Tag: Keele

End Of Term Blues Band At Keele Before Speeding Off To Herefordshire, Mid March 1982

Photo: mfjordan / Olde-worlde facades, Eardisley (Herefordshire)

End Of Term Blues Band & The Interminable Signing On Ritual

Writing forty years on (March 2022) I am quite impressed reading about my diligence at the end of the second term of my P1 year…and how that diligence soon turned to partying and mayhem once my work was out of the way.

Friday 12 March 1982 – Easy sort of day. Went to the ball in the evening. Quite a good ball *. Jon [Gorvett] lost keys – stayed in flat.

I’m pretty sure that there is more than one reference in my diaries to Jon mislaying his keys and dossing out at my place.

According to Dave Lee’s book The Keele Gigs!, the ball that I described as “quite good” was controversial in its choice of The Blues Band as they had played Keele only a couple of years earlier and were not deemed, by some cognoscenti, as ball material. I remember finding them pretty darned good.

Was Paul Jones abandoned in the Keele gigging rigging by discontended roadies? Photographer A. Vente, CC BY-SA 3.0 NL (1967)

The Keele gig from 1980 is available on-line as it was recorded as a Rock Goes To College broadcast, so you can see it below. The 1982 manifestation was really quite similar:

Saturday 13 March 1982 – Rose late – went to Newcastle during day – shopped. Rana [Sen]’s dinner party in eve -> Simon [Jacobs]’s party – Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] up for weekend. V Good.

That’s quite a busy couple of evenings, even by my standards back then! No wonder I took it relatively easy the next day or two.

There is a strange comment in my diary on the Monday:

…went to union in evening – got mixed up in everyone else’s problems.

I have no idea who or what “everyone else’s problems” might have been referring to. Probably just as well I didn’t extrapolate in the diary and cannot remember a thing about it.

Tuesday 16 March 1982 – Last official day of term. Andrea [Collins] popped in to say goodbye – went to the union in the evening – much emptier!!

…and therefore fewer problems to interrupt my flow, presumably.

Wednesday 17 March 1982 – Went to sign on in morning – sent away again. Did little during day – stayed in evening.

Thursday 18 March 1982 – Did a little work today after signing on with Kath [I think the same person as Kate] after hanging around for hours – went to union in evening.

I have written before about the ridiculous bureaucracy of having students sign on each holiday. It’s good to see that bureaucratic nonsenses had “sending away empty handed” and “hanging around for hours” events even 40 years ago. Bureaucratic denial and delay techniques are more sophisticated and partially-automated forty years on, of course.

Speeding Away From Keele To Eardisley, Herefordshire

What did the beautiful little Herefordshire village of Eardisley ever do to deserve us?

mfjordan / Olde-worlde facades, Eardisley (Herefordshire)

The answer, it seems, is that Jon Gorvett’s parents had a cottage there and a Keele student posse decided to descend upon it when those parents were not around.

My poor memory had this as a “trip to Wales” rather than “on the English side of the Welsh border” but never mind. We did venture into Wales a couple of times.

Jon Gorvett writes, with more authority than my memory:

Trip to Wales… that wasn’t the trip to my folks’ place in Herefordshire, was it? 

It was right on the Welsh border. Gerry Guinan was there, indeed, and Julie McClusky and Vince [Beasley] and George Scully, along with the three of us [Jon Gorvett, Simon Jacobs & me] and two friends of Vince’s who came up from London. 

I seem to remember that my folks’ tiny cottage was rather jam-packed with people, with not a lot of sleep possible except on the floor - though possibly there wasn’t much sleep in any case because of the various substances imbibed…

Indeed.

My diary covers the event quite well:

Friday 19 March 1982 – Decided on impulse to go to Eardisley (Jon’s parents’ country home). Left Keele about 7 – got there – went to pub – ate dinner etc. Up most of the night I felt a…

Saturday 20 March 1982 – …bit ill – crashed – went out to Wales (c12:00) – great time there climbing hills etc – really nice. Got back quite late – had supper etc. – again up all night…

Sunday 21 March 1982 – …playing Risk etc. – walked a long way early morning – did little else – went back to Vince’s for supper – returned – crashed out very tired.

There are a few elements of this story that are clear in my memory but missing from the above notes.

I seem to recall that the impulse to do this trip came from the fortunate discovery that Jon’s parent’s cottage and the Keele Student Union minibus were both available for a group of us to use at short notice.

I do remember not feeling brilliant that first night, being relieved that I felt fine and had a great day walking the hills on the Saturday. I think that was my first “hill walking with friends” event and the joy of such walking has stuck with me ever since. A much better experience for me than my ill-fated school walking trip some eight years earlier.

As for the Saturday to Sunday all-nighter, I recall that I was desperately keen not to wimp out again and crash. I chose, on unsound advice, to try speed (Amphetamine).

This experiment certainly helped me to stay awake all night but I do recall that I almost bit my bottom lip to pieces in the process. I don’t think I did very well playing Risk in that state – I’m not sure I ever did well playing Risk. I would tend to play carefully, then get overconfident, invade somewhere beyond my means and get crushed.

Speeding as I was, I have a feeling that I didn’t even go through the “play carefully” stage and I have a dreadful feeling that I might have invaded Ukraine – it just always looked so enticing in the middle of the board. Forty years on, I hang my head in shame at my drug-addled, over zealous, over-confident, reckless former self.

My other unwritten but abiding memory of this trip was the long walk we did on the Sunday, walking from Eardisley across the border into Wales and back. WE must have looked like a right motley bunch by the Sunday and I particularly remember Gerry Guinan wearing a bright green cape-like outfit and remarking that the strange looks she was getting left her in fear of being burnt at the stake as a witch by the horrified-looking villagers as we strode through various villages.

A bit like this – brighter green, I think, and with a hood

But I am glad to report that there were no witch burning incidents or even “running the students out of our village” incidents as far as I can recall.

It was a seminal little trip for me in several ways. Perhaps I even fell in love with the look of Tudor-style architecture that weekend.

Eardisley (Herefordshire) probably looked like this 19 March 1982
Noddyland, (London W3) did look like this 19 March 2022

Postscript: Jon & Simon chime in with their memories

Jon makes the following informed contribution in addition to the notes (above) which he sent prior to my write up:

1982, eh? Eardisley… I have to say, though, that my folks’ old place there would have regarded the Tudors as fancy young interlopers with no sense of style or tradition at all, I’m afraid. The Cruck House, as it was known, was a 14th century jobby, made out of a single massive oak tree spliced vertically down the middle and then inverted into a kind of Plantagenet ‘A’ Frame. What the ghosts of the house made of us, mind you, speeding like crazy all weekend, I’ve no idea. Gerry Guinan’s cape might even have seemed comfortingly familiar…

The Cruck House, above picture by Lee Holland “borrowed” from the British Listed Buildings site.

Simon’s recollections are no more focussed than Jon’s and mine:

I remember our trip to Eardisley pretty well except that I can’t remember precisely who was there. Vince Beasley was, for sure. I recall going for a brief walk after a first or second night of not sleeping at all and having stomach cramps as a result of the somewhat toxic powder we’d been happily imbibing.

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

Picture borrowed from Studentcrowd.com

My experience staying in Barnes G3 Flat with friends over the Christmas holidays had convinced me that I had missed a trick by staying on in Lindsay for my second year. Quite early in that second term I started to investigate possibilities to swap my way into a flat. It took until mid February for me to hit pay dirt, by which time I was getting a little tetchy, if the diary is anything to go by:

I won’t even both to translate most of that – the word “dull” appears several times and “none too eventful” is an Ian diary euphemism for…”dull”.

Sunday 21 February 1982 – None too eventful day – went to see Beneath the Valley [of the Ultra Vixens] film -> U Block. Did some work in evening – found out about flat.

My guess is that we saw a quite heavily cut version of the notorious Ultra Vixens movie – I found it mostly silly and minimally dirty, but what do I know of such films?

More importantly, “found out about flat” means that my cunning plan to swap my way into a Barnes Flat had basically come to fruition. The difficulty was finding a swap that worked. A finalist named Tony in Barnes M65 wanted to move out of that flat into a Lindsay room. Problem was, he wanted to move into a quiet, finalists block and my room in F Block Lindsay was not that. One of the reasons I wanted to move was to seek a quieter environment.

I solved the puzzle by finding a fresher (name long since forgotten) who had found himself amongst finalists in a Lindsay block – the fresher was seeking a livelier environment. Hey presto – we pulled off a three-way swap to everyone’s satisfaction.

Monday 22 February 1982 – Did little today. Confirmed move into flat – though had busy evening sorting that out.

“But just a minute,” I hear Keele 1980s experts cry. “M65? M65?? There was no M Block…”

The tragic demise of M Block had been writ in the Keele plans by then – M Block was subsiding into a disused mine beneath it. there were already significant cracks but it was deemed safe for occupation for the remainder of the 1981/82 year.

With thanks to Paul Browning for this authentic picture of Barnes later in the 1980s – the furthest block to the left of that picture is L Block (latterly my home). M Block, demolished by the time this picture was taken, would have been partly obscured by that charming tree.

Some friends thought I was crazy to move into a condemned block, but I figured that refugees from the condemned block would be top of the list for Barnes Flats the following year – ahead of any ballot – as long as at least two of us were planning on staying in a Barnes Flat, which was the case with me and Ahmed Mohd Isa, who was the other non-finalist in M65. I was right.

Wednesday 24 February 1982 – Made half-hearted effort to start packing. Went to see Theatre of Hate – walked out again – oh well.

Well, it seems that I walked out on an historic gig. Theatre of Hate were supported by Southern Death Cult at that gig. According to Dave Lee in the Keele Gigs!, Billy Duffy of Theatre of Hate was so impressed with Ian Astbury of Southern Death Cult that he popped the question and the result was The Cult.

Below is a recording of Southern Death Cult from a bit later in 1982:

Below is a recording of Theatre Of Hate live a little later in 1982:

Thirdly, below, is The Cult, live, a few years later.

Thursday 25 February 1982 – Last day in room – busy packing etc – did no academic work – had quite a good time considering. Lindsay dinner in evening.

Did I time my departure to ensure that I had some sort of special dinner just before I moved? Sounds like it!

Friday 26 February 1982 – moved into flat today – went to count of election. Stayed in evening, unpacking etc.

The election count during the day that Friday will have been the controversial re-run of the presidential election, during the original version of which there had been some shenanigans, which (if I remember it correctly) the “shenaniganistas” (mostly under the auspices of a Machiavellian character named Chris Boden) then used as a mechanism for insisting that the election be rerun.

The result of all that was that Truda Smith got elected for a second time and was actually deemed the winner on that Friday.

Saturday 27 February – Tried to get sorted out in flat – shopped in afternoon. Went to union in evening – met Andy Shindler & the lovely Dalia? Busy.

I don’t really remember meeting up with much Andy Shindler at Keele but if I wrote that it must be true. As for “the lovely Dalia?”, perhaps Andy remembers more about that than I do. I’ll try to find out – I still have my sources, even 40 years on.

By Monday 1 March, it seems I was the President (or was the term Chair?) of JSoc – an honour I seem to remember not really wanting but I found a shilling in the bottom of my beer glass or something like that…

…I am the boss!!!…

…stated with some sarcasm, I imagine.

The beginning of March was not too exciting, despite the new surroundings.

6 March 1982 – Busy morning. Went to Liverpool late afternoon – ball etc – really bad do. Came back in very early hours indeed.

7 March 1982 – Got up very late. Did little during the day. Went to see Watership Down & Animal Farm. Did some work in evening.

8 March 1982 – Did quite a lot of work during the day. Went to UGM in evening. OK

9 March 1982 – Did some work – busy day, Went to Lawsoc AGM – did work after.

I don’t recall the Liverpool visit. Probably with Rana and his flatmates – they had wheels – but I’m not sure.

The Watership Down animation was so much better than the Halas/Batchelor Animal Farm stuff – yet I remember thinking that the latter film was so much better.

I find it hard to believe that I ever went to a Lawsoc AGM and can only imagine how excruciatingly dull such an event must have been. There’s me using the word dull again.

But we’re zooming towards the end of term, when life starts to speed up again.

John Cooper Clarke: Ringroad Poem, Remembered & Recreated by Frank Dillon

Wash your mouth out with soap, young Mr Dillon.

As an appendix to my forty years on piece about, amongst other things, John Cooper Clarke’s 1982 visit to Keele:

Cinema (e.g. Carrie), Casualty At Kings College and Cooper Clarke At Keele, First Half Of February 1982

…I am delighted to report that Frank Dillon has managed to recreate most of his John Cooper Clarke poem from memory. Just as well, as I do not have a copy of it in my Ringroad scripts collection.

Frank wasn’t even in the country when John Cooper Clarke played that gig at Keele. Frank however writes:

As for John Cooper Clarke, I don’t have a copy of it, but I offer the following recreation, honed (or harmed) by the sands of time (i.e. 40 years).

It’s vitally important to read it in the voice of the great man, and with a hint of hysteria.

(And I do mean the great man – for this was a homage, nay, a pastiche, rather than an attack on JCC, for whom I retain an enduring fondness).

I hope it brings back fond memories. Anyway, here goes:

He runs the whole gamut of feelings, from A right through to B. 
At school he wore a cone-shaped hat that bore the letter D. 
He’s the first one, but he’s useless,
Just like the word Aardvark, 
John Cooper Clarke. 

Where he came from is a mystery indeed. 
His mam and dad, they must have been too bloody thick to breed. 
If he’s half the age his jokes are,  
Then he came from Noah’s Ark,  
John Cooper Clarke.

His so-called style is dissolute, his muse, the commonplace. 
The burden of banality is etched upon his face. 
He’s told more boring stories  
Than a bloody copper’s nark, 
John Cooper Clarke 

He’s the new enfant terrible of the trendy literati.
His mordant wit is de rigueur at all the coolest parties.
But like a puppy, laryngectomised, 
His bite’s worse than his bark, 
John Cooper Clarke 

He’s a Wimpy-bar philosopher, his lines are full of glee. 
He can find the secret of existence in a cup of tea. 
But like a wanker with his eyes poked out, 
He’s shooting in the dark, 
John Cooper Clarke 

He thinks he’s T S Eliot, or Keats, or Wilfred Owen 
And literary publishers will clamour for his poems 
He’s got more front and chutzpah 
Than a flasher in the park, 
John Cooper Clarke 
John Cooper Clarke 
John Cooper Clarke 

I must say that I don’t remember that last couplet. My recollection of the closing couplet was:

But like a masturbating eunuch,

He’ll never make a mark,

John Cooper Clarke, John Cooper F*****G Clarke, John Cooper F*****G B*****D Clarke…

Still, a pretty impressive bit of brain archaeology from Frank there.

Respect.

Cinema (e.g. Carrie), Casualty At Kings College and Cooper Clarke At Keele, First Half Of February 1982

John Cooper Clarke 1979 by TimDuncan, CC BY 3.0

Most of my diary notes from that period suggest that I had my head down working at that time. My impressionistic memory tells me that I was quite urgently seeking to switch from halls in Lindsay to a flat in Barnes at that time, although the diary is silent on that matter until a bit later in the month, when I pulled off that switch.

Still, the diary highlights some interesting events at Keele and an eventful trip to London at that time. Forty years on, it’s time for me to share the highlights.

Friday 5 February 1982 – …stayed in most of evening apart from dreadful film, “The Main Event“.

Yup, that’s not my kind of movie. Never mind.

Saturday 6 February 1982 – Went to Newcastle quite late. Did very little work really. Went to Michelle [Epstein]’s party in evening. Sharon & Louise came back after.

Richard van Baaren &/or Benedict Coldstream might well also have been at that party, as I recall Sharon & Louise being part of that crowd. No mention of Anju on this occasion – perhaps she had something else on. We missed Mari Wilson & The Imaginations for that party, so for sure there were other things to do on campus that night. At that stage, I think Michelle was going out with a character named Joel. I don’t think Michelle got together with Neil [Infield] whom she married – I kept in touch with both of them for many years – until much later in our time at Keele.

Sunday 7 February 1982 – Did some work during day. Went to see Carrie & Scanners in afternoon/evening + did some more work

I have one very clear memory from that psycho-thriller movie double bill at Film Soc. I went to see those movies with a young woman whose name completely escapes me. She was a close friend of Katie’s (aka Cathy) – she of my dad’s embarrassing moment a few month’s earlier. Those two were very close pals of each other and I remained a casual pal with both of them for much of my time at Keele

Update: Katie (Cathy) has put me back in touch with Linda (Jones), who was that young woman at Film Soc 40+ years ago.

In fact, we might not even have gone to those movies “as a date” but possibly both ambled along there solo and simply chosen to sit next to each other, as Film Soc folk often did.

*** Spoiler alert for the movie Carrie ***

At the end of Carrie, the following “jump scare” scene occurs:

…at which point, my young woman friend screamed, jumped and pretty much landed in my lap. Fortunately for me she was quite a skinny, light girl, so she did me no immediate damage. Nor did she injure herself with her jump, other than a little injured pride perhaps as she couldn’t stop apologising for her scare-movie-timidity for the rest of the event.

Ever since then, I haven’t been able to think of the movie Carrie, nor even jump scares in movies generally, without thinking about that young woman and her reaction to that wonderful scene. I was reminded of it the other day (as I write in February 2022), almost exactly 40 years on, when a young woman in front of me and Janie at The Royal Court jumped almost out of her skin at the pre-interval coup de theatre in The Glow:

The Glow by Alistair McDowall, Royal Court Theatre, 5 February 2022

But I digress.

In February 1982, I didn’t think Scanners was in the same league as Carrie.

Monday 8 February 1982 – …went to [Barnes] G3 for dinner…

It was the G3 crowd (which I think included Rana Sen and Kath), who helped me to find my Barnes flat. I have a feeling that the cunning plan that led to my flat room-for-halls room swap a few week’s later might well have been seeded at that very dinner. More on that swap next time.

Tuesday 9 February 1982 – …went to see Gloria in evening – OK-ish.

Again, not my kind of movie I feel.

Wednesday 10 February 1982 – very busy day – tutorials moved etc. J-Soc committee & Internal Affairs – very busy day all in all. Presidential forum – Simon [Jacobs] & Jon [Gorvett] came back for coffee.

I only vaguely remember being on Internal Affairs committee. Spike Humphrey (who was VP Internal that year) had been a leading light on Concourse the previous year, so I suspect that I was “open to Spiky persuasion” when asked. Forty years on, a simple googling of the fellow, still with his Keele nickname, finds him still doing committees. In the fulness of time that link won’t work, but here is a scrape of it in February 2022.

The controversy-ridden presidential election for 82/83 will have been the following day, but I make no mention of the election in my diary, perhaps because I wasn’t really involved with such things at that time. Yes, Truda Smith, who had, until recently, been going our with Jon Gorvett, was one of the candidates. But I didn’t actually support Truda for that election; I was supporting the official Labour candidate, a lovely lass named Jan Phillips, whose candidacy was ill-fated, perhaps because of Truda’s or perhaps because the power-brokers-that-were (e.g. Toby Bourgein) felt that Jan was unelectable. Meanwhile the Tory contingent, mostly under the Machiavellian guidance of a chap named Chris Boden, were looking to disrupt the election process that year. I’ll explain the resulting hoo-ha next time. Seems that I simply voted on the Thursday (not a noteworthy event) and got ready for my rare London trip.

Thursday 11 February 1982 – Lazyish day – did some work. Went to buffet supper in evening – did some work after.

Friday 12 February 1982 – Left for London early afternoon – Grandma Jenny had come for dinner – injured herself – spent evening in Kings casualty

If I recall correctly, the family crisis had already started to unfurl when I arrived at my parents’ house and we all went straight off to Camberwell. Now THAT’s my idea of a Friday night out in London!

King’s College Hospital by KiloCharlieLima, CC BY-SA 4.0

Saturday 13 February 1982 – Got up quite early. Did some taping – spoke to people. Mum & dad went out – had relaxing evening in.

Sunday 14 February 1982 – Got up late. Went to Polyanna’s for lunch. Made tapes and spoke to people for rest of the day – quite enjoyable.

I should return at some point to the tapes I was making back then, some of which catalogue the soundtrack of our lives in the early 1980s.

Not sure who dined at Polyanna’s – probably just me and my parents, as I don’t mention anyone else. Polyanna’s was a rare example back then of a proper European-style bistro restaurant on Battersea Rise. It seemed well-decent back then compared with most suburban fare. Now The Humble Grape.

Picture borrowed from Christine Eccles in Battersea Memories on FB.

Monday 15 February 1982 – Met Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] for lunch – > came back to Keele. Went to lousy UGM in evening -> Simon’s for coffee.

The lousiness of the UGM was no doubt linked to the presidential election hoo-ha, about which more next time.

Tuesday 16 February 1982 – Busy day as usual. Worked in evening – got quite a lot done. Didn’t go out at all.

Wednesday 17 February 1982 – Useful day. Spent afternoon in the library. Went to see Andrea [Collins, now Woodhouse] in early evening -> John Cooper Clarke -> Simon & Jon came back – up till quite late.

I am relieved to see several mentions of Simon Jacobs in the diary around this time, as Janie and I are seeing him for lunch tomorrow – Simon doesn’t much like these forty years on pieces unless he gets a few mentions!

I remember the John Cooper Clarke concert very fondly and am really glad I attended it.

Dave Lee’s book The Keele Gigs! has more on the topic of this concert. Dave kindly not only reminded me but sent me a copy of support act, Mightier than Kong, singing their only minor hit, a rather good cover version of Hey Girl Don’t Bother Me.

As for John Cooper Clarke himself, Evidently Chickentown went down extremely well, as did most of his set. Here is an audio of a live performance from around that time (late 1981). Trigger warning: contains…indeed more or less comprises…bad language.

I also recall a Ringroad sketch entitled John Cooper Clarke which was a parody of a JCC poem, each verse of which ended with the line “John Cooper Clarke”, each preceded by an increasingly bizarre simile which rhymed with Clarke. Was it one of yours, Frank Dillon? I might have a copy of it in my “Ringroad cornflake box copies file” at the flat – if so I’ll scan it and upload it in the next week or so.

Friends, Films, Footie & Even A Climax: It Was All Happening At Keele, Late January 1982

The diary suggests that I was actually doing some work that term too. The choice of Economics & Law joint honours sort-of demanded that; especially law.

Still, I was also spending plenty of time doing the other stuff that students do.

Sunday 17 January 1982 – Rose rather late. Did quite a lot of work. Went over to K Block for a while (Mary [Keevil]’s birthday etc.) Worked on afterwards.

Monday 18 January 1982 – Not bad day – did quite a bit of work really. [A] Few people popped in etc – worked primarily in evening.

Tuesday 19 January 1982 – Lots of class today – did some work in the early evening. Tash. Went to see Ordinary People [movie] in the evening – didn’t like it too much really.

Wednesday 20 January 1982 – Quite a busy day. Work etc. – did a fair amount. Went to see Climax Blues Band in the evening (& The Look), Not too impressed.

Dave Lee’s excellent book, The Keele Gigs! reviews the 20 January 1982 gig well, as indeed it reviews most gigs from that era well.

Here’s what The Look looked like (did you see what I did there?):

Here’s The Climax Blues Band, who were sort-of Staffordshire local to Keele but played there very rarely:

Thursday 21 January 1982 – Worked quite hard today. Went to library and everything. Worked in the evening as well.

Friday 22 January 1982 – Busyish day – worked quite hard. Went to 2 parties in union in evening & went back to U117 [Barnes]till very late.

Saturday 23 January 1982 – Rose late – went to Newcastle late. Unindustrious day. Went to G3 [I’m 99% sure the flat in which I’d stayed over the winter break] party in evening – * quite enjoyable. Got quite drunk.

Sunday 24 January 1982 – Got up very late. Did quite a bit of work in the afternoon. Jewish Society meeting at Maurice’s in evening – quite entertaining.


Questions for advanced students:

  • who lived/partied in U117 at that time?
  • who was Maurice and how could such a meeting possibly be “entertaining”?

Monday 25 January 1982 – Work OK. Did quite a lot in the afternoon. UGM in the evening – sold Concourse. People came back for coffee afterwards.

Tuesday 26 January 1982 – Busy day as usual on Tuesday. Went to Tash. Went to film Chariots Of Fire in evening – very good film. Quite a late night.

Wednesday 27 January 1982 – Work Ok today. Worked quite hard. in fact. Andrea [Collins, now Woodhouse] came around in the evening – but mainly a day of industry.

Thursday 28 January 1982 – Busyish day. Went to buffet supper in evening – went back to David’s [Perrins?] after – chatted until quite late.

OK, I need to explain what “Tash” was – I mentioned it several times in my January 1982 diary. Several of the guys in my Lindsay F Block hall were members of a five-a-side football team named ‘Tempted ‘Tash, in honour of the (usually rather feeble) attempts on the part of 19/20 year-old students to grow and show adornments of facial hair, in particular wispy moustaches. Team members included, I’m pretty sure, Benedict Coldstream, Richard Van Baaren (ringleader/captain), Bob Schumacher and some others. I, along with one or two other non-playing hangers on – was Malcolm Cornelius there once or twice? Some of the Harrowby ”girls” (Sharon, Louise, Anjou) perhaps on one occasion? Simon Ascough was keen on footy, but I think he either played or had dropped out of Keele by then – would go along to chant and cheer…usually with limited success in the matter of coaxing winning performances from our team.

Frankly Tash was not as skilful as those shown in this picture by Chuckiefinster, CC BY-SA 3.0

Friday 28 January 1982 – Not too pleasant cold at the moment. Did some work this afternoon. Went to film in evening (Babylon – very good), Went for drink after – didn’t feel too good. Came home.

Saturday 29 January 1982 – Went to Newcastle reasonably early. Did little work. Went to Neil Turner’s party in evening. Got very drunk -> Y13 Hawthorns [Ashley, Mel, Louise & Boris’s place] afterwards where party continued.

Sunday 31 January 1982 – Recovering from last night – finished off questionnaire and did some work in the evening as well – quite creditable under the circumstances.

Monday 1 February 1982 – Work OK. Did quite a bit today & went to visit Andrea in evening. Had quite a late night.

If you cannot imagine the soundscape of that wonderful film Babylon, get the album or simply get yer lugholes around the following track which includes the film’s idée fixe – if a 1980s reggae theme might thus be described.

Questions for advanced students:

  • Can anyone remember exactly what that Neil party & then on to Y13 was? Ashley kindly chimed in an answer to that question on FB: “Ashley Mel Louise and Boris Lived at 13, it was Gaysoc anarcho-central. That evening I think Neil hosted a meet the new boyfriend party at the Hawthorns Bar. Can’t remember the new boyfriend’s name, but he was a lovely chap working and living on the top floor of Hanley hotel” Subsequent chimes (thanks, Sally Hyman) even uncovered an agreed name for the new boyfriend: Gareth. First class work from the team, there.
  • What was the “questionnaire”? I’m guessing that it was connected with the anti-cuts campaigning but I cannot remember in truth.

Andrea (Collins, now Woodhouse) gets a couple of mentions in the space of a week at that time. We stayed pals throughout our several years at Keele and I was really pleased to reconnect with her in Westminster relatively recently at a Keele alum gathering…I mean works meeting…I mean event…I mean party:

Keele Alumni Gathering At The Red Lion, Parliament Street, Then Dinner With Bobbie Scully At Roux, 7 March 2018

Many A Slip (On An Icy Keele Campus) Between Jazz & Lip: Ronnie Scott & Friends At Keele, 16 January 1982

Image from Wikipedia with same “fair use” rationale.

The especially cold and icy weather, which had plagued Keele before Christmas, persisted into the early days of the 1982 Spring Term.

Early that term, I recall taking a tumble on the slope that led to the Chancellor’s Building from the Lindsay Hall end, while rushing to get to a lecture or tutorial on time.

A little dazed, I soon realised that someone had hoicked me up and I was being stared at by none other than “ABC” Dick Hemsley, asking me if I was alright. “Yes, I’m fine”, I said, embarrassed to have found myself in such a vulnerable circumstance with one of the better-known right-wing villains of the campus. “No”, said Dick firmly, studying my reactions carefully, “I think you might have bumped your head. Really, are you OK?” Thankfully I hadn’t banged my head and most of the bruises were to my “left ego”. That incident stuck in my mind, because it made me realise that Dick, despite our opposing political views, when it came to the crunch, was instinctively concerned about my welfare.

I sense from my diaries that I was a bit irritable/tetchy after the historic, publicity-attracting protests outside the UGC offices on 6 January:

Protest Outside the UGC Offices Against Grant Cuts, University of Keele, 6 January 1982

Possibly term seemed like an anti-climax; possibly the weather got to me – I have never much liked icy-cold weather and this was a proper cold spell.

The diaries – which are shown at the bottom of this piece but upon which I shall not expand this time – suggest a relatively dull phase – at least in my mind…

…until the Ronnie Scott & Friends Jazz Night on 16 January, which was a hugely memorable event in all sorts of ways.

Ronnie Scott co-founded the legendary Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in the late 1950’s. It was already an institution by the early 1980s and we were truly blessed that Ronnie liked visiting student venues and especially liked the vibe in the University of Keele Students’ Union Ballroom. I saw him perform there several times while at Keele – this was the first of those times.

Dave Lee’s excellent book The Keele Gigs! has a fine account of this gig.

The following clip, from some time in the early 1980s, is pretty close to what the ensemble looked and sounded like at Keele that night:

For those who know little about Ronnie Scott/Ronnie Scott’s and would like to know more, the following hour-long Omnibus film from 1989 is quite comprehensive and almost of that time:

There is am even more comprehensive 2020 documentary movie, which I have seen and can confirm is a very interesting watch, which you can find out about on IMDb here.

My memories of this particular January 1982 evening at Keele are a strange mixture of clear and blurry. The diary entry only tells a small part of the story:

…went to Jazz Night in the evening. ** got pissed during and after!!

This suggests that only alcohol was imbibed at our table, although in my mind there was also whacky backy involved. Perhaps that was because Ronnie kept saying, “I must stop smoking this stuff” whenever he muffed his jokes/lines, which he did with charming frequency.

We sat at tables in the style of a jazz club like Ronnie Scott’s and I remember it all seeming very grown up and sophisticated at the outset. I think we drank wine and cocktails rather than beer at our table, which is probably why we got pissed unusually quickly.

I was at a table with, I am pretty sure (in reducing order of sureness): Miriam Morgan, Heather Jones, Ashley Fletcher, Helen Ross and one or two others. One person who was certainly at our table was a rather exotic-looking (to me) gay female with whom, for reasons I cannot with hindsight fathom, I started to dance. I’ll guess it was initially her idea, because dancing isn’t something I can imagine myself ever having spontaneously initiated.

Mercifully, this Jazz Night was long before the age of smart phones, pocket video cameras, TikTok and the like, so there are no moving pictures of our “performance” – indeed not even any stills to my knowledge.

It probably looked a little like the following clip at first, except that John Travolta is a very capable dancer trying to look awkward, whereas…

We danced in an increasingly frisky manner as time went on, until a pivotal moment when I suddenly felt drenched. Someone from a nearby “Tory Boy” table tipped a jug of water over us with the entreaty, “you two need to cool down”.

I’m not sure who did the tipping; it might have been Mark Ellicott (who still sat at Tory Boy tables back then) or it might even have been ABC Dick. Whoever it was, the gesture was done without menace and with a witticism thrown in, such that we and everyone at the tables around us found the joke funny, so we joined in the laughter and redoubled our frisky efforts.

Strangely, I ran this story by Simon Jacobs and Jon Gorvett just the other evening – forty years on. Both of them confirmed that they were not there on this evening.

Yet Simon, who usually claims not to be able to remember anything about our Keele days, immediately identified the young woman in question as “Nicola from Crewe and Alsager College”, which of course was the right answer. Respect, Simon, respect.

Nicola ended up going out with Miriam, which I think brought the Miriam and Heather era to a close, although I might be muddling the sequencing and/or duration of that episode. Others might well be able to put the record straight.

My diary states clearly that we all carried on drinking after the Ronnie Scott Jazz Night had concluded, but the frisky dancing with Nicola was definitely merely a “moment in time” thing during the jazz night.

Postscript – Remembering Nicola

Within minutes of me posting this piece, Ashley Fletcher commented on FB, reminding me that, a couple of years later, he shared a place in Newcastle with Miriam & Nicola, who became and were still very much an item after that January 1982 time.

Ashley also recalls that, ironically, Nicola looked like an androgynous new romantic performer named Ronny – indeed she did – click this link or the picture below to see pictures and even a vid of exotic-looking Ronny.

Borrowed from and linked to Lord Bassington-Bassington

The Rest Of the Diary

Diary pages for the week or so leading up to Ronnie’s below. For the completists. There’s a prize if anyone can work out who or what I went to see on Tuesday 12th!

Postscript – Remembering Nastassja

Following an entreaty from Kay Scorah that she wouldn’t sleep until the 12 January diary entry mystery was solved, I gave the matter some deeper thought. Then I looked at the Rosetta Stone for a while. Then I concluded that the pathetically scrawled four-letter word, which I had thought all along was probably the title of a film, given that Tuesday evening was film night…

…must have been “Tess”. No really.

The 1979 Roman Polanski marathon version of Tess of the d’Urbervilles.

My teenage hormonal head would have been full of Nastassja Kinski for a few days…until Nicola came along. Sorry Nastassja.

You can sleep now, Kay.

Postscript To The Above Postscript – Remembering Tash, Tess & Nastassja

The mention of Tess generated quite a postbag and I realise that I was mistaken in attributing the 12 January scribble to that film. John White writes:

 Don’t think that says Tess btw. The word begins with an s and ends with an h. Sure it wasn’t a person?

But I was buoyed by Jon Gorvett’s memory flash, inspired by my mention of Tess:

Anyway, also bizarre that you should mention Heather Jones, Tess, Nastassja Kinski and crushes all in the same post, Ian, as I recall both myself and Heather taking a sudden interest in Thomas Hardy around then, after Kinski had appeared on the cover of the version of Tess of the d’Urbervilles on sale in the Keele bookshop. Noticing this, we both later confessed to a massive crush on the said daughter of the great director (and massive child abuser, I see now), leading ultimately to enormous enthusiasm for Cat People, when that hit the screens later that year. 

…so I responded as follows:

100% sure it was Tess. Memory flash corroborated by Jon Gorvett, who said that note brought a flood of memories. Gilted Jon (by Truda) and gilted Heather (by Miriam) both salivated over Ms Kinski at that time. My handwriting was truly appalling at the best of times and I often wrote up diaries when pissed or stoned.

However, I now realise and am 100% sure that the pesky word on 12 January was Tash, not Tess. The Tash reference is explained in the subsequent “Forty Years On” piece.

But I did see Tess around that time – I’m guessing it must have been the film shown 15 January, which I don’t name – I simply describe it in my diary as “boring”. Frankly, I do recall finding the excruciatingly long Tess movie boring in every regard except for the visual charms of Ms Kinski.

January 1982 Keele/UGC Protest Did Make The Papers, Jon Gorvett Uncovers The Evidence

More than a year after publishing an Ogblog piece about our Keele students’ protest against UGC cuts – click here – I received a very pleasing e-mail out of the blue from Jon Gorvett, who had found the Ogblog piece by chance while having a quiet Google.

He had recently uncovered some old Keele scraps, including the following press clippings:

Page 11 of the Evening Sentinel – can we possibly do any better than this?

Yes we can! Page 3 of the Morning Star

So there we have it. Page 11 of the Evening Sentinel but, more importantly, Page 3 of the Morning Star.

Jon is the young man with the “numerate graduates” placard in the first photo above (naturally Jon has gone on to become a foreign correspondent journalist). Jon is also seen wielding a mallet on the far left of the Morning Star picture.

I can be seen in the first photo struggling to retain hold of both the campus model and my sartorial dignity (wearing THAT donkey jacket). I’m gutted that a photo with me in it didn’t make it to Page 3 of the Morning Star, despite the donkey jacket.

I did once make the front page of New India and the back page of the Bastar Sun for my exploits, but that is an entirely different story – click here.

Of course I am still part of the story in the Morning Star. But still, it’s not my image on Page 3. Close but no cigar.

The compensation for my Page 3 disappointment, though, is to be reconnected with Jon Gorvett. He and his treasure trove of clippings might prove very helpful for future Ogblog pieces about the Keele years. I also strongly suspect, based on our e-mail exchanges over the past couple of days, that I shall very much enjoy his company once our paths cross sufficiently for us to meet again in real life.

Protest Outside the UGC Offices Against Grant Cuts, University of Keele, 6 January 1982

I was reminded of this protest when chatting with some interesting MCC members about Rhodes Boyson in the writing room at Lord’s in April 2016 – click here for a link to the posting about that conversation.

I resolved to dig out my diaries and see if I could find out some more about it. Soon enough, I found this page:

Diary 6 January 1982

Actually the diary entry is not too revealing about this protest. Nor are the pages around it, which refer a lot to “meeting up with the usual friends…various people…some people…the crowd…” as if I would naturally remember all the details when I want them, 34 years later.

Indeed, the entries around the time of the protest have triggered many other memories about how I felt at that time and why I started to plot my escape from halls of residence into an on-campus flat in the early months of that year. Another story for another posting or two.

So I must rely almost entirely on memory for this story.

“The Cuts” (to university grants) was the biggest political issue on the higher education agenda at that time. There were marches and things, which I attended occasionally, but I’ve never been a great one for marches.

A few of us decided that we needed to do something a bit more eye-catching, yet unquestionably in the non-violent protest arena. We hatched a plan for a media/profile grabbing event; a dramatic protest outside the University Grants Committee (UGC) offices on one of their big committee days, when Rhodes Boyson would be attending; 6 January 1982.

In simple terms, we would make a crude replica of our Keele Campus and destroy it in front of the UGC building while the committee met, announcing “this is what you are doing to our University”. Naturally we would alert the media in advance to the fact that there would be “a happening” outside the building during the UGC meeting.

In order to implement our plot, several of us returned to Keele immediately after Christmas. I’m trying to remember who was involved. I’m pretty sure Jon Gorvett and Truda Smith were involved and they do get a name drop in my diary 2 January. I’m also pretty sure that Simon Jacobs was heavily involved, although something tells me that he did not return to Keele early, but joined us in London on the day. For some reason my mind is linking Diana Ball with this event, but I might be mistaken. Similarly I think Toby Bourgein had a leading hand in plotting the protest and possibly even drove the minibus down from Keele, but again I might be mistaken. Surely Pete Roberts was involved?

I love the fact that my diary entry says that I signed on before we set off for London to protest. In those days, the ridiculous student grant system meant that the grant only applied to the term-time weeks and that you had to sign on to the dole to get some money for the non-term weeks. What a palaver for the Social Security people to have to administer.

Of course, the social security system for students has been vastly simplified now; the poor students simply get “the square root of nada”.

I recall that we gathered in a pub on the Hampstead Road, near to Laurence Corner.  I’m pretty sure it was the Sols Arms, now defunct. I suppose it was possible to park without restriction on that north side of the Euston Road in those days. We enjoyed a drink in that pub and then all went to the cloakrooms to don dark jumpers and balaclava helmets. We then rescued the crude facsimile of the campus (mostly papier mâché and balsa wood, I think) and our mallets from the union minibus, toddled across the Euston Road to the Bloomsbury offices of the UGC and conducted our protest.

I don’t recall how much media attention we got – press I’m sure but I don’t think the TV people bothered with us. I report being very tired on return, so I guess there was enough buzz to keep us talking for a while. Perhaps we retreated to the Sols Arms for a few more jars before returning to Keele a little tired and emotional. What do I mean, “perhaps”?

These days, of course, I don’t think we’d get very far in those dark tops, balaclava helmets and mallets before the armed fuzz would intervene. You’d be lucky to survive such a stunt. They were simpler times in many ways.

Apologies to anyone named (or not named) for the failings of my memory. If anyone else remembers more about this extraordinary day, I really would love to hear some more memories of it in the comments. I’m sure that, with some help, my own memory of the event could improve.

June 2017 Update

More than a year after posting this and getting the wonderful speedy response shown in the comment below, I received an e-mail from Jon Gorvett with newspaper clippings – so we did make the papers. I have written an aside, with images of those clippings, click here. 

January 2022 Update

Chris Parkins, who had left Keele by then, came along and took a colour picture. he upped it to Facebook recently and I have asked his permission to show the picture here. If the picture is still here when you read this, Chris has either replied yes or not replied at all. Thanks for the picture, Chris, although I’m a little gutted that I am not in the picture. Serves me right, I suppose, for tiring and having someone else take over my model-holding duties:

Twixtmas, Seeing In The New Year & Making An Early Start To 1982 Back At Keele

A wonderful Wikimedia Commons Picture by Andreas Weith, CC BY-SA 4.0

Seeing in the new year at Keele was nothing like that.

Indeed, my diary tone is exceptionally flat and irritable-sounding for the period between Christmas and New Year and then the early days/weeks of 1982, apart from the 6 January protest in London…

Protest Outside the UGC Offices Against Grant Cuts, University of Keele, 6 January 1982

which gained us 15 minutes of fame in the Morning Star and The Evening Sentinel.

January 1982 Keele/UGC Protest Did Make The Papers, Jon Gorvett Uncovers The Evidence

Keen readers of this “forty years on” series might have noticed that that the protagonists in the grant protests overlapped quite heavily with the protagonists of the snowbound romance dramas in the run up to Christmas – not least Jon Gorvett, Truda Smith and Toby Bourgein:

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

I recall that Keele was still very cold and snowy on my return to Keele between Christmas and New Year, so the atmosphere was no doubt very frosty in more ways than one. But the cause prevailed and we worked in unison to implement the protest…

…it just probably didn’t need me to be around for 10 days before the big day. And when I don’t have enough to do, I tend to get a bit irritable.

Local hostelries seem to have done well out of me/us – mentions of the Golf Inn (I never much liked that place in truth), the Sneyd Arms (which I did like, but by gosh we went there a lot) and the Mainwaring Arms in Whitmore, which I really did like as a proper country pub for a change and which, I am delighted to see, forty years on, has recently been saved by a friendly takeover. The only problem with the Mainwaring was that it was too far sensibly to walk it, so someone in the crowd needed wheels and a willingness to drive.

Apologies to Maria, with whom I went to The Sneyd on the Saturday – I’m struggling to place you. I also couldn’t possibly identify “the crowd” that went to the Mainwaring on the Sunday – it might have been the protest plotters or it might have been the Barnes G Block crowd who had been my hosts in a flat over the Christmas holidays. Or both groups to make a crowd.

Image Borrowed from Parish Council document linked above and here.

I resolved two things after that interlude:

  • firstly, not to return to Keele twixt Christmas and New Year again – although I ended up needing to break that resolution Twixtmas 1984 for reasons I’ll explain when we get to that story;
  • secondly, that I really liked living in a student flat on-campus and really had grown out of halls life. I started the search for a flat, certainly for the next academic year, but actually managed to pull that off a switch reasonably quickly – but again that is a story for another day.

In Keele For A Penny, In Keele For A Pound: The “Other” 1981 Book

I cannot leave behind my first full calendar year at Keele, 1981, without talking a bit about money.

Students were always short of money back then, much as they are now.

For most of us, there was no “Bank of Mum and Dad” (BOMAD), but there was a student grant (and a strange “signing on the dole” rule for the non-term weeks, that meant an element of direct financial support from the state far greater than students enjoy today.

But no student loans from the state. If you couldn’t make the grant go far enough, you needed to be a rare BOMAD-ista, or find a source of income.

Bad Example: The Rise & Fall Of David Perrins

Actually It Was The Bank Manager Who Gave David “The Finger”

I remember David Perrins getting into financial difficulties quite early in our time at Keele (probably around the middle of the second term). He told me and Simon Jacobs that he was going to see the bank manager to explain that he needed a loan so that he could continue to live in the style to which he was accustomed.

I remember Simon and I doubting whether this approach would work.

David returned from his meeting looking a little crest-fallen. The bank manger had told him that he would have to become accustomed to a less salubrious style.

Better Example – Me

I just about managed to keep myself afloat financially, but this I did through the expedient of working during holidays. I had worked all summer, before starting at Keele:

Sorting Out A Problem Kibbutz, BBYO Hillel House, 21 to 24 July 1980

It was an unprecedented, interregnum arrangement. I asked for £30 per week, which had been my previous summer wage in 1978, but after a couple of weeks, my boss (Werner Lasch if I remember correctly) insisted on increasing my wage to £40 per week, which he considered fairer. Especially as the deal included board and lodgings in Hillel House’s student digs, that felt like a good rate back then, from which I was able to save.

But still, even with some savings and an absence of extravagance, I knew I would need to supplement my grant, hence my Easter…

Finishing Work, Easter Itself & Returning To Keele For The Summer Term Of My Foundation Year, 17 to 23 April 1981

...and then summer working arrangements in 1981.

The First Week Of A Working Summer: The Joys Of Braintree & Wimbledon, 29 June to 4 July 1981

In short, I “washed my face” financially by dint of holiday working and limiting my spending (once Halls fees had been paid) to essentials – drugs (mostly legal ones), rock ‘n’ roll (gigs and discos), and a few other small matters such as food, transport and books.

Two Sets Of Accounting Books

There is an adage in forensic accounting, which is to search for the “other” set of books of account whenever dodgy accounting is suspected yet absent from the visible books of account.

In my Ogblogging of old diaries, I can assure you that there is no intention to conceal, but I have recently, forty years on (Autumn 2021) discovered a second diary in which I kept financial records.

First, have a look at the main diary from which my forty years on ramblings about 1981 have been derived:

TOE was Technical & Optical Equipment – the only authorised importers of Soviet photographic equipment – if that link fails, click here for a scrape of the text instead.

For those Keele students “of the right” who were convinced that I must be a Soviet Commie spy, the above image must be gold dust. But in truth my father, who was no Soviet and no Commie, had simply made a commercial decision in the 1960s that his shop in working-class Battersea near Clapham Junction (yes, really, back then) should specialise in cheap, sturdy, reliable, well-serviced equipment, which happened to come from the Soviet Union.

How or why I got a TOE diary that year, I cannot remember. Until then I had always received a Letts Schoolboy diary at Christmas (who didn’t?). Dad might have been sent two that year and handed down his second, as he always used one of those TOE diaries.

But it seems I did also receive a Christmas gift diary – a rather inadequate little Collins thing…

…in which I kept accounts of sorts for the whole year. Here is a link to all of the accounts pages from that little book.

I have just a few additional observations about the money aspect of being a Keele undergraduate in 1981:

  • I had forgotten about the existence of the £1 note and the fact that you could configure your drawings from a campus ATM to a specific number of individual £1s in those days;
  • Even with my savings trove, I sailed close to the wind in my second term, with the little book stating “balance at 19-3-81 £10.52” just before I started my Easter holiday job…
  • …but the next entry reads “balance at 10-4-81 £189.32“. I was only keeping notes of the detailed drawings and occasional top-ups when the dosh was running low.
  • To that end, I didn’t keep records at all during the summer term of 1981 – I presumably knew that I’d be alright and started keeping records again during the summer to keep tabs on that top-up;
  • No sign of drawing to the individual £1 in the autumn of 1981 – possibly I had simply got into the habit of drawing money from the ATM to the nearest £5 or possibly the campus machines were reset at that time;
  • I drew out £65 in the first week of October 1981 – a princely sum back then – it was a long time ago. That will have been for textbooks no doubt – mostly law ones.
OK, it wasn’t THAT long ago.