Tag: Miriam Morgan

Isolation, “Socially-Distant” Visits, Steroids, Peculiar Reading Matter & Strange Happenings: A Week In The Keele Health Centre With Glandular Fever, Mid February 1983

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”.

Who’d imagine such inhumane words in such a benevolent setting?
Picture “borrowed” with thanks from the Keele University website

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.

Many A Slip (On An Icy Keele Campus) Between Jazz & Lip: Ronnie Scott & Friends At Keele, 16 January 1982

Image from Wikipedia with same “fair use” rationale.

The especially cold and icy weather, which had plagued Keele before Christmas, persisted into the early days of the 1982 Spring Term.

Early that term, I recall taking a tumble on the slope that led to the Chancellor’s Building from the Lindsay Hall end, while rushing to get to a lecture or tutorial on time.

A little dazed, I soon realised that someone had hoicked me up and I was being stared at by none other than “ABC” Dick Hemsley, asking me if I was alright. “Yes, I’m fine”, I said, embarrassed to have found myself in such a vulnerable circumstance with one of the better-known right-wing villains of the campus. “No”, said Dick firmly, studying my reactions carefully, “I think you might have bumped your head. Really, are you OK?” Thankfully I hadn’t banged my head and most of the bruises were to my “left ego”. That incident stuck in my mind, because it made me realise that Dick, despite our opposing political views, when it came to the crunch, was instinctively concerned about my welfare.

I sense from my diaries that I was a bit irritable/tetchy after the historic, publicity-attracting protests outside the UGC offices on 6 January:

Protest Outside the UGC Offices Against Grant Cuts, University of Keele, 6 January 1982

Possibly term seemed like an anti-climax; possibly the weather got to me – I have never much liked icy-cold weather and this was a proper cold spell.

The diaries – which are shown at the bottom of this piece but upon which I shall not expand this time – suggest a relatively dull phase – at least in my mind…

…until the Ronnie Scott & Friends Jazz Night on 16 January, which was a hugely memorable event in all sorts of ways.

Ronnie Scott co-founded the legendary Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in the late 1950’s. It was already an institution by the early 1980s and we were truly blessed that Ronnie liked visiting student venues and especially liked the vibe in the University of Keele Students’ Union Ballroom. I saw him perform there several times while at Keele – this was the first of those times.

Dave Lee’s excellent book The Keele Gigs! has a fine account of this gig.

The following clip, from some time in the early 1980s, is pretty close to what the ensemble looked and sounded like at Keele that night:

For those who know little about Ronnie Scott/Ronnie Scott’s and would like to know more, the following hour-long Omnibus film from 1989 is quite comprehensive and almost of that time:

There is am even more comprehensive 2020 documentary movie, which I have seen and can confirm is a very interesting watch, which you can find out about on IMDb here.

My memories of this particular January 1982 evening at Keele are a strange mixture of clear and blurry. The diary entry only tells a small part of the story:

…went to Jazz Night in the evening. ** got pissed during and after!!

This suggests that only alcohol was imbibed at our table, although in my mind there was also whacky backy involved. Perhaps that was because Ronnie kept saying, “I must stop smoking this stuff” whenever he muffed his jokes/lines, which he did with charming frequency.

We sat at tables in the style of a jazz club like Ronnie Scott’s and I remember it all seeming very grown up and sophisticated at the outset. I think we drank wine and cocktails rather than beer at our table, which is probably why we got pissed unusually quickly.

I was at a table with, I am pretty sure (in reducing order of sureness): Miriam Morgan, Heather Jones, Ashley Fletcher, Helen Ross and one or two others. One person who was certainly at our table was a rather exotic-looking (to me) gay female with whom, for reasons I cannot with hindsight fathom, I started to dance. I’ll guess it was initially her idea, because dancing isn’t something I can imagine myself ever having spontaneously initiated.

Mercifully, this Jazz Night was long before the age of smart phones, pocket video cameras, TikTok and the like, so there are no moving pictures of our “performance” – indeed not even any stills to my knowledge.

It probably looked a little like the following clip at first, except that John Travolta is a very capable dancer trying to look awkward, whereas…

We danced in an increasingly frisky manner as time went on, until a pivotal moment when I suddenly felt drenched. Someone from a nearby “Tory Boy” table tipped a jug of water over us with the entreaty, “you two need to cool down”.

I’m not sure who did the tipping; it might have been Mark Ellicott (who still sat at Tory Boy tables back then) or it might even have been ABC Dick. Whoever it was, the gesture was done without menace and with a witticism thrown in, such that we and everyone at the tables around us found the joke funny, so we joined in the laughter and redoubled our frisky efforts.

Strangely, I ran this story by Simon Jacobs and Jon Gorvett just the other evening – forty years on. Both of them confirmed that they were not there on this evening.

Yet Simon, who usually claims not to be able to remember anything about our Keele days, immediately identified the young woman in question as “Nicola from Crewe and Alsager College”, which of course was the right answer. Respect, Simon, respect.

Nicola ended up going out with Miriam, which I think brought the Miriam and Heather era to a close, although I might be muddling the sequencing and/or duration of that episode. Others might well be able to put the record straight.

My diary states clearly that we all carried on drinking after the Ronnie Scott Jazz Night had concluded, but the frisky dancing with Nicola was definitely merely a “moment in time” thing during the jazz night.

Postscript – Remembering Nicola

Within minutes of me posting this piece, Ashley Fletcher commented on FB, reminding me that, a couple of years later, he shared a place in Newcastle with Miriam & Nicola, who became and were still very much an item after that January 1982 time.

Ashley also recalls that, ironically, Nicola looked like an androgynous new romantic performer named Ronny – indeed she did – click this link or the picture below to see pictures and even a vid of exotic-looking Ronny.

Borrowed from and linked to Lord Bassington-Bassington

The Rest Of the Diary

Diary pages for the week or so leading up to Ronnie’s below. For the completists. There’s a prize if anyone can work out who or what I went to see on Tuesday 12th!

Postscript – Remembering Nastassja

Following an entreaty from Kay Scorah that she wouldn’t sleep until the 12 January diary entry mystery was solved, I gave the matter some deeper thought. Then I looked at the Rosetta Stone for a while. Then I concluded that the pathetically scrawled four-letter word, which I had thought all along was probably the title of a film, given that Tuesday evening was film night…

…must have been “Tess”. No really.

The 1979 Roman Polanski marathon version of Tess of the d’Urbervilles.

My teenage hormonal head would have been full of Nastassja Kinski for a few days…until Nicola came along. Sorry Nastassja.

You can sleep now, Kay.

Postscript To The Above Postscript – Remembering Tash, Tess & Nastassja

The mention of Tess generated quite a postbag and I realise that I was mistaken in attributing the 12 January scribble to that film. John White writes:

 Don’t think that says Tess btw. The word begins with an s and ends with an h. Sure it wasn’t a person?

But I was buoyed by Jon Gorvett’s memory flash, inspired by my mention of Tess:

Anyway, also bizarre that you should mention Heather Jones, Tess, Nastassja Kinski and crushes all in the same post, Ian, as I recall both myself and Heather taking a sudden interest in Thomas Hardy around then, after Kinski had appeared on the cover of the version of Tess of the d’Urbervilles on sale in the Keele bookshop. Noticing this, we both later confessed to a massive crush on the said daughter of the great director (and massive child abuser, I see now), leading ultimately to enormous enthusiasm for Cat People, when that hit the screens later that year. 

…so I responded as follows:

100% sure it was Tess. Memory flash corroborated by Jon Gorvett, who said that note brought a flood of memories. Gilted Jon (by Truda) and gilted Heather (by Miriam) both salivated over Ms Kinski at that time. My handwriting was truly appalling at the best of times and I often wrote up diaries when pissed or stoned.

However, I now realise and am 100% sure that the pesky word on 12 January was Tash, not Tess. The Tash reference is explained in the subsequent “Forty Years On” piece.

But I did see Tess around that time – I’m guessing it must have been the film shown 15 January, which I don’t name – I simply describe it in my diary as “boring”. Frankly, I do recall finding the excruciatingly long Tess movie boring in every regard except for the visual charms of Ms Kinski.

Essaying With Exams, Girls & Snooker Towards The End Of My Foundation Year At Keele, 31 May to 8 June 1981

Did The Keele Students’ Union Snooker Room Look Quite This Modern?

After the drama and excitement of the first part of that late May weekend…

From Morecombe To Wise(r) Via A Linguistically Out Of Key Note, Keele, 29/30 May 1981

…the next few days read quieter and calmer – apart from a few signs of aftershock from the abusive note incident.

Sunday 31 May 1981 – Late rise – did little all day (essay) – Union in evening – reasonably early night.

Monday 1 June 1981 – Union Committee in morning – finished essay in afternoon – UGM in evening – Mark [Bartholomew]’s afterwards.

Tuesday 2 June 1981 – Late rise – handed in essay – went to see The Last Waltz – awful – latish night.

I don’t honestly remember attending Union Committee on the Monday morning. I do remember that word reached the SU about the abusive note that had been placed under my door on the Friday evening and that they took the incident very seriously. In some ways more seriously than I took it.

I think some people, with all good intentions, were considering an emergency motion at the UGM that evening or some sort of statement. I think I dissuaded them.

I’m pretty sure Simon Jacobs (plus others, no doubt) were at The Last Waltz (a highly-regarded film that simply did not work for me, nor did it seem to work for most of my entourage that evening, if I remember correctly) with me and would have been part of the unmentioned activities (probably beer and smokes somewhere) that led to the latish night.

A Veritable Procession Of Visitors

I’m sorry to say that I have no real recollection of the “so-called revision day” on Wednesday 3 June, which reads to me more like a visitors day than a revision day:

Wednesday 3 June 1981 – Revised today – OK – Mary [Keevil], Rani, Miz [Miriam Morgan], Hilary [Kingsley] etc. popped in -> Sneyd -> coffee with Hilary

Where this sudden burst of popularity with females had come from, I have no idea. Perhaps Sandra had been talking me up. More likely, these were well-intentioned check-ins from concerned friends in the matter of the abusive note, which seemed to be affecting some others more than it was affecting me.

Forty years on, I find it hard to imagine getting much, if any, revision done with that number of visitors.

My handwriting analysis suggests that I wrote this part of my diary up some days after the event. But still, the word “etc.” after a string of four visitors suggests that there were several others.

I’m pretty sure that part of Hilary’s purpose (a visit AND post-pub coffee) was to persuade me to agree to sit on the JSoc (Jewish Society) committee, something I had previously stated my extreme reluctance to do. I’m not sure whether Hilary was yet going out with Lloyd Green (a friend of mine from my Streatham childhood and coincidentally a Keele student a year or so ahead of me) but they did go out with each other at Keele and subsequently married each other.

Thursday 4 June 1981 – Exams today?? – Roy’s binge in evening – quite entertaining.

Friday 5 June 1981 – Politics exam today – Union in evening -> Sands [Sandra]!

Saturday 6 June 1981 – late rise – restive afternoon – went to Union with Sim [Simon Ascough] – supper – Union again – dullish evening

Roy was Simon Jacobs’s boyfriend pretty much throughout that year. Roy will have completed his finals around that time, so my guess is that the binge was related to that. Simon did not keep in touch with Roy after Roy left Keele. Nor did I keep in touch with Sandra after she left Keele, nor did I see much of her the following year, when she was doing finals.

I think I probably meant “restful” when I said “restive” afternoon, although there is something restive about my tone for the next few days. I needed to go to London to resolve some matters ahead of my late June return for the summer and/but was no doubt itching for the more exciting-sounding events that would form the end-of-term/end-of-academic-year summer activities.

A whole weekend between exams must have seemed like an imposition.

Darker. The UKSU snooker room was darker if I recall correctly.

Sunday 7 June 1981 – Late rise – did little – snooker – bar in eve – dull day.

Monday 8 June 1981 – Read in morn – exam in afternoon, Union in evening – v late night.

I mention snooker a few times in my diary towards the end of that summer term. I recall playing the game a few times with Sim and Tim – I’ll write that up a bit more when I get to the second half of June – but perhaps these early efforts were with Simon Jacobs.

Forty years on, Simon and I discussed this matter when he visited us (late May 2021), agreeing that our ability to play snooker was slightly improved by a drink or two, then rather more dramatically diminished by each subsequent drink. If only we had been able to retain information from formal scientific experiments in class as well as we have retained the empirical evidence from those informal “clinical trials”.

Anyway, by the Monday, that was it, academically-speaking. Last essays done, last exam done. I had no formal purpose at Keele for the next few days, so I popped back down to London on the Tuesday.

The Six O’Clock Alarm Would Never Ring, Starting My First Keele Summer Term, 24 April to 9 May 1981

It’s sometimes difficult to get up in the morning when you are a first year Keele student. Who knew?

Back then, I had an alarm clock a bit like the one depicted above. I could easily sleep through the ringing of that alarm. I remember bringing back a metal biscuit tin after the Easter holidays with the sole purpose of increasing the volume of the ringing, by placing the alarm clock within the biscuit tin. Didn’t work, I know, I know.

The Key To Getting A Good Night’s Sleep As A Keele Undergraduate

Mind you, it doesn’t help if you start the term as described above. Here is a transcript for any readers not so well versed in the rarefied script that is my handwriting:

24 April 1981 – Exams today. After dinner went to Mark’s [Bartholomew] -> Union. Talking till late with Sim [Simon Ascough], [Mad] Harry & Dave [Johnson, I think].

25 April 1981 – Easy day. Went to Union in evening -> Roy’s for drinks – Melanie [Print], Ashley [Fletcher] & Louise [Lorenc] – locked out – stayed…

26 April 1981 – …overnight. No sleep. Found keys in morning- had lunch – wandered aimlessly & slept from 6 pm until 8 am.

With thanks to Ashley for recalling Melanie & Louise’s names. Neither of us really remember what passed that night, other than a lot of bullshit chat no doubt and Ashley probably went to town with his Adolf Hitler and Ian Paisley (senior) pastiche/parody speeches.

“The flag of my country is hanging upside down outside this building”.

I simply cannot imagine sleeping 14 hours straight through any more. It’s not just that I know I couldn’t do it; I really cannot even imagine it.

Still, that extended night’s sleep got me up in good time for the first FY lecture of the term. What a fresh start.

My First Rolo & My Last Rolo

That peculiar sleep pattern got me up in time to see Professor Paul Rolo’s 9:00 history lecture and Professor David Adams’s 11:00 American Studies lecture.

I recall being fascinated by both of those lectures. Peculiarly, the allure of Russian and Fascist revolutions did not enable the alarm to rouse me on the Tuesday, but the idea of another Paul Rolo lecture somehow enabled the alarm to interrupt my slumbers on the Wednesday and get me to the FY Lecture Theatre for 9:00.

Similarly, the prospect of order in the post-war international system, combined with the alarm clock, failed to get me out of bed on the Thursday morning, yet the subconscious thought of another David Adams lecture woke me and got me to the Chancellor’s Building for the 9:00 lecture on the Friday for the third time that week.

This is the first sign of a pattern that persisted throughout my student years; I was able to get up for lectures, even at 9:00, if I thought they’d be worth the candle. Otherwise I tended to skip the lectures, read up on stuff at leisure (if need be) and sleep in like a teenager…which is what I was.

I didn’t get to know Professor Paul Rolo – he left a year or so after I did FY – but he could lecture and he sounds like a fascinating chap.

Professor David Adams I did get to know when I sat on Senate and also prior to that, when I sat on the train from Stoke to Euston or from Euston to Stoke. He must have gone to London quite a lot because I remember encountering him several times. A really interesting and lovely chap.

What Else Did You Get Up To, Kid?

Ok, ok, I’m getting to it.

Monday 27 April 1981 – First lectures etc. – finished moving etc [all the way from pokey Lindsay F1 to salubrious room with a view Lindsay F4] after dinner -> Union, quite pleasant

Tuesday 28 April 1981 – Light day. Went to see film in evening (Fame – v good,) -> on to union with gang – quite good.

Wednesday 29 April 1981 – OK day. Went to Concourse meeting – on to Mis [Miriam Morgan] & Heather [Jones] for heavy evening

Thursday 30 April 1981 – easyish day. Did little. Short stay in Union – reasonably early night.(Simon [Jacobs] & Sim [Ascough] came back after)

Friday 1 May 1981 – not bad day. Busy afternoon (Kallah photos). Went to see film (yuk). Went back to union – bon.

I’d started going to Film Society by the end of the second term and went a lot in this third term. I am pretty sure the 1 May film which I did not name but described as “yuk” was Fellini Satyricon. If I remember correctly, there weren’t all that many of us in the FY lecture theatre at the start of the movie and by the end I think just three or four of us had stuck it out.

Saturday 2 May 1981 – Easy day. Shopped in Newcastle – went to see David [Perrins] & friends, supper they came over -> Sneyd, Union bop -> Amanda’s.

Sunday 3 May 1981 – Lazy day – went to Lloyd’s [Green] and Amanda’s -> Union in evening.

I feel bad saying this, but I cannot remember who Amanda is/was, but she was unquestionably a diary highlight that weekend. Simon might remember. Lloyd might remember. But I feel that it is me who should remember. Apologies. If you are out there, Amanda, please do get in touch and jog the memory…if by chance you remember anything about it.

Tuesday 5 May 1981 – Busyish day. Saw All That Jazz in the evening. Simon’s [Jacobs] for coffee after – good.

Wednesday 6 May 1981 – OK day. Went to see Discipline and Lounge Lizards in evening – v good.

Dave Lee’s forthcoming (as I write in April 2021) book The Keele Gigs! will no doubt review Discipline (whom in truth I don’t really remember), and The Lounge Lizards (a gig I remember well and very fondly). You can see something quite similar to the gig we saw on YouTube – click here:

Thursday 7 May 1981 – Easyish day. Laundry etc. Easyish evening.

Friday 8 May 1981 – Busyish day. Went to Burslem in evening. Enjoyable evening. (Came here for coffee).

Saturday 9 May 1981 – Late start, Newcastle shopping – ate – Union in evening – back here after.

That new room of mine, Lindsay F4, was salubrious enough to become a focal point to the extent that people had started coming back to my place. It might also have had something to do with the fact that I was going in to Newcastle on the weekend to buy food so always had something to eat – possibly even some left overs of cooked food but at the very least plentiful biscuits. My mum would have approved.

I should highlight the fact that Simon Jacobs gets a couple of mentions in this piece – he wrote to me saying that he was mightily put out that he didn’t get a mention in the previous Keele piece.

Bless my cotton socks, I’m in the news…

Getting My Head Around Hormones, Three Parties In Four Midweek/Mid-term Nights, This Was Keele, Late February 1981

In truth, I don’t think mushrooms were central to most of those parties

The diary & scribbles in my FY programme suggest that I wasn’t going to let lectures get in the way of my planned activities much that week, or indeed for the rest of the term. It seems I managed three FY lectures in the last three weeks of that term.

Well, it was cold and icy.

Also, I had worked out by then that you could get pretty much everything you needed from the FY lecture notes. Keen scouts who liked attending FY lectures would bring fistfuls back to F Block Lindsay for the rest of us to read. It looks as though that system broke down for the last week of term, but that’s another story.

I did attend a swathe of topic tutorials and write a couple of essays that week, though, so it wasn’t all parties and student journalism.

I think one of the essays was part of my law double topic, finishing off my law studies for that year but sealing my decision to study law along with economics for my degree. Thank you, Michael Whincup.

I remember doing a topic on Hormones & Reproduction with Dr Peter Chevins and I think I wrote my essay for that topic that week. There were 10 to 12 of us in that class; I think I was the only male (other than Dr Chevins).

I don’t think I was taking it all in. I blame my riotous teenage hormones.

I have a feeling I spent most of the class time ogling the girls and not enough of it getting my head around the relevant reproductive aspects of endocrinology. Still, I think some private study (unfortunately for me there was no practical experimental learning in pairs for that topic) meant that I managed to write a decent essay. Clearly I also learnt enough then and subsequently to get me started when I wrote a student guide book on sexual matters, Sexplanations, when I was Education & Welfare Office in 1984/85.

Tuesday 24 February 1981

Not bad day – wrote essay. In evening, went to see California Suite. Late night in Harry’s // etc.

Somewhat cheesy movie if I remember correctly – great cast though, with Jane Fonda, Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, Alan Alda, Michael Caine, Walter Matthau, Maggie Smith…

I have written about Mad Harry previously, at length in this piece – click here or below:

Winter Draws On At Keele, FY & The Union & Lindsay Bar & My First Concourse Article, 18 to 31 January 1981

In late February, then, I guess we were still in the period twixt Harry’s small trouble and big trouble. My guess is that this party was a fairly impromptu affair centred around Harry’s room. The // symbol indicates that we imbibed some dope and that I didn’t even then remember much about the gathering. We probably talked a whole load of rubbish while convincing ourselves that we were putting the world to rights. Possibly we even did put the word to rights – in which case it is such a shame that none of us the next day remembered the answers we came up with that night. Oh well.

Wednesday 25 February 1981

Easyish day. Went to party in evening // at Miriam’s – pretty good.

Miriam will be Miriam Morgan, who, along with her partner Heather (Jones) was the doyen of the Keele Gay Society. I have written up an earlier party with that crowd the previous term, at which I first met Ashley Fletcher – click here or below:

A Typical Keele Weekend For A Bunch Of Freshers, 15 & 16 November 1980

Discussing those parties with Simon Jacobs in late 2020, Simon recalled that, at one of them, there were some magic mushrooms doing the rounds. He and I both very tentatively sampled the mushrooms, probably being too timorous to take enough of the mushrooms to get enough effect to impact on the senses beyond the drink and the (if the // symbol is anything to go by) dope available at the party.

I have a feeling that this party was part of Gay Lib week, as Simon wrote that week (and party) up in the March 1981 Concourse and I cannot imagine another Wednesday night being the party night to which he refers, given my documented events of the various Wednesdays that term:

Reading Simon’s article again after all this time (I probably typed it up for that Concourse – I typed up much of the darned thing), I am struck by how tiny and nascent the Gay Soc was at that time – a dozen or so people – perhaps including me and one or two other “supporters”. Within a year or so that tiny group of active students transformed that Society and well done them.

Ashley reminded me (in correspondence late 2020) that, at one point, I was designated the Gay Soc Mascot, by dint of my support for the group. I had a feeling that honour came later than this, but perhaps it was at this event that the honour was bestowed.

Thursday 26 February 1981

Not bad day. Concoursed in evening etc.

This is a bit of an anti-climax, don’t you think? I can only apologise to readers for interrupting this programme of parties with such an ordinary-sounding day. Note that “working on Concourse” has become a single-word verb; concoursed. Let us move swiftly on.

Friday 27 February 1981

Busy day academically. Anna’s party in the evening // pretty good.

Hostess with the most-ess

Anna Summerskill’s party was probably quite a low key (perhaps a dozen or so of us) but almost certainly a dope-ridden affair. I’m trying to remember where Anna lived that year; I think Harrowby House, but I could be wrong and someone out there might correct me.

I have written a fair bit about Anna already in the same “Winter Draws” piece as Mad Harry – click here or the links above. Mark Bartholomew – also written up in that earlier piece, would no doubt have been there. Probably (but not necessarily) Simon Jacobs and one or two others from that mini dining club in Lindsay refectory, which by sacred tradition included Anna’s ceremonial fellating of a banana at the end of almost every meal, before Anna would roller-skate off to her next engagement. It’s hard to believe she’s no longer with us (sadly she died of lung cancer in 2012), she was such a force of nature, was Anna.

Not quite sure what came together to make that a (rare) busy day academically, but I was probably trying to get work out of the way ahead of my anticipated marathon efforts towards the looming Concourse deadline over the next five days…

…and there’s a story to the meeting of that deadline, I could tell you. Indeed I shall tell you, in the next episode.