Tag: Keele University

We Interrupt This Keele Student’s Union Sabbatical For A Short Visit To London Including A Bagel Hunt And A Heap Of Ringroad Show Rehearsals, 16 to 23 November 1984

A well used copy of The Clearing Song from Ringroad

What possessed me, given that I was so darned occupied that year as an SU sabbatical, to persevere with performing Ringroad? I guess I caught the bug during the summer, doing mini Ringroad gigs for the Open University students with Frank Dillon (and occasionally also Adrian Gorst).

My First Ringroad Performance and Related Memories, Keele, 18 August 1984

Further, it probably didn’t occur to me that semi-rehearsing and winging our way through Open University gigs in the summer was all very well, but Ringroad proper, during the term, would be large audiences, who had an expectation of evident preparation.

But before I get into all that, I’ll talk about the end of a momentous week and a short visit to London:

Friday, 16 November 1984 – Busy day – UC and getting staff out of the way. Went to London – arrived quite late. Had a drink and earlyish night.

I blush at the phrase “getting staff out of the way”, which sounds like dismally bad management practice. Looking at my appointments diary, it looks to me as though I had lined up a meeting with the cleaning staff for the Monday morning but also had a plethora of other meetings thrust upon me that day. My guess is that the staff agreed to bring the meeting forward to the Friday to lighten my – and probably also that of Kate Fricker and John White – Monday load.

“London” would have been Bobbie’s new place up in Finchley at the top of the Archway Road. She was sharing in a large house with several other trainee lawyers (mostly solicitors; Bobbie was a pupil barrister).

Chinese Dining & Bagel Hunting

Saturday 17 November 1984 – Rose late – did nothing in particular in afternoon – then went to Joy King Lau for evening.

Kake 新醉瓊樓 (Joy King Lau), Chinatown, London WC2 CC 2.0

Joy King Lau was one of my favourite Chinese restaurants back then. John White reckons that a visit he and I made (probably with others) was his first taste of “proper” Chinatown Chinese food. But the 17 November 1984 occasion will have been with Bobbie and possibly one or two of her new flatmates.

Sunday, 18 November 1984 – Late start again – went bagel hunting and meal then returned to Keele – arrived back quite late and did some work.

A brace of bagels that succumbed to a bagel hunt, many years later, displayed as trophies in my flat prior to their dénouement in one of my cricket picnics

I cannot believe that Bobbie would have been front and centre in seeking a bagel hunt. I think the impetus came from at least one of her other flatmates and for some reason my faint memory points, perhaps unfairly, at Sharma Gupta as the possible ringleader of the “lets go on a bagel hunt” idea. The hunt probably got no further than Finchley or Hendon. Even back then, the London Borough of Barnet was a pretty sensible place to hunt for the big five (bagels, blintzes, kugels, rye bread and matzo balls).

Back To Keele For Meetings Galore & Ringroad Rehearsals

Monday, 19 November 1984 -Busy day interrupted with meetings etc. Carol Holder’s in early evening and on to UGM evening – Petra came back.

Tuesday, 20 November 1984 – Hard-working office today – meetings et. al. Rehearsed Ringroad in evening also.

Each of those days included three or four meetings. I was SO “committeed out” and “meeetinged out” by the end of that sabbatical year – looking at my appointments diary I can see why. I get a headache just thinking about it.

The Ringroad team at the start of the 1984/85 year comprised Olu Odunsi (a comparative veteran of Ringroad), Dave Griffiths, Jo and Jackie [if someone can remind me of their surnames I’ll insert the full names]…plus me.

As the year went on, we beefed up the team, adding:

  • John Bowen (who was a relatively junior academic at that time, subsequently Professor of Modern Literature at Keele and currently – forty years on – Professor of 19th Century literature at York)
  • Warwick Cairns, who also went on to more serious and arguably greater things post Keele
  • Karen [again, to my shame, her surname escapes me. Jo and Jackie were both very good at playing assertive, strident women; Karen, with a gentle Scottish accent, tended to take the more subdued female parts].

Meanwhile our initially small Ringroad team of five’s first big project – and my goodness this was provisionally conceived as a ridiculously big project – was to support a Lenny Henry gig in the Students’ Union with a warm up act and a warm down act for the evening. Suffice it to say that this idea, on its original scale, was biting off more than even the most seasoned metaphorical bagel-munchers could metaphorically masticate in one go.

Image produced using DeepAI. No actual people or bagels were harmed producing this image.

Some Events Including Mystery Meetings

Wednesday, 21 November 1984 – Went to Stafford Demo in morning – committees in afternoon. Did disco with John in evening – went Petra’s after.

According to my appointments diary, I had Welfare Committee at 1.00 and Policy Staffing & Development Committee at 2;15, so that trip to Stafford (presumably to support a North Staffs Polytechnic demo) will have been an early start and a relatively short demo. It didn’t make the press (not even The Sentinel) by the looks of it. Crumbs – that Wednesday reads like a very full day.

Correction: the demo did make one paper…a Concourse Freebie. That freebie also had a full page write up of the Monday UGM, which I think must have been the one Ashley Fletcher remembers as a particularly raucous debate about the miners’ strike:

Additional Evidence From Concourse On Stafford Demo & Keele UGM, Mid November 1984

Thursday, 22 November 1984 – Busy day with meetings etc. Had quiet drink in evening – Petra came over later.

The appointments diary for that day lists four meetings:

  • 1.15 WPAR Room 13 [answers on a postcard please as to what WPAR might have been – I have no idea]
  • 2.15 DVC [that will have been Deputy Vice Chancellor which presumably means Professor Don Thompson who was Acting Vice Chancellor that term. I got on well with Don, who had been my Civil Liberties professor. He pretty much always came up with a fair determination when I had to appeal dodgy disciplinary matters with him]
  • 4.30/5.00 Farm & Fricker. [“Farm” was my former flatmate Chris Spencer. “Fricker” was Kate…now Susan…Fricker. I am in touch with both of them again now and can ask them why I was meeting the two of them about something that day. I think it is unlikely that either of them will remember. And unless something crops up in a future diary entry that provides clues, the matter will remain a mystery]
  • 7.00 Mergers. [I’m not sure what might have been merging with what. Sounds like something Kate and John might also have attended. I’m no more expecting either of them to remember the subject matter of “mergers” than I am expecting Farm and Fricker to remember the content of their meeting.

Friday, 23 November 1984 – UC in morning – busy in office all day – rehearsed Ringroad in evening.

I shall go into more detail about that Ringroad/Lenny Henry gig in my next piece, which will report on the week leading up to the Lenny Henry gig and the gig itself. For now, I’ll whet your appetites with one sketch I remember performing jointly with Olu in our capacity as a pair of newsreaders:

I think, on at least one occasion with that sketch, I announced myself to be Trevor McDonald and Olu announced himself to be Alastair Burnett…

…maybe you had to be there.

Enter Petra Wilson, Stage Left…Plus A John Martyn Gig On The Keele SU Ballroom Stage, 8 to 15 November 1984

Petra Wilson, Summer 1985

Of course Petra didn’t “enter the stage” on 8 November 1984, but that date is her first mention in my diary.

My Education & Welfare portfolio had two key voluntary assistant posts – Academic Secretary & Welfare Secretary. Annalisa de Mercur subscribed for the academic one and was incredibly helpful, both during the late summer when resits and appeals were all the rage…

Keele Education & Welfare Officer In Training: University Of York (Education), University Of Reading (Welfare), University of Keele (Resit Result Appeals) & University Of Life (Beer Tasting), First Half September 1984

…and then throughout the 84/85 academic year.

I have a feeling that someone had subscribed to take up the 84/85 welfare secretary post but needed to withdraw before the autumn 1984 term started. Perhaps it was unfilled all along. But for sure it would have been too much for Annalisa to fulfil both, although she did a sterling job of the pastoral support role with the resit/appeals community and also the early days/weeks of term.

I advertised the welfare secretary role at the start of term and I’m pretty sure Petra, who was an FY fresher, put her hand up quite quickly. She had been helping out in the welfare office and proving her considerable worth in that role for some two or three weeks before…

Thursday, 8 November 1984 – Worked hard today – rushed about – election count [to fill the controversially vacant VP External position] then Petra came over for dinner – stayed till quite late.

One thing led to another.

I was living in the resident tutor’s flat (that was basically two study bedrooms and the end of a corridor combined) on the ground floor of K Block Horwood; Petra’s room was very nearby (H Block I think).

Friday, 9 November 1984 – Union committee in morn and then busy afternoon – Ali’s [Ali Dabbs’s] birthday – all got drunk in union (after chasing assurance!!).

Saturday, 10 November 1984 – Went shopping in morning – went to office in the afternoon – Petra helped and came back for food and stayed late.

Sunday, 11 November 1984 – Rose late – went to office and worked in fairly leisurely style. Early night.

I have no idea what “chasing assurance!!” means – I can only guess that it was a Union Committee in joke at the time. Perhaps a John White-ism or a Hayward Burt-ism for trying to get University officials to commit to a course of action.

You might notice that I was putting in the hard yards – tending to work some (although not all) weekends. I’m sure Petra remembers, as does John White, that my catch phrase was:

I’m very busy!

(Janie might complain, 40 years later, that I still take on more than I should and still bark, “I’m very busy!” with alarming regularity.)

Who? Me? Trying not to look busy, Autumn 2024

John Martyn Gig, Keele SU Ballroom, 12 November 1984

Monday, 12 November 1984 -Busyish day – did quite a lot of work – meetings etc. Went to see John Martyn in evening – latish night.

For some reason, I still have the flyer for that concert. Perhaps it amused me then, as it does now. Perhaps I kept it because I was very keen to see John Martyn again (having seen what was, to me, a less memorable gig of his in October 1981). Or perhaps I’d simply used that piece of paper as a place marker in something I ended up keeping.

Well done Pady Jalali for getting John Martyn at a good price and enabling Keele folk to see him for less than half the price of anywhere else. And well done Pady for emphasising that pricing point. The messaging is SO YOU.

I’m listening to some John Martyn while writing this piece, to get me in the mood.

He played quite a lot of stuff from his more recent albums, not least Sapphire which he was releasing in conjunction with the tour. But he also played a lot from his canon. I remember getting very excited when he played this favourite of mine:

The following video was recorded less than two weeks after the Keele gig, with the addition of percussionists who weren’t there at Keele but with Foss Patterson who was at our gig on keyboards and backing vocals:

If the first piece reminds you a bit of Nick Drake and the second one reminds you a bit of Phil Collins, you’re not far wrong. John Martyn was a bit of a style magpie (in a good way), who hung out with, amongst many others, Nick Drake in the early 1970s and Phil Collins in the early 1980s.

I remember the gig being rather different from my expectation (my knowledge of him was stuck in the 1970s) but I still remember very much enjoying that gig.

In my vague memory Petra was with me at that gig, but that might be a false memory. The diary is silent on that point.

Back To Reality…With A Bit Of A Bump

Tuesday, 13 November 1984 – Not feeling at all good today – went home (sent home in afternoon). Much fuss made and Liza [O’Connor] came over in evening to cap it all.

Wednesday, 14 November 1984 – Pretty wretched day – Senate dragged on and on – not feeling too good – went home for an early night.

Thursday, 15 November 1984 – Hard day – work – met solicitor [John Cheetham] in afternoon. Went to Leo [Hamburger] & Sarah’s party in evening – Petra came back after.

Although more than 18 months had passed since my dalliance with mononucleosis (glandular fever)...

Isolation, “Socially-Distant” Visits, Steroids, Peculiar Reading Matter & Strange Happenings: A Week In The Keele Health Centre With Glandular Fever, Mid February 1983

…I was still prone to the occasional “feel absolutely terrible for no apparent reason” spell. Actually, reviewing my diaries 40 years on, I think I can observe a pattern, suggesting that a late night after a bit too much to drink usually preceded such a day or two. I can certainly vouch for the fact that, 40 years on, it only needs to be “a tiny bit too much” drink the night before to make a mess of the next day.

I love the phrases “went home (sent home…)” and “much fuss made”. I don’t really remember it, but I can imagine Kate (now Susan) Fricker and Pady Jalali going into matronly mode, even in their young adulthood. John White would have supported them. Petra too, no doubt.

The home visit from Liza O’Connor (my ex from 82/83)…

Culture & Action At Keele, Late October 1982

…probably did not go particularly well. I cannot imagine that it was anything other than a coincidence that Liza was around to pop in on such a day. I’m pretty sure she was in Manchester studying that term, so presumably had briefly come home (to The Sneyd Arms) for some reason and tracked me down to my new bijou pad. “As if my life isn’t getting complicated enough”…was probably the subtext of my phrase, “to cap it all”.

For the Wednesday, “Senate dragged on and on” and “not feeling too good” gives me a clears sense of how I felt sitting there that afternoon. Kate Fricker had campaigned hard with the University to allow me to be the second SU representative on Policy Staffing & Development (PS&D) committee, which was the place where all the decisions tended to be made. Senate was more of a “rubber stamp or posturing” chamber for most matters…certainly those which had already been discussed in detail and approved by PS&D. For that reason, when PS&D approved items came around at Senate, my heart tended to sink even at the best of times if someone (usually a Professor who had lost a debate at PS&D) went over old ground, loquaciously, for a second and futile time at Senate.

Filibuster, anyone?

The Tommy & Ralph saga was never too far away that term.

A Week To Forget (Apart From Four Quirky Music Acts), Culminating In A Meeting To Regret: Tommy & Ralph’s Appeal To A Students’ Union EGM, 17 To 25 October 1984

The solicitor visit on Thursday 15th November would have been about the impending Employment Tribunal, scheduled for mid to late December. John Cheetham was the University solicitor – Kate and I had felt unconfident with the SU solicitor who had no real experience of employment tribunals. The registrar, David Cohen, had been helpful in allowing us use of the University solicitors for this purpose. He also took great pains to remind us, just in case it needed pointing out, that we couldn’t use John Cheetham for anything disputatious between the Students’ Union and the University.

“For the avoidance of doubt…” David Cohen 1960s COPYRIGHT KEELE UNIVERSITY

John Cheetham was a very good solicitor and looked after us sympathetically as well as professionally. He also, I clearly remember, was very cognisant of the mental strain that Tommy and Ralph were undergoing and went easy on them…which is more than can be said for Derek Bamford of NUPE’s approach to us…but that’s another story for another time.

As an avid Private Eye reader (back then and still), I was constantly amused by John Cheetham’s name, as a solicitor. He would surely have fitted in well at Private Eye’s fictitious law firm: Sue, Grabbit and Runne.

Leo Hamburger and Sarah’s party. I remember Leo well and recall keeping in touch with him for a while after Keele. He was very helpful in the Education & Welfare office, although he didn’t have a formal role in the way that Petra and Annalisa did. But it was my style to have a team of helpful people. As much as anything else, if the welfare office was to be staffed most of the time during office hours, I needed volunteers to do that while I was in meetings half the day.

I have managed to track down Petra prior to writing this article but have not yet tried to contact Leo, but I shall do so. I hope one of them will remember who Sarah was in this context. Possibly Sarah Hetherington who went on to marry Andrew Moran? Or possibly another Sarah.

Unfortunately we have no photographs from student parties such as Leo and Sarah’s from the mid 1980s. Photography had only just been invented and certainly wasn’t intended for such events back then.

But no matter – I have asked DeepAI to depict an appropriate scene and it has done a grand job of it:

Interesting that DeepAI depicts “UK students partying in a room in the mid 1980s” with mostly food and just a few signs of drink. My recollection, albeit fuzzy, is that it was much the other way around.

Was It All UGMs, Rent Strikes & Discos In Late October & Early November 1984?

Mark Ellicott in his capacity as UGM speaker

No, it wasn’t ALL about those things, but my diaries and the thrust of the early November issue of Concourse suggest that those aspects of student life were quite central, at least around the union.

Late October UGM

If you are geeky enough to want to read about the late October UGM in excruciating detail, I have good news for you; I was geeky enough to upload all three columns so you can click the links and read them:

The aspect I want to share with all readers, though, is the cartoon of Mark Ellicott accompanying that article, which reminded me of the headline photograph and made me laugh 40 years on:

Late October Rent Strike / Rent Delay

I was also amused to read Concourses take on the conclusion of the rent strike / rent delay, which had taken up a fair chunk of our October time.

A week before the end of October, I had signalled in a Concourse newssheet and Pub Circ that we had achieved our goals in pressurising the University into sorting out the accommodation problems and advised students to settle up before the end of the month to avoid late payment penalties.

Not many readers will be surprised to learn that a great many students left it until the last afternoon (31 October) to turn up at the finance office with their cheques.

Naturally, I was kinda busy that afternoon, so it seems that John White (Union Secretary) picked up this particular mantle. The following Concourse piece from early November describes the end game of this episode:

Here are the extracts from my diary for those last few days of October:

Monday 29 October 1984 – Hard day in office plus UGM in evening – had a late night.

Tuesday, 30 October 1984 – Busy day in the office – working hard etc. Worked late – UC, McDonald’s. Earlyish night.

Wednesday, 31 October 1984 – busy day – office/PSD [Policy, Staffing & Development Committee] etc. Did Union disco [with John White] in the evening.

Ah, so John & I were still talking to each other at the end of that fraught day. Of course we were. We’re still talking to each other forty years on. John’s comment on the above article, when I zapped it over to him ahead of writing this piece:

[That article] did make me smile and that’s the way industrial relations should be conducted

Doing Union Discos With John White After Work

I explained how we ended up DJ-ing a lot in an earlier article:

“John White The Only One Dancing”, Learning How To Do The Keele SU Disco And Other Late August 1984 Happenings

In short, Social Committee in previous years had paid people to DJ at Union discos, but Pady Jalali (our Social Secretary) felt that people would volunteer to DJ discos. John & I agreed to do any discos that lacked a volunteer until those who wanted to DJ union discos saw sense. My diaries tell me that the late October/early November period was “peak disco” for me and John – three in one week including the 31 October disco.

Thursday 1 November 1984 – Busy day in office over grievance and discipline. In evening went to Mel’s [Melissa Oliveck’s] party which was good.

Friday 2 November 1984 – Very busy day in the office. Came down to the union after dinner – ended up doing disco with John Boy.

Saturday, 3 November 1984 – Busyish day – shopping then in office. Ali [Dabbs] came back for a while – then called out to do disco (again!!).

Sunday, 4 November 1984 – Rose quite late – went over to Annalisa’s [de Mercur] for lunch – very pleasant – had an early night (deserved).

Monday, 5 November 1984 – Worked quite hard today – went to Constitutional Committee in evening – easyish evening.

Tuesday, 6 November 1984 – busy day in the office – drinks with VC etc. early evening -> Stoke to meet Kathy [Kathy Barlow, my opposite number at North Staffs Poly] et.al.

Wednesday, 7 November 1984 – Very busy day with meetings etc. Had a fairly easy evening for a change.

Busy days really were busy days. It might be that my allergy to sitting on committees developed in my union sabbatical year, as I probably attended a lifetime’s worth of them in the space of one year. Here’s an extract from my appointments diary that week:

John was also working very hard during the days. The 62 year old me finds it hard to imagine how the 22 year old me had the energy to do all of those things, including stints of highly active DJ-ing several evenings after work.

Still got the moves…sort of…

Which reminds me. That week in 1984, Ronald Reagan got re-elected as US President by a landslide. I wonder why that fact comes to my mind 40 years on?

Anyway, after that first week of November 1984, some aspects of my life started taking different twists and turns. The next episode will elucidate.

Aftermath Of The EGM: What The Staff Thought, What The Papers Said & A Regular Union General Meeting, 26 to 31 October 1984

Hayward Burt, Melissa Oliveck, Me (resting my eyes), Andy Crawford, Kate (now Susan) Fricker, Pete Wild, Jo Gadian, UGM 29 October 1984

The conduct at…and result of…the Tommy & Ralph EGM did not go down well with the Students’ Union staff.

My diary notes:

Friday, 26 October 1984 – Overslept. Rose late – staff troubles – spent most of day trying to sort them out. Early night.

If I recall correctly, the staff went on strike that day and/but we managed to persuade them to restrict their formal action to that single day. We (Union Committee) thought we got off quite lightly, as some of the student behaviour at the EGM had shocked us on the staff’s behalf. I think it was the fact that we genuinely shared the staff’s objection to the meeting that persuaded them to limit their action.

Meanwhile Concourse covered the EGM, in a rapidly-issued freebie that following day, thusly:

The “Don’t Pay, delay” column on the front page reminds me of the rent strike we led that year in the wake of some pretty poor performance by the University Estates department in getting accommodation ready for enough students. I’ll return to that topic in my next piece. It actually came to a head on 31 October, although you wouldn’t tell from my diary entry from that day:

Saturday, 27 October 1984 – Rose quite late – went shopping – then after lunch went office – Annalisa [de Mercur] came back for dinner and stayed late.

Sunday, 28 October 1984 – Spent a busy day in the office – went over to Kate’s -> on to Sneyd -> Union in eve with Annalisa and Ali [Dabbs] too.

Monday 29 October 1984 – Hard day in office plus UGM in evening – had a late night.

Tuesday, 30 October 1984 – Busy day in the office – working hard etc. Worked late – UC, McDonald’s. Earlyish night.

Wednesday, 31 October 1984 – busy day – office/PSD [Policy, Staffing & Development Committee] etc. Did Union disco [with John White] in the evening.

The late October UGM was covered in some detail in the November issue of Concourse. I’ll write that up along with the November material.

the other matter that came to a head around that time was a controversy over Jo Gadian remaining on the Union Committee while suspended.

I’m trying to remember how that played out, because I thought we appealed that decision by the University quite vociferously. Why david Cohen wrote to me rather than the President, Kate Fricker, is a mystery to me. Perhaps I was fronting the bolshie protest against the decision to prevent Jo from serving.

One of the others might remember, although all seem to be protesting early onset memory loss whenever I bung questions of this kind over to them.

I can’t even remember what I had for dinner yesterday…

…was Pady’s most recent response. 🤪

A Week To Forget (Apart From Four Quirky Music Acts), Culminating In A Meeting To Regret: Tommy & Ralph’s Appeal To A Students’ Union EGM, 17 To 25 October 1984

The magnificent SU ballroom was not designed to host meetings like this: Photo by: Henk Snoek / RIBA Collections

The Tommy & Ralph EGM is one of the very few truly horrid memories I have of my year as a union sabbatical, indeed of my five years at Keele. Actually, one of my most horrid memories full stop.

Just in case you are coming to this saga cold, the 84/85 Union Committee had inherited a serious problem with the Union Bars, which were making ruinous losses which the managers could neither adequately explain nor manage down. The previous committee had started a disciplinary process and then left it in abeyance for us to pick up, which we did, from the outset of our tenure.

We held several investigative/disciplinary meetings, the last of which, in early August, I chaired. At that meeting the committee voted unanimously to dismiss the two bar managers, Tommy and Ralph. Their trades union (NUPE) rep, Derek Bamford, immediately announced that both would pursue their right to appeal to an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) of the students’ union in the autumn.

I have written up the story so far in the following two pieces:

When The Keele Students’ Union Bars (aka Tommy And Ralph) Saga Came To A Head, Early August 1984
Kidnapped: Being Memoirs Of A Curious Night At Keele In the Company Of Neil White And Toby Bourgein, 15 & 16 October 1984

All of us on the committee had a sense of trepidation about the impending EGM. As the person who had chaired the final meeting and had delivered the dismissals – the President Kate (now Susan) Fricker was unavoidably on leave for that meeting – I felt very much in the spotlight of the appeals processes. None of us on the committee thought that the EGM was an appropriate forum for a staff disciplinary appeal, but that was what the constitution said.

Ironically, as chair of Constitutional Committee, I had led a comprehensive review of the constitution the previous academic year and had sought to change that aspect of the constitution. I remember going to see the Permanent Secretary, Tony Derricott, about that and some of the other areas I thought ripe for change. Tony told me in no uncertain terms that the right of appeal to an EGM was sacrosanct to the Union staff, because no-one had ever successfully been dismissed if the staff member chose to appeal to an EGM.

My personal diary entries, unusually for me, provide a sense of my dark mood in the run up to that fateful meeting:

Wednesday, 17 October 1984 – feeling very rough today – very busy also – Ball night – went home early.

Thursday, 18 October 1984 – Tough day – worked etc – cancelled London trip – lots of meetings etc – J-Soc in evening.

Friday, 19 October 1984 – Very very busy with EGM and other stuff – worked until late.

Saturday, 20 October 1984 – Kate came over and spent whole day working for EGM etc – dinner in eve etc.

Sunday, 21 October 1984 – Kate came over early – worked all day. Went to Union in eve.

Monday, 22 October 1984 -Horrible day re-EGM business – meetings all day etc – work till late – Constitutional Committee etc.

Tuesday 23 October 1984 – Traumatic day trying to sort things out etc. John [White] stopped over.

Wednesday, 24 October 1984 – busy day of worries and in meetings etc. Went to bed early.

Minor Detour – Freshers’ Ball 17 October 1984

I struggled to remember who played the Freshers’ Ball that year. My Newspapers.com archive subscription now includes the Evening Sentinel, so I can report faithfully as the following preview attests:

Freshers Ball October 1984 SentinelFreshers Ball October 1984 Sentinel 15 Oct 1984, Mon Evening Sentinel (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England) Newspapers.com

Rocky Sharpe & the Replays followed by Dr Feelgood. I’m pretty sure I stuck it out for the former but bunked off before the end of the latter.

For anyone who wants top remember what Rocky Sharpe & The Replays were like, here are a couple of live vids from ancient archives:

If younger readers look at these vids and decide that the 1980s seems further in the distant past than they imagined, I should point out that both of the bands on show that night were rock and roll revival of one sort or another, although Dr Feelgood tried to be a bit more rock (1970s pub rock) than the 1950s revival rock and roll of Rocky Sharpe & the Replays.

Here is a vid of Dr Feelgood as they looked live by the mid to late 1980s:

I had already seen Dr Feelgood at Keele – they had headlined the ball in March 1981, on the famous night that Robert Plant played a secret gig in Room 14:

Robert Plant’s Secret Gig, Room 14, University of Keele Students Union (UKSU), 11 March 1981

Get Back To The Main Story – The Run Up To The EGM

My personal diary makes it clear that I was busy with other stuff as well as preparing for the EGM. My appointments diary supports that idea – every day at least two, normally three or four meetings, including the first Senate of the term. The University meetings were not for winging – I would always take the time to go through all of the papers and there would have been preparatory meetings for some as well.

The day of the above ball also included

13:30 pre-senate meeting in Vincent’s Room” [guessing Vince Beasley]

14:15 Senate [that would have lasted a good three hours]

18:30 Thorns Senior Common Room Wardens Meeting/Dinner…

…then the ball.

I had planned to go to London Friday evening and return Monday morning, but cancelled that trip as there was simply too much to do. Kate Fricker and I worked all the way through that weekend to prepare our meetings for the following week, including the EGM.

I don’t think my parents were too pleased with my cancelling the visit, as they were going away for several weeks the following weekend, so that cancellation wrote off any chance of seeing them for yonks. We got over it.

Although I say I had an early night on the Wednesday night before the EGM, I am sure I stuck around long enough to see The Frank Chickens and Billy Bragg before sloping off (by my standards) early.

Another Diversion Subsection: Billy Bragg Supported By The Frank Chickens

Billy Bragg & The Frank Chickens Sentinel October 1984Billy Bragg & The Frank Chickens Sentinel October 1984 25 Oct 1984, Thu Evening Sentinel (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England) Newspapers.com

If you want to know/remember what The Frank Chickens looked like, this video is quintessentially Frank, as it were. For sure I saw this pair perform:

I am 99% sure that I stuck around also for Billy Bragg because I know I saw him perform live and don’t think it could have been any other occasion than this. His “party piece” back then was a version of Route 66 about the A13 to Southend, which brought a smile and also some happy family memories for me.

I hadn’t thought of the connection before, but Pady Jalali seemed to be specialising in bringing acts from the A13 corridor to Keele at the start of that year – Billy Bragg from Barking, Dr Feelgood from Canvey island…

…but I am continuing to digress rather than write the painful stuff.

The EGM Day Itself: 25 October 1984

The image below is an extract from my appointment diary, just showing that day.

My personal diary simply says:

Thursday, 25 October 1984 – Spent most of the day in a daze and in meetings. Annalisa [de Mercur] came over for dinner – EGM over Tommy and Ralph – we won – much relief.

The EGM was horrible. All the imaginings I had about the inappropriateness of a students general meeting were amplified and almost caricatured that night. Of course it was a boozy affair – UGMs always were, whether they were E or not.

The ballroom was very crowded – several hundred people had turned out – at least the students were taking an interest. A large number of them were freshers who could surely only go with their gut feelings and/or the sense of the meeting, rather than take in the complexities of what had been a heart-wrenching and difficult decision to dismiss long serving staff.

Then there were vested interests. Tommy was a Roman Catholic with several children. The Catholic priest and the Catholic Society had turned out en masse (I think my sense of humour survived sufficiently for me to privately pun “on mass” to fellow committee members), plus Toby Bourgein and Neil White of course, ready to sink us with a plea for compassion. Most tellingly, all the Union staff turned up to support their colleagues. Most of them had only heard about but not seen a UGM before.

We were ready simply to tell the narrative faithfully and explain the meticulous steps we had taken to try to rehabilitate Tommy and Ralph’s position, but our enquiries and entreaties simply led us to conclude that they could not manage such a large and complex bar arrangement and that no amount of training or support could rectify those shortcomings. In truth, they couldn’t in any meaningful sense read the stock reports that were highlighting the deficiencies and the losses.

Mark Ellicott, who was the Speaker that year, chaired the meeting. He and have discussed that night at some length in the run up to its 40th anniversary. I am sure he will allow me to share some of his thoughts as a postscript, if I haven’t captured them in this piece. In my view, Mark did a superb job of handling a monumentally difficult meeting.

Derek Bamford of NUPE led for the appellants. I remember him at one point trying to continue talking beyond the guillotine time and actually being guillotined (i.e. having his microphone cut off, nothing more serious than that) and I also remember that he was a small man who looked very strange in that meeting, because he leant across the podium to the extent that the green timing light illuminated him, in green, from below. It’s funny how certain little details tick in the mind, with the rest being rather a blur.

Kate took full responsibility for leading our “defence” and advocating that the appeal be rejected. I did speak at one point but not for long at that meeting.

Of course the debate became raucous at times and some of the questions and comments from the floor were utterly inappropriate for such an important decision-making panel.

But I do remember one speech in particular that seemed to turn the sense of the meeting on its head, by which I mean that before that one speech I thought we were going to lose vote, but by the end of that speech I sensed that the vote was going to go our way.

It was John White’s speech, but not my friend John S White who was on the committee with us; John “Beaky” White, a research student who ran the KRA Bar and who, along with Pete Cumberland, helped run our bars during the summer while we appointed replacement bar managers.

The beer truth

John basically told the meeting that he and Pete had found the cellars in a shambles when they took over the bars and that the pipes were in a filthy condition. He asked any freshers who were in the meeting to turn to someone who had been at Keele the previous year and ask them if the beer tastes better now than it did the previous year, because the beer was now being stored and served appropriately.

I remember Kate and I looking at each other, a little horrified, because those factors had not been the grounds for the dismissal. In a formal legal setting, this evidence should not be used to determine whether or not we had fairly dismissed the staff and whether or not their appeals should be upheld.

But of course the appeal to a General Meeting was not a formal legal appeal – that aspect would come later at Employment Tribunal. John’s arguments clearly swayed many undecided voters in the room that evening.

I remember Annalisa telling me afterwards that she thought that the sense of the room was 60%/40% against us (i.e. in favour of the appeal) until that speech, whereas in the end the vote went 60%/40% the other way, possibly even more than 60% supported us. It didn’t need a count.

We had won but none of us felt good at the end of that evening. Derek Bamford made an angry statement on exit and it was clear to us that we had a lot of work to do to win back the support of our excellent and loyal team of staff, some of whom were horrified at witnessing that meeting.

There’s probably a Concourse write up of this which I must dig out and add to this piece…

Postcript: Yes there is a Concourse write up – I have included it in my fllow up piece:
Aftermath Of The EGM: What The Staff Thought, What The Papers Said & A Regular Union General Meeting, 26 to 31 October 1984

For now, the last word goes to the Evening Sentinel, which, unsurprisingly, was not exactly the employer’s friend in this matter as it subsequently panned out, although the following piece was short and to the point.

EGM Aftermath Sentinel Oct 1984EGM Aftermath Sentinel Oct 1984 26 Oct 1984, Fri Evening Sentinel (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England) Newspapers.com

Kidnapped: Being Memoirs Of A Curious Night At Keele In the Company Of Neil White And Toby Bourgein, 15 & 16 October 1984

Maya Angelou, American writer and civil rights activist, famously wrote:

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

The details of this strange story from 40 years ago are lost in the mists of time and the sad fact is that I am now the sole survivor of that late evening, as Neil White (Lindsay Hall resident tutor) and Toby Bourgein (former Students’ Union Secretary and Postgraduate grandee by that time), have both since died.

I eulogised Toby in the following piece when I learned, in September 2020, that he had died:

O Captain! My Captain! – Gentlemen Of The Right v Players Of The Left – Keele Festival Week Cricket Match, 26 June 1984

I wrote about Neil White and Toby when I wrote up, forty years on, a memorable snowed-in evening or two from December 1981:

Snow, White & The Seven Draughts: An Extra Ten Days Snowed In At Keele, 12 to 21 December 1981

Ah, the Neil White home brew. I suspect that was also involved in the October 1984 kidnapping incident.

Here is all that I recorded in my personal diary for 15 October 1984:

Monday, 15 October 1984 – Very busy today – went to McDonald’s for tea and on to Marston tasting in KRA and on to Chalky’s [Neil White’s] flat.

That is not very revealing, but I remember that night 15/16 October, impressionistically, very well.

The context of all this is the Tommy and Ralph saga, which had come to a head that August when we dismissed the Students’ Union bar managers, Tommy & Ralph…

When The Keele Students’ Union Bars (aka Tommy And Ralph) Saga Came To A Head, Early August 1984

…and which was about to come to a head again, as their appeal to a Students’ Union EGM was to take place 10 days later, 25 October.

Ironically, our purpose at the KRA (postgraduate bar) on the evening of 15 October was to finalise the choice of main real ale for the new Real Ale Bar, formerly – and in location terms still – the Ballroom Bar. After searching high and low for an alternative to the KRA’s choice of Marston’s Pedigree, we bowed to the inevitable and chose to offer that brew also in the Students’ Union. The fruits of our research did mean that we also offered Banks’s Mild as a regular beer in that bar, which I found particularly pleasant as a brew for the remainder of my sabbatical year.

Neil and Toby invited me back to Neil’s resident tutor’s place for a chat and some home brew. This did not seem an odd invitation, as I had spent the occasional long evening that way with them over the years, see Snow White article and other such evenings.

But it soon became clear that Neil and Toby had a serious purpose to their invitation. I knew that they were friends with Tommy and Ralph. I also knew that they did not approve of the actions we had taken. But they made it very clear to me, as we downed some of Neil’s home brew, that they were going to support Tommy and Ralph’s motion of appeal to the EGM and that it was their view that the appeal would succeed and that the dismissals would be overturned. They certainly had precedent on their side to support their confidence that the appeal would succeed. No such appeal against a dismissal had ever previously been denied by the student body.

I explained to Neil and Toby the deep thought and heart-wrenching that had gone into our decision, but also that I/we were resolute that we had done the right thing in law and for the good of the Students’ Union. They disagreed and tried to persuade me to recant and change sides ahead of the appeal. In their minds, THAT would be for the good of the Union and also for my own good, as they saw my position and Education & Welfare Officer, having chaired the August dismissal meeting, as untenable once the appeal had been upheld and the decision to dismiss forcibly overturned.

I responded that such a change of position would make it even more untenable for me to continue in my role. I also felt (and still do) that such a U-turn would have been ruinous for the Students’ Union. We had, after all, made the decision because the status quo with those bar managers was unsustainable; the Union would have been financially ruined by or even before the end of that academic year.

Once we reached the point that, to my mind, we had established that our views were diametrically opposed and that there was no “third way” that might reconcile our positions, I got up to leave.

My memory is not entirely clear about how they prevented me from leaving, but I do recall at least one of them, if not both of them, blocking the door and at least one of them, if not both of them, saying:

we’re not going to let you leave until you change your mind.

It is that aspect of the evening that has, for all these years, made me associate the word “kidnap” with this event.

I’d like to make a few impressionistic things clear. At no point was there a threat or even the vaguest suggestion of serious violence, other than the aggression that might be supposed when people block a door to prevent someone from leaving. I recall that it was sort-of well-humoured, despite being sinister.

I recall giggling at one point and telling Toby, as he would well know, that they were technically falsely imprisoning me. Neil and Toby asserted that this was for my own good, that they liked me, and that they wanted me to put my own position (and that of Tommy and Ralph) right, and that they couldn’t possibly let me go until they had persuaded me to follow their guidance.

This odd event went on until really quite late. My appointment diary for those two days provides a clue as to how I escaped.

Nothing as exciting as a Robert Louis Stevenson Kidnapped adventure. I squeezed in a meeting with Toby Bourgein the next day. My escape was achieved through the expedient of promising to think very carefully about what Neil and Toby had said and to meet Toby the next day to continue the conversation.

The meeting on 16th at 1.00 was not very long and not very pleasant. I told Toby that reflection had only firmed up my view that the decision we had made about Tommy and Ralph was the right one and that recanting would neither be right nor in the interests of the Union.

The words in my personal diary of 16 October are quite revealing.

Tuesday, 16 October 1984 – Feeling rather ill today – meetings galore – all unpleasant – John Boy [John White – no relation] came back in eve to do policy document.

I found the whole Tommy and Ralph matter painful and emotionally draining. Finding myself up against old friends who were so sure of their position that they were prepared to kidnap me in an attempt to persuade me only added to the pain.

I’m not sure whether I even told my colleagues what had happened that night, John might remember if I did tell them, as might Kate (Susan) Fricker and/or Pady Jalali.

I still have fond memories of Neil and Toby from the many happy occasions I spent with them. I also firmly believe that they had the interests of the Students’ Union and their friends Tommy & Ralph genuinely at heart. But I believe that they were wrong-headed over this matter. I also believe that their conduct in the way they went about trying to persuade me to recant – was inappropriate and out of character for those two.

Toby Bourgein: Persuasive…but not THAT persuasive

From The Lull Before The Keele Student Storm To An Evening At A&E With “Mushroom Fresher”, First Half Of October 1984

I recall one of the more waggish academics, I think it was Philip Boden, suggesting that Keele runs far better in the absence of students. I’m sure he wasn’t the first nor the last academic to make such a quip about their institution.

The truth, of course, is that Universities like Keele are pretty calm and tranquil places outside term time…then pretty frenetic during term time. This sense applies to Students’ Union sabbaticals as well as to University and Union staff.

Compare my diary for the first week of October, before students started to drift in, with the second week of October, when the trickle of students became a surge.

The First Week Of October 1984

Must have grabbed a quick bite before heading to Euston

Monday 1 October 1984 – Did some Chinese shopping [in Chinatown, Soho]. Came back to Keele. Went to meeting in afternoon [Working Party on Union Employees in the Senate Room] – worked until late – went to bed early.

Tuesday 2 October 1984 – Induction in morning etc. Went to Newcastle on Banks’s tasting in evening.

Wednesday, 3 October 1984 – Induction thing in morning [Personnel 10 to 1] – loads of work afternoon. Went to Golf for Wilson tasting in evening.

Thursday, 4 October 1984 – Last morning of induction [Space Allocation & NSP?] – lots of meetings [Comms & GM] etc. Staff party in union in evening “piss up in Quiet Room”.

Friday, 5 October 1984 – Took today off and travelled to London for Kol Nidre [Evening service at the start of Yom Kippur].

Saturday, 6 October 1984 – Yom Kippur [Day of Atonement].

Sunday, 7 October 1984 – [Uncle] Michael came round in morning – lunch with mum and dad then left for Keele – cooked Annalisa [de Mercur] a meal.

The Second Week Of October 1984

Monday, 8 October 1984 – Very busy day with meetings etc – loads to plan and all. [10.00 Union Committee, 12:30 to 2:30 Induction Resident Tutors, 7:30 Quiet Room Overseas Students, 8:00 Area Exec, Room 13. 9:00 “Went to Carole Holder’s for dinner in eve”.

Carole Holder looked after Hawthorne’s Hall and I recall that dinner at Carole Holder’s place was a memorable and lively occasion.

Tuesday, 9 October 1984 – New overseas students arrived today – planned rent withhold etc – [Union Committe 9:30, Dr Mairs 1100] went to overseas student reception in evening.

If I recall correctly, the rent withhold campaign was because the heating and hot water system wasn’t working properly on large swathes of the campus. We were trying to find a way to “encourage” Estates & Buikdings to sort the problems out faster than they seemed willing (or perhaps able) to go.

Wednesday, 10 October 1984 – Busy day with meetings, freshers, pickets etc etc. [9:30 meeting with Registrar, Seminar “overseas” Lindsay, pm Policy Staffing & Development] Had a quiet drink in Union in eve.

David Cohen 1960s COPYRIGHT KEELE UNIVERSITY

OMG we were picketing within hours of the freshers arriving. The Registrar back then was David Cohen, still recognisable in the 1980s by his bow ties. I think he considered me to be a bit of a firebrand until he got to know me. I think he then considered me to be no pushover but someone with whom the University could “do business”. He was very good at compartmentalising issues, was David Cohen. He was very helpful to me and Kate when we went to see him about the legal issues surrounding the Tommy & Ralph dismissal affair, but played hard ball with us over the early season rent strike and picketing, while making sure the unconnected issues were never intertwined. Mercifully, I recall that the technical problems with boilers and the like were resolved quite quickly.

Thursday, 11 October 1984 – Very busy day with freshers, picketing etc etc. [3:20 Old Library Postgrads, 6:00 P Rehearsal] Worked until late. Went McDonald’s and drank in Union after.

What a P Rehearsal might have been is lost in the mists of time.

Friday, 12 October 1984 – Busy day work. Committees etc [3.00 Medical Services] did intro talk for freshers in early eve [5.00-6.00]. Ended up roped into snack bar in evening.

“Roped into snack bar” was another of those roles that, over the years, had morphed from voluntary to paid for, although the snack bar would always lose money and we felt that plenty of people should be willing to do it on a low-level entrepreneurial basis rather than subsidised by the Union. To get that moving, we Union Committee folk gave it a whirl until people drifted towards our way of thinking.

Saturday, 13 October 1984 – Went shopping with Kate [Fricker] first thing -> Freshers Mart -> home for a nap. Kate, Hippy [Pete Wild] and I did snack bar again tonight.

I have subsequently become involved with a very well-organised charity, FoodCycle, arranging communal dining at scale…

A Multi-Shift FoodCycle Day In Marylebone, 21 April 2021

…and can safely say, now that I am steeped in food safety and risk assessments for such matters…

…that it’s probably not ideal to have keen but uninformed youngsters like me and Peter Wild preparing food without proper training and without hair nets.

Pete and me – suitable cases for the hair net treatment

I can also report from my experience that such catering work is hard work; I understand why I took a nap on Saturday afternoon after a heavy week and a morning at Freshers Mart ahead of the snack bar evening.

Sunday, 14 October 1984 – Got up late – went to Union to work – ended up in casualty with “mushroom fresher”. Annalisa for dinner stayed until late.

Ah yes, the “mushroom fresher”, who scared himself and his friends almost witless by overindulging in psycho-active fungi.

Ironically, I went through these diary entries with Mark Ellicott when we met up a couple of weeks ago (September 2024) and he asked quizzically, “what’s a mushroom fresher”?

Given the story of my last-minute selection for the Festival Week cricket match in 1982 – basically to replace Mark who had overindulged in psychoactive substances – as amusingly told in Mark’s own words (as well as mine) in this piece…

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

…I wouldn’t have expected Mark to need to ask what a “mushroom fresher” might be in that context!

Just to close the loop – “mushroom fresher” pumped out just fine and I didn’t end up wasting that many hours at North Staffs Royal Infirmary on this incident. In those days, you got seen quite quickly in A&E. Possibly you still do in the Potteries on a Sunday.

Students, eh!

From The Rumour Mill Around Keele To Blooming Madness In London, Via The Final Word On Keele Student Appeals, Late September 1984

I think Rumours was a Chinese restaurant in Newcastle [corrected – see postscript below]. This picture of me eating Chinese food is from Guilin in 1993.

The end of September and beginning of October at Keele was the lull before the approaching storm of the new academic year. Apart from some fallout from the resits and resulting appeals processes, we were getting ready for the sabbatical year proper with a lot of training and induction activity.

Sunday, 23 September 1984 Got up quite early – mooched around flat – mooched around union – went over to Kate [Fricker] evening.

Monday, 24 September 1984 – not so busy today. Slouched a bit – felt tired too – went to bed early.

Tuesday, 25 September 1984 – Busy day with training course etc. Appeals results came out late afternoon – worked late then went to Rumours with group [probably Kate Fricker, John White, Pady Jalali, Andy Crawford, Ali Dabbs and any other committee folk who were around]– back to Union and mine.

Wednesday, 26 September 1984 – busyish with training and appeals results. Cooked meal for Kate, John & Ali, and took an early night.

Thursday, 27th September 1984 – Busyish day, callers, meetings etc. Went on trip with Allied Breweries and drunk quite a bit.

Friday, 28 September 1984 – Extremely busy with belated appeals etc – got to London late – too tired to do anything.

Saturday, 29 September 1984 – Got up late – went to Brent Cross. In evening went to Rasa Sayang for nice meal.

Sunday, 30 September 1984 – Got up late. Went to Blooms for late lunch – then went drinking in Highgate.

The End Of Appeals

Mopping up after the appeals results came out was quite a busy period, but nowhere near as busy as the time between resit results coming in and lodging the appeals. We had been quite successful with appeals that year. Without going into too much detail, a serious botch up by the French department with one blameless student opened the door to pretty much any appeal by a student who had flunked that particular subject. To some extent that was gaming the system but Eddie Slade, the Senior Tutor, gave me encouragement to assist those modern language students in so gaming. Oliver Goulden, who headed that department at that time, never forgave me for “humiliating him”. I remember politely pointing out to Oliver, when he said that to me, that he had humiliated himself with the initiating botch.

A Trip To London – North Of The River This Time

I don’t think I visited my parents at all on that London visit – I think I just visited Bobbie, who had just started sharing a flat at the top of the Archway Road with several other recent law graduates who were about to start their law/bar exams and (in her case) pupillage.

Brent Cross was not my sort of place, but I think Bobbie needed to buy some stuff for her new digs. She had been kind enough to help me with my move from Barnes to Horwood when visiting Keele; it was the least I could do to traipse around Brent Blooming Cross with her (oh how I hate shopping) before an evening treat at the Rasa Sayang, a Malaysian Restaurant in Soho, which was one of my favourite haunts at that time.

Photo of Bloom’s Golders Green by Kake Pugh via Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

I remember the visit Bobbie and I made to Bloom’s in Golders Green very well. Bobbie was keen to try the place as she had never been to an authentic Jewish restaurant. I gently cautioned against the idea but was persuaded that this was something that Bobbie wanted to do.

The rudeness of Bloom’s waiters was the subject of legend. Aficionados of rude waiter places in London might like to conjure up a Jewish version of Wong Kei (Chinese) or Khan’s (Indian) with the worst excesses of those places coming to the fore.

It is a minor miracle that Bloom’s survived another quarter of a century until closing in 2010. When it did close, a posse of celebrities wrote obituary vignettes about it for the Jewish Chronicle. (If anything ever becomes of that link, click here for the fine laugh out loud words).

But actually I think Bobbie’s and my experience is up there with any of the celebrity “endorsements” of the rudeness.

I had treated Bobbie to the Rasa Sayang the night before and she was to treat me to Bloom’s the next day. That’s how we rolled in those days.

Problem was, the waiter’s “sales technique” with a couple was to try to push the most expensive and/or extra dishes at the female, on the expectation that the male, keen to impress his date, would say yes to everything as soon as the female showed the slightest interest in the item being pushed. This technique was not going to work very well in our circumstances, not least because I knew all about the dishes that were being pushed and Bobbie was looking for my guidance.

Allow me to script one of several such attempts by the waiter.

WAITER (fawning, to Bobbie): I think maybe you would like to try the kishka, madam?

BOBBIE (to me): what’s kishka?

ME (yawning, to Bobbie): stuffed intestine – I don’t think you’ll like it. The helzel (stuffed chicken’s neck) is probably enough stuffed body parts for one meal.

WAITER (thinks): this guy is a pain in the kishkas. What’s the matter with him?

On the meal went, with the waiter fawning over Bobbie, while Bobbie gently but clearly signalled that she was the paying customer and I was the guest, even though I knew what we were ordering and she didn’t.

Eventually Bobbie called for the bill. The waiter brought the bill and went to hand the bill to me.

BOBBIE: No, no, please hand the bill to me.

The waiter looked at me strangely. Then he looked at Bobbie even more strangely. Eventually he handed the bill to Bobbie.

Bobbie settled the bill with notes. The waiter returned with the change, pointedly placing the saucer of change in front of me, not Bobbie.

Bobbie equally pointedly grabbed the saucer, asked the waiter to wait, retrieved some but not all of the change for herself and handed him back the saucer with his tip.

Meshuggas…

…said the waiter, which means “madness” in Yiddish.

Bloom’s.

Postscript: Jonathan Knight points out that Rumours was in fact a burger restaurant; the Chinese one was Peaches – still going in 2024.

Still, the 1993 tale of the Guilin snake, from which that picture is taken, is well worth a read although it is entirely unconnected with tales of Keele in 1984:

China Trip – From Xian Ladders To Guilin Snakes, 25 November 1993

A Political Rally With Death Threats: Arthur, The Miner’s Strike & Keele, 22 September 1984

Arthur Scargill, Pit Closure Rally, Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums

While the Keele Students’ Union bars saga was the largest internal issue that subsisted for the first six months of our sabbatical year 1984/85…

When The Keele Students’ Union Bars (aka Tommy And Ralph) Saga Came To A Head, Early August 1984

…the 1984-85 miners’ strike was far and away the biggest UK political/news story of that time.

The dispute had been running for some six months before this day, in September 1984, when Arthur Scargill held a rally outside the pit in Silverdale, which might be described as “Keele’s local” in the matter of coal pits back then. Indeed I think it was that pit that did for my first Barnes flat, in M block, which needed to be demolished in late 1982:

Switching To A Cracking Good Flat In Barnes, Keele, Mid February To Early March 1982

But I digress.

Here is a transcript of my diary note from the day that Arthur Scargill came to town:

Saturday, 22 September 1984 – Got up early. Went to Shelton – Kathy [North Staffs Poly, President? I think], Cath [Coughlin], Andy [Crawford] and I went to Rumours and on to Scargill [Arthur Scargill rally at a closing colliery]. Shopped in afternoon – visited Kevin [“the Guinness”?], Helen [Ross] etc. Went to Union in evening.

Obviously it was a big rally…a very, very big rally – in contrast with the comparatively small rallies (by his own standards) that Donald Trump holds in the USA these days (2024). Joking apart, there were several hundred of us who attended that 1984 Potteries event.

I discover, though, by delving into The Evening Sentinel archive, that Arthur Scargill 1984 did share something in common with Trump 2024: death threats. Indeed, had I known what I now learn from the Evening Sentinel 40 years later, I might have been a little reluctant to attend:

Scargill Rally 22 September 1984 SentinelScargill Rally 22 September 1984 Sentinel 22 Sep 1984, Sat Evening Sentinel (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England) Newspapers.com

In truth I don’t remember a great deal about the rally. I wasn’t a political sabbatical, by which I mean that I wanted to focus on running the Union and my portfolio, Education and Welfare, rather than national or international events. But I do remember that sense of history and wanting to be there when the “show” came to our town.

Arthur Scargill was a charismatic speaker and certainly carried his crowd with him. Thatcher-bashing/Tory-bashing was low hanging fruit for speeches in places like the Potteries at that time. I do remember Scargill’s mantra:

There’s no such thing as an uneconomic pit…

…failing to pass my personal economics test at that time. It was clear to me even then that the coal industry was on its way out, for economic and environmental reasons. The issue, for me, was the way that the Tory Government was going about its industrial policy, like a bull in a China shop, for ideological reasons, rather than a measured, planned approach to industrial change, which might have been achieved with more net benefit and less resulting hardship.

But it wasn’t about me, it was about Arthur. Here’s a video of a similar speech to the one we would have heard at the end of our rally:

Mercifully there was no assassination attempt on Arthur Scargill at the event we attended nor, as far as I know, at any other event during those heady days in the mid 1980s.

But just a few year’s later, comedy writer and performer Brian Jordan …

…to whom I shall always be grateful for premiering my comedy material in Edinburgh, in his wonderfully-named show, Whoops Vicar Is that Your Dick…

The Ultimate Love Song, Whoops Vicar, NewsRevue, Ben Murphy…, 29 February 1992

…assassinated Arthur Scargill’s character in the following lyric which ran and ran in NewsRevue in the early 1990s, reproduced here with Brian’s kind permission. I especially like the couplet:

He may not be to everybody’s liking,

But as a union leader…he’s striking.

Anyway, the September 1984 rally was not to be the last of the Students’ Union’s involvement in the miners’ strike, as the issue found its way onto the UGM agenda several times during our year – on at least one occasion with quite incendiary results.

Ashley Fletcher will help me to pick up on that aspect of the story in the coming months, as he has been busy recently (2024) writing up his own memories of the miners’ strike.

Keele Education & Welfare Officer In Training: University Of York (Education), University Of Reading (Welfare), University of Keele (Resit Result Appeals) & University Of Life (Beer Tasting), First Half September 1984

University of York, Goodricke College by David Dixon, CC BY-SA 2.0

Training Week: York & Reading

The National Union Of Students (NUS) provided training courses for sabbatical officers in September. I think all four of us (Kate Fricker, John White, Pady Jalali and me) went on at least one or two. Here are my diary entries about my week:

Monday, 3 September 1984 up early – Bobbie [Scully] dropped me at Stoke. Met Kathy [from the North Staffs Poly Students’ Union if I recall correctly] and went to [University of] York for Education and Representations (E&R) Module.

Tuesday, 4 September 1984 – E&R module in York (okay). Got back to Stoke, went to Kathy’s for a while. Came back to Keele.

Wednesday, 5 September 1984 – Got up really early to go to [University of] Reading for Welfare Module.

Thursday, 6 September 1984 – Welfare Module in Reading (v good indeed). Got back to Keele late and very tired.

Friday, 7 September 1984 – Tired today – cleared some of the backlog of work – ate in McDonald’s in evening.

Saturday, 8 September 1984 – Went shopping in morning – did some work in afternoon – went to Wolstanton to meet Vera [sic – Veera Bachra] in evening.

Sunday, 9 September 1984 – Rose late. Went in to office to clear work in afternoon – went over to Kate [Fricker]’s for meal in evening.

I thought better of the welfare course than I did of the education and representations one. I think I felt I had previously acquired most of the negotiation skills and possessed the requisite common sense that the first course was trying to impart. Whereas the welfare one steeped me in some techniques and protocols that hadn’t occurred to me before and stick with me to this day, not least the notion that volunteers and sabbaticals should signpost and refer, but not attempt to advise and/or counsel.

I remember Phil Woolas being quite heavily involved in at least one of, if not both of, the courses. He was NUS President at the time and went on to a ministerial career in the Labour Governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

I had forgotten that Veera Bachra had remained in The Potteries even until then and that we kept in touch into my sabbatical year. She had been my neighbour in Barnes L Block for a couple of years and became a good pal, as described in several Ogblog pieces (this link all those tagged Veera). I do wonder what happened to her subsequently.

Eating with Kate Fricker, more often at my place than at hers but on this occasion at hers, was a fairly regular occurrence throughout our sabbatical year.

Aftermath Of Resits Week

Reinforcements: Annalisa de Mercur, picture thanks to Mark Ellicott

I had been primed to be ready for a constant stream of people through my office, primarily those who had failed their resits and wanted help with appeals and/or pastoral care. It’s just as well I’d been primed.

Thus spake my diary:

Monday, 10 September 1984 – Busy day getting ready for the onslaught etc – Kate came over for a meal in the evening.

Tuesday, 11 September 1984 – resit results came out today – extremely chaotic and exhausting day. Worked till quite late.

Wednesday, 12 September 1984 – Appeals business all day. – Annalisa arrived as reinforcements. – came over for a drink in evening.

Thursday, 13 September 1984 -very busy day with appeals etc. Worked till quite late. Annalisa came over for dinner in evening.

Friday, 14 September 1984 very busy with appeals today – Bobbie arrived early in the evening. Went to Pinocchio’s for dinner and came back.

Saturday, 15 September 1984 Bobby left early. I got up quite late – went shopping with Kate – worked in afternoon – Annalisa and I went over to Kate’s for dinner in evening.

Sunday, 16 September 1984 – Got up fairly late – came into office for afternoon etc. Had Kate and Annalisa for dinner in evening.

Would you believe that Pinocchio’s is still an Italian Restaurant, albeit rebranded Pasta Di Piazza with decent enough reviews still. For sure it was one of the better places in Newcastle0-Under-Lyme in 1984.

Annalisa was on my Education Sub-Committee and very dedicated to the task she was too. Coming up to Keele, to help with appeals week, was over and above the call of duty, as were many of Annalisa’s sterling efforts that year.

Progressing From Appeals To Beer-Tasting

Ale be seeing you in all the old familiar places…

The appeals process continued into the early part of the following week, after which attention switched to the vexed question of beer.

In particular, under our new bar regime, we were very keen to offer real ales on a regular basis and had settled on the ballroom bar as a suitable location (actually the only suitable bar) for the storage and serving of such beers.

Other Ogblog postings, previous and to come, attest that we committee folk were quite traumatised by the process of dismissing the bar managers and the subsequent appeals processes. But I confess that we did enjoy the several field trips and organised tastings by the breweries that were courting us for business in that latter part of the summer. The diary leaves me in no doubt:

Monday, 17 September 1984 – Very busy day indeed with these appeals. Worked till very late.

Tuesday, 18 September 1984 extremely hectic last day of appeals, etc, – cooked. Came down to union and got pissed at John Smith’s expense.

Wednesday, 19 September 1984 -Very tired today – took it fairly easy. Got pissed at Allied Breweries expense tonight.

Thursday, 20 September 1984 – Tired and not very industrious today. Went to union in the evening and had to buy own drinks – didn’t stay long.

Friday, 21 September 1984 -Still a bit shattered. Went over to Kate’s for meal in the evening.

Levity By The Lake