Gosh that was quite a fortnight at the end of my second term at Keele. But by the end of it, I was back at my parents house writing grumpy notes in my diary:
I love my aftermath diary notes from that Ball, on 12 March:
Simon’s for coffee, Neil came back afterwards -> brekky, ballot box, FY Committee slept.
Simon would be Simon Jacobs. Neil I’m pretty sure must have been Neil Infield and I guess we all wandered over to Lindsay refectory for breakfast.
Ballot box that day I’m pretty sure must have been the election for Social Secretary that year. Eric Rose won that election, only to be bundled out of the job around the following Easter for financial impropriety and who at the time of writing (March 2021) is festering in a New York State prison for murdering his wife. Not cool. Not Keele at all.
I’d forgotten that I served on FY Committee that year. I served again as Education & Welfare Officer in 84/85.
I’m fairly sure the “slept” comment refers to subsequent behaviour and not the idea that I slept during the FY Committee…but there is an absence of punctuation in the diary note between the phrase “FY Committee” and the word “slept”. Subsequently, I did once fall asleep during a Senate meeting in 84/85 – understandable circumstances – which earned praise from several of the senior academics on that august body, not least Philip Boden who declared it to be the most succinct and incisive contribution to the meeting that day. A teaser until this “40 years on” series gets there, some time in 2025, all being well. But I digress.
Perhaps returning to the bosom of my family in March 1981 felt like a real anti-climax, or perhaps I was rather hungover by the time I returned to Streatham, but I describe a…
Rough evening
…on the Friday night of my return and…
not a good day
…on the Saturday, despite:
Taped. Went to Record & Tape Exchange…
…which was usually the stuff of very good days for me, not bad ones. Especially as I bought heaps of records on that occasion, which I shall write about in one or more music-oriented postings about “that vac”.
I liked Record & Tape Exchange shops so much in the 1980s I moved around the corner in 1988, where I can sometimes still be found!
No, I think I was probably arguing with my parents about politics and social affairs; them sensing that I was not quite the same boy who had gone off to Keele for the first time six months earlier and me sensing that my parents world and their attitudes were smaller-minded than I had previously supposed.
My relationship with my parents didn’t get too bad, but I suspect that hackles were raised a fair bit that time.
Further, I suspect that I was missing Keele already. The prospect of five weeks of office work in the West End of London to rebuild the coffers was nowhere near as enticing as the fortnight that had just passed at Keele.
Katie Turner, Rick Cowdery, Robert Plant, Frank Dillon & Carol Downs, with many thanks to Frank Dillon for the photograph (added June 2017) – also thanks to Steve A Jones for restoration work on the e-pic (October 2018)
In many ways this is a darned simple story.
Robert Plant secretly arranged to play a warm up gig with his new band, The Honeydrippers, at the UKSU Ball on 11 March 1981. The gig was in one of the smaller performance rooms, Room 14, despite the fact that Robert Plant was the former lead singer and lyricist of Led Zeppelin, among the biggest names in rock then and indeed ever.
I was at that ball. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time when one of Robert Plant’s roadies was getting some drinks in just before the start of the gig.
I politely let the roadie go ahead of me at the bar; he returned the favour by tipping me off to get upstairs to Room 14 before word spread. I remember partly doubting the roadie’s word, but he did have a roadie lanyard and he also surreptitiously showed me a Robert Plant badge, so I thought, “if this is a practical joke, it’s a clever one and I don’t mind falling for it”.
I am extremely lucky to have seen that gig; Room 14 is small, so I don’t suppose more than 100-150 of us saw the gig. Even that will have blown the fire limit; once word spread most people who tried simply couldn’t get through the door. Far more people claim to have seen the gig than actually saw it.
The gig became a big news story at the time.
With thanks to Steve A Jones for sending me this image…several times, increasing the quality each time. This version hopefully good enough quality for most/all Ogblog readers.
The intriguing, complicating factor is that, back in 2013, I stumbled across a reference to this gig on-line and discovered that on-line sources, of the “rock history” variety, were all quoting the wrong date for this gig. Some 10 March, some 9 March, none 11 March.
My diary was not always a totally reliable source of dates back then – heck, whole days could disappear at Keele and sometimes I would “back-write” a few weeks if I got behind.
But this was at a ball and balls normally happened on Wednesdays. In any case, there was enough going on in my diary that week to suggest that I was…on the ball at that time (pun intended).
I posted some corrective comments on-line which triggered contact from the relevant Led Zep archivists. They were appropriately helpful but sceptical at first. They wanted additional evidence, so I sought the help of John White (who for some reason I recalled was at that gig, although I didn’t know him all that well back then).
John sent me a redacted copy of his diary page – John specialised in existential angst in his diary back then apparently – but I must say this is one of the most heavily redacted diary pages I have ever seen:
Many thanks to John White for his efforts digging out this page and redacting…almost all of it. We do learn from that note that Dr Feelgood was the main act at that ball. We also learn that John, back then, preferred the cabaret to Feelgood and Plant.
Our diary trawling efforts, together with the redoubled efforts of those real archivists once they had some more leads to go on, got to the bottom of the matter. There was a private, secret gig in a pub in Stourbridge on 9 March, but the secret gig that blew the story open was indeed at Keele two days later, So the Robert Plant Secret Keele Gig is now “officially” confirmed to have happened when it did happen; 11 March 1981. Some on-line sources might not yet have caught up with this news.
Prior to our temporal triumph, I also tried to engage the help of Daniel Rushton, a Keele alum who had worked at Z/Yen for a while but had recently returned to alma mater. Dan drew a blank, but subsequently said:
extremely happy to hear that this has all been cleared up and that a slight weight has been removed from my weak shoulders. Now I can go back to imagining having been there!
One further intriguing matter from an Ogblog perspective. In my correspondence with the Led Zep archivists back in 2013 I wrote the following:
I might write this business up for the Keele Alumni mag – some of the stuff in my diary has reminded me of some ripping yarns from that end of term week, not least that RobertPlant gig. I envisage a sort-of pseudo blog/diary – what would I have written back then if blogs and Twitter had existed? If/when I do write it up, I’ll let you all know.
This small matter might have planted (pun intended) the thought seed for the entire Ogblog project. Reading that 2013 e-mail again has certainly tweaked my interest in that week of my 1981 diary…there must be quite a bit of other juicy stuff in there.
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the “Film Star Makes President” edition of Concourse, I have republished the whole paper in the form of high-quality scans in a Flickr album – click here or the embedded image at the bottom of this page.
Dave had generously given me a great deal of editorial control over the political pages, so the front page and the next two pages were very much mine, content-wise.
Presentation-wise, I think it was entirely down to Dave that we went for an audaciously eye-catching front page – big headline, big photo and election results table only. This was not the regular Concourse way but I think it did help us sell.
I was very proud of the headline; a nod to Ronald Reagan’s recent election and the fact that Mark Thomas headed up the Film Society.
I realise also on re-reading the paper that I interviewed almost all of the protagonists from that early part of the election season: Mark Thomas, Frank Dillon, Anna Summerskill, Ric Cowdery, Steve Townsley, Vince Beasley, Jon Rees…
…I already knew some of them reasonably well and got to know most of them a lot better as the next year or three went on.
Other highlights include:
Dave Lee editorially eating his own liver over the previous editors’ resignation scandal and the Katy Turner column faux pas, on Page 4 and then again at length on Page 13;
Jon Gorvett & David Perrins fret-piece about fire risk, following a Dublin disco fire, on Page 7;
Some Concourse memorabilia on Page 11, looking back 10 years (which now is 50 years), including a snippet about Neil Baldwin from 1971;
A couple of damning gig reviews on Page 17, including the Krokus one by Simon Jacobs which I have Ogblogged about here and the Rob Blow & Di Ball one from deadline night;
I rather like Phil Avery’s hockey team review on the back page, not least because I had to read the entire thing to the end to work out which sport he was reporting. If only his weather forecasts were so suspenseful.
If you want to browse/read the whole thing, simply click the link below and you will find all the pages in high quality digital form, easy to read/navigate on most devices and for sure downloadable.
I have already written about the star-crossed relationship between SU President Katy Turner & Concourse editors Paula & Hugh, which came to a head in early February 1981…
The upshot of all that was the resignation of Paula & Hugh, the interim appointment of Dave Lee to edit the March edition (hot on the heels of the ill-fated February one), the rapid appointment of Owen Gavin and Gerry Guinan to take over the editorship immediately after the March edition, to alternative applicant Dave Lee’s chagrin …
Dave Lee, trying not to look displeased
…you might well be thinking to yourself, “none of this commentary bodes well for the harmonious and timely production of that March issue”.
What Does the Diary Say?
Never wanting to be seen as a rat who leaves a sinking ship, I offered Dave Lee my whole-hearted support to produce that March issue and/but found myself as part of a core team of two on the production side. To his credit, Dave steeled himself to the time-sensitive task with great determination.
Many other contributors of course; Simon Jacobs, Gerard O’Kane, Julia Parkes, Moira Neish, David Perrins, Jon Gorvett, Diana Ball, Robert Blow, David Bakhurst, Dexter…
David Perrins indicating that someone was out?
…but not a great deal of company in the Concourse office itself. To be fair on the others, it was a ridiculous post-shenanigans deadline, towards the end of term. I could just about get away with it as a Foundation Year student, but for most that level of commitment at that time of year was impractical.
Saturday 28 February – got up very late – went into Newcastle – ate & Concoursed
Sunday 1 March – late start – Concourse office most of the day and evening
Monday 2 March – OK day – busy with Concourse in evening
Tuesday 3 March – Not bad day – in Concourse office in evening.
Wednesday 4 March – Tough day working on Concourse. Nine Below Zero Concert…
I wrote a lot of copy – I was the political editor and there had been a whole swathe of union elections during February to report. I also did one heck of a lot of typing of my own and other people’s articles. My spectacularly fast four-finger technique was without question the best typing skill on offer…well, probably it was all that was on offer.
Yes, I remember matters becoming increasingly fraught as the days went on. Financially, missing the print deadline would mean ruination.
The set pages needed to go to the printers on the designated day, otherwise the printers would charge for the print run regardless but there would be no paper to sell.
Steve “Spike” Humphrey, a lovely, gentle chap whom I got to know quite well in other walks of Keele life afterwards, was the business manager of Concourse. Spike took pains to remind me and Dave that the print deadline really was just that; an immoveable deadline.
I’m not sure if this is William Randolph Hearst or Spike Humphrey in later life.
On that evening of 4 March, I’m pretty sure Dave & I were already well aware, even as we took a break to see the Nine Below Zero concert, that to get the pages ready for the printers the next morning, we’d be working much of the night to get the job done.
The other point to make about that gig, the very night of our deadline, was that Dave had commissioned and was determined to use, a review of the gig from Di Ball and Rob Blow.
That deadline upon deadline resulted in a little whimper of a hidden plea from me to Dave Lee at the end of that (quite lengthy) piece, when the copy finally arrived and when I finally got it ready for setting:
I apologise unequivocally, forty years on, to Dave, Di and Rob, none of whom were ever guilty of producing rotten articles. I must have been tired and emotional in the early hours of the morning, so, unforgivably, I mis-spoke.
I think Di & Rob kept us company for some time late that evening, as they completed their copy while Dave & I busied ourselves typing and setting other stuff.
But it was just me and Dave who remained once the porters (two from Ted, Walter & Wally no doubt) told us that they had to lock up and we agreed to being locked in.
With thanks to Mark Ellicott for this picture of Walter & Wally
Locked In…
In those days there were no CCTV cameras or anything like that. Yet I have somehow managed to uncover a couple of photos that seem to be pictures of me and Dave at work during that night.
I’d never done any page-setting before, so I think that’s a tentative me Yup, I’m fairly sure that’s Dave Lee putting the finishing touches on a page
I’ll guess that my 3:30 am plea in that article was accurate but also that it marked the near conclusion of our work. I think we had set everything else by then and simply needed to slot in the material from that night’s concert to be done. In fact, I suspect that my joke paragraph was in part a device to use up the space we had estimated for that article.
So I’ll guess that we were done around 4:00 or 4:30 am.
I’ll guess we expected the union to be opened up around 7:00 am.
I recall that we both had a little bit of silver in our pockets and chose to decompress after our labours using the amusements available.
We might have played table football…
…but I have a feeling that Dave was more a pinball person…
…or perhaps my extensive experience playing table football with Simon Jacobs most evenings put me in a different league for table football…
…or perhaps we quickly landed on the notion that table football is a game where you try to use up your goes as quickly as possible, whereas pinball is a game in which you rejoice in your opponents success – especially if it yields free balls and free games so you can continue to play.
I was an enthusiastic pinball player in those days. here is one of the games we might have played – for sure UKSU had this one at that time:
Once we had blown all the silver in our pockets, I think we both felt the onset of fatigue and so we decided to retire to the quiet room at the end of the union extension to grab forty winks before the sun would go up and the union would re-open.
…Then Nearly Knocked Out!
I think we both woke up to the same sound – that of shouting.
“All right you scallywags, where are you? I know you’re in here!”
Words to that effect.
We dozily wandered out of the quiet room, to see Pat Lyons, the building manager, hurtling along the extension passageway towards us.
It’s possibly a false memory, but I remember him wielding something a bit like the above implement.
My life flashed before my eyes. I imagined a Cluedo-like synopsis of our demise: “Mr Lyons, in the Union Extension, with the pipe wrench”.
Dave and I had but a few seconds to advocate for our very survival. Fortunately, as skilled communicators, used to summarising key facts into few words for journalistic purposes, we somehow managed to convince Pat Lyons during that short period of time that we had been deliberately locked in to produce Concourse.
Again my doubtlessly false memory has Pat upon us, about to wield a killer blow just a fraction of a second before our story rang true to him and he disarmed.
“You scared the bloody living daylights out of me,” said Pat
Words to that effect.
The feeling was entirely mutual.
Still, in the end no harm was done and in fact I think we produced a pretty darn good edition of Concourse, all things considered.
We put the paper to bed (unlike ourselves) in the early hours of 5 March and it returned from the printers for sale on Monday 9 March 1981.
In the spirit of this “forty years on” Ogblog journal, I intend to publish scans of those Concourse pages on 9 March 2021. Watch this space…
I didn’t write a lot of album reviews for Concourse, the Keele Students’ newspaper, but I did write this one, in March 1981. I think my neighbour in F Block Lindsay, Paul, had bought the album; I’m sure I didn’t buy it.
I ended up writing a great deal of that beleaguered March 1981 issue of Concourse, as I shall explain in another post, but clearly I had been commissioned to write this review before the hoo-ha that led to interim editing and all hands to the pump for the paper deadline.
Anyway, my hatchet job on The Stranglers sits next to an equally acerbic review of The Steve Gibbons Band by my good friend Simon Jacobs, without whom I, for sure, would not have ended up at Keele. But that’s another story.
In truth, I don’t think mushrooms were central to most of those parties
The diary & scribbles in my FY programme suggest that I wasn’t going to let lectures get in the way of my planned activities much that week, or indeed for the rest of the term. It seems I managed three FY lectures in the last three weeks of that term.
Well, it was cold and icy.
Also, I had worked out by then that you could get pretty much everything you needed from the FY lecture notes. Keen scouts who liked attending FY lectures would bring fistfuls back to F Block Lindsay for the rest of us to read. It looks as though that system broke down for the last week of term, but that’s another story.
I did attend a swathe of topic tutorials and write a couple of essays that week, though, so it wasn’t all parties and student journalism.
I think one of the essays was part of my law double topic, finishing off my law studies for that year but sealing my decision to study law along with economics for my degree. Thank you, Michael Whincup.
I remember doing a topic on Hormones & Reproduction with Dr Peter Chevins and I think I wrote my essay for that topic that week. There were 10 to 12 of us in that class; I think I was the only male (other than Dr Chevins).
I don’t think I was taking it all in. I blame my riotous teenage hormones.
I have a feeling I spent most of the class time ogling the girls and not enough of it getting my head around the relevant reproductive aspects of endocrinology. Still, I think some private study (unfortunately for me there was no practical experimental learning in pairs for that topic) meant that I managed to write a decent essay. Clearly I also learnt enough then and subsequently to get me started when I wrote a student guide book on sexual matters, Sexplanations, when I was Education & Welfare Office in 1984/85.
Tuesday 24 February 1981
Not bad day – wrote essay. In evening, went to see California Suite. Late night in Harry’s // etc.
Somewhat cheesy movie if I remember correctly – great cast though, with Jane Fonda, Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, Alan Alda, Michael Caine, Walter Matthau, Maggie Smith…
In late February, then, I guess we were still in the period twixt Harry’s small trouble and big trouble. My guess is that this party was a fairly impromptu affair centred around Harry’s room. The // symbol indicates that we imbibed some dope and that I didn’t even then remember much about the gathering. We probably talked a whole load of rubbish while convincing ourselves that we were putting the world to rights. Possibly we even did put the word to rights – in which case it is such a shame that none of us the next day remembered the answers we came up with that night. Oh well.
Wednesday 25 February 1981
Easyish day. Went to party in evening // at Miriam’s – pretty good.
Miriam will be Miriam Morgan, who, along with her partner Heather (Jones) was the doyen of the Keele Gay Society. I have written up an earlier party with that crowd the previous term, at which I first met Ashley Fletcher – click here or below:
Discussing those parties with Simon Jacobs in late 2020, Simon recalled that, at one of them, there were some magic mushrooms doing the rounds. He and I both very tentatively sampled the mushrooms, probably being too timorous to take enough of the mushrooms to get enough effect to impact on the senses beyond the drink and the (if the // symbol is anything to go by) dope available at the party.
I have a feeling that this party was part of Gay Lib week, as Simon wrote that week (and party) up in the March 1981 Concourse and I cannot imagine another Wednesday night being the party night to which he refers, given my documented events of the various Wednesdays that term:
Reading Simon’s article again after all this time (I probably typed it up for that Concourse – I typed up much of the darned thing), I am struck by how tiny and nascent the Gay Soc was at that time – a dozen or so people – perhaps including me and one or two other “supporters”. Within a year or so that tiny group of active students transformed that Society and well done them.
Ashley reminded me (in correspondence late 2020) that, at one point, I was designated the Gay Soc Mascot, by dint of my support for the group. I had a feeling that honour came later than this, but perhaps it was at this event that the honour was bestowed.
Thursday 26 February 1981
Not bad day. Concoursed in evening etc.
This is a bit of an anti-climax, don’t you think? I can only apologise to readers for interrupting this programme of parties with such an ordinary-sounding day. Note that “working on Concourse” has become a single-word verb; concoursed. Let us move swiftly on.
Friday 27 February 1981
Busy day academically. Anna’s party in the evening // pretty good.
Hostess with the most-ess
Anna Summerskill’s party was probably quite a low key (perhaps a dozen or so of us) but almost certainly a dope-ridden affair. I’m trying to remember where Anna lived that year; I think Harrowby House, but I could be wrong and someone out there might correct me.
I have written a fair bit about Anna already in the same “Winter Draws” piece as Mad Harry – click here or the links above. Mark Bartholomew – also written up in that earlier piece, would no doubt have been there. Probably (but not necessarily) Simon Jacobs and one or two others from that mini dining club in Lindsay refectory, which by sacred tradition included Anna’s ceremonial fellating of a banana at the end of almost every meal, before Anna would roller-skate off to her next engagement. It’s hard to believe she’s no longer with us (sadly she died of lung cancer in 2012), she was such a force of nature, was Anna.
Not quite sure what came together to make that a (rare) busy day academically, but I was probably trying to get work out of the way ahead of my anticipated marathon efforts towards the looming Concourse deadline over the next five days…
…and there’s a story to the meeting of that deadline, I could tell you. Indeed I shall tell you, in the next episode.
While trawling the diary for Concourse memories, I spotted a few entries that brought back memories of a visit by Caroline during our second term at Keele. When I say “our”, I mean me and Simon Jacobs.
Allow me to translate:
Friday 20 February: Not bad day – went to meet Caroline – went to see Too Many Chefs – Simon’s for coffee – not too late a night.
Saturday 21 February: Late start – went to Sneyd for lunch – lazy afternoon – went to “O” party in evening // late night snowballing and making…
Sunday 22 February: …pancakes. Late start. Simon’s for ploughman’s and booze. Romped in snow – lazy evening.
Caroline will have dossed out at mine on this visit – Simon was with a really nice chap named Roy at that time.
“Too Many Chefs” will have been this movie – actually named Who Is Killing All the Great Chefs Of Europe – at Film Club. Reading the synopsis, I remember this kitsch, eminently forgettable movie surprisingly clearly.
Sneyd for lunch, eh? How many times did I end up eating a meal there during my time at Keele. Often. It wasn’t at all bad, as I recall. Landlord Geoff O’Connor knew and liked his food…but not in a Too Many Chefs sort of way.
“O” party in the evening is not a reference to a 1950’s erotic novel. I think it was the block in Hawthorns where Miz and Heather lived…or perhaps the one in Barnes where Roy lived. Anyway, it will be the name of a block.
I really like the notion of late night snowballing and making…pancakes – spilling from Saturday night to Sunday morning. My guess is that I was trying to reflect the actual timings of those things. Such simple, youthful pleasures. Romped in snow was, I’m sure, similarly innocent fun.
I don’t mention Caroline’s departure, but she must have departed at some point – at least I’m pretty sure she isn’t still visiting Keele as I write. I hope I took her back to Stoke in much the same way as I went down to Stoke to meet her. I’ll guess that Caroline’s departure was between the romp in the snow and the lazy evening.
If anyone else (Caroline? Simon??) remembers this weekend, please do chime in with your memories.
I remember this particular evening surprisingly clearly. It has been brought back to mind in the spring of 2019 by correspondence with Dave Lee, with whom I and other friends worked on Concourse, the student newspaper.
My diary records the event:
18 February 1981: Easyish day – in evening went to Labour Club. Simon then forced me to see Krokus – yuk.
“…forced me to see” is not a phrase you’ll often see in my diary. But I do recall on this occasion that I did not want to see the Swiss hard rock (or should I say heavy metal) band Krokus, but Simon had agreed to review the concert for Concourse, so he had to go.
I remember Simon exerting some “more than gentle” emotional pressure, along the lines that he really didn’t want to attend this particular heavy rock gig on his own. Something about fear was mentioned, as if Simon attending along with an eighteen-year-old, eight stone weakling like me was going to make the evening any safer.
Of course, being a Keele Ballroom gig, there was no real danger of the gig being over-run by packs of Hells Angels intent on causing trouble for weedy students anyway, but I suppose we were newbies still and had not been to such a gig before, so didn’t really know what to expect.
Simon reviewed the gig in the famous “Film Star Makes President” March 1981 issue of Concourse, about which I shall write plenty in the fullness of time.
For now, please just enjoy Simon’s review, headlined “live or dead?”:
I think it is fair to say that Simon didn’t like the concert much.
I especially like the line that describes:
three overpowering guitarists with about as much style as an airbourne [sic] rhinoceros.
As it happens, I have subsequently been to visit rhinoceroses in person (in the jungles of Assam in 2005) and can confirm the resemblance:
The airborne one can just be seen in the distance through the undergrowth.
In any case, I think my single word diary entry review – “yuk” – says enough. Although possibly my take would have been insufficient detail for Dave Lee’s editorial needs at that time.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
