yeller belly” from the latterly-to-be-internet-unfriendly town of Scunthorpe. Ahmed, Hamzah and I had found Chantelle through the flat share notice board at the end of the previous academic year, as flat application forms needed to have four names and none of us had a chosen fourth. She seemed like a nice young woman and passed the interview by dint of agreeing to join us and signing the form;
  • Alan Gorman – the allocated fresher. Provenance entirely unknown until arrival.

This inauspicious sounding team selection resulted in…SPOILER ALERT… a happy final year for Hamzah, two very happy years for me and three such years for Alan in that flat.

Monday 4 October 1982 – Got a few things done today – some new neighbours moved in etc. Went to Union in evening etc. Julia stayed over…

I’m pretty sure the new neighbours in question were Veera Bachra (who became a good friend) and at least one of her flatmates (probably Debbie). Julia was a friend of Veera’s (or perhaps Debbie) who had dropped out of Keele but came up to see her friends there at the start of term. I remember Julia as a sweet young woman whom I had admired from afar in my FY year. The happenstance of Julia visiting my new neighbours presented an opportunity for us to admire each other at closer quarters that night.

This hit from that late summer/early autumn became my earworm for a few days at the start of that term:

A little unfortunate, as I never much liked Duran Duran, but I have for forty years retained a soft spot for that song. I digress.

Tuesday 5 October 1982 – Rose quite late. Hamzah arrived. Kept busy etc. Went to union in eve – the calm before the storm

Wednesday 6 October 1982 – Rose quite early. Alan arrived at flat – lunched etc – showed around – shopped etc etc. Chantelle arrived. Went to union freshers do in evening etc. Up late.

I have an absolute favourite memory of the morning of Alan’s arrival at the flat.

The Gorman family came from (I think still come from) Chorley in Lancashire, not much more than an hour’s drive to Keele. They arrived quite early.

On that October morning, Barnes didn’t much look like the publicity picture I have used as the headline, it looked more like this:

With thanks again to Paul Browning for this picture

On such misty autumn mornings, the playing fields would be populated by a few hippy-ish students in search of psycho-active fungi.

The magical fungi looked a bit like this – photo by Patrick Ulrich

The students probably didn’t look quite so buff as these two – photo by Joe Mabel

I made Harold and Theresa a cuppa and sat them at our kitchen table, which overlooked those playing fields.

Oh look, Theresa, there are some biology students out on the fields collecting samples…

…said Harold, enthusiastically. I didn’t have the heart (nor did I have the guts) to tell Alan’s parents the truth of the matter.

I don’t think I shared this story with Alan on day one. Alan had a fierce and sharp sense of humour – perhaps not apparent in the whirl of arrival with parents, but evident very soon after that. I’m pretty sure I shared the story with Alan soon after that first day; we’d have had a good laugh about it. But did Alan ever tell his parents about those “mycology students”?

Very sadly, my use of the past tense throughout the above paragraph is not a grammatical error; I learnt while researching this piece that Alan Gorman died in 2015. But I have made contact with his widow Susan and, through her, his family might see this and future pieces about Alan. Thus I am hoping for some feedback to help refine my memories, but they will unfortunately not be directly from Alan.

Thursday 7 October 1982 – Rose quite early – still sorting out flat etc. I got somethings done, not too hectically. Went to union in evening – up till late.

It looks as though Alan and I started the “up till late” chatting habit very early in his University career.

1982 Summer Subsides: Sandown, Spurs, Shule & Sleepy Start To My Second “P Year” At Keele, Late August To 3 October 1982

Sandown Park, photo by 80N, CC BY-SA 2.5

21 August 1982: “Went To Sandown Park In Afternoon, Very Nice”

As part of my summer job that year, I was doing a fair bit of work for Laurie Krieger’s businesses – a link that sustained through much of the 1980s for holiday jobs and beyond for several years after Keele. Laurie had recently divested Harlequin Records and was entrepreneuring with several other interesting things in the 1980s.

I think Laurie and Betty had been invited to some sort of guest enclosure charity thing and at the last minute couldn’t go. Laurie gave me the tickets. It was too last minute for me to rustle up a date, so I took my mum with me.

This was my first visit to the horses since Mauritius three years earlier:

Another Day At The Races In Mauritius, This Time In the Press Box, 12 August 1979

I remember having a very enjoyable afternoon. We were both utter rubbish at choosing winners (I have never got the knack of betting on horses – I’m not sure there is one).

Sandown 21 August 1982 TelegraphSandown 21 August 1982 Telegraph 21 Aug 1982, Sat The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Mum and I probably read the above tips in the Telegraph before we set off.

On one occasion, after I had placed my bet on a horse with a name that rang true to me, we went down to the paddock to see our picks and I remember mum saying:

I think yours is limping…

…which it was, to which I said,

…maybe we’re supposed to have a look at the horses BEFORE placing our bets.

These are the ways some of us learn our lessons. Mine all came in last or second to last. I don’t think mum’s did much better. Mercifully, we were only betting pin money because we knew we were rubbish.

The next day, Sunday 22 August:

Doris & Stuart [Kent – second cousins from Grandma Anne’s side of the family] popped in unexpectedly. Paul came over in the evening.

I think Doris & Stuart told us how going to the races is supposed to be done, but my next visit wasn’t to be for another decade or more, so I don’t suppose the advice helped me much.

Late August Early September – Not Much Going On – Some Socials As Well As Work

25 August 1982 – Work OK – went to Pam & Michael [Harris – aunt & uncle] in evening for coffee etc.

28 August 1982 – Birthday – shopped in afternoon – Drew [presumably Andrew Levinson] came for dinner in evening.

9 September 1982 – Not bad day at work – lunched with Michael – went to pub after work briefly.

10 September 1982 – …pub after work…

11 September 1982 – Footy & Barbie

Football has not played a large part in my life, but on this particular day it most certainly did.

Saturday 11 September 1982 – Played football in morning – went to Spurs in afternoon with Duncan -> David’s barbeque party – came home late – a very nice day

We (by which I mean some work friends/colleagues plus some of their friends) played some sort of rudimentary five-a side game in a North London park local to Duncan (out Finchley way if I remember correctly), before going mob handy to see a fairly star-studded but perhaps a little superannuated Spurs lose. I have even managed to find a clip from that very match.

Mid To Late September 1982 – Some Socials As Well As Work Part Two, Plus Some Shule & Mum’s Ungodly Fall From Grace

Sunday 12 September 1982 – Angela & John [Kessler – cousins] came to tea. Paul [Deacon] came over in evening.

Friday 17 September 1982 – Lunched with Marie-Anne [Gilmore] – last day at work – went to pub after with the lads – came home quite early.

Sunday 19 September 1982 – Shule in morning [Rosh Hashana – Jewish New Year] – nice lunch, lazy afternoon. Pam & Michael came over in evening.

Tuesday 21 September – …met Jimmy [Bateman] in evening

Wednesday 22 September – went over to Wendy’s [Robbins] for the day -> Grandma’s -> Croydon etc. -> got home quite early.

Thursday 23 / Friday 24 – did some work/taping …Paul came over in evening.

Saturday 25 September – went up to meet Caroline [Freeman] for lunch…

Sunday 26 / Monday 27 September – …Col Nidre…Yom Kippur [Day of Atonement] – mum fell down stairs.

I shall write up the Paul and Wendy tapes from that late summer separately.

Mum’s ungodly fall on Yom Kippur was entirely due to her choosing not to go to Shule (in those days I was still going to Shule on such days to keep dad company). Apparently she put the Col Nidre prayer books on the stairs in advance of putting them away, forgot they were there and slipped on them.

Irony.

We spent the next couple of days nursing mum.

Dad very kindly agreed to take me up to Keele and then return home – my parents’ plan had been to drop me off on their way to the Lake District for a short break.

30 September 1982 – I Return To Keele In The Dad-mobile

Finding the above diary entries makes me realise that the “dad’s ultra-embarrassing moment” that I wrote up as a 1981 memory, was in fact on this day in 1982. I have redrafted that piece accordingly – in any case I have subsequently been reintroduced to Cathy who was the protagonist in dad’s sort-of #METOO moment. If you haven’t read that story before it’s probably well worth a click/read if you want a laugh.

My Top Embarrassing Parent Moment At Keele, 30 September 1982

30 September 1982 – Rose early – left for Keele – arrived, lunched – dad left 2:00ish. Did some unpacking & a little work. Went to Union in evening – OK. Pete’s [Roberts] for coffee after.

Keele Prior To A New Academic Year: Calm Before The Storm 1 to 3 October 1982

Friday 1 October – did a little work – shopped etc. Went to Union in evening. Disco etc. v quiet

Saturday 2 October – did quite a bit of work – got some things sorted out. Went to Union in evening. Quietish time.

Sunday 3 October – stayed in most of the day – did some work. Went to Union in evening. Very quiet indeed.

Have no fear, dear readers, if this calm before the storm makes you think that my P3 year might have been a bit dull. The story starts to get more interesting pretty rapidly from 4 October 1982 onwards!

From https://www.studentcrowd.com/hall-l1004515-s1043587-barnes-hall-keele_university-keele

My Top Embarrassing Parent Moment At Keele, 30 September 1982

Dad, what were you thinking?

I suspect that many people have been embarrassed by their parents when the old-‘uns visit the young-‘uns at university. This particular memory stands out in my mind.

My parents didn’t drop me off or visit me much at Keele. This drop off, for the start of my P2 (third) year, was organised around what was supposed to be a short break for them in the Lake District.

But Mum had injured (it turned out, broken) her foot around that time, so they postponed their trip but dad brought me up to Keele anyway.

On their only previous visit to Keele, I hadn’t shown them around much, so I agreed to show dad around the union and stuff before he returned to London.

Mark Ellicott’s 2016 picture of The union

While wandering across the main car park, dad and I ran into a friend of mine from FY, Katie (aka Catherine or even, as she is now known, Cathy), whom I hadn’t yet seen since arriving back.

In traditional Keele student-friend fashion, Cathy and I greeted each other warmly, exchanged a few bants about our respective summers and agreed it would be good to catch up properly soon.

Within a few moments of Cathy going her separate way, dad exclaimed, in a stentorian voice:

gosh, that was a beezer girl you were chatting with just then.

I was pretty sure that Cathy would still have been in earshot, given the shortness of the interval and the uncharacteristic loudness of dad’s voice at that moment. So that’s the sort of thing that happens when you release dad from mum’s clutches for even one day.

Collins Dictionary defines the adjective “beezer” as “excellent, most attractive”; some other sources date the adjective to the 1950s, although I’d guess my dad acquired that archaic adjective as a young man (late 1930s or 1940s).

Cathy was (and assuredly still is, forty years on) a beezer girl. I didn’t remember her second name when I first wrote this up, but I did recall that she was from Leicester and I remember her going out with another friend of mine, Rana Sen, for some time…quite possibly still at that time. She is (forty years on) known as Cathy Butcher.

I never found out at the time whether or not Cathy heard my dad’s outburst and therefore have no idea whether she was amused, offended or totally oblivious to this tiny but memorable event. It certainly didn’t seem to upset our casual friendship, which was sustained throughout Cathy’s/our time at Keele.

If this short piece does find its way to you, forty years on, Cathy – I hope you are well and thriving and…

…sorry about dad. You know what they can be like.

Oh dad.

Postscript: I have subsequently been reintroduced to Cathy who is (forty years on) a Facebook Friend and claims no recollection of the dad outburst. Phew.

Another Informal Subsidiary In Contemporary Music From Keele In the Summer Of 1982: Tutor On this Occasion – Jon Gorvett

Jon Gorvett on the far right (pictorially, not politically) next to Simon Jacobs (also a Keele alum), together with me and Jon’s partner Stephanie in 2018

In August 1982, during the Keele summer break, Jon Gorvett visited my family home in Streatham for the weekend.

The diary is a little low on detail. It looks as though we focussed on wine more than beer (unusually for me at that time) and we seem to have focussed on trendy London places – Brixton, Camden Lock & Notting Hill – how cool is that!?

Somewhat higher on detail is my log of tape recordings, which lists a whole heap of albums with Jon’s name beside them. How we found the time to rip all those albums onto tape while doing the listed activities from the diary is a mystery to me. I’m guessing that Jon might have left that pile of albums with me and I returned them to him at the start of term. Either that or there were some recording sessions deep into the early hours.

Here is a list of the albums:

There were some singles too, which I used to fill up the tapes, but I was not so meticulous about logging who lent me which singles and I know I had a similar (smaller) recording session with Wendy Robbins later that summer break; she also had some cool singles. But I think the following classics were from Jon:

Yet still questions remain about that visit. Why was Jon delayed on arrival on the Friday? How scary did he find my mum? Which wine bar did we go to in South London – I don’t remember such places existing in those parts in those days.

Memorable sounds though, for sure. I listened to those recordings one heck of a lot in the subsequent years and still rate several of those albums very highly indeed.

Thanks, Jon.

On Return From Keele, “Hair Brutally Severed”, Early Summer 1982

Ronnies – Photo with thanks to Graham Gower Collection 1972

On return from Keele University in late June, but before starting work in early July, I sorted myself out, including, by the looks of it, a hair cut:

Thursday 1 July 1982 – had hair brutally severed – went to G[randma] Jenny in afternoon

I suspect I treasured my student mop, while recognising that I needed to look “young professional” for the summer weeks of work.

I never much liked having my hair cut.

My childhood memories from Ronnies in Leigham Avenue, Streatham (depicted above) involve my mother cajoling me into going to the place.

Under normal circumstances, a very patient, younger barber named Oliver would cut my hair while distracting me with the sort of chatter that kept a reluctant kid calm.

But occasionally Oliver would not be available and Ronnie himself would cut my hair. I didn’t take to Ronnie’s methods, which invariably (probably because I was an unwilling participant) seemed painful and not to my aesthetic taste. Mind you, my aesthetic taste at that time would have been to have hair as long as I possibly could get away with and on no account to present myself at any barber shop.

My haircut reluctance probably upset my mother a good deal, whose father, my Grandpa Lew, had been a barber all of his working life.

Grandpa Lew & Grandma Beatrice, both sadly predeceased my birth

My good friend Rohan Candappa had a much happier relationship with his hair and wih his barbers – he even wrote a performance piece about it: The Last Man Cave…

…here’s a cut from a performance of it (did you see what I did there?)

But Rohan’s early visits to the barbers would have been in Thornton Heath and Bromley – not Ronnies of Streatham.

I am pretty sure that Oliver had left Ronnies before my childhood ended. I am not sure whether Ronnies was still there in 1982 (knowledgeable folk on the Streatham history FB group might be able to confirm), but I have a feeling it was still there and that I probably went there for my brutal severing.

I don’t think I’d have made a fuss about it in that post-Keele cut of 1982. I took my revenge in my diary – suspecting that, at some stage in the future – say 40 years hence – I could publish the diary entry and the phrase “brutally severed” would no doubt take off as “a thing”, once and for all to expunge the despised hair-cut from the cultural canon.

I raised this matter with Rohan Candappa the other day, who suggested that Brutus Severus would be an excellent light-hearted name for a modern barbers. It’s probably just as well that Rohan’s days in advertising are now over.

Sadly, I have no pictures from 1982 to depict the exact “before and after” look, but I do have some from two or three years earlier, which probably will give the casual reader a reasonable idea and will give old friends a recognisable glimpse back in time.

Before Severance
After Severance

Informal Contemporary Music Subsidiary Course At Keele In The Summer Of 1982, Tutor: Mark Ellicott

I have discovered a cassette tape of “contemporary” music which Mark Ellicott made for me in the summer of 1982. I remember little of the background to this tape, but I did play it a fair bit during that summer break from Keele and quite a lot during the ensuing academic year 82/83, which Mark missed.

During his first year at Keele, Mark was, self-confessedly, going through a bit of a transformation, from “Tory Boy” at the Keele Royal Ball…

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

…to becoming a more iconoclastic figure in Keele circles, going on to become Social Secretary later in the 1980s and subsequently managing some of the best-known venues in the UK.

I think Mark might have given me this tape right at the end of the summer term in 1982, perhaps by way of an apology for getting me roped into playing cricket on his behalf – long story told here and below:

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

Below is the tape listing from Mark’s one-side of a C90 offering, which I labelled “ME Batch” with a clear note on my log that Mark had made this for me:

Some fascinating choices there, which I have attempted to find in the best versions possible on the web. It will be interesting to learn Mark’s thoughts about this mix tape (or what people latterly would call a playlist) forty years on.

To add a little to the intrigue, the second side of the cassette is a recording of Changestwobowie, which my log says was made for me by Andrea Collins (now Woodhouse). Did Mark and Andrea collaborate on making this cassette for me, or did Andrea offer to fill in the second side of the tape for me after Mark gave me a one-sided cassette? My diary and logs are silent on such details and my memory only retains the extent to which I played this cassette quite a lot in the second half of 1982.

To close, here’s one of my (many) favourite tracks from that Bowie album:

Forty years on, just in case I didn’t express sufficient gratitude at the time: thanks Mark, thanks Andrea.

After The Exams, Lots Of Fun At Keele, Late June 1982

Joe Jackson – photo by David Gans, CC BY 2.0

I have such happy memories of my time at Keele in the summers after the exams. 1982 was no exception.

For those who have come late to this “forty years on” series, I wrote glowingly about the glorious time I had at Keele late June 1981 – click here or below:

A Very Special Week, The Last Week Of My First Year At Keele, But There Was A Catch… 21 to 28 June 1981

In June 1982 there was a football world cup and the union did a lot of “big screen stuff” to encourage business and to enable most of us to watch. (In those days a TV was a luxury item that only slightly better off students had). I probably watched more football during that 1982 fortnight at Keele than I have watched in the forty years since.

Plus there were the balls, the parties, the inaugural International Fair…and of course, lots of chat.

Tuesday, 15 June 1982 – Last exam this morning. Drank at lunchtime. Watched Scotland versus New Zealand – went to union – Pete [Roberts] came back for coffee after – late chats.

I had forgotten that I befriended Pete (or Pete befriended me) at that stage. I have good memories of Pete getting involved with our anti-cuts campaigning the following term (he was sabbatical Education & Welfare in 1981/82) but I now realise/remember that those conversations started in the summer of 1982.

Wednesday, 16 June 1982 – Latish rise – dossed around. England V France in afternoon. Spain V Honduras in evening -> bar -> disco. Sharon and Louise came back after.

Thursday, 17 June 1982 – Got up early. Went shopping -> Carol’s [Downes] for coffee. Dossed around Keele in afternoon. Northern Ireland v Yugoslavia in evening. -> bar and reggae disco.

With thanks to Chris Parkins for this superb photo of Carol

Carol Downes had been sabbatical Education & Welfare in 1980/81. She was super friendly, very encouraging to those of us who were active in the Student’s Union and had presumably finished her finals by then. Sadly, she is no longer with us 40 years on.

Soon the weekend beckoned…

Friday, 18 June 1982 – lazyish sort of day – drinking lunchtime – cooked tonight. Watched the football -> union disco * early-ish night.

Saturday, 19 June 1982 Early start – got things done. Jon [Gorvett] came round in afternoon – watched footy in early evening -> Jazz Night -> Y Block [Hawthornes] party, somehow got home.

I apologise to football lovers that I stopped reporting which match was which. They probably all merged into one in my head and (as you can probably tell) I was not making full use of my cognitive faculties by that stage of the term. This on-line resource might help you. I assure you it doesn’t help me.

The Y Block party will have included Ashley Fletcher, Miriam, Nicola, Heather, probably Simon Jacobs & Jon Gorvett too, plus many others. I love my “somehow got home” comment – how many of us Keele alums from that era must remember staggering to or from Hawthornes in a state of…not really being capable of staggering quite that far?

Sunday 20th of June 1982 – Rose quite hung over – went down to International Fair most of the day – watch football in the evening. Joe [Benedict Coldstream ] came back – played cards till late.

I have talked about the birth of the International Fair in earlier posts – e.g. this one. I am very proud of the fact that I was involved in the conception of this wonderful Keele tradition. I was also involved in its delivery at times, but it seems not so much in that first edition of it, unless “hungover attendance” qualifies as delivery.

Why Benedict Coldstream became known as Joe is lost in the mists of time. I think Richard Van Baaren gave him that nickname early in our time at Keele because he didn’t believe Benedict’s real name.

The card game in question was almost certainly Piquet, the Keele origins of me & Joe playing that game are described at the end of this piece.

Monday 21 June 1982 – rose quite early – easyish day about the place – watched football – went to Lindsay Ball in evening – Osibisa v good.

Dave Lee also gives this Osibisa concert a superb review in his book The Keele Gigs. But now I come to think of it I did provide him with my feedback , so I was probably one of his main sources. It was an ideal concert for a summer ball at University – fun Afrobeat that just sounds like sunshine. Below is a live gig of theirs from the following year – it should make you smile for a good few minutes:

Tuesday 22nd of June 1982 – Rose at a reasonable hour – got results – went to meeting in afternoon.

Evening battle of bands etc in the union – [?? someone] came back to flat after – up all night chatting etc

Wednesday 23rd of June 1982 – easyish sort of afternoon – went to Barnes to watch footy in evening – went to bed.

Apologies to whoever it was whose name I scribbled so badly I cannot work out who came back and chatted all night after the Battle of the Bands. Perhaps someone can help out by deciphering the original diary page (below) – there are people out there better at reading my handwriting than me:

Thursday 24th of June 1982 – Rose quite early. Sorting some things out. Got roped into playing cricket all afternoon. Went to ball in evening (Joe Jackson pretty good). Up all night –

I have written up the cricket story separately, some time ago – click here for the Ogblog posting…

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

…or if you prefer the King Cricket style, it is written up differently on that site – click here or below.

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

I was impressed with and remember enjoying Joe Jackson at the Summer Ball. It was a pretty darned impressive gig, with Joe Jackson on the verge of getting properly big (i.e. breaking through in the States) at that time. You can see a good live vid from that era below:

Friday, 25 June 1982 – Went to went for brekkie in Newcastle with Sandra. Got subsid results. Meeting in afternoon – watched football – lounged around – took early night.

Sandra – from the previous year’s summer term – reappeared at that Summer Ball (I suspect she had been doing finals between times rather than actually disappearing) allowing us to spend just a little more time together before she left Keele. I didn’t remember the bit about going into Newcastle for brekkie, but if I wrote that in my diary, that’s for sure what we did.

Saturday 26th of June 1982 – Spent all day packing etc – went to union in evening – ok.

Sunday 27th of June 1982 – Mum and dad came up – went down to London – easy evening.

My second academic year at Keele was over.

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

Mike Stephens, caught out

By 1982, the annual Gentlemen (of the right) v Players (of the left) cricket match had become an iconic feature of Keele Festival Week. It was many years later that I learnt that this “tradition” had only started a year or two earlier. Keele traditions were a bit like that back then.

The Roping In

I made a pigs ear of writing this event up previously, combining my memories of the 1982 match with the 1983 match, having forgotten that I ended up playing this match three illustrious times while at Keele; my last appearance being 1984.

My mistake was spotted by Mark Ellicott, whose name I had delicately left out of my previous write up of this first occasion, as it was for an “intoxicated” Mark that I was hurriedly found and roped in as a late substitute. Mark pointed out that it must have been 1982, as that was the summer during which he was caught up in all this stuff and he was involuntarily on sabbatical from the University the following academic year. Mark later went on to be a Students’ Union sabbatical, stretching his Keele duration yet further.

On the topic of this 1982 cricket match, my diary entry merely says, with surprisingly little enthusiasm:

Got roped into playing cricket all afternoon.

Here is the Mark Ellicott substitution bit of the story, as I originally wrote it, before Mark got in touch. Naturally I have now cleared with Mark the idea of attaching his name to the story:

“I got a knock on the door early afternoon…a certain wild-haired student (even more wild-haired than me), who latterly – more latterly even than me – became a sabbatical, had been experimenting with an acidic chemical – presumably something to do with his subsidiary or extra-curricular studies – and had accidentally ingested rather too much of the stuff…

Mark Ellicott two or three years later

…he might have been experiencing something like this:

In short, the accidental acid victim was away with the fairies and I was in the team.“

Mark describes his experience slightly differently, presumably starting the evening before:

It was on Results Day for finalists in the summer of 82. I had scored two tabs previously and was working that day as a waiter in Oysters wine bar serving up bottles of wine etc to celebrating finalists. I dropped one tab whilst working idiotically enough and after ten minutes when nothing was happening even more idiotically dropped the second. Thereafter it all gets hazy, but like you I have kept a diary since I was a kid so can refer back. I must have wandered away from my workplace because the next thing I remember is wrestling with an anonymous young woman outside the Computer Science lab. Then it’s several hours later and I’m sitting in the Union bar with Truda Smith, Mark [Bartholomew], Simon [Jacobs], Anna [Summerskill] etc. I’m completely incapable of speech at this stage. I hear Truda’s disembodied voice explain to people “he’s tripping, keep an eye on him”. Next thing I recall I’m hiding under a bush by Keele Hall and Mark and Simon come looking for me, find me, and gently return me to the Union and a disco where I have a vague recollection of ‘dancing’ to ‘Say Hello Wave Goodbye’ by Soft Cell. Then I’m at a party in Stoke talking to a woman who runs a chippie. Completely brilliant day that was !

When I gently suggested to Mark that I might link his name with my cricket-career reviving incident, he replied…

…please go ahead and use my name. I’ve never been embarrassed about my psychedelic experiments then.

The Match Itself

Under the circumstances, I didn’t expect much of a role for The Players and got pretty much what I expected.

I was reminded of this 1982 match in August 2018, after Adil Rashid had a rare “thanks for coming” (TFC) test match – i.e. he did not bat and did not bowl in the whole match – a very rare event in test cricket – written up here…

…but not quite so rare an event in beer matches. Indeed, both the 1982 & 1983 Gentlemen (of the right) v Players (of the left) match at Keele were TFC matches for me.  I did not bat; I did not bowl, but…

…I did field.

In this 1982 match, I recall The Players captain Toby Bourgein (who sadly died in September 2020) sending me out to graze in the long grass, on the boundary, where he supposed I’d do the least damage. I recall that enabled me to keep a trusty pint of ale close at hand.

But the ball tends to follow the team donkey. I recall the Gentlemen doing rather well against us at that stage of the match, with Mike Stephens (Secretary 1980/81) batting well & properly, along with a beefy, sporty fellow…I think his name is Steve Bailey, who had been the Chair of the Athletic Union, providing some humpty to the innings.

I’m pretty sure the above picture shows “the humpty chap”, Steve Bailey, at the 1980 Christmas Ball – apologies if I have grabbed a picture of the wrong humpty chap.

Three times the humpty chap lifted the ball skywards in my direction. Three times I failed to catch it. One of those misses was a juggled attempt which failed even after several potential reprieves. One I think I lost sight of completely, perhaps even running the wrong way.

Toby sent me to backward point instead, where he suggested that catches were far less likely but I might at least save some runs if I continued to put my body (the only asset I seemed to be bringing to the party) on the line. I think I brought my skiff of ale infield with me.

A few balls later, Mike Stephens executed a firm, albeit slightly uppish, late cut, which should have hurtled to the left of a diving backward point for four…

…but the diving backward point, me, somehow contrived to dive at the correct moment and the ball contrived to stick in my hand. A stunning, potentially match-turning catch.

It might have looked like a left handed version of this one from school a few years earlier, c1979, for which I was the photographer, not the catcher.

I recall Mike Stephens stomping off in an uncharacteristic huff of “it’s so unfair. He can’t catch for toffee…”

…it was a little reminiscent of the James Pitcher “TFC with single moment of glory” match against The Children’s Society 21 years later, almost to the day:

Match Of The Day & Play Of The Day, Z/Yen v The Children’s Society, Holland Park, 22 June 2004

I don’t think my derring-do was enough to help salvage this 1982 match for The Players, but revenge was sweet for the next couple of years.

My Second “Thanks For Coming” (TFC) Keele Festival Week Match, 21 June 1983
O Captain! My Captain! – Gentlemen Of The Right v Players Of The Left – Keele Festival Week Cricket Match, 26 June 1984

I have no photos from the 1982 game, sadly, nor the 1983 nor 1984 ones, but this one from a year or two earlier, thanks to Frank Dillon, should give the reader a pretty good feel for the look of the mighty Players team.

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

If anyone out there has any more memories and/or photographs of our festival week beer matches, I’d love to hear from you.

Subsids, Subsidence & Sub-Standard Soccer At Keele, First Half Of June 1982

Forty years on, reading about this particular fortnight in my diary, I can see that I did, for a short while, perhaps a day or two before and during the exams, give some proper care and attention to the end of academic year tests.

In particular, I had to complete two subsidiary courses that year – I had chosen Psychology, plus Applied Statistics & Operational Research.

Actually I remember enjoying both courses and I am also sure that both proved useful to me in later (working) life, not that I had chosen those courses particularly with vocational training in mind. The former sounded like an interesting course to take at subsidiary level (it was) and the latter I imagined to be the closest match between my numeracy skills and a subsidiary that qualified as a science (also true).

Hey baby, would you like to Kammhuber to my place?

No evidence of much work the week before the subsid exams. In the union every night. At Film Soc watching Time Bandits and getting stoned afterwards on the Friday evening – well, it was the end of the “working” week, Friday.

Sub-standard Soccer

Sunday 6 June 1982 – Dossed around most of today – tried to do a little work and failed. Q Block. Played football with Ahmed and the lads. Earlyish night.

It took the diary to trigger a memory of ever playing football at Keele. I was thoroughly useless at football. “Ahmed and the lads” means my Malay flatmate, Ahmed Mohd Isa, four Malay guys who shared a flat in Q Block Barnes and probably my Bruneian flatmate-to-be 82/83 – Hamzah Shawal.

I remember telling the lads that I was no good at football. I remember them telling me that it was just a kickabout and that it didn’t matter. I remember them being much too good at football to be kicking about with me. I remember them being thoroughly polite about it and I have no recollection of ever being invited to play football with them again.

The field of dreams…or, in my case, nightmares

They were a very hospitable bunch, the Q-Block Malay gang, so I was certainly invited again for other activities, not least eating. Almost certainly part of this football occasion was a delicious Malay curry back at Q Block – usually with mutton as the core ingredient and usually wet-style Malay curry, not dry-style. At least two of the Q-Block lot were very adept at cooking Malay food, as was Hamzah – I was to discover to my delight the following academic year.

I always enjoyed spending time with that gang and I guess the football session, humbling though it was, at least warmed me up for the festival of football madness that was to kick off a bit later in the month.

So I Subsided After My Subsid Exams In My Subsiding Flat

Monday 7 June 1982 – Did fair bit of work today. Dossed around a bit too. Early night.

Tuesday 8 June 1982 – Psychology subsid for six hours today. Didn’t feel like doing anything [afterwards].

Wednesday 9 June 1982 – Stats subsid – got pissed lunchtime – came home – ate – felt exhausted – crashed.

Bless.

I think we can take it that the Stats subsid was just the single three hour paper. I wasn’t THAT negligent towards my studies.

Thursday 10 June 1982 – Shopped and laundered. Did some work later of course.

Friday 11 June 1982 – Worked a fair bit. Went to film (Arthur) – came back worked after Earlish night.

Saturday 12 June 1982 – Worked pretty hard today – went to Union in evening for a quick drink. Simon [Jacobs] and Jon [Gorvett] came back for coffee.

Sunday 13 June 1982 – Did a fair amount of work today – stayed in trying to anyway – early night.

Clearly I took my law exams a bit more seriously than the subsids. Probably with good reason – i.e. there was more I needed to cram.

Monday 14 June 1982 – Law exams all day – yukky. Not quite finished but went to UGM anyway – left early.

In the next episode you’ll learn about the last of the exams and what I did next. It’ll be more exciting and have more name drops in it than this episode, that I can promise.