Tag: Keele

Guest Contribution: Mark Ellicott’s Response To His Summer 1982 Mix Tape

Mark Ellicott more recently (actually 2016)

In response to my “forty years on” piece about a mix tape Mark made for me in 1982…

Informal Contemporary Music Subsidiary Course At Keele In The Summer Of 1982, Tutor: Mark Ellicott

…which is probably worth reading before reading the following response…

…Mark responded with some fascinating reflections of his own about that music “forty years on”, along with his thoughts on what the follow-up mix tape should have been. I shall try to replicate that “thought-experiment mix tape” within this guest piece.

Ah Ian,

Every one of those tracks still gets a regular airing in my household! For me they have never aged because I’ve never gone through a prolonged period not listening to any of them. Anything by Grace Jones in that early eighties period always brings back memories of six in the morning in Freehold Street, Newcastle in the spring and summer of 1982 after a night at the 141 Club in Hanley  with the likes of Anna Summerskill, Mark Bartholomew, Vince Beasley and Jan Phillips, amongst others. Invariably all of us stoned / tripping and / or speeding. The ‘Nightclubbing’ album just tailor made for the wee small hours after a long night out just as everyone was coming down. It was THE album I most associate with that crazy summer term when I went through that cathartic metamorphosis!

The Grace Jones version of ‘She’s lost control’, originally by Joy Division, on that tape I made you was one of the more eccentric covers I’ve heard. Back in 1994 I had the good fortune to meet the great lady when she was booked to play at The Fridge in Brixton. It was touch and go whether she’d make it onto stage - she was several hours late I recall before the show eventually started - but I did ask what had prompted her to cover such a track by such a band. It transpired she knew nothing about the band, knew nothing about Ian Curtis’s suicide and had merely heard the original track before deciding there and then to do her own version. It ended up as the B side to her single ‘Private Life’. She was rather horrified when she found out about Curtis’s demise and that the song was about epilepsy - a condition he suffered from. 

The Roxy Music track ‘Both ends burning’ (from 1975) is etched into the memory because of their performance on Top of the Pops promoting it. Bryan Ferry dressed up as a GI with an eye patch dancing awkwardly as two heavily made up women, also dressed up in military garb, swung their hips behind him - looking vaguely glassy eyed in the eyeball department.

‘Violence Grows’ by the Fatal Microbes was always being played by John Peel. The singer was 15 year old Honey Bane, a schoolgirl who’d been signed up on the strength of her already provocative stage performances. This was a howl of rage from a time when there really didn’t seem much hope for young people as unemployment skyrocketed. Her indifferent tuneless vocal delivery for whatever reason just resonated. 

‘Atmosphere’ by Joy Division arguably my favourite track released just after Curtis’s death  a fitting tribute to the man’s genius. He was only 23 when he died - just imagine what might have come later on in his career had things been different. I wonder how ‘Blue Monday’ by New Order might have sounded had he gotten his teeth into it. I still recall John Peel announcing his death on air and playing ‘Atmosphere’ and being quite shocked. No one then could have imagined the cult status they would 40 plus years later enjoy. 

‘Typical Girls’ by the Slits just a wonderful piece of pop-punk-reggae by the original riot girls. Ari Up the singer (alas she died of cancer some years ago) was John Lydons (nee Rotten) stepdaughter. John married Ari’s mother Nora, a German heiress, back in the eighties. It’s a track that despite its 43 years of existence still sounds like it could have been recorded in 2022.

Mark then went on to suggest a follow-on mix tape:

Had I made a second tape for you that year it would have undoubtedly included the following. All from that 1982ish period. 

‘My face is on fire’ - Felt
‘Fireworks’ - Siouxsie & the Banshees
‘Temptation’ - New Order
‘How does it feel?’ - Crass
‘Torch’ - Soft Cell
‘The back of love’ - Echo & the Bunnymen 
‘Second skin’ - The Chameleons
‘Persons unknown’ - Poison Girls
‘Hand in glove’ - The Smiths
‘Treason’ - Teardrop Explodes
‘Requiem’ - Killing Joke
‘Dead Pop Stars’ - Altered Images
‘Alice’ - Sisters of Mercy
‘Eat y’self fitter’ - The Fall
‘Painted bird’ - Siouxsie & the Banshees
‘Let’s go to bed’ - The Cure
‘Capers’ - The Birthday Party
‘Nightclubbing’ - Grace Jones
‘The look of love’ - ABC
‘Being boiled’ - Human League
‘Pissing in the river’- Patti Smith
‘Walking on thin ice’ - Yoko Ono

OK, let’s give that mix tape a go. I have really enjoyed listening to these tracks and hope readers enjoy them too. Many thanks, Mark, for your kind note and further selections forty years on.

FoodCycle, GoodSAM, The Samaritans, 1981 Keele/BBYO Redux & Being Boilered, This Is Lockdown 3.0, 20 February 2021

With thanks to Rachelle Gryn Brettler for snapping us in Rossmore Road, preparing to do our FoodCycle run on a wet winter’s day

We don’t get out much in Lockdown 3.0, other than to buy food and do our charity work.

That is giving me a chance to crack on with my retro-blogging; I’m working through 1995 & 1996 to cover the Ged & Daisy (Ian & Janie) “25 years ago” story. I’m needing to give more thought, though, to the formerly less well-documented, “40 years on” story of my early days at Keele University.

Strangely, 1981 and 2021 seem to have collided, forty years on.

I wrote last summer about my joy at being asked to make our FoodCycle collections from St Paul’s in Rossmore Road…

FoodCycle’s Spiritual Home In Rossmore Road & Other Tales, 24 June 2020

…mentioning the superb tapes Graham Greenglass used to make for me, including quirky numbers such as Rossmore Road by Barry Andrews. I still hum it or sing it more often than not when Daisy and I do FoodCycle from there:

Dreamy use of sax and double bass on that track.

Last week, I wrote up the very weekend during which several visitors descended on Keele and Graham presented me with a few cassettes, including that very track. The piece below is a thumping good read, even if you weren’t there, including an excellent undergraduate recipe for spaghetti bollock-knees:

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

On Wednesday, before Daisy and I did our FoodCycle run, I did an NHS Responder gig to collect a prescription. Strangely the prescription was to be collected at the Tesco Hoover Factory in Greenford. Strange, because also on that little collection of quirky recordings given to me in February 1981 was the song Hoover Factory by Elvis Costello:

So, by some strange quirk of fate, forty years after being given recordings of those two rather obscure (but wonderful) recordings about lesser-known places in West London, I found myself doing charity gigs from those two very places.

I have already written up the ear worm I got from Hoover Factory a few months after first hearing the song:

Uncle Manny’s Funeral & The Hoover Factory, 15 May 1981

But the early 1980s connection this week does not stop there.

While I have been cracking on with the NHS Responder/GoodSAM app as well as FoodCycle, Daisy has been training to become a Samaritan and this week moved on from being a course trainee to becoming a mentee (i.e. doing real sessions with real calls under the supervision of a mentor).

Towards the end of her course, Daisy had been waiting with a little trepidation to find out who her mentor might be. Mentors work closely with their mentees for a few weeks. She knew that it might be one of her course trainers or possibly someone she hadn’t encountered before.

A couple of weeks ago Janie announced that her mentoring instructions had come through and her mentor was a new name to her: Alison Shindler.

GED: Oh, yes, I know Alison Shindler.

DAISY: What do you mean?

GED: She was a leading light in BBYO towards the end of my time there.

DAISY: Might not be the same person…

GED: …Ealing BBYO – bet it is!

Of course it is.

What a pleasant surprise.

Less of a surprise though, after their first session together, is that Alison & Daisy seem to be getting along really well. I’m confident that the mentoring partnership should be a very good one.

Meanwhile Alison has furnished me with a photo from so far back in the day, the biggest surprise is that we were in colour back then:

With thanks to Alison Shindler for this photo

That’s a c17-year-old me turning around, next to me Simon Jacobs who was central to my “going to Keele” story and part of the “cooking weekend”. In the red scarf I thought was Jilly Black (who has remained friends with me, Daisy and Alison throughout those decades – in fact it is a little surprising we haven’t overlapped before now )…but it turns out to be Emma Cohen disguised as Jilly. Opposite Simon is Lauren Sterling plus, slightly upstaged by Simon’s head, Caroline Curtis (then Freeman) who visited me and Simon at Keele the February 1981 weekend following the “cooking” one.

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

It’s all too weird, in a good way.

But now, after all that excitement, Daisy and I are in temporary exile at the flat. The replacement of the Noddyland boiler has over-run by a day, making Daisy right and me wrong, as usual.

Stock boiler image: neither the actual old nor the actual new boiler

I’ve been grasping for a quirky early 1980s musical connection for a boiler replacement. So my earworm for the tail end of this tale is by that early 1980s mainstay, The Human League – Being Boiled:

God’s Gift, Pure Genius, Or Both? Annex To Alleyn’s School Class Of 1980 Virtual Buttery 3, 20 January 2021

When I reviewed last week’s virtual gathering, I forgot to mention Paul Driscoll’s anecdote about the optional “prefect’s blazer” available to those of us who attained such giddy heights at Alleyn’s School. The blazer was emblazoned (pun intended) with the school crest and motto.

That motto was God’s Gift. Edward Alleyn no doubt meant that motto to symbolise education. But the phrase has a sarcastic meaning in modern parlance; e.g. “he think’s he’s God’s gift.” And as Rohan Candappa so ably puts it, “We are Alleyn’s. If you cut us we bleed sarcasm.”

Unsurprisingly, very few of us took up the offer of this optional, distinguishing garment. Beyond the sarcasm, such an emblem had every chance to land us in a heap near North Dulwich railway station, where the Billy Biros (pupils from William Penn School) needed little excuse to isolate an outlier from the Alleyn’s herd, taking severe retribution for invented sleights and offenses.

The main senior school uniform was a two-piece or three-piece suit. I have only one picture of myself wearing mine:

Me And Wendy Robbins, Autumn 1979, Westminster Bridge

I was reminded of all of this by a posting on Facebook in the Keele University alums area.

In the late 1980s, just a few years after a left Keele, when Guinness had a particular advertising slogan on the go, some fine folk in the University of Keele Students’ Union produced the following tee-shirt.

It dawned on me that I am a very rare example of someone eligible to wear not only the Alleyn’s God’s Gift blazer but also the Keele Pure Genius tee-shirt underneath the blazer.

In the dying moments of the Trump US presidency, this suitably modest mental image should be shared with the world and saved for posterity.

It’s just a shame I was unable to model the two garments together back then. I would have looked magnificent; indeed it would have been the best look ever, anywhere, for anyone.

With all due modesty…

My First Ever Book Signing, Clean Business Cuisine (the book), Actors’ Workshop Halifax (the venue), Yet Something Was Missing, 5 July 2000

Clean Business Cuisine, Released 30 June 2000

Michael Mainelli and I, (through Milet, our publisher and Tanya Aslan whom we assigned to the promotion task), organised an intensive promotion campaign around the book, starting with an opportunistic book signing in Yorkshire 5 July.

I had a long association with Mike Ward and The Actor’s Workshop (as it was then called), mostly through my song lyrics.

Mike had started writing plays by 2000. As coincidence would have it, the first of these; The Elland Affair, was due to launch around the same time as Clean Business Cuisine.

Further, I had written some extensive programme notes for The Elland Affair – click here or below:

Programme Notes For The Elland Affair by Mike Ward, I Wrote The Notes 9 May 2000

So, Mike and I hatched the plan that my first book signing would be on the night of the gala premier of The Elland Affair; 5 July 2000.

This would have been a grand plan, had advance copies the book arrived when expected; a couple of weeks before the big night. But of course…

…anyway, the publishers pulled out all the stops, had a box or two of the first batch of books diverted to me for Halifax purposes and I went off on a mini road trip, most of the details of which are lost in the physical diary scrawl and only limited use of e-mail back then.

I know I went via my alma mater, because this e-mail from Professor Lawrence survives:

Dear Tanya,

Thanks for diverting Ian to Keele – it was good to see him and hear about the book. He left me with copies for colleagues and this email is partly to let you know how to chase me up- this is better than the phone!

Take care,

Peter

Janie must have joined me by train to Halifax, as my diary scribble shows that I booked bed and breakfast for two at the Imperial Crown, Halifax, £95. (The price has barely changed in 18 years, I note, while writing in September 2018). We went on to The White Swan, Pickering afterwards – our first visit there – the following year we made our second visit there ahead of visiting Mike’s next production of his own work.  

Anyway, I am pretty sure I met Janie at the hotel where I changed into my evening suit (Gala Evenings at The Actors’ Workshop were black tie affairs) and Janie changed into her glad rags.

Then off we set to get to the theatre early, for my first ever book signing and the show.

Mike Ward had kindly arranged a small stack of my books on a prominent table for me. I sat at the chair and a small queue of eager locals (is there no word for people from Halifax? Hartlepool folk are known as Monkey Hangers, for example), formed to procure and have their en primeur book signed.

I reached into my jacket pocket and discovered…a vacancy. I had no pen in my pocket.

I had turned up to my first ever book signing, without a pen.

Strangely, just to add to my embarrassment, finding a suitable pen for book signing at a place like the Actors’ Workshop was a non-trivial matter. Plenty of marker pens and thick felt tip pens to be found, but it took a while for someone to find a regular type of pen that would look right for book signing.

Still, once that initial (albeit existential problem in the matter of book signing) had been resolved, the rest of the evening passed very successfully. Not only the signing, but the play was well received and I seem to recall a most excellent meal at Mike and Lottie’s place late in the evening, once all of the theatrical excitement was over.

A Road Trip Including A Weekend In The Potteries, Knutsford & Eventually Manchester, 16 to 18 June 1995

Ashley wasn’t in the Sneyd Arms in 1995, but thanks to him for this photo

I was rushing around the country like a mad thing for work back then. I had arranged a work road trip that required me to be in Cardiff on the Friday and then in Manchester for a couple of days from the Monday.

As it happened, Janie and I had been invited to a party in Knutsford on the Saturday evening; a couple named Ros & Con whom we had met in Sri Lanka a few months earlier. That Sri Lanka tour was the last time Janie and I did a group tour. We weren’t wild about too many of the fellow travellers, but we did get on with Ros & Con.

Con in pink talking to Ros. Me talking to someone else in pink. Polonnaruwa, Sri Lanka.

We also wanted to meet up with Mike Smith & Marianna at Keele – following my January visit, Mike and I had started doing some work together and I thought Janie would get on well with those two…which she did.

The Day I Saw Slade & The Smiths At Keele, 10 January 1995

By George, I’d Do This Differently Today

So, unusually, we arranged for Janie to travel up and down by train, while I drove around and across the country.

I remember it dawning on me that driving from Cardiff to The Potteries on a Friday afternoon/evening was not one of my better ideas – it took hours. Janie got the 16:00 train from Euston and was cosy in the hotel I’d booked in Burslem, The George, long before I got there.

I vaguely recall The George, Burslem, being a rather charming if slightly tired small town hotel. Writing more than 25 years later, I can report that The George appears to have gone downhill if these Trip Advisor reviews are anything to go by – perhaps the worst collection of reviews I have ever seen. Fortunately the “better days it must have seen” were still reasonably apparent in 1995.

Saturday Lunch In The Sneyd Arms

We had arranged to have lunch with Mike & Marianna in The Sneyd Arms. Mike had wanted us to enjoy their hospitality at the house, but I didn’t want thus to impose on what would be a fleeting visit. Also, I had a crazy craving to see the Sneyd Arms again, for old times’ sake.

I had got to know The Sneyd Arms well during my time at Keele – especially during the 1982/83 academic year during which time I went out with Liza, daughter of the landlord, Geoff O’Connor.

Word had reached me that Geoff had retired before our visit in 1995, so I wasn’t expecting to see him in there…

…but I was wrong. There was Geoff, back visiting the place, sitting in the snug having lunch with his old bunch of muckers. It was like a trip down memory lane seeing that group in there.

Geoff greeted me warmly and gave me news of the family; not only Liza but also his good lady and the sons, Liam and Shaun.

It was also a great opportunity to get to know Mike and Marianna a bit better, so it all felt like a very natural progression in life.

Janie remembers this day very fondly, not only for the warm and friendly lunch in the Sneyd Arms with Mike & Marianna but also the Knutsford party later.

An Evening Garden Party In Knutsford

Ros and Con were quite high falutin’ people in the Knutsford community. Con had been the top banana in a large power company or something of that ilk.

Con in a Nuwara Eliya tea factory. “One day all this could be biofuel”.

Ros & Con’s summer evening garden party doubled as a bit of a fundraiser for Save The Children. I had (still have) a soft spot for that charity ever since my first ever consultancy assignment; I think that was part of our motivation for the visit.

Reduced To Tears By My First Consultancy Assignment, 27 January 1989

Anyway, Ros & Con’s house was a lovely place with a lovely garden. Janie is convinced that we have photos from the event, but I certainly don’t have negatives, so they might have been sent to us after the event and reside in a pile of prints, possibly in the attic awaiting sorting. If I do uncover pictures from the event, I’ll add them.

It was a very pleasant evening. Most of the other guests were quite a lot older than us and I sensed that they found our peculiar southern vowels and youthful expressions entertaining.

I had booked in to the Britannia Hotel in Manchester – one night in Janie’s case, a couple of nights in mine. This is another hotel that was probably past its grander days by 1995 but was perfectly acceptable and very convenient for my/our needs back then. It was good enough that we booked it again more than once, as Janie did some weekend courses in Manchester in the mid to late 1990s. I think it started to get more tired and we tired of it after a while. The contemporary reviews (he says writing in February 2021) are pretty bad, but not quite as bad as those of The George in Burslem.

By way of benchmark, btw, here is my story about the very worst place I have ever stayed.

The Worst Place We Have Ever Stayed In For Cricket, England v Sri Lanka at Edgbaston, 25 & 26 May 2006

But this June 1995 piece is primarily about a very special, enjoyable and memorable day, with Mike & Marianna at Keele in the afternoon and with Ros & Con in Knutsford in the evening. It was well worth the travels.

The Day I Saw Slade & The Smiths At Keele, 10 January 1995

With profound apologies to lovers of 1970s & 1980s popular music who clicked this page under false pretences; I just couldn’t resist the headline. But I am talking about the day I went to Keele and met Dr Eddie Slade while seeing Professor Mike Smith for the first time. Later, I had dinner and stayed over with Mike Smith and Marianna, at Mike’s house in Church Plantation.

Professor Mike Smith, who sadly died suddenly, 12 November 2020

It happened like this. My business partner, Michael Mainelli, had worked with Mike when Michael first came to The British Isles in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Coincidentally, mostly while I was at Keele.

Michael and Mike had kept in touch. Mike Smith went on to become, in 1990, Professor of Health Informatics at Keele in the departments of Computer Science and Medicine. He concurrently held the position of Director of Information at North Staffordshire Health Authority.

Our business, The Z/Yen Group, was starting to thrive. I was looking after the civil society side of the practice and was starting to itch for bright resource, around the time that Mike was starting to look for opportunities to mix some fresh commercial activity in with his academic work.

Michael suggested that Mike and I meet. Knowing that Keele was my alma mater, Michael suspected that an excuse to stop off at Keele the next time I was heading north would be an attractive proposition for me.

So, between client appointments near Euston on the Tuesday morning and client appointments in Manchester on the Wednesday morning…

…Mike Smith said he would be delighted to see me on the Tuesday afternoon & evening, insisting that I should stay with him and Marianna at Church Plantation.

I think that first house might actually have been The Smiths’ house!

Mike also asked if there was anyone still at Keele that I would especially like to see, as he had time that afternoon to wander down memory lane with me.

I suggested Eddie Slade. I had seen most of the people who had taught me and were still active at Keele on earlier visits, but had not seen Eddie since my Education & Welfare sabbatical year, some 10 years earlier, when Eddie was Senior Tutor.

I recall that Mike didn’t rate our chances of getting in to see Eddie, commenting that he didn’t think he’d ever had an audience with the Director of Studies (as he was now titled).

But when I arrived at Keele, Mike told me that, to his surprise, Eddie had remembered me and said that he would like to have a meeting with both of us.

A recent (2020) picture of Eddie, borrowed from the Douglas MacMillan Hospice site, a wonderful cause

It was great swapping stories with Eddie from the distant past…9 to 10 years earlier. We’d not seen eye-to-eye over everything, but on the whole had got on very well and had worked together to resolve some “little difficulties”. Some of those tales might yet emerge in my write ups; some might best remain unwritten.

We also discussed how the Students’ Union had changed in those 10 years. I was delighted to learn that the Real Ale Bar was one of the union’s great commercial successes, as that had been one of our 1984/85 innovations.

I then asked what turned out to be a daft question about the television rooms. In our day, there had been three television rooms and the addition of a fourth TV channel (Channel 4) had caused some consternation. I asked Eddie how they regulate the television rooms now that there are multiple channels…

…Eddie laughed and explained to me that any student who wanted to watch television in the 1990s had their own TV. The former TV rooms had long since been repurposed.

With thanks to Mark Ellicott for this 2016 picture of the Students’ Union

After saying goodbye to Eddie, we had time for me to have a look around the Students’ Union, so I could see for myself the fate of the former TV rooms and far more besides.

This was also interesting for Mike, who confessed that he had never been in the Students’ Union building before, so it was my turn to give him a guided tour for the most part. It hadn’t changed all that much.

In 1995, there were still quite a few staff in the SU from my era. For sure Pat Borsky was there to be seen in the Print Room, for example; I think Barbara also.

Disappointingly, though, nobody said…

…”cards please”…

…as we entered the Union, although I did have my dog-eared life membership card with me, just in case.

Wally…where were you? Thanks to Mark Ellicott for this 1985 picture

Anyway, after having a good look around the union, we retreated to Church Plantation where I met Marianna for the first time, we three ate a hearty meal, enjoyed a wide-ranging conversation and the rest, as they say, is history. Mike and I worked together and became friends for 25 years, until his sudden death so sadly intervened.

I write this piece, the tale of how Mike and I first met, in late November 2020, just a couple of days before Mike’s funeral and just a couple of weeks since I wrote the personal tribute linked here and below.

A Personal Tribute To Professor Mike Smith, 12 November 2020

Several Days At Keele For The SU AGM Plus Some Eating & Socialising, Late January 1986

Simulation of Keele SU AGM by Nano Banana 2.1 via Mark Ellicott

Friday 24 January 1986 … went up to Keele – arrived late & very tired. Petra [Wilson] cooked mussels (delicious) in evening – very nice.

This bit of the story has already been illustrated and writ:

My Beautiful Launderette & Saigon With Bobbie One Weekend; Then Petra Flexed Her Mussels At Keele The Next, January 1986

Saturday 25 January 1986 – Got up reasonably early – tried to do some work – went to Newcastle for tea + did some shopping, went round to L49 for a while + then went home. Had chicken in yellow bean sauce for dinner – (I cooked) + turned in reasonably early.

Sunday 26 January 1986 – Again got up fairly early + tried to get some work done + read paper. Went over to Kate [Fricker, now Susan] in afternoon – Petra followed, as Ruth [Miller] did a bunk. Went home + had gevikeltekraut for dinner but not too pleasant evening thereafter.

I can’t remember who was living in L49 that year. Hayward Burt and Pete Wild were still in L54 – my old flat, I’m pretty sure. Something tells me that Ali Dabbs might have moved to L-Block Barnes that year.

As for the cooking, I took credit for the chicken in yellow bean sauce (mine would have had fewer peppers in it). I’m guessing that Petra cooked the gevikeltekraut, although it might have been a Benita Wishart special, that dish. I don’t expect either of them to remember.

That weekend’s cooking illustrated with help from Nano Banana 2.1

Monday 27 January 1986 – Tired today – went to town for a while – did a little work etc. The afternoon was again rather strained but went to the AGM in evening + got rather drunk there. Fairly late night.

Tuesday 28 January 1986 – Again quite tired – did a little work – went to town at noon – met Ashley [Fletcher], came back to Petra’s etc. Went to Pinocchio’s for dinner in the evening – had trouble getting back but managed to do so. Very nice evening, lateish night.

Wednesday 29 January 1986 – Returned from Keele first thing – had a sedate day at work & got some work done. Very tired in evening – went to bed quite early.

Thank goodness Ashley got a mention in the diaries – he gets most upset if he is absent from Keele-related diary entries from that era.

I sense that the strain of the long distance relationship was starting to tell on both me and Petra, based on these diary notes. Perhaps more tellingly, I was starting to sense that student life was now for other people, not for me.

One thing I particularly remember was finding the prevailing chart music that season especially trite. While the students were no doubt digging A-ha, Dire Straits & Billy Ocean, all riding high in the charts…

…I found those tracks intensely irritating at that time and, strangely, returning to them, still do.

My music listening was orienting towards big, big, symphonies around that time. I mentioned Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony in an earlier piece about returning to Keele. I also especially remember the strains of Bruckner’s Fourth echoing around my head in those days, as I stood on those cold railway platforms and sat in those trains back and forth [did you see what I did there?] to Keele.

It’s not as far away from student-oriented rock music as some readers might think. The riff in Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes is surely based on the motif from Bruckner’s Fifth, which is almost too cool for school…or too much of a steal for Keele.

My Beautiful Launderette & Saigon With Bobbie One Weekend; Then Petra Flexed Her Mussels At Keele The Next, January 1986

Cooked Mussels by PookieFugglestein, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Saturday 18 January 1986 – Busy day – did quite a lot of shopping, got hair cut went to Brixton etc. Went up West in evening, met Bobbie, went to see My Beautiful Laundrette + then had a Vietnamese meal. Very nice evening.

In the absence of my diary, I’d have sworn that I saw My Beautiful Laundrette with John White, but clearly I saw it with Bobbie. I remember thinking it a truly excellent film.

The restaurant we ate in afterwards was almost without question Saigon in Frith Street, which was pretty much the only Vietnamese Restaurant up west in those days.

Sunday 19 January 1986 – Rose fairly early + had large Chinese lunch with folks + lazyish afternoon & evening at home taping, reading etc.

Monday 20 January 1986 – At work in Sam Phillips factory this week – not too pleasant really. Had a lazy evening tonight.

Tuesday 21 January 1986 – Still at factory in Finsbury Park – working quite hard. Had a quiet evening at home.

Wednesday 22 January 1986 – Working at factory in Finsbury Park today. Went into town to meet John [White] after work – Andy [Crawford] was there too. Went to Punch & Judy – had a few drinks then on to Kowloon restaurant – got home quite late.

Thursday 23 January 1986 – Working in Finsbury Park today – which is OK if you like that sort of thing. Quite tired + had a lazyish evening in this evening – watched some TV etc.

I really didn’t like working in that Finsbury Park garment factory, did I? And who could blame me? It was cold and far from friendly.

Friday 24 January 1986 – Work or went to Finsbury Park in morning – rushed back met Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] for lunch – worked in office in afternoon. Went to Euston – had a drink – went up to Keele – arrived late & very tired. Petra [Wilson] cooked mussels (delicious) in evening – very nice.

I had arranged a short break in Keele for the next few days, which included the AGM, which was one of those events that the previous committee was “expected” to attend, as this “order” from the Union attests:

An Order To Attend A University of Keele Students’ Union General Meeting, Letter From June Aitken, 13 December 1985

Minutes of a Strange Meeting From 10 June 1985, Typed Up 30 December 1985

I have published the hand-written version of these “minutes” under the date of the “meeting”.

Here is the typed up version, scanned from what I think must be carbon copies. Is there anyone else left on the planet who remembers what carbon copies were?

I guess I prepared these for our glorious return visit in January 1986 for the traditional UGM/AGM thingie.

10 June 1985 Spoof Minutes Side One10 June 1985 Spoof Minutes Side Two

Almost The Very End Of 1985 – Mid To Late December

cc 2.0 Ian Capper / The Meliá White House

Saturday 7 December 1985 – Met Petra in morning – breakfast etc. (Lost handbag). Stopped off at shop – stayed in the evening.

I remember the “Petra lost handbag” incident quite well, but with some gaps. I think Petra took an early train down from Keele, having arranged to meet me in the morning and then go on to see her folks down in Sussex. We went to quite a swish place in Piccadilly for “brunch”.

Thanks to Gemini, I recall that the place was Richoux – written up and photographed in this Transatlantic article, although sadly no longer at 172 Piccadilly.

Petra and I got about five or ten minutes down the road when Petra realised that she didn’t have her handbag. We returned to Richoux to discover that the bag had gone.

Despair.

But wait!

A waiter said he thought he had seen another customer spot the left-behind handbag and thought that the gentleman had handed it in to the police. The waiter suggested that we visit the local cop shop.

In those days, that meant a short stroll to Savile Row. And in those days, only very limited questions were asked of Petra to prove that she was the owner of the bag.

And in those days, believe it or not, the copper handed over the contact details for the gentleman who had spared Petra no end of trouble, as we said we wanted to get him a gift to thank him.

Back to Richoux we went for some chocolates and then up to Albany Street to The White House Hotel. In those days, no questions asked, we simply strode to the appropriate floor and knocked on the door.

The gentleman, half-opening the room door, seemed a little taken aback to be confronted by two smiling, grateful youngsters and a box of chocolates, which he rather sheepishly accepted before closing the door.

I’m sure the “Do Not Disturb” sign had been invented by then, even though GDPR had not.

Sunday 8 December 1985 – stayed at home today – went to Grandma Jenny’s – did some work, etc.

Monday, 9 December 1985 – started FT [Financial Training] course today – okay. Stayed in and worked in evening.

I spent quite a lot of time at Financial Training in Bramley Road those years I was articled and studying for my ACA exams. That building is now an abandoned, graffiti-ridden wreck, visible from the Western Avenue flyover, reminding me how dilapidated I might look after all those years if I didn’t take care of myself or have someone to take care of me.

I asked Google Flow to produce an artist’s representation of what the place looked like in the mid 1980s and I must say it (via Nana Banana 2.1) has done a cracking job, albeit an architect-style artist’s impression.

I do recall finding the course work extremely dull, especially in that first year as I had to do a lot of modules that were merely repeating stuff I had studied before (e.g. statistics, basic law) or was familiar with from years of doing practical accounting (e.g. basic book-keeping).

I remember spending breaks writing imaginary skits and songs about my fellow “kids in college” to relieve the boredom, sending them by post to Petra at Keele. I’m not sure that this comedy worked particularly well but it was possibly useful training for my post-qualification avocation as a comedy writer.

Tuesday, 10 December 1985 – course ok – worked at home in evening.

Wednesday, 11 December 1985 – FT went okay (evening messed up by call etc) – early night.

Thursday, 12 December 1985 – course ok – finished. Went up to Keele this evening.

Friday, 13 December 1985 went to union – did exam etc – went to Ben’s [Benita Wishart] for dinner in the evening – ok.

Saturday, 14 December 1985 – went to kiddie’s party in the afternoon for awhile – had a nice meal in evening.

Sunday, 15 December 1985 – lazy day at Keele reading papers eating etc- very pleasant.

At that stage, I was still very much enjoying the weekend visits to Keele and didn’t seem to mind catching a very early train from Stoke to Euston and going straight into the office. The very thought fills me with dread now.

Monday, 16 December 1985.– Came down from Keele. Back to work today – computer etc. – work ok! Had an early night.

Computer etc. will be to do with the regular problems Newman Harris was having at that time with its computer set up. The main machine (which was used primarily for payroll services) had a tendency to glitch out. Payroll was a very time sensitive affair in those days. The service was offered to quite a few retail and hospitality sector clients who paid their staff weekly and mostly in cash.

I think the firm lost patience with the “manager” who was supposed to be looking after the computer services and asked me (purportedly bright and young) to help hold the fort while they decided what to do.

A bit of common sense and an obsessive compulsive approach to backing up data regularly…which I have never quite got over since…meant that I ended up holding that fort for rather a long time.

(I have just pressed the “save draft” button, just in case. Even though WordPress auto-backs-up very regularly. I just pressed “save draft” again. To be sure, to be sure). Let’s move on.

It looks as though I used that run up to Christmas to catch up with lots of my friends.

Tuesday, 17 December 1985 – at Setty today – popped in to office etc. Bobbie [Scully] in evening had Indonesian meal etc. Very nice.

Wednesday 18 December 1985 – work etc – at Setty – went over over to Kate’s [Fricker] in the evening – had meal etc.

Thursday, 19 December 1985 – went to Setty -> office – ok – met Petra in evening – had Chinese meal etc.

Friday, 20 December 1985 – work okay – very tired in evening – had an early night.

Saturday, 21 December 1985 – lazyish day – library etc. Went to Andrea’s [Dean] party in the evening – ok – stayed over.

Sunday 22 December 1985 – hung around for a while. Went to Jilly’s [Black] in the afternoon and evening. Very pleasant.

Monday 23 December 1985 – work ok – did nothing in the evening.

Tuesday 24 December 1985 – work in morning – finished at lunchtime – met Annalisa [de Mercur] for lunch – went home – had lazyish time.

Wednesday, 25 December 1985 – lazy day at home – went to [Doreen & Stanley] Benjamin’s for evening – quite pleasant.

Thursday, 26 December 1985 – at home – worked most of the day. Watched some television also.

Friday 27 December 1985 – stayed at home and worked mostly – taped – went shops with dad in afternoon – worked in evening also.

Saturday 28 December 1985 – stayed in and work for most of the day and evening. Watched a film in evening also.

Sunday, 29 December 1985 – worked for most of the day – had Chinese lunch etc. Got quite a lot done.

Monday 30 December 1985 – Did home exam in morning – went to shops, taped etc in afternoon – lazy evening.

I was really into classical music by that stage of the autumn/winter and I have no doubt that the taping I talk about over those weeks will have been classical music.

But one track from the charts that late autumn does stick in my mind as having been a bit of an earworm: