Tag: Keele University

Getting My Head Around Hormones, Three Parties In Four Midweek/Mid-term Nights, This Was Keele, Late February 1981

In truth, I don’t think mushrooms were central to most of those parties

The diary & scribbles in my FY programme suggest that I wasn’t going to let lectures get in the way of my planned activities much that week, or indeed for the rest of the term. It seems I managed three FY lectures in the last three weeks of that term.

Well, it was cold and icy.

Also, I had worked out by then that you could get pretty much everything you needed from the FY lecture notes. Keen scouts who liked attending FY lectures would bring fistfuls back to F Block Lindsay for the rest of us to read. It looks as though that system broke down for the last week of term, but that’s another story.

I did attend a swathe of topic tutorials and write a couple of essays that week, though, so it wasn’t all parties and student journalism.

I think one of the essays was part of my law double topic, finishing off my law studies for that year but sealing my decision to study law along with economics for my degree. Thank you, Michael Whincup.

I remember doing a topic on Hormones & Reproduction with Dr Peter Chevins and I think I wrote my essay for that topic that week. There were 10 to 12 of us in that class; I think I was the only male (other than Dr Chevins).

I don’t think I was taking it all in. I blame my riotous teenage hormones.

I have a feeling I spent most of the class time ogling the girls and not enough of it getting my head around the relevant reproductive aspects of endocrinology. Still, I think some private study (unfortunately for me there was no practical experimental learning in pairs for that topic) meant that I managed to write a decent essay. Clearly I also learnt enough then and subsequently to get me started when I wrote a student guide book on sexual matters, Sexplanations, when I was Education & Welfare Office in 1984/85.

Tuesday 24 February 1981

Not bad day – wrote essay. In evening, went to see California Suite. Late night in Harry’s // etc.

Somewhat cheesy movie if I remember correctly – great cast though, with Jane Fonda, Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, Alan Alda, Michael Caine, Walter Matthau, Maggie Smith…

I have written about Mad Harry previously, at length in this piece – click here or below:

Winter Draws On At Keele, FY & The Union & Lindsay Bar & My First Concourse Article, 18 to 31 January 1981

In late February, then, I guess we were still in the period twixt Harry’s small trouble and big trouble. My guess is that this party was a fairly impromptu affair centred around Harry’s room. The // symbol indicates that we imbibed some dope and that I didn’t even then remember much about the gathering. We probably talked a whole load of rubbish while convincing ourselves that we were putting the world to rights. Possibly we even did put the word to rights – in which case it is such a shame that none of us the next day remembered the answers we came up with that night. Oh well.

Wednesday 25 February 1981

Easyish day. Went to party in evening // at Miriam’s – pretty good.

Miriam will be Miriam Morgan, who, along with her partner Heather (Jones) was the doyen of the Keele Gay Society. I have written up an earlier party with that crowd the previous term, at which I first met Ashley Fletcher – click here or below:

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

Discussing those parties with Simon Jacobs in late 2020, Simon recalled that, at one of them, there were some magic mushrooms doing the rounds. He and I both very tentatively sampled the mushrooms, probably being too timorous to take enough of the mushrooms to get enough effect to impact on the senses beyond the drink and the (if the // symbol is anything to go by) dope available at the party.

I have a feeling that this party was part of Gay Lib week, as Simon wrote that week (and party) up in the March 1981 Concourse and I cannot imagine another Wednesday night being the party night to which he refers, given my documented events of the various Wednesdays that term:

Reading Simon’s article again after all this time (I probably typed it up for that Concourse – I typed up much of the darned thing), I am struck by how tiny and nascent the Gay Soc was at that time – a dozen or so people – perhaps including me and one or two other “supporters”. Within a year or so that tiny group of active students transformed that Society and well done them.

Ashley reminded me (in correspondence late 2020) that, at one point, I was designated the Gay Soc Mascot, by dint of my support for the group. I had a feeling that honour came later than this, but perhaps it was at this event that the honour was bestowed.

Thursday 26 February 1981

Not bad day. Concoursed in evening etc.

This is a bit of an anti-climax, don’t you think? I can only apologise to readers for interrupting this programme of parties with such an ordinary-sounding day. Note that “working on Concourse” has become a single-word verb; concoursed. Let us move swiftly on.

Friday 27 February 1981

Busy day academically. Anna’s party in the evening // pretty good.

Hostess with the most-ess

Anna Summerskill’s party was probably quite a low key (perhaps a dozen or so of us) but almost certainly a dope-ridden affair. I’m trying to remember where Anna lived that year; I think Harrowby House, but I could be wrong and someone out there might correct me.

I have written a fair bit about Anna already in the same “Winter Draws” piece as Mad Harry – click here or the links above. Mark Bartholomew – also written up in that earlier piece, would no doubt have been there. Probably (but not necessarily) Simon Jacobs and one or two others from that mini dining club in Lindsay refectory, which by sacred tradition included Anna’s ceremonial fellating of a banana at the end of almost every meal, before Anna would roller-skate off to her next engagement. It’s hard to believe she’s no longer with us (sadly she died of lung cancer in 2012), she was such a force of nature, was Anna.

Not quite sure what came together to make that a (rare) busy day academically, but I was probably trying to get work out of the way ahead of my anticipated marathon efforts towards the looming Concourse deadline over the next five days…

…and there’s a story to the meeting of that deadline, I could tell you. Indeed I shall tell you, in the next episode.

The Best Pot I Had In Five Years At Keele, i.e. The First Weekend I Tried Cooking In The F Block Lindsay Kitchen, 11 to 15 February 1981

The previous weekend, when I returned to London, not only did I bring back cassettes, including a mix tape of contemporary pop charts music…

Mix Tape Recorded In The Middle Of My Second Term At Keele, 7 February 1981

…I also came back with a large Judge enamel cooking pot, depicted above, together with a somewhat distressed-looking frying pan:

I really should point out that the above photographs were taken forty years later, in February 2021, in the kitchen of my Notting Hill Gate flat, where these artefacts still reside, a little incongruously amongst the granite and the fancy-schmancy cookware. I still use the enamel cooking pot occasionally; it’s in extraordinarily good nick. As the young folks might say, it is a remarkably peng pot.

I’m not sure I’ve used the frying pan for 25 years or more. In fact I was a little surprised to find it still there, at the back of a kitchen cupboard. But then it would be a wrench to throw it out after all these years.

I should also point out that the frying pan…Tower Brand, British made, patent number lost in the mists of time…already looked fairly distressed in 1981. In fact, it might look less distressed now than it did then; apart from the dent.

Dad had brought both the pot and the pan from the kitchenette at the back of his shop, where they had festered unused for many years. My guess is that they predate dad opening the shop even, in the mid 1950s, quite possibly hand-me-downs from dad’s parents.

We’ll return to the cooking later in this piece.

Here’s the diary extract for the first two weeks of February:

Nope, I can barely read it either

Music In The FY Lecture Theatre, Darts At The Mid-Term Ball & Late Nights, 11-12 February

I went to both of Professor Dickinson’s FY lectures that Wednesday morning; the first on British Music, the second on American Music. I seem to recall the focus being on late 19th and 20th century composers of the Elgar, Walton, Britten, Ives, Barber, Copeland variety.

The diary for that day (11 February) merely reads:

Did little – Ball in evening – Darts very good – very late night again!!!

Dave Lee’s book The Keele Gigs (due Summer 2021) will doubtless cover the topic of that Darts gig (and the support acts) well. I do remember Darts being a fun act to watch as an 18 year old. They looked a bit like this:

12 February 1981 – Up late – did little all day – very boozy evening & late night.

I’m just starting to spot a pattern here, dear reader.

A Trio Of Weekend Visitors & Some Rudimentary Cooking In The Communal Kitchen, 13 to 15 February 1981

13 February 1981 – Not bad day. Nick [Frankel,] Graham [Greenglass] & Rebecca [Segalov] came – went to bar -> Simons. Graham stayed here – talked music till late.

These three were BBYO friends, primarily of Simon’s (although I already knew Graham quite well) from Pinner.

It was not so easy to accommodate several guests at Keele. I know that Graham slept in a sleeping bag on the floor of my tiny study-bedroom. I think that Simon stayed with his then-boyfriend Roy, freeing up space in his study-bedroom for Nick & Rebecca. Or perhaps Simon’s next door neighbour, David Perrins, was away that weekend freeing up space there. Or both. Weekends at Keele were often a merry-go-round of room favours, long before Airbnb was invented.

I shall write separately on the wonderful mix tapes that Graham made for me back then. Suffice it to say that I think he brought two (or possibly even three) with him on that visit and I listened to those tapes a lot throughout my time at Keele.

Graham & Simon, 1979

14 February 1981 – Got up late – went in to Newcastle for lunch – went to lakes – cooked supper – S, G & I went to Lindsay disco – mine…

15 February 1981 – …for coffee, Anna [Summerskill] came, as did [Mad] Harry, Sim [on Ascough] & [Brummy] Paul – another latey.

So 14 February 1981 will have been the very first time I used my dad’s old cookware.

Freshers stayed in halls and dined in refectories Monday to Friday; the grub was part of the hall fees. But we had to fend for ourselves at the weekends on modest budgets and with limited facilities in halls. Most freshers, especially the male freshers, did not eat well at the weekends.

I was travelling up and down the country and therefore not around at Keele for many weekends in my first term. When I was around, I can tell from my diary, that I tended to eat in places such as The Sneyd Arms, The Golf Inn, The Student’s Union or in “town” – most probably Newcastle-Under-Lyme; mostly with Simon and his crowd.

So I’m pretty sure that this weekend will have been the first time I tried cooking at Keele.

F Block Lindsay had one small kitchen which was shared, if I remember correctly, between all 20 to 25 students who lived in that block. Possibly it was just as well that most male students were uninterested in cooking. I think the blocks that housed female students tended to have fewer people and/or more plentiful kitchen facilities. I’m wondering whether it is too late for me to bring a discrimination claim against the University.

Anyway, from memory this early effort was Spaghetti Bolognese. I planned it the weekend before, when with my parents. I remember my father insisting on pronouncing the name of the dish “Spaghetti Bollock-knees”.

I think I only brought one secret ingredient to Keele with me, which served as my stock base (as well as a warm snack) throughout my time at Keele; Osem Chicken Soup. Much more tasty than chicken stock cubes and a base I could use when cooking for vegetarians.

In the Keele days, I needed to buy this Osem ingredient in London, whereas now you can get the product almost anywhere, e.g. Sainsbury’s.

The rest of the ingredients I will have bought in the Newcastle-Under-Lyme Sainsbury’s on the Saturday. Here is my recipe.

Ian's Keele Fresher Spaghetti Bollock-knees Recipe

Quite a lot of onions
A good few carrots
A large pack of mince - hopefully the large packs are available at a special low price
A large tin of tomatoes - ideally an Italian brand that looks the part
A couple of teaspoonsful of Osem Chicken Flavor Soup (a stock cube or two can be substituted)
A good squeeze of tomato puree from a tube (that tube will last a good few months)
A good squeeze of garlic puree (that tube will last even longer than the tomato puree tube)
A good pinch of table salt 
A good pinch of ground black pepper
Vegetable Oil (likely to be rape seed oil in those days)
A good fistful of spaghetti (circa 4 oz per hungry person)

Chop the onions into quite small pieces.  Ditto the carrots.  Brown these ingredients in vegetable oil within distressed-looking frying pan.  Add the mince once the onions and carrots are brown.  Thoroughly cook the mince. 

Dissolve the Osem soup...or stock cube(s)...in boiled water and add to the distressed pan. Also add the salt, pepper and tinned tomatoes.  Then add tomato puree and garlic puree to taste.  Reduce until a good texture and flavour of sauce..

While reducing the contents of the distressed pan, bring a large quantity of water to the boil in the peng enamel cooking pot, add a good pinch of salt and cook the spaghetti for about 10 minutes.

Drain the spaghetti and serve the sauce over the spaghetti.

This all looks a lot more complicated when written down than it actually is. I knew how to do this before I went off to University.

I remember that my cooking of this food for our guests caused a bit of a stir in F Block Lindsay. I’m not sure anything quite so cheffy had occurred in that kitchen during that academic year until my effort. Perhaps I am being unfair. Anyway, the smell attracted quite a few people into the kitchen and I received quite a few requests for future meals…some of which I found ways of meeting, as I’ll explain in a future piece.

I have a feeling that Simon will have gone back to join Roy before the “post Lindsay disco” gathering in my room. In truth I don’t really remember it and I’m trying to get my head around the incongruous gathering of Anna Summerskill and her (as I remember it) constant desire to talk left-wing politics, with a bunch of hopped-up, mostly apolitical 18-year-old fellas – Graham, Brummy Paul, Mad Harry, me & Sim.

Sunday 15 February 1981 (continued) – up late – went in direction of Mainwaring – ate at Services – they [must mean Graham, Nick & Rebecca] left – Simon & Malc [Cornelius] for supper – early night

I have a feeling that the five of us headed off in the direction of The Mainwaring Arms, but then realised that a quick nip into the Keele Services “around the back” would enable the Londoners a quick getaway, while Simon & I could easily walk back to Keele.

As for the supper that evening, I’m going to guess that I vastly over-catered for the previous evening and had loads of Bollock-knees left over to enable me, Simon and Malcolm Cornelius to enjoy a hearty meal the next day.

I have no pictures of either Rebecca or Nick from back then, but Rebecca ended up with another BBYO friend of Simon’s and mine, Alan Tucker (who I think visited us on a separate occasion, some months later). Simon is still in touch with Alan and Rebecca forty years on.

Nick Frankel was obviously so taken with academia after spending a weekend with us at Keele, that he decided to make it his lifetime vocation. Professor Nicholas Frankel can be found, forty years on, at Virginia Commonwealth University, in the English Faculty. Simon wondered whether Nick would welcome this account of his Keele visit being published here. I think Nick will be fine about it. After all, Nick is an Oscar Wilde specialist:

There is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.

Oscar Wilde

Keele Concourse Controversy, A Weekend Back In London, Plus Several More Late-Nighters, 1 to 10 February 1981

Concourse, Classes, Council & Concert

Oh dear!

Now I admit that I did much of the typing for that early February 1981 edition of Concourse. I was deemed to be a bit of a whizz with two fingers on the old keyboard. Still am, though I say so myself.

But I did not get involved with laying out the paper in preparation for the printers for that edition. That was, in theory, more experienced work. That was often the editors’ role. It was certainly the editors’ role to check that all the pages were well set.

Something went awry and I’m not sure that my writing about the controversy now will extract the true story.

One rumour had it that the skewiffy setting of Katy Turner’s Presidential Column was a deliberate snub to her by the editors, Hugh Peart and Paula Higginson. One rumour had it that it was an honest mistake by someone setting the paper in a mad rush to get the proofs to the printers.

It was always a mad rush to get the proofs to the printers.

Dave Lee might be able to shed some light on the cause.

Anyway, my diary suggested that I was busy on Concourse from 31 January to 3 February with little else to report. My FY Programme suggests I went to a few lectures & classes that week, but still I deemed such days “easy”. Easy meant “no essay deadlines and no exams” in my mind back then.

On Wednesday 4th February my evening comprised:

Local Authority meeting in eve. Au Pairs live – not too good.

I cannot imagine why I went to a Local Authority meeting other than a recommendation from Richard Kimber to do so as part of my Politics sessional. I don’t remember a thing about it, but I suspect that some Councillors would say the same thing about their entire career on the Council.

I’ll leave the review of the Au Pairs concert to Dave Lee in his forthcoming (due Summer 2021) book The Keele Gigs – click this link for more details.

I did become reconciled with The Au Pairs and grew to like their album Playing with a Different Sex. The following track, which is on that album,  shows what they looked and sounded like:

Rumour had it that a couple of The Au Pairs had been students at Keele. I’m not sure whether I can get that “fact” confirmed or denied. I can confirm that lead singer Lesley Woods went on to become a practicing barrister.

After my classes on the Friday I went to my parents’ house for the weekend; my only such visit that term.

A Weekend In London 6 to 8 February

Friday 6 February – arrived about 7:00 – ate, phoned – turned in earlyish

Saturday 7 February – easy day, taping etc. Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] came over for supper ->town for coffee and cakes.

Sunday 8 February – easy day – lunch locally with Grandma[Anne] – got back to Keele about 8:00 – had a few drinks

The diary entries are intriguing. I mention that I phoned. These days no youngster would consider phoning to be “a thing”, but it was time consuming to queue up for the payphones at Keele and expensive. So it was “a thing” to me that I could spend some time that weekend calling people.

I shall write a separate piece on the chart music I taped on that Saturday. I’m pretty sure I also taped some of my albums and such to increase my mini collection of cassettes up at Keele.

I don’t remember Caroline coming to the house for supper but I know for sure that my mum would have felt that she owed Caroline and her family many, many meals for all the hospitality I’d had from them when doing my BBYO stuff in the year or so prior to Keele, mostly in North-West London, with Caroline’s mum Jacquie providing warm and wonderful hospitality of the edible kind regularly.

I don’t know why I recall the trip up town with Caroline for coffee and cake (and a chance to chat), but I have a strong memory of a place near or possibly even in Whiteleys. From the late 80’s onwards, I didn’t think of that Bayswater/Notting Hill Gate neighbourhood as “town”, I think of it as “home”.

Lunch locally with Grandma Anne was probably at Il Carretto in Streatham.

Skewiffy-Column-Gate

On the Monday, 9 February, the concourse controversy kicked off proper. The diary reads:

Not bad day. Concourse came out. UGM in eve – spoke about Concourse etc. Went back to Mark’s [Bartholomew] for coffee – stayed chatting all night…

In many ways I think the controversy passed us by at the time.

I had seen my first piece in print, as had Jon Gorvett [his New Block At Lindsay piece which I showed in December 1980 I now discover was actually from this February 1981 edition] and as had Simon Jacobs – a lengthy review of Trust by Elvis Costello:

Trust by Elvis Costello, Concourse, Simon Jacobs’s Review, 9 February 1981

So we Concourse “cub reporters” were simply thrilled to see our pieces and credits in print. Also, the very fact that Concourse was the centre of attention at that evening’s UGM only added to the sensation that the University of Keele Students’ Union’s fourth estate, in the form of Concourse, was terribly important.

In the aftermath of that day, the controversy about the Concourse skewiffyness was quite fierce; the result was that both of the editors resigned. I don’t think that happened publicly on the night (otherwise I’d have written about it differently in the diary). That hoo-ha and multiple resignation incident had momentous and amusing consequences for me (and for interim editor Dave Lee) a few weeks later – watch this space.

Coffee Afterwards…Or Did I Mean “Coffee”?

I don’t think I went back to Mark Bartholomew’s place for all-night coffee and political chat on many occasions, so I suspect this might have been the day (night) that I met Neil Infield, who became a good friend, to some extent during the Keele years, to a greater extent after Keele. More on that anon.

Anyway, the location of that gathering was, if I remember correctly, L Block Lindsay.

I did not use the word “coffee” as a euphemism for other stimulants or relaxants. I used a little “//” marking in my diary for those. So on this occasion, I am pretty sure that the phrase “coffee and chatting all night” was literal and descriptive. If we were lucky the coffee would have been freeze-dried granules of the Nescafe variety. If we were less lucky, it would have been cheap powdery stuff with a generic supermarket label that had an insipid, bitter taste that vaguely resembled coffee.

Simon Jacobs reminded me (February 2021) that Mark Bartholomew, at that time, held himself out to be of the Polish nobility or something of that kind. The more inebriated he became, according to Simon, the more elaborate those Polish royalty stories became…see what I mean?

I remember Mark berating me for being unable to pronounce Łódź properly. I can do that now. Sounds more like “Woodge”. Never forgot it.

Sound file of Łódź from Wikipedia Commons, with thanks.

I’m not sure whether either Simon Jacobs or Jon Gorvett were part of that particular all-nighter – they’ll doubtless deny all knowledge of the occasion anyway, whether they were there or not.

10 February -> brekky -> 9.00 -> bed -> got up for dinner -> union for drinks

I love that little diary note – I can see from my FY Programme markings that I went to Stephen Banfield’s 9.00 lecture on Romantic Music but then went to my bed rather than attend Roger Marsh‘s 20th Century Music lecture.

Glad to see that my untimely slumber enabled me to revive in time for dinner and some drinks in the Union. Priorities.

Winter Draws On At Keele, FY & The Union & Lindsay Bar & My First Concourse Article, 18 to 31 January 1981

Photo © Brian Deegan (cc-by-sa/2.0)

My flurry of diligence at the start of my second term does not seem to have made it to the second full week.

My markings in the Foundation Year (FY) syllabus book tell me that I only made it to two lectures in that second week of term. Then back up to five in the third week.

Worse yet, the handwriting in my diary (both its look and what it seems to be saying) suggests that I spent a lot of time drinking with my friends. Students can be like that – who knew?

Still, I did start a biology topic, I think on Friday 23rd January, Hormones & Reproduction with Peter Chevins. Jolly useful subject for an 18 year old fresher to understand. I think I was the only male student out of nine or ten students in that class. Masterful choice of science topic, don’t you think? Four years later in my Education & Welfare role I wrote a seminal work, Sexplanations, which surely borrowed a little from that FY topic. More explanations of Sexplanations when I write up 1984/85.

The diary notes my FY exam results: B+, B+, B- which is well below the level I would aim for today but under the circumstances (how little work I did that first term) I think I was doing OK.

I also wrote a sessional essay on Thursday 29th. Whether that was the modern history with Mr Jones or the comparative politics with Richard Kimber is lost in the mists of time.

The weekend of 24/25 January has an interesting note:

-> Union -> Horwood -> Lindsay – trouble.

The Strange Story Of Mad Harry

Although I don’t mention “Mad Harry” by name in my diary, I am pretty sure this “trouble” would have been the first of his noteworthy, unfortunate incidents.

Harry is (was) a very bright and charismatic chap, who lived upstairs in F Block Lindsay. He went wild at Keele, I think a reaction to a protected background. I remember him describing his parents as being very strict and religious Christians. I don’t think he had tried alcohol before Keele but was certainly trying to make up for lost time that term.

I also remember Harry claiming to originate from Botswana, for reasons unexplained, as he later recanted that claim. I think his family, of Southern-Asian origin, had come to the UK via an East-African country (Uganda or Kenya or possibly both).

But there was little point trying to fathom Harry’s claims and actions back then. He had a sword in his room, which I think was in a “stage-prop” state of bluntness, but was realistic-looking enough for him to scare the uninitiated. He would run up and down his corridor wielding it, when the mood so took him…which was quite often. I should know; our corridor was just below Harry’s corridor.

Harry was friendly with “Brummy Paul” who lived on our F Block Lindsay corridor. If I recall correctly, the “campus crawl” that ended up in Lindsay Bar that Saturday night resulted in Harry getting banned from Lindsay Bar, while the rest of us were correctly deemed to be blameless for the trouble.

I returned to Lindsay Bar the next night, along with a few of the others, not least to commune with the fellow students who had needed to deal with Harry’s antics.

While remaining on good terms with Harry, I took pains to avoid going out boozing with him from then on. One evening, not all that long after the first incident, Harry got drunk elsewhere, tried to get in to Lindsay Bar and ended up smashing a window there, which got him banned from Lindsay Hall.

One of the priests (I cannot remember whether Harry was Anglican or Catholic; I think the latter so it would have been Sandy Brown) took pity on him and gave him sanctuary at his house to try to recover his Keele career. But that kind effort was in vain and Harry ended up dropping out of Keele.

This tale does have a happy ending though, as I ran into Harry again about five years later in the canteen of Financial Training College in North Kensington. Professor Fishman had recognised Harry’s ability at economics and maths, so recommended Harry to Birmingham University where Harry was given a second chance, which, he told me, he took with great relief. Harry told me he realised how wild he had been at Keele, but he had learnt a lesson and turned a corner. He still had that charismatic twinkle in his eye, though and I’m sorry I only saw him the once in that canteen. I wonder what has become of Harry since.

Mark Bartholomew, Anna Summerskill & My First Concourse Article

During that first year, living in halls of residence, I would regularly eat with Simon Jacobs in the refectory, but of course we got to meet & eat with some interesting characters. None were more memorable than the dynamic duo that was Mark Bartholomew and Anna Summerskill. Sadly, I learnt some time ago that Anna died long before what should have been her time; in 2012.

A duo, not a pair or a couple, Mark & Anna tended to dine together and “hold court” at meal times with people they found entertaining. Simon and I seemed to fit that mould for them reasonably often. At that time, both Mark and Anna were in their second and third years (respectively) of four year courses I believe, so well ahead of us. They were also both into the student politics.

Anna Summerskill was a member of the SWP and very much of the organised left. Here is one of the few mentions of her on the web, a Marxist scan from 1980. She had been Union treasurer the year before our arrival. Having suffered the ignominy of losing the election for treasurer to abstentions the first time she ran, she had the guts to run again against abstentions and scrapped through the second time. Respect.

Mark Bartholomew was more of the non-conformist left. Very bright, very sharp-witted, he enjoyed an intellectual tussle and could find tiny holes in a lesser debater’s argument more easily than water finds small gaps in a leaky roof. I recall he was one of the student reps on the University Senate, which seemed to me, at that time, to be an incredibly grown-up thing. I think I have found a properly grown-up Mark, in a 2019 article, in Dhaka – click here. If that link ever goes awry, I have scraped that piece here.

They both had wicked senses of humour, which was not always abundant in those with pronounced political views. Anna’s refectory party trick was to eat a banana in as sexually provocative a manner as was possible to achieve. Only occasionally could she do this while keeping a straight face.

Anna with duffle coat but without banana

Anyway.

Anna had gone off to NUS Conference as the leader of Keele’s delegation over the Christmas vacation and a shit-storm controversy (by Keele’s standards) had kicked off about it at the UGM in mid January. You can read all about it in the following article.

I was a cub Concourse reporter. I got the gig to interview Anna and get to the bottom of the matter. The students needed to know. Apparently neither Bob Woodward nor Carl Bernstein were available, so I was chosen. The fact that I was friendly with Anna was not deemed to be an impediment. Indeed, I think the editors thought my refectory-style access to Anna would be an advantage.

Thus, my first piece as a Concourse writer.

I’m not at all happy with my mis-spelling of University’s as Universities. No need to point it out.

I can’t even blame the typist, as I will have typed this piece up myself, as I indeed typed up quite a lot of that February 1981 issue of Concourse. That issue of Concourse turned out to be even more controversial and consequential than the NUS delegation I reported upon within it. But the February 1981 “Concourse-gate” debacle is a story for my next Ogblog piece.

Mix Tape Recorded Just After My First Term At Keele, c28 December 1980

Top of the bill – Elvis Costello. Braunov, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

I recently published the playlist (mix tape) of contemporary popular music I recorded just before I set off for Keele:

Mix Tape Of Popular Music Around The Time I Started Keele, circa 1 October 1980

Now (around its 40th anniversary) I am publishing the mix tape I made over the Christmas holidays to take back to Keele with me after my first term.

There were some gems but also some dogs on my pre-Keele list. Let’s see what one term at Keele had done to my charts-scraping mix-tape-making taste. It is mostly stuff I was hearing a lot during that Autumn 1980 term at Keele, plus one or two late in the year releases. Here is the list and below a link to each track.

  • Clubland, Elvis Costello
  • Hungry Heart, Bruce Springsteen
  • If You’re Looking For a Way Out, Odyssey
  • Same Old Scene, Roxy Music
  • Enola Gay, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
  • I’m Coming Out, Diana Ross
  • Just Like Starting Over, John Lennon
  • Banana Republic, Boomtown Rats
  • Embarrassment, Madness
  • To Cut a Long Story Short, Spandau Ballet
  • Do You Feel My Love, Eddie Grant
  • The Tide is High, Blondie
  • December Will Be Magic Again, Kate Bush
  • Do Nothing, The Specials
  • Too Nice To Talk To, The Beat
  • Runaway Boys, The Stray Cats
  • Ant Music, Adam and the Ants
  • De Do Do Do De Da Da Da, The Police
  • Stop the Cavalry, Jona Lewie

I think this December 1980 playlist/mix tape is a higher quality list than the October one – fewer out and out embarrassments anyway. Except for Embarrassment, obviously, which is itself not an embarrassment in my view. Simon Jacobs will certainly approve the first one on the list.

https://youtu.be/GGl8tHar-Ko

Back in 1980 I would not have been seeing the videos. I doubt if I even got to see Top Of The Pops by that time. So I must say I am quite surprised by some of the garments – especially in the jumper and tank top department – in the above vids. I especially commend to you Andy McCluskey’s tank top in Enola Gay, Terry Hall’s jumper (indeed all of The Special’s jumpers) in Do Nothing and of course Tony Hadley’s bizarre upper garment – a tunic of sorts – in To Cut A Long Story Short. If only I’d had dress sense back then.

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:

https://youtu.be/wXfgYTqwQUw

“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