Tag: Keele

Keele Concourse Controversy, A Weekend Back In London, Plus Several More Late-Nighters, 1 to 10 February 1981

Concourse, Classes, Council & Concert

Oh dear!

Now I admit that I did much of the typing for that early February 1981 edition of Concourse. I was deemed to be a bit of a whizz with two fingers on the old keyboard. Still am, though I say so myself.

But I did not get involved with laying out the paper in preparation for the printers for that edition. That was, in theory, more experienced work. That was often the editors’ role. It was certainly the editors’ role to check that all the pages were well set.

Something went awry and I’m not sure that my writing about the controversy now will extract the true story.

One rumour had it that the skewiffy setting of Katy Turner’s Presidential Column was a deliberate snub to her by the editors, Hugh Peart and Paula Higginson. One rumour had it that it was an honest mistake by someone setting the paper in a mad rush to get the proofs to the printers.

It was always a mad rush to get the proofs to the printers.

Dave Lee might be able to shed some light on the cause.

Anyway, my diary suggested that I was busy on Concourse from 31 January to 3 February with little else to report. My FY Programme suggests I went to a few lectures & classes that week, but still I deemed such days “easy”. Easy meant “no essay deadlines and no exams” in my mind back then.

On Wednesday 4th February my evening comprised:

Local Authority meeting in eve. Au Pairs live – not too good.

I cannot imagine why I went to a Local Authority meeting other than a recommendation from Richard Kimber to do so as part of my Politics sessional. I don’t remember a thing about it, but I suspect that some Councillors would say the same thing about their entire career on the Council.

I’ll leave the review of the Au Pairs concert to Dave Lee in his forthcoming (due Summer 2021) book The Keele Gigs – click this link for more details.

I did become reconciled with The Au Pairs and grew to like their album Playing with a Different Sex. The following track, which is on that album,  shows what they looked and sounded like:

Rumour had it that a couple of The Au Pairs had been students at Keele. I’m not sure whether I can get that “fact” confirmed or denied. I can confirm that lead singer Lesley Woods went on to become a practicing barrister.

After my classes on the Friday I went to my parents’ house for the weekend; my only such visit that term.

A Weekend In London 6 to 8 February

Friday 6 February – arrived about 7:00 – ate, phoned – turned in earlyish

Saturday 7 February – easy day, taping etc. Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] came over for supper ->town for coffee and cakes.

Sunday 8 February – easy day – lunch locally with Grandma[Anne] – got back to Keele about 8:00 – had a few drinks

The diary entries are intriguing. I mention that I phoned. These days no youngster would consider phoning to be “a thing”, but it was time consuming to queue up for the payphones at Keele and expensive. So it was “a thing” to me that I could spend some time that weekend calling people.

I shall write a separate piece on the chart music I taped on that Saturday. I’m pretty sure I also taped some of my albums and such to increase my mini collection of cassettes up at Keele.

I don’t remember Caroline coming to the house for supper but I know for sure that my mum would have felt that she owed Caroline and her family many, many meals for all the hospitality I’d had from them when doing my BBYO stuff in the year or so prior to Keele, mostly in North-West London, with Caroline’s mum Jacquie providing warm and wonderful hospitality of the edible kind regularly.

I don’t know why I recall the trip up town with Caroline for coffee and cake (and a chance to chat), but I have a strong memory of a place near or possibly even in Whiteleys. From the late 80’s onwards, I didn’t think of that Bayswater/Notting Hill Gate neighbourhood as “town”, I think of it as “home”.

Lunch locally with Grandma Anne was probably at Il Carretto in Streatham.

Skewiffy-Column-Gate

On the Monday, 9 February, the concourse controversy kicked off proper. The diary reads:

Not bad day. Concourse came out. UGM in eve – spoke about Concourse etc. Went back to Mark’s [Bartholomew] for coffee – stayed chatting all night…

In many ways I think the controversy passed us by at the time.

I had seen my first piece in print, as had Jon Gorvett [his New Block At Lindsay piece which I showed in December 1980 I now discover was actually from this February 1981 edition] and as had Simon Jacobs – a lengthy review of Trust by Elvis Costello:

Trust by Elvis Costello, Concourse, Simon Jacobs’s Review, 9 February 1981

So we Concourse “cub reporters” were simply thrilled to see our pieces and credits in print. Also, the very fact that Concourse was the centre of attention at that evening’s UGM only added to the sensation that the University of Keele Students’ Union’s fourth estate, in the form of Concourse, was terribly important.

In the aftermath of that day, the controversy about the Concourse skewiffyness was quite fierce; the result was that both of the editors resigned. I don’t think that happened publicly on the night (otherwise I’d have written about it differently in the diary). That hoo-ha and multiple resignation incident had momentous and amusing consequences for me (and for interim editor Dave Lee) a few weeks later – watch this space.

Coffee Afterwards…Or Did I Mean “Coffee”?

I don’t think I went back to Mark Bartholomew’s place for all-night coffee and political chat on many occasions, so I suspect this might have been the day (night) that I met Neil Infield, who became a good friend, to some extent during the Keele years, to a greater extent after Keele. More on that anon.

Anyway, the location of that gathering was, if I remember correctly, L Block Lindsay.

I did not use the word “coffee” as a euphemism for other stimulants or relaxants. I used a little “//” marking in my diary for those. So on this occasion, I am pretty sure that the phrase “coffee and chatting all night” was literal and descriptive. If we were lucky the coffee would have been freeze-dried granules of the Nescafe variety. If we were less lucky, it would have been cheap powdery stuff with a generic supermarket label that had an insipid, bitter taste that vaguely resembled coffee.

Simon Jacobs reminded me (February 2021) that Mark Bartholomew, at that time, held himself out to be of the Polish nobility or something of that kind. The more inebriated he became, according to Simon, the more elaborate those Polish royalty stories became…see what I mean?

I remember Mark berating me for being unable to pronounce Łódź properly. I can do that now. Sounds more like “Woodge”. Never forgot it.

Sound file of Łódź from Wikipedia Commons, with thanks.

I’m not sure whether either Simon Jacobs or Jon Gorvett were part of that particular all-nighter – they’ll doubtless deny all knowledge of the occasion anyway, whether they were there or not.

10 February -> brekky -> 9.00 -> bed -> got up for dinner -> union for drinks

I love that little diary note – I can see from my FY Programme markings that I went to Stephen Banfield’s 9.00 lecture on Romantic Music but then went to my bed rather than attend Roger Marsh‘s 20th Century Music lecture.

Glad to see that my untimely slumber enabled me to revive in time for dinner and some drinks in the Union. Priorities.

Winter Draws On At Keele, FY & The Union & Lindsay Bar & My First Concourse Article, 18 to 31 January 1981

Photo © Brian Deegan (cc-by-sa/2.0)

My flurry of diligence at the start of my second term does not seem to have made it to the second full week.

My markings in the Foundation Year (FY) syllabus book tell me that I only made it to two lectures in that second week of term. Then back up to five in the third week.

Worse yet, the handwriting in my diary (both its look and what it seems to be saying) suggests that I spent a lot of time drinking with my friends. Students can be like that – who knew?

Still, I did start a biology topic, I think on Friday 23rd January, Hormones & Reproduction with Peter Chevins. Jolly useful subject for an 18 year old fresher to understand. I think I was the only male student out of nine or ten students in that class. Masterful choice of science topic, don’t you think? Four years later in my Education & Welfare role I wrote a seminal work, Sexplanations, which surely borrowed a little from that FY topic. More explanations of Sexplanations when I write up 1984/85.

The diary notes my FY exam results: B+, B+, B- which is well below the level I would aim for today but under the circumstances (how little work I did that first term) I think I was doing OK.

I also wrote a sessional essay on Thursday 29th. Whether that was the modern history with Mr Jones or the comparative politics with Richard Kimber is lost in the mists of time.

The weekend of 24/25 January has an interesting note:

-> Union -> Horwood -> Lindsay – trouble.

The Strange Story Of Mad Harry

Although I don’t mention “Mad Harry” by name in my diary, I am pretty sure this “trouble” would have been the first of his noteworthy, unfortunate incidents.

Harry is (was) a very bright and charismatic chap, who lived upstairs in F Block Lindsay. He went wild at Keele, I think a reaction to a protected background. I remember him describing his parents as being very strict and religious Christians. I don’t think he had tried alcohol before Keele but was certainly trying to make up for lost time that term.

I also remember Harry claiming to originate from Botswana, for reasons unexplained, as he later recanted that claim. I think his family, of Southern-Asian origin, had come to the UK via an East-African country (Uganda or Kenya or possibly both).

But there was little point trying to fathom Harry’s claims and actions back then. He had a sword in his room, which I think was in a “stage-prop” state of bluntness, but was realistic-looking enough for him to scare the uninitiated. He would run up and down his corridor wielding it, when the mood so took him…which was quite often. I should know; our corridor was just below Harry’s corridor.

Harry was friendly with “Brummy Paul” who lived on our F Block Lindsay corridor. If I recall correctly, the “campus crawl” that ended up in Lindsay Bar that Saturday night resulted in Harry getting banned from Lindsay Bar, while the rest of us were correctly deemed to be blameless for the trouble.

I returned to Lindsay Bar the next night, along with a few of the others, not least to commune with the fellow students who had needed to deal with Harry’s antics.

While remaining on good terms with Harry, I took pains to avoid going out boozing with him from then on. One evening, not all that long after the first incident, Harry got drunk elsewhere, tried to get in to Lindsay Bar and ended up smashing a window there, which got him banned from Lindsay Hall.

One of the priests (I cannot remember whether Harry was Anglican or Catholic; I think the latter so it would have been Sandy Brown) took pity on him and gave him sanctuary at his house to try to recover his Keele career. But that kind effort was in vain and Harry ended up dropping out of Keele.

This tale does have a happy ending though, as I ran into Harry again about five years later in the canteen of Financial Training College in North Kensington. Professor Fishman had recognised Harry’s ability at economics and maths, so recommended Harry to Birmingham University where Harry was given a second chance, which, he told me, he took with great relief. Harry told me he realised how wild he had been at Keele, but he had learnt a lesson and turned a corner. He still had that charismatic twinkle in his eye, though and I’m sorry I only saw him the once in that canteen. I wonder what has become of Harry since.

Mark Bartholomew, Anna Summerskill & My First Concourse Article

During that first year, living in halls of residence, I would regularly eat with Simon Jacobs in the refectory, but of course we got to meet & eat with some interesting characters. None were more memorable than the dynamic duo that was Mark Bartholomew and Anna Summerskill. Sadly, I learnt some time ago that Anna died long before what should have been her time; in 2012.

A duo, not a pair or a couple, Mark & Anna tended to dine together and “hold court” at meal times with people they found entertaining. Simon and I seemed to fit that mould for them reasonably often. At that time, both Mark and Anna were in their second and third years (respectively) of four year courses I believe, so well ahead of us. They were also both into the student politics.

Anna Summerskill was a member of the SWP and very much of the organised left. Here is one of the few mentions of her on the web, a Marxist scan from 1980. She had been Union treasurer the year before our arrival. Having suffered the ignominy of losing the election for treasurer to abstentions the first time she ran, she had the guts to run again against abstentions and scrapped through the second time. Respect.

Mark Bartholomew was more of the non-conformist left. Very bright, very sharp-witted, he enjoyed an intellectual tussle and could find tiny holes in a lesser debater’s argument more easily than water finds small gaps in a leaky roof. I recall he was one of the student reps on the University Senate, which seemed to me, at that time, to be an incredibly grown-up thing. I think I have found a properly grown-up Mark, in a 2019 article, in Dhaka – click here. If that link ever goes awry, I have scraped that piece here.

They both had wicked senses of humour, which was not always abundant in those with pronounced political views. Anna’s refectory party trick was to eat a banana in as sexually provocative a manner as was possible to achieve. Only occasionally could she do this while keeping a straight face.

Anna with duffle coat but without banana

Anyway.

Anna had gone off to NUS Conference as the leader of Keele’s delegation over the Christmas vacation and a shit-storm controversy (by Keele’s standards) had kicked off about it at the UGM in mid January. You can read all about it in the following article.

I was a cub Concourse reporter. I got the gig to interview Anna and get to the bottom of the matter. The students needed to know. Apparently neither Bob Woodward nor Carl Bernstein were available, so I was chosen. The fact that I was friendly with Anna was not deemed to be an impediment. Indeed, I think the editors thought my refectory-style access to Anna would be an advantage.

Thus, my first piece as a Concourse writer.

I’m not at all happy with my mis-spelling of University’s as Universities. No need to point it out.

I can’t even blame the typist, as I will have typed this piece up myself, as I indeed typed up quite a lot of that February 1981 issue of Concourse. That issue of Concourse turned out to be even more controversial and consequential than the NUS delegation I reported upon within it. But the February 1981 “Concourse-gate” debacle is a story for my next Ogblog piece.

Mix Tape Recorded Just After My First Term At Keele, c28 December 1980

Top of the bill – Elvis Costello. Braunov, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

I recently published the playlist (mix tape) of contemporary popular music I recorded just before I set off for Keele:

Mix Tape Of Popular Music Around The Time I Started Keele, circa 1 October 1980

Now (around its 40th anniversary) I am publishing the mix tape I made over the Christmas holidays to take back to Keele with me after my first term.

There were some gems but also some dogs on my pre-Keele list. Let’s see what one term at Keele had done to my charts-scraping mix-tape-making taste. It is mostly stuff I was hearing a lot during that Autumn 1980 term at Keele, plus one or two late in the year releases. Here is the list and below a link to each track.

  • Clubland, Elvis Costello
  • Hungry Heart, Bruce Springsteen
  • If You’re Looking For a Way Out, Odyssey
  • Same Old Scene, Roxy Music
  • Enola Gay, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
  • I’m Coming Out, Diana Ross
  • Just Like Starting Over, John Lennon
  • Banana Republic, Boomtown Rats
  • Embarrassment, Madness
  • To Cut a Long Story Short, Spandau Ballet
  • Do You Feel My Love, Eddie Grant
  • The Tide is High, Blondie
  • December Will Be Magic Again, Kate Bush
  • Do Nothing, The Specials
  • Too Nice To Talk To, The Beat
  • Runaway Boys, The Stray Cats
  • Ant Music, Adam and the Ants
  • De Do Do Do De Da Da Da, The Police
  • Stop the Cavalry, Jona Lewie

I think this December 1980 playlist/mix tape is a higher quality list than the October one – fewer out and out embarrassments anyway. Except for Embarrassment, obviously, which is itself not an embarrassment in my view. Simon Jacobs will certainly approve the first one on the list.

Back in 1980 I would not have been seeing the videos. I doubt if I even got to see Top Of The Pops by that time. So I must say I am quite surprised by some of the garments – especially in the jumper and tank top department – in the above vids. I especially commend to you Andy McCluskey’s tank top in Enola Gay, Terry Hall’s jumper (indeed all of The Special’s jumpers) in Do Nothing and of course Tony Hadley’s bizarre upper garment – a tunic of sorts – in To Cut A Long Story Short. If only I’d had dress sense back then.

The Last Week Of My First Term At Keele, 13 December 1980

Is this piece Jon Gorvett‘s first ever piece of published journalism?

I have already written up bits of that last week; in particular the bizarre coincidence of The Bootleg Beatles at Lindsay Ball just hours before the real John Lennon was murdered.

The Day The Bootleg Beatles Came To Keele’s Lindsay Ball & John Lennon Died, 8 December 1980

As a postscript to that piece, Jon Gorvett, in a feat of extraordinary memory, writes:

I do remember the Bootleg Beatles gig, too, which, like the assassination, happened on my birthday (59 today – what the flying fuck, indeed?). For some reason, I too have no other recollection other than that it happened, though – the ball, that is – so perhaps I too was at Karen’s extraordinary party. I do have a vague recollection of her – curly hair, went out with some kind of biker type and was mates with David Perrins? *

Jon’s note reminded me that I had uncovered his epic expose about a new block being built from the December 1980 issue of Concourse, which I have used above as the headline image for this piece.

In truth, we cub reporters for Concourse were nearly all given stories of that magnitude to write as our initial pieces, apart from David Perrins who had somehow blagged his way into being the Arts Correspondent from the very start of his fresher year, as I reported in an earlier piece.

Most of us, other than David and Jon, had to wait until our second term to get our juvenilia published, but I did get a mention for hard work in that December issue:

That hard work can only have been typing and was not hard enough to find its way into my diary, so I expect it was just a few hours over a couple of evenings with pint in hand.

I hope I didn’t type Jon’s above piece, as the typing is awful and even Jon’s name is spelt wrongly. I think I was better than that, having had plenty of experience “editing” lesser journals for which “doing the typing” and “editing” tended to be one and the same thing.

Tuesday 9 December 1980 (after the partyette vignette)… Tired today. Got Phil result [this will be my Descartes essay]. Lindsay Xmas dinner OK. Earlyish night.

Wednesday 10 December 1980 – Not bad day. Prepared for ball. Went to ball. V Good indeed, went…

Thursday 11 December 1980 – …on so late went straight to 9:00 lecture!!! Went to bed about 8:00 exhausted.

Friday 12 December 1980 – last full day (OK). Went to Party in eve v good.

Saturday 13 December 1980 – Left Keele return home tired. Relaxed for rest of day.

If we ever did perform our Princess Margaret street theatre skit we did it on the afternoon of the ball, but given the lack of mention I wonder whether we shelved the idea in the end.

Street Theatre, Princess Margaret and The Ball Debacle, Keele, 10 December 1980

Simon Jacobs’s impersonation of Princess Margaret was a sight to behold. I think he might have reprised the role occasionally in Ringroad subsequently.

Anyway, I have promised Dave Lee that I wouldn’t review the ball itself, as he is writing a book about Keele and the music scene in that era – click here for more information on that book – and I certainly don’t want to steal his thunder in these pieces. Suffice it to say that we saw Bow Wow Wow supporting Q-Tips. Those bands looked a lot like this in those days:

“Who was the poor, unfortunate lecturer condemned to teach the 9:00 lecture the morning after the Xmas Ball?”, I hear you all cry.

Well, as it happens, I had retained and have now retrieved my 1980-81 Foundation Year Programme, so I can exclusively reveal that it was Mr Smyth of the Economics Department talking about The Wealth Of Nations.

That week I started marking up my FY lecture list, so I can also exclusively reveal that I missed the 9:00 lectures on the Tuesday (after the Lindsay Ball) and the Wednesday (for no good reason) and apologise unequivocally to Keith Tribe and the late, great Les Fishman. I learnt from my mistake in the matter of missing Les’s lectures (which I found fabulous, as I discovered when I did show up at 11:00 on that Wednesday), so I did make it to Professor Fishman’s Marxian economics stuff on the Friday.

At least a bit of that economics stuff over the four years must have gone in.

https://www.zyen.com/publications/books/price-fish/

…but I digress.

I have no idea whose party I went to on Friday 12 December but according to my diary it was “v good” and who am I to disagree with my own judgment on that?

Thanks for your hospitality, whoever you are. But let’s be honest, there probably wasn’t much hospitality involved – we probably all needed to bring our own booze. But that was OK.

Anyway, the first term was over. The diary is silent on how I felt, but I think I had probably already fallen in love with the place. Keele got lots of us like that.

*Postscript: an update to the above postscript on The Bootleg Beatles piece, supplied by globetrotting journalist Jon Gorvett, whose short-range memory is still absolutely fine. Whereas his long-range memory…

I’ve just realised that I have no idea who Karen was/is, and I have completely confused her in my addled way with Debbie, who was going out with the aforesaid biker and was a friend of DP’s. At least, I think that’s right…No,  I’m pretty sure about that, because after reading your piece, I recalled how, at a much later date, I had had an unfortunate run in with said biker and his mates after they reckoned I was getting far too entangled with said Debbie at one of those Saturday night discos at the Onion. They were quite right, in retrospect, but in any case, it was Debbie I was recalling, I fear, not the mysterious Karen. 

Jon Gorvett

It’s all in danger of getting very messy when I start writing up my 1981 diary, by the sound of it.

Street Theatre, Princess Margaret and The Ball Debacle, Keele, 10 December 1980

In our first term at Keele, Simon Jacobs and I signed up for a drama workshop thing, run by Brian Rawlins. Brian helped make drama great fun and gave us a great deal of freedom to do what we wanted to do in this extra-curricular group.

I’m not entirely sure who else was part of the group, other than Jonathan (Jon) Rees whose name helpfully appears in my diary and on the single relic I have from the experience.

That first term of ours also coincided with a big debacle over Princess Margaret’s invitation (or lack of invitation) to the students’ union ball. We decided to parody that debacle with a piece of street theatre as our contribution to the debate and as the culmination of our term’s drama work-shopping spree.

My memory of the whole thing is fairly hazy, but the diary and relic provide some help. Here are the relevant extracts from the diary:

11 November – decided to write play

13 November – met Simon and Jonathan in evening to write play

18 November – drama rehearsal good fun

25 November – rehearsed skit in evening – good fun

2 December – easyish evening – drama rehearsal

…and there the references cease. I know the intention was to perform the skit in front of the union on the day of the ball, but my diary is entirely silent on the matter so I wonder whether our skit was scuppered at the last minute. Simon might remember and I am due to see him very soon indeed at the time of writing (April 2016) and so shall update if his memory adds anything to the pile.

Meanwhile it seems from the relic that it was Jon who preserved a copy of (most of) the script and ensured that I had a copy in my memory box. The hand-written skit itself looks like Simon’s writing if my memory serves.

It reads as juvenilia, which is what it is – heck we were all just 18 at the time – but looking back I think we were quite plucky in our first term tackling this particular political debacle head on in this way.

Intriguing also, for me, how it foreshadows some of my subsequent students’ union activity, including my press battle with Nigel Dempster over Princess Margaret.

Anyway, here’s the script. You can drill into the pages to make them bigger/legible size. Unlike my handwriting, this stuff is actually legible. I should add that the character Katy is Katy Turner, the President of the student’s union that year, Mike is Mike Stevens, the Union Secretary that year.

Street Theatre Script Page OneStreet Theatre Script Page Two

Street Theatre Script Page Three Street Theatre Script Page Four Street Theatre Script Envelope Front Street Theatre Script Envelope Back

The Day The Bootleg Beatles Came To Keele’s Lindsay Ball & John Lennon Died, 8 December 1980

My first term at Keele.

My first Hall Ball; Lindsay Christmas Ball.

The main act; The Bootleg Beatles.

Writing this up forty years after the event, I learn from Wikipedia that The Bootleg Beatles were relatively new in 1980 and/but are still going more than forty years since they started in some Beatle-oriented show.

Anyway, I clearly had a good evening. The diary reads:

Lindsay Ball in eve, brilliant. Went on from there to Karen’s for partyette // v good.

I really must apologise to Karen who I’m sure was and probably still is a lovely lass, but I really don’t remember you, nor do I remember what a “partyette” might have been. I’m guessing it was a small group of people in one student room continuing to enjoy the entertaining night. The // symbol in my diary tells me that cannabis was involved and my inability to remember anything much that occurred after seeing The Bootleg Beatles might be attributed to that.

Anway, a belated thank you to Karen for her hospitality after the Ball.

I was hungover the next morning and I recall staggering off to the campus store to buy some milk in an attempt to breakfast my way out of my stupor.

Before I had left the confines of Lindsay, I ran into Katie, a super girl I knew reasonably well, whose surname has now escaped me, but I do recall that she was from Leicester. Katie told me that John Lennon had been shot dead overnight.

I so clearly remember staggering on towards the campus store wondering whether I was sleepwalking or even still in bed having a nightmare based on the show I had seen the night before. It just didn’t seem possible that John Lennon was dead.

While we were watching The Bootleg Beatles, the soon-to-be killer, Mark Chapman, cadged an autograph from John Lennon in front of The Dakota Building. A few hours later, probably while I was still at “Karen’s partyette” (the early hours of 9 December GMT), Chapman returned to The Dakota and shot John Lennon dead.

Below is from the front page of The Guardian 10 December; the news broke too late for 9 December by the looks of it.

John Lennon shotJohn Lennon shot Wed, Dec 10, 1980 – 1 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

The incident was a global phenomenon and it certainly was the talk of the Keele campus for the rest of that term…i.e. the next few days. I wonder how other people who were at Keele then remember that strange coincidence?

Keele Fresher Memories 40 Years On: Cogito Ergo Mum…Cogito Ergo Son…The Fresher Writes & Travels, 25 November To 7 December 1980

A drunken fart? René Descartes.

There was only one “drunken fart” involved when I waded through my FY Philosophy topic on Descartes…and it wasn’t René Descartes. Memorable for me only because it was my very first Keele essay and I do recall finding the topic tough.

With thanks to Susan Bermingham who uploaded this slice of the Descartes FY lecture onto the Keele Alumni Facebook Group & granted me permission to use it here. Sadly neither of us can remember the name of the geezer who taught this lecture & topic.

The diary hints at me finding Descartes tough:

There weren’t a lot of tough days in FY, but Descartes was doing my head in a bit

So, I went home for the first time since upping to Keele. That essay was my main concern, as would have been a BBYO National Exec meeting that didn’t happen, by the looks of it. I did speak with Paul Dewinter ( P De W) though. I doubt if we discussed Seagulls or Eagles on this occasion.

A Most Mysterious Evening In Or At Crystal Palace With Paul DeWinter, 12 August 1980

I have a vague memory of trying out Cartesian philosophy on my parents, eliciting bafflement, followed by an encouraging, “whatever you say, dear”, from my mum, which means I must have explained it all very well.

Everything is self-evident, sonny-boy

So deep was I in philosophy that weekend, I even failed to write up Sunday, which must surely have comprised finishing the essay, having lunch with my folks & travelling back to Keele…not necessarily in that sequence.

I remember telling dad that I had several essays to write in the next couple of weeks, which would limit my ability to go out drinking with my friends, so he gave me a little glass hip flask (quarter bottle size I think, or perhaps 5oz) full of whisky, which he said would sustain me on such evenings and could be refilled whenever I came home to visit. On reflection forty years later, dad’s kind idea not entirely devoid of enlightened self-interest.

Flacon de chasse 08981

I drink therefore I am…it wasn’t quite as posh as this example.

I think the hip flask had its first big dip on the Wednesday, when I finished my Law essay for Michael Whincup. I can’t remember for the life of me what the topic was about; a very general introduction to law, I think.

I’m pretty sure that I had near made my mind up by the time I completed that Law topic that I fancied switching to Law for half of my degree – my heart was already set on Economics for the other half. Philosophy (with all that Descartes) and Politics sessional (mostly Psephology with Mr Kimber that term) didn’t grab me sufficiently.

On the Friday evening, 5 December 1980, I:

Went to Union – Sim’s mates from Donny there

Ah yes, my next door neighbour Sim (Simon Ascough) and his home town mates from Doncaster. Sim was a great bloke and I very much enjoyed being his neighbour in F Block Lindsay for about four terms in the end. In those early days, I especially remember listening to his Neil Young Triple Album, Decade:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Decade-VINYL-Neil-Young/dp/B071DXVKJC/ref=tmm_vnl_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

But I recall Sim’s friends from Donny being into a harder-boiled variety of rock than that; Iron Maiden, Rainbow and the like if I am not mistaken. I also recall them finding Keele quite baffling; they were pretty disparaging about the place and the whole idea of Sim being at University. I think I added to their sense of bafflement because I was Jewish; a state of being which, I guess, had barely entered their consciousnesses before and certainly never previously manifested to them in human form. I don’t think they were bad lads, but when Sim dropped out of Keele a year or so later, it felt to me like a real shame and I did wonder whether Sim had anyone “back home” encouraging him to persevere with university.

The next day, on the Saturday, Simon Jacobs and I went off to Leeds for a BBYO thingie. I apologise unequivocally to the people of Leeds who might have read the phrase:

Simon and I went to Leeds (yuck)…

..imagining that I had something against Leeds. In fact, I was fond of Leeds back then (still am to some extent) and I suspect the word “yuck” was a word play on the fact that we were going, in part, to a YCC meeting as representatives of BBYO. Simon had, in fact, resigned as National Vice-President over the summer, but I think might have still retained some involvement in whatever the YCC is/was – frankly I’m struggling to find anyone who can remember.

It’s a bit like SLAC Convenors at Keele – people vaguely remember the existence of the post but no-one seems able to recall what SLAC was…

John White in 1985 checking out the bona fides of SLAC Convenor Cath Coughlin – with grateful thanks to Mark Ellicott for this picture.

…but I digress.

Returning to December 1980, in my diary, in the matter of that Leeds trip, I went on to say:

…stayed at nice house (early night)

Sunday 7 December – coffee morning -> lunch -> YCC (🗸 & X) -> Inst[allation]. Simon & I left early

No idea what the 🗸 & X represented. Presumably something went right (from my point of view) and something else didn’t. The YCC was probably like that…whatever it was.

What I didn’t say in the diary, but popped straight into my main memory when I read this diary note, was the hellish journey Simon and I endured between Keele and Leeds. No wonder we left early.

As I recall it, we took the bus to Stoke, took a train to Stockport, where we changed to a train to Staleybridge, where we changed again to take a train to Leeds.

Stalybridge railway station (6)

Staleybridge station looks in better nick now.

Then we did the whole trip in reverse, with the added excitement of a 1980 Sunday service to contend with. On returning to Keele after that epic journey, Simon and I agreed that we wouldn’t be attempting that voyage again by public transport in a hurry. I still haven’t attempted a rerun and strongly suspect that Simon Jacobs also can only boast that single expedition from Keele to Leeds and back, without oxygen.

Keele Fresher Memories Forty Years On: Meet The Lindsay F Block Gang, Mid-October To Late November 1980

It’s been tarted up since our day, I can tell you. Picture “liberated” from the Keele website page about Lindsay Hall, which you can find here.

My diary for late November 1980 is pretty useless. It’s pretty clear that I wrote it up a week or two into December, while still hazy from the hazy stuff I’d been doing for much of the second half of that term.

So it’s time, surely, for me to write impressionistically. For me to write about bits I actually remember. To accept that there must be aspects that are lost in the mists of time…

…and also for me to introduce some of the characters I got to know in those early months.

Location, Location, Location: Lindsay F1

On arrival at Keele, I was deposited by the authorities in F Block Lindsay. I am grateful that a drew that straw. F Block Lindsay was a good place for freshers. Lindsay Hall is lauded by the University as

[S]ituated at the south of campus and overlooking the adjacent farmland, Lindsay hall is just a five minute walk from Union Square.

F Block was blessed with stunning views of the adjacent farmland…

…as long as you had one of the rooms that faced that way. Unfortunately, F1, despite sounding like a Grand Prix of a room, was a rather odd-shaped affair at the side of the block with nothing that might be described as a view…or even might be described as natural light.

OK, the view from F1 wasn’t that bad, but you get my drift

It was my good fortune, though, that I only had to endure F1 for two terms. When I returned from the Easter break, I learnt that one of the lads in one of those “prime view” rooms had moved on, so I managed to negotiate a move into a super room with a view across the fields, F4, for the summer term. We were blessed with good weather and time on our hands that summer term; I took full advantage of my improved location during those months.

F Block itself is now long gone, presumably replaced by new buildings with better facilities and with rooms that still (mostly) have stunning views of the adjacent farmland.

Meet The Gang, ‘Cos The Boys Are Here

On arrival, we were boys in F Block. I suppose some were already 19, but I was just turned 18. I even recall one 17-year-old Scottish fella, not on our corridor but nearby, whose parents had thoughtlessly named Matt (with the surname Black). Matt was so young he wasn’t even allowed to come drinking with us for most of the first year.

Anyway, I’ll try to recall the gang from my ground floor corridor on F Block:

  • Simon Ascough, known as Sim. He was my next door neighbour in F2. I met him right at the very start of my Keele time. Sim will crop up in several episodes of the story;
  • the chap who moved on was, I think, named Martin, although in truth I don’t much remember him. He didn’t join in much of the joviality and the only tangible thing I remember about him was buying a couple of The Jam cassettes from him for not very much money;
https://www.amazon.co.uk/All-Mod-Cons-Jam/dp/B000006TZ8
  • then there was Brummy Paul, who in the early days lived in the F4 room I inherited in the summer term. But I have a feeling that Paul stayed around, perhaps switching to the room that the departing fellow had occupied. I remember Paul complimenting my accent (without sarcasm) as “BBC”. I also recall that he loved The Stranglers;
  • further down the corridor was Malcolm Cornelius, who I think might have been the first person I met on that corridor when I first moved in. We became good friends and he’ll crop up quite a lot over the years I spent at Keele. In those early days, I recall that he had brought a record player and records with him, several of which were of the Peter Paul & Mary, Pete Seeger & Bob Dylan folk variety. I also recall Malcolm sporting something that resembled a Paul Stookey beard, which was quite impressive facial growth at our age; I wouldn’t even attempt wispy stuff back then.
Paul Stookey (left), with Peter & Mary

  • at the far end of the corridor, lived Benedict (Ben) Coldstream. I got to know Ben better later in that first year and the first part of my second year. He will crop up in later episodes, as will his next door neighbour, with whom Ben seemed inseparable in the early days…
  • …Richard Van Baaren, who got in touch about 18 months ago (May 2019, as I write in November 2020) after I wrote up the story of my Patrick Moore interview (which also mentions Sim as it happens). As with several of the others, tales of Richard’s derring do will crop up in later episodes.
My Keele Interview With Patrick Moore, Conducted In My Little Study Bedroom (Lindsay F4), circa 28 May 1981

I jest about Richard chasing girls in that Patrick Moore piece, but I do recall Richard (and to some extent Ben) getting started in the matter of chasing girls quite early in our time at Keele. I also recall Malcolm “settling down” with a nice girl named Ruth. When I say “settling down”, we’re talking weeks, or a few months/terms, not years. But most of us on that corridor were “just hanging” in those early months, with perhaps the odd youthful dalliance to add some intrigue or frissant to our student lives.

Apologies to those from our F Block ground floor corridor whose details I have mislaid in my mind. I think there must have been one or two other people on our corridor. I hope that some people reading this will chime in with their own memories.

I do remember a softly-spoken Welsh fellow named Mark Evans, who supported Swansea City FC, but have a feeling he might have lived on the corridor above us. That corridor was dominated by “Mad Harry”, an extraordinary fellow about whom I shall write separately. We heard more than we saw, in the matters of Harry.

“Don’t Bring Harry…”

A Crossroads Twixt BBYO & Keele University, 17 to 24 November 1980

Reading my diary references to Caroline’s visit to Keele in late November 1980 gave me a memory flash of an event earlier that term.

Caroline Freeman (now Curtis) was a good friend, through BBYO, of mine and of Simon Jacobs . Caroline chose not to go to university, although from memory she had as many UCCA points from her A levels as Simon & I had put together from ours.

I had long been the beneficiary of Caroline’s mum’s cooking on the many occasions I found myself in North-West London doing BBYO stuff in the year or so before heading up to Keele.

“That poor boy needs a good meal” – c1979

Anyway, I think Caroline must have got it into her head that Simon and I might struggle to feed ourselves properly at the weekends. Keele provided refectory meals to freshers Monday to Friday but at the weekends we had to look after ourselves.

Frankly, I don’t think the self-catering element of student life was a challenging aspect for either me or Simon…

…nor was I in want of food; I was just burning calories at a furious rate back then…

…but early in our time at Keele, Simon and I both received, through the post, from Caroline, an emergency food parcel styled in the mode of a Red Cross jobbie as depicted above. I don’t recall exactly what was inside the parcels, but I suspect it was more like “boarding school kid tuck” than “genuine emergency rations”. Simon and I were both amused, I certainly remember that.

Hawk-eyed readers (especially those with cipher-cracking skills) might have spotted the 17 November entry: “Jay was supposed to come – “did he heck”. Goodness only knows what that visit from Jay Marks was supposed to be for and why it went awry, but it will have been part of a BBYO National Executive unravelling towards the end of our year which makes the last 74 days of the Trump presidency…

…well, on reflection, it was bizarre (but in the grander scheme of things trivial) stuff around resignations, unresignations, with some of us trying to keep the show on the road with sufficient dignity to hand over to a new committee over the new year holiday. So nothing at all like the last 74 days of the Trump presidency.

Meanwhile my diary keeping was temporally awry that November – hawk-eyed cipher-crackers might also spot the reference to a Teardrop Explodes concert in the 19 November entry. That concert actually took place on 5 November; yes, really I am sure.

The Teardrop Explodes supported by The Thompson Twins, Keele Students’ Union Ballroom, 5 November 1980

Anyway, Caroline’s first visit to Keele is quite well documented in the diary:

Friday 21 November 1980 – Not bad day. Met Caroline at Stoke. Went to Lindsay, Union & coffee lounge.

Saturday 22 November 1980 – Simon & Roy popped in early hours. Got up q late. Found Simon., lunch there…

So far so sensible. Simon had met Roy and started going out with him almost as soon as we arrived at Keele. I’m pretty sure Caroline stayed in my pokey room, which was tolerably fine back then and would be unthinkable now considering the size of those student beds and bedrooms. “Lunch there” I guess was in Simon’s block in Barnes (D if I remember correctly), where the facilities for weekend self-catering were marginally better than those in my Lindsay block (F I recall most certainly).

I have used sophisticated computer-aided techniques to decipher the next bit and am pretty sure it must say:

…romped in lakes. Simon left. Spiff dinner (over top) -> over to Roys.

The Lakes at Keele is a rather charming wild garden beyond the ornamental gardens of Keele Hall. Originally planned to be a network of seven substantial artificial lakes, money and/or motivation must have run out for the Sneyd family in the early 19th century as the more far-flung lakes are more like puddles and only two or three have any scale to them. Still, they are pleasant enough to walk around and I dread to think what romping entailed on that occasion. Whether “Simon left” in disgust or simply to go over to Roy’s place is lost in the mists of time. Almost certainly the latter.

No idea what the sentence “Spiff dinner (over top) -> over to Roys” actually means. I sense an in-joke long since forgotten.

Sunday 23 November 1980 – Lounged around all day. Roy, C & I met Simon, went out for dinner. V nice.

Monday 24 November 1980 – Not bad day. Caroline left at 3:00 pm. Relaxing evening.

It would have been helpful if I had noted where we went out for dinner. There were a couple of passable restaurants in Newcastle-Under-Lyme and I suspect it was one of those. The Sneyd Arms didn’t qualify as going out for dinner. Nor did the Union and nor did The Golf. So Newcastle it almost certainly must have been.

Caroline will surely remember every detail and help fill in all the blanks. After all, she was the one with more UCCA points than me and Simon put together.

Mind you, she was almost silent about my write up of her visit the following term, which for reasons of happenstance I wrote up before this one:

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

A Typical Keele Weekend For A Bunch Of Freshers, 15 & 16 November 1980

With grateful thanks to Martin Ladbrooke & Steph for the above photograph of Ashley Fletcher

I suspect that I met Ashley Fletcher for the first time this weekend.

My earlier pieces about starting at Keele should leave readers in no doubt that Simon Jacobs was totally to blame for my presence at Keele…

Getting In To & Starting At Keele University, 8 October 1980

…and a fair smattering of my activities during my early weeks at Keele…

In The Absence Of Glittering Prizes…Stardust Memories, Keele Freshers Week, 12 To 18 October 1980

It seems this weekend was no exception. Unfortunately, my diary keeping was poor that term and got poorer as the term went on. The mid November scribblings were, by the looks of them, written several weeks later while inebriated.

Still, I can just about make out the following:

Saturday 15 November 1980. Easy day. Got up late. Went over to Simon’s for shopping, lunch etc. Went to town for supper – ??

…and then it reads, sprawling over the Saturday and Sunday entry

Heather’s party v late // & drank etc.

I am pretty sure that this particular Heather was “Miriam & Heather” Heather, who lived, if I remember correctly, in The Hawthorns. Not the Heather who lived (or at least dined) in Lindsay, whom Simon nicknamed “The Heathertron Bomb” on account of her unfeasibly high-decibel-registering laugh.

The double-slash marking in my diary I believe was to indicate that I partook of some cannabis, which would probably have been in the resin form illustrated above.

This was not my first experience of smoking cannabis; I was weened in Mauritius in the summer of 1979:

Gris-Gris, A Wedding Feast And More, Mauritius, 21 July 1979

It probably wasn’t even my first toke at Keele, but I think it is the first time I used that symbol, probably suggesting that the rest of the evening/night was somewhat of a haze for me.

This photo of Simon Jacobs, from 1979, was tobacco only I am sure

But not a total and utter haze, so I am fairly sure that I met Ashley at that party and he might be able to confirm or deny the matter.

Simon Jacobs had thrown himself into Keele’s gay scene as soon as we arrived at Keele. I think Simon might have started going out with Roy 25 minutes after arriving at Keele; that was the rumour anyway…a rumour proliferated mostly by Simon, I suspect. Anyway, the gay crowd was a welcoming bunch, supremely tolerant towards my unfortunate lack of gayness. I made a great many good & enduring friends, such as Ashley, while enjoying “honorary membership” of the clan throughout my years at Keele.

With thanks again to Martin Ladbrooke & Steph for this quintessentially 1980s photo of Ashley

“So what did we discuss late into the night at Heather’s party in the early hours of 15 to 16 November 1980?”, I hear you ask. Well, if anyone pretends to remember that level of detail, they are probably making it up as they go along.

I do however recall, from those early days, one particularly shocking party trick of Ashley’s. So shocking that I suspect he didn’t pull the trick on this first occasion, but he did so soon after.

Ashley pretended that he knew Hitler speeches by heart and would rant at length, in mock German, sounding just like a Hitler speech. Eventually, someone’s limited knowledge of German brought the blessed revelation that Ashley’s rant was a mock speech and not, as advertised, a vile feat of memory.

Get Ashley inebriated enough today and it’s just possible that he could still pull off the trick. Of course trigger warnings and safe spaces hadn’t been invented back then. The trick might not be appreciated in quite the same way today.

Anyway, despite all that, 40 years on, Ashley and I remain in touch and it wasn’t that long ago that we last met up…

A Get together With Ashley Fletcher In Finsbury Park, 10 April 2019

…while Simon Jacobs was the most recent person (ahead of Lockdown 2.0) that Janie and I have seen in person:

A Prescient Visit To Simon Jacobs’s Place, 10 October 2020

Enduring friendships indeed.