Ballroom Image Borrowed From Keele Oral History Project – John Samuel
This was the business end of my P1 (first year of actual degree) initial term. It seems I did some work.
But that didn’t stop me from having weekend visitors aplenty – Caroline Freeman (Now Curtis) and Alan Tucker braved the journey to Keele on Friday 13 November 1981.
CarolineAlan
But before that, on Monday 9 November:
Not a bad day – UGM in eve – not a very good one
UGMs tended to be quite argumentative affairs as I remember them, although (by many accounts) relatively peaceable compared with the political bun-fights at some of the larger University’s Students’ Union meetings.
Was this one “not very good” because it was insufficiently pugnacious for my taste at that time, or because it was too pugnacious. In truth I don’t remember, but with Mark Thomas as President at that time, I suspect it was too tranquil by my taste.
Some of us were “cruising for a bruising” over the painful grant cuts being imposed by the UGC at that time and I suspect that, in November anyway, some of us felt that the Union wasn’t doing enough.
On the Tuesday evening I went to see the movie Brubaker. I must admit to little recall of this movie. Whereas the film I went to see the following Tuesday, Bad Timing, really stuck in my mind as a shocking story about sexual violence.
Simon Jacobs was clearly very much involved in the Caroline and Alan visit; not least because they were very much his “friends from home” as much, or in many ways more, than mine.
We went to a disco in the Union on the Friday evening, to Simons, then the Union, then a “party thing” on the Saturday evening. Then, on the Sunday:
Simon, Heather Caroline & Alan came for lunch.
How I catered for five of us in the tiny kitchen in F Block Lindsay I have no idea. I have even less idea how (or where) we all ate lunch in my study bedroom. Not all at the same time, perhaps.
Then, after Caroline and Alan had gone home, I went down with a rotten cold. It seems I had intended to go to London for a couple of days 18/19 November but didn’t go because of the cold.
The diary says I “watched football” on the Wednesday evening – a World Cup qualifier match – they might have put up a big screen in Lindsay Bar for that. Of course, the sort of screen that qualified as a big screen in those days is the size that many people today would turn their noses up at if proposed for their home. But I digress.
Wendy Robbins arrived for a visit on Friday 20 November.
We “did little” on the Friday night but then made up for it on the Saturday:
Went on cuts march – did work in afternoon, went to two parties in evening – up till late.
Sunday 22 November – Wendy left…
That sounds more like it. A proper Keele weekend day. Guess I must have recovered from that Keele autumn cold quite quickly.
…so all that remains to say is that I considered the event to have been a great success, judging by my diary:
My diary for that week shows signs of industry…even to the point of using the word “industrious” on 7 November – not a word often found in my youthful diaries.
Still, I found time to see movies, go to the union several times, see a gig and at least one party. Not bad.
I vividly remember seeing Stardust Memories that week, a movie I loved at that time.
The next night, I went to see The Comsat Angels in the evening. Dave Lee, in his wonderful book The Keele Gigs!, reminds me that the support act was Victorian Parents and that The Comsat Angels were, in his opinion,
“The-Cure-meets-Joy-Division (in a dark alley!)”
It took me quite a while to unpick the Thursday scribble:
Thursday 5 November 1981 – Busyish day – warden, diary, Wizzards [sic], went over to Anjou’s [sic] in evening – quite a few people there.
“Warden” would have meant a visit to the Lindsay Hall warden, J P de C Day. Mr Day, as we all knew him, was somewhat of a walking miracle. Apparently he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, with months rather than years to live, a few years before I arrived at Keele (1980). Mr Day by all accounts refused to accept the diagnosis and simply kept calm, kept fit and carried on…for more than a quarter of a century.
I don’t remember much about this “visit to the warden” but I think it was part of his campaign of pastoral care, inviting small groups of Lindsay students to his home for tea. I remember him mumbling a fair bit but seeming ever so decent and nice.
“Diary” is a rare post-modern reference in my diaries to the process of writing in my little book. My guess is that I had got a few weeks behind, so had devoted some significant effort to writing up.
“Wizzards”, by which I am sure I meant “Wizards”, was a strange animated movie, which I think Film Soc showed as a nod to the Anti-Fascist Day earlier that week:
I’d like to see that movie again now, as I suspect I’d get far more out of it now than I did then.
“Anjous” will have meant Anju Sanehi’s place, in Harrowby House, which must have been a small party-type gathering. I recall thinking of Harrowby House as a rather privileged residence, with larger, seemingly superior rooms to the rest of Lindsay Hall. Yet one early Keele pioneer in the Keele Oral History Project Hut Life piece describes the old Nissen huts as superior accommodation to Harrowby House. Perhaps the latter was renovated/improved in the intervening years. Or perhaps the Nissen Huts were super-luxurious.
Friday 6 November 1981 – did quite a bit of work today. Went to Plesches in evening. Union after.
Peter and Traudi Plesch acted as mentors to the tiny community of Jewish students at Keele. This gathering would have been a traditional (although not religious) Friday night meal at their home; something they did occasionally. Professor Peter Plesch was a chemistry professor, who had joined the teaching staff in the very earliest Keele days. Traudi Plesch was a force of nature on the campus – a relentless fundraiser for multiple good causes and part of that social weave that made the rich and wonderful fabric that was Keele life.
I’m sure I didn’t think about the connection at the time, but given that both Peter and Traudi Plesch were escapees from Nazi Europe in the 1930s, that evening was a fitting end to the week that had started with Anti-Fascist Day.
An evening at the Plesch House was always a treat, but to some extent a daunting treat. Peter Plesch was a polymath and would usually seek a seemingly arcane topic of conversation, which sometimes felt more like a tutorial than an evening of chat. I remember him waxing lyrical about Chinese ceramics on one occasion – it might even have been this occasion – which morphed into a lesson on Chinese history and the science behind ceramics.
By late October the first term of my P1 year was into full swing.
Wednesday 21 October – OK day – got some work done – went to see John Martyn in evening.
Thursday 22 October – not bad day – went round blocks for cuts thing in evening.
Dave Lee’s excellent book, The Keele Gigs! reviews that John Martyn gig well, reminding me that there was a good ska support act too – Bumble and the Beez – which was a bonus. I saw John Martyn several times at Keele over the years – I don’t think this particular gig was my favourite among them.
Friday 23 October – Day OK – Met Karen & Myrna in eve – union etc.
Saturday 24 October – went out during day – went to Union & party in evening
Karen & Myrna – I owe you both a wholehearted apology. You clearly came up to Keele to stay with me for the weekend, but I simply cannot remember who you are or how I got to know you or what you look/looked like or anything. It’s a complete mystery. If someone out there can help me out and nudge my memory, I might have an “aha” moment and be able to muster a few hundred words on that lovely pair of lasses.
MYRNA LOY, MGM portrait, 1930s
I’m pretty sure that “mystery visitor Myrna” was not Myrna Loy (depicted)
Sunday 25 October – K&M left – went to J-Soc meeting – delivered leaflets in afternoon – worked in evening
Monday 26 October – day OK – went campaigning against the cuts in evening -> Sneyd Arms
Tuesday 27 October – day OK – campaign against cuts and film (Raging Bull) in evening.
I’m glad to see that I was out campaigning against the cuts so early in the academic year, although this does make me think about one of my favourite Oscar Wilde quotes.
I was also busy helping to organise the Anti-Fascist day for early November – mentions of it come up regularly in my diary for late October 1981.
Wednesday 28 October – busy day – viewed films for AFD [Anti-Fascist Day] in afternoon – Labour Club & restful evening
I remember that afternoon viewing films so clearly for two reasons. Firstly, the circumstances in which I viewed the films. A sort of media facility in one of the old Nissen huts that still peppered the campus at that time, twixt the Students’ Union and the Chancellor’s Building.
Secondly, I so clearly remember the content of the footage I reviewed – it still gives me the heebie-jeebies to think about it. Documentary footage about organisations such as The League of Saint George and other less arcane ones such as The British National Party and The National Front. Much unsurprising but some material truly shocking and worrying to the 19-year-old me. I still shudder at the thought of some of it.
Thursday 29 October – Busy with Anti-Fascist Day. Went to see Altered Images in the evening.
Dave Lee’s The Keele Gigs! reviews the Altered Images concert in far more detail than I could muster from that slight diary entry. My impressionistic memory is that I was not too impressed with them. It would have looked a bit like this:
Friday 30 October – Busy rushing around for J-Soc. Went to film – Jabberwocky – pub with Lloyd [Green] etc.
Saturday 31 October – Very busy with J-Soc. Cooked for 8 hours (Rice salad). Went over to Harrowby after…
Cooking for 8 hours on a Saturday is not a very J-Soc thing to do. This can only have been preparation for the Anti-Fascist Day and I assume we had started the thought process, which continued into the far more positive International Fairs that followed that day – that an event that celebrates diversity through encouraging people to eat and congregate together can do more for the cause than fretting about the bad people.
Why rice salad might take 8 hours to cook I have little or no idea – although if we were trying to use small pans and hall kitchens for a large-scale catering, that might explain it.
“Harrowby after” I am pretty sure is the night I met Anju Sanehi and her friends Louise and Sharon. Richard Van Baaren and Benedict Coldstream were there too. No mystery there; Saturday night in Lindsay Hall, Keele.
…and returning to Keele, I squeezed in quite a lot of activity.
Some of the activity is more than a little illegible or indecipherable. I know that Lloyd Green and I were working hard those last couple of weeks towards a Keele racism awareness day, Anti-Facsist Day as it was badged. That activity, at places such as Hillel House, needed to be co-ordinated around the Jewish Holidays – Rosh Hashanah (New Year) was 30 September/1 October that year. Col Nidre/Yom Kippur 7/8 October.
Interspersed with those activities (with minimal regard for the rigours of the Jewish holidays on my part) were plenty of socials:
Sunday 27 September …Anil [Biltoo]’s for dinner party…
Wednesday 30 September …Met Jim[Bateman] at Rose & Crown…
Friday 2 October …Paul [Deacon] came over in the evening
Saturday 3 October …Anil came over for supper – went on to a party with him & friends -> back to Anil’s till early hours
OMG – “buy books” – at last a mention of something that might be vaguely connected with preparing for a new academic year at Keele. I was certainly preparing well for the social side of it.
Even by 1981 the congregation was on the wane; just a few dozen people. I was one of a handful of younger people who would still show their faces there.
I’ll write more about that congregation elsewhere, but I was reminded recently (forty years on) of one regular attendee on those high-holy days, Miriam Margolyes, who would regularly attend with her partner. Far and away the most interesting “nodding acquaintances” amongst what was mostly a small group of traditional old men.
With all of that effort preparing an honourable education campaign against racism and the many hours spent atoning for my first year at Keele, I might have anticipated an easy time getting back to University the next day.
But no.
Friday 9 October 1981 – Left home midday – [Lloyd Green’s] car broke down – arrived late – key not to be found – stayed at John’s
By my reckoning, the journey to Keele from Streatham would normally be about three hours, so Lloyd and I clearly had quite a lengthy ordeal as a result of that break down. I don’t remember the details – Lloyd might of course and I’ll certainly report back here with his remembrances, if he has any. It might be that breakdowns twixt Keele and Streatham were a fairly regular event for him back then.
I think “The Lloydmobile” was something like this
I owe “John” both thanks and an apology. Thanks for putting me up/putting up with me that night and apologies because I have no idea which “John” this diary mention is talking about. If there is a John out there who wants to put up his hand and claim the merits for this act of charity, please chime in with your claim.
Saturday 10 October 1981 – Rose Early – Freshers Mart – went to town after. Simon [Jacobs]’s party quite good in evening.
Judging from the headline picture above from 10 October 2021 – thanks again Dave Lee – Freshers Mart has not changed much in forty years. Did I mention that Dave is at Freshers Mart forty years on selling his wonderful book The Keele Gigs!?
My diary, from forty years ago as I write, tells me that this was one crazy weekend, during which I zig-zagged my visiting Keele friends, Sim & Tim (Simon Ascough & Tim Woolley), hither and yon across London for a couple of days.
Sim was from Doncaster and Tim was from Moseley, South Birmingham. I have an inkling that they had never been to London before…or at least “not visited a Londoner” before.
Reading my diary and assessing the activities I inflicted upon them, they might have formed a lifelong skewed opinion on what London life is like. I’m not sure I had a weekend quite like it before or since.
Friday 7 August 1981 – A Mini Pub Crawl Following In My Alleyn’s School Footsteps
7 August – Work OK – Sim & Tim arrived -> ate -> Fox -> Dog -> met Mark from Keele -> his place ’till late
Mum will have given us all a hearty family meal on the Friday evening ahead of the mini pub crawl. I cannot remember whether we did all of our dashing around London by car or by public transport. I think it must have been the former; if so it must have been Tim who had a car with him.
That first evening, I wanted to show Sim & Tim the places I used to drink with my friends before I went to Keele. The Fox On the Hill (aka The Fox) on Denmark Hill and The Crown & Greyhound (aka The Dog) in Dulwich Village. I thought we might bump in to a few old friends from Alleyn’s in at least one of those places, but that didn’t happen.
Indeed, my most vibrant memory from that whole visit was my embarrassment in The Fox when, for the first time ever, the barman questioned whether I was old enough to buy drinks in the pub.
I remember feeling like saying…
…but I’ve been buying drinks in this pub for years…since I was fifteen… and no-one has ever questioned it before…
…but I feared that such an admission might prevent me from being served or get me barred, so I simply asserted myself as a University student down after my first year at Uni and had my word accepted.
No ID cards for pub-going youngsters in those days. Why The Fox had started asking questions all of a sudden back then I have no idea – perhaps they had experienced some youngster trouble since my previous visit.
As for “Mark from Keele” whom we met in The Dog, I’m not sure which Mark this might have been. I don’t think it was Mark Bartholomew – perhaps it was a mate of either Sim or Tim’s who lived in or near Dulwich and was named Mark.
Diary says we didn’t return to my parents house until late – in fact I am trying to work out what the sleeping arrangements might have been. There was a studio couch in the small (fourth) bedroom which was ample for one sleeping visitor but would not have been comfortable for a couple, let alone two individual sleepers. Perhaps one of them slept on the floor in a sleeping bag.
Saturday 8 August 1981
The Saturday really was a crazy day of haring around town. Allow me to translate that diary note – I needed a bright light, a magnifier and a cold towel around my head to work it all out:
8 August – Earlyish start -> Knightsbridge -> Notting Hill -> Soho – met Mark Lewis -> Ivor’s -> eats -> Hendon -> Ivor’s -> home (knackered).
Frankly, I’m knackered just reading about that day.
I’m hoping that this article will help me to track down either Sim or Tim or both of them – perhaps their memories of this day will help me to unpick it.
I suspect that we went to Knightsbridge because one (or both) of them had a crazy craving to see that place, with its Harrods & Harvey Nicks reputation.
Possibly the same applied to Notting Hill and Soho. Possibly I encouraged the Notting Hill idea, as it was, even by then, a place with a hold on my heart, not least for the second hand record stores, which I had been visiting for a few years by then.
What we got up to in Soho I have no idea. Given that, whatever it was, we did it with my old BBYO friend and now media law supremo Mark Lewis, I suggest that readers keep their baseless allegations to themselves.
…then Hendon, where I imagine we visited Melina Goldberg, as I don’t recall staying in touch with anyone else from that BBYO group…
…then back to Ivor’s – why the diary doesn’t say – perhaps Ivor had organised a bit of a gathering of old friends from Streatham BBYO – it wouldn’t have been the first time nor the last.
Sunday 9 August 1981 – Lunch & Then Wendy’s Place Before Sim & Tim Left London
Took it easy in morning -> lunch -> Wendy’s -> Sim & Tim left, I returned home & slept a lot!
What a bunch of wimps. We’d hardly done anything the day before.
Anyway…
…I’m sure mum would have wanted the visitors to have another hearty, home-cooked meal before heading off – otherwise what might they think of us?
Eat, eat…
Then on to Wendy (Robbins)’s place, in Bromley, for a final visit of the weekend.
Not sure whether any of the other Streatham BBYO people were there. Andrea possibly, Ivor possibly…
…in any case, Bromley is probably not the ideal location out of all the places we visited that weekend from which to head back to Birmingham and Doncaster on a Sunday afternoon – but those logistical details matter a lot less to 18/19 year olds than they do to me, forty years on, re-treading the tangled maze of visits that was our London odyssey that weekend.
Goodness only knows what Sim & Tim made of it at the time, nor what they might make of it now, if they see this piece and are reminded of the weekend. I’d be delighted if others, e.g. Sim and/or Tim, got in touch with their memories to help me enhance this Ogblog piece. If they do, I’ll publish a postscript.
I grew up riding the 137 bus for various reasons. We lived in Woodfield Avenue, Streatham, near the Sternhold Avenue 137 stop.
As a young child, it was mostly to go to primary school (Rosemead, then on Atkins Road) or to visit my Grandma Jenny who lived in Acre Lane, a short walk from a 137 stop.
A bit later, when I was at Keele University but doing holiday jobs in Cavendish Square, the 137 became my route of choice. It was one bus all the way from Sternhold Avenue. I could sit up top, read lots of stuff while being transported and smoke a few cigarettes while so doing…at least in those early years before I saw sense and stopped smoking.
In the summer of 1981, I had an additional secret pleasure in the 137 bus journey home, on those rare occasions (only once or twice a week) when I went straight home from work at a civilised hour.
When the bus approached Sloane Square I would stop reading and take a good long look at the New Romantics who had made it their habit to congregate early evening in Sloane Square, in what I might describe as a pose-fest.
For those unfamiliar with the genre…and for those who would like their memories refreshed…by the summer of 1981 the following sound and video rather encapsulates (at least to me) the sound track of that summer and the (to the likes of me) unattainable style/swagger of the New Romantic fashion:
When Keele Met Sloane
On one occasion, a sunny early evening, I suspended my reading and eagerly awaited sight of Sloane Square and what I expected to be a large collection of New Romantics to observe.
Yes, there they were…
…but wait…
…I know those two! The unmistakable visages of fellow Keele students, Owen Gavin and Paul Rennie.
Paul Rennie and Owen Gavin were definitely among the trendy students at Keele; Owen for example had recently taken over as editor of Concourse, the student newspaper for which I was writing juvenilia along the following lines:
…but I had no idea that Paul and Owen had Sloane Square credentials in trendiness.
The 137 bus goes very slowly around Sloane Square in the evening, so I did consider waving and hollering out of the window at the pair of them.
But New Romantics wouldn’t want to be associated with a boy on a bus, would they? It would be different if I was driving around the square in a flashy sports car dressed like Tony Hadley from Spandau Ballet.
So I just watched in awe, as the statuesque figures of Owen and Paul mingled effortlessly and seamlessly with the New Romantic throng.
To be fair on those two, on reflection, they might well have been curious tourists observing the genre, rather than formal participants.
Actually, I don’t suppose such fashion has formal participants. Almost everyone there was probably just wandering along to have a look, see what there was to be seen and enjoy the moment of being seen.
I had and still have no idea.
Owen Gavin, Louise Marshall (Gray), Paul Rennie & Chris Parkins, early 1980s, with thanks to Chris Parkins for the picture.
So what became of those two? Did they remain cultural icons?
I was never even faintly fashionable. Here’s a picture of me around that time, curating my cassette collection in my bedroom in Streatham, a few hundred yards away from the 137 bus stop:
Fashion? I don’t need that pressure on…
Postscript: Paul Rennie Has Subsequently Been In Touch
I notified Paul of his 15 minutes of fame on Ogblog and have engaged in some very enjoyable correspondence with him since. On the specific matter of Sloane Square happenings, he writes:
I had a job, during the summer of 1981 at Sotheby’s Belgravia at the top of Sloane St. I think I was probably just hanging out, I don’t recall anything as organised as meeting up. It was all very hap-hazard as I remember.
Hence the truth of the matter at the time was far less interesting than my juvenile wonderings…but in a way that fact simply makes this piece differently interesting!
My impressionistic memory of that last week of term is a blissful one. The weather was brilliant. I had a nice spot outside my room where I could sit reading and/or listening to music.
If I fancied a quiet spot for reading, I ambled down to the centre of campus and sat on the grassy knoll in front of the library, reading books for leisure.
The Keele Library grassy knoll was appropriate for me that season, I now realise, having studied modern history as an FY sessional with Trevor Jones, in which the Bay of Pigs and a better-known grassy knoll loomed large.
The book I especially remember reading that week was Catch-22. I still have the well-thumbed copy I read back then – it is depicted above, on the shelf where it now lives. I think I read a few play texts as well.
The word “lazy” appears in my diary a lot for that week. “Restful” and “relaxing” also appear.
…and if you’re wondering now if they were any good…take my word for it, they were a special act for most students of our era. Forty years on, Dave Lee’s forthcoming book The Keele Gigs! will no doubt answer our questions about that gig and a great many others.
The diary says I was up all night for the ball (seems realistic) and that I went to bed very early the next night in the hope of a long night’s sleep ahead of my parent’s first visit to Keele and the journey back to London with them on the Sunday.
I really had fallen in love with Keele and was delighted with the prospect of three more years there. In fact, as it turned out, I stayed four more years.
At the time, during those carefree, idyllic, summer days at Keele, I remember the 18-year-old me thinking that I could happily live at Keele for ever.
But there is/was a catch.
Let’s call it “Catch-18” in this case. In fact, Joseph Heller originally titled his seminal work precisely that, before other works with numbers in the titles pushed him and the publishers towards a different choice of number for his catch.
My 18-year-old’s catch is this: if you are wise enough at the age of 18 to realise that a perennial summer break surrounded by books, youngsters, sunshine, beer and gigs would be a wonderful way to live your entire life…
…you are also wise enough to realise that no such life is realistically possible.
Oh shoot!
On the Monday I started my holiday job and by the Tuesday I had been sent to Braintree to audit a furniture factory.
“Vedi Braintree e poi muori”, as Goethe would not have said, had he ever been to Braintree. But he might have said “Vedi Keele Library e poi muori” while sitting on that grassy knoll.
I have a very strong, impressionistic memory of enjoying myself thoroughly during the last few weeks of the summer term of my Foundation Year at Keele.
Unfortunately…perhaps because I was having such a good time…my memories of specific details are less than special and my diary entries pithy to say the least.
I’ll do my best, but could seriously use some help from the hive mind of those who were also there at the time.
A Short Trip To London, Then Caroline Came Up To Keele With Me, 9 to 12 June 1981
Tuesday 9 June 1981 – Up quite late – had lunch came home. Supper – early night.
Wednesday 10 June 1981 – Haircut in morning – met Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] for lunch – Cyril Monty. Job – early night.
Not many mentions of haircuts in my diaries from that era – a rare event which, I suspect, came as a result of some serious emotional pressure from mum, combined with the reality that I would need shorter hair for my summer job and was not allowing time between coming down from Keele on the last Sunday of June and a presumed work start date of the Monday!
Meeting Caroline for lunch was quite a regular thing in those days. I think she was at Harrods then, so it would have been one of those quite up-market but affordable eateries in Knightsbridge, of which there were plenty at that time.
Caroline: “let’s lunch” – with thanks to Jilly Black for this photo.
Cyril Monty told me that I was likely to be prone to back problems throughout my life, but if I did plenty of exercise and avoided injury I might get away with it. I invested in a second hand exercise plan book (along with many other books) on the following Friday…
…and did exercises from that book for the next few years. But I am getting ahead of myself.
“Job” will simply mean that I popped around from Cyril Monty’s Harley Street consulting room to 19 Cavendish Square to confirm my summer job starting arrangements.
Thursday 11 June 1981 – Dentist [Harry Wachtel] in morning – shopping – cataloguing tapes etc. Early night.
Friday 12 June 1981 – Up for lunch – taping etc. – met Caroline. Came up to Keele – lazy evening.
I was rather hoping that Caroline would remember some details about this visit and Mis’s party. Simon Jacobs (as usual) drew a blank. Caroline’s response to my request for further information:
I’m with Simon, if you think my memory is going to be better than your diary!. I do remember the weekend as described, particularly a boozy party, but unable to add anything to enhance the description!
I describe the next (Sunday) morning as an early start, although what one did with an early start at Keele on a Sunday is a mystery to me. “Early” might be a relative term, of course and I suspect that we went to the campus store to get some food in, as Simon apparently made lunch and I made dinner that Sunday.
Sunday 14 June 1981 – Early start – buying…lunch at Simons [D Block Barnes], lazy afternoon. Dinner here [F Block Lindsay] lazy evening.
Monday 15 June 1981 – Late start. Lunch – Caroline left in afternoon. Richard [Marks] came. UGM -> party – up till late, v drunk.
I wonder what he made of a Keele UGM and the “v late, v drunk” party. I suspect Richard only stayed around for a day or so (the diary is silent on this) as I suspect he was visiting us as part of a road trip which included friends in Manchester and/or Leeds.
Tuesday 16 June 1981 – Good for nothing today – did likewise. Lazy evening etc. Film bad.
Wednesday 17 June 1981 – Earlyish rise – cat etc. Went to disco etc. in eve – played snooker
Thursday 18 June 1981 – Up really early for J-Soc exec meeting. Went to Sneyd in evening.
I wonder how early “really early” was for that meeting. I didn’t have anything else to report until the evening, which might be a clue.
Sue Jacobs Visit & The Mystery Lindsay Ball, 19 & 20 June 1981
Simon Jacobs’s sister Sue – with thanks to Jilly Black for this photo
Friday 19 June 1981 – Lazy day. Bought Books. Susan came in evening. Film Salon Kitty, Lindsay Ball. Mark [probably Bartholomew] & [Liz?] came & stayed late
That book buying session did a great job of getting me started with summer holiday reading plus some basic texts for my impending P1 year.
Salon Kitty was an X-rated movie and Sue was only 16 at the time, but the experience does not seem to have done Sue any harm, nor does it seem to have stuck in her memory.
I have a feeling that this Lindsay Ball must have been the one at which Mud played, but neither Sue nor Simon reckon that they have ever seen Mud. Then again, Simon didn’t even remember that Sue visited us that year. Forty years on, Simon says:
Just because you claim that my younger sister paid us a visit, doesn’t necessarily mean that we attended the Lindsay Ball. Which brings us back to Mud. If they were the top attraction of the night, I might well have found a reason to do something else… x
Sue’s “forty years on” take on all this was as follows:
Fancy Simon not remembering me visiting….no surprise there! I did visit, although no idea of the details at all. Except that we saw a hypnotist show? Simon also did take me back to his room to put me to bed and then to go off again himself…I have no idea about his return…! Happy days!
The hypnotist would have been at the ball and I have a feeling that we did all go to the ball and/but that Simon (& thus Sue) dipped out ahead of the band. So I’m sticking with Mud, as it were, as my best guess for the band for that occasion.
I certainly did see Mud there on one occasion and cannot find another Lindsay Ball mention in my diary that might have been Mud. Hopefully someone amongst the Keele alums out there can confirm or deny my theory.
On the occasion I did see Mud, I recall the Keele audience all-but ignoring the band until they played the only hit of theirs that tended to catch the imagination, at which point everyone danced and chanted wildly:
Muddy Postscript
Helen LeGrand has helped to confirm that Mud’s visit to Lindsay must have been that summer ball in 1981. She adds a very specific memory of her own: “Don’t think it was the original Mud line-up. Memorable for the encore when the lead singer [Les Gray – the only survivor of the original Mud line-up by then] came back on stage completely naked. I’m sure I’m not misremembering that. “
I am pretty sure I didn’t hang around long enough to see the encore, which explains why that mental picture (more smutty than muddy) mercifully does not form part of my own memory.
Saturday 20 June 1981 – Simon & Susan for lunch – went to Newcastle shopping – lazy evening – late night.
…the next few days read quieter and calmer – apart from a few signs of aftershock from the abusive note incident.
Sunday 31 May 1981 – Late rise – did little all day (essay) – Union in evening – reasonably early night.
Monday 1 June 1981 – Union Committee in morning – finished essay in afternoon – UGM in evening – Mark [Bartholomew]’s afterwards.
Tuesday 2 June 1981 – Late rise – handed in essay – went to see The Last Waltz – awful – latish night.
I don’t honestly remember attending Union Committee on the Monday morning. I do remember that word reached the SU about the abusive note that had been placed under my door on the Friday evening and that they took the incident very seriously. In some ways more seriously than I took it.
I think some people, with all good intentions, were considering an emergency motion at the UGM that evening or some sort of statement. I think I dissuaded them.
I’m pretty sure Simon Jacobs (plus others, no doubt) were at The Last Waltz (a highly-regarded film that simply did not work for me, nor did it seem to work for most of my entourage that evening, if I remember correctly) with me and would have been part of the unmentioned activities (probably beer and smokes somewhere) that led to the latish night.
A Veritable Procession Of Visitors
I’m sorry to say that I have no real recollection of the “so-called revision day” on Wednesday 3 June, which reads to me more like a visitors day than a revision day:
Wednesday 3 June 1981 – Revised today – OK – Mary [Keevil], Rani, Miz [Miriam Morgan], Hilary [Kingsley] etc. popped in -> Sneyd -> coffee with Hilary
Where this sudden burst of popularity with females had come from, I have no idea. Perhaps Sandra had been talking me up. More likely, these were well-intentioned check-ins from concerned friends in the matter of the abusive note, which seemed to be affecting some others more than it was affecting me.
Forty years on, I find it hard to imagine getting much, if any, revision done with that number of visitors.
My handwriting analysis suggests that I wrote this part of my diary up some days after the event. But still, the word “etc.” after a string of four visitors suggests that there were several others.
I’m pretty sure that part of Hilary’s purpose (a visit AND post-pub coffee) was to persuade me to agree to sit on the JSoc (Jewish Society) committee, something I had previously stated my extreme reluctance to do. I’m not sure whether Hilary was yet going out with Lloyd Green (a friend of mine from my Streatham childhood and coincidentally a Keele student a year or so ahead of me) but they did go out with each other at Keele and subsequently married each other.
Thursday 4 June 1981 – Exams today?? – Roy’s binge in evening – quite entertaining.
Friday 5 June 1981 – Politics exam today – Union in evening -> Sands [Sandra]!
Saturday 6 June 1981 – late rise – restive afternoon – went to Union with Sim [Simon Ascough] – supper – Union again – dullish evening
Roy was Simon Jacobs’s boyfriend pretty much throughout that year. Roy will have completed his finals around that time, so my guess is that the binge was related to that. Simon did not keep in touch with Roy after Roy left Keele. Nor did I keep in touch with Sandra after she left Keele, nor did I see much of her the following year, when she was doing finals.
I think I probably meant “restful” when I said “restive” afternoon, although there is something restive about my tone for the next few days. I needed to go to London to resolve some matters ahead of my late June return for the summer and/but was no doubt itching for the more exciting-sounding events that would form the end-of-term/end-of-academic-year summer activities.
A whole weekend between exams must have seemed like an imposition.
Darker. The UKSU snooker room was darker if I recall correctly.
Sunday 7 June 1981 – Late rise – did little – snooker – bar in eve – dull day.
Monday 8 June 1981 – Read in morn – exam in afternoon, Union in evening – v late night.
I mention snooker a few times in my diary towards the end of that summer term. I recall playing the game a few times with Sim and Tim – I’ll write that up a bit more when I get to the second half of June – but perhaps these early efforts were with Simon Jacobs.
Forty years on, Simon and I discussed this matter when he visited us (late May 2021), agreeing that our ability to play snooker was slightly improved by a drink or two, then rather more dramatically diminished by each subsequent drink. If only we had been able to retain information from formal scientific experiments in class as well as we have retained the empirical evidence from those informal “clinical trials”.
Anyway, by the Monday, that was it, academically-speaking. Last essays done, last exam done. I had no formal purpose at Keele for the next few days, so I popped back down to London on the Tuesday.
The final term of my FY year was pretty darned great, actually. So when I say, “an horrific time”, what I really mean is, “a short period during which horror seemed to feature a great deal”.
Wednesday 20 May 1981 – OK day. Went to see The Cramps – OK.
Such gigs will be properly reviewed in Dave Lee’s book, The Keele Gigs!, due out Summer 2021. Suffice it to say that my mini review: “OK”, doesn’t help much. I do recall that The Cramps style of music was described as Psychobilly and we were even told that their 1981 phase had its own sub-genre name: Voodooswampabilly.
It looked and sounded very much like this 1981 live clip from San Fransisco later that year:
Thursday 21 May 1981 – Last day of lectures – union in evening.
Nothing horrific about finishing with lectures. Of course when I say “lectures”, in my case I really mean, in respect of that day, “lecture” as the ticks and crosses in my FY programme book make it very clear that I only made it to the 11:00 job that day: Mr Allinson talking about the electronics of television.
Not that television played any part in my day to day life back then – I had no television of my own and didn’t visit the television rooms much during my whole time at Keele – I’m not sure I went into them at all in my FY year.
Friday 22 May 1981 – OK day. Amityville Horror -> Union in evening. Back with people after – late night.
Film Society, perhaps in cahoots with the Union, seemed to be having a horror-themed week. They showed The Shining the following Tuesday. The Amityville House in Long Island is depicted in the headline picture btw.
…I developed a form of cognitive dissonance towards such films at that time, which never went away. I was/am, in almost equal measure, thrilled and shocked by them, yet also amused by the over-the-top melodrama of some elements of those film productions.
I was clearly doing a lot of reading at that time, presumably for my final essay (which was on topology if my memory serves me well) and in preparation for the sessional exams in politics and history.
Saturday 23 May 1981 – Earlyish rise – reading loads – Cabaret Futura in evening.
Have I yet mentioned Dave Lee’s book The Keele Gigs! due out in Summer 2021? No doubt he will cover that Cabaret Futura gig better than I did in my diary – not even a one word review from me for that one. I vaguely remember enjoying the evening for its quirkiness without really digging the music.
I’m pretty sure that Eddie & Sunshine performed the following as part of the Cabaret that night. Anyway, I recall electro-weirdness of this kind…and the reel-to-reel tape recorder to make me feel at home:
Sunday 24 May 1981 – Plenty of reading again – Union in evening.
Monday 25 May 1981 – Wrote essay today – out in evening
Tuesday 26 May 1981 – Handed in essay – went to see The Shining after drinks – coffee after, late night.
Wednesday 27 May 1981 – Easyish day (not good). Relaxing evening, late night again.
Thursday 28 May 1981 – Not bad day (laundry, vote etc). Easy evening in union after celebration.
Roberts, vanquished but still smiling. Photo thanks to Mark Ellicott.
The thought of the FCS managing to get a ballot voided and then get their candidate elected would have been horrific, so Spike prevailing in the revote would have been cause for celebration.
“
