I got to know Peter Held on several of the University committees; he was a prominent member of the University Council. I remember being pleasantly surprised when he invited me and Kate to a Lichfield Festival concert towards the end of our term of office, that summer. I’ll write up that concert in the fullness of time; I’m pretty sure I have the programme.
I would have written quite promptly to Peter to thank him for his (i.e. Marling Industries’) hospitality. This letter is his thanks for my thanks, with the offer of a little bit of employment insurance tucked in there, which I remember pleasing me when I first saw the letter.
Not that I can really imagine a career in industrial textiles, looking back, but who knows where life might have been taking me back then?
On top of my Hackgrass reveal antics on our last morning in office, it seems we held some sort of bogus committee meeting later in the afternoon. More a symposium than a mere meeting, by the looks of it.
It looks as though I completed the minutes that December, ahead of our January 1986 appearance at the UGM I shouldn’t wonder, so I’ll publish the typed version at that date. The hand-written version that follows must have been part-written on the day and then concluded later.
Experts at handwriting analysis forensics might be able to work out exactly what went on. John White – I suggest you might choose not to apply for this role, if your attempt at the Hackgrass cypher is anything to go by.
Most of my fellow committee members didn’t know that I was Hackgrass. Indeed the only person on the committee who did know was Pete Wild, as the only people still at Keele who did know my identity were my remaining former Barnes L54 flatmates (hence Pete), Petra Wilson and Annalisa de Mercur.
For the last day of our office as sabbaticals, I wrote a final Hackgrass one-pager and revealed myself to the lovely Pat Borsky in the print room. (As Hackgrass, I mean; please retain some decorum and concentrate, dear reader). Pat agreed to print the one-pager as a publicity circular (pub. circ.) special and the rest is history.
The one-pager caused more than a bit of a stir that day in students’ union circles. I thought best to lie low in my office.
Soon enough, John White plonked himself in my office with pub. circ. and a copy of the February Concourse, saying that he wanted to break the code.
I said that I didn’t much care who Hackgrass was and that I wanted to finish off some work, as I was still very busy.
John laboured with the puzzle for some time in my office, concocting some highly convoluted theories such as:
a=1…z=26, reverse the number series and rework the letters
Once I got irritated enough, I suggested to John that whoever Hackgrass was, he or she probably wasn’t that sophisticated a cipher-wright, so John might be better off trying something really simple like the initial letters of the words in the sentence.
About 10 seconds later, I received an unrepeatable (indeed forgettable) stream of invective from John. I have forgiven him for the invective and I believe he has forgiven me for keeping my identity as Hackgrass a secret during our sabbatical year.
I have extracted a few good pages from the May 1985 edition of Concourse. By that time, my Education and Welfare sabbatical year was coming to an end, so the paper was interested in ushering in the new and ushering out the old. Hold the front page…
Superb picture of John White on the front page, the main (nay only) reason I have uploaded this page
There had been some sort of hoo-ha about the FY exams that Easter, so it seems that I got busy and Margaret Gordon (a lovely lass, I wonder what became of her?) interviewed me about it:
FY stands for Foundation Year, the late lamented “try a bit of everything” course, sadly no longer taught at Keele. Gresham College is perhaps the closest thing to it.
I like the next two pages – a double page spread on the new sabbaticals. Nice to still have pictures of faces I remember. Hayward Burt’s comments on my style raised a smile with me.
I don’t think the term “stress head” had been invented back then, not least because, if it had existed, I think that is exactly the term Hayward would have used to describe me.
I love this little article about John White, Kate Fricker and the Students’ Union cleaners. John looks like a rabbit startled by headlights in the picture. Little did he know that he would subsequently become seasoned for photo shoots, such as his gig as the poster boy for Food Retailer Monthly magazine (or whatever it was called, why can’t I remember?)
Top tank top, John.
Finally the following review of the UGM. These days, the (anonymous) author of this piece would surely not get away with the ethno-physiognomy remark made about me, especially in that context. Where was editor Krista Cowman’s red pen when I needed it? Surely the UGM and Concourse should have been safe space from such comments for people like me? Is it too late for me to seek redress?
Strangely, I have no recollection whatsoever of reading that comment before, although I must have read it, so it must have seemed like water of a duck’s par for the course back then.
The Keele Day Nursery, Spring 1985, reimagined with the help of DeepAI
There was a lot going on in the Students’ Union and University life in the first half of March that year. Add to that the fact that Petra got some sort of lurgy that landed her in the health centre and I was intermittently poorly too. My diary entries are not exactly upbeat but they are revealing.
Monday, 4 March 1985 – busy day – got some work done – FP [family planning] meeting in the afternoon. Constitutional committee in evening – Petra came over.
The family planning meeting was with Dr Anne Pedrazzini, who was a big cheese in the North Staffordshire family planning world at that time. This was the first of several research meetings that led to my magnum opus, Sexplanations. More on that publication once the ideas conceived in March gestated and came to term…the following term.
Tuesday, 5 March 1985 – union committee in morning – busy day. Did Bust Fund disco in evening – Petra came round after.
Wednesday, 6 March 1985 – meetings etc. all day. Had a relatively easy evening and early night for once.
Thursday, 7 March 1985 – busy day with meetings etc. all day – cooked Petra a meal in evening – nice, stayed.
Friday, 8 March 1985 – went to DHSS in morning. Busy day – social secretary election and big fuss in evening – went Kate’s briefly in evening – not feeling too good left early and slept well.
I think the DHSS meeting was also connected with research for the nascent idea that became Sexplanations. I don’t recall what the big fuss was over the Social Secretary election that Friday. I was a veteran of big fusses over elections by 1985, especially, it seems, on days when I wasn’t feeling well. The story linked here and below, from two years earlier, is my best story about such an evening:
The March 1985 Social Secretary shenanigans was probably a mere bagatelle compared with the golden era of election shenanigans.
Saturday, 9 March 1985 – shopped etc. today and worked all day in office. Went to Nigerian do for awhile – Petra came over later.
Those Nigerian community events were great fun. I’d got to know that community well the year before my sabbatical. There was a fair smattering of Cameroonian students who also “qualified” and tended to hang with that crowd, so “West African” might be a more accurate description of the events. The parties were lively; there was always music and dancing aplenty.
No doubt some seriously funky Fela Kuti music formed part of the scene. The following clip will give you an idea of the Fela Kuti vibe at that time:
Sunday, 10 March 1985 – Rose late. Busy day working today in office etc. Worked till late – stayed at Petra’s.
I was working hard and playing hard that year – no wonder I was poorly a fair bit of the time. I’m feeling a bit run down right now, just thinking about all that activity and typing about it.
Ronnie Frankenberg & The Day Nursery Crisis
Monday, 11 March 1985 – busy day with meetings all day – Petra in Health Centre – UGM in evening – didn’t go too well.
Tuesday, 12 March 1985 – busy all day – union committee and Reading folk up for the day. Day Nursery, hustings, RingRoad rehearsal in the evening. Also visited Petra in evening.
I don’t in truth remember the visit from the Reading folk, but I do very clearly remember the Day Nursery crisis.
As Education & Welfare Officer, I was, ex officio, a Trustee of the Keele Day Nursery, which was a small, non-profit organisation, existing solely to provide day nursery facilities for toddlers of staff and students alike. The Chair of the Day Nursery was Professor Ronnie Frankenberg, a wonderful fellow who had been the initiating energy behind Keele’s highly-regarded Sociology & Social Anthropology department. Here is a link to his Guardian obituary from 2016.
The day nursery crisis was caused by an outbreak of pregnancy among several of the handful of nursery nurses who operated the day nursery. I can’t remember how many staff we had (not many), but the team was sufficiently small that having two or three on maternity leave at the same time was going to generate a hugely problematic shortfall of staff. Even in those days, there were strict staff to toddler ratios and it was proving prohibitively expensive to cover multiple maternity leave periods with temporary, qualified staff.
I remember Ronnie making a genuinely interesting and hugely informative speech at the meeting – quite a long speech – explaining the sociological… or perhaps I should say anthropological… phenomena, making it surprisingly likely that a day nursery might be blighted with such “outbreaks” of pregnancy by several members of the team around the same time. Psychological factors, social factors, cultural factors and even biological factors all come into play, we learnt. It was like a mini Foundation Year lecture. I almost found myself making notes and thinking up a really good question for the Q&A at the end of the lecture.
But in reality, my mind was juggling the engrossing complexity behind the causes of our problem with the practical realities that the tiny trust’s coffers were emptying at an alarming and unstoppable rate.
As Ronnie’s extrapolation wound down, I interjected by saying, “this is all absolutely fascinating, Ronnie, but where are we going to find the money to cover the additional costs?” My comment raised a laugh and also refocussed the meeting. I can’t remember what fundraising ideas we came up with, but I suspect that they only partially solved the money problem. A begging bowl in Registrar David Cohen’s direction probably helped to make up the remainder of the shortfall.
That is my favourite (but not only) memory of Ronnie Frankenberg…which is, by the way, pronounced “Ron-knee Frank-en-berg”:
Joking apart, my memory of Ronnie Frankenberg is that he was not only a very impressive Professor in his field, but also an extremely likeable and decent man.
Wednesday 13 March 1985 – loads of meetings all day (including Senate). RingRoad rehearsal. Petra came over after.
Thursday, 14 March 1985 – busyish day – followed by rehearsal and performance of RingRoad – went well. Petra came over after.
Friday 15 March 1985 – horrid mood today – E&W election – v worried – Hayward [Burt] won – hooray – cooked Petra dinner and she stayed.
Me and Hayward
I have no idea why I was so worried about Hayward’s chances in the Education & Welfare election for 1985/86. Presumably there was a candidate competing with him who I thought might win and then undo a lot of the initiatives I had been working towards. While Hayward and I did not see eye to eye politically on all issues, I basically saw Hayward as “one of the good guys”, who would work hard and build on many of the things I was trying to achieve. Indeed I’m sure he did.
Saturday, 16 March 1985 – got up quite early cooked Petra lunch and took her to the station. Had a very early night.
Sunday, 17 March 1985 – Rose quite early – pottered around – cooked Kate lunch – had a lazy day. Had another early night.
Someone sneakily added some unrepeatable graffiti in my appointments diary about that Sunday lunch with Kate. The graffiti is in Petra’s handwriting. I don’t think I could have spotted it at the time – otherwise I’d doubtless have scratched it out – so I suspect that the outrageous mock-diary-entry has sat there, previously unread, for forty years. I must admit it made me smile out loud, all these years later. Private requests only for a copy of that note. Young people, honestly!
Monday, 18 March 1985 – went doctors etc in morning – rather an unproductive day. Ruth and Jackie [Wong] came over – had earlyish night.
Ruth and Jackie were both friends/neighbours of Petra. Lovely lasses, both. I wonder whether Petra is still in touch with either of them?
Tuesday, 19 March 1985 – union committee in morning. Last day of term – hassle over disciplinary hearing etc. Had some wine – earlyish night.
Wednesday, 20 March 1985 – Pady and I took a day off – shopped and cooked meal for Crawfy’s [Andy Crawford’s] birthday. All got drunk.
Me, Pady & Crawfy. As usual, thanks to mark Ellicott for the lovely picture.
Oh dear, that last line: “All got drunk.” Well, I suppose it was the end of term.
Don’t be put off if the link looks struck through – anyone can play the playlist. If you don’t have a YouTube Music subscription you’ll get occasional adverts, that’s all.
John and I have separately tried to remember our most regular and favoured tracks, then swapped notes…
…eventually a metaphorical puff of (totally legal) white smoke came out of a metaphorical chimney.
Your role, dear reader, is simply to enjoy the playlist. But please, if you wish, do chime in through comments with your own memories of bust fund discos, which I believe started several years before our sabbatical year and presumably went on for some years after.
For any readers who might be baffled by what a Bust Fund disco might have been – I explain the phenomenon in this piece – click here or below:
John White and I tended to focus mainly on ska, rocksteady, reggae and dub – as had oft been the wont of bust fund discos, plus a nod to sixties/psychedelic music, which “bust-fund-disco-istas” also tended to like.
Our DJ-ing style was to cluster types of sound and to favour segues that had some meaning…even if you needed a degree in musicology and/or expertise in music of those particular styles to get the gist of the segue choice!
For those who just want to look at the list rather than click and listen – the track listing is shown below.
While Students’ Union events, gigs and discos were my staple during my sabbatical year, I found myself increasingly listening to classical music on my rare evenings off in my micro-apartment in Horwood K Block.
The place was described as a resident tutor’s flat and I was very lucky to be allowed such space and comfort for my sabbatical year. In truth, the “flat” was two study bedrooms at the end of a corridor cobbled together with a small galley kitchen and a tiny en suite bathroom and toilet utilising the would-be corridor space and some of the would-be study bedrooms.
Still, I had a sitting room in which to eat, relax with friends and (surprisingly frequently) to act as a dossing floor at night for people who lacked the energy or ability to stagger home. John White, who lived off campus, was quite often such a guest.
Returning to the classical music, my tiny personal collection of classical recordings had not moved on since the early to mid 1970s. I have pretty much documented it all in one Ogblog posting – click here or below.
I had no record player at Keele; hence the couple of hundred cassettes I had accumulated during my Keele years.
I consolidated the fancied bits of that tiny classical record collection on to eight cassettes, which I have replicated through the following two YouTube playlists, which you can access despite even if you see off-putting strikethroughs:
Wherever possible I have found the exact same 1960s/1970s recordings for those playlists. I have rather enjoyed listening to them again after so many years. Of course I can hear more modern and technically much better recordings at the press of a button these days, but these are the performances and recordings I remember from back then.
I played bits of those eight cassettes quite a lot in 84/85.
My only sound system until the record player loan…excellent it was too.
While John White and I tended to trawl my far more copious collection of modern music, partly with a view to planning discos and the like…I’ll be writing more on that topic in a future piece…
… Kate (now Susan) Fricker used to like to hear classical music when she visited, while Petra also quite often requested a classical music backdrop on the increasingly frequent occasions that she was at the flat.
Indeed, it was through Petra, or more accurately one of Petra’s friends, I think probably Ruth, that a record player found its way into my flat. Petra’s friend had discovered, like many Keele students before her, that there was not much room for a turntable and stereo system in a study-bedroom.
The record player was lent to us for an unspecified period (I think it ended up at mine for the rest of the academic year), taking pride of place in my so-called living room. It looked rather grand in that setting, but for the inconvenient truth that I had no records at Keele. Not one.
Occasionally someone would come round with a record, and we could play it, but this seemed like underutilisation to me.
All this is a preamble to the one big thing I remember about visiting my old (as in long-term, not elderly) friend Jilly Black in Cardiff that first weekend of March 1985. Here’s all I wrote in the diary about it.
Friday 1 March 1985.– Very busy morning to get all out of way – left Keele early. Went to Cardiff – supper and drink – earlyish night.
Saturday 2 March 1985 – rose quite late – did some work – went to Cardiff Union -> shops -> back – went drink -> Chinese -> back for more drink – pleasant day.
Sunday, 3 March 1985 – got up quite late – had lunch – left Cardiff – long journey – went union – went Petra’s – [she] came over later.
Jilly was studying music at Cardiff. It was Jilly who had introduced me to Claudio Abbado at The Proms some 18 months earlier…
…and I recall that my visit to see her in Cardiff was long overdue.
My enduring memory of that particular visit was purchasing 10 classical records under Jilly’s “tutelage” on the Saturday. The only other things I remember about that visit were:
being reminded that everything in Wales, at that time, shut down ridiculously early on a Friday evening – hence the otherwise out of character “supper drink and early night”;
that Jilly’s “then but soon to be ex” boyfriend did something of a no show, so I didn’t get to meet him and this was a bit of a cloud over an otherwise very enjoyable weekend
an excellent Chinese meal in a restaurant on the Cardiff Riverside which I think might even have been named, suitably, Riverside Cantonese or some such.
But let us examine the 10 classical albums that I bought on the Saturday with Jilly’s help. Where I can identify the album I have added a Discogs link, which, for some obscure reason, tend to look struck through even though you can click them happily:
I vaguely remember a running gag in which Jilly and I imagined sequels with names such as “Sidney in Spain and “Monty in Bournemouth”. Perhaps you had to be there.
If you are reading this article, pining for that fine mini collection of ancient recordings of classics, brilliantly curated by Jilly, pine no more. This YouTube playlist has all but one of them (I have so far failed to trace the particular Vivaldi sonatas and concerti on the album so-named). Here is a link to the YouTube playlist that includes those classic albums. The usual “don’t worry if you see a strike through, you can click happily” rule applies.
I’ll be returning to the topic of Keele discos and playlists for those soon enough.
I asked DeepAI to reimagine the RingRoad gang desperately searching for family friendly sketches in the “RingRoad cornflake boxes”, where the sketch archive lived.
My diary doesn’t even mention the RingRoad show that we put on, with only limited success in the February Food Fest, which we held in the Students’ Union. The Food Fest was a spin off idea from the summer International Fair, which I had, as a cub student activist, helped to establish back in the early 1980s…
The idea of the Food Fest was to have a winter “international festival”, indoors in the Students Union, as well as the summer outdoorsy one. Among the main organisers for the Food Fest (as with the International Fair) were friends of mine from the Arab cultural community, mostly postgraduate Iraqui students at that time, many of whom were at Keele with their spouses and families.
A couple of the guys approached me and wondered whether RingRoad, the Keele students’ in-house comedy troupe of which I was, by then, an intrinsic part, might put on a show as part of the Food Fest.
It seemed like such a simple request and how could I say no to friends and colleagues who were putting so much energy into a festival idea that I supported wholeheartedly? Of course I said yes. Of course the warm-hearted RingRoad team said yes.
But when it came to wading through the archive of RingRoad sketches, we realised that the show comprised almost entirely of material that was, to use the modern parlance, politically incorrect and or NSFW. In short, only a handful of sketches in our collection were family friendly or lent themselves to minor edits to become family friendly.
Intro to “Romantic Novel”, one of dozens of sketches we didn’t use in the family friendly show.
The result was a flurry of sketch writing, mostly by David Griffiths, to produce a few new sketches for that show. I also remember going through tapes of my favourite radio sketches and transcribing a few of those for the family friendly show.
It was not our finest hour as RingRoad, but nor was it our darkest hour…
…as the Food Fest show served its purpose and seemed, if only mildly, to amuse. Fortunately, a family-friendly show’s audience tends to be friendly, so the feedback we received was, if not effusive, at least kind.
The above palaver barely gets a mention in my personal diary for that weekend, which reads:
Saturday 23 February 1985 – rose quite early – shopped etc – went to Union for Food Fest all day and evening – went okay. Drink after – Petra [Wilson] came over.
Sunday 24 February 1985 – rose reasonably early – Kate’s [Kate, now Susan Fricker] for lunch – very nice. Stayed till late. Went to Petra’s briefly in the evening.
Indeed, for the week that followed, my appointments diary says far more than the personal diary:
Hell’s bells, that’s a lot of meetings. No wonder I have been somewhat allergic to committees and meetings since my Keele Students’ Union sabbatical year!
The first meeting of the week, regarding Wot Subsid, I shall write plenty on that matter in a few week’s time, as the run up to publishing that booklet started to feature more in my diary. The “A” no doubt stands for “Annalisa de Mercur”, who did lots of the hard yards with me on that publication. More anon, I promise!
The rest is probably best left to the artwork that is the above scan. If any readers want to know more about what happened in some of those individual committees and/or meetings, by all means pop a message in the comments or “contact us” and I’ll try to answer your questions. I’m not expecting to be inundated with requests.
Here is my personal diary for the same period:
Monday, 25 February 19 85 – very rushed/busy with meetings all day and evening. Petra came over after.
Tuesday 26 February 1985 – very busy with meetings etc – morning noon and night. Petra came over after hustings.
27 Wednesday 27 February 1985 – rushed like crazy – not feeling too good today. Went home to bed early.
Thursday 28th of February 1985 – very busy day rushing around – meetings etc. Cooked Petra a meal in evening – stayed – very pleasant.
Friday 1 March 1985.– Very busy morning to get all out of way – left Keele early…
I recall that Petra was not too keen on the Horwood refectory food. As time went on, when timetables allowed, I tended to cook for her (as well as myself) more often.
Petra’s taste in food was quite different from that of Kate (now Susan) Fricker and John White, for whom I also cooked a fair bit. Both Kate and John were quite partial to spicy food. Petra was not keen on spices, so I tended to cook “pan casseroles” for her, although she was also partial to several of my Chinese dishes, which tended to need more ingredients and preparation time, so I would tend to cook those at the weekend. Kate and John also liked my Chinese style dishes.
I have a mind to produce a mini-series of recipes from that era, once I find the time to browse through my yellowed recipe sheets and delve a little deeper into my memory about the food.
I also am minded to write a small mini-series about the music that was the soundtrack of that era for me. Not just the discos that John White and I used to do in the ballroom (although we are working up some wicked playlists for nostalgics and/or fans of those genres to enjoy), but also the classical music that helped me to unwind from all of the hustle and bustle that year. I’ll stick those classical pieces into some public playlists too.
All those ideas are for later, for now let’s bring Petra in for her dinner…or as they would say in the Potteries, “tea”.
DeepAI image of a John White & Ian Harris bust fund disco
I am so impressed by that DeepAI image, based on a mere 30 word description. It even reminded me of the “Rasta shirt” I would sometimes don for such occasions. My dad, for some inexplicable reason, had treated himself to a pair of brightly-coloured pyjamas (primarily acid green in dad’s case) with Ethiopian lion motifs all over them. They were not really big enough for him and hardly his style. I rejected the bottoms but fancied the shirt for parties and other suitable occasions such as bust fund discos.
The Bust Fund was a mandatory Keele Student’s Union “trust” established by UGM some years before my time. It’s sole object was to help students pay fines for possession of cannabis. Helping students convicted for possession of any other controlled drug, or for supply of cannabis, was beyond the trust’s powers. The mandate included a requirement to raise money to meet the trust’s purpose through periodic (I think at least once a term) bust fund discos.
John White and I took great pride in our 60s discos. There’d be a lot of Motown in there for the dancing and also some of our favourite hippy-dippy stuff too. Many Keele students at that time enjoyed those discos for variety, although I do remember one young woman who was most persistent in trying to get us to play “some up to date” stuff. When I explained that the event had been billed as a 60s disco, these didn’t seem to hold any sway with her. I did at one point threaten to put on some Tchaikovsky, as I had recently purchased some early symphonies of his that date from the 1860s, so that would qualify as 60s music too.
Winter Dreams…California Dreaming…it’s so easy to get confused…
Two Courts In One Day (Plus A UGM)
Monday 18 February 1985 – went to court in morning – University Court in the afternoon. UGM in evening – Petra came over after.
Gosh I remember that day at the Newcastle-Under-Lyme Magistrates Court. I went a few times, to provide moral support to students who had been busted for cannabis.
On that occasion, I recall a female student had been busted for a small quantity of cannabis but also had in her possession a pethidine tablet for which she had no prescription. She told me a friend had given it to her because she sometimes got pain that OTC analgesics wouldn’t relieve. Unfortunately for her, this resulted in a bigger fine than students normally got for cannabis only and also excluded her from applying to the bust fund for help. Moral support was all I could provide.
Also that morning, I recall, prior that unfortunate young woman’s hearing, another student was in the dock for doing some serious mischief to another young man in a fight one night in town. He was done for actual bodily harm and/or malicious wounding (albeit without a weapon). That student got a suspended sentence and a smaller fine than the unfortunate young female student. I remember that so clearly.
I also remember a policeman coming and sitting next to me during the young woman’s trial. The copper casually enquired of me whether Keele Student’s Union still had a fund for settling the fines of students who had been done for drugs offences.
I couldn’t tell you, I’m afraid..
…I said, expecting a follow up question or three. But I think the copper decided that I must therefore be from some other department at Keele and left it at that. I might have broken down under proper interrogation quite easily, so I’m glad he didn’t try.
After that sobering morning at the local magistrate’s court, the afternoon was spent at University Court. This was a joint gathering of the University’s Senate and Council. It felt like a largely ceremonial affair, as I recall it, as I believe everything that was, technically, approved by the Court had been “made oven ready” by the respective constituent body and there was, as I recall it, no discussion at all. Maybe some years there was discussion.
No wonder I was tired ahead of the UGM, which, I believe, must have been the appearance referred to in this March issue of Concourse.
Verbous? Moi? Ah, you must mean verbose!
Not the best Concourse review I ever had of my UGM appearances. But not the worst either.
The Early January Embarrassment Story Dénouement
Tuesday 19 February 1985 – busy day with union committee etc. Went to talk in evening. Petra for dinner – Ali and Ruth awkward – Petra came over after.
Suffice it to say that, some six weeks later, Petra and I had not yet disambiguated the matter with Ali Dabbs and clearly engineered an opportunity to do so on the evening of 19 February. Petra’s lovely friend and neighbour Ruth, who will appear in at least one other context as my 1985 diaries unfold, must have joined this gathering to help try and smooth the evening. How and where it unfolded is lost in the mists of time. Not in my flat, if the surrounding words provide clues. Perhaps at Petra’s place, which was a stone’s throw away. Not that there would have been any stone throwing, just the awkwardness described.
Cooking Kate Curry, “Fiddler” & Bust Fund Disco
Wednesday, 20 February 1985 – very busy – meetings etc. Cooked Kate meal – departmental meeting – drink then early night.
Thursday 21 February 1985 – Busy with meetings etc – went to JSoc Fiddler in evening – did Bust Fund disco later Petra came later.
How on earth do I remember that I cooked Kate (now Susan) Fricker a curry, when all the diary entry says is meal?
In truth, my memory is not that good and I don’t remember, but I do still have my 1984/85 appointments diary as well as my personal one. In the appointments diary I wrote:
Kate Curry 7.30
So there.
“What type of curry was it precisely? Madras based or garam masala based perhaps? Or did Kate favour a milder, korma style…or possibly one of those punchy vindaloo style curries that John certainly favoured at times?”
I don’t remember. Leave me alone. But the appointments diary does tell me that the departmental meeting was with the Security Department – quite possibly to sort out the arrangements for ensuring that scallywags couldn’t get into the Student’s Union to steal drink, as had been uncovered a couple of week’s earlier.
From Concourse, Page One, February 1985. For the record, Simon was the Bar Manager & Tim was the assistant Manager, but Concourse never let all the facts get in the way of a hot scoop.
The next night, it seems I went to a J-Soc showing of Fiddler On the Roof before doing the Bust Fund Disco with John White. On that basis, it is impossible to imagine that we didn’t use Swing Easy by The Soul Vendors at some stage of the evening – a delicious rock steady rendering of the Fiddler On the Roof theme tune.
I have actually been trying to remember the tracks John & I tended to play when we did Bust Fund discos. A lot of reggae, dub and rock steady of course, but mixed in with some other styles that would have seemed appropriate or took our fancy.
John has promised to help me give that matter some thought. The result will be a reimagined mid 1980s Bust Fund Disco playlist. Come to think of it, while John and I are at it, we should try and reimagine those sixties discos, especially the Motown/Northern Soul ones. Watch this space.
My appointments diary for 21 & 22 February also reveals that I did something totally counter to my nature – sailed close to a payment deadline:
I will have written the rent deadline into the diary well in advance to remind myself to pay. The “Oh shit” will have been written later, when I realised that I hadn’t organised myself properly to pay it ahead of time and I had a copy deadline that day. Knowing me, I will have found a way to meet both deadlines in the end – no doubt in a flurry while hollering…
Monday, 4 February 1985 – Busy day – did surgery – did referendum forum in evening – drink after – Petra came over.
Our Union Committee conducted “surgeries” in the refectories, on a fairly regular basis. The idea was to be accessible to students in a way that, say, being in our offices in the Students’ Union, couldn’t possibly be accessible. As my gossip columnist persona, H Ackgrass, put it, later that month in his signing off column:
The theory is that they simply don’t get enough visitors behind the closed doors of their offices, so they all go and sit in the refectories, and actually observe the swerving and other avoidance techniques that students use in order to save themselves from having to talk to these creatures.
You wouldn’t have thought that surgeries had been as much my idea as anyone else’s reading that, would you, eh readers? 😉 😉 😉 .
As for the referendum forum, I remember that the Conservative “NUS disaffiliation” people wheeled out a Scottish chap from a Scottish University – purportedly Labour yet pro-NUS-disaffiliation. Kate Fricker similarly yet conversely (on advisement no doubt) wheeled out a floppy-haired posh fellow from a posh university, who was purportedly Tory yet in favour of NUS affiliation.
The Scottish chap riffed about Union Committees being out of touch, sitting around “pontificating Nicaragua” for the NUS rather than looking after students interests. I remember turning to John White and wondering whether we had ever given Nicaragua a moment’s thought at that time. More than thirty years later, Janie and I visited Nicaragua and thoroughly enjoyed the place, but that’s another matter and another sort of pontification:
Tuesday 5 February 1985 – Union Committee in morning – busy for rest of day – went RingRoad rehearsal in evening. Petra came over later.
Wednesday, 6 February 1985 – Very busy today – committees etc [including PS&D – Policy Staffing & Development committee]– referendum – we won – got drunk – went gig.
I cannot find a reference anywhere to what this particular gig was. Where’s Dave Lee and his canonical inventory of Keele gigs when you need him? Still, we had won the referendum, so there!
Thursday, 7 February 1985 – Lousy day – feeling very hung over. Went to forum in evening. Petra came over – cooked meal in evening – very nice.
Friday 8 February 1985 – got work out of the way. Went to London and got back quite late – ate and chatted.
Saturday 9 February 1985 – pottered around today – went over Highgate late afternoon – went to theatre and meal very nice – went back after.
That theatre visit with Bobbie was to see Saved at The Royal Court Theatre – I have separately written up our visit to see that astonishing production – click here or below:
Sunday 10 February 1985 – came home in morning – had Chinese lunch – left for Keele – travelled up with Petra – came over later,
Monday 11th February 1985 – lots to do today – meetings etc. Cooked Petra some food later – stayed.
Tuesday 12 February 1985 – busy with meetings etc – evening also. Petra came over later.
Wednesday 13 February 1985 – busy with meetings – very tired today (fell asleep in Senate). Cooked [for] Kate and went to meetings – early night.
Student Senator Falling Asleep In Senate-gate
I remember my “falling asleep in Senate” incident very clearly.
Earlier in our tenure, Kate Fricker had fought hard for me to join her as the student observer on Policy Staffing & Development Committee (PS&D), which was the sub-committee of Senate in which important academic decisions were really made. Some Senators had objected to my nomination as a student rep on PS&D, because the Education & Welfare Officer only had observer status on Senate. We argued, successfully, that I was eligible to be an observer on PS&D by dint of being an observer at Senate.
Why is the above tedious paragraph relevant? Because the week before my sleepy senate incident, I attended PS&D. One item had taken up quite a large chunk of the meeting. The subject of the debate was something quite dull, but whatever it was vexed Professor Denis Dwyer of the Geography Department, who made a rambling speech for some 15 minutes, expressing what was destined to be a minority view, which lost the vote by some distance.
Come Senate, the following week, I was self-confessedly very tired on the day, having spent the weekend away and then the first half of the week in back-to-back meetings, some running into the evening.
When that resolution from PS&D came up for “discussion” – which under normal circumstances would be a rubber stamp from Senate as the matter had clearly been scrutinised and approved by PS&D, Professor Dwyer stood up and said he wanted to have his objections to the resolution heard. He then unfolded his several pages of notes and started to repeat the self-same speech that he had made at PS&D.
I remember that several Professors made harrumphing noises, as all of us who had been at PS&D realised that Dwyer was going to repeat the exact same speech, with even less chance of success at Senate than he’d had at PS&D, given that the resolution had passed by a large majority at the appropriate sub-committee.
I found myself unable to do anything to keep myself awake during what felt like hours of repetitive droning to no purpose.
I remember Kate telling me afterwards that she realised that I was struggling a bit and nudged me a couple of times, but to no avail.
By all accounts, I visibly and rather audibly nodded off. I think Kate was more than a little horrified and embarrassed.
The good news, though, was that my gesture apparently went down rather well with several of the academic Senators who were, like us, suffering the sound of this speech for a second time.
Philip Boden informed us afterwards that he thought it to be one of the most succinct and incisive statements he’d ever heard or seen in the Senate Room.
To commemorate that historic moment, I have asked DeepAI to imagine the scene. I think it has done rather well with the following, which was its first and only attempt based on a 30-word description:
I looked shaggier than that. DeepAI has a very tidy image of what shaggy looks like
Thursday, 14 February 1985 – busy day – Valentines, casualties etc. Did surgery. Went to ball early – RingRoad – went well – Petra later – me v bad.
Yes, despite my fatigue and the fact that clearly I was going down with something, I rushed around like a nut the following day, performed in RingRoad and attended the ball. Divine was the main act that year.
In truth, I remember little about that ball and that gig. The phrase “me v bad” is expressing the fact that I was feeling poorly later in the evening.
Divine’s biggest hit was “You Think You’re A Man”, which, pop trivia people might like to know, was Stock Aitken & Waterman‘s first top 40 hit in the UK:
That’s pretty much all I can say about Divine.
Fortunately for readers here, Simon Brooke, with wanton disregard of pronoun etiquette, interviewed Divine at Keele and wrote it up for Concourse.
