Tag: Keele

Why Oh FY? – My Most Highly Praised Piece Of Statistical Work Ever, Plus Other Keele Happenings Such As Opening The Real Ale Bar, Early In The Spring Term, 1985

All about timing…more than could be said for the Keele Clock House clock back then

I had been approached by some FY (Foundation Year) students at the end of the autumn term who said that they would have preferred FY exams to be at the end of the term being examined rather than the first Friday of the new term. Those students suggested that they thought that the majority would agree with them.

I put the matter to Professor Watson Fuller, the head of the physics department and Chair of FY Committee, who agreed with me that I should do a survey of the students to ascertain their views on this. He would support a change if a clear majority wanted a change.

Annalisa de Mercur, who was Academic Secretary that year, worked with me on a simple survey. We considered using this as an opportunity to ask other questions, but decided in the end to focus on the single question, with a binary choice, plus room for comments.

Thinking very far ahead and very deeply indeed

Annalisa recalled that the first FY lecture of the spring term was a crowd puller with maximum attendance and thus a suitable time and space for us to maximise “voting turnout”. I am pretty sure it was Eddie Slade himself (also Physics, then Senior Tutor also) delivering the lecture and I am pretty sure he gave our survey a good plug. We had left a form on each seat in the packed FY lecture theatre.

In truth I cannot remember what the lecture was about. Perhaps it was cosmology or perhaps it was atomic physics. Something to do with one sort of big bang or another, I shouldn’t wonder…possibly both sorts.

Annalisa and I were focussed on guarding the doors and, between us, getting as many people as possible to vote. If I remember correctly, some 95% of the FY students turned up to that lecture and some 95% of attendees voted, making our turnout around 90% of all FY students.

I also recall that the interval between that lecture and the next FY Committee meeting was very short and that the deadline for papers was actually the Friday before the lecture. I agreed with Watson Fuller that I would write a short method paper to meet the committee papers deadline, and table the results of the survey itself on the day of the meeting.

The vote was, as I recall it, roughly 70% preferring to keep things as they were, with some 30% of FY students preferring to get the exams out of the way before the holidays.

Chi-squared distribution test for sampling proportions – surplus to requirements

Mercifully, I didn’t need to dig out my (at that time, probably quite rusty) notes on statistical significance tests, as a 70%/30% vote with the “sample” comprising some 90% of the entire population being sampled is, in technical statistical terms, “a slam dunk”. I also summarised for each side of the case the three or four most commonly stated (and main) points that came from the comments. Some people would prefer to be examined while the material was fresh in their minds and to get the exams out of the way – most wanted to use some of their holiday time to revise (or “vise”, I should imagine, if they were anything like me in the matter of FY lecture attendance).

At the meeting, Professor Fuller heaped this tiny piece of research with glowing praise, admiring our method – in particular the decision to keep the survey focussed and simple, the attention to detail in maximising the size of the sample and the clarity with which we expressed our findings.

So fulsome was he with his praise, I thought he might be taking the piss, but I was told by several academics afterwards that Watson Fuller would have been completely sincere when saying those things. He certainly repeated them at the Senate meeting when that point came up in the FY Committee report.

I have spent a fair chunk of my working life making a living out of operational research and statistics – some of it award-winning and much of it quite sophisticated stuff using machine learning…

Click here to read all about it – you know you want to.

…yet I cannot ever remember a piece of my statistical work being heaped with such lavish praise as Professor Fuller’s fulsome praise of that January 1985 FY Committee paper on exam timings.

It was only my appointments diary that reminded me about that research interlude; my personal diary was relatively bland over that period. For the sake of completist readers (or more likely just for my own benefit) here is a transcript of those days:

Monday, 7 January 1985 – Not very productive day – stayed in and had early night.

Tuesday, 8 January 1985 – Got quite a lot done today. Played trivial pursuit at Pady’s in evening.

Wednesday, 9 January 1985 – Not terribly productive day. Petra came over in the evening and stayed.

Thursday, 10 January 1985 – Didn’t get much done today – went out for meal (UC) for Pady’s birthday to Micky’s.

Friday 11 January 1985 – Got lots done in morning – Union Committee in afternoon (chaotic). Staff party in evening – few showed – very unpleasant day.

Saturday, 12 January 1985 – Really low today. Went shopping. Moped around all day. Petra came over late evening. [That must have been fun for Petra judging by my description of my mood!]

Sunday, 13 January 1985 – Stayed in bed virtually all day. Went over to Kate’s for dinner in evening.

Monday 14 January 1985 – Very busy in office today. First real day of term. Stayed in the evening.

Tuesday 15 January 1985 – Lots on today – rushed a bit. Stayed in in evening – Petra came over.

Wednesday, 16 January 1985 – Senate etc today – lots to do. Opened Real Ale bar – did disco with John [White] – got v drunk.

Thursday, 17 January 1985 – Lots on today – including FY committee. Busy evening – Petra came over later on – cooked meal etc.

After all we had been through in the matter of the bar managers in the first half of our year, opening the new real ale bar (i.e. converting the Ballroom Bar into a real ale specialising bar) felt like a positive new beginning.

Image of the Ballroom Bar “borrowed” from the Keele Oral History site.

During our grand opening and disco, no doubt John sank several pints of Pedigree. I might have focussed on the Banks’s Mild but probably partook of both.

Ironically, I can no longer drink beer at all – as I worked my way through my forties I became completely intolerant to it. Still, better to have been able to drink the real ale back in my Keele days, when I was best placed to appreciate it. As with the FY exams question, I believe I got my timings right!

Keele UKSU Summer Ball Menu of Events, guessing 1984 ball with my notes from January 1985

Disco playlist, presumed 16 January 1985

A strange artefact, this one. My initial, cursory look led me to guess that this must be from the 1985 summer ball. But I don’t think Pady booked Bad Manners and The Sweet. Also, I recall performing Ringroad in the Main Ballroom for the 1985 Summer Ball.

Pady might remember both of those balls and more besides, if that memory of hers lasts 30+ years. We’re seeing her in a couple of weeks’ time (this post authored March 2016), so I’ll be sure to ask her.

In any case, the notes on the back of the Summer Ball Events Menu have a January 1985 look about them, not least my (rather unusual) disco guest spot playlist.

Indeed the playlist looks like a collection designed by committee, which is why I am guessing that this was a list of request by members of the committee for the night we opened the Ballroom Bar as a real ale bar, after which John and I DJ’d. It was unlike the discos John and I curated by our choice alone, which tended to focus on Motown, Northern Soul and sixties sounds.

So I’m guessing the Summer Ball in question was 1984 and that I was recycling a piece of paper for notes early in 1985.

Here’s both sides of the artefact. You, dear reader, might wish to chime in with comments if you were there and it triggers a memory or three.

Keele Students’ Union Committee Goes Mad In Somerset & I Get Mortified With Embarrassment, 4 to 6 January 1985

Haywood Farm in Somerset Maurice Pullin, CC BY-SA 2.0…not to be confused with Hayward Burt’s family farm in Somerset, which was the location of our visit.

Whose idea was it to have a Keele Union Committee team-building countryside retreat in Somerset early January? I’d love to “blame” anyone and everyone on the committee but me. However, my appointments diary entry of 22 November reminds me that I was involved in the planning.

“Farm & Fricker (4.30 to 5.00 pm)”, I now realise, was a meeting with Kate (now Susan) Fricker and Chris “Farmer” Spencer, the later of whom had been one of my Barnes L54 flatmates and was now one of Hayward’s Barnes L54 flat mates.

Hayward Burt in Barnes L54, sitting in “my” favourite place

We discussed the logistics of getting the whole of Union Committee from Keele to Somerset. I think, from memory, the plan involved Chris visiting his family in Devon that weekend in the Union minibus, dropping us Union Committee folk at the Burt farm in Somerset and then collecting us again on the way back to Keele.

The happening was arranged for the first weekend of 1985.

Before I describe the singularly mortifyingly embarrassing episode from this adventure, I should say that, on the whole, I remember the event as being a success. We had, as a group, been through quite an ordeal with the Bar Management Saga, which had just reached its Tribunal conclusion just a few days ahead of this “Union Committee field trip”. The idea of team building and resetting for the remaining two terms of our three term tenure was a good idea that mostly worked.

Friday, 4 January 1985 – Left London early and came to Keele. All went off to Somerset in the afternoon – went to pub in evening.

Saturday, 5 January 1985 – Lazyish day in Taunton – walked in afternoon – went to pubs in evening etc.

Sunday, 6 January 1985 – Went out to farm for lunch, then came back to Keele early evening – had drink in Union.

My diary is very light on detail, so it is just as well some aspects have stuck indelibly in my memory. No idea where we did our pub drinking, but the picture below, dated 1985 by the author, is quite possibly one of the pubs we tried. In any case, The Greyhound Inn is great eye candy and a pleasant diversion ahead of the tale of my embarrassment.

1985 Staple Fitzpaine Greyhound Inn, near Taunton, Somerset by Hazel Greenfield, CC BY-SA 2.0

Whose idea was it to have an informal sort-of confessions game one evening as part of that Union Committee team-building exercise? I’d love to “blame” anyone and everyone on the committee but me. Unfortunately, it was my type of idea. I am pretty sure that I suggested it, or at least warmly welcomed the idea when someone else suggested it while we were planning the event.

One of the reasons I was keen to play such a game was my increasing unease at the fact that only a small sub-group on the committee (basically the other sabbaticals) knew that I had started going out with Petra Wilson the previous term.

Enter Petra Wilson, Stage Left…Plus A John Martyn Gig On The Keele SU Ballroom Stage, 8 to 15 November 1984

It wasn’t that I had deliberately kept the matter secret, it was simply one of those things that emerged by stealth and which I had only, until then, disclosed to those with whom I was spending more time; in the case of the committee I think just the sabbaticals. Annalisa also knew by then.

Anyway, point is, I thought the confessions game, one evening in the pub, would be an ideal opportunity to let the others know…

…which it would have been…

…but for the unfortunate seating arrangement, with Ali Dabbs directly to my right and therefore having his go at the confessions game just before mine.

Ali Dabbs confessed to having a crush on Petra. Ali probably didn’t speak for all that long – I think we were all aiming for “just a minute” or 90 second vignettes – but I was mortified with embarrassment and Ali’s speech seemed to be going on for ever.

I didn’t want to catch the eyes of any of the other sabbaticals, who all will have been acutely aware of what was unfolding – not least because I had told them of my plan to use this game as my opportunity to let the rest of the gang know that I was going out with Petra.

[Life must be so much easier these days, where all you need to do is change your social media relationship status and wait for people you know to spot it. On second thoughts, social media relationship status might raise more potential problems and questions than it answers. I digress.]

Worse yet, it dawned on me very quickly that I couldn’t possibly use the confession that I had planned to use. It would have been cruel, albeit truthful.

The whole episode just felt like a kick in the eye for both me and Ali Dabbs. Coincidentally, I was listening to the Bauhaus track of that name quite a lot at that time:

I’m not good at constructing an oral argument without carefully planning what I am going to say. That’s one of the reasons why I like to write rather than make speeches. I’m also not good at lying, nor am I good at bluffing.

In those few seconds that I had to decide what I was going to say, I decided…

…that I couldn’t think of anything at all. My mind was a complete blank, apart from the acute sensation of embarrassment.

In the end, I pathetically aped Ali’s speech and pretended that I had a crush on someone else. I think I picked on one of Petra’s friends, Margaret Gordon, for no better reason than I couldn’t really think of anyone to pick on and her name seemed to have a “least harm” aspect to it if…or I should really say when…the sorry matter needed to be unpicked…within a few weeks. I have a diary mention of Ali Dabbs coming round to my flat on 2 February, which was part of that unpicking.

“I have…I mean, I DON’T have an announcement to make”. Hayward, Trish, Me, Kate (Susan), Ali, Pete.

For some strange reason, I have been utterly averse to confession-type games ever since.

My embarrassing episode, while top of the pile, was not the only embarrassing thing I remember from that “field trip”. I remember Hayward’s dad, who, in my mind’s eye, I’m sure unfairly, resembled The Farmer from Shaun The Sheep movies, referring to Chris Spencer, our Barnes L54 flatmate, as…

…that old bloke you’ve hired to drive your van.

Chris did have a moustache, which possibly made him look a bit more grown up than the rest of us, but I don’t think he looked old. Hayward more or less managed to maintain his trademark deadpan delivery when saying:

That’s not an old bloke, dad, that’s Chris, my flatmate.

Small beer embarrassment compared with mine, but still.

The Keele Students’ Union Tribunal Ends And A New Year Begins, Late December 1984 To 3 January 1985

With thanks to Dave Lee for the “loan” of this frosty Horwood picture.

For those who haven’t been avidly following this saga, the Shrewsbury Industrial Tribunal relating to our Union Committee’s dismissal of the Students’ Union bar managers was supposed to conclude 19 December…

“Just Doing My Keele Students’ Union Sabbatical Job”: Two Gruelling Days At The Industrial Tribunal In Shrewsbury And Post Mortem, 18 to 20 December 1984

…but required two additional days, which were set as Friday 28th and Monday 31st December.

Keele was bitterly cold when I returned to the campus on 27 December and remained so until we left on 31 December. It also felt incredibly bleak too, with almost nobody around.

The diary barely tells the tale, but let me translate my scrawl:

Thursday 27 December – Got up quite early [at parents’ house] – came back to Keele. Kate came over for a while.

I recall that Kate (now Susan) Fricker and I were a little spooked by the bleakness and the fact that Ralph was wandering around the campus. I don’t think he intended to spook or intimidate us, I think more likely Ralph was struggling to come to terms with what was happening to him and was walking a lot, as people with heavy weights on their minds often do.

In my (I now think false) memory, Kate asked to stay at the flat and I slept on the floor, but the diary says “came over for a while”, so on reflection I think the idea of her staying was mooted, but Kate decided in the end to spare me the floor and returned to her own flat for the night.

Friday 28 December – went to Tribunal – seemed to go OK – lazy evening in.

Saturday 29 December – shopped and read in day. Went to Koh-I-Noor with John & co in eve.

I think we sensed that Friday, perhaps for the first time, that the Tribunal was going our way. It was mostly Kate under the cosh that day, plus summing up from both sides, if I remember correctly. I certainly got the impression that Kate was fending off the cross-examination questions well and that the members of the panel were getting more than a little frustrated with interrogation by cross-examination that wasn’t really getting anywhere.

Would you believe the Koh-I-Noor restaurant is still there, forty years later, in Newcastle-Under-Lyme – click here. “John & co” suggests that Kate didn’t opt to join us that evening but that some other members of the committee were with us. Pady and Andy I’d guess. Perhaps also Pete & Melissa. The Koh-I-Noor was a good choice when we had vegetarians with us, as, in those days, Indian restaurants tended to be the only type of meat-serving restaurant that really “got” vegetarianism.

Sunday 30 December – Lazy day in reading etc. Kate & I went to see Ghostbusters in eve. Latish night.

Ghostbusters was THE movie to see in December 1984. I remembered that I had seen it “around the time the movie came out”, but did not remember, until I saw this diary entry, that I had seen it with Kate on the night before the tribunal judgment.

Forty years on, I have “cog. dis.” as to whether that particular movie on that particular evening was especially appropriate or especially inappropriate in the circumstances.

Great movie. The theme song had charted at the end of that summer, so John & I had been playing it at regular discos (i.e. not our 60s/Motown/Northern Soul ones) for some months. It charted again over Christmas when the movie came out. You know you want to hear it…and maybe even shimmy around your living room to that infectious rhythm:

When we returned to Shrewsbury on the Monday morning, we were given the judgment quite quickly, in summary form, with the promise of a full judgment to follow in writing. Basically the tribunal had unanimously found in our favour.

The Evening Sentinel summarised that oral judgement the next (publishing) day:

Sentinel Tribunal Report from 31 December 1984Sentinel Tribunal Report from 31 December 1984 02 Jan 1985, Wed Evening Sentinel (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England) Newspapers.com

Of course we were all relieved, not least Tony Derricott, the Permanent Secretary, who must have felt especially exposed – as to a great extent did I – if the judgment had gone against us.

When we got back to the Students’ Union late morning/early afternoon, I remember Tony getting out cigars and offering them to us, which felt inappropriate to us student reps. We were relieved but not celebratory.

John and I had arranged to meet Annalisa de Mercur and Petra Wilson in London for New Years Eve, so we were also in a hurry to head down to London.

Rushed back to London with John to meet Annalisa and Petra…

…says the diary.

I remember far more than the diary tells. John might remember yet more or other details.

We had arranged to meet the girls at the Albert Memorial. No idea why there, other than it being a well-known landmark which all of us felt reasonably able to find easily and which we felt wouldn’t be a crowded place early evening on New Years Eve. It wasn’t.

John and I had a drink or two (or in John’s case possibly more than two) on the train down. Perhaps we can explain John’s, previously undisclosed, identification blooper as, at least partially, a result of the drink.

As John & I strode along Kensington Gore, John and I had a conversation along the following lines:

JOHN: (excitedly) I think that’s Annalisa in the distance, standing in front of the railings…

ME: (unconvinced)…I don’t think so…(even less convinced)…whatever it is, it’s not moving…

JOHN: (embarrassedly)…oh gawd, it’s not Annalisa. It’s a large pile of bin bags.

ME: Don’t worry, John, I won’t tell her.

Now let me be crystal clear on this point. Annalisa doesn’t and never did resemble a pile of bin bags. John’s excited outburst was no doubt enthusiasm for the anticipated evening with the girls. We were at a ridiculous distance to try to identify anyone – or to distinguish between objects and people.

Also in John’s defence, his optical delusion might have been born of eagerly looking forward to telling Annalisa and Petra that we had won our case. In those pre-mobile-phone days, there was no sensible way to get messages out ahead of meeting up – hence the pre-arrangement to meet at the Albert Memorial.

In fact, John & I had arrived at the Albert Memorial well ahead of the girls, leaving us quite literally in the cold for a good few minutes.

In the February 1985 issue of Concourse, in H Ackgrass’s final/parting newspaper column, I…or rather, better to say, H Ackgrass…wrote:

It’s all coming back to me. John will no doubt claim that he was simply finding imaginative ways to try and keep warm.

Soon enough Annalisa and Petra joined and the mood soon lightened once they learnt that the tribunal judgment had gone our way.

I am 99% sure that we ate at Melati in Great Windmill Street that evening, which was one of my/our favourite places at that time, although the diary is silent on that detail.

Melati, long since gone, this photo from 2014 by Sharjil “borrowed” from Yelp

I’m pretty sure we then ventured in the cold to get as close to Trafalgar Square as we could – which in those days I think meant so darn close that we were actually in the square. For sure we could hear Big Ben striking loud and clear. For sure we celebrated the New Year with the crowds. I vaguely remember hugging and kissing rather a lot of strangers on that occasion. In those days, such conduct was not micro-aggressive or inappropriate – it was simply doing what everyone else was doing in those circumstances.

Petra had arranged for the two of us to stay in a flat in Kennington – her brother, Christian had friends there – they were away and were happy for us to stay. Christian had sensibly advised Petra that we would want to be walking distance from wherever we were going to stay if we were going to do the “midnight in Trafalgar Square” thing. Kennington fitted that bill.

I’m not sure it was the Brandon Estate, but for sure it was down that way. This photo by Reading Tom from Reading, UK, CC BY 2.0

It was actually quite a long walk in the cold after such a long day. I also recall clearly a long cold night at that flat as well. Either the heating in the flat didn’t work or we couldn’t work out how to make it work…we found imaginative ways to try and keep warm. We just about managed to avoid hypothermia.

Tuesday 1 January 1985 – went home mid morning. Lunch. Lazy day at home.

Wednesday 2 January 1985 – went to town – met Caroline lunch. Went NH [Newman Harris] then shopping then met Pete Roberts for dinner.

Thursday 3 January 1985 – rose late. Went Junction [Dad’s shop] in afternoon after taping etc. Lazy evening in taping etc.

I’ll talk some more about the taping in a separate piece about music.

I often met Caroline Freeman (now Curtis) for lunch in those days. I’m intrigued that I visited Newman Harris that day. I sense that I had told someone (Stanley Bloom, presumably, by then) that if the tribunal went against us, I would resign from the Students’ Union and be looking for work in January. I’m just guessing that this visit was to tell them that we had won and to arrange a start date in September.

The only other possibility is that I was already, by then, helping dad keep his shop’s books, in order to help keep his costs down (goodness knows, dad wasn’t doing much business by that time). This visit might have been to deliver or collect something pertained to dad’s accounts, which might explain me visiting the shop the next day.

Dinner with the Pete Roberts will have been fun and interesting. Pete was my predecessor’s predecessor’s predecessor Education & Welfare Officer (in other words 1981/1982). He had become a friend and mentor before he left Keele, and we met up/kept in touch for several years after we both left. I think he was living in Parsons Green by this time or perhaps he was still around Pimlico.

Pete will no doubt have helped me to reorient my thinking about my role post Tribunal. I remember bouncing ideas off him and really valuing his experience and wisdom in matters E&W. He was also reliably good company with an interesting and often amusing take on most subjects.

I thought he’d gone quiet on Facebook of late and was saddened to learn that he died in December 2023.

This is a really pleasing photo of Pete from 2011. I’m sure Rosie won’t mind me “borrowing” it from his Facebook page.

My time in London was short yet again, as I shortly returned to Keele ahead of a Union Committee team bonding long weekend in the Somerset countryside. What could possibly go wrong with that sort of idea?

Have Yourself A Funereal Little Christmas: A Short, Low Key, Downbeat Seasonal Break, 21 to 26 December 1984

Did I lounge around in clobber like that in the mid 1980s? Clue: sadly, yes.

Sandwiched between two sets of two-day visits to the Industrial Tribunal in Shrewsbury…

“Just Doing My Keele Students’ Union Sabbatical Job”: Two Gruelling Days At The Industrial Tribunal In Shrewsbury And Post Mortem, 18 to 20 December 1984

…this was a short but much-needed break at my parent’s place for the festive season.

Not that it turned out to be all that festive.

Come on, hands up – how many of you have ever attended a funeral on Christmas Day?

Here’s my diary for those few days:

Friday, 21 December 1984 – had a lazy day indoors today. Stayed in eve – spoke to several people.

Saturday, 22 December 1984 – got up quite late. Went to Knipes and shopping in the afternoon. Met Jim [Bateman] in Rose And Crown in evening.

I have previously written up the bizarre Knipe Christmas gift experience – click here or below if you haven’t read the story before…or if you fancy it again:

Strange Case Of Dr Green And Mr Knipe…And Beluga Caviar And Scotch Whisky And A Bust Of Hitler, c22 December 1981

In 1984 I would have refused to enter the diabolical living room, so I think Don and I would have had a relatively sort chat and tipple in their Third-Reich-free dining room.

Sunday 23 December 1984 – Rose quite late – went to Surbiton – had lunch and visited Grandma Jenny. Went on to meet Jilly for a drink and a meal – nice evening.

Monday, 24 December 1984 – Lazyish day today – stayed in – taped and watched some telly. Stayed in evening also.

I think I might have focussed on taping classical stuff from my old records that Christmas. I’ll return to that subject in a future piece.

Tuesday, 25 December 1984 – went to Ruby Casper’s funeral in morning. Went over to Benjamin’s late afternoon/evening – ate too much and watched TV there.

Wednesday 26th December 1984 – lazy day – Indian lunch – slouched around. Watched television etc – Airplane! and The Third Man

In truth I don’t really remember Ruby Casper. I think she might have been from Auntie Francis’s side of the extended family. I’m not sure why I went to the funeral, other than the obvious point that mum and dad were going and it would have seemed rude for me to absent myself on Christmas Day. What else might I have been doing that day?

“Eating too much and watching TV”, I hear you cry. Well yes, but there was still plenty of time to do that as well.

Postscript/clarification

Cousin Angela, Auntie Francis’s daughter, has set the record straight on Ruby Casper:

We were away in Brazil and Ruby Casper was in fact a man! He was married to my Aunty Sophie, my mother’s sister, who was known for her Edna Everidge glasses. How were you dragged along? Was it because it was Xmas day and they thought they wouldn’t get enough people? 

Ruby Casper was a man? No wonder I didn’t remember “her”. My bad for being fast and loose with my pronouns. In truth, I don’t remember Auntie Sophie and their Edna Everidge glasses either.

As for me being dragged along just to make up the numbers, Angela…DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? ?

And Now, Back To the Main Story

I’m glad I also pursued that great Twixtmas tradition, which I have long since left behind, of watching movies that I had seen before. Indeed, two of them on Boxing Day.

“Surely you must be joking”, I hear you cry. I’m not joking…and don’t call me Shirley.

On the Thursday morning, I returned to a freezing and almost completely depopulated Keele, ahead of the next day of the Tribunal hearing on the Friday.

“Just Doing My Keele Students’ Union Sabbatical Job”: Two Gruelling Days At The Industrial Tribunal In Shrewsbury And Post Mortem, 18 to 20 December 1984

English Bridge Shrewsbury John Kenyon, Attribution, via Wikimedia Commons

We ended up spending four days at the Industrial Tribunal in Shrewsbury. The court had scheduled just these two days for our case, but the case ended up stretching to four.

This article is my account of the first two days.

The Tommy and Ralph saga had reached the dismissal stage in August…

When The Keele Students’ Union Bars (aka Tommy And Ralph) Saga Came To A Head, Early August 1984

…then it went through the inappropriate but constitutionally necessary appeal to a Students’ union EGM in October…

A Week To Forget (Apart From Four Quirky Music Acts), Culminating In A Meeting To Regret: Tommy & Ralph’s Appeal To A Students’ Union EGM, 17 To 25 October 1984

…after which it was more or less inevitable that their NUPE representative, Derek Bamford, would drag us all through an application to the Industrial Tribunal for unfair dismissal.

Here are my diary notes for those first two days of the tribunal and the aftermath:

Tuesday, 18 December 1984 – To industrial tribunal Shrewsbury today – ate with UC [Union Committee] after and went home for early night.

Wednesday, 19 December 1984 – Gave evidence all day at tribunal – very gruelling. Very tired in evening – UC ate, drank and played charades together.

Thursday, 20 December 1984 – Got up quite late – EUC [emergency Union Committee] in morning – dossed around and drank in afternoon – cooked John and Kate meal – came down to London in evening.

I’m finding it hard to put into words just how mentally exhausting and emotionally draining I found the whole process. I have just a few specific recollections and a few impressionistic ones.

I remember sensing that this was an ordeal for absolutely all of us…with the possible exception of the legal leads – in our case the solicitor John Cheatham and in Tommy and Ralph’s case the NUPE rep Derek Bamford.

I remember Tony Derricott, the Students’ Union Permanent Secretary, telling us that one of the applicants was being unwell in the toilets, as a way of reminding/informing us that the event was an ordeal for everybody. He counselled us to be gentle with everybody involved.

I don’t remember much about that first day at the tribunal. It was, if I recall correctly, all taken up with the applicants setting out their case. I’m not sure whether both Tommy and Ralph gave evidence; I think Derek Bamford did most of the talking. The gist of their case was that we hadn’t really been through a proper process, we had merely gone through the motions of a proper process, having reached foregone conclusions prior to the process. Their case also placed much emphasis on the fact that the bar stock losses had not ceased on Tommy and Ralph’s departure.

Shrewsbury Panorama, Shropshire&TelfordTSB, CC BY 2.0

The second day of the tribunal was the truly gruelling day for me. My evidence in chief took less than an hour. Derek Bamford had clearly latched on to me, as the person who chaired the dismissal meeting and announced the dismissals, as “the person to go for”. He proceeded to cross-examine me for several hours – i.e. what turned out to be the whole of that second tribunal day.

It didn’t help that I had a nasty head cold by this stage of the proceedings, which I had tried to mask with cold remedies at the start of the day but which was increasingly unmaskable as the day went on.

Bamford’s barrage of questions in my direction went through every element of the case.

DeepAI has produced an artist’s impression of the exchanges. Derek Bamford was smaller and more wizened than that. I was (and still am) less well-groomed yet better looking than the character depicted.

Derek Bamford’s main line of attack on me was the notion that the decision had been made before that final hearing. He asked how it was possible for me to announce the dismissals with such detailed notes on the day. I had provided in my evidence bundles the notes I had prepared, ahead of the meeting, with bullet points to help prompt myself. I had prepared notes for both possibilities – that we decided to dismiss that day or that we decided not to dismiss that day. I explained that we, like the applicants, were nervous ahead of that meeting and that I felt the need to prepare with speech notes for either eventuality. Bamford poo-pooed that line of argument as a mere device on my part.

Then the following exchange, which I remember almost verbatim.

BAMFORD: OK. But then how come we received detailed letters confirming the dismissals on the Monday morning after the Friday afternoon meeting? They must have been posted on the Friday evening or Satursday morning.

ME: They were posted on the Saturday morning. The Constitution requires us to follow up dismissals in writing as soon as possible. I got up early on the Saturday to write and type the letters and catch the midday post, so that you would have the details in writing as soon as possible.

BAMFORD: (With a dramatic wide-armed expression of disbeief) Do you expect this Tribunal to believe that story.

ME: Yes I do. It is the truth. It is my sworn testamony.

BAMFORD: (As if catching a fatal flaw in a witnesses argument) Ah, but you didn’t swear, did you? You chose to affirm.

ME: You know what I mean.

CHAIRMAN: We all understand what Mr Harris means…

Actually, John Cheatham had advised me, ahead of the tribunal, to swear rather than affirm, when I told him that, as an atheist, I would choose to affirm. I had explained to John that I couldn’t in all conscience heed his advice, as swearing on a Bible would feel untruthful to me, which is not exactly a great start in giving faithful testimony. But I felt truly awful when the other side tried to make capital out of that decision.

I also recall Derek Bamford asking me a lot of questions about the EGM meeting, not least whether I was comfortable with that process. I remember stating clearly that I was not comfortable with the process but that we had to abide by the process as laid down in the Constitution, which gave the dismissed staff the right to appeal to that body. Derek Bamford implied that I and the committee had gamed that process to our advantage, which was really not true and not fair in the circumstances.

I remember I was thoroughly drained and feeling very low when we got back to Keele that evening. The diary says that we ate, drank and played charades that evening, so we must have done.

Back at the ranch…except there was no-one else around apart from Union Committee & the staff

We convened an emergency Union Committee meeting on the Thursday for two reasons, as I remember it.

First and foremost, to discuss the two choices the Tribunal had offered us for the resumption:

  • 28th and 31st December 1984 (the default dates agreed on the day, subject to confirmation of our availability);
  • two days in late January 1985, if we asked for the dates to be moved.

Although some of the non-sabbaticals had unmoveable commitments over “twixtmas”, those of us who were most bound up in the matter – not least me, Kate and John, were all willing to come back straight after Christmas and wanted the thing over with as soon as possible. The applicants had already made it clear that their preference was to return soonest. We all agreed it would be for the best to get the matter concluded before the end of 1984.

The other reason for the emergency Union Committee meeting, though, was to discuss what we would do if we were to lose the tribunal. I made it clear, as I had in the matter of the EGM Appeal, that I would resign if we lost but I didn’t feel that anyone else need do so. I’m not sure what else, if anything, came out of that emergency meeting.

By the time I left Keele on that Thursday, we were all over Page 5 of the Evening Sentinel.

Sentinel On SU Tribunal report on 19 December sittingSentinel On SU Tribunal report on 19 December sitting 20 Dec 1984, Thu Evening Sentinel (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England) Newspapers.com

That Evening Sentinel report made us feel quite pessimistic about our chances at the time. On re-reading the report forty years later, I’m not sure why it made us feel so. Perhaps it was because Derek Bamford had briefed all the Union staff that we were certain to lose and that we had put all of their jobs at risk, so the above newspaper article read, to them, as confirmation that the case was going the way of the applicants. The staff certainly gave us the impression that the paper was suggesting that we were likely to lose.

The Very End Of Autumn Term At Keele, Including Sweet Sorrow & The Dynamic Disco Duo, 12 to 17 December 1984

Cartoon from Geordie Mag, depicting John White

The headline cartoon brings back to my mind the way that the early part of those Students’ Union discos were – especially when John and I were on the record decks.

The truth of the matter was that the discos only really started to fill up after last orders in the Main and Allright bars. For many of the punters, attendance no doubt had more to do with the fact that we had licence extension in the Ballroom Bar for gigs and discos, than a burning desire to dance. Plenty of people were up for the dancing of course, but the place was pretty quiet for the first 90 minutes or so of the show.

John & I tended to take full advantage of that early section, playing stuff that we and a handful of devotees liked leaping around to. And yes, I suppose, occasionally, John would have been the only one (or one of only two) dancing. I mean, one of us needed to look after the decks if the music was to be continuous.

I asked DeepAI to replicate the scene – not a bad depiction.

Here are the diary extracts for that end of term period.

Wednesday, 12 December 1984 – Busy day – office and Senate in afternoon. Very tired in evening. Petra [Wilson] came over distressed – Annalisa [de Mercur] coped.

I don’t recall why Petra was distressed – I think it was just a “parting is such sweet sorrow” thing at the end of her first term at Keele. Both Annalisa and Petra had put a lot of energy into being my Education and Welfare (respectively) No 2s that term – and indeed for the whole year. There is some irony in Annalisa (Education) despatching the welfare solace to Petra.

Thursday, 13 December 1984 – Bad day. Very tired today – meeting with solicitor in morn – have to sleep in afternoon – ball in eve – Ringroad and slave auction went well.

I’m glad I felt that the Ringroad show went well, after the Lenny Henry warm-up act debacle a couple of weeks earlier:

When Lenny Henry Came To Keele & Ringroad Performed The Warm-Up Act, 29 November 1984

I cannot remember who played that Christmas Ball – John White and/or Pady Jalali might remember. And I absolutely dread to think what a “slave auction” might have been in that context. I feel like cancelling myself for something I don’t remember and possibly didn’t really play much of a part in.

Friday, 14 December 1984 busy day etc – got up late and UC in afternoon – celebration after – UC takeaway my place – JW [John White] and I did disco – then Petra came over after.

I have a feeling that several members of the committee joined us early in the piece for that last disco of 1984, a little unlike the ones described in the first few paragraphs of this article. I think a lot of students had already gone down by that Friday, so we would have had a lot of space to leap around for the whole evening.

Saturday, 15 December 1984 – Went shopping with Kate [Fricker] in morning – then worked all day for IT [Industrial Tribunal – now known as an Employment Court]. Had meal in evening over at Annalisa’s.

Sunday, 16 December 1984 – Kate came over fairly early – worked and had lunch together and worked some more. Cooked Annalisa a meal in the evening.

Monday, 17 December 1984 – Did very little today – got ready for tribunal – went out for Indian meal with sabbaticals.

The next episode will take us to Shrewsbury for the start of the Industrial Tribunal. Watch this space.

Funnily Enough…Hackgrass, More Concourse, And Non-Laughing Matters At Keele Towards The End Of Autumn Term 1984

The Hackgrass column as published in December 1984

Despite the embarrassment of the Ringroad performance when supporting Lenny Henry in late November, my diary notes that we did a couple more performances that term. Get straight back on the bike after falling off and all that. It was probably part of the deal for having our Lenny Henry support show pruned.

And on the subject of pruning comedy, the headline picture is the entirety of the Hackgrass column as published in that December issue – much shorter than the piece submitted.

“Uncle” Quentin

This was to be Quentin Rubens’s last swipe at Hackgrass with the editor’s pen, as this was his last Concourse issue.

To be fair on Quentin, I think I had more or less completely run out of gas with Hackgrass by then. It was one thing to snipe pseudonymically at the committee from the side lines, but as sabbatical hidden in plain sight, it made no sense. In an attempt to disguise myself still and to “up the ante” some of the stuff I threw into that piece were both visceral and unfunny. Whereas some of my earlier griping about being pruned was fair, I think Quentin actually helped me to dodge bullets when he edited that column.

There are one or two not so bad jokes in there.

Actually I think the funniest stuff from that Concourse was in the letters. Annalisa de Mercur, who had done a two page spread on the miner’s strike (see below) wrote a coded letter which she now thinks was something to do with mushrooms (non-psycho-active ones)…

Cryptic to say the least

…while Richard “Wally” Hall, in his epistle, slagged off H Ackgrass for being the sort of person who snipes at those who speak at UGMs while not participating himself. Clearly he, like most folk, still hadn’t guessed who I was.

Lacking awareness of all kinds

Here are the extracts from my diary:

Saturday, 1 December 1984 – Shopped and did some work today. Went over to Kate’s [Kate, now Susan Fricker] for dinner – stayed late

Sunday, 2 December 1984 – Rose quite late – did some work in afternoon. Performed Ringroad in evening – went to Petra’s [Petra Wilson] briefly after.

Monday, 3 December 1984 – worked hard today – stock report came through [still losses, although at least the new bar managers had some ideas on what to do about it] – meetings. Early night.

Tuesday 4 December 1984 = Lots of committees etc – very busy in office. Went to Annalisa’s birthday party. Petra came over later.

Wednesday, 5 December 1984 – busy day with lots of meetings etc. John Boy [John White] came over for dinner in evening.

Thursday, 6 December 1984 – Busy day – solicitors in morning – committees – very busy afternoon. Went to KRA and Lindsay Ball. Petra came over later.

Friday, 7 December 1984 – Up early. Worked before UC in morning – very busy afternoon. Went down to London in Eve.

I have written up that weekend in London separately – it was an absolute corker and well worth a read if you like London, theatre and/or the 1980s.

A Weekend In London, Including The Pope’s Wedding by Edward Bond, Royal Court Theatre, Dinner At The Mayflower After Theatre & Lunch At The Swiss Centre The Next Day, 7 to 9 December 1984

Saturday, 8 December 1984 – Got up late – had late lunch – bummed around all day. Went to Royal Court to see The Pope’s Wedding – on to Mayflower after.

Sunday, 9 December 1984 – Got up quite late. Went into West End – had meal in Swiss Centre – came back to Keele – Petra came over.

Monday, 10 December 1984 – very busy day in office etc. Last UGM of term in the evening – went well.

Tuesday, 11 December 1984 – Very busy day today – work and meetings (Residential Services etc). In evening rehearsed Ringroad till late.

For the completists and/or deep readers amongst you, below are scans of Annalisa’s extraordinary piece about her visit to see the Silverdale Miners – for those of you who remember Annalisa and remember what Silverdale miners looked like, I can imagine Annalisa standing on a stepladder in order to interview those guys face-to-face:

If you are brave enough, you can also read the unexpurgated version of that H Ackgrass column. I apologise unequivocally, with the hindsight of age and better comedic judgment, for the visceral rubbish that got edited out.

When Lenny Henry Came To Keele & Ringroad Performed The Warm-Up Act, 29 November 1984

Lenny Henry 1980s (c1985), Photo by Jane McCormick Smith, CC3.0. Did Lenny learn that face from Olu? For sure Olu was using it prior to 1984.

Imagine Taylor Swift having Susan From Accounts as her support act – after all, Susan does go down reasonably well at the open-mic sessions down The Greyhound. Or Oasis being preceded by The Venn Diagrams – that nice band of “sixth-form graduands”, who performed with such exuberant confidence at their end of school bash.

Actually, the idea of Ringroad supporting the Lenny Henry as originally conceived was even more grandiose; the idea being that Ringroad would perform a warm up act and then a warm down act in the main bar that night. I still have the running orders from the project as originally conceived:

That was probably every last scrap of vaguely suitable material Ringroad had to hand at that time. I have some of these sketches in my Ringroad file. Those which I performed and/or in which I had a part, mostly.

I wrote up the preceding week, including the Ringroad context and early rehearsals, here:

We Interrupt This Keele Student’s Union Sabbatical For A Short Visit To London Including A Bagel Hunt And A Heap Of Ringroad Show Rehearsals, 16 to 23 November 1984

Here are my personal diary notes from the few days before and the day itself:

Saturday, 24 November 1984 – shopped etc. Rehearsed Ringroad in afternoon – wrote [H Ackgrass] column in eve – Annalisa [de Mercur] came over for a while.

Sunday, 25 November 1984 – Rose quite late – spent most of day in office. Cooked Petra [Wilson] a meal in eve – stayed.

Monday, 26 November 1984 – Very busy with lots of committee meetings etc. Rehearsed Ringroad in evening.

Tuesday, 27th November 1984 – Lots to do today in office. Rehearsed Ringroad until very late – quite knackered.

Wednesday, 28 November 1984 – Busy day in office. Petra came over to help me learn scripts etc. – stopped.

Thursday, 29 November 1984 – Lots to do today in office. Performed Ringroad at Lenny Henry gig in evening. Got plastered after.

Those notes tell the story in their own way, but I should fill in some gaps.

I’ll write more about that particular H Ackgrass column in a separate piece. Suffice it to say here that I very much remember Annalisa visiting me that afternoon. She was one of “my spies” for H Ackgrass and that will have been the main purpose behind that visit. I recall Annalisa asking me that day, “how do you fit all of these activities in and get so much done?” and I also remember feeling a bit smug about that. Actually, reflecting now on the relatively poor quality of my extra-curricular comedic output at that time, my answer to Annalisa’s question, forty years on, is to admit that I was substituting quantity for quality.

I also recall that I recruited Petra as an H Ackgrass spy the following day, as she was vexed at my caginess about my activities the previous day. It seemed easier and more sensible to recruit an additional Ackgrass spy than to lie about something so trivial so early in our relationship.

I’m going to guess that we didn’t cull the Ringroad show until the day of the show, hence the night before desperation of learning scripts, with Petra’s help. I can’t imagine that it was much fun for either of us, trying to cram my brain with Ringroad lines, while there was so much else swirling around in said brain at that time. But I did have a very good short-term memory back then, it is much diminished in power for such things now.

How and when the decision to cull our Ringroad act from two parts to one was made, I have no idea. Pady Jalali might remember. All I recall is that the decision was hastily made and I don’t suppose for one minute that anyone calculated the length of the resulting show or consider the logistics around our performance being in the Main Bar ahead of a Lenny Henry gig in the Ballroom. Here’s the cobbled together running order for the show Ringroad actually performed.

Oh look – I’ve been honoured with the closing number as a solo…

I don’t think the show went down very well. But my abiding memory is of the most awkward spot I found myself in towards the end of the act. I had just started my “Dracula” solo, when word came across the tannoy (probably the dulcet tones of Wally), that the Ballroom doors were open and that Lenny Henry would be starting in five minutes.

More or less the entire audience, quite understandably, made a bee-line to the Main Bar entrance in the direction of the Ballroom to try and grab good spots to watch the main show.

OK, clever clogs reader, what would you do in those circumstances? Would you admit defeat and stop the Ringroad show in mid sketch, or would you take “the show must go on” approach, continuing to perform the sketch to the ever-shrinking, backs-of-heads audience? I chose the latter, albeit embarrassing, approach. I think the other Ringroad performers and a handful of friends, such as Annalisa and Petra, stuck around…but perhaps I was truly alone by the end of the sketch.

Hello! I’m still here! Where’s everybody gone?

Unquestionably my most embarrassing experience as a performer, ever. More embarrassing even than the sword fight that went wrong in Twelfth Night at school six year’s earlier:

Twelfth Night, Alleyn’s School, 12, 14, 15 & 16 December 1978

But I digress. And you want to read about Lenny Henry, not Ringroad, nor Alleyn’s.

The Lenny Henry Gig At Keele

Securing Lenny Henry at that time was a bit of a coup for Pady, in my opinion. Lenny Henry was on the cusp of real stardom at that time, having just been given his own TV show, which aired in the early autumn, just ahead of his gig at Keele.

Here is the preview story from The Evening Sentinel:

Lenny Henry Preview Sentinel ClipLenny Henry Preview Sentinel Clip 26 Nov 1984, Mon Evening Sentinel (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England) Newspapers.com

I remember the Ballroom being absolutely packed. I think we Ringroaders watched from a balcony spot; a sole perk for our efforts and blushes. I thought Lenny Henry was an excellent performer and his show had far more in it than I had expected, with songs and set pieces as well as classic stand up material.

Alistair Perkins interviewed Lenny Henry at length for Concourse and also reviewed the show at length. Here are the very pieces that emerged in Concourse ten days or so after the event:

Here is Tim Bevington’s review from The Evening Sentinel:

Henry Review Tim Bevington SentinelHenry Review Tim Bevington Sentinel 30 Nov 1984, Fri Evening Sentinel (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England) Newspapers.com

To get a flavour of Lenny Henry back then, you might want to see the first episode of his 1984 TV Show, which is available on The Internet Archive – click here.

Or you might get more of a feel for his 1980s live performance from the following YouTube, which starts with the live material about 7’30” in:

Epilogue

I saw Lenny Henry live a couple of times in 2023. Firstly, in a wonderful one-man-play which he both wrote and performed, August In England, at The Bush Theatre:

August In England by Lenny Henry, Bush Theatre, 6 May 2023

…and then again a few months later when dining with John White in Jikoni:

It’s Not All Black And White: Meet-Ups With Annalisa, Jilly Black & John White, Mid-October 2023

I was far too polite on both of those occasions to get my own back on Lenny – for the embarrassment he inadvertently caused me in 1984 – which I could easily have done, either by walking out of his show or confronting him in front of his friends in the restaurant. I’m far too nice a guy for that. I don’t bear grudges. Anyway, in truth, I had deep filed my memory of that ill-fated Ringroad performance, until going through the old materials brought the memories flooding back.

Lenny Henry 1980s (c1985), Photo by Jane McCormick Smith, CC3.0.

“Perfection isn’t everything, some mistakes are pretty groovy.”- Lenny Henry.

Additional Evidence From Concourse On Stafford Demo & Keele UGM, Plus Ashley Fletcher’s Recollections Of That UGM Rumpus, Mid November 1984

I really should read everything before I do anything! After writing up the events of mid November, including a demonstration in Stafford and the UGM at Keele…

We Interrupt This Keele Student’s Union Sabbatical For A Short Visit To London Including A Bagel Hunt And A Heap Of Ringroad Show Rehearsals, 16 to 23 November 1984

…I discovered, in my pile of papers, a “Concourse Freebie” that wrote those two events up.

The demo write up, in excruciating detail to my more senior eyes, made Page One of the Freebie (see headline image). The UGM made Page Five. It was written up by Ralph Parker & Martin Whatley. Several passages in that report (see below) made me smile out loud. Well writ, fellas.

Ashley Fletcher’s Take

Ashley Fletcher’s forthcoming paper on the miner’s strike includes the following passage about the rumpus at that UGM. Reproduced with Ashley’s kind permission below:

University of Life

Somewhere around this time (the exact chronology is difficult to pin down), the local university students’ union at Keele was to debate a motion to ban promotion of the strike and related fundraising as ‘Ultra Vires’.  The motion put forward by the Federation of Conservative Students (FCS) was part of a conservative defunding campaign described above.

We had allies and affiliates on campus and although barred on the one hand, I had been awarded life membership of Keele Students Union and so was able to contribute to defending both the principle and the benefit to campaigning there.

The meeting on the 19th was perhaps the busiest I had ever seen and was deeply polarised and mutually antagonistic.  Some local miners from Silverdale and even a couple of Hucknall strikers from Nottinghamshire with student siblings there, came with us and galvanised and provoked in equal measure.

At the debates peak, the FCS leader, (deadnaming me as a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain!) claimed that when challenged by him, I had refused to condemn the use of violence by striking miners.  I had to resort to bureaucratic procedural ‘points of order’ to gain access to the microphone stating first the obvious “is it not a fact that I am not a member of the CPGB but a revolutionary anarchist communist?” to jeers and cheers. 

Agreeing that, I followed with “is it not a fact that I did not say I refused to condemn the violence of striking miners but instead, condone it and support its use and extension across the coalfields against the violence of scabs and the police occupation”.  The room erupted with both sides lunging, throwing beer and insults leading to a short recess before the vote.  The FCS motion and consequent ban were resoundingly defeated.