I continued shuffling backwards and forwards between Rectory Road Shelton & Keele until after my June exams, which included my Law part one finals and also (I think) a couple of Economics papers.
Forty years on, my more grown up…well, older at least… self does not think that going to Chester for the day with Liza and Mandy was such a good idea, when I should have been revising for my Keele exams.
I sense from the write up of that day and the next that the effort of the day trip to Chester made me feel a bit poorly. I was still not completely better from my glandular fever a few months earlier. Still, I report “worked hard” the next day, 2 June, ahead of attending the count and election appeals.
Let me be clear about this. 2 June was not the general election. Rather, it was an extremely important election in the University of Keele Students’ Union calendar, the exact nature of which is lost in the mists of time but it was beholden upon me to go for a drink with the others from election appeals committee afterwards. I think it was probably the last SU election of the year.
I have no idea what might have been annoying about the Saturday afternoon. I suspect I didn’t get much done. My intended revision simply refused to revise for itself and I, in turn, didn’t get much revision done for it. Revision was never the thing I did best.
I report going to the flicks to see The Missionary on the Sunday and then returning to Keele, so my guess is that this film was on at the cinema in Hanley. I remember liking it. Everyone who is (or was) anyone in English comedy drama is on that cast list – national treasures a plenty. That type of whimsical comedy film, it was.
In the spring of 1983, one of the “big hit” comedy books that captivated the young (and young at heart) was The Complete Naff Guide.
Available second hand – click image if you wish
Not long after, there emerged a short publication at Keele named The Keele “Naff” Guide. It is attributed to Adrian Bore and Daphne Canard, but is actually the work of Frank Dillon, with a little help from his friends. I plan to e-publish the “tome” for the May Bank Holiday weekend 2023. Watch this space.
Point is, on the short list of Naff Union Positions gracing the back cover of the Keele “Naff” Guide, Chairperson Of Constitutional Committee does stand out as being quintessentially naff.
How Frank himself, with a little help from his friends, persuaded me to run for that position in the spring of 1983, is one of life’s mysteries that would probably best remain unsolved. But I’m going to try and solve it anyway.
I have mentioned before the shenanigans around several union elections in 1982 and 1983, largely caused by the Tory faction deliberately trying to game flaws and loopholes in the election rules in an attempt to disrupt the smooth running of the union.
In May 1983 my memory would still have been fresh with the (in my case literally sickening) shenanigans that February – click here or below:
Yes, I was on Constitutional Committee (which was also Election Appeals Committee) that year. Yes, I suppose I was seen as one of the good guys. Yes, only one person had put their name forward for the 1983/84 role – Adam Fairholme, who was a Conservative, albeit from a benign corner of that grouping.
I think it was a small posse that ganged up on me and persuaded me to run. I’m pretty sure that Frank Dillon himself was part of that posse. Also Vincent Beasley. I have a feeling that Genaro Castaldo (he who pleaded me away from my sick bed when things went awry in February) and possibly also Viv Robinson (who had been elected to succeed Genaro) leant on me.
I said I didn’t really want to do it. I said I had no time to put together a manifesto and contest the election. I said it was better that they find someone else.
Just do whatever you can. We think you’ll win the election anyway.
I sat in the Main Bar and wrote a few lines in large block capitals on a side of A4 paper. I wish I still had that scribbled-so-called-manifesto to show you. It was so sloppy and shoddy that, I recall, Viv Robinson and I subsequently used it in a guidance note to people who wanted to run for elections in 1983/84 as an example of what NOT to do.
It included my name writ large with a large cross in a box top and bottom. I recall that I pledged to
uphold the spirit and the letter of the constitution
explain constitutional matters in ways that would help and encourage students to participate in the union
seek to revise the constitution to block the loopholes that had recently been exploited to frustrate the union’s purposes.
In fairness to myself, despite the brevity of the pledges and shoddy presentation, I did see through those pledges to the best of my ability during 1983/84.
Having signed my nomination papers and deposited my scrappy piece of hand-written A4 purporting to be a manifesto, I then went back to Shelton for much of the next week, returning to the campus just for classes, a bit of private study and some infeasibly long tennis matches with Alan “The Great Yorkshire Pudding” Gorman. I don’t think I went to the union again until election day.
I’m pretty sure that my diary entry on 6 May which reads, in part “union for a while” reflects the above.
Friday 13 May 1983 – Busyish day – classes etc. – election for const. comm. – won – went to Shelton- had 1st drink (or 2) there.
I think I won the election on a small turnout but a significant percentage. Something like 120 to 80. I recall that Adam Fairholme was bitterly disappointed not to be elected; I think he campaigned quite hard and fancied his chances against an all-but-absentee candidate. Actually Adam was a good bloke and we became friends, albeit not close friends. I’ll write more about him and his demise come the 40th anniversary of that tragedy.
“1st drink (or 2)” relates to the fact that I had been completely off the sauce since February on the back of doctors orders due to my glandular fever (infectious mononucleosis). In May, Dr Scott told me that my “six month ban” could be reduced to “three months” for good behaviour, as I really hadn’t touched a drop.
But did I have the constitution for it?
Saturday 14 May 1983 – Rose quite early – came back to Keele for a while – dress and tennis – went back to Shelton – drag at party – not too pleasant – v late night.
I only very vaguely remember this party but I’m guessing it was some sort of costume party involving drag (they were an arty crowd, Liza’s North Staffs Poly crowd – I suppose that’s what you get when you study art). I don’t think I enjoyed it much, based on my diary entry.
Sunday 15 1983 – decadent day in bed – talking etc. – v pleasant – felt v ill – temp up – both [me and Liza] came back to Keele.
Even at the age of 20, I think its clear that I preferred smaller gatherings of friends/people I knew and liked, to big parties – regardless of costumes or lack thereof.
Even clearer is the fact that I did not yet have the constitution for drinking again. I voluntarily stayed off the sauce for quite a while longer. While my body didn’t tell me that three to four hour tennis matches might be overdoing it, it did tell me that one or two drinks was still one or two too many for my post-virus constitution.
…I was also spending an inordinate amount of time too-ing and fro-ing between my Barnes flat at Keele and Liza O’Connor’s new digs in Rectory Road, Shelton, where she had taken up residence with her North Staffordshire Polytechnic (aka North Staffs Poly aka NSP) friends Mike and Mandy.
I Would Like, If I May, To Take You On A Strange Journey…
I’ll translate the first three entries:
Monday 2 May 1983 – Rose quite late – came back [from Shelton] to Keele. Did some work etc.
Tuesday 3 May 1983 – Busy day – worked on criminology essay – shopped – played tennis [with Alan Gorman] for a while [clearly not a “proper” five setter]. Hard work.
Wednesday 4 May 1983 – Rose quite early – had quite a lot to do – did some work – Liza came over – went walk – went to Shelton – did work.
I very much enjoyed, as part of my law degree, the criminology course, taught by Pat Carlen and the late, lamented Mike Collinson. I cannot remember exactly what that essay was about, but I do remember being especially interested in the notion that convicted criminals tend to be severely stigmatised by society, such that they often have few alternatives to recidivism, thus returning to crime. I was particularly taken by Erving Goffman’s book Stigma, and also his book Asylums, which was about institutionalisation, which affects prisoners as well as those incarcerated on mental health grounds. I’ll guess that the essay was about that sort of thing.
I am not, by the way, suggesting that the journey between Shelton & Keele was a strange journey, nor that Liza and I were even faintly Brad and Janet:
Divesting Myself Of J-Soc Responsibilities, but…
Thursday 5 May 1983 – Rose quite early – Bakery -> Keele – classes etc – got ready for J-Soc [Jewish Society] AGM tonight – Melina [Goldberg – an old friend from BBYO who must have been a regional Jewish student bigwig by then] came – Liza also – Meal after – L stayed.
The bakery bit must have been items for the after AGM meal. The positive change I think made in my reluctant year as J-Soc Chair was to make food and interaction with other cultural societies central to our purpose.
I’m not sure what Melina made of our secular, diverse set up at Keele, but I’m fairly sure I didn’t see her again after that evening, so she was possibly less than impressed.
I remember being much relieved to be rid of the J-Soc Chair role, but was soon to be grabbed for a bigger, Students’ Union role. I’ll explain that in the next article, when reporting how the matter was determined.
Bell And Bear And Tootsie
Friday 6 May 1983 – Rose late – went to classes – union for a while -> Shelton. Saw Tootsie [a Dustin Hoffman movie which I think had just been released in the UK] in afternoon – went to Bell and Bear in evening.
(Saturday and Sunday just describes a bit more too-ing and fro-ing twixt Sheton & Barnes)
I don’t remember the Bell and Bear all that well. I asked Simon Jacobs this morning (exactly 40 years after that diary mention, I now realise) if he remembered the place and he did not.
I’m pretty sure it was mostly frequented by North Staffs Poly students, as that area was very much an NSP student part of town.
At that time I was still off the sauce, as part of my recuperation from glandular fever. I’m pretty sure the lemonade and similar drinks in the Bell and Bear were, compared with Keele Students’ Union, similarly priced and similarly awful. I believe the beer was less awful than the SU beer at that time.
Based on this web entry, The Bell & Bear was refurbished in the 1980s which might have been the cause of its popularity with the NSP students – there were lots of grungy pubs to choose from.
I collaborated with Dall-E to produce this picture.
I had made Liza O’Connor a mix tape which I modestly entitled “THE TAPE”. I don’t think I jotted down the contents anywhere, so unless Liza has kept the tape and wants to share its contents with me/the world, that one is lost for posterity.
Anyway, I still have hers, which she named “THE OTHER TAPE”, which is pretty darned good. I remember thinking it was seriously cool in the spring of 1983, when I played it a lot – no doubt letting a fair chunk of the Keele campus – at least the Barnes flats – hear my tape along with me…whether they wanted to hear it or not.
It’s a great mix tape on the whole. I still play it sometimes – digitised as a playlist. Heck, the cassette might still play but why risk it?
Here’s the track listing:
Ghosts, Japan
Flowers of Romance, Public Image Ltd
The Art of Falling Apart, Soft Cell
It’s Different For Girls, Joe Jackson
Everybody’s Happy Nowadays, Buzzcocks
Coloured Music, The Piranhas
Homosapien, Pete Shelly
No More Heroes, The Stranglers
Kilimanjaro, The Teardrop Explodes
Transmission, Joy Division
Loneliest Man in the World, Tourists
River, King Trigger
When I Dream, The Teardrop Explodes
Wake Up & Make Love With Me, Ian Dury and the Blockheads
Love Will Tear Us Apart, Joy Division
Golden Brown, The Stranglers
Will You, Hazel O’Connor
Jealousy, Queen
Vincent, Don McLean
My Funny Valentine, Elvis Costello
We All Fall In Love Sometimes, Elton John
I Don’t Know Why It Is, Pete Shelly
Easy, The Commodores
As Tears Go By, The Rolling Stones
Sex, Scritti Polliti
Below vids of all the above – hopefully most will still be there when you get to this page but they should all be findable somewhere:
It seems I spent the last full week of March 1983 trying to catch up with my class work (glandular fever had seriously disrupted that second term of my P2 year) and spending plenty of time with my girlfriend Liza. Also I signed on (as we had to do in those days if we wanted money to cover our holiday weeks) in Newcastle, as I was planning on spending most of the Easter break at Keele, not in London.
In addition to Liza, I mention Veera [Bachra] in my diary that week. Veera was a lovely lass who lived in the Barnes flat on the opposite side to ours (L52 I suppose – ours was L54).
It might have been on this occasion that I remember Veera discussing with me her very serious worry that her parents, who were traditionally Sikh, planned to arrange a marriage for her with the son of some family friends. As I recall it, she felt she was in a very difficult situation as it was not, culturally, in her gift to reject the proposal. The man could reject the woman but if the woman were to reject the man, that would bring shame on her family and a rift with the friends.
Too Much Too Young – picture produced in collaboration with Dall-E
I asked Veera about the “lad”, whom she thought was a nice enough fellow – very good at maths – but not for her. I suggested that Veera conspire with the lad, explain how she felt and suggest to him that it might be best for all concerned if he chose to reject her. I also recall Veera telling me with delight that the plan had worked when we returned from the break.
My own issues with parents (more specifically my mother) and relationships were, on the face of it, less serious. But I was spending a lot of time with Liza by then and could hardly disguise the fact that I was only going to spend a week or so in London that break – some of it with Liza. Let’s just say that mum did not react very well to the idea of me going steady with a non-Jewish girl.
A Week Or So In London For Passover & Easter
Anyway, after my return to London, I spent some time with my parents, Michael and Pam (Harris uncle and aunt) on the Sunday, then Seder night “just with the Aarons” [Lionel & Dinah] on the Monday.
By the Wednesday, I had toddled off again, to spend 24-36 hours with Liza in the company of her brother and sister-in-law, Shaun and Marlene, who lived in Stanmore. I recall that Shaun was a hairdresser and also that they lived next door to a former member of a punk band – I think it was The Vibrators – which I remember thinking at the time made Shaun and Marlene extremely cool. Only with the benefit of hindsight do I sense that the musician in question was, presumably, not particularly cool. Further, his proximity to Shaun and Marlene had no bearing on their coolness or lack thereof.
I’m not sure what “lunch at Marlene’s” comprised but I’m guessing that she worked in town and that Liza and I went to the flicks to see The Dark Crystal in central London somewhere before retreating to Stanmore. I recall little about The Dark Crystal other than not liking it very much. It will have been its muppetness that drew me in, whereas Liza did like fantasy epic stories.
I have no recollection of taking Liza to dad’s shop, nor to Anil [Biltoo]’s house, but if the diary says we did that, we did just that. What Liza made of the zombie business that was my dad’s shop by 1983 goodness only knows. It is possible that my purpose was, in part, to get dad on-side in the matter of calming my mother down about Liza!
Dad’s shop in the 1950s, but it looked little different in the 1980s
An evening with Paul [Deacon] will have been heavily music related and I do recall spending a large percentage of my short stay at my parents’ house that time recording mix tapes and scraping albums onto cassettes.
A blog piece on the music from those recording sessions (plus those of my friends and/or lovers made for me) will surely follow.
Good Friday visiting Grandma Jenny and Uncle Louis [Barst] – the latter being Jenny’s brother. Marie (Louis’s wife) must have died by then and Grandma Jenny will only very recently have moved from Brixton to Surbiton in order to live with her recently widowed brother.
Grandma Jenny a few years later
It was an arrangement that worked very well, both until Louis’s death and then afterwards as Grandma Jenny lived out her dotage as a superannuated trustafarian, thanks to the forethought of Louis and Marie. Mum was frantic about this new arrangement at the time, feeling that Jenny would be too far away and wondering what would happen to her if/when Louis passed away before Jenny.
On Easter Sunday I went to Makro in Charlton with my parents. I might write more about Makro some other time – our heyday of going there was in my schooldays. I wasn’t wild about the place (I never much liked shopping) but my dad liked it. I found it useful for getting some albums at low price and cheap stationery for my student life. The place encouraged you to over-purchase. Forty to fifty years later, I still stumble across some as yet unused stationery from there.
Easter Monday at Il Caretto in Streatham, about which I have waxed lyrical previously and no doubt will do so again. That would have been just me, mum and dad. I suspect the food was hot enough but the atmosphere with mum decidedly cold.
Liza was a bit poorly on my return to Keele, but she soon felt better and we did a fair few things together before the new term started.
I’m not sure which Sleeping Beauty we went to see – it might have been the Disney (which I still think is a great animated movie) or it might have been one of the Sleeping Beauty updates that were all the rage in the 1980s. Not sure I’d have tolerated a bum-numbing 160 minutes of ballet, though.
Keele film buff Tony Sullivan helpfully chipped in with listings, which prove, by dint of the show times, that Liza and I must have seen the Disney:
Tony admits that he went, not Sleeping Beauty, but to see Caligula. With the benefit of hindsight, I might have got more out of seeing the latter, as I had seen Sleeping Beauty before.
Tony also proves that Liza and I probably saw The Dark Crystal at The Plaza (although it might have been the Classic Oxford Street):
Many thanks for that top class web-sleuthing, on my behalf Tony. And now, back to the main story.
Back To The Main Story
I also recall enjoying some hospitality from Liza’s parents, who were, I think, keen to bond a bit with me (and Liza) ahead of Liza slipping away from their nest (The Sneyd Arms in Keele Village)…
…to a less salubrious welling in Shelton (more convenient for her third term at North Staffs Poly) to share with her friends Mike and Mandy.
Two events during that period stick in my mind.
One was going off early in the morning with Liza and Geoff (her dad) to collect some stocks of food from his wholesaler for the pub. At one of the roundabouts just outside Newcastle, we encountered a queue of perhaps four or five cars ahead of us. It took nearly a minute to get onto the roundabout. Geoff exclaimed:
…it’s traffic jams almost all the time around here now – it gets worse and worse!
I remember thinking that, in London, we wouldn’t even consider such a minor queue as traffic, let alone a jam.
My other memory was of a family meal upstairs at The Sneyd (presumably one of Geoff’s days off), where they had prepared a joint of venison for our dinner. I think it was the first time I ever tasted venison. Certainly the first time at a family table. It all felt very English and I did like the taste of it.
The UGM That Never Was (Photo: KUSU-Ballroom-1962-John-Samuel)
Don’t ask me why 7 March 1983 was noteworthy in my diary as “UGM That Never Was…”. Presumably some of us sat around for some time hoping for a quorum but the quorum never came.
Lots of mentions of Liza visiting me and even me visiting her at The Sneyd, so any hangover form my post-glandular-fever grumpiness had presumably abated…
…lots of activity and lots of mentions of being busy…although I do recall getting uncharacteristic waves of fatigue for many weeks after my release from the Heath Centre.
Friday 11 March 1983 – Rose early – did quite a lot of things. Alan went home – election appeals – went to see film with Liza – back here after…
…I think Alan had some serious partying to do back home that weekend and had finished all of his course work for the term that Friday. I recall that Alan returned to Keele several weeks later looking a whiter shade of pale green, having been out on the lash with his mates just before returning to Keele. I wondered whether a single binge-boozy-party had been sustained throughout all of those weeks and asked him that very question.
ALAN: Feels a bit like that today.
ME: You look a very funny colour, to be honest.
ALAN: You haven’t exactly looked rosy-cheeked yourself lately, mate.
ME: Fair point.
But I digress.
I’m irritated that I didn’t write down the name of the film that Liza and I saw that night – but I needn’t have worried. A private message to Tony Sullivan, Filmsocista extraordinaire from that era, secured the vital piece of information.
…Liza, Mandy and I went to Hanley, saw Rocky Horror…
This must have been the Theatre Royal Hanley production – the theatre had just reopened in a new guise and I think we saw a pilot or preview version of the production of Rocky Horror that ran there for years. There is a wonderful web page of memories from that production on this “Memories Of Theatre Royal Hanley” WordPress site. (If anything ever goes awry at that site, here is a scrape.) Also this newsreel footage from when the resulting touring production closed in 1988. Lots of Keele students must have seen this show in the 1980s:
I had seen the stage production of Rocky Horror in London in the late 1970s with my BBYO pals, so felt very much “ahead of the curve” in the company of Liza and Mandy that night – a rare feeling in the matter of the arts with Liza and her “art school crowd”.
To add to the horror, I did a class test on the Tuesday morning (15th March) which must have been the formal last day of term as I signed on 16th March. [For younger readers who haven’t been following this series avidly for years, “signing on” was something students all needed to do each holiday if we wanted in effect to have our grants extended to cover holidays. The thought of the bureaucracy required to have most higher education students signing on and off the dole three times a year is truly mind-boggling.]
Friday 18 March – Easyish day – did a little work – watched TV in eve with Hamzah and Yazid.
Hamzah Shawal was my Bruneian flatmate. Yazid was one of the Malay guys who lived in a Q-Block Barnes flat with three other Malay guys, not too far away from our Barnes L-Block flat. I have no idea what we watched, but it is interesting that it was such a rare thing for me to do that I noted the fact that we watched TV. We might well have watched The Tube early evening, as Bono was interviewed that day:
I’m pretty sure this would have been one of the rare occasions I cooked for the South-East Asian gang, rather than them cooking for me. They were quite strict on Muslim dietary laws, which rather restricted my meat-based diet.
However, I did have a couple of tricks up my sleeve which satisfied their religious structures. I always had a supply of Osem Chicken Soup Mix
This product is not only kosher but it is actually vegetarian, allowing me to make chicken soup & kneidlach (Matzo Ball Soup) for vegetarian and carnivore friends alike.
With thanks to Dall-E for collaborating with me on this image
My other piece de resistance for the halal & veggie crowd was potato latkes:
Again Dall-E produced this image based on my instructions.
If or when I can find my mother’s yellowed, hand-written pages of instructions for these delights I’ll publish the recipes. Hers were variations on the traditional Florence Greenberg & Evelyn Rose recipes.
Cheap, cheerful and heart-warming food.
Saturday 19 March 1983 – Liza came over in morning. Went to meet Julie -> Mike & Mandy’s -> dinner -> cam home quite early.
Sunday 20 March – Rose quite late – went down to lakes & back to Sneyd. Visited Ashley later.
I’m so glad that Ashley gets a mention that fortnight – albeit right at the end. Ashley has been known to complain if there aren’t enough pieces about him.
Thanks to Susan Gorman for this photo of Alan Gorman
A week after my discharge from the Health Centre, my post-glandular-fever student life reads, in my diary, a little like my pre-glandular-fever student life, with just one or two clues hinting at the differences.
Project
Several mentions of “project”, which can only be the statistical/econometric assignment that we were set as part of our economics course that year. Peter Lawrence would have supervised it and I’m sure he remembers all the intricate detail.
Actually, I remember my chosen assignment quite well. I looked at national statistics, examining the correlation between factors such as GDP and per capita GDP and numbers of radios and television sets per capita. The main conceit of the assignment was to consider whether I was finding true correlation or spurious correlation, primarily using the Durbin-Watson statistic which, as it happened, was available on the University Mainframe computer.
The analytical part of this project was fairly straightforward as I recall it. The grunt work involved setting out the data in a highly-specific format to enable the computer to pronounce on its Durbin-Watson statistic. What are, today, “work of a moment” tasks took hours of painstaking (and sometimes trial and error) data preparation and data processing work.
I have asked Dall-E to help me envisage what that 1980s University mainframe computer might have looked like:
Dall-E reminisces about 1980s computing
For those readers dying to know whether there is (or rather, was) true correlation between GDP and numbers of radios and TVs, the answer is, basically, yes; especially when using GDP per capita data and especially in the matter of radios. In the developing world, at that time, televisions were sparse enough that I suspected the numbers were more to do with government policy on whether to have a state broadcaster and the like. Also there did tend to be some interesting outliers in the data – for some reason there were an enormous number of radios sold in Gabon in the late 1970s and early 1980s, relative to the GDP per capita.
I think Peter liked my little study, because, while “answering the exam question” pretty well, it also raised far more questions than it answered.
I have but one memory specific to this occasion, which I recall Annalisa de Mercur referring to many times subsequently, because she thought it so funny and typically Plesch.
One student asked if our hosts would mind if they smoked. (It was certainly not me by then, as I had quit smoking on the back of my glandular fever. I don’t think it was Annalisa either).
Oh yes, of course, please make yourself at home…
…said Traudi, ever the hostess, who then spent at least five minutes bustling around the room opening windows (this was February, at Keele!), moving away precious-looking porcelain ashtrays, replacing them with utilitarian-looking ones. In short, despite her instinctive desire to make the smoker(s) feel at home, Traudi’s actions made it quite apparent that smoking was not exactly what she wanted in her living room.
They were in truth charming and generous hosts, the Plesch couple. The above-linked November 1981 article says plenty more that doesn’t need repeating here.
“Bloody Party In The Union – Left Early” Friday 4 March 1983
Not like me to be snippy about a party, but I guess I was not myself still at that time.
Dr Scott had told me to stay away from alcohol for six months following my glandular fever. He subsequently reduced my sentence to three months, for good behaviour.
The mention of the “bloody party” comes after a note about a rushed day and an election appeals meeting, both of which might have set my teeth on edge ahead of that particular bloody party.
I have no idea whose party it was, nor why I found it bloody. I apologise to the host of the party if someone reading this happens to be such a person. I don’t think it was about you/.the party, it was me.
In truth, at that time, quite possibly I found all parties a bit of a drag. Seemingly everyone else having a good time and getting noisily paralytic, while I nursed some ridiculously expensive yet ghastly-tasting soft-drink, which had no doubt been dispensed through a soda gun like the one below…
…those carbonated soft drinks never tasted like “the real thing”, if you get my meaning, even if they were sold as such. In the SU Main Bar at that time, indeed, they all tasted like a bit of an amalgamation of each other, which is probably what they were.
When not in bars or at parties, I had standardised at home on Sainsbury’s Tropical Fruit Drink (still available 40 years later)…
I wondered out loud with Dr Scott on one occasion whether it was OK to be drinking all this sweet stuff. He said he thought I was close to dangerously underweight at the end of my glandular fever experience; thus he was keen for me to put on some weight. I persevered with Supercans of Coke throughout the rest of my Keele years, even after I had reverted to drinking alcohol.
How the Great Yorkshire Pudding Got His Name, Early March 1983
The Great Yorkshire Pudding
There is no mention of the events that led to Alan Gorman acquiring the nickname “The Great Yorkshire Pudding”. At the time, I probably found the matter that led to it too painful to write down. Even now, I’m finding it hard to compose my thoughts about it and reflect on the matter fairly and faithfully. It doesn’t help that Alan Gorman sadly died in 2015, so cannot add his own thoughts on this matter forty years after the event.
The bare facts are these. Chantelle announced that she wanted to move out of the flat, Barnes L54, and that we should seek a replacement fourth person. Alan and I had already agreed that we would continue to flat share the following year. Hamzah, who was about to do his finals and had planned to go home as soon as they were done made it clear that it was entirely up to me and Alan to choose Chantelle’s replacement.
Ashley Fletcher was spending a lot of time at the flat in those days. He was Union Treasurer but living off campus, so it was a convenient place to hang out. He was good friends with my girlfriend, Liza (indeed Liza and I had more or less met through Ashley and his gang) and seemed to get on very well with Alan too.
Ashley wanted to move in to the flat. I wanted Ashley to move into the flat. I put the idea one evening to Alan.
Ashley back then
Alan basically said no. He was uncomfortable with the idea of having a gay flatmate. At one point he said that he wouldn’t be able to explain it to his friends back home. When I said that I thought that was not a good reason, he agreed that he had given a very poor reason, but still, without really being able to articulate why he felt uncomfortable, that he was resolute on the matter.
I remember feeling that I didn’t have the strength to argue and also at the same time realising that debating the matter for longer would in any case have been futile. I remember going to bed that night very upset and I also so clearly remember dreading telling Ashley the news.
Strangely, Ashley didn’t take the news as hard as I thought he would…nor as hard as I took it. In my naivety, perhaps, I had assumed that the idea would fly and hadn’t expected that outcome. Ashley had strongly suspected and at least half-expected that response.
When I told Ashley what Alan had said, Ashley just paused for thought momentarily and said:
The Great Yorkshire Pudding!
Those readers who don’t know anything about Alan Gorman might look at the picture I have used in this piece – Alan was even skinnier in 1983 than he was when that picture was taken a few year’s later. He was also from Brinscall, near Chorley, which is, unequivocally, in Lancashire, not Yorkshire.
The nickname, The Great Yorkshire Pudding, stuck, at least for the remainder of that academic year and the next one. Alan accepted with good grace that the expletive nickname had come from Ashley’s heart and that he sort-of deserved it. Alan would respond with a nickname of his own for me, “Bagel Boy”, which could get him into a spot of trouble today, not only with the authorities (had someone chosen to complain) but with Alan’s own wife and children!
Alright already, I like bagels…who doesn’t?
The epilogue to this story is, I suppose, not so bad. I remained friends with Alan and Ashley. Chris Spencer moved into Barnes L54 with us instead and proved to be a very suitable flatmate, staying on in the flat for the rest of my time there and I think until he graduated.
When Ashley dropped out of Keele the following year, I wondered whether that would have happened had he moved into our flat. Ashley of course is still around to debate that point and/but Ashley might argue that leaving Keele at that juncture was the right thing for him to do in any case. He has certainly gone on to do many worthwhile things, not least his laudable and often charitable work as a therapist.
But at the time, the story of How The Great Yorkshire Pudding Got His Name affected me deeply. I wish the older and wiser version of me could discuss it now with the older and wiser Alan. Perhaps over a smoked salmon bagel or two…and a glass or two of fine Californian white wine.
The diary suggests that I was feeling really low and still poorly during those first few days out of the Health Centre. The short-term improvement of mood arising from my release soon morphed into realisation that there was a longish haul to recovery of my normal energy levels and high spirits.
The interesting day that week was the Wednesday, when I found myself at the occupation of the University Registry by day and at a Eurythmics concert in the Union by night.
That mandate was more than somewhat against the will of the Union Committee, under Truda Smith, who wanted to do something else (or possibly nothing at all) about the grant cuts.
I don’t think we mandated the Registry as the building to be occupied and I certainly was not involved in the planning of the event. I was persona non grata with Truda and her hench-folk by that time and in any case I was sick with glandular fever when the event bubbled to a head.
Dr David Cohen, a larger than life character recognisable for sporting large bow ties, had, only the previous term, switched from being the Senior Tutor (latterly referred to as Director of Studies) to being Registrar.
I don’t suppose he was overjoyed at having the Registry occupied so early in his tenure. It was nothing personal – the Registry seemed to be the obvious place to occupy for such matters – partly because it was the centre of University bureaucracy and partly because it was centrally located on the campus and easy to occupy given its strange mix of formal construction and strung-together prefabricated Nissen hut-like structures.
I recall David being very suspicious of me when I became a Union sabbatical – I suspect he thought I was rabidly radical. But we found ways of working together quite quickly; he was open-minded enough to change his mind about people if the evidence was there for such a change. I was sorry to learn that he died in 2022, just shy of 40 years after the “historic” occupation of his office..
Frankly, 48 hours after my release form the Health Centre I wasn’t really up for it. I felt that I should show my face but probably looked like the ghost of occupations past; I had lost lots of weight (from a fairly skinny start) with my illness and I suspect that my skin colour was more yellow/green than ruddy/pink.
All I really remember was hating how I felt in that cramped, poorly ventilated space and sensing that pretty much everyone realised that I shouldn’t really be there, so I didn’t stay all that long.
I collaborated with Dall-E to produce the following artists’ impression of the event.
Not bad, Dall-E, but this lot look a bit better dressed than 1980s Keele students
The Eurythmics concert in the Union was a big deal for my girlfriend, Liza O’Connor. She was into synthesizer-based music and Eurythmics was one of the groups that everyone in the art school world was talking about.
Indeed, the SU had timed their booking of Eurythmics to perfection. Their first hit, Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This, had come out a few weeks earlier and was climbing the pop charts at a rapid rate. Liza was really excited about the prospect of this gig and we deemed it to be our postponed Valentine’s Night.
However, the sweet success of Sweet Dreams also brought with it some logistical issues. If I remember correctly, Eurythmics had been called at the last minute to record a video or performance of the song or something, on the very day of our gig. The result was a very late concert indeed. I think the warm up act did their thing and then went home and we the audience were kept waiting a long time for Eurythmics.
I seem to recall Liza really liking the gig, but I was half-dead on my feet by the time Eurythmics showed up. I think it was quite a short set, book-ended by Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This. I remember being grateful for the brevity and not really enjoying the show, which is a shame.
Latterly I saw a lot of Annie Lennox; she was a regular at my health club in the 1990s and early 2000s and thus we became nodding acquaintances, even “hi and bye” folk in the neighbourhood.
I wish I’d seen her perform on a more suitable night.
I should imagine I slept well after that tiring day but I doubt if I had sweet dreams while in that glum mood. I don’t suppose I was good company for Liza when I was that gloomy and poorly, which might explain why she left me alone until the Sunday. On that day, the diary says that she came over for the evening and that we went to see Ashley [Fletcher] after.
I’m glad Ashley gets a mention in the diary that week. I have recently (forty years on) corresponded with him, not least about aspects of this period. Ashley complained that there aren’t enough pieces about him. Actually, for aficionados of Ashley Fletcher stories, e.g. Ashley, that will be rectified in the next episode.
Annalisa (right) & Others, Keele Campus Store, c1985, with thanks to Mark Ellicott
I hadn’t had flu. I didn’t get better after being sent home from the Health Centre with some tablets. I got worse.
Saturday 12 February 1983 – Variable health – Liza [O’Connor] shopped for me – Annalisa [de Mercur] visited. Early night.
Reading that passage, plus some of the subsequent ones during my illness, I am reminded that I had several kind people in my circle, in addition to the attentiveness of my girlfriend Liza, who I particularly remember as having been considerate during my extended indisposition.
Sunday 13 February 1983 – Felt bit better this morn/afternoon. Evening came over all ill. Early night.
Monday 14 February 1983 – Schlepped straight back to [Health Centre] HC – pretty ill. Liza visited in evening.
I don’t think that was in line with the plans Liza and I had laid for Valentines Night. I was mightily hacked off as well as ill.
I have collaborated with Dall-E to create this virtual-artist’s impression of me looking ill and hacked off in the Keele Health Centre.
Dr Scott now suspected that I had infectious mononucleosis, also known as glandular fever. His suspicion was soon confirmed with a blood test.
Glandular fever was sort-of the 1980s equivalent of Covid 19 – it was not as well understood then as it is now. The medics were very fearful of epidemics amongst student populations, for some unknown reason. It was also known colloquially as French-kissing disease, although I’m sure there were other ways of getting it and no doubt French people knew of it colloquially as the English-something-or-other.
One side effect of that illness is to make the patient feel low, to the point of feeling depressed. I have to say that my only ever experience of feeling what I might describe as “depressed” was when I had glandular fever.
Tuesday 15 February 1983 – Still pretty ill today – bored and depressed – won’t let have visitors.
Didn’t they know who I am?
I was not a good candidate for isolation. Nor was I a good candidate for some of the clinical interventions required, such as blood tests and injections. Dr Scott – Scotty – was sympathetic yet firm. But there was one matron/nurse I particularly remember as being dragon-like, whose method was more of the cruel-kindness variety.
“If you don’t stop making a fuss, I’ll go and get my long rusty needle and use that on you instead”.
Note to students of psychology: that sort of shock therapy doesn’t work on trypanophobic people – at least it didn’t work on me.
Scotty at that time had a “kill or cure” therapy for glandular fever – a short sharp (high dose at first but rapidly decreasing) course of steroids. His theory was that it helped most people to get better quickly enough that their studies needn’t be deferred, whereas without his treatment many students ended up deferring their exams – in effect taking a year out of their studies, which I certainly didn’t want to do. For some people, the cure made their symptoms worse, but “kill” is too strong a term, as the drugs were only given under health centre supervision and would be stopped/reversed if serious adverse effects came into play.
The steroids worked on me without any serious side-effects, although they did have a strange effect on my being, which I’ll return to explain a bit later.
Wednesday 16 February 1983 – Moved into a room with James – got visitors today – Liza and Michelle [Epstein] – feel somewhat better.
Thursday 17 February 1983 – Several visitors today inc. Liza – feeling much better today – fair bit bored still.
James was a rather strange fellow. He was not merely depressed about having glandular fever and being isolated in the health centre with me. He absolutely hated Keele. He had a girlfriend who also absolutely hated Keele. Together, they had found a way of making their University life tolerable – basically by going away from Keele together every weekend – primarily to visit historic churches, if I remember correctly.
e.g. St Peter’s Church, Wormleighton, Warwickshire
“Got visitors” was a rather strange, socially-distanced thing while I was in this isolation wing with James. The visitors were not allowed into the health centre to visit us – they could stand at a window outside our room and we could talk to them through that window. I vaguely remember that there was an element of elevation to our room, with an inadequate mound upon which our visitors might stand. Thus it was harder for me to chat with vertically-challenged visitors, such as Annalisa, than it was to speak with the more vertically-assured, such as my lanky (in several senses of the term) flatmate, Alan Gorman.
James’s only visitor was his young-lady-friend, who would join him for a mutual moan about once a day. Their shared beef was that they would be unable to escape the Keele campus together at the weekend and visit churches again until James was better.
My visitors were more numerous (several daily) and a more diverse bunch.
Friday 18 February 1983 – Still bedridden – feel much better – getting a fair bit agitated. Liza and others visited today.
I’m not sure which of the “multiple visitors” days included Ashley Fletcher, but I do remember him bringing with him some reading matter for me – I suppose technically he smuggled it in to me by throwing the reading materials to me, where I caught them at the window. It was either Miriam or Heather who was, through Ashley, lending me the booklets in an attempt to help relieve my boredom. The booklets were basically lesbian porn story magazines.
I’m not sure I was ever qualified to offer lit-crit of that reading matter…nor lit-clit come to think of it. Forty years later, the memory is dim, but I did read a few of the stories which were, to my mind, very predictable tales with almost identical plot lines. An unlikely encounter would suddenly, “unexpectedly” result in a shared realisation followed by an almost identical outcome – **SPOILER ALERT** – a sex romp. Sometimes it was two females, sometimes two females and a man, sometimes several people with a focus on the females. I suspected that the same stories were probably gender-reassigned for other similar publications targeted at other groups, with some “characters” (characterisation was in truth almost entirely absent) simply having the name, gender and some small aspects of their dénouement activity changed.
The reading material was absolutely nothing like this wonderful novel
I do remember trying to discuss with my sole companion in isolation, the church-loving James, how peculiar and dull, rather than exciting, I found these story books. But James was simply horrified and disgusted by the presence of these booklets in our room.
Still, I was really touched by the thought and the effort that Ashley and the lenders of the material put in to try to cheer me up and help alleviate my boredom. I do remember Liza finding the whole episode hilarious.
Meanwhile, my use of the word “agitated” might well have been written to remind me of the peculiar effect the steroids had on me. I think that effect might have come to its peak the next day, by which time I think James had been released.
Saturday 19 February 1983 – Let me get up for first time today. Sat in lounge – very exciting. Liza visited.
Dragon Matron – yes she of the long rusty needle threat- came in to my room. I remember suddenly feeling a hot flush and thinking, “she’s not actually that bad looking”…
…the outcome was extremely swift, hands-free, involuntary and I am pretty sure indiscernible to anyone other than me. But it was a seriously weird feeling.
I have asked my friend, Dall-E, to help me to illustrate the scene:
Nothing to see here
In truth the care team in the Health Centre were very kind and really were trying their best to make our lot tolerable.
That Saturday evening, when they let me sit in the lounge, I remember that they had identified another student, a Spanish guy who was, I think, called Miguel (I knew him through Rana Sen and that lot), who knew me. So they arranged for us to watch TV and have a juice together in the lounge, before they served us dinner together restaurant style. It really did feel like a release from isolation by then, although in truth Miguel and I didn’t know each other all that well and mostly discussed how nice it was of the staff to be making that effort for us.
The Tv programme we watched together was Dynasty, which I had never seen before nor have I seen it since. I thought it was incredible – by which I mean that I could not really suspend my disbelief to engage with the programme. I think Miguel quite liked it.
Sunday 20 February 1983 – Let me out for a walk or two today. Very exciting.
Monday 21 February 1983 – Discharged from HC today – got busy laundry etc. Liza came over in evening…
In my impressionistic memory I was isolated in the Heath Centre for ages. Intolerable ages. It came as a bit of a surprise to work out, from my diaries, that a week was all it took to be “intolerable ages” when I was 20 years old.
Thursday 20 January 1983 …went to see Ken Livingstone in evening – great.
I remember that evening pretty well. I am fairly sure I went with Simon Jacobs, Jon Gorvett and other friends to that event. It was pretty popular – I think it was held in the FY lecture theatre – if not one of the other large lecture theatres.
Ken Livingstone was the head of the Greater London Council (GLC) at that time. There was talk of him running for parliament that year but he didn’t do so; perhaps he was too busy talking to student bodies like ours to get his selection application in on time.
I seem to recall that his most memorable rhetoric was about the Northern Ireland troubles and his advocacy of a unilateral “Troops Out” policy. But he spoke about most of the core left wing topics of the day and was very convincing, both as a speaker and (unusually for a political visitor) directly addressing questions put to him afterwards.
Nearly 30 years later, I actually got to chat convivially with Ken Livingstone at a party “down his way”.
While Ken always had contrarian views and courted controversy, personally I was surprised when his statements went off the scale and led to his suspension from the Labour party a few years after that.
Returning to 1983…
Diary suggests a pretty lazy weekend, mostly spent with Liza O’Connor although we did go to Anju Sanehi’s party on the Saturday evening.
Airplane II – Surely I Must Be Joking? (I’m Not Joking And…)
There’s not much worthy of report until we get to the next weekend. Allow me to translate the relevant bit of Saturday’s entry:
…went with Liza and mum to see Airplane II…
I had never previously been out on a date with a girlfriend’s mother also in tow. A very unusual situation for a Keele student in term time, but I had chosen to go out with the Keele village pub landlord’s daughter.
I don’t think there was a repeat of this type of event with Liza. I got on fine with Liza’s mum, but perhaps the matter of dates was better left à deux.
I don’t think I again experienced the “girlfriend’s mother with us on a date” phenomenon again for more than 10 years, after which the presence of Janie’s mum became an occasional feature for a while. But that was to be “The Real Thing”.
Returning to 1983, this particular movie, Airplane II: The Sequel didn’t help. I had seen Airplane! and thought it very funny. Neither Liza nor her mum had seen the original movie but had learned of its reputation and therefore wanted to see the sequel.
My problem with the sequel was that, to me, it is simply a rehashing of the same jokes again in an even sillier scenario – stretching implausibility beyond the limits even of a cornball comedy.
In short, Liza and her mum were laughing like drains and I was not laughing much, while mostly thinking “this is drains” and “looks like I picked the wrong weekend to quit inhaling nitrous oxide”:
Still, Liza, her mum and I came out the other side of that evening.
5 February 1983 – “Chinese Cultural Society Do”, Presumably To Hail In The Year Of the Pig
After another fairly mundane week, the following weekend saw me and Liza at a Chinese Cultural Society event, which I think was a New Year’s celebration held a week or so early (probably because there were myriad events the following weekend for Valentines).
I have hardly any pictures from that era, so I commissioned DALL_E to help me try to illustrate this event.
Hmm, this one might equally well be an outdoor version of the earlier Ken Livingstone apparatchik gatheringI don’t think such events could look quite as authentically Chinese as this at KeelePerhaps best remembered cartoon style
Joking apart, I do remember that the Chinese Cultural Society always put on a good party.
The day after that “do”, however, my term and indeed the next few months took an unexpected and unwanted turn, which I shall cover next time.
