These images of Keele thanks to Graham Sedgley. How can you be in a blue funk in a place with red skies like that?
Something irked me in the penultimate week of term that year. The diary has more than its usual smattering of negativity.
I cannot remember what would have led to the phrase:
…UGM in eve – sabotaged…
…but that will for sure have irked me.
I sense that I was pretty busy that week with both studies and union stuff and I suspect that, whatever the sabotage was, I thought it disruptive and a cause of uneccessary work on my part.
I know I was already sensing that the 1983/84 committee on the whole was not very good and that there were aspects of the Union that mattered to me that felt out of control.
I also recall planning with Viv Robinson to promote the election season to try to ensure that the students engaged with that process – more on that will follow early in 1984. Similarly, I took it upon myself as Chair of Constitutional Committee to attempt to revise the constitution in order to remove some of the procedural loopholes that were enabling sabotage. More on that anon too.
Thursday – A Liberal Array Of Activities
A moving story if ever there was one
One of the more strange collections of activities is listed for Thursday:
V busy day – odds and ends – helped Ashley [Fletcher] move bed in afternoon – went J-Soc -> Liberal party in evening
I don’t think I am a good candidate for helping anyone move a bed from one part of Stoke to another, especially not a team comprising me and Ashley.
Just the thought of it brings to mind the following short film:
As for the “Liberal Party” later in the day, that would not be the actual political party, of course, but a party thrown by the bunch of Liberal activists who had arrived at Keele that year, who included my flatmate Pete Wild and Hayward Burt, both of whom depicted in the following picture:
Tony Roberts (Conservative), Pete Wild (then Liberal) and Hayward Burt (then Liberal, now Conservative), photo thanks to Mark Ellicott (formerly Conservative but subsequently radical)
My Barnes L54 flatmate Chris Spencer would no doubt have been there, as would Melissa Oliveck, who was Pete’s girlfriend at the time and a regular visitor to Barnes L54.
Friday 9 December – Busyish day – really pissed off today – went Hanley in eve with Ashley – Bobbie’s for a while in eve
I wonder what pissed me off. The Union business? Writers block for one of those pesky essay deadlines? Back ache from helping Ashley to move his bed? Head ache from overindulging liberally at the previous night’s party? Whatever caused it, I don’t suppose Bobbie enjoyed the experience of my mood on such days. Relatively rare in my case but I must have been REALLY pissed off to have noted such in my diary, which was normally spared such emotions.
Saturday 10 December – Busy sort of day. Shopping etc. Helped Ashley move in evening -> Black Lion -> two parties in eve. Stayed B.
The wok and rice cooker depicted are 21st century, but the booklets are 1983
My self-education in the matter of producing decent-quality Chinese food in my own (or should I say Barnes L54) kitchen took great strides forward as 1983 progressed.
I bought the Sharwoods leaflets depicted above at some point that year. I cannot remember which shop “took on” Sharwoods displays with these booklets sold cheap but the Sharwoods ingredients depicted within them sold dear. Was it Sainsbury’s in Newcastle-Under-Lyme? Or was it Kermase, the sort-of wholefood store, sort-of rice-and-spice deli? Or was it some other shop with delusions of grandeur that popped up and then disappeared, because grandeur and Newcastle-Under-Lyme don’t really go together?
Anyway, I treasured those little booklets and the techniques/ideas I gleaned from them. I still delve into them occasionally. But I soon tired of the high prices and small bottles of the Sharwoods range – for me the occasional trip to Chinatown in London to gather large bottles of the requisite sauces and packets of dried noodles at sensible student prices. Fresh won-ton wrappers too, once I’d worked out what to put inside them, as described last time…
The other staple substitute which I used in most of my recipes – certainly the stir-fry ones, was beansprouts. These were available in large packets at a very low price in Sainsbury’s. If you knew what you were doing (i.e. just blanch them or toss them into a stir fry right at the end of cooking) they were tasty, nutritious, went a long way and seemed quintessentially Chinese to us at the time, because Chinese restaurants used them.
I shall write up some of my “Keele Barnes L54” recipes in the fullness of time. This week there’s plenty else to write about.
Here’s the diary for the week:
My pattern well set, I love the radical candour of my Tuesday diary entry:
Tried to do loads today – failed.
Forty years on, despite me being older and allegedly wiser now, I can assure readers that I still often have days like that.
I have previously written up the wonderful evening of music that was the Kitchenware Package, which included Hurrah! The Daintees and to top it all Prefab Sprout. I wrote that concert up several years ago, for reasons explained in the following piece, so some readers following “Forty Years On” might have missed the write up – linked here and below:
One element of the Thursday diary entry is baffling me:
Thursday 1 December 1983: Busy day – union stuff etc. Cooked a meal for Viv [Robinson] – went to {Scarves?…Barnes??} with Kate – to Bobbie’s after.
The meal might well have been one of those Chinese meals at that time. It is also quite possible that my flatmate, Alan Gorman, would have participated in that meal. Alan, Bobbie Scully and (to a lesser extent) Viv were guinea-pigs for my Chinese cooking. More on that anon.
But where did we go with Kate and which Kate was this? My first thought was that the word is Barnes, but it makes no sense to go to Barnes after eating in Barnes, unless I meant to write a more specific address within Barnes and missed out a detail. Was there even a place called Scarves or similar for that word to be. Let’s zoom in on that entry:
Perhaps the hive mind of Keele alums can do better with that appalling scribble than my own addled mind is managing.
But a further mystery – which Kate is this? I don’t recall getting to know Kate Fricker as early as that in the 83/84 year, but maybe I did. She might have been friendly with Viv already by then and Viv might have been grooming her for greater things in the Union by early December. Kate might have been Catherine Emerson (now Cathy Butcher), of course whom we called Kate at that time. Cathy will remember I’m sure…not. I can only ask.
Friday 2 December – …Bobbie’s – saw film in Square – stayed there.
I’m trying to recall what “Square” was. I remember a place known as the Hexagon in Lindsay? Did it shed a couple sides and become “Square” in 1983? Or was Square some other place. The fact that I say “stayed there” and Bobbie was very much a Lindsay person (K Block unless I am much mistaken) makes The Square a Lindsay place. I don’t recall seeing films there but the diary says so. Again others might recall these places and events better than me.
Saturday 3 December – …shopped etc – went Asian do in early eve -> union with Bobbie – stayed there for some time.
“Asian do” was probably Chinese Cultural Society although it might have combined forces with some other cultural groups for a pan-Asian do. I recall that Bobbie had a good friend, May Lamb if I remember her name correctly, who went out with Tony Wong, who was a doyen of the Chinese Cultural Society. May’s family ran a Chinese Restaurant in, I think, Hartlepool.
I wonder what those two would have thought of my Chinese cooking? I don’t think I ever had the courage to try it out on them.
Dave Masten Rosen chimed in on Facebook, riffing with me about “Lee Ho Fooks” and Werewolves Of London. In fact I had mentioned Lee Ho Fook No 2 only a few months earlier:
…but without the associated reference to that amazing song, which is presumably about the then main Lee Ho Fook in Gerard Street.
It then occurred to me that “beef chow mein” was one of my regular dishes to cook in the Keele days, although I often substituted chicken. Of course, the recipe is in that little Sharwoods booklet. Here’s the relevant page, as a closing image. You should be able to read the recipe if you look closely enough.
My activity reads like a fairly set pattern by that stage of the term. A fair bit of work, Constitutional Committee,, J-Soc, the Union…
…I was spending so much time with Bobbie by then, that she is referred to as “B” in the diary on several occasions.
Bobbie had a television set in her room in Lindsay. “…Bobbie’s – watched film…” after going to the union with Ashley will ahve been a film on TV – my forensics identify The Killing Of Sister George as the likely film. I remember having seen that film way back when…no doubt this is when.
Saturday 26 November 1983 – Did some work today. Went out for Chinese meal with Malcolm [Cornelius], Ruth, Bobbie…
I started behaving more grown up by that year, going out for meals in restaurants and all sorts.
I vaguely remember a half-decent Chinese restaurant in Hanley, although i cannot remember its name. Malcolm might remember, as might a random reader. I’m sure Bobbie won’t.
I am fairly sure this was the occasion that I had a eureka moment in the matter of making wontons. My previous attempts had been OK, but not sufficiently special for my taste. This place made wontons with a mix of pork mince, a whole prawn and a smattering of spring onion within each wonton wrapper.
I recall thinking that the stock in this restaurant was a bit watery for my taste, but the wontons were super-tasty. My subsequent “famous” wonton soup recipe was a variant on the simple but appealing formula I worked out at that place.
Several of my friends liked to refer to the dish as “wanton soup”, with emphasis on the first syllable, not least Alan “The Great Yorkshire Pudding” Gorman. Alan, my flatmate, benefitted from my production of this dish more than most for the rest of that academic year. I seem to recall that Malcolm also was (and probably still is) a food pun addict, as well as a chap who likes his food.
…and indeed the rest of that week has little worthy of report in it.
Union Stuff
The diary suggests a fairly settled pattern of work, spending time with Bobbie and spending time in the Union, mostly around elections and such matters. The Chair of Constitutional Committee also chaired Election Appeals Committee and it seems there were elections that week.
The other thing that is clear from my diary that week is that I became good friends with Vivian Robinson around that time. She was SU Secretary (and therefore also returning officer) that year – so we were thrown together ex officio in terms of running elections.
Fortunately we got on well and I think the elections that year ran smoothly – even the one that I ran in…just about. Viv and I remained friends after Keele, not least when she lived on Bedford Hill in the late 1980s, about 10 minutes walk from my parents house. Watch this space for future tales.
Anyway, that week, it seems, Viv cooked me dinner one night and I made her lunch a couple of days later.
Anarchist Bonfire Party, 11 November 1983
I like the reference to going to an “anarchist bonfire party” after dinner with Viv on 11 November. Ashley and/or Sally Hyman might remember some details about that event, but I must admit I don’t remember much about it.
Perhaps it was part of a trend at that time to perceive Guy Fawkes as a radical hero, which, frankly, he wasn’t. Or perhaps it was more an excuse to have a bonfire party a week or so after the conventional Guy-effigy-burning occasion and avoid the unpleasant connotations of all that, by simply having a lively bonfire party, which I’m sure it was.
The Anarchist Bonfire Party won’t have looked like this
The Fall Supported By the Stockholm Monsters, 16 November 1983
This was a pretty memorable Keele gig in my book, as much for the buzz there was around The Fall at that time as the sound itself, which was only sort-of to my taste.
The Stockholm Monsters were a more than half-decent support act, well suited to support The Fall. In 1983 they sounded like this:
The Fall appeared on The Tube just over a week after our Keele gig. Their set on The Tube looked like this:
Andrea’s Party At Bushy House, 19/20 November 1983
By the end of that week I was writing in red ink, reporting on a trip to London. I love the fact that I note that I had a haircut on the Saturday morning. I’m guessing that my mum would have strongly suggested I needed a haircut, probably because of the location of the party I was going to that night.
My friend Andrea Dean was living in Bushy House, Teddington at that time. Her father had become Director of the National Physical Laboratory and a rather sprauncy apartment came with that job.
Andrea c1979
Bushy House is a former residence of King William IV, although I suspect he made use of the whole house.
I remember more than one entertaining party/gathering at Bushy House when it was Andrea’s place. This November 1983 one was especially memorable.
…And Forty Years On?
I rather like the juxtaposition of an anarchist bonfire party one weekend and a party in a formerly royal residence the next in November 1983.
Forty years on, both of those parties were good training for the week that I have just been through:
This is a strange thing to have survived in my document box. I think it has done so because Ashley Fletcher scribbled his telephone number on the reverse.
Still, we see Kate Fricker standing for a minor election, presumably just a few months before she ran for President. Running against someone by the name of Ged, but on this occasion not one of my multiple personalities.
In those days I was very much myself; Chair of Constitutional Committee and Election Appeals Committee. So perhaps I need to ask myself some serious questions about this stray ballot paper. Is that a hanging chad at the top of the slip?
1983 – Long before gender neutrality for conveniences had been invented
I sense from my autumn 1983 diary that I was hunkering down to do a reasonable amount of studying that year. That said, the first two evenings on the page below show me focussed at least as much on student politics. There was a UGM on the Monday, which passed with a mere “OK” from me…
Careless Talk
… on the Tuesday it says I went to Careless Talk. Straining my brain, I think that was an anarchist discussion group, which was colloquially known as “Bob & Sally’s Thing”, much to the chagrin Sally Hyman, and the late (also lovely) Bob Miller.
In truth, it was probably Ashley Fletcher more than anyone who nicknamed the group “Bob & Sally’s Thing”, knowing full well that the idea that the group had leaders or figureheads was anathema to Bob & Sally. It was outrageous for Ashley to nickname the group – it was Bob and Sally’s thing, so really only they should have had the power to name the group. Which they did. Careless Talk.
I think we might have met in The Victoria. Sally or Ashley might remember. I vaguely recall Ashley perpetuating the “power joke” because the chosen place was in Miller Street. I remember Bob especially liking whichever pub it was because it served the best pint of Bass he could find in town. That was an aspect to which Bob would have given a great deal of care and attention.
At the time we possibly thought we might solve the world’s problems through sheer weight of discussion and reasoned debate. Forty years later…it seems we didn’t make a great fist of it. Heck, but at least we tried. And some of us still do charity work to try and patch some of the broken bits back together again – e.g. Sally Hyman and her superb charity CRIBS International – not to be described as “Sally’s Thing”.
The Financial Times
Thursday 3 November 1983 – Lots to do before leaving for London after Election Appeals. Had Chinese meal and stayed up quite late.
Friday 4 November 1983 – Busy day – went to FT [Financial Times] in day – worked on it after. Watched Woody Allen & Richard Pryor film.
I had an Economics dissertation to research (the economics of the pharmaceutical industry – supervised by Joe Nellis – more on that in a future article). My parents were away and the Financial Times, bless them, were prepared to let an undergraduate like me loose on their archive library. In those days, that meant me going to their offices, taking up a desk for a day and the FT allowing me to photocopy and/or print out from microfiche a gazillion articles. Nowadays I suspect they might grant students a free electronic archive subscription for a limited time…or possibly make students pay.
I remember crawling across town to my parents’ house with a couple of bags full of printouts – I probably looked like a bag-person.
Goodness knows where I got the Chinese meal having got back to London after election appeals on the Thursday. I’m going to guess that I stopped off in Soho to eat and got a late bus from there.
I must have got home before 1.00 am because the Richard Pryor Live In Concert movie was shown on Channel 4 at 00:50. I had been dying to see that movie ever since Graham, who worked for a Laurie Krieger’s myriad businesses and who used to drive me to and from Kenton quite often that summer…
…waxed lyrical about Richard Pryor Live In Concert to me on one of our many long chats over the summer, claiming that it was the funniest movie he had ever seen. It is a good movie and some of it is very funny.
The only clip I can find feels more like prescient and sobering documentary than comedy today – TRIGGER WARNING: Richard Pryor uses the N-word a great deal, especially so in this potentially distressing clip.
The movie The Front, which I watched on the Friday evening, I recall having a profound affect on me and I still remember its poignancy. It is about left-wing people who were blacklisted in the US media, especially Hollywood, in the 1950s McCarthyism scare. US potty politics precedes Trump. The film was mostly made by people who had suffered at that time, including the wonderful Zero Mostel.
I remember also working hard on my research project and also doing a fair bit of taping on the Saturday and I saw Paul Deacon on the Sunday, who I’m sure presented me with another tape, which I might well go through separately from this piece if/when I have time.
Constitutional Committee & The Truda Incident, 7 November 1983
7 November 1983 – Returned from London – went to classes – const. comm. in eve – stayed down bar – went back to B’s [Bobbie Scully’s] after Truda [Smith] incident.
I don’t remember why the Truda incident occurred. Truda had been the SU president the year before, with limited success and even less goodwill left in the tank at the end of it all, in my humble opinion. I seem to recall that the immediate past President sat on Constitutional Committee ex officio, which might explain why she was there and why I felt some sense of responsibility for helping her post meeting.
I don’t recall anything in the meeting upsetting her – the meetings were orderly and well-tempered throughout my year as Chair as I recall it – but I think that meeting might have brought home to Truda the past-President’s absence of power.
Private Eye would describe her as “tired and emotional” that evening. I remember that Ashley was around. Bobbie wasn’t. At some point, quite late in the evening, someone (possibly one of the stewards) approached me and Ashley because they (or someone) was concerned that Truda had staggered into the Women’s toilets in the main lobby of the SU some time earlier and…not yet staggered out again. There were no women on hand to check the situation out.
I recall Ashley, quite skittishly, celebrating the opportunity to see inside the Women’s…
…I’ve always wondered what it might be like in there. I don’t suppose you’ve ever seen it either, Ian…
I was not really concerned about the aesthetics of the Women’s loo compared with the Men’s – I was wondering whether there would be blood…or vomit…or blood & vomit…
…actually there were none of those things. Just a very drunk, very weepy Truda who needed consoling – so we did our best to console – although frankly neither of us felt especially sympathetic to her (lack of) plight.
I had returned to Keele in Autumn 1983 armed with my copy of Punch The Clock
At times I really didn’t write enough in my diaries. This last week of October 1983 is an example of that.
Put aside the fact that I went to see three films that week without noting any of the film titles. Anyone out there keep notes on Film Soc 1983/84? Where’s Keele Film Soc archivist Tony Sullivan when you need him? – I think Tony had left Keele by then, unfortunately.
Worse yet, I cannot recall what led to the Monday note:
…Busy day – classes etc. Const[itutional] Comm[itee] in eve – confusion in Union!…
I don’t think the confusion and the committee meeting were connected, but maybe they were.
Perhaps the confusion was connected with the other aspect of my memory which I am pretty sure was that week, which was news of the tragic, sudden death of Adam Fairholme.
As I remember it, Adam had gone into town with friends to see a movie and had succumbed to an epileptic fit. No-one in the party had known what to do to reduce the risk of serious injury or death in such circumstances and Adam had tragically choked on his own tongue.
I remember in particular discussing with Ashley Fletcher the irony of our last evening with Adam, given the film’s title, together with the unquestionable fact that, had Adam had his fit while with us, we wouldn’t have known what to do in those circumstances either. Possibly we would have instinctively done something different and helped save him. More probably, we’d have been in the same helpless situation as his companions that night, who must have been in great distress.
…a role which I think Adam really wanted, whereas I ran for that election more than a little reluctantly. I vaguely remember Ashley making an off-colour joke about me now unquestionably being better qualified for the role than Adam…and then feeling badly about even thinking such a line, let alone speaking it.
Adam was a very decent fellow. His family, his friends, Keele and who-knows-what beyond was deprived of one of the good people when he died so young.
I am pretty sure the heavy drinking session and resulting hangover Friday/Saturday was in part a sorrows-drowning exercise with regard to Adam.
…went to party in Thorns – drank to[o] much
Saturday 29 October 1983 – Felt very ill when I rose – Hungover wasn’t the word. Recovered in time for Elvis Costello concert – brill.
Here I’m going to give myself a big gold star, as my memory sensed that this concert was at Victoria Hall Hanley, not in the Union. Checking in to the Elvis Costello wiki enabled me to confirm my memory and indeed to see more about that gig on a web page than I could possibly have imagined – click link below for all the details of the tracks played and even a link to the Evening Sentinel review that followed:
I cannot remember who came with me to that concert. Simon Jacobs, Keele’s one-man Elvis Costello Fan Club, had left Keele that summer and tells me that he is sure he did not return for that gig. Yet in my mind Simon was there. I cannot imagine having seen Elvis Costello perform without Simon being there.
Latterly, in the 1990s, as I report elsewhere, I got to know Elvis Costello surprisingly well, as we were both members of Lambton Place (now BodyWorksWest). I chatted with him idly for years before asking him what he did for a living and then, when he said he was in the music business, asking him his name.
Simon Jacobs is just about still talking to me after I told him about that. At least I hope Simon is, otherwise next week’s meal (I say, reporting 40 years after the Hanley concert) will be a rather quiet one.
…the diary suggests that I spent a couple of weeks seeing friends, buying records and making tapes – the perfect preparation for the 1983/84 academic year that would be my P3 year (i.e. fourth year at Keele, third and final year of undergraduate studies).
It seems I was enjoying myself so much I even got my days mixed up in the diary:
Wednesday 28 September 1983 – …went out for dinner with Jilly – came back here [Woodfield Avenue] after – late night
Thursday 29 September 1983 – Went to Brixton with Jilly in morning – lazyish afternoon – Andrew [Andy Levinson] came over late afternoon – dinner – wine bar
Frankly I wouldn’t have remembered that Streatham Hill had such a thing as a wine bar in those days. Perhaps it was new and we wanted to try it. I vaguely remember one in the 1980s on Sternhold Avenue – perhaps that was the one.
Saturday 1 October 1983 – went to visit Marianne [Gilmour] – pleasant lazy evening
Sunday 2 October 1983 – went to Makro with Dad in morning. Wendy [Robbins] came over in afternoon
My “business ” at Makro on that occasion was probably limited to a few record albums at discounted prices (see link to my October 1983 album purchase list) and some stationery for the forthcoming academic year. Goodness only knows what Dad wanted there.
Monday 3 October 1983 …went up West & to R&T today…
R&T meant “Record & Tape Exchange” as it was then named.
I bought lots of albums on that visit – the use of a different colour of ink listing them on my log tells me exactly which ones, so I have listed them in a separate article – click here or below.
6 October 1983 – went to shop with Dad in morning – went to office – met Caroline for lunch
I suspect I helped Dad prepare his books that morning, hence stopping at the office (Newman Harris) on my way to lunch. Efficient, I was, even back then.
7 October 1983 – …went to G Jenny’s in afternoon. Paul came over in evening.
8 October 1983 – Busy day packing etc. taping too – getting ready to come back to keele
9 October 1983 – Left early – came to Keele lunched at Post House – unpacked some – went to Union – quite dull
I can only imagine that this meant that Dad drove me up on this occasion, as I cannot imagine why else I’d have eaten at a roadside convenience place such as The Post House. Of course nothing much up at Keele would have been open on a Sunday. In the circumstances, The Sneyd would not have been a diplomatic choice.
I love my comment that the Union was quite dull – yet again, in my enthusiasm, I had come back to Keele ahead of the excitement. But there was plenty of fun, as well as hard work, to come in that Autumn 1983 term. watch this space.
Keele Students’ Union – only dull when there is no-one around.
Actually I worked in 19 Cavendish Square, not 19a (depicted). I subsequently (many years later) went to the dentist/hygienist in 19a. Any resemblance between tooth pulling and me working as an accounts clerk in the university holidays is purely coincidental.
The summer of 1983 was to be the last of my summer holiday jobs working for Newman Harris in London. Two-and-a-bit years later I started working for that firm full time as a trainee, but that’s another story.
As with previous summer jobs, I spent an awful lot of time meeting up with people for lunch and after work. I also visited Keele during that summer – a benefit of having retained the Barnes L54 flat, along with Alan Gorman and Chris Spencer, for a further year.
I’ll set out my diary pages below and try to translate/transliterate them. The very first reference on my first day of work, “VL”, refers to Laurence Corner (the V stood for Victor), where I spent a fair chunk of that summer, as I had done previously in my summer jobs. Forty years on, I am still in touch with DJ and Kim from there – not least because I met Janie through Kim in 1992 and the rest, as they say, has been history.
In July 1983 though, I was struggling with my sophomoric romantic travails with Liza. I did not want to seem to be pandering to my mum’s unreasonable aversion to the relationship…in truth I think mum had an aversion to me having ANY romantic relationship at that time…while in truth I had emotionally “checked out” by the end of the summer term, as reported in the last instalment…
…I just couldn’t see the Liza relationship working for me the following academic year.
There’s the context, so hold on to your hats for the deeds extracted from the diaries.
Monday 4 July 1983 – Started work – v busy. VL etc – unpacking etc evening
Tuesday 5 July 1983 – Work – v busy. Met Jilly [Black] for lunch [probably that Italian place on Henrietta Place where you could sit and eat in a railway carriage]. Unpacked till late
Wednesday 6 July 1983 – Busy day at office – Paul [Deacon] came over in evening. [I think there’ll be some good “mix tape” pieces from the summer of 1983, as Paul was in top form that summer with his record finds etc – my own form was not bad that summer either]
Thursday 7 July 1983 – Lots of work – stayed in this evening
Friday 8 July 1983 – V Busy – stayed in eve & relaxed
Saturday 9 July 1983 – Lazy day today – went shopping in Brixton -> G Jenny for tea – lazy eve
Sunday 10 July 1983 – Lazy day – did some reading – relaxed, ate, etc.
Grandma Jenny still lived in Sandhurst Court, Acre Lane, in those days, making a shopping trip to Brixton ahead of visiting her for tea a natural progression.
I expect you’ve got the gist of these summer diary pages by now, so I’ll only extract the highlights that might use some explaining from now on.
Tuesday 12 July 1983 – …met Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] for lunch…Paul [Deacon] came round in evening – went over to Andrew [Andy Levinson, who also lived in Woodfield Avenue]
Friday 15 July 1983 – Office Ok – much work – left early. Went up to Keele – stayed in eve…
Saturday 16 July 1983 – went pub in morning – afternoon Ashley [Fletcher] came over – v tired crashed out early…
Sunday 17 July 1983 – then up late – ran late – brekker – lazy day – left in eve – got back a little late.
Forty years on, I’m struggling to process that weekend in my mind. I sense that I was finding full time work tiring that summer – I think there was a bit of a heatwave on that year – but the weekend in Keele looks quite topsy-turvey to me and I’m guessing that some aspects are unwrit and unremembered, at least by me. Ashley might remember a bit more once he sees the diary write up. Perhaps that weekend was the “dancing and mud cricket in the rain” occasion:
Wednesday 20 July 1983 – …went to Wendy’s [Robbins – in Bromley back then] in eve – v pleasant.
Thursday 21 July 1983 – …met Caroline for lunch …
Friday 22 July 1983 – Work OK – deadlines. Went to Annalisa’s [de Mercur, who lived in Harley Street in those days] for lunch and went for a drink with Marianne [Gilmour, daughter of Geoffrey, also doing holiday work at NH those summers] – Paul came over later.
Saturday 23 July 1983 – …had haircut… [a rare and therefore diary-worthy event back then]
Sunday 24 July 1983 – Lazy day – nice lunch (Chinese) [probably at Mrs Wong’s] Finished with Liza in eve – not nice.
I vaguely recall seeking counsel from several friends in the run up to the Sunday call with Liza, which possibly in part explains the social whirl of the end of the week. I’m not going to pretend that I handled the matter well, but I was bringing little or no experience to the matter. In any case, it isn’t a situation that lends itself to being handled well.
Monday 25 July 1983 – …Ashley [Michaels, from NH, not Fletcher from Keele] took me to lunch…
Thursday 28 July 1983 – …met Hamzah [Shawal, my departing Keele flatmate – I think this was the last time I saw him] for lunch…
Friday 29 July 1983 – …went for drink with Ashley [Michaels] and Dilip Vora] after work …
Saturday 30 July 1983 – …went over to Paul’s for afternoon…
Sunday 31 July 1983 – Did little today. Set up hi-fi. Met Liza in Edgware – drank quite a lot!
I vaguely remember that evening in Edgware. I think Liza’s brother Sean and sister-in-law Marlene had invited her down with a view to setting up a face-to-face between me and Liza. Possibly they wrongly envisaged a possible reconciliation if Liza and I met in person. In any case it was a grown-up ploy, because breaking up by phone had been far from ideal; I think (hope) Liza and I parted on better terms as a result of that very boozy evening.
In July 2022, we’re having a heatwave. The brain addles, but also the odd memory flash arrives.
39 years ago we also had a heatwave, right at the very end of the 82/83 academic year, at Keele.
It was probably the only period in all my years at Keele when I (and many of us) felt stifled by the heat up on that hill.
I have one very clear memory of that heatwave, from when the weather broke. The sky darkened, there was thunder and it started to pour with rain, much like a tropical storm.
Ashley Fletcher
There were very few students still around. It was either right at the very end of the summer term or possibly even after term had finished; I returned to my Barnes flat (L54) at Keele for a weekend or two that summer, as I was going out with Liza O’Connor from The Sneyd at that time.
I remember that Ashley Fletcher was around at the flat when the weather broke; Ashley immediately said, “let’s go outside and dance in the rain”.
Several other people came out of other flats onto the edge of the playing fields and danced with us.
Although it was 1983, I don’t think we quite managed to emulate Flashdance…
…but still – what a feeling!
Anything to add, Ashley?
Postscript: Yes, Ashley Did Have Something To Add…
…pseudonymously – only because it is my tradition for King Cricket to provide noms de guerre for my friends…or should I say, for Ged Ladd’s friends:
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