The end of that Autumn 1981 term weirded out…or rather, was a bit of a white-out.
The diary suggests that I had exhausted myself putting in a bit of academic effort for once; it also suggests that I got reasonable results by so doing:
I went to see the movie 10 on the Tuesday evening, which I remember enjoying.
The following evening I went to see Neil Innes perform and rated it “v good”. I do remember it being a very enjoyable concert/evening.
For those who cannot imagine what Neil Innes might have been like live, here are a couple of vids – the Catchphrase one resembling more the concert as I remember it:
Thursday 10 December …went to K Block party in evening – bit heavy.
11 December 1981 – last day of term – uneventful. The Beat snowed off – went to union and got pissed instead – K Block & Jon’s for [traumas?]
Forty years on, that sounds quite eventful, although I would have been very disappointed to miss The Beat. I’ve made myself feel a bit better after all this time by watching a couple of The Beat live vids from that era:
I feel that I did see The Beat at Keele in the end – perhaps they came in a subsequent academic year during my Keele time…or perhaps that is a false memory based on my wanting to have seen them. Someone out there should remember.
Someone might also remember what Jon’s for traumas might mean – I think it might be to do with Jon Gorvett and Truda Smith reaching the end of their road, which is mentioned more specifically a few days later.
Thursday 12 December – Planned to go home but snowed in – moved into flat – lazyish evening in
The flat in question was in Barnes, G Block I’m pretty sure. It was normally the home of Rana Sen and his flatmates, one of whom was named Tony and I think one was named Jenny. I think I had always planned to return to Keele early and had arranged to stay there
The next exciting episode of this 40 years on series will describe goings on during my unexpected extra week at Keele in December; snowed in.
I needed to get some work done towards the end of my first term of P1, studying Law & Economics, with subsidiaries in Psychology and Applied Statistics/Operational Research.
The words and symbols in my diary suggest that I did indeed get my head down during that period, while still finding time for some fun.
I’d better translate some of that:
Sunday 22 November 1981…went to Alexander’s. Did some work. Asian supper & disco in evening.
I think Alexander was one of my law friends from the Chinese-Malaysian community, as was the lovely Tina, who gets a mention on the Thursday. I’d started to get involved in some of the cultural societies around Keele; keen for combining forces as most were really very small groups when standing alone.
Justice for all?
It will be difficult for modern students to get their heads around this, but, back then, some of the published resources we wanted (or even needed) to prepare our tutorials and write our essays were rare and in very short supply. We were expected to buy our law textbooks of course (quite a large chunk of the grant went on those) but there was also material – such as the detailed law reports on cases or journal articles on specific topics, that we had to borrow from the library’s tiny stock of copies and share amongst our friends who all needed to see the same stuff around the same time of year.
No doubt I could also find on-line the old journal articles that tutors such as Michael Whincup, Philip Rose and Mike Haley were so keen for us to read to enhance our understanding. I especially remember hunting around for a journal article that supposedly would contextualise the High Trees House case for us P1 students -there were three library copies for the whole year to share.
I think “Int Aff” stood for International Affairs and that was the group that had been established to oversee the Anti-Fascist day and follow up on it’s activities. Joe Andrew was the lead protagonist on the academic side and very good at that he was too.
I do remember those early meetings concerning themselves rather too much on “assumed” rather than actual problems. In particular, I remember the chaplains worrying about possible strife between Chinese-Malaysian and Malay students, and/or between Jewish and Muslim students, whereas the reality “on the ground” was that those groups tended to get along just fine.
A major upshot of that focus group, once it focussed on accentuating the positive, was the hugely popular Keele International Fairs, which became a twice-yearly feature of Keele campus activity and I believe still features on the calendar today. One of my proudest, lasting achievements; just being involved with the early stages of that development.
Thursday 26 November 1981 – Usual busy Thursday. Went over to Tina’s in evening till late
Friday 27 November 1981 – Work OK – did Economics essay afternoon & eve – went to Simon’s party later ***
Saturday 28 November 1981 – up late – went to town – wrote law essay all evening
Sunday 29 November – latish start – wrote Psychology essay today lazy evening
That’s a lot of essays in a short period of time. No wonder I tailed off for a couple of days, then:
Wednesday 2 December 1981 – Worked quite hard during day. Went to Alexander’s for dinner -> UGM
Thursday 3 December – Busy day – doing odds and ends, meetings etc. Lazy evening in
Friday 4 December – Worked reasonably hard today. Went * to * Lindsay * Party ** in evening – late night.
I don’t remember UGMs being any day other than a Monday, but perhaps some strange circumstance had led to that particular UGM being unusually scheduled for a Wednesday.
I can’t remember or recognise what the symbols in my diary entry for the Lindsay party might mean, so I suspect that the girl or girls in question similarly remember little or nothing about it forty years later.
Saturday 5 December 1981 – up late – went into Newcastle – lazy day – played cards in evening.
I remember playing cards with some of the guys on my block (F Block Lindsay), including Richard van Baaren, Bob Schumacher, Simon Ascough, Malcolm Cornelius and especially Benedict Coldstream.
Never gambling, although I think we might have played some poker and never bridge, although I think we sometimes played whist-based games.
The game I especially remember learning from Ben Coldstream was piquet, which I found fascinating and which we played quite a few times, especially at that tail-end of the autumn term in 1981.
I am fascinated now to look at the game ofpiquet again, learning that it is a very old game, dating back to the Renaissance or earlier. This sits neatly with my more recent interests in real tennis and Renaissance music:
It is even reminiscent of my own (rather unusual) real tennis serve which is, coincidentally, called the piquet – (in truth normally spelled piqué or pique for tennis).
Returning to playing the card game piquet – unfortunately we have so few photos from our time at Keele, but I have managed to find an artist’s impression of F Block Lindsay folk “at piquet”, supervised by appropriate academics – I’m sure I have identified each of the characters correctly:
Seated left to right: Malcolm Cornelius, Bob Schumacher, Ian Harris (at cards), Simon Ascough, Benedict Coldstream (at cards). Standing left: Mike Haley & Philip Rose adjudicating. Crouching centre: Joe Andrew. Standing right (sword in hand): Richard van Baaren.
I’d love to give piquet another try some time. Anyone out there up for it?
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.
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
Ballroom Image Borrowed From Keele Oral History Project – John Samuel
This was the business end of my P1 (first year of actual degree) initial term. It seems I did some work.
But that didn’t stop me from having weekend visitors aplenty – Caroline Freeman (Now Curtis) and Alan Tucker braved the journey to Keele on Friday 13 November 1981.
CarolineAlan
But before that, on Monday 9 November:
Not a bad day – UGM in eve – not a very good one
UGMs tended to be quite argumentative affairs as I remember them, although (by many accounts) relatively peaceable compared with the political bun-fights at some of the larger University’s Students’ Union meetings.
Was this one “not very good” because it was insufficiently pugnacious for my taste at that time, or because it was too pugnacious. In truth I don’t remember, but with Mark Thomas as President at that time, I suspect it was too tranquil by my taste.
Some of us were “cruising for a bruising” over the painful grant cuts being imposed by the UGC at that time and I suspect that, in November anyway, some of us felt that the Union wasn’t doing enough.
On the Tuesday evening I went to see the movie Brubaker. I must admit to little recall of this movie. Whereas the film I went to see the following Tuesday, Bad Timing, really stuck in my mind as a shocking story about sexual violence.
Simon Jacobs was clearly very much involved in the Caroline and Alan visit; not least because they were very much his “friends from home” as much, or in many ways more, than mine.
We went to a disco in the Union on the Friday evening, to Simons, then the Union, then a “party thing” on the Saturday evening. Then, on the Sunday:
Simon, Heather Caroline & Alan came for lunch.
How I catered for five of us in the tiny kitchen in F Block Lindsay I have no idea. I have even less idea how (or where) we all ate lunch in my study bedroom. Not all at the same time, perhaps.
Then, after Caroline and Alan had gone home, I went down with a rotten cold. It seems I had intended to go to London for a couple of days 18/19 November but didn’t go because of the cold.
The diary says I “watched football” on the Wednesday evening – a World Cup qualifier match – they might have put up a big screen in Lindsay Bar for that. Of course, the sort of screen that qualified as a big screen in those days is the size that many people today would turn their noses up at if proposed for their home. But I digress.
Wendy Robbins arrived for a visit on Friday 20 November.
We “did little” on the Friday night but then made up for it on the Saturday:
Went on cuts march – did work in afternoon, went to two parties in evening – up till late.
Sunday 22 November – Wendy left…
That sounds more like it. A proper Keele weekend day. Guess I must have recovered from that Keele autumn cold quite quickly.
…so all that remains to say is that I considered the event to have been a great success, judging by my diary:
My diary for that week shows signs of industry…even to the point of using the word “industrious” on 7 November – not a word often found in my youthful diaries.
Still, I found time to see movies, go to the union several times, see a gig and at least one party. Not bad.
I vividly remember seeing Stardust Memories that week, a movie I loved at that time.
The next night, I went to see The Comsat Angels in the evening. Dave Lee, in his wonderful book The Keele Gigs!, reminds me that the support act was Victorian Parents and that The Comsat Angels were, in his opinion,
“The-Cure-meets-Joy-Division (in a dark alley!)”
It took me quite a while to unpick the Thursday scribble:
Thursday 5 November 1981 – Busyish day – warden, diary, Wizzards [sic], went over to Anjou’s [sic] in evening – quite a few people there.
“Warden” would have meant a visit to the Lindsay Hall warden, J P de C Day. Mr Day, as we all knew him, was somewhat of a walking miracle. Apparently he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, with months rather than years to live, a few years before I arrived at Keele (1980). Mr Day by all accounts refused to accept the diagnosis and simply kept calm, kept fit and carried on…for more than a quarter of a century.
I don’t remember much about this “visit to the warden” but I think it was part of his campaign of pastoral care, inviting small groups of Lindsay students to his home for tea. I remember him mumbling a fair bit but seeming ever so decent and nice.
“Diary” is a rare post-modern reference in my diaries to the process of writing in my little book. My guess is that I had got a few weeks behind, so had devoted some significant effort to writing up.
“Wizzards”, by which I am sure I meant “Wizards”, was a strange animated movie, which I think Film Soc showed as a nod to the Anti-Fascist Day earlier that week:
I’d like to see that movie again now, as I suspect I’d get far more out of it now than I did then.
“Anjous” will have meant Anju Sanehi’s place, in Harrowby House, which must have been a small party-type gathering. I recall thinking of Harrowby House as a rather privileged residence, with larger, seemingly superior rooms to the rest of Lindsay Hall. Yet one early Keele pioneer in the Keele Oral History Project Hut Life piece describes the old Nissen huts as superior accommodation to Harrowby House. Perhaps the latter was renovated/improved in the intervening years. Or perhaps the Nissen Huts were super-luxurious.
Friday 6 November 1981 – did quite a bit of work today. Went to Plesches in evening. Union after.
Peter and Traudi Plesch acted as mentors to the tiny community of Jewish students at Keele. This gathering would have been a traditional (although not religious) Friday night meal at their home; something they did occasionally. Professor Peter Plesch was a chemistry professor, who had joined the teaching staff in the very earliest Keele days. Traudi Plesch was a force of nature on the campus – a relentless fundraiser for multiple good causes and part of that social weave that made the rich and wonderful fabric that was Keele life.
I’m sure I didn’t think about the connection at the time, but given that both Peter and Traudi Plesch were escapees from Nazi Europe in the 1930s, that evening was a fitting end to the week that had started with Anti-Fascist Day.
An evening at the Plesch House was always a treat, but to some extent a daunting treat. Peter Plesch was a polymath and would usually seek a seemingly arcane topic of conversation, which sometimes felt more like a tutorial than an evening of chat. I remember him waxing lyrical about Chinese ceramics on one occasion – it might even have been this occasion – which morphed into a lesson on Chinese history and the science behind ceramics.
By late October the first term of my P1 year was into full swing.
Wednesday 21 October – OK day – got some work done – went to see John Martyn in evening.
Thursday 22 October – not bad day – went round blocks for cuts thing in evening.
Dave Lee’s excellent book, The Keele Gigs! reviews that John Martyn gig well, reminding me that there was a good ska support act too – Bumble and the Beez – which was a bonus. I saw John Martyn several times at Keele over the years – I don’t think this particular gig was my favourite among them.
Friday 23 October – Day OK – Met Karen & Myrna in eve – union etc.
Saturday 24 October – went out during day – went to Union & party in evening
Karen & Myrna – I owe you both a wholehearted apology. You clearly came up to Keele to stay with me for the weekend, but I simply cannot remember who you are or how I got to know you or what you look/looked like or anything. It’s a complete mystery. If someone out there can help me out and nudge my memory, I might have an “aha” moment and be able to muster a few hundred words on that lovely pair of lasses.
MYRNA LOY, MGM portrait, 1930s
I’m pretty sure that “mystery visitor Myrna” was not Myrna Loy (depicted)
Sunday 25 October – K&M left – went to J-Soc meeting – delivered leaflets in afternoon – worked in evening
Monday 26 October – day OK – went campaigning against the cuts in evening -> Sneyd Arms
Tuesday 27 October – day OK – campaign against cuts and film (Raging Bull) in evening.
I’m glad to see that I was out campaigning against the cuts so early in the academic year, although this does make me think about one of my favourite Oscar Wilde quotes.
I was also busy helping to organise the Anti-Fascist day for early November – mentions of it come up regularly in my diary for late October 1981.
Wednesday 28 October – busy day – viewed films for AFD [Anti-Fascist Day] in afternoon – Labour Club & restful evening
I remember that afternoon viewing films so clearly for two reasons. Firstly, the circumstances in which I viewed the films. A sort of media facility in one of the old Nissen huts that still peppered the campus at that time, twixt the Students’ Union and the Chancellor’s Building.
Secondly, I so clearly remember the content of the footage I reviewed – it still gives me the heebie-jeebies to think about it. Documentary footage about organisations such as The League of Saint George and other less arcane ones such as The British National Party and The National Front. Much unsurprising but some material truly shocking and worrying to the 19-year-old me. I still shudder at the thought of some of it.
Thursday 29 October – Busy with Anti-Fascist Day. Went to see Altered Images in the evening.
Dave Lee’s The Keele Gigs! reviews the Altered Images concert in far more detail than I could muster from that slight diary entry. My impressionistic memory is that I was not too impressed with them. It would have looked a bit like this:
Friday 30 October – Busy rushing around for J-Soc. Went to film – Jabberwocky – pub with Lloyd [Green] etc.
Saturday 31 October – Very busy with J-Soc. Cooked for 8 hours (Rice salad). Went over to Harrowby after…
Cooking for 8 hours on a Saturday is not a very J-Soc thing to do. This can only have been preparation for the Anti-Fascist Day and I assume we had started the thought process, which continued into the far more positive International Fairs that followed that day – that an event that celebrates diversity through encouraging people to eat and congregate together can do more for the cause than fretting about the bad people.
Why rice salad might take 8 hours to cook I have little or no idea – although if we were trying to use small pans and hall kitchens for a large-scale catering, that might explain it.
“Harrowby after” I am pretty sure is the night I met Anju Sanehi and her friends Louise and Sharon. Richard Van Baaren and Benedict Coldstream were there too. No mystery there; Saturday night in Lindsay Hall, Keele.
…and returning to Keele, I squeezed in quite a lot of activity.
Some of the activity is more than a little illegible or indecipherable. I know that Lloyd Green and I were working hard those last couple of weeks towards a Keele racism awareness day, Anti-Facsist Day as it was badged. That activity, at places such as Hillel House, needed to be co-ordinated around the Jewish Holidays – Rosh Hashanah (New Year) was 30 September/1 October that year. Col Nidre/Yom Kippur 7/8 October.
Interspersed with those activities (with minimal regard for the rigours of the Jewish holidays on my part) were plenty of socials:
Sunday 27 September …Anil [Biltoo]’s for dinner party…
Wednesday 30 September …Met Jim[Bateman] at Rose & Crown…
Friday 2 October …Paul [Deacon] came over in the evening
Saturday 3 October …Anil came over for supper – went on to a party with him & friends -> back to Anil’s till early hours
OMG – “buy books” – at last a mention of something that might be vaguely connected with preparing for a new academic year at Keele. I was certainly preparing well for the social side of it.
Even by 1981 the congregation was on the wane; just a few dozen people. I was one of a handful of younger people who would still show their faces there.
I’ll write more about that congregation elsewhere, but I was reminded recently (forty years on) of one regular attendee on those high-holy days, Miriam Margolyes, who would regularly attend with her partner. Far and away the most interesting “nodding acquaintances” amongst what was mostly a small group of traditional old men.
With all of that effort preparing an honourable education campaign against racism and the many hours spent atoning for my first year at Keele, I might have anticipated an easy time getting back to University the next day.
But no.
Friday 9 October 1981 – Left home midday – [Lloyd Green’s] car broke down – arrived late – key not to be found – stayed at John’s
By my reckoning, the journey to Keele from Streatham would normally be about three hours, so Lloyd and I clearly had quite a lengthy ordeal as a result of that break down. I don’t remember the details – Lloyd might of course and I’ll certainly report back here with his remembrances, if he has any. It might be that breakdowns twixt Keele and Streatham were a fairly regular event for him back then.
I think “The Lloydmobile” was something like this
I owe “John” both thanks and an apology. Thanks for putting me up/putting up with me that night and apologies because I have no idea which “John” this diary mention is talking about. If there is a John out there who wants to put up his hand and claim the merits for this act of charity, please chime in with your claim.
Saturday 10 October 1981 – Rose Early – Freshers Mart – went to town after. Simon [Jacobs]’s party quite good in evening.
Judging from the headline picture above from 10 October 2021 – thanks again Dave Lee – Freshers Mart has not changed much in forty years. Did I mention that Dave is at Freshers Mart forty years on selling his wonderful book The Keele Gigs!?
My diary, from forty years ago as I write, tells me that this was one crazy weekend, during which I zig-zagged my visiting Keele friends, Sim & Tim (Simon Ascough & Tim Woolley), hither and yon across London for a couple of days.
Sim was from Doncaster and Tim was from Moseley, South Birmingham. I have an inkling that they had never been to London before…or at least “not visited a Londoner” before.
Reading my diary and assessing the activities I inflicted upon them, they might have formed a lifelong skewed opinion on what London life is like. I’m not sure I had a weekend quite like it before or since.
Friday 7 August 1981 – A Mini Pub Crawl Following In My Alleyn’s School Footsteps
7 August – Work OK – Sim & Tim arrived -> ate -> Fox -> Dog -> met Mark from Keele -> his place ’till late
Mum will have given us all a hearty family meal on the Friday evening ahead of the mini pub crawl. I cannot remember whether we did all of our dashing around London by car or by public transport. I think it must have been the former; if so it must have been Tim who had a car with him.
That first evening, I wanted to show Sim & Tim the places I used to drink with my friends before I went to Keele. The Fox On the Hill (aka The Fox) on Denmark Hill and The Crown & Greyhound (aka The Dog) in Dulwich Village. I thought we might bump in to a few old friends from Alleyn’s in at least one of those places, but that didn’t happen.
Indeed, my most vibrant memory from that whole visit was my embarrassment in The Fox when, for the first time ever, the barman questioned whether I was old enough to buy drinks in the pub.
I remember feeling like saying…
…but I’ve been buying drinks in this pub for years…since I was fifteen… and no-one has ever questioned it before…
…but I feared that such an admission might prevent me from being served or get me barred, so I simply asserted myself as a University student down after my first year at Uni and had my word accepted.
No ID cards for pub-going youngsters in those days. Why The Fox had started asking questions all of a sudden back then I have no idea – perhaps they had experienced some youngster trouble since my previous visit.
As for “Mark from Keele” whom we met in The Dog, I’m not sure which Mark this might have been. I don’t think it was Mark Bartholomew – perhaps it was a mate of either Sim or Tim’s who lived in or near Dulwich and was named Mark.
Diary says we didn’t return to my parents house until late – in fact I am trying to work out what the sleeping arrangements might have been. There was a studio couch in the small (fourth) bedroom which was ample for one sleeping visitor but would not have been comfortable for a couple, let alone two individual sleepers. Perhaps one of them slept on the floor in a sleeping bag.
Saturday 8 August 1981
The Saturday really was a crazy day of haring around town. Allow me to translate that diary note – I needed a bright light, a magnifier and a cold towel around my head to work it all out:
8 August – Earlyish start -> Knightsbridge -> Notting Hill -> Soho – met Mark Lewis -> Ivor’s -> eats -> Hendon -> Ivor’s -> home (knackered).
Frankly, I’m knackered just reading about that day.
I’m hoping that this article will help me to track down either Sim or Tim or both of them – perhaps their memories of this day will help me to unpick it.
I suspect that we went to Knightsbridge because one (or both) of them had a crazy craving to see that place, with its Harrods & Harvey Nicks reputation.
Possibly the same applied to Notting Hill and Soho. Possibly I encouraged the Notting Hill idea, as it was, even by then, a place with a hold on my heart, not least for the second hand record stores, which I had been visiting for a few years by then.
What we got up to in Soho I have no idea. Given that, whatever it was, we did it with my old BBYO friend and now media law supremo Mark Lewis, I suggest that readers keep their baseless allegations to themselves.
…then Hendon, where I imagine we visited Melina Goldberg, as I don’t recall staying in touch with anyone else from that BBYO group…
…then back to Ivor’s – why the diary doesn’t say – perhaps Ivor had organised a bit of a gathering of old friends from Streatham BBYO – it wouldn’t have been the first time nor the last.
Sunday 9 August 1981 – Lunch & Then Wendy’s Place Before Sim & Tim Left London
Took it easy in morning -> lunch -> Wendy’s -> Sim & Tim left, I returned home & slept a lot!
What a bunch of wimps. We’d hardly done anything the day before.
Anyway…
…I’m sure mum would have wanted the visitors to have another hearty, home-cooked meal before heading off – otherwise what might they think of us?
Eat, eat…
Then on to Wendy (Robbins)’s place, in Bromley, for a final visit of the weekend.
Not sure whether any of the other Streatham BBYO people were there. Andrea possibly, Ivor possibly…
…in any case, Bromley is probably not the ideal location out of all the places we visited that weekend from which to head back to Birmingham and Doncaster on a Sunday afternoon – but those logistical details matter a lot less to 18/19 year olds than they do to me, forty years on, re-treading the tangled maze of visits that was our London odyssey that weekend.
Goodness only knows what Sim & Tim made of it at the time, nor what they might make of it now, if they see this piece and are reminded of the weekend. I’d be delighted if others, e.g. Sim and/or Tim, got in touch with their memories to help me enhance this Ogblog piece. If they do, I’ll publish a postscript.
I grew up riding the 137 bus for various reasons. We lived in Woodfield Avenue, Streatham, near the Sternhold Avenue 137 stop.
As a young child, it was mostly to go to primary school (Rosemead, then on Atkins Road) or to visit my Grandma Jenny who lived in Acre Lane, a short walk from a 137 stop.
A bit later, when I was at Keele University but doing holiday jobs in Cavendish Square, the 137 became my route of choice. It was one bus all the way from Sternhold Avenue. I could sit up top, read lots of stuff while being transported and smoke a few cigarettes while so doing…at least in those early years before I saw sense and stopped smoking.
In the summer of 1981, I had an additional secret pleasure in the 137 bus journey home, on those rare occasions (only once or twice a week) when I went straight home from work at a civilised hour.
When the bus approached Sloane Square I would stop reading and take a good long look at the New Romantics who had made it their habit to congregate early evening in Sloane Square, in what I might describe as a pose-fest.
For those unfamiliar with the genre…and for those who would like their memories refreshed…by the summer of 1981 the following sound and video rather encapsulates (at least to me) the sound track of that summer and the (to the likes of me) unattainable style/swagger of the New Romantic fashion:
When Keele Met Sloane
On one occasion, a sunny early evening, I suspended my reading and eagerly awaited sight of Sloane Square and what I expected to be a large collection of New Romantics to observe.
Yes, there they were…
…but wait…
…I know those two! The unmistakable visages of fellow Keele students, Owen Gavin and Paul Rennie.
Paul Rennie and Owen Gavin were definitely among the trendy students at Keele; Owen for example had recently taken over as editor of Concourse, the student newspaper for which I was writing juvenilia along the following lines:
…but I had no idea that Paul and Owen had Sloane Square credentials in trendiness.
The 137 bus goes very slowly around Sloane Square in the evening, so I did consider waving and hollering out of the window at the pair of them.
But New Romantics wouldn’t want to be associated with a boy on a bus, would they? It would be different if I was driving around the square in a flashy sports car dressed like Tony Hadley from Spandau Ballet.
So I just watched in awe, as the statuesque figures of Owen and Paul mingled effortlessly and seamlessly with the New Romantic throng.
To be fair on those two, on reflection, they might well have been curious tourists observing the genre, rather than formal participants.
Actually, I don’t suppose such fashion has formal participants. Almost everyone there was probably just wandering along to have a look, see what there was to be seen and enjoy the moment of being seen.
I had and still have no idea.
Owen Gavin, Louise Marshall (Gray), Paul Rennie & Chris Parkins, early 1980s, with thanks to Chris Parkins for the picture.
So what became of those two? Did they remain cultural icons?
I was never even faintly fashionable. Here’s a picture of me around that time, curating my cassette collection in my bedroom in Streatham, a few hundred yards away from the 137 bus stop:
Fashion? I don’t need that pressure on…
Postscript: Paul Rennie Has Subsequently Been In Touch
I notified Paul of his 15 minutes of fame on Ogblog and have engaged in some very enjoyable correspondence with him since. On the specific matter of Sloane Square happenings, he writes:
I had a job, during the summer of 1981 at Sotheby’s Belgravia at the top of Sloane St. I think I was probably just hanging out, I don’t recall anything as organised as meeting up. It was all very hap-hazard as I remember.
Hence the truth of the matter at the time was far less interesting than my juvenile wonderings…but in a way that fact simply makes this piece differently interesting!
My impressionistic memory of that last week of term is a blissful one. The weather was brilliant. I had a nice spot outside my room where I could sit reading and/or listening to music.
If I fancied a quiet spot for reading, I ambled down to the centre of campus and sat on the grassy knoll in front of the library, reading books for leisure.
The Keele Library grassy knoll was appropriate for me that season, I now realise, having studied modern history as an FY sessional with Trevor Jones, in which the Bay of Pigs and a better-known grassy knoll loomed large.
The book I especially remember reading that week was Catch-22. I still have the well-thumbed copy I read back then – it is depicted above, on the shelf where it now lives. I think I read a few play texts as well.
The word “lazy” appears in my diary a lot for that week. “Restful” and “relaxing” also appear.
…and if you’re wondering now if they were any good…take my word for it, they were a special act for most students of our era. Forty years on, Dave Lee’s forthcoming book The Keele Gigs! will no doubt answer our questions about that gig and a great many others.
The diary says I was up all night for the ball (seems realistic) and that I went to bed very early the next night in the hope of a long night’s sleep ahead of my parent’s first visit to Keele and the journey back to London with them on the Sunday.
I really had fallen in love with Keele and was delighted with the prospect of three more years there. In fact, as it turned out, I stayed four more years.
At the time, during those carefree, idyllic, summer days at Keele, I remember the 18-year-old me thinking that I could happily live at Keele for ever.
But there is/was a catch.
Let’s call it “Catch-18” in this case. In fact, Joseph Heller originally titled his seminal work precisely that, before other works with numbers in the titles pushed him and the publishers towards a different choice of number for his catch.
My 18-year-old’s catch is this: if you are wise enough at the age of 18 to realise that a perennial summer break surrounded by books, youngsters, sunshine, beer and gigs would be a wonderful way to live your entire life…
…you are also wise enough to realise that no such life is realistically possible.
Oh shoot!
On the Monday I started my holiday job and by the Tuesday I had been sent to Braintree to audit a furniture factory.
“Vedi Braintree e poi muori”, as Goethe would not have said, had he ever been to Braintree. But he might have said “Vedi Keele Library e poi muori” while sitting on that grassy knoll.
