Tag: Keele University

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

Misery, Hong Kong Garden Restaurant And The Move From Barnes To Horwood, 30 August to 1 September 1984

Ouch!

I found a lot of my sabbatical year hard work. Occasionally I found the work emotionally challenging too.

Still, I doubt if I’ll find a more unequivocally miserabilist entry in any of my diaries, across the many years I kept such notes, than 30 August 1984:

Thursday, 30 August 1984 – horrendously busy day – including suicide, Frank [Dillon]’s burglary and loads of misery. Went to McDonald’s and pub in eve confused and wretched.

Suicide was an issue that constantly worried Keele staff and students alike. At one time Keele had a reputation for having a high suicide rate amongst students, despite also having a reputation for having very high satisfaction ratings. Existential Marmite?

Seriously, I recall being very upset when I learnt that Theo had committed suicide in the spring of that year, while I was completing my finals. I knew she was troubled; she and I had discussed the sorts of things she might get involved with in the Education & Welfare Office during my sabbatical year.

Whether I really would have been able to help her or not, we’ll never know. Things got too much for her that spring and she chose to end her life. Those close to Theo (in particular Ashley Fletcher and Simon Legg) chose not to tell me about her death until after my finals in the June, because they thought the news might upset me (it certainly did) and thus disturb what little equilibrium I had for finals cramming.

I don’t recall the details of the suicide I refer to in this diary entry. I don’t think it was anyone I really knew and I suspect it had happened away from the campus – possibly someone who had failed their resits or in some other way knew they were in trouble at Keele, but not someone who had presented themselves to me.

I also don’t remember any of the details of Frank Dillon’s burglary, except that he found it disturbing, as anyone who has experienced being the victim of burglary would attest.

Friday, 31 August 1984 – busyish day with resits and Frank’s business. Bobbie arrived in evening, moved, and then went to Hong Kong Garden for meal.

Saturday, 1 September 1984 – Went shopping late morning and dossed around, finished moving and cooked Bobbie a meal in the evening.

I say “moved” and “finished moving” in glib phrases, but this was a change of some moment for me. I had shared flats in Barnes for two-and-a-half years, very happily for the two years in Barnes L54 as discussed in several earlier pieces and as reprised in a letter to Concourse that June.

Good-Bye To Barnes L54 And All That, Summer 1984

I moved into my own flat, in Horwood K Block. It was a small “resident tutor’s flat” which was basically two study bedrooms and the end of a corridor repurposed as a two-room flat with a living room (one of the study bedrooms), a small bedroom & a small bathroom (the other study bedroom) and a galley kitchen (the repurposed end of the corridor).

It was small, but it worked and it was all mine. Actually, I say “all mine” but it proved remarkably popular as a doss house for people who for one reason or another, couldn’t get to their own places for the night – e.g. John White, who moved off campus for that year but quite often wanted to stay on. John became very well acquainted with the floor of my so-called living room.

Despite the many visitors, I acquired a taste for having “a couple of rooms of my own” on the back of this experience and have never quite shaken off the desire, at times, to retire to my own little place.

The Friday diary entry confirms my suspicion that Hong Kong Garden was my Chinese restaurant of choice at that time. Anyone else remember it?

Not THAT Hong Kong, not THAT garden…the above photo nine years later

Did I ever thank Bobbie properly for helping me with my move? I know it was only from one side of the main campus to the other, but I do recall that the extra muscle really helped. Bobbie might not be the tallest person around, but, certainly in those days, she was pretty strong and could lug boxes as well or better than most folk.

Still, misery and the drudgery of moving turned to laughter the next day, on the back of my unfortunate but memorable cock-up with tickets for the theatre in Hanley:

Rodgers & Hammerstein, For One Half Only, With Bobbie Scully, Theatre Royal Hanley, 2 September 1984

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

Photo by: Henk Snoek / RIBA Collections

The Students’ Union Ballroom is a big place. In our day (the early 1980s), I believe it was still the largest venue between Birmingham and Manchester. If I remember correctly we were allowed to cram in 1,000 people, many of whom would have been smoking.

In truth, it was far too large a venue for discos during the summer vacation, when there would only be a few hundred people, mostly Open University (OU) summer-schoolers, on campus.

But we wanted to generate some income for the Students’ Union, we wanted our friends from the KRA (postgraduate) bar, who were temporarily running the SU bars, to try out some ideas for the bars, plus John White and I wanted to learn how to do the Union discos so that we’d be able to “take on” the cartel of student DJs that was charging for services that we felt they would and should do for the love of it during term time.

Doing discos for the OU crowd was a low risk way for me and John to learn on the job. Pady Jalali, who was the sabbatical social secretary that year, gave us confidence that we were qualified to fulfil the role:

Honestly, fellas, any idiot could do it…

…without providing any specific guidance.

Actually we quickly learnt that there is quite an art to it. Admittedly, almost any idiot could soon learn how to play records for a few hours on twin-decks without too many jumps, false-starts or awkward silences. But putting together a thoughtful playlist that keeps the dancing atmosphere going, mixing the pace and genres appropriately, is non-trivial.

John and I learnt quickly enough and loved doing it.

Let’s see what else I was up to at that stage of the summer and then return to the disco topic.

Late August 1984 Happenings

Sunday, 19 August 1984 – Nasty day (especially morning came into work – Ralph etc) – spent afternoon going over Ringroad stuff with Frank. Performed Ringroad in evening.

Monday, 20 August 1984 – Quite a busy day in the office – spent evening in union and KRA with Frank and John.

Tuesday, 21 August 1984 – Busy day in office – UC in afternoon. Frank cooked – did Ringroad and disco both went down rather badly.

Wednesday, 22 August 1984 – Loads of meetings and things. Busy day. Went to KRA in evening with Frank.

Evidence, if it were needed, that our DJ-ing (and indeed my comedy performance) skills needed work. One aspect that Frank and I realised for the Ringroad comedy was that the Union (even the upstairs Room 14) was too large a venue for the Open University crowd. I think we did our subsequent Ringroad gigs in the Lindsay bar, where most if not all of the OU lot were based.

But John and I needed to try and make the SU Ballroom work for the discos, as it was that set up that we needed to learn and revenues for the SU that we wee trying to generate.

After interviewing for the replacement bar managers on the Thursday, I then took a short break in London.

Thursday, 23 August 1984 – Interviewed for bar managers this morning – came down to London – went to Grandma Jenny’s after dinner for evening.

Friday, 24 August 1984 – Went to West End this afternoon – shopped etc. Stayed in in the evening – lazy day.

Saturday, 25 August 1984 -Another lazy day. Paul came over in the afternoon – stayed in evening – taped/listened and watched TV.

Sunday, 26 August 1984 – Went Angela & John’s [Kessler, cousins] in the afternoon – took Mum and Dad to Joy King Lau in the evening.

Monday, 27 August 1984 – Had Il Carretto lunch and left for Keele in the early evening – spent eve down union and up flat.

John White and others who hung around with me that sabbatical year might like to know that that the taping I did with Paul Deacon that weekend ended up as a favourite mix tape, which I have recently replicated on YouTube Music for all to hear. The first 45 minutes is softer/more danceable stuff, the second half more alternative/new wave:

ON THE SCROUNGE PLAYLIST

Don’t be put off by the auto-crossing out of the above link – I believe you can click and enjoy the play list whether or not you are a YouTube Music subscriber.

I don’t remember ever taking my parents to Joy King Lau, in Leicester Street. John White, Bobbie Scully and many other friends will remember eating with me there. Forty years later, in August 2024, the place is still there and some people are even giving it good reviews on TripAdvisor.

Tuesday, 28 August 1984 – Busy day (early start) – exam time. Quite a lot of people through office. Boozy UC meeting. Went back to John Boy’s for dinner – did the disco in the evening together.

Wednesday, 29 August 1984 – extremely busy with resit people all day – Kate cooked dinner for John Frank & I [sic] in eve – very pleasant.

The Union Committee meeting will have been boozy to celebrate the fact that it was my birthday and would, the next day, be John White’s birthday.

We suspect that the disco we did together that night will have tipped just past the midnight licence. Given that it was the night after bank holiday Monday, I don’t suppose there were all that many people there.

Not only did that evening kick off the long-standing tradition of John and me spending our birthdays together…

Forty Years Of Celebrating Birthdays Together: Dinner With John White At Lita Marylebone, 27 August 2024

…but for our sabbatical year it kicked off the tradition of us playing exactly what we wanted in the earlier part of the evening, making the most of the enormous dance floor to have a dance work out alone or with just one or two friends.

Later in our sabbatical year, the Geordie Mag (which was a Keele Geordies’ tribute to Viz Comic, produced a cartoon which depicted John White, in the ballroom, as “the only one dancing”. In the next frame, someone asks John to help them light their cigarette: “have you got a match, John?”, to which, in the next frame, John replies, “not since Errol Flynn died”. Maybe you had to be there.

I asked a couple of artificial intelligence image generators to produce pictures of two DJs at a student disco in the 1980s with very few students in attendance and even fewer of them dancing. Most of the attempts were risible. The AI simply cannot get its artificial head around the idea of a near-empty dance floor.

This is the best of the AI images – from DALL-E, but the Keele SU disco looked nothing like that.

Better to feast your eyes on the gorgeous headline image of the Keele SU Ballroom, with thanks again to the RIBA Collection for permission to use.

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

Glowing…

I was reminded of my early Ringroad performances the other day (May 2017) while chatting with Paul Spence at an informal, curry-oriented gathering of the old school clan.

When Paul mentioned that his extensive energy sector interests include nuclear power, I found myself reciting the Ringroad Windscale poem from memory – the first and last verse simply flowed as if I had read or performed it just the other day.

Paul asked if I had a copy of the poem. I said I probably did – see below.

I didn’t write the poem. I’m not sure who did. Possibly Frank Dillon; at least Frank would probably know who wrote it. I’d like to credit it if anyone reading this can let me know the name of the author.

That chat with Paul brought back a flood of memories about my sabbatical year summer and my first Ringroad performances.

Over the summer, Keele would get waves of Open University students passing through for short face-to-face courses. This was rich pickings for a depleted Ringroad troupe, as you could redeploy the same material, show after show, secure in the knowledge that it was new to the frequently-changing audience.

Further, the Open University audience had money. Ringroad was traditionally performed on an “entry free, pay what you like on exit” basis. Our own impoverished students would tend to chip in with a couple of bob at best (nothing at worst), whereas the OU students would happily toss 50p pieces or pound coins/notes into the hat. One OU performance could easily generate a week’s-worth of beer money for two or three performers.

Frank Dillon, who was a seasoned Ringroad writer and performer, was around that summer and we spent a lot of time with him. I guess I was the only sabbatical mad enough (or perhaps I should say keen enough on a bit of extra-curricular performance and beer money) to agree to give Ringroad a try with him.

I recall Adrian Gorst joining me and Frank in performing Ringroad on occasions that summer, but I’m pretty sure that my first attempt was just me and Frank, an idea possibly hatched by Frank because Adrian was away. Frank probably sealed the deal with me a couple of nights before:

Thursday 16 August…went to Burtonwood piss up with Frank in eve

John White was also around that summer but didn’t want to perform Ringroad. It was just a few days earlier (14 August) that John and I started doing Union discos together – I’ll cover the discos and much more about that summer in other Ogblog pieces.

Still, it seems that my first attempt at Ringroad went well enough:

Saturday 18 August…did Ringroad in the evening – good larf

Frank and I did it again the next day:

Sunday 19 August…spent afternoon going over Ringroad stuff with Frank. Performed Ringroad in evening.

But perhaps I was over-stretching myself taking on all this novel activity at the same time:

Tuesday 21 August…did Ringroad and disco – both went down rather badly.

I recall that the OU students had somewhat of a reputation in the eyes of the regular Keele people. Let me merely say that many an OU student’s ring finger would show evidence of very recent ring removal, especially in the evenings.

From: http://www.flickr.com/photos/askjoanne/390246275/ Photographer: AskJoanne
This file is gratefully licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

Indeed, had the term “cougar hunter” been invented back then, performing Ringroad to the OU students might have been described as, “like wielding a two bore rifle in a jungle densely inhabited by felines of a particular species”.

Not that I am suggesting that Frank Dillon and I were “two bores”. Far from it. Moreover, neither of us were interested in that particular fringe benefit.

In fact, I recall, after one of those early performances, Frank was relentlessly chased after the show by a very enthusiastic middle-aged OU woman who said she loved the show and clearly took a particular shine to Frank. I think it might have been the night that John and I also did the disco, so John and I only had limited opportunities to rescue Frank and help steer proceedings to a reasonably dignified conclusion.

If Frank had shown a more open-minded attitude to such matters, of course, he might have become President of France by now. Or at least Merseyside Metro Mayor.

Still, bunny boiling hadn’t yet been invented then either, so, as far as I know, no animals, (feline, lapine or indeed of any species) were harmed in the making of Ringroad that summer. Pady Jalali, our social secretary, a well-known protector of live fauna and carrion alike, will be much relieved to learn this.

Why did I recall all of this?

Oh yes, Windscale, Sellafield and the poem that I doubtless learned that first weekend of doing Ringroad and which has stuck in my brain ever since. The corn flake box which protected my collection of Ringroad scripts has long since disintegrated, but I have preserved the scripts as best I can in a file.

To be credited to the author as soon as that person’s identity is established. If you click through to the image, you can then download the file from Ogblog.

The author, if/when that person’s identity does come to light, might wish to explain their idiosyncratic spelling of Sellafield, but we’ll let that pass for now.

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

University Of Keele Students’ Union Bar, Early 1980s, with grateful thanks to Peter Meade, Keele Alum & Photographer – check out his amazing work through this link.

There was a great deal to learn when we started our Keele Union Committee roles, not least our own portfolios (in my case Education & Welfare) but also the general management of the Students’ Union as a business. One issue dominated those early weeks of our tenure in the summer of 1984 – the matter of significant stock losses across the three bars in the union – sums that were turning a potentially profitable (or at least break even) business into a significantly loss-making one.

The subject was well covered in Concourse by Vanessa Kent while I was busy doing my finals:

I recall that we were advised by the Unions’ Permanent Secretary, Tony Derricott, that our predecessor committee had started but not concluded a disciplinary process against the bar managers, Tommy Armour and Ralph Newton. It was, we were advised, imperative that we concluded that process one way or another in a reasonably timely fashion.

I don’t mention the problem directly in my diary until the matter came to a head, but some of my diary notes indicate roughly when things panned out.

I mention a long Union Committee meeting 8 June and use the word “corruption” to describe a central topic. I want to say from the outset that we concluded in the end that management/permanent staff corruption was not involved. The problem, as we identified it, was to a large extent, management’s inability to control part-time student bar staff, some of whom would support their friends’ drinking habits through low charging or no charging.

The sums of money were very significant. We estimated the stock losses to be running at £10,000 to £15,000 per annum at that time – in beer purchasing power terms that’s more like £100,000 to £150,000 per annum in 2024 money.

Each mention of Union Committee in my June and July diaries talks about the meeting being long and/or “dragged on”. It was this topic that dominated the agenda, although there were of course many other items to discuss as well.

At least one or two of those meetings in July were also interim disciplinary hearings. We took the view that our committee needed to examine all the evidence and allow Tommy and Ralph time to explain the substantial stock deficits and their plans for rectifying them. This required us to allow enough time for subsequent stock takes to occur and then be reported back to us.

Measure for measure

Kate and I visited the Union’s solicitor in late July for advice on process, knowing that the matter almost certainly could not fairly be concluded before Kate Fricker was going to be in the USA on holiday.

The upshot was, a meeting on 31 July at which the committee agreed to issue a final warning based on incapacity – i.e. that the managers seemed incapable of explaining the losses and/or producing a plan of action to solve the problem.

We set a deadline and meeting to review any subsequent findings/explanations that the managers might produce, in consultation with their trades union reps, timetabled for 3rd August. We (Union Committee) agreed that I would chair that meeting in Kate’s absence. I recall that Kate was not at all happy about needing to devolve that responsibility, but it was clear from the legal guidance that we needed to progress using that timetable, rather than wait for Kate’s return..

My diary page for the preceding day, the day of the concluding hearing itself and the day after reads as follows:

Thursday 2 August 1984 – Busy day at the office – getting things ready for tomorrow etc. Melissa [Oliveck] came up – cooked her a meal and went down union after and [Melissa] stopped over.

Friday 3 August 1984 – Gruelling day. – UC [Union Committee] meeting went on for over four hours – sacked Ralph and Tommy. Changed locks etc – then went out in evening with Ashley [Fletcher] Frank [Dillon] and Melissa to KRA [Keele Research Association – postgraduate bar].

Saturday 4 August 1984 – Most of the day in the office sorting stuff out – came down union in evening.

I put a great deal of effort into making sure that I was fully prepared for either eventuality – a decision to dismiss or a decision not to dismiss. While we thought it unlikely that Tommy and Ralph might produce explanations and or plans of significantly higher quality than before, I wanted to be ready to announce either possibility with clarity and conviction. I wrote quite detailed notes on “what to say if we dismiss” and “what to say if we do not dismiss”, not least because I was so darned nervous I thought I might freeze without prompts. I wrote those notes slowly in block capitals too, to ensure that I could read my own handwriting, even when feeling nervous.

The fact that I note cooking for Melissa and her “stopping over” at the flat suggests that Pete Wild, the Treasurer, must have been away at that time, as Pete also lived in that flat. But apart from Kate and Pete I think the rest of the committee was there for that gruelling 3 August meeting.

The matter came to a head

I didn’t shirk from my responsibility – looking those employees in the eye – Tommy who had served for 16 years, Ralph for six – telling them that they no longer had jobs and explaining why. I firmly believed and still believe that it was absolutely the right decision for the Students’ Union. But I, along with the other members of the committee, felt a great deal of sympathy with the sacked employees, who, we felt, were victims of circumstance. The scale of the Students’ Union bar business “had got big on them” and they simply were incapable of managing a large three-bar outlet of that scale. Both had started as part-time bar mangers.

I spent a long time in the office the following day, Saturday, not least formally typing up the decision and getting that into the post that day, in order to comply as fully as I knew how with the rule in the staff handbook that letters of dismissal should be sent as soon as possible after a dismissal hearing.

The matter was far from resolved in early August. Tommy and Ralph’s NUPE (National Union of Public Employees, now part of UNISON) rep, Derek Bamford, told us in no uncertain terms that they would be pursuing every possible avenue of appeal, which they did. There will be plenty more about this matter in my Ogblog pages covering the period right up to the end of 1984.

The experience has had a profound effect on my attitude towards employment matters for the decades since. In my management consultancy years, late 1980s until around the turn of the century, I was always hard on colleagues who “played fast and loose” with company reorganisations, especially in circumstances when they would not have to see through their recommendations and were disparaging about clients’ reluctance to dismiss people. “Have you ever looked long-standing employees in the eye and told them that they no longer have jobs?”, I would tend to say, to ensure that such decisions were well thought through, made only when necessary, and delivered sensitively. In my own firm, we have very rarely dismissed a member of staff – I could count the times over the decades on the fingers of one hand – and I consider such rare occurrences primarily to be a fail on our part as employers.

I’d be really interested to hear from other members of that Union Committee on how they remember this aspect of our work together, and how it affected them. Either privately or in a form that I might publish as a postscript here.