Tag: Keele University

The Last Week Of My First Term At Keele, 13 December 1980

Is this piece Jon Gorvett‘s first ever piece of published journalism?

I have already written up bits of that last week; in particular the bizarre coincidence of The Bootleg Beatles at Lindsay Ball just hours before the real John Lennon was murdered.

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

As a postscript to that piece, Jon Gorvett, in a feat of extraordinary memory, writes:

I do remember the Bootleg Beatles gig, too, which, like the assassination, happened on my birthday (59 today – what the flying fuck, indeed?). For some reason, I too have no other recollection other than that it happened, though – the ball, that is – so perhaps I too was at Karen’s extraordinary party. I do have a vague recollection of her – curly hair, went out with some kind of biker type and was mates with David Perrins? *

Jon’s note reminded me that I had uncovered his epic expose about a new block being built from the December 1980 issue of Concourse, which I have used above as the headline image for this piece.

In truth, we cub reporters for Concourse were nearly all given stories of that magnitude to write as our initial pieces, apart from David Perrins who had somehow blagged his way into being the Arts Correspondent from the very start of his fresher year, as I reported in an earlier piece.

Most of us, other than David and Jon, had to wait until our second term to get our juvenilia published, but I did get a mention for hard work in that December issue:

That hard work can only have been typing and was not hard enough to find its way into my diary, so I expect it was just a few hours over a couple of evenings with pint in hand.

I hope I didn’t type Jon’s above piece, as the typing is awful and even Jon’s name is spelt wrongly. I think I was better than that, having had plenty of experience “editing” lesser journals for which “doing the typing” and “editing” tended to be one and the same thing.

Tuesday 9 December 1980 (after the partyette vignette)… Tired today. Got Phil result [this will be my Descartes essay]. Lindsay Xmas dinner OK. Earlyish night.

Wednesday 10 December 1980 – Not bad day. Prepared for ball. Went to ball. V Good indeed, went…

Thursday 11 December 1980 – …on so late went straight to 9:00 lecture!!! Went to bed about 8:00 exhausted.

Friday 12 December 1980 – last full day (OK). Went to Party in eve v good.

Saturday 13 December 1980 – Left Keele return home tired. Relaxed for rest of day.

If we ever did perform our Princess Margaret street theatre skit we did it on the afternoon of the ball, but given the lack of mention I wonder whether we shelved the idea in the end.

Street Theatre, Princess Margaret and The Ball Debacle, Keele, 10 December 1980

Simon Jacobs’s impersonation of Princess Margaret was a sight to behold. I think he might have reprised the role occasionally in Ringroad subsequently.

Anyway, I have promised Dave Lee that I wouldn’t review the ball itself, as he is writing a book about Keele and the music scene in that era – click here for more information on that book – and I certainly don’t want to steal his thunder in these pieces. Suffice it to say that we saw Bow Wow Wow supporting Q-Tips. Those bands looked a lot like this in those days:

“Who was the poor, unfortunate lecturer condemned to teach the 9:00 lecture the morning after the Xmas Ball?”, I hear you all cry.

Well, as it happens, I had retained and have now retrieved my 1980-81 Foundation Year Programme, so I can exclusively reveal that it was Mr Smyth of the Economics Department talking about The Wealth Of Nations.

That week I started marking up my FY lecture list, so I can also exclusively reveal that I missed the 9:00 lectures on the Tuesday (after the Lindsay Ball) and the Wednesday (for no good reason) and apologise unequivocally to Keith Tribe and the late, great Les Fishman. I learnt from my mistake in the matter of missing Les’s lectures (which I found fabulous, as I discovered when I did show up at 11:00 on that Wednesday), so I did make it to Professor Fishman’s Marxian economics stuff on the Friday.

At least a bit of that economics stuff over the four years must have gone in.

https://www.zyen.com/publications/books/price-fish/

…but I digress.

I have no idea whose party I went to on Friday 12 December but according to my diary it was “v good” and who am I to disagree with my own judgment on that?

Thanks for your hospitality, whoever you are. But let’s be honest, there probably wasn’t much hospitality involved – we probably all needed to bring our own booze. But that was OK.

Anyway, the first term was over. The diary is silent on how I felt, but I think I had probably already fallen in love with the place. Keele got lots of us like that.

*Postscript: an update to the above postscript on The Bootleg Beatles piece, supplied by globetrotting journalist Jon Gorvett, whose short-range memory is still absolutely fine. Whereas his long-range memory…

I’ve just realised that I have no idea who Karen was/is, and I have completely confused her in my addled way with Debbie, who was going out with the aforesaid biker and was a friend of DP’s. At least, I think that’s right…No,  I’m pretty sure about that, because after reading your piece, I recalled how, at a much later date, I had had an unfortunate run in with said biker and his mates after they reckoned I was getting far too entangled with said Debbie at one of those Saturday night discos at the Onion. They were quite right, in retrospect, but in any case, it was Debbie I was recalling, I fear, not the mysterious Karen. 

Jon Gorvett

It’s all in danger of getting very messy when I start writing up my 1981 diary, by the sound of it.

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

My first term at Keele.

My first Hall Ball; Lindsay Christmas Ball.

The main act; The Bootleg Beatles.

Writing this up forty years after the event, I learn from Wikipedia that The Bootleg Beatles were relatively new in 1980 and/but are still going more than forty years since they started in some Beatle-oriented show.

Anyway, I clearly had a good evening. The diary reads:

Lindsay Ball in eve, brilliant. Went on from there to Karen’s for partyette // v good.

I really must apologise to Karen who I’m sure was and probably still is a lovely lass, but I really don’t remember you, nor do I remember what a “partyette” might have been. I’m guessing it was a small group of people in one student room continuing to enjoy the entertaining night. The // symbol in my diary tells me that cannabis was involved and my inability to remember anything much that occurred after seeing The Bootleg Beatles might be attributed to that.

Anway, a belated thank you to Karen for her hospitality after the Ball.

I was hungover the next morning and I recall staggering off to the campus store to buy some milk in an attempt to breakfast my way out of my stupor.

Before I had left the confines of Lindsay, I ran into Katie, a super girl I knew reasonably well, whose surname has now escaped me, but I do recall that she was from Leicester. Katie told me that John Lennon had been shot dead overnight.

I so clearly remember staggering on towards the campus store wondering whether I was sleepwalking or even still in bed having a nightmare based on the show I had seen the night before. It just didn’t seem possible that John Lennon was dead.

While we were watching The Bootleg Beatles, the soon-to-be killer, Mark Chapman, cadged an autograph from John Lennon in front of The Dakota Building. A few hours later, probably while I was still at “Karen’s partyette” (the early hours of 9 December GMT), Chapman returned to The Dakota and shot John Lennon dead.

Below is from the front page of The Guardian 10 December; the news broke too late for 9 December by the looks of it.

John Lennon shotJohn Lennon shot Wed, Dec 10, 1980 – 1 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

The incident was a global phenomenon and it certainly was the talk of the Keele campus for the rest of that term…i.e. the next few days. I wonder how other people who were at Keele then remember that strange coincidence?

Keele Fresher Memories 40 Years On: Cogito Ergo Mum…Cogito Ergo Son…The Fresher Writes & Travels, 25 November To 7 December 1980

A drunken fart? René Descartes.

There was only one “drunken fart” involved when I waded through my FY Philosophy topic on Descartes…and it wasn’t René Descartes. Memorable for me only because it was my very first Keele essay and I do recall finding the topic tough.

With thanks to Susan Bermingham who uploaded this slice of the Descartes FY lecture onto the Keele Alumni Facebook Group & granted me permission to use it here. Sadly neither of us can remember the name of the geezer who taught this lecture & topic.

The diary hints at me finding Descartes tough:

There weren’t a lot of tough days in FY, but Descartes was doing my head in a bit

So, I went home for the first time since upping to Keele. That essay was my main concern, as would have been a BBYO National Exec meeting that didn’t happen, by the looks of it. I did speak with Paul Dewinter ( P De W) though. I doubt if we discussed Seagulls or Eagles on this occasion.

A Most Mysterious Evening In Or At Crystal Palace With Paul DeWinter, 12 August 1980

I have a vague memory of trying out Cartesian philosophy on my parents, eliciting bafflement, followed by an encouraging, “whatever you say, dear”, from my mum, which means I must have explained it all very well.

Everything is self-evident, sonny-boy

So deep was I in philosophy that weekend, I even failed to write up Sunday, which must surely have comprised finishing the essay, having lunch with my folks & travelling back to Keele…not necessarily in that sequence.

I remember telling dad that I had several essays to write in the next couple of weeks, which would limit my ability to go out drinking with my friends, so he gave me a little glass hip flask (quarter bottle size I think, or perhaps 5oz) full of whisky, which he said would sustain me on such evenings and could be refilled whenever I came home to visit. On reflection forty years later, dad’s kind idea not entirely devoid of enlightened self-interest.

Flacon de chasse 08981

I drink therefore I am…it wasn’t quite as posh as this example.

I think the hip flask had its first big dip on the Wednesday, when I finished my Law essay for Michael Whincup. I can’t remember for the life of me what the topic was about; a very general introduction to law, I think.

I’m pretty sure that I had near made my mind up by the time I completed that Law topic that I fancied switching to Law for half of my degree – my heart was already set on Economics for the other half. Philosophy (with all that Descartes) and Politics sessional (mostly Psephology with Mr Kimber that term) didn’t grab me sufficiently.

On the Friday evening, 5 December 1980, I:

Went to Union – Sim’s mates from Donny there

Ah yes, my next door neighbour Sim (Simon Ascough) and his home town mates from Doncaster. Sim was a great bloke and I very much enjoyed being his neighbour in F Block Lindsay for about four terms in the end. In those early days, I especially remember listening to his Neil Young Triple Album, Decade:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Decade-VINYL-Neil-Young/dp/B071DXVKJC/ref=tmm_vnl_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

But I recall Sim’s friends from Donny being into a harder-boiled variety of rock than that; Iron Maiden, Rainbow and the like if I am not mistaken. I also recall them finding Keele quite baffling; they were pretty disparaging about the place and the whole idea of Sim being at University. I think I added to their sense of bafflement because I was Jewish; a state of being which, I guess, had barely entered their consciousnesses before and certainly never previously manifested to them in human form. I don’t think they were bad lads, but when Sim dropped out of Keele a year or so later, it felt to me like a real shame and I did wonder whether Sim had anyone “back home” encouraging him to persevere with university.

The next day, on the Saturday, Simon Jacobs and I went off to Leeds for a BBYO thingie. I apologise unequivocally to the people of Leeds who might have read the phrase:

Simon and I went to Leeds (yuck)…

..imagining that I had something against Leeds. In fact, I was fond of Leeds back then (still am to some extent) and I suspect the word “yuck” was a word play on the fact that we were going, in part, to a YCC meeting as representatives of BBYO. Simon had, in fact, resigned as National Vice-President over the summer, but I think might have still retained some involvement in whatever the YCC is/was – frankly I’m struggling to find anyone who can remember.

It’s a bit like SLAC Convenors at Keele – people vaguely remember the existence of the post but no-one seems able to recall what SLAC was…

John White in 1985 checking out the bona fides of SLAC Convenor Cath Coughlin – with grateful thanks to Mark Ellicott for this picture.

…but I digress.

Returning to December 1980, in my diary, in the matter of that Leeds trip, I went on to say:

…stayed at nice house (early night)

Sunday 7 December – coffee morning -> lunch -> YCC (🗸 & X) -> Inst[allation]. Simon & I left early

No idea what the 🗸 & X represented. Presumably something went right (from my point of view) and something else didn’t. The YCC was probably like that…whatever it was.

What I didn’t say in the diary, but popped straight into my main memory when I read this diary note, was the hellish journey Simon and I endured between Keele and Leeds. No wonder we left early.

As I recall it, we took the bus to Stoke, took a train to Stockport, where we changed to a train to Staleybridge, where we changed again to take a train to Leeds.

Stalybridge railway station (6)

Staleybridge station looks in better nick now.

Then we did the whole trip in reverse, with the added excitement of a 1980 Sunday service to contend with. On returning to Keele after that epic journey, Simon and I agreed that we wouldn’t be attempting that voyage again by public transport in a hurry. I still haven’t attempted a rerun and strongly suspect that Simon Jacobs also can only boast that single expedition from Keele to Leeds and back, without oxygen.

Keele Fresher Memories Forty Years On: Meet The Lindsay F Block Gang, Mid-October To Late November 1980

It’s been tarted up since our day, I can tell you. Picture “liberated” from the Keele website page about Lindsay Hall, which you can find here.

My diary for late November 1980 is pretty useless. It’s pretty clear that I wrote it up a week or two into December, while still hazy from the hazy stuff I’d been doing for much of the second half of that term.

So it’s time, surely, for me to write impressionistically. For me to write about bits I actually remember. To accept that there must be aspects that are lost in the mists of time…

…and also for me to introduce some of the characters I got to know in those early months.

Location, Location, Location: Lindsay F1

On arrival at Keele, I was deposited by the authorities in F Block Lindsay. I am grateful that a drew that straw. F Block Lindsay was a good place for freshers. Lindsay Hall is lauded by the University as

[S]ituated at the south of campus and overlooking the adjacent farmland, Lindsay hall is just a five minute walk from Union Square.

F Block was blessed with stunning views of the adjacent farmland…

…as long as you had one of the rooms that faced that way. Unfortunately, F1, despite sounding like a Grand Prix of a room, was a rather odd-shaped affair at the side of the block with nothing that might be described as a view…or even might be described as natural light.

OK, the view from F1 wasn’t that bad, but you get my drift

It was my good fortune, though, that I only had to endure F1 for two terms. When I returned from the Easter break, I learnt that one of the lads in one of those “prime view” rooms had moved on, so I managed to negotiate a move into a super room with a view across the fields, F4, for the summer term. We were blessed with good weather and time on our hands that summer term; I took full advantage of my improved location during those months.

F Block itself is now long gone, presumably replaced by new buildings with better facilities and with rooms that still (mostly) have stunning views of the adjacent farmland.

Meet The Gang, ‘Cos The Boys Are Here

On arrival, we were boys in F Block. I suppose some were already 19, but I was just turned 18. I even recall one 17-year-old Scottish fella, not on our corridor but nearby, whose parents had thoughtlessly named Matt (with the surname Black). Matt was so young he wasn’t even allowed to come drinking with us for most of the first year.

Anyway, I’ll try to recall the gang from my ground floor corridor on F Block:

  • Simon Ascough, known as Sim. He was my next door neighbour in F2. I met him right at the very start of my Keele time. Sim will crop up in several episodes of the story;
  • the chap who moved on was, I think, named Martin, although in truth I don’t much remember him. He didn’t join in much of the joviality and the only tangible thing I remember about him was buying a couple of The Jam cassettes from him for not very much money;
https://www.amazon.co.uk/All-Mod-Cons-Jam/dp/B000006TZ8
  • then there was Brummy Paul, who in the early days lived in the F4 room I inherited in the summer term. But I have a feeling that Paul stayed around, perhaps switching to the room that the departing fellow had occupied. I remember Paul complimenting my accent (without sarcasm) as “BBC”. I also recall that he loved The Stranglers;
  • further down the corridor was Malcolm Cornelius, who I think might have been the first person I met on that corridor when I first moved in. We became good friends and he’ll crop up quite a lot over the years I spent at Keele. In those early days, I recall that he had brought a record player and records with him, several of which were of the Peter Paul & Mary, Pete Seeger & Bob Dylan folk variety. I also recall Malcolm sporting something that resembled a Paul Stookey beard, which was quite impressive facial growth at our age; I wouldn’t even attempt wispy stuff back then.
Paul Stookey (left), with Peter & Mary

  • at the far end of the corridor, lived Benedict (Ben) Coldstream. I got to know Ben better later in that first year and the first part of my second year. He will crop up in later episodes, as will his next door neighbour, with whom Ben seemed inseparable in the early days…
  • …Richard Van Baaren, who got in touch about 18 months ago (May 2019, as I write in November 2020) after I wrote up the story of my Patrick Moore interview (which also mentions Sim as it happens). As with several of the others, tales of Richard’s derring do will crop up in later episodes.
My Keele Interview With Patrick Moore, Conducted In My Little Study Bedroom (Lindsay F4), circa 28 May 1981

I jest about Richard chasing girls in that Patrick Moore piece, but I do recall Richard (and to some extent Ben) getting started in the matter of chasing girls quite early in our time at Keele. I also recall Malcolm “settling down” with a nice girl named Ruth. When I say “settling down”, we’re talking weeks, or a few months/terms, not years. But most of us on that corridor were “just hanging” in those early months, with perhaps the odd youthful dalliance to add some intrigue or frissant to our student lives.

Apologies to those from our F Block ground floor corridor whose details I have mislaid in my mind. I think there must have been one or two other people on our corridor. I hope that some people reading this will chime in with their own memories.

I do remember a softly-spoken Welsh fellow named Mark Evans, who supported Swansea City FC, but have a feeling he might have lived on the corridor above us. That corridor was dominated by “Mad Harry”, an extraordinary fellow about whom I shall write separately. We heard more than we saw, in the matters of Harry.

“Don’t Bring Harry…”

A Crossroads Twixt BBYO & Keele University, 17 to 24 November 1980

Reading my diary references to Caroline’s visit to Keele in late November 1980 gave me a memory flash of an event earlier that term.

Caroline Freeman (now Curtis) was a good friend, through BBYO, of mine and of Simon Jacobs . Caroline chose not to go to university, although from memory she had as many UCCA points from her A levels as Simon & I had put together from ours.

I had long been the beneficiary of Caroline’s mum’s cooking on the many occasions I found myself in North-West London doing BBYO stuff in the year or so before heading up to Keele.

“That poor boy needs a good meal” – c1979

Anyway, I think Caroline must have got it into her head that Simon and I might struggle to feed ourselves properly at the weekends. Keele provided refectory meals to freshers Monday to Friday but at the weekends we had to look after ourselves.

Frankly, I don’t think the self-catering element of student life was a challenging aspect for either me or Simon…

…nor was I in want of food; I was just burning calories at a furious rate back then…

…but early in our time at Keele, Simon and I both received, through the post, from Caroline, an emergency food parcel styled in the mode of a Red Cross jobbie as depicted above. I don’t recall exactly what was inside the parcels, but I suspect it was more like “boarding school kid tuck” than “genuine emergency rations”. Simon and I were both amused, I certainly remember that.

Hawk-eyed readers (especially those with cipher-cracking skills) might have spotted the 17 November entry: “Jay was supposed to come – “did he heck”. Goodness only knows what that visit from Jay Marks was supposed to be for and why it went awry, but it will have been part of a BBYO National Executive unravelling towards the end of our year which makes the last 74 days of the Trump presidency…

…well, on reflection, it was bizarre (but in the grander scheme of things trivial) stuff around resignations, unresignations, with some of us trying to keep the show on the road with sufficient dignity to hand over to a new committee over the new year holiday. So nothing at all like the last 74 days of the Trump presidency.

Meanwhile my diary keeping was temporally awry that November – hawk-eyed cipher-crackers might also spot the reference to a Teardrop Explodes concert in the 19 November entry. That concert actually took place on 5 November; yes, really I am sure.

The Teardrop Explodes supported by The Thompson Twins, Keele Students’ Union Ballroom, 5 November 1980

Anyway, Caroline’s first visit to Keele is quite well documented in the diary:

Friday 21 November 1980 – Not bad day. Met Caroline at Stoke. Went to Lindsay, Union & coffee lounge.

Saturday 22 November 1980 – Simon & Roy popped in early hours. Got up q late. Found Simon., lunch there…

So far so sensible. Simon had met Roy and started going out with him almost as soon as we arrived at Keele. I’m pretty sure Caroline stayed in my pokey room, which was tolerably fine back then and would be unthinkable now considering the size of those student beds and bedrooms. “Lunch there” I guess was in Simon’s block in Barnes (D if I remember correctly), where the facilities for weekend self-catering were marginally better than those in my Lindsay block (F I recall most certainly).

I have used sophisticated computer-aided techniques to decipher the next bit and am pretty sure it must say:

…romped in lakes. Simon left. Spiff dinner (over top) -> over to Roys.

The Lakes at Keele is a rather charming wild garden beyond the ornamental gardens of Keele Hall. Originally planned to be a network of seven substantial artificial lakes, money and/or motivation must have run out for the Sneyd family in the early 19th century as the more far-flung lakes are more like puddles and only two or three have any scale to them. Still, they are pleasant enough to walk around and I dread to think what romping entailed on that occasion. Whether “Simon left” in disgust or simply to go over to Roy’s place is lost in the mists of time. Almost certainly the latter.

No idea what the sentence “Spiff dinner (over top) -> over to Roys” actually means. I sense an in-joke long since forgotten.

Sunday 23 November 1980 – Lounged around all day. Roy, C & I met Simon, went out for dinner. V nice.

Monday 24 November 1980 – Not bad day. Caroline left at 3:00 pm. Relaxing evening.

It would have been helpful if I had noted where we went out for dinner. There were a couple of passable restaurants in Newcastle-Under-Lyme and I suspect it was one of those. The Sneyd Arms didn’t qualify as going out for dinner. Nor did the Union and nor did The Golf. So Newcastle it almost certainly must have been.

Caroline will surely remember every detail and help fill in all the blanks. After all, she was the one with more UCCA points than me and Simon put together.

Mind you, she was almost silent about my write up of her visit the following term, which for reasons of happenstance I wrote up before this one:

A Short Visit From Caroline To See Me And Simon At Keele, 20 to 22 February 1981

A Typical Keele Weekend For A Bunch Of Freshers, 15 & 16 November 1980

With grateful thanks to Martin Ladbrooke & Steph for the above photograph of Ashley Fletcher

I suspect that I met Ashley Fletcher for the first time this weekend.

My earlier pieces about starting at Keele should leave readers in no doubt that Simon Jacobs was totally to blame for my presence at Keele…

Getting In To & Starting At Keele University, 8 October 1980

…and a fair smattering of my activities during my early weeks at Keele…

In The Absence Of Glittering Prizes…Stardust Memories, Keele Freshers Week, 12 To 18 October 1980

It seems this weekend was no exception. Unfortunately, my diary keeping was poor that term and got poorer as the term went on. The mid November scribblings were, by the looks of them, written several weeks later while inebriated.

Still, I can just about make out the following:

Saturday 15 November 1980. Easy day. Got up late. Went over to Simon’s for shopping, lunch etc. Went to town for supper – ??

…and then it reads, sprawling over the Saturday and Sunday entry

Heather’s party v late // & drank etc.

I am pretty sure that this particular Heather was “Miriam & Heather” Heather, who lived, if I remember correctly, in The Hawthorns. Not the Heather who lived (or at least dined) in Lindsay, whom Simon nicknamed “The Heathertron Bomb” on account of her unfeasibly high-decibel-registering laugh.

The double-slash marking in my diary I believe was to indicate that I partook of some cannabis, which would probably have been in the resin form illustrated above.

This was not my first experience of smoking cannabis; I was weened in Mauritius in the summer of 1979:

Gris-Gris, A Wedding Feast And More, Mauritius, 21 July 1979

It probably wasn’t even my first toke at Keele, but I think it is the first time I used that symbol, probably suggesting that the rest of the evening/night was somewhat of a haze for me.

This photo of Simon Jacobs, from 1979, was tobacco only I am sure

But not a total and utter haze, so I am fairly sure that I met Ashley at that party and he might be able to confirm or deny the matter.

Simon Jacobs had thrown himself into Keele’s gay scene as soon as we arrived at Keele. I think Simon might have started going out with Roy 25 minutes after arriving at Keele; that was the rumour anyway…a rumour proliferated mostly by Simon, I suspect. Anyway, the gay crowd was a welcoming bunch, supremely tolerant towards my unfortunate lack of gayness. I made a great many good & enduring friends, such as Ashley, while enjoying “honorary membership” of the clan throughout my years at Keele.

With thanks again to Martin Ladbrooke & Steph for this quintessentially 1980s photo of Ashley

“So what did we discuss late into the night at Heather’s party in the early hours of 15 to 16 November 1980?”, I hear you ask. Well, if anyone pretends to remember that level of detail, they are probably making it up as they go along.

I do however recall, from those early days, one particularly shocking party trick of Ashley’s. So shocking that I suspect he didn’t pull the trick on this first occasion, but he did so soon after.

Ashley pretended that he knew Hitler speeches by heart and would rant at length, in mock German, sounding just like a Hitler speech. Eventually, someone’s limited knowledge of German brought the blessed revelation that Ashley’s rant was a mock speech and not, as advertised, a vile feat of memory.

Get Ashley inebriated enough today and it’s just possible that he could still pull off the trick. Of course trigger warnings and safe spaces hadn’t been invented back then. The trick might not be appreciated in quite the same way today.

Anyway, despite all that, 40 years on, Ashley and I remain in touch and it wasn’t that long ago that we last met up…

A Get together With Ashley Fletcher In Finsbury Park, 10 April 2019

…while Simon Jacobs was the most recent person (ahead of Lockdown 2.0) that Janie and I have seen in person:

A Prescient Visit To Simon Jacobs’s Place, 10 October 2020

Enduring friendships indeed.

“Went To Middle Of M62 For JSoc Do”, From Keele, 12 November 1980

Why?

Why did several of us go to the middle of the M62 for a JSoc do on a Wednesday evening?

Because we could, presumably. Of the few Jewish students we had at Keele, two or three had cars, making us more mobile than most societies. But “because we could” doesn’t really help much, as I write forty years later.

Nor does my late 1980 diary help much. It was certainly suffering from the dual problems of belated and inebriated writing up by the time we got to mid November 1980.

There is a little bit of extra help, though, as the black ink scrawl goes on to say:

JSoc Do Exit 22 Ram’s Head Pub enjoyed

OK, The Rams Head is indeed a well-known inn, very close to Junction 22 of the M62 at Denshaw, near Oldham, described in glowing terms here. (or, if anything ever goes awry with Visit Oldham, try this scrape here).

I’m sure The Ram’s Head did and indeed does (once it is allowed to open again post-2020-pandemic) offer fine fare and an excellent range of ales at an historic location in a stunning part of the country…

Picture borrowed from & linked to Visit Oldham.

…but 70-odd miles from Keele to find that? Surely there was something similar, closer?

My guess is that the purpose of the expedition was to meet up with some J-Soc folk from other universities; those in Manchester and/or Leeds. Those places had plentiful J’s, whereas Keele, to be frank, had a veritable J shortage. There weren’t very many of us and those Js who were at Keele tended to be…as I soon became…fairly reluctant J’s.

In my case, at that time, I was still heavily involved with BBYO, soon to be finishing my National Executive tenure but reluctant to give it up at a time of BBYO crisis. My 9 November diary entry probably doesn’t need translating and says it all.

Anyway, if we are to get chapter and verse on what that Ram’s Head Denshaw evening was about, I need help from my old friends.

The bowels of my mind have dredged up some names. Nigel Lloyd, who I think was the leader of the J-Soc pack at that time. Lloyd Green, who was an old friend of mine from the haim (Streatham).

Both of those fellas were surprisingly easy to trace in 2020, forty years on, by Googling their names together with the word Keele. Nigel Lloyd claims to be a lawyer with a sense of humour (we’ll soon find out), while Lloyd Green appears to be the sort of person one might go to if one wanted to find someone forty years on and all you knew about them was their name and alma mater.

Anyway, let’s see if either of those two can (and/or wish to) provide some additional detail to this story…or possibly the names of some other people to “tap up” about it.

The only other names that come to my mind about this are Hilary Kingsley, who I think was there but who does not pop up on a simple search, plus Simon Jacobs who I’m pretty sure wasn’t there that evening but I shall ask him.

The only other thing I remember about the evening, weirdly, is the back gate route we used to return to Keele that evening. In those days, as I recall it, if you were travelling south on the M6 and came off at Keele services, there was a “back gate” that was sometimes left open and which allowed drivers to cut along a track to the Keele University road, shaving several miles and a good few minutes off the journey. Why that small detail sticks in my mind, I have absolutely no idea.

Did Lloyd’s car look a bit like this? I recall at least one hair-raising journey with him from Streatham to Keele, I think in early 1981. That diary is in better nick than the late 1980 one, so more should be revealed on that story when I get there!

Postscript

Nigel Lloyd claims to recall little or nothing about the evening, but Lloyd Green provided this helpful recollection:

I remember travelling there as part of our attempt to integrate into the Jewish North scene ; my clearest recollection was that my old girlfriend at the time was there with her new boyfriend, who I met for the first time. We have remained close friends to this day…it helped he was a Chelsea supporter!!

By way of reciprocation to Lloyd, I discovered a piece of his juvenilia in the January 1981 issue of Concourse. For some reason, Lloyd chose to write a scathing review of a re-released album by The Average White Band:

I’d have given that review the headline, “Well Below Average White Band”, but what do I know?
I bet they weren’t still smiling & laughing after they read Lloyd’s review

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

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

No law, Molly Badcock’s instead.

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

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

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

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

Ah, yes. Now I remember.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enough said.

Concourse Needed Me

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mum & Dad, 6 November 1955

Richard Marks Visits Me & Simon Jacobs At Keele, Not Least For Stoke v Manchester United, 19 & 22 October 1980

Richard Marks With Terri Vine (now Phillips) c Spring 1979

In truth, the only bit of this visit I remember is Richard talking me into joining him at The Victoria Ground to see Stoke City play Manchester United on the Wednesday. But the diary is clear that Richard came to visit initially on the Sunday.

My guess is that Richard did not hang around on campus with us for several days. My guess is that he visited us on the Sunday, went on to Manchester to visit some of his many BBYO friends and/or attend to some other business for a couple of days, then returned to North Staffordshire for the football match he yearned to see.

Simon’s party trick

I’m fairly sure Simon could not be persuaded to come with us to the football match, so it was just me and Richard.

Richard’s purpose was to see the debut of Garry Birtles for Manchester United, as Birtles had just been signed from Nottingham Forrest for a record transfer fee. Get this number; £1.25 million. I’ll repeat that number in words, just in case the sheer scale of it blows readers away. One-and-a-quarter-million pounds.

People who know me well know that I am not exactly a football person. Cricket, yes. Tennis, yes. Rugby, no. Soccer, no, not really. But I was up to have a butchers at my now local soccer venue on an historic night.

Here’s the 11v11 card for the match – sadly lacking the Stoke team but delightfully full of names that even I recognise on the Manchester United side of the card.

Lou Macari, one of those Manchester United players (indeed one of the scorers), went on to manage Stoke and formed an extraordinary relationship with Neil Baldwin, a Keele legend, celebrated in the film Marvellous.

For the record, Manchester United won the match 2-1. Here’s the Guardian review of the match, including both teams’ names:

Stoke v Man UStoke v Man U Thu, Oct 23, 1980 – 20 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

But my main memory of the evening was Richard suggesting that I might get us both killed.

The thing is, not being a football person, I didn’t really understand some of the subtleties of going to watch such a match.

Richard had got us seats in a part of the ground where Stoke home fans watch.

It didn’t occur to Richard that I wouldn’t understand that neutrals and/or supporters of the other team need to travel incognito in such circumstances.

I don’t actually support any team but I was with Richard and he was there to see Birtles and Manchester United so I started cheering for my friend’s team.

It was at that juncture that Richard warned me that I might get us both killed and I must admit that I noticed a few dagger-like looks coming our way. Richard found a way to mollify those around us (I think by signalling with eye rolls and gestures that I was simply a clown, an imbecile or both), enabling us both to survive the potential ordeal.

Diary says that I enjoyed, so I must have enjoyed..

Thanks for the educational and entertaining evening out, Richard.

My First University Of Keele Students’ Union UGM, Starring Princess Margaret, 20 October 1980

I have no idea why Princess Margaret loomed so large at Keele University, but throughout my time at Keele our titular Chancellor was the source of countless controversies in absentia…which is indeed the manner in which I chose to receive my degree in 1984.

I knew nothing about this when I signed up for Keele. I knew more or less nothing at all about the place, other than the fact that Simon Jacobs had been to visit Keele in August and liked the look of it.

Getting In To & Starting At Keele University, 8 October 1980

Indeed, it was along with fellow fresher Simon Jacobs that I took my seat at my first Students’ Union UGM…the first of a great many as it turned out…on 20 October 1980.

I don’t remember all that much about that first UGM, other than the hoo-ha that was the Princess Margaret controversy.

There were no doubt student political machinations involved in the matter dating back to before our time. But in short, it seemed, the new union sabbaticals had invited Princess Margaret to the Union’s Christmas Ball without seeking approval for such a manoeuvre from the whole committee nor from a UGM which is (or at least was) the sovereign body of the union.

Trying to recall how I felt about it, looking back on the event almost exactly forty years later, I don’t think I saw the matter as especially newsworthy or even all that controversial on the night itself. It just felt like good debate with some political theatre thrown in…and we even got to vote. The argument that the student ball would be far more restricted if HRH attended and that anyway she probably didn’t really want to come to our student ball seemed the most convincing to us and indeed to the majority of those who bothered to turn up, listen and vote.

Extract from The Daily Mirror Diary Page, 22 October 1980. Click the picture link above to see the whole page, including a piece about Mick Jagger describing him as an ageing rock star…he was 37 back then.

The Daily Mirror saw it a little differently. We’d been at Keele for less than a fortnight and already we were “bolshie students” and “little devils”. Yay!!

A week or so later, the student newspaper, Concourse, covered the story in a far more balanced manner:

The controversy rumbled on and had an impact on several of my activities in the first couple of terms, as my unfolding story will reveal. Within a few weeks, Simon and I and others were lampooning the whole affair through a street theatre skit which I wrote up a year or two ago – click here or below:

Street Theatre, Princess Margaret and The Ball Debacle, Keele, 10 December 1980

Not even two weeks after coming through those Keele gates for the first time, I felt that I’d well and truly arrived by the night of 20 October 1980!