I remember Pady telling us about this “Thorns Cock-Up” last time she visited, a few years ago, so it made me smile coming across this article about it when going through this February 1985 issue of Concourse.
I had forgotten (or perhaps Pady even had forgotten) that the unfortunate band that got dicked around was none other than The Pogues.
Lots of juicy bits from the February 1985 issue of Concourse. Here’s the first of them.
Annalisa de Mercur, bless her, was very concerned that the Student Union’s bar licence might get scuppered, which would indeed have been a near-existential problem for the union. The storm was very much of the teacup variety, I’d have thought, for the reasons described in the article.
How Pady Jalali and Hayward Burt ended up in an intra-article debate with the Vice-chancellor, Dr Harrison, is anybody’s guess. Methinks Annalisa might have been trying to big up her piece, as it were.
The health centre fee had been an ongoing issue, if the 1984 manifestos are anything to go by. John “Memory Man” White will hopefully chime in on the comments to describe in intricate detail the nature of the new-look campaign he planned. I don’t remember a thing about it, although welfare was my bailiwick.
I believe this scribbled note is the playlist from the Real Ale Bar Opening Disco
In the last episode, I described the re-opening of the Ballroom Bar as a Real Ale bar, with John White and I DJ-ing the disco in a less than sober fashion.
I am now pretty sure that the hand-scrawled disco playlist I discovered amongst my papers some years ago, see headline picture, must be the playlist from that gig. It looks like a playlist conceived by committee – it certainly doesn’t remind me of the type of playlist that John and I would (often quite hastily) construct earlier in the evening to give the disco the vibe and shape we wanted. Our personal choice tended to focus more on Motown, Northern Soul and general sixties dance music.
I vaguely remember the discussion with several members of the committee. Pady Jalali insisting that we play the Band Aid song at some point – John and I reluctantly agreeing to open with that song as a clarion call to let people know that the show was starting, as it would empty the dance floor anywhere else in the set. I’m pretty sure Kate Fricker chose the Madonna song and it had to be Pete Wild and/or Hayward Burt who insisted on some ZZ Top.
John and I unquestionably insisted on Police Officer by Smiley Culture, which was high on our list of personal favourites at that time:
Actually, you can hear the entire playlist, which I curated into a 40th anniversary playlist on my YouTube Music account – click here for that playlist – don’t be put off if the link is struck through – anyone can click and listen – you’ll get adverts if you don’t have a YouTube Music account, that’s all. I’ll be surprised f you haven’t had a little bit of a private dance (or in my case at the time of writing, hobble) by the time you hear Neutron Dance by the Pointer Sisters, if not before.
Let’s move on.
A Quick Trip To London, Including A Chance Encounter With Neil & Trish Hyman In Knightsbridge And A Planned Encounter With My Mum In Kings College Hospital
AI systems are now smart enough to read the charred remains of the Herculaneum scrolls…but still have no chance with my handwriting. I’ll have to do this transliteration myself:
Friday, 18 January 1985 – Very busy in office with busts etc. Went to London quite early. Stayed in etc etc
Saturday, 19 January 1985 – Rose lunchtime – drank and had haircut. Went to Chicago Rib [Shack, in Knightsbridge] in evening – Met Neil Hyman and Trish [Hyman] etc – weird. Stopped over.
Sunday, 20 January 1985 – Went home in the morning – lunch at Levinsons [friends in our street]. Went to see mum – then back to Keele. Went to see Petra [Wilson] briefly.
I’ll explain, in a later article, a bit more about my role as Education & Welfare officer helping students who had been busted. No idea why I saw so many on that Friday – I don’t think it was anything to do with our disco a couple of nights before.
I assume I stayed at Bobbie’s place in East Finchley. “Rose lunchtime, drank, had haircut” does not sound like me any more (he says, while writing between 6:00 & 7:00 am), but it does sound like the 22 year old me.
It will have seemed and still seems a strange coincidence to encounter Neil Hyman & his sister Trish, friends from my BBYO days, in the Chicago Rib Shack in Knightsbridge. Firstly, because Neil and Trish were from the Lytham St Annes group, which is some way removed from Knightsbridge . Differently posh, I suppose.
Secondly, the Chicago Rib Shack is not the first place you might think of to encounter, by chance, friends from a Jewish Youth Organisation. Perhaps we were all trying out some seminal vegan options in the place.
In some ways more coincidentally, on the back of a subsequent conversation, I discovered that Bobbie’s mum was Greta Spector’s sister. Her sons, Martin Spector and the late, great Jeffrey Spector were mainstays of BBYO in St Annes and indeed nationally. Neil and I served together on Jeffrey’s National Executive for a while in 1979.
Jeff Spector, Spring 1979
On the Sunday I went over to Streatham for lunch with my dad at Norman & Marjorie Levinson’s house. Presumably they were taking pity on dad and feeding him while my mum was in hospital. Very kind people they were – to me as a child and great friends to my parents for the rest of their lives.
Norman up front, my dad to the right
Mum was in hospital having her second hip replaced in Kings College Hospital. She had the first one replaced there in February 1975 and then needed the second one done 10 years later. Don’t know what it is about the start of years with a five in them, but I need to have one of my hips replaced and shall do so in a couple of week’s time (as I write in January 2025).
Back To Keele, Where Wednesday’s Wine Win & Waffles Needs Explaining
What do you mean, you can’t read or understand that? Oh, all right then:
Monday 21 January 1985 – Union Committee in morning – very busy rest of day. Const [itutional Committee] in evening – drink after. Petra came over later.
Tuesday 22 January 1985 – Busy day today – meetings etc. Cheap drink in evening. Petra came over later.
Wednesday, 23 January 1985 -Lots to do and meetings etc. Won wine today. Stayed in in eve – went for Waffles at Ben’s [Benita Wishart] later.
Thursday, 24 January 1985 – Busy and productive day. Lots of meetings in early evening. Petra came over later.
“Cheap drink” presumably means one of those promotion evenings in the Union, when one of the suppliers would try to encourage students towards their brand with infeasibly cheap offerings. I remember being put off Pernod for life with one of those earlier in my time at Keele. Sadly, with my diary being unspecific about the brand involved on 22 January 1985, unless a reader chimes in with a detailed memory, we’ll never know which particular tipple was cheap that night.
Clearly I didn’t over-indulge as my diary for the next day reads very industrious and perky. And who wouldn’t be perky when they had “won wine”. A whole case of Henri Maire wine at that.
While I was with my parents for Christmas, my dad showed me some vouchers and forms he had collected for an Henri Maire wine prize competition. He had bought enough of the wine for two entries. You had to answer a few quite simple questions about Henri Maire wine and then provide a slogan. Top prize, a case of Henri Maire wine. Several other prizes were also on offer. Dad had no clue on the slogans and asked me to help.
My entry – i.e. the one in my name, which ended up winning the case of wine that was sent to me at Keele, was:
Whatever the fare, drink Henri Maire.
Simple and to the point, I thought it might pick up a consolation prize. Dad preferred my other, more baroque idea for a slogan:
Tous les “Hooray Henris” boivent Henri Maire
The arrival of the winning case of “more than half decent” wine caused quite a stir in the Students’ Union that morning. Not exactly an every day event at Keele, that.
I remember excitedly calling my dad to let him know then news. He excitedly told me that my other slogan had also won a prize.
Screw you, Henri Maire. (That wasn’t the slogan). That prize, forty years on.
Dad was absolutely insistent that I keep the corkscrew. I still have it, although, as you can see, it has seen better days. I did keep back a couple of bottles of the prize-winning wine for dad, which I took down on my next visit to my folks.
For some strange reason I became tremendously popular at Keele, for a short while, after that case of wine arrived.
I don’t really understand the diary reference that says that I stayed in that evening but then went over to Benita’s place for waffles. It can only mean, I think, that my intention had been to stay in and that I had sunk into an evening off mode, before Petra (who was very friendly with Benita at that time) persuaded me to join the waffle party…
…possibly with one of those bottles of wine in hand.
Lovely lass, Benita. I think I have tracked her down on the net so we’ll see if she has anything to add to the memory of waffles or even other matters in this series of articles forty years on.
I had been approached by some FY (Foundation Year) students at the end of the autumn term who said that they would have preferred FY exams to be at the end of the term being examined rather than the first Friday of the new term. Those students suggested that they thought that the majority would agree with them.
I put the matter to Professor Watson Fuller, the head of the physics department and Chair of FY Committee, who agreed with me that I should do a survey of the students to ascertain their views on this. He would support a change if a clear majority wanted a change.
Annalisa de Mercur, who was Academic Secretary that year, worked with me on a simple survey. We considered using this as an opportunity to ask other questions, but decided in the end to focus on the single question, with a binary choice, plus room for comments.
Thinking very far ahead and very deeply indeed
Annalisa recalled that the first FY lecture of the spring term was a crowd puller with maximum attendance and thus a suitable time and space for us to maximise “voting turnout”. I am pretty sure it was Eddie Slade himself (also Physics, then Senior Tutor also) delivering the lecture and I am pretty sure he gave our survey a good plug. We had left a form on each seat in the packed FY lecture theatre.
In truth I cannot remember what the lecture was about. Perhaps it was cosmology or perhaps it was atomic physics. Something to do with one sort of big bang or another, I shouldn’t wonder…possibly both sorts.
Annalisa and I were focussed on guarding the doors and, between us, getting as many people as possible to vote. If I remember correctly, some 95% of the FY students turned up to that lecture and some 95% of attendees voted, making our turnout around 90% of all FY students.
I also recall that the interval between that lecture and the next FY Committee meeting was very short and that the deadline for papers was actually the Friday before the lecture. I agreed with Watson Fuller that I would write a short method paper to meet the committee papers deadline, and table the results of the survey itself on the day of the meeting.
The vote was, as I recall it, roughly 70% preferring to keep things as they were, with some 30% of FY students preferring to get the exams out of the way before the holidays.
Chi-squared distribution test for sampling proportions – surplus to requirements
Mercifully, I didn’t need to dig out my (at that time, probably quite rusty) notes on statistical significance tests, as a 70%/30% vote with the “sample” comprising some 90% of the entire population being sampled is, in technical statistical terms, “a slam dunk”. I also summarised for each side of the case the three or four most commonly stated (and main) points that came from the comments. Some people would prefer to be examined while the material was fresh in their minds and to get the exams out of the way – most wanted to use some of their holiday time to revise (or “vise”, I should imagine, if they were anything like me in the matter of FY lecture attendance).
At the meeting, Professor Fuller heaped this tiny piece of research with glowing praise, admiring our method – in particular the decision to keep the survey focussed and simple, the attention to detail in maximising the size of the sample and the clarity with which we expressed our findings.
So fulsome was he with his praise, I thought he might be taking the piss, but I was told by several academics afterwards that Watson Fuller would have been completely sincere when saying those things. He certainly repeated them at the Senate meeting when that point came up in the FY Committee report.
…yet I cannot ever remember a piece of my statistical work being heaped with such lavish praise as Professor Fuller’s fulsome praise of that January 1985 FY Committee paper on exam timings.
It was only my appointments diary that reminded me about that research interlude; my personal diary was relatively bland over that period. For the sake of completist readers (or more likely just for my own benefit) here is a transcript of those days:
Monday, 7 January 1985 – Not very productive day – stayed in and had early night.
Tuesday, 8 January 1985 – Got quite a lot done today. Played trivial pursuit at Pady’s in evening.
Wednesday, 9 January 1985 – Not terribly productive day. Petra came over in the evening and stayed.
Thursday, 10 January 1985 – Didn’t get much done today – went out for meal (UC) for Pady’s birthday to Micky’s.
Friday 11 January 1985 – Got lots done in morning – Union Committee in afternoon (chaotic). Staff party in evening – few showed – very unpleasant day.
Saturday, 12 January 1985 – Really low today. Went shopping. Moped around all day. Petra came over late evening. [That must have been fun for Petra judging by my description of my mood!]
Sunday, 13 January 1985 – Stayed in bed virtually all day. Went over to Kate’s for dinner in evening.
Monday 14 January 1985 – Very busy in office today. First real day of term. Stayed in the evening.
Tuesday 15 January 1985 – Lots on today – rushed a bit. Stayed in in evening – Petra came over.
Wednesday, 16 January 1985 – Senate etc today – lots to do. Opened Real Ale bar – did disco with John [White] – got v drunk.
Thursday, 17 January 1985 – Lots on today – including FY committee. Busy evening – Petra came over later on – cooked meal etc.
During our grand opening and disco, no doubt John sank several pints of Pedigree. I might have focussed on the Banks’s Mild but probably partook of both.
Ironically, I can no longer drink beer at all – as I worked my way through my forties I became completely intolerant to it. Still, better to have been able to drink the real ale back in my Keele days, when I was best placed to appreciate it. As with the FY exams question, I believe I got my timings right!
Whose idea was it to have a Keele Union Committee team-building countryside retreat in Somerset early January? I’d love to “blame” anyone and everyone on the committee but me. However, my appointments diary entry of 22 November reminds me that I was involved in the planning.
“Farm & Fricker (4.30 to 5.00 pm)”, I now realise, was a meeting with Kate (now Susan) Fricker and Chris “Farmer” Spencer, the later of whom had been one of my Barnes L54 flatmates and was now one of Hayward’s Barnes L54 flat mates.
Hayward Burt in Barnes L54, sitting in “my” favourite place
We discussed the logistics of getting the whole of Union Committee from Keele to Somerset. I think, from memory, the plan involved Chris visiting his family in Devon that weekend in the Union minibus, dropping us Union Committee folk at the Burt farm in Somerset and then collecting us again on the way back to Keele.
The happening was arranged for the first weekend of 1985.
Before I describe the singularly mortifyingly embarrassing episode from this adventure, I should say that, on the whole, I remember the event as being a success. We had, as a group, been through quite an ordeal with the Bar Management Saga, which had just reached its Tribunal conclusion just a few days ahead of this “Union Committee field trip”. The idea of team building and resetting for the remaining two terms of our three term tenure was a good idea that mostly worked.
Friday, 4 January 1985 – Left London early and came to Keele. All went off to Somerset in the afternoon – went to pub in evening.
Saturday, 5 January 1985 – Lazyish day in Taunton – walked in afternoon – went to pubs in evening etc.
Sunday, 6 January 1985 – Went out to farm for lunch, then came back to Keele early evening – had drink in Union.
My diary is very light on detail, so it is just as well some aspects have stuck indelibly in my memory. No idea where we did our pub drinking, but the picture below, dated 1985 by the author, is quite possibly one of the pubs we tried. In any case, The Greyhound Inn is great eye candy and a pleasant diversion ahead of the tale of my embarrassment.
Whose idea was it to have an informal sort-of confessions game one evening as part of that Union Committee team-building exercise? I’d love to “blame” anyone and everyone on the committee but me. Unfortunately, it was my type of idea. I am pretty sure that I suggested it, or at least warmly welcomed the idea when someone else suggested it while we were planning the event.
One of the reasons I was keen to play such a game was my increasing unease at the fact that only a small sub-group on the committee (basically the other sabbaticals) knew that I had started going out with Petra Wilson the previous term.
It wasn’t that I had deliberately kept the matter secret, it was simply one of those things that emerged by stealth and which I had only, until then, disclosed to those with whom I was spending more time; in the case of the committee I think just the sabbaticals. Annalisa also knew by then.
Anyway, point is, I thought the confessions game, one evening in the pub, would be an ideal opportunity to let the others know…
…which it would have been…
…but for the unfortunate seating arrangement, with Ali Dabbs directly to my right and therefore having his go at the confessions game just before mine.
Ali Dabbs confessed to having a crush on Petra. Ali probably didn’t speak for all that long – I think we were all aiming for “just a minute” or 90 second vignettes – but I was mortified with embarrassment and Ali’s speech seemed to be going on for ever.
I didn’t want to catch the eyes of any of the other sabbaticals, who all will have been acutely aware of what was unfolding – not least because I had told them of my plan to use this game as my opportunity to let the rest of the gang know that I was going out with Petra.
[Life must be so much easier these days, where all you need to do is change your social media relationship status and wait for people you know to spot it. On second thoughts, social media relationship status might raise more potential problems and questions than it answers. I digress.]
Worse yet, it dawned on me very quickly that I couldn’t possibly use the confession that I had planned to use. It would have been cruel, albeit truthful.
The whole episode just felt like a kick in the eye for both me and Ali Dabbs. Coincidentally, I was listening to the Bauhaus track of that name quite a lot at that time:
I’m not good at constructing an oral argument without carefully planning what I am going to say. That’s one of the reasons why I like to write rather than make speeches. I’m also not good at lying, nor am I good at bluffing.
In those few seconds that I had to decide what I was going to say, I decided…
…that I couldn’t think of anything at all. My mind was a complete blank, apart from the acute sensation of embarrassment.
In the end, I pathetically aped Ali’s speech and pretended that I had a crush on someone else. I think I picked on one of Petra’s friends, Margaret Gordon, for no better reason than I couldn’t really think of anyone to pick on and her name seemed to have a “least harm” aspect to it if…or I should really say when…the sorry matter needed to be unpicked…within a few weeks. I have a diary mention of Ali Dabbs coming round to my flat on 2 February, which was part of that unpicking.
“I have…I mean, I DON’T have an announcement to make”. Hayward, Trish, Me, Kate (Susan), Ali, Pete.
For some strange reason, I have been utterly averse to confession-type games ever since.
My embarrassing episode, while top of the pile, was not the only embarrassing thing I remember from that “field trip”. I remember Hayward’s dad, who, in my mind’s eye, I’m sure unfairly, resembled The Farmer from Shaun The Sheep movies, referring to Chris Spencer, our Barnes L54 flatmate, as…
…that old bloke you’ve hired to drive your van.
Chris did have a moustache, which possibly made him look a bit more grown up than the rest of us, but I don’t think he looked old. Hayward more or less managed to maintain his trademark deadpan delivery when saying:
That’s not an old bloke, dad, that’s Chris, my flatmate.
Small beer embarrassment compared with mine, but still.
With thanks to Dave Lee for the “loan” of this frosty Horwood picture.
For those who haven’t been avidly following this saga, the Shrewsbury Industrial Tribunal relating to our Union Committee’s dismissal of the Students’ Union bar managers was supposed to conclude 19 December…
…but required two additional days, which were set as Friday 28th and Monday 31st December.
Keele was bitterly cold when I returned to the campus on 27 December and remained so until we left on 31 December. It also felt incredibly bleak too, with almost nobody around.
The diary barely tells the tale, but let me translate my scrawl:
Thursday 27 December – Got up quite early [at parents’ house] – came back to Keele. Kate came over for a while.
I recall that Kate (now Susan) Fricker and I were a little spooked by the bleakness and the fact that Ralph was wandering around the campus. I don’t think he intended to spook or intimidate us, I think more likely Ralph was struggling to come to terms with what was happening to him and was walking a lot, as people with heavy weights on their minds often do.
In my (I now think false) memory, Kate asked to stay at the flat and I slept on the floor, but the diary says “came over for a while”, so on reflection I think the idea of her staying was mooted, but Kate decided in the end to spare me the floor and returned to her own flat for the night.
Friday 28 December – went to Tribunal – seemed to go OK – lazy evening in.
Saturday 29 December – shopped and read in day. Went to Koh-I-Noor with John & co in eve.
I think we sensed that Friday, perhaps for the first time, that the Tribunal was going our way. It was mostly Kate under the cosh that day, plus summing up from both sides, if I remember correctly. I certainly got the impression that Kate was fending off the cross-examination questions well and that the members of the panel were getting more than a little frustrated with interrogation by cross-examination that wasn’t really getting anywhere.
Would you believe the Koh-I-Noor restaurant is still there, forty years later, in Newcastle-Under-Lyme – click here. “John & co” suggests that Kate didn’t opt to join us that evening but that some other members of the committee were with us. Pady and Andy I’d guess. Perhaps also Pete & Melissa. The Koh-I-Noor was a good choice when we had vegetarians with us, as, in those days, Indian restaurants tended to be the only type of meat-serving restaurant that really “got” vegetarianism.
Sunday 30 December – Lazy day in reading etc. Kate & I went to see Ghostbusters in eve. Latish night.
Ghostbusters was THE movie to see in December 1984. I remembered that I had seen it “around the time the movie came out”, but did not remember, until I saw this diary entry, that I had seen it with Kate on the night before the tribunal judgment.
Forty years on, I have “cog. dis.” as to whether that particular movie on that particular evening was especially appropriate or especially inappropriate in the circumstances.
Great movie. The theme song had charted at the end of that summer, so John & I had been playing it at regular discos (i.e. not our 60s/Motown/Northern Soul ones) for some months. It charted again over Christmas when the movie came out. You know you want to hear it…and maybe even shimmy around your living room to that infectious rhythm:
When we returned to Shrewsbury on the Monday morning, we were given the judgment quite quickly, in summary form, with the promise of a full judgment to follow in writing. Basically the tribunal had unanimously found in our favour.
The Evening Sentinel summarised that oral judgement the next (publishing) day:
Of course we were all relieved, not least Tony Derricott, the Permanent Secretary, who must have felt especially exposed – as to a great extent did I – if the judgment had gone against us.
When we got back to the Students’ Union late morning/early afternoon, I remember Tony getting out cigars and offering them to us, which felt inappropriate to us student reps. We were relieved but not celebratory.
John and I had arranged to meet Annalisa de Mercur and Petra Wilson in London for New Years Eve, so we were also in a hurry to head down to London.
Rushed back to London with John to meet Annalisa and Petra…
…says the diary.
I remember far more than the diary tells. John might remember yet more or other details.
We had arranged to meet the girls at the Albert Memorial. No idea why there, other than it being a well-known landmark which all of us felt reasonably able to find easily and which we felt wouldn’t be a crowded place early evening on New Years Eve. It wasn’t.
John and I had a drink or two (or in John’s case possibly more than two) on the train down. Perhaps we can explain John’s, previously undisclosed, identification blooper as, at least partially, a result of the drink.
As John & I strode along Kensington Gore, John and I had a conversation along the following lines:
JOHN: (excitedly) I think that’s Annalisa in the distance, standing in front of the railings…
ME: (unconvinced)…I don’t think so…(even less convinced)…whatever it is, it’s not moving…
JOHN: (embarrassedly)…oh gawd, it’s not Annalisa. It’s a large pile of bin bags.
ME: Don’t worry, John, I won’t tell her.
Now let me be crystal clear on this point. Annalisa doesn’t and never did resemble a pile of bin bags. John’s excited outburst was no doubt enthusiasm for the anticipated evening with the girls. We were at a ridiculous distance to try to identify anyone – or to distinguish between objects and people.
Also in John’s defence, his optical delusion might have been born of eagerly looking forward to telling Annalisa and Petra that we had won our case. In those pre-mobile-phone days, there was no sensible way to get messages out ahead of meeting up – hence the pre-arrangement to meet at the Albert Memorial.
In fact, John & I had arrived at the Albert Memorial well ahead of the girls, leaving us quite literally in the cold for a good few minutes.
In the February 1985 issue of Concourse, in H Ackgrass’s final/parting newspaper column, I…or rather, better to say, H Ackgrass…wrote:
It’s all coming back to me. John will no doubt claim that he was simply finding imaginative ways to try and keep warm.
Soon enough Annalisa and Petra joined and the mood soon lightened once they learnt that the tribunal judgment had gone our way.
I am 99% sure that we ate at Melati in Great Windmill Street that evening, which was one of my/our favourite places at that time, although the diary is silent on that detail.
I’m pretty sure we then ventured in the cold to get as close to Trafalgar Square as we could – which in those days I think meant so darn close that we were actually in the square. For sure we could hear Big Ben striking loud and clear. For sure we celebrated the New Year with the crowds. I vaguely remember hugging and kissing rather a lot of strangers on that occasion. In those days, such conduct was not micro-aggressive or inappropriate – it was simply doing what everyone else was doing in those circumstances.
Petra had arranged for the two of us to stay in a flat in Kennington – her brother, Christian had friends there – they were away and were happy for us to stay. Christian had sensibly advised Petra that we would want to be walking distance from wherever we were going to stay if we were going to do the “midnight in Trafalgar Square” thing. Kennington fitted that bill.
It was actually quite a long walk in the cold after such a long day. I also recall clearly a long cold night at that flat as well. Either the heating in the flat didn’t work or we couldn’t work out how to make it work…we found imaginative ways to try and keep warm. We just about managed to avoid hypothermia.
Tuesday 1 January 1985 – went home mid morning. Lunch. Lazy day at home.
Wednesday 2 January 1985 – went to town – met Caroline lunch. Went NH [Newman Harris] then shopping then met Pete Roberts for dinner.
Thursday 3 January 1985 – rose late. Went Junction [Dad’s shop] in afternoon after taping etc. Lazy evening in taping etc.
I’ll talk some more about the taping in a separate piece about music.
I often met Caroline Freeman (now Curtis) for lunch in those days. I’m intrigued that I visited Newman Harris that day. I sense that I had told someone (Stanley Bloom, presumably, by then) that if the tribunal went against us, I would resign from the Students’ Union and be looking for work in January. I’m just guessing that this visit was to tell them that we had won and to arrange a start date in September.
The only other possibility is that I was already, by then, helping dad keep his shop’s books, in order to help keep his costs down (goodness knows, dad wasn’t doing much business by that time). This visit might have been to deliver or collect something pertained to dad’s accounts, which might explain me visiting the shop the next day.
Dinner with the Pete Roberts will have been fun and interesting. Pete was my predecessor’s predecessor’s predecessor Education & Welfare Officer (in other words 1981/1982). He had become a friend and mentor before he left Keele, and we met up/kept in touch for several years after we both left. I think he was living in Parsons Green by this time or perhaps he was still around Pimlico.
Pete will no doubt have helped me to reorient my thinking about my role post Tribunal. I remember bouncing ideas off him and really valuing his experience and wisdom in matters E&W. He was also reliably good company with an interesting and often amusing take on most subjects.
I thought he’d gone quiet on Facebook of late and was saddened to learn that he died in December 2023.
My time in London was short yet again, as I shortly returned to Keele ahead of a Union Committee team bonding long weekend in the Somerset countryside. What could possibly go wrong with that sort of idea?
The headline cartoon brings back to my mind the way that the early part of those Students’ Union discos were – especially when John and I were on the record decks.
The truth of the matter was that the discos only really started to fill up after last orders in the Main and Allright bars. For many of the punters, attendance no doubt had more to do with the fact that we had licence extension in the Ballroom Bar for gigs and discos, than a burning desire to dance. Plenty of people were up for the dancing of course, but the place was pretty quiet for the first 90 minutes or so of the show.
John & I tended to take full advantage of that early section, playing stuff that we and a handful of devotees liked leaping around to. And yes, I suppose, occasionally, John would have been the only one (or one of only two) dancing. I mean, one of us needed to look after the decks if the music was to be continuous.
I asked DeepAI to replicate the scene – not a bad depiction.
Here are the diary extracts for that end of term period.
Wednesday, 12 December 1984 – Busy day – office and Senate in afternoon. Very tired in evening. Petra [Wilson] came over distressed – Annalisa [de Mercur] coped.
I don’t recall why Petra was distressed – I think it was just a “parting is such sweet sorrow” thing at the end of her first term at Keele. Both Annalisa and Petra had put a lot of energy into being my Education and Welfare (respectively) No 2s that term – and indeed for the whole year. There is some irony in Annalisa (Education) despatching the welfare solace to Petra.
Thursday, 13 December 1984 – Bad day. Very tired today – meeting with solicitor in morn – have to sleep in afternoon – ball in eve – Ringroad and slave auction went well.
I cannot remember who played that Christmas Ball – John White and/or Pady Jalali might remember. And I absolutely dread to think what a “slave auction” might have been in that context. I feel like cancelling myself for something I don’t remember and possibly didn’t really play much of a part in.
Friday, 14 December 1984 busy day etc – got up late and UC in afternoon – celebration after – UC takeaway my place – JW [John White] and I did disco – then Petra came over after.
I have a feeling that several members of the committee joined us early in the piece for that last disco of 1984, a little unlike the ones described in the first few paragraphs of this article. I think a lot of students had already gone down by that Friday, so we would have had a lot of space to leap around for the whole evening.
Saturday, 15 December 1984 – Went shopping with Kate [Fricker] in morning – then worked all day for IT [Industrial Tribunal – now known as an Employment Court]. Had meal in evening over at Annalisa’s.
Sunday, 16 December 1984 – Kate came over fairly early – worked and had lunch together and worked some more. Cooked Annalisa a meal in the evening.
Monday, 17 December 1984 – Did very little today – got ready for tribunal – went out for Indian meal with sabbaticals.
The next episode will take us to Shrewsbury for the start of the Industrial Tribunal. Watch this space.
Imagine Taylor Swift having Susan From Accounts as her support act – after all, Susan does go down reasonably well at the open-mic sessions down The Greyhound. Or Oasis being preceded by The Venn Diagrams – that nice band of “sixth-form graduands”, who performed with such exuberant confidence at their end of school bash.
Actually, the idea of Ringroad supporting the Lenny Henry as originally conceived was even more grandiose; the idea being that Ringroad would perform a warm up act and then a warm down act in the main bar that night. I still have the running orders from the project as originally conceived:
That was probably every last scrap of vaguely suitable material Ringroad had to hand at that time. I have some of these sketches in my Ringroad file. Those which I performed and/or in which I had a part, mostly.
Here are my personal diary notes from the few days before and the day itself:
Saturday, 24 November 1984 – shopped etc. Rehearsed Ringroad in afternoon – wrote [H Ackgrass] column in eve – Annalisa [de Mercur] came over for a while.
Sunday, 25 November 1984 – Rose quite late – spent most of day in office. Cooked Petra [Wilson] a meal in eve – stayed.
Monday, 26 November 1984 – Very busy with lots of committee meetings etc. Rehearsed Ringroad in evening.
Tuesday, 27th November 1984 – Lots to do today in office. Rehearsed Ringroad until very late – quite knackered.
Wednesday, 28 November 1984 – Busy day in office. Petra came over to help me learn scripts etc. – stopped.
Thursday, 29 November 1984 – Lots to do today in office. Performed Ringroad at Lenny Henry gig in evening. Got plastered after.
Those notes tell the story in their own way, but I should fill in some gaps.
I’ll write more about that particular H Ackgrass column in a separate piece. Suffice it to say here that I very much remember Annalisa visiting me that afternoon. She was one of “my spies” for H Ackgrass and that will have been the main purpose behind that visit. I recall Annalisa asking me that day, “how do you fit all of these activities in and get so much done?” and I also remember feeling a bit smug about that. Actually, reflecting now on the relatively poor quality of my extra-curricular comedic output at that time, my answer to Annalisa’s question, forty years on, is to admit that I was substituting quantity for quality.
I also recall that I recruited Petra as an H Ackgrass spy the following day, as she was vexed at my caginess about my activities the previous day. It seemed easier and more sensible to recruit an additional Ackgrass spy than to lie about something so trivial so early in our relationship.
I’m going to guess that we didn’t cull the Ringroad show until the day of the show, hence the night before desperation of learning scripts, with Petra’s help. I can’t imagine that it was much fun for either of us, trying to cram my brain with Ringroad lines, while there was so much else swirling around in said brain at that time. But I did have a very good short-term memory back then, it is much diminished in power for such things now.
How and when the decision to cull our Ringroad act from two parts to one was made, I have no idea. Pady Jalali might remember. All I recall is that the decision was hastily made and I don’t suppose for one minute that anyone calculated the length of the resulting show or consider the logistics around our performance being in the Main Bar ahead of a Lenny Henry gig in the Ballroom. Here’s the cobbled together running order for the show Ringroad actually performed.
Oh look – I’ve been honoured with the closing number as a solo…
I don’t think the show went down very well. But my abiding memory is of the most awkward spot I found myself in towards the end of the act. I had just started my “Dracula” solo, when word came across the tannoy (probably the dulcet tones of Wally), that the Ballroom doors were open and that Lenny Henry would be starting in five minutes.
More or less the entire audience, quite understandably, made a bee-line to the Main Bar entrance in the direction of the Ballroom to try and grab good spots to watch the main show.
OK, clever clogs reader, what would you do in those circumstances? Would you admit defeat and stop the Ringroad show in mid sketch, or would you take “the show must go on” approach, continuing to perform the sketch to the ever-shrinking, backs-of-heads audience? I chose the latter, albeit embarrassing, approach. I think the other Ringroad performers and a handful of friends, such as Annalisa and Petra, stuck around…but perhaps I was truly alone by the end of the sketch.
Hello! I’m still here! Where’s everybody gone?
Unquestionably my most embarrassing experience as a performer, ever. More embarrassing even than the sword fight that went wrong in Twelfth Night at school six year’s earlier:
But I digress. And you want to read about Lenny Henry, not Ringroad, nor Alleyn’s.
The Lenny Henry Gig At Keele
Securing Lenny Henry at that time was a bit of a coup for Pady, in my opinion. Lenny Henry was on the cusp of real stardom at that time, having just been given his own TV show, which aired in the early autumn, just ahead of his gig at Keele.
Here is the preview story from The Evening Sentinel:
I remember the Ballroom being absolutely packed. I think we Ringroaders watched from a balcony spot; a sole perk for our efforts and blushes. I thought Lenny Henry was an excellent performer and his show had far more in it than I had expected, with songs and set pieces as well as classic stand up material.
Alistair Perkins interviewed Lenny Henry at length for Concourse and also reviewed the show at length. Here are the very pieces that emerged in Concourse ten days or so after the event:
Here is Tim Bevington’s review from The Evening Sentinel:
To get a flavour of Lenny Henry back then, you might want to see the first episode of his 1984 TV Show, which is available on The Internet Archive – click here.
Or you might get more of a feel for his 1980s live performance from the following YouTube, which starts with the live material about 7’30” in:
Epilogue
I saw Lenny Henry live a couple of times in 2023. Firstly, in a wonderful one-man-play which he both wrote and performed, August In England, at The Bush Theatre:
I was far too polite on both of those occasions to get my own back on Lenny – for the embarrassment he inadvertently caused me in 1984 – which I could easily have done, either by walking out of his show or confronting him in front of his friends in the restaurant. I’m far too nice a guy for that. I don’t bear grudges. Anyway, in truth, I had deep filed my memory of that ill-fated Ringroad performance, until going through the old materials brought the memories flooding back.
Of course Petra didn’t “enter the stage” on 8 November 1984, but that date is her first mention in my diary.
My Education & Welfare portfolio had two key voluntary assistant posts – Academic Secretary & Welfare Secretary. Annalisa de Mercur subscribed for the academic one and was incredibly helpful, both during the late summer when resits and appeals were all the rage…
I have a feeling that someone had subscribed to take up the 84/85 welfare secretary post but needed to withdraw before the autumn 1984 term started. Perhaps it was unfilled all along. But for sure it would have been too much for Annalisa to fulfil both, although she did a sterling job of the pastoral support role with the resit/appeals community and also the early days/weeks of term.
I advertised the welfare secretary role at the start of term and I’m pretty sure Petra, who was an FY fresher, put her hand up quite quickly. She had been helping out in the welfare office and proving her considerable worth in that role for some two or three weeks before…
Thursday, 8 November 1984 – Worked hard today – rushed about – election count [to fill the controversially vacant VP External position] then Petra came over for dinner – stayed till quite late.
One thing led to another.
I was living in the resident tutor’s flat (that was basically two study bedrooms and the end of a corridor combined) on the ground floor of K Block Horwood; Petra’s room was very nearby (H Block I think).
Friday, 9 November 1984 – Union committee in morn and then busy afternoon – Ali’s [Ali Dabbs’s] birthday – all got drunk in union (after chasing assurance!!).
Saturday, 10 November 1984 – Went shopping in morning – went to office in the afternoon – Petra helped and came back for food and stayed late.
Sunday, 11 November 1984 – Rose late – went to office and worked in fairly leisurely style. Early night.
I have no idea what “chasing assurance!!” means – I can only guess that it was a Union Committee in joke at the time. Perhaps a John White-ism or a Hayward Burt-ism for trying to get University officials to commit to a course of action.
You might notice that I was putting in the hard yards – tending to work some (although not all) weekends. I’m sure Petra remembers, as does John White, that my catch phrase was:
I’m very busy!
(Janie might complain, 40 years later, that I still take on more than I should and still bark, “I’m very busy!” with alarming regularity.)
Who? Me? Trying not to look busy, Autumn 2024
John Martyn Gig, Keele SU Ballroom, 12 November 1984
Monday, 12 November 1984 -Busyish day – did quite a lot of work – meetings etc. Went to see John Martyn in evening – latish night.
For some reason, I still have the flyer for that concert. Perhaps it amused me then, as it does now. Perhaps I kept it because I was very keen to see John Martyn again (having seen what was, to me, a less memorable gig of his in October 1981). Or perhaps I’d simply used that piece of paper as a place marker in something I ended up keeping.
Well done Pady Jalali for getting John Martyn at a good price and enabling Keele folk to see him for less than half the price of anywhere else. And well done Pady for emphasising that pricing point. The messaging is SO YOU.
I’m listening to some John Martyn while writing this piece, to get me in the mood.
He played quite a lot of stuff from his more recent albums, not least Sapphire which he was releasing in conjunction with the tour. But he also played a lot from his canon. I remember getting very excited when he played this favourite of mine:
The following video was recorded less than two weeks after the Keele gig, with the addition of percussionists who weren’t there at Keele but with Foss Patterson who was at our gig on keyboards and backing vocals:
If the first piece reminds you a bit of Nick Drake and the second one reminds you a bit of Phil Collins, you’re not far wrong. John Martyn was a bit of a style magpie (in a good way), who hung out with, amongst many others, Nick Drake in the early 1970s and Phil Collins in the early 1980s.
I remember the gig being rather different from my expectation (my knowledge of him was stuck in the 1970s) but I still remember very much enjoying that gig.
In my vague memory Petra was with me at that gig, but that might be a false memory. The diary is silent on that point.
Back To Reality…With A Bit Of A Bump
Tuesday, 13 November 1984 – Not feeling at all good today – went home (sent home in afternoon). Much fuss made and Liza [O’Connor] came over in evening to cap it all.
Wednesday, 14 November 1984 – Pretty wretched day – Senate dragged on and on – not feeling too good – went home for an early night.
Thursday, 15 November 1984 – Hard day – work – met solicitor [John Cheetham] in afternoon. Went to Leo [Hamburger] & Sarah’s party in evening – Petra came back after.
…I was still prone to the occasional “feel absolutely terrible for no apparent reason” spell. Actually, reviewing my diaries 40 years on, I think I can observe a pattern, suggesting that a late night after a bit too much to drink usually preceded such a day or two. I can certainly vouch for the fact that, 40 years on, it only needs to be “a tiny bit too much” drink the night before to make a mess of the next day.
I love the phrases “went home (sent home…)” and “much fuss made”. I don’t really remember it, but I can imagine Kate (now Susan) Fricker and Pady Jalali going into matronly mode, even in their young adulthood. John White would have supported them. Petra too, no doubt.
The home visit from Liza O’Connor (my ex from 82/83)…
…probably did not go particularly well. I cannot imagine that it was anything other than a coincidence that Liza was around to pop in on such a day. I’m pretty sure she was in Manchester studying that term, so presumably had briefly come home (to The Sneyd Arms) for some reason and tracked me down to my new bijou pad. “As if my life isn’t getting complicated enough”…was probably the subtext of my phrase, “to cap it all”.
For the Wednesday, “Senate dragged on and on” and “not feeling too good” gives me a clears sense of how I felt sitting there that afternoon. Kate Fricker had campaigned hard with the University to allow me to be the second SU representative on Policy Staffing & Development (PS&D) committee, which was the place where all the decisions tended to be made. Senate was more of a “rubber stamp or posturing” chamber for most matters…certainly those which had already been discussed in detail and approved by PS&D. For that reason, when PS&D approved items came around at Senate, my heart tended to sink even at the best of times if someone (usually a Professor who had lost a debate at PS&D) went over old ground, loquaciously, for a second and futile time at Senate.
The solicitor visit on Thursday 15th November would have been about the impending Employment Tribunal, scheduled for mid to late December. John Cheetham was the University solicitor – Kate and I had felt unconfident with the SU solicitor who had no real experience of employment tribunals. The registrar, David Cohen, had been helpful in allowing us use of the University solicitors for this purpose. He also took great pains to remind us, just in case it needed pointing out, that we couldn’t use John Cheetham for anything disputatious between the Students’ Union and the University.
“For the avoidance of doubt…” David Cohen 1960s COPYRIGHT KEELE UNIVERSITY
John Cheetham was a very good solicitor and looked after us sympathetically as well as professionally. He also, I clearly remember, was very cognisant of the mental strain that Tommy and Ralph were undergoing and went easy on them…which is more than can be said for Derek Bamford of NUPE’s approach to us…but that’s another story for another time.
As an avid Private Eye reader (back then and still), I was constantly amused by John Cheetham’s name, as a solicitor. He would surely have fitted in well at Private Eye’s fictitious law firm: Sue, Grabbit and Runne.
Leo Hamburger and Sarah’s party. I remember Leo well and recall keeping in touch with him for a while after Keele. He was very helpful in the Education & Welfare office, although he didn’t have a formal role in the way that Petra and Annalisa did. But it was my style to have a team of helpful people. As much as anything else, if the welfare office was to be staffed most of the time during office hours, I needed volunteers to do that while I was in meetings half the day.
I have managed to track down Petra prior to writing this article but have not yet tried to contact Leo, but I shall do so. I hope one of them will remember who Sarah was in this context. Possibly Sarah Hetherington who went on to marry Andrew Moran? Or possibly another Sarah.
Unfortunately we have no photographs from student parties such as Leo and Sarah’s from the mid 1980s. Photography had only just been invented and certainly wasn’t intended for such events back then.
But no matter – I have asked DeepAI to depict an appropriate scene and it has done a grand job of it:
Interesting that DeepAI depicts “UK students partying in a room in the mid 1980s” with mostly food and just a few signs of drink. My recollection, albeit fuzzy, is that it was much the other way around.
No, it wasn’t ALL about those things, but my diaries and the thrust of the early November issue of Concourse suggest that those aspects of student life were quite central, at least around the union.
Late October UGM
If you are geeky enough to want to read about the late October UGM in excruciating detail, I have good news for you; I was geeky enough to upload all three columns so you can click the links and read them:
The aspect I want to share with all readers, though, is the cartoon of Mark Ellicott accompanying that article, which reminded me of the headline photograph and made me laugh 40 years on:
Late October Rent Strike / Rent Delay
I was also amused to read Concourses take on the conclusion of the rent strike / rent delay, which had taken up a fair chunk of our October time.
A week before the end of October, I had signalled in a Concourse newssheet and Pub Circ that we had achieved our goals in pressurising the University into sorting out the accommodation problems and advised students to settle up before the end of the month to avoid late payment penalties.
Not many readers will be surprised to learn that a great many students left it until the last afternoon (31 October) to turn up at the finance office with their cheques.
Naturally, I was kinda busy that afternoon, so it seems that John White (Union Secretary) picked up this particular mantle. The following Concourse piece from early November describes the end game of this episode:
Here are the extracts from my diary for those last few days of October:
Monday 29 October 1984 – Hard day in office plus UGM in evening – had a late night.
Tuesday, 30 October 1984 – Busy day in the office – working hard etc. Worked late – UC, McDonald’s. Earlyish night.
Wednesday, 31 October 1984 – busy day – office/PSD [Policy, Staffing & Development Committee] etc. Did Union disco [with John White] in the evening.
Ah, so John & I were still talking to each other at the end of that fraught day. Of course we were. We’re still talking to each other forty years on. John’s comment on the above article, when I zapped it over to him ahead of writing this piece:
[That article] did make me smile and that’s the way industrial relations should be conducted
Doing Union Discos With John White After Work
I explained how we ended up DJ-ing a lot in an earlier article:
In short, Social Committee in previous years had paid people to DJ at Union discos, but Pady Jalali (our Social Secretary) felt that people would volunteer to DJ discos. John & I agreed to do any discos that lacked a volunteer until those who wanted to DJ union discos saw sense. My diaries tell me that the late October/early November period was “peak disco” for me and John – three in one week including the 31 October disco.
Thursday 1 November 1984 – Busy day in office over grievance and discipline. In evening went to Mel’s [Melissa Oliveck’s] party which was good.
Friday 2 November 1984 – Very busy day in the office. Came down to the union after dinner – ended up doing disco with John Boy.
Saturday, 3 November 1984 – Busyish day – shopping then in office. Ali [Dabbs] came back for a while – then called out to do disco (again!!).
Sunday, 4 November 1984 – Rose quite late – went over to Annalisa’s [de Mercur] for lunch – very pleasant – had an early night (deserved).
Monday, 5 November 1984 – Worked quite hard today – went to Constitutional Committee in evening – easyish evening.
Tuesday, 6 November 1984 – busy day in the office – drinks with VC etc. early evening -> Stoke to meet Kathy [Kathy Barlow, my opposite number at North Staffs Poly] et.al.
Wednesday, 7 November 1984 – Very busy day with meetings etc. Had a fairly easy evening for a change.
Busy days really were busy days. It might be that my allergy to sitting on committees developed in my union sabbatical year, as I probably attended a lifetime’s worth of them in the space of one year. Here’s an extract from my appointments diary that week:
John was also working very hard during the days. The 62 year old me finds it hard to imagine how the 22 year old me had the energy to do all of those things, including stints of highly active DJ-ing several evenings after work.
