Yesterday, Jon sent me an e-mail with some more scans that made me smile even wider, relating to some student union election shenanigans in February 1983. I wrote a brief note of those a few years ago for the Keele Oral History Project – click here – but now, thanks to Jon and his scanning machine, I can relate the story far more accurately and colourfully for Ogblog. I’ll write that up soon – something for Ogblog enthusiasts and lovers of student politics to look forward to.
So Jon’s documents sent me to my 1983 diary and that got me thinking about the 1983 general election, our very first one as voters.
There are many similarities between 1983 and 2017; an aging, unpopular Labour leader, splits in the Labour party, a Tory woman Prime Minister looking to increase her majority and power…
…there are also many differences. I’m not so fearful of the far right parties this time, whereas we were genuinely (but mistakenly) worried that the National Front and/or British National Party might make ground in 1983. Perhaps the Tories have simply moved onto much of that turf now, albeit with less visceral policies. I’m not so sure that Theresa May will achieve a 1983 Maggie style result – certainly the polls are less clear (or less trusted) in 2017. For sure all the main parties have put up dreadful campaigns in 2017 – I didn’t feel that way in 1983 – the Tories at least seemed like an unstoppable election machine back then.
Before I looked at the relevant page in my 1983 diary, I would have sworn that I remembered following election night in Liza O’Connor’s Rectory Road Shelton digs with a mixture of my Keele friends and Liza’s North Staffs Poly art & design flatmates.
But it wasn’t quite like that and now I do remember.
Thing was, I was bang slap in the middle of my Part One law degree finals.
As I now recall it, I had voted by post in my parent’s constituency (Streatham) where we felt that there was a chance that Labour might win, whereas John Golding (for whom even then I would have struggled to hold my nose and vote) had a safe as houses seat in Newcastle-Under-Lyme. My Streatham plan didn’t work in 1983 – by the time Streatham switched from Tory to Labour in 1992, I was voting in Kensington North.
Now, through boundary changes, my constituency is Kensington, with a Brexity Tory MP in a strongly non-Brexit but utterly safe seat. I’m finding it hard to hold my nose and vote for anyone today, but of course I shall and it won’t be for Lady Brexit-Borwick.
My 9 June 1983 diary note is quite pithy:
Did some work in day. Jon, Simon & Vince came to Rectory Road for tea – we came back to Keele in eve. Panicy.
“Jon” is Jon Gorvett, “Simon” is Simon Jacobs, “Vince” is Vince Beasley.
So my abiding memory of sitting around for hours debating politics with those people was correct – but it was during the day, not election night.
The reason I was “panicy”/panicky was because I had a couple of part one finals papers the very next day. I suspect that the others had finished their finals exams by then. Jon might remember his circumstances. Simon always claims to remember nothing at all.
So I think we held our 1983 election post mortem…pre mortem. I remember debating what next and all that sort of post mortem stuff.
So in 1983 we really knew (or thought we really knew) the result before polls closed – we just wondered exactly how bad it was going to be.
Political life doesn’t feel so certain to me now. Is that my age/experience showing or does that tell us more about the political age we now live in?
Thanks for triggering the memories, Jon Gorvett.
Comments on Ogblog pieces are always welcome but especially so on this piece.
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.
I returned to Keele very soon after Christmas, for reasons that need no more explaining in this piece than they did in my last substantive piece for 1982.
Just A Few Days In Streatham, 23 to 28 December 1982
I basically just spent a few days in London with family and friends that year:
Thursday 23 December…went over to Wendy’s [Robbins] for the afternoon…
Friday 24 December…went over to [Andy & Fiona] Levinson’s…
Saturday 25 December…Benjamins [Doreen, Stanley, Jane & Lisa] came over in evening…
Sunday 26 December…went to [neighbours Eardley & Aidrienne] Dadonka’s in evening…
Monday 27 December …Italian meal [almost certainly Il Carretto]…met Jim [Bateman] in evening…
Tuesday 28 December …did some taping. Went to [John & Lily] Hoggan’s in afternoon. Nice Chinese meal [almost certainly Mrs Wong‘s]. Paul [Deacon] came in evening
Back To Keele For “Twelve Days Of Post-Christmas” Before the Start Of Term, 29 December 1982 to 9 January 1983
The diary mostly refers to hanging around with Liza O’Connor during that pre-term period.
On New Year’s Eve it seems that I made some dinner at Barnes L54, the menu for which is lost in the mists of time but it would have probably been one of my Chinese wok specials. We then went to the Boat and Horses in Newcastle for a New Year’s Eve party.
I have a feeling that Liza’s brother Liam was involved – possibly even the brains behind the idea. But it might have also involved Ashley Fletcher and/or Bob & Sally (Bob Miller and Sally Hyman). I certainly recall Bob having an affection for a Bass pub around there, but perhaps not that one and/or perhaps not New Year’s Eve.
It must have been a good night because it seems we dossed all day the following day, reporting only watching a film on (Alan Gorman’s) TV in the evening. New Years Day aged 20.
Friday 7 January – went to visit Simon {Jacobs] & Jon [Gorvett] today – went to pub, shopped etc.
I think those two must have been sharing a place off campus by then. I must ask them.
OK, I think I have assessed that those 12 days before the start of term do not contain a great deal of interest for the general reader. There are several mentions of doing some work, as well as several more of spending time with Liza.
In the interest of science, I have assessed the text and can provide the following, quantitative data about those 12 days.
Days spent with Liza but not working: six.
Days spent working and also seeing Liza: one.
Days spent working and not seeing Liza: four, three of which described as “did a little work”, only one described as “worked all day”;
As I have so few images from my Keele years, I thought I’d get DALL-E to help me depict that seasonal break. The above picture is a DALL-E image generated solely from the instruction:
Depict a University Student in January 1983 spending 12 days before the start of term dossing with his friends and girlfriend, doing a little work but not much.
Looks only a smidge like me, but more importantly I think DALL-E has erred on the side of the work rather than the dossing. Probably just as well.
Keele Students’ Union With Thanks To Paul Browning For The Photo
My November 1982 diary continues mostly to document a set pattern of student life that term. I was going out with Liza O’Connor, whom, it seems, I would see two or three times each week. At that time she was still living with her family at The Sneyd Arms, so I quite often describe walking her home late at night; which presumably staved off the wrath of Geoff O’Connor – no student (or offspring) wanted his wrath.
In the end, it was me who proposed the motion – much to the chagrin of Union President Truda Smith, who afterwards gave me a metaphorical handbagging…or do I mean “metaphorical hairdryer treatment“…or do I mean a metaphorical “handbagging with hair-dryer within” treatment? Truda was not happy. Pete Roberts seconded the motion, which probably gave the motion the political gravitas we thought it needed, as he was the immediate past Education & Welfare sabbatical and he said that he thought the quality of our education and our welfare was at risk from the cuts.
The diary entry suggests that the result was a solid win on the vote:
Monday 15 November 1982: Busy day – writing speech etc. UGM went well – motion passed well etc. Paul & Mike came in after.
I’m not sure who Paul & Mike were in this context. Was it you, Paul Evans? I don’t remember you being into the politics much but perhaps the issue of the cuts floated your boat. For Mike, a bearded fellow in a duffel coat springs to mind but I don’t honestly remember for sure. Pete Roberts, Simon Jacobs or Jon Gorvett might help me out here. Or perhaps not.
J-Soc Friday Night Meal, Friday 26 November 1982
Whose blithering idea was it to attempt this at Keele – a University with a tiny, mostly secular Jewish community?
Actually I have a funny feeling it was sort-of my idea.
Following the success of the International Fair the previous summer and the “joint venture” I had fostered with Tony Wong of the Chinese Cultural Society, I was very cognisant of the fact that other cultural societies had centred their cultural offerings around food, whereas J-Soc had not really done so.
Further, we had some enthusiasts for doing a meal in the form of, if I remember correctly, Michelle Epstein (who was in her second year) plus a couple of newbies – Annalisa de Mercur (who became a good friend for many years, during and after Keele) plus Julie Reichman.
In short, I think it was my idea that we do food and “the girls” turned the idea into something with deeper cultural significance – a heimisch Jewish Friday Night meal.
…our event wouldn’t have looked or sounded anything like the vid below either:
My recollection is that the event “got big on us”, with a lot of work in the planning and the aftermath. The event dominates my diary from the Tuesday before until the day itself and even seemed to dominate until the Monday after.
I don’t even remember where we held the dinner, although something tells me that there was a facility in Horwood that we could and did use for events like this. Or, if not, possibly the Lindsay Hexagon.
I remember being delighted to leave much of the hands-on running of the event to “the girls” and feeling, by the end of it, that I was happy to leave J-Soc more generally in their very capable (and more enthusiastic than my) hands.
The attendees for the event included several people from the Chinese and Arab cultural societies, plus my own entourage (including Liza O’Connor & my new flatmate Alan Gorman, who came from Catholic backgrounds), which might have been fascinating and/or beguiling for them.
“Hastly” Day After The Big Event, Saturday 27 November 1982
Hastly [by which I think I meant “hassle-strewn”] day. Shopped in afternoon – Liza and Chantelle’s friend stayed for dinner. Went to union – got quite drunk…took L home quite late
The fact that I mention Chantelle’s friend in this context means, I’m pretty sure, that there must have been some sub-text. I don’t really remember, but I suspect that I was pretty “duncatering” by the Saturday and/but ended up preparing the Saturday dinner in question. “Got quite drunk” was probably a way to let off steam in the union after the catering stresses of the preceding few days.
The subtext is probably lost in the mists of time, but if I had a grump on in those days, people around me would have known about it. Actually I’m not sure the obviousness of my grump has changed much in the forty years since.
On the Monday I was “sorting out J-Soc stuff still” which probably irritated me, although I did find time in the afternoon to “visit Anju”.
But it is mostly work for the next few days, so I sense that I felt that I was behind where I wanted to be with my essays and the like. Either that or some sort of interpersonal grump that I was too polite to write down and which is now, mercifully, long-since forgotten.
ABC depicted in Leicester a day or two before we saw them in Hanley
It seems I had gone into busy mode quite early in that first term of my P2 year (third year at Keele but second degree year):
I explained most of the scribbled terms such as KAG (Keele Action Group) in the preceding “forty years on” pieces, such as this one, click here or below:
The “work busy” stuff would have mostly comprised getting my head around:
Development Economics with Peter Lawrence (still an Emeritus Professor at Keele forty years on):
Jurisprudence with Philip Rose;
Criminology with Pat Carlen (still a doyen of Criminology forty years on) & Mike Collinson (sadly no longer with us).
If anyone out there can decipher the “[something?] plan” on the Sunday, which was conjoined with the KAG I’d love to know. We were proposing an occupation so I have a vague feeling that the plan was to do with advanced planning for that. We (perhaps naively) assumed that, once mandated to carry out an occupation, the Union Committee might swing into action quickly. Oh, the innocence and optimism of youth.
A couple of evenings with girlfriend Lisa during that time, ahead off a big night out to see ABC, who were “that years’s thing” in 1982.
I’m pretty sure we went to Victoria Hall in Hanley for the concert, on the evening that the following review appeared in the Leicester Mercury – presumably the De Montfort Hall gig had been on the Wednesday but this was the very tour/show we saw.
I remember a lot of excitement ahead of the gig and I remember that lots of us from Keele were there. For sure I was there with Lisa and I’m pretty sure Simon Jacobs and Jon Gorvett – they can confirm or deny. I have a feeling that Ashley Fletcher wasn’t there that night, but I could be wrong. I also have a feeling that Alan Gorman didn’t fancy that gig, which was a bit pricey and also (as some might say) a bit arty-farty for some tastes.
Mary Haddon in The guardian described that show as “sophisticated, not “arty-farty” – see below.
If you are too young to have seen or heard ABC at that time, here are some performance vids to help your eyes and ears adjust. Quintessentially early 1980s, they were, ABC, but then it WAS the early 1980s:
They did some proper filmic vids too – seriously arty-farty they were, especially this one – but I do recall this particular number going down especially well live at the gig:
Ashley Fletcher reminiscing for me in The Sneyd Ams, 35 years later.
I retrieved this memory vividly at a pilot of Rohan Candappa’s new performance piece on 31 October 2017:
What Listening To 10,000 Love Songs Has taught Me About Love. It’s an exploration of love, and music, and how the two intertwine. it’s also about how our lives have a soundtrack.”
Somewhat unexpectedly, Rohan used (I Married A) Monster From Outer Space by John Cooper Clarke as one of his examples. If you have never heard a recording of it, here is a vid with an unexpurgated version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbRM-canDOs
It was Paul Deacon who introduced me to the recording (the expurgated version as it happens), in April 1982. I know these exact details because I still have the track listing from the relevant cassette, beautifully typed by Paul as part of the gift:
In October 1982, that cassette would have still been in the recent section of my cassette cases and was still getting plenty of play.
Now turn your mind to Freshers’ Week on the 1982/83 year; my third. Thus spake my diary:
That’s not a bad few days.
I saw The Beat at the Freshers’ Ball on the Wednesday. I’m pretty sure I liked them a lot before I saw them live. But once I’d seen them live I liked them even more. They were a terrific live act. I especially remember the Keele audience going wild for Ranking Full Stop and of course Stand Down Margaret, but pretty much all of the gig was superb as I remember it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFaFVhyjb5Y
Writing in October 2017, I only wish that someone would write something with similar sentiments about our current prime minister. I mean, where’s Simon Jacobs when you need him?…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DM4lSw68-AE
…ah, there he is. Thank you, Simon. But I digress.
Two nights later, with just one evening between gigs for me to recover (by “getting quite intoxicated”, apparently) it was Culture Club. That gig was eagerly awaited. They had been unknowns when booked, but were Number Two in the charts come Freshers’ Week, with the clever money suggesting that they would be Number One by the time the next chart came out – which they were.
Liza was at that gig with Ashley Fletcher and a few others of that Hawthornes Hall crowd. Liza wasn’t a Keele student; she had just enrolled on an art school type course at North Staffs Poly as it then was. Liza lived in The Sneyd Arms; she was landlord Geoff O’Connor’s daughter.
35 years later…Ashley in The Sneyd Arms – with thanks to Ashley & Sal for the picture
I remember being underwhelmed by the Culture Club gig. To be fair, their rise (and therefore the increase in expectations) had been stratospheric – in truth they were still a fairly inexperienced band who would have seemed “better than most” if people hadn’t been expecting overnight superstars. I remember them playing “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me” at least twice. I think it was just twice. Fairly short set, though.
Weird vid, but if you want to see/hear the song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nXGPZaTKik
Anyway, Liza and I went on to the Postgraduate Bar – KRA afterwards – I have a feeling that Ashley and the rest went on somewhere else. Then one thing led to another with Liza.
I was over the moon, I took her back to my place…and we ended up going out for the rest of that academic year, basically.
I vaguely associate the start of my relationship with Liza with Culture Club. Very vaguely. Until I looked at the diary to prepare this piece, I had completely forgotten that Liza and I got started the night of that gig.
But when Rohan spoke about (I Married A) Monster From Outer Space I had a strong memory flash about it. For a start, I realised that I always associate that record with starting out with Liza.
I cannot swear that the following interaction took place that very first evening/night…I’d rather like to think it was…but I clearly remember Liza rummaging through my cassettes, finding the above one and yelping with joy that I had “I Married A Monster”, which she loved.
It was one of those joyous things; the shared pleasure in a rather obscure, let’s face it, weird, recording. It helped to cement Liza’s and my relationship in those early days. We knew that we must have plenty in common, because we both really liked that John Cooper Clarke record. What additional evidence could you possibly need?
In Rohan’s show, he didn’t really explore the business of how we use the discovery of shared taste in songs to help cement our relationships. But I think that happens often and is quite a central part of why music is so important to us, whether we are seeking, starting, in or ending relationships.
But thanks, Rohan, for helping me to recover this memory through “Monster”. And thanks Paul Deacon, for all you did to help me and Liza, without ever knowing it, until now.
By the way, Rohan’s favourite line from “Monster” is:
…and it’s bad enough with another race, but f*ck me, a monster from outer space.
That might be my favourite line too. But Liza’s favourite line was:
…she lives in 1999, with her new boyfriend, a blob of slime.
Perhaps that was Liza’s way of trying to keep me on my toes; “you’re not the only pebble on the beach…if you keep on like that I might prefer to date a blob of slime…”.
I’m done, but you might enjoy this ranting poetry version of I Married A Monster:
By 1982, the annual Gentlemen (of the right) v Players (of the left) cricket match had become an iconic feature of Keele Festival Week. It was many years later that I learnt that this “tradition” had only started a year or two earlier. Keele traditions were a bit like that back then.
The Roping In
I made a pigs ear of writing this event up previously, combining my memories of the 1982 match with the 1983 match, having forgotten that I ended up playing this match three illustrious times while at Keele; my last appearance being 1984.
My mistake was spotted by Mark Ellicott, whose name I had delicately left out of my previous write up of this first occasion, as it was for an “intoxicated” Mark that I was hurriedly found and roped in as a late substitute. Mark pointed out that it must have been 1982, as that was the summer during which he was caught up in all this stuff and he was involuntarily on sabbatical from the University the following academic year. Mark later went on to be a Students’ Union sabbatical, stretching his Keele duration yet further.
On the topic of this 1982 cricket match, my diary entry merely says, with surprisingly little enthusiasm:
Got roped into playing cricket all afternoon.
Here is the Mark Ellicott substitution bit of the story, as I originally wrote it, before Mark got in touch. Naturally I have now cleared with Mark the idea of attaching his name to the story:
“I got a knock on the door early afternoon…a certain wild-haired student (even more wild-haired than me), who latterly – more latterly even than me – became a sabbatical, had been experimenting with an acidic chemical – presumably something to do with his subsidiary or extra-curricular studies – and had accidentally ingested rather too much of the stuff…
Mark Ellicott two or three years later
…he might have been experiencing something like this:
In short, the accidental acid victim was away with the fairies and I was in the team.“
Mark describes his experience slightly differently, presumably starting the evening before:
It was on Results Day for finalists in the summer of 82. I had scored two tabs previously and was working that day as a waiter in Oysters wine bar serving up bottles of wine etc to celebrating finalists. I dropped one tab whilst working idiotically enough and after ten minutes when nothing was happening even more idiotically dropped the second. Thereafter it all gets hazy, but like you I have kept a diary since I was a kid so can refer back. I must have wandered away from my workplace because the next thing I remember is wrestling with an anonymous young woman outside the Computer Science lab. Then it’s several hours later and I’m sitting in the Union bar with Truda Smith, Mark [Bartholomew], Simon [Jacobs], Anna [Summerskill] etc. I’m completely incapable of speech at this stage. I hear Truda’s disembodied voice explain to people “he’s tripping, keep an eye on him”. Next thing I recall I’m hiding under a bush by Keele Hall and Mark and Simon come looking for me, find me, and gently return me to the Union and a disco where I have a vague recollection of ‘dancing’ to ‘Say Hello Wave Goodbye’ by Soft Cell. Then I’m at a party in Stoke talking to a woman who runs a chippie. Completely brilliant day that was !
When I gently suggested to Mark that I might link his name with my cricket-career reviving incident, he replied…
…please go ahead and use my name. I’ve never been embarrassed about my psychedelic experiments then.
The Match Itself
Under the circumstances, I didn’t expect much of a role for The Players and got pretty much what I expected.
I was reminded of this 1982 match in August 2018, after Adil Rashid had a rare “thanks for coming” (TFC) test match – i.e. he did not bat and did not bowl in the whole match – a very rare event in test cricket – written up here…
…but not quite so rare an event in beer matches. Indeed, both the 1982 & 1983 Gentlemen (of the right) v Players (of the left) match at Keele were TFC matches for me. I did not bat; I did not bowl, but…
But the ball tends to follow the team donkey. I recall the Gentlemen doing rather well against us at that stage of the match, with Mike Stephens (Secretary 1980/81) batting well & properly, along with a beefy, sporty fellow…I think his name is Steve Bailey, who had been the Chair of the Athletic Union, providing some humpty to the innings.
I’m pretty sure the above picture shows “the humpty chap”, Steve Bailey, at the 1980 Christmas Ball – apologies if I have grabbed a picture of the wrong humpty chap.
Three times the humpty chap lifted the ball skywards in my direction. Three times I failed to catch it. One of those misses was a juggled attempt which failed even after several potential reprieves. One I think I lost sight of completely, perhaps even running the wrong way.
Toby sent me to backward point instead, where he suggested that catches were far less likely but I might at least save some runs if I continued to put my body (the only asset I seemed to be bringing to the party) on the line. I think I brought my skiff of ale infield with me.
A few balls later, Mike Stephens executed a firm, albeit slightly uppish, late cut, which should have hurtled to the left of a diving backward point for four…
…but the diving backward point, me, somehow contrived to dive at the correct moment and the ball contrived to stick in my hand. A stunning, potentially match-turning catch.
It might have looked like a left handed version of this one from school a few years earlier, c1979, for which I was the photographer, not the catcher.
I recall Mike Stephens stomping off in an uncharacteristic huff of “it’s so unfair. He can’t catch for toffee…”
I have no photos from the 1982 game, sadly, nor the 1983 nor 1984 ones, but this one from a year or two earlier, thanks to Frank Dillon, should give the reader a pretty good feel for the look of the mighty Players team.
With thanks to Frank Dillon, this picture of an earlier “Players” team, probably 1981
If anyone out there has any more memories and/or photographs of our festival week beer matches, I’d love to hear from you.
Forty years on, reading about this particular fortnight in my diary, I can see that I did, for a short while, perhaps a day or two before and during the exams, give some proper care and attention to the end of academic year tests.
In particular, I had to complete two subsidiary courses that year – I had chosen Psychology, plus Applied Statistics & Operational Research.
Actually I remember enjoying both courses and I am also sure that both proved useful to me in later (working) life, not that I had chosen those courses particularly with vocational training in mind. The former sounded like an interesting course to take at subsidiary level (it was) and the latter I imagined to be the closest match between my numeracy skills and a subsidiary that qualified as a science (also true).
No evidence of much work the week before the subsid exams. In the union every night. At Film Soc watching Time Bandits and getting stoned afterwards on the Friday evening – well, it was the end of the “working” week, Friday.
Sub-standard Soccer
Sunday 6 June 1982 – Dossed around most of today – tried to do a little work and failed. Q Block. Played football with Ahmed and the lads. Earlyish night.
It took the diary to trigger a memory of ever playing football at Keele. I was thoroughly useless at football. “Ahmed and the lads” means my Malay flatmate, Ahmed Mohd Isa, four Malay guys who shared a flat in Q Block Barnes and probably my Bruneian flatmate-to-be 82/83 – Hamzah Shawal.
I remember telling the lads that I was no good at football. I remember them telling me that it was just a kickabout and that it didn’t matter. I remember them being much too good at football to be kicking about with me. I remember them being thoroughly polite about it and I have no recollection of ever being invited to play football with them again.
The field of dreams…or, in my case, nightmares
They were a very hospitable bunch, the Q-Block Malay gang, so I was certainly invited again for other activities, not least eating. Almost certainly part of this football occasion was a delicious Malay curry back at Q Block – usually with mutton as the core ingredient and usually wet-style Malay curry, not dry-style. At least two of the Q-Block lot were very adept at cooking Malay food, as was Hamzah – I was to discover to my delight the following academic year.
So I Subsided After My Subsid Exams In My Subsiding Flat
Monday 7 June 1982 – Did fair bit of work today. Dossed around a bit too. Early night.
Tuesday 8 June 1982 – Psychology subsid for six hours today. Didn’t feel like doing anything [afterwards].
Wednesday 9 June 1982 – Stats subsid – got pissed lunchtime – came home – ate – felt exhausted – crashed.
Bless.
I think we can take it that the Stats subsid was just the single three hour paper. I wasn’t THAT negligent towards my studies.
Thursday 10 June 1982 – Shopped and laundered. Did some work later of course.
Friday 11 June 1982 – Worked a fair bit. Went to film (Arthur) – came back worked after Earlish night.
Saturday 12 June 1982 – Worked pretty hard today – went to Union in evening for a quick drink. Simon [Jacobs] and Jon [Gorvett] came back for coffee.
Sunday 13 June 1982 – Did a fair amount of work today – stayed in trying to anyway – early night.
Clearly I took my law exams a bit more seriously than the subsids. Probably with good reason – i.e. there was more I needed to cram.
Monday 14 June 1982 – Law exams all day – yukky. Not quite finished but went to UGM anyway – left early.
In the next episode you’ll learn about the last of the exams and what I did next. It’ll be more exciting and have more name drops in it than this episode, that I can promise.
For the benefit of people who were not at Keele back then, the term “P1 Year” referred to second year students who, like me, had opted to the the Foundation Year (FY) in their first year. P stood for “principal” I think.
Those who didn’t enjoy the cognitive and recreational benefits of FY would describe their undergraduate years as T1, T2 and T3 – T standing for “three” I think.
Before I trawl my diary for that May period, I’d like to talk a little about the vibe in my flat, M65 Barnes. The diary is silent about it, so unless I describe it soon, my P1 year will be over, M65 will be demolished and I won’t have told you about our quirky group of four.
Barnes M65 From February To June 1982: Me, Ahmed, Margaret & Jo
…not least, I was very keen to secure a flat for the following year and guessed that, with two of us electing to continue to have a Barnes flat, we’d get first dips on the vacant ones due to the M Block demolition.
Ahmed Mohd Isa was the member of that flat who wanted to stay on in a Barnes flat and was due to be my flatmate beyond 81/82. He was part of the small Malay community at Keele in those days – I got to know that crowd well through Ahmed that year and then subsequently. I’ll write more about that gang separately. Most of them lived in a flat in Q Block Barnes, while Ahmed I think had been allocated to M65 entirely by chance at the start of his Keele career.
The other two in M65’s last year were named Margaret and Jo. Margaret was from Manchester I think – while Jo was from the South-West if I remember correctly – Hampshire perhaps.
Both of them were vegetarians who disapproved of (but did not prohibit) my meat preparation and eating in the flat. I remember one occasion when a really bad smell started to pervade the kitchen and the girls became convinced that I had left some meat to rot somewhere.
Jo wandered around the kitchen, sniffing in a rodent-like manner behind cupboards and fittings, determined to find my errant flesh product. In fact, she discovered something especially foul-smelling that could not possibly be attributed to my carnivorousness. Behind the corner cupboard/pantry shelf, Jo found a decomposing cabbage, which she delicately removed from the flat at arms length with one hand while holding her nose with the other hand.
But the girls did have an absolute golden rule in the flat and woe-betide either me or Ahmed if we broke this rule: complete silence between 19:30 and 20:00 when Coronation Street was being broadcast. Margaret was the strictest enforcer of this rule. “Shhh”, she would hiss if either of us was so thoughtless as to want a glass of water or to grab a spoon and go back to our room during that broadcast. They would both sit in a leaning forward posture – usually with heads propped forward between fists, to ensure complete concentration and maximum proximity to the tiny screen of their portable black-and-white telly.
I’m pretty sure that Tony, who moved out to allow me in, had been to some extent at war with the girls, which was the main reason he moved out – but I didn’t have direct evidence to support that theory.
Margaret and Jo were finalists and in many ways were quite tolerant of both me and Ahmed as stop-out non-finalists, although we were both reasonably respectful of their need for some peace and quiet for revision.
They had some interesting friends, the most eccentric of whom was a posh lad known as “Dips”, who was the young country gent type and was known on occasion to drive his Land Rover across the playing fields – a recipe for getting caught red-handed and fined as his was almost certainly the only vehicle on campus that would leave tyre marks of that exact kind.
Who knows, 30 years later I might have re-encountered Dips at the Mollington Point-To-Point
It’s a shame I have no pictures of that flat or any of that crowd.
Given It Was The Business End Of That Academic Year, I Don’t Appear To Have Done Much Business For At Least A Couple Of Weeks
Here is a transcript of the first scrawl-ridden diary page:
In truth I don’t recall doing readings for Jon Gorvett and Mark Ellicott, but I am in touch with both of them forty years on, so I’ll ask them if they remember me reading for them.
I also don’t recall what ailed me – probably just a debilitating cold.
Thursday, 13 May 1982
Easyish sort of day – did some work but not too much.
Contrived a suitably easy night.
Friday, 14 May 1982
Went to my tutorial and straight off to London with Rob [Schumacher?] and Simon M[orris?].
Lazy evening with Ma and Pa.
Saturday 15 May 1982
Did some taping etc today. Lounged a lot – spoke to some people.
[Cousins on mum’s side] Hannah [Green], Sidney [Pizan], Jacquie and Len [Briegal] came for dinner – very pleasant evening.
Up till very late washing up.
Sunday, 16 May 1982
Rose quite late – had lunch – taped, lounged and spoke to more people.
Completely lazy evening – good break (from what? – Ed).
I guess the dinner with cousins was a slightly belated 60th birthday event for mum.
I particularly like my sarcastic note to self, which I must have written more or less immediately after writing the phrase “good break” asking myself, “from what?”
Self aware, that comment.
I hardly seem to have been over-exerting myself in the summer term of my P1 year, perhaps because there were no exams of any consequence that year – just finishing off some written work.
Sunday 17 May 1982
Return from London in the morning – spent the rest of the day writing my last essay of the session.
Tuesday, 18 May 1982
Essay went in.
Went to Anju [Sanehi]’s in the afternoon – decided to give film a miss – lazy evening in instead.
Wednesday, 19 May 1982
Easyish sort of day – spent whole evening in union – drank quite a bit etc.
Thursday, 20 May 1982
Did some work today – not too exerting though.
Lazy evening in tonight.
Friday 21 May 1982
Lazyish day today – did very little.
Spent quite a bit of time in union (EGM etc – chatting). Boozy afternoon and evening.
Went to film [McVicar – thank you Tony Sullivan for keeping records]– disco – back to Anju’s for tea.
Saturday 22 May 1982
Big shopping spree today – a late start.
Went to union in evening and to disco with Simon [Jacobs], Jon etc etc. Earlyish night.
Sunday, 23 May 1982
Easyish day – did very little – spent most of evening in the union do very little really – cooked a lot.
Monday 24 May 1982
Easyish day – mainly in union. UGM in the evening – a goody I feel.
Joe [Benedict Coldstream] came back after.
The mood of my May 1982 diary, which uses terms like “easyish” and “lazy” rather a lot, suddenly changes on the next page or two.
More Speed, Less Haste: The Rest Of May 1982
I sense that I rather realised that I really did need to get a bit of work done that term. I also remember quite clearly that I attempted at least one terrible technique for getting stuff done.
In short, although the diary is fairly quiet about it – the next week went a bit weird.
Tuesday 25 May 1982
Busy day of work – did quite a lot. Stayed in in the evening and did quite a bit more work.
Wednesday 26 May 1982
Busy most of the day getting ready for flat inspection. Did a little work – watched football [European Cup Final – probably a big screen job in the ballroom] & film [probably a TV broadcast not Filmsoc]– ok.
Thursday, 27 May 1982
Flat inspection today – last tutorial – [Union election] counts – FA Cup [Final replay] – cheap beer – futurist disco* dash home for supper// and all nighter of talk and writing.
Friday, 28 May 1982
The day seem to flash by – went to Pete [Roberts]’s office in ‘noon – took early night.
Cheap beer and hanging out with friends is more likely to have been my motivation for the football matches than the football itself.
I have no idea what a Futurist Disco might have been – presumably not futurist music as I now understand the term:
Social Committee preparing for a futurist disco?
…but the symbols suggest I had a good time and then retreated to take some speed to get me through a period of intense talking and writing. I remember this stupid experience well – it was the second and last time I experimented with that dangerous stuff. I remember feeling at the time that I was getting through loads of writing and getting loads done, only to realise that, after having lost a day-and-a-half, that I had written utter drivel and would need to rewrite everything I had attempted to get done that way.
I also chewed my lips to shreds…again.
Not a good idea, Speed in the hope of cognitive productivity. Certainly not for me – I would now advise against it.
Saturday, 29 May 1982
Rose late – lazy sort of day.
Went to union -> Mark’s [Bartholomew this time I think] with Si [mon Jacobs], Johnny Rothman [who must have been visiting Simon] etc. – stayed till late…
Sunday, 30 May 1982
… Went to Amphitheatre in the early hours. Got out about 8 am.
Went to bed – got up for a few hours and went back to bed!!!
Monday 31st of May 1982
Lazyish day about place – tried to work in eve.
Tuesday, 1 June 1982
Quietish day. Tried to do some work. Saw film [The Deer Hunter – thanks again, Tony Sullivan] in eve.
Yes, I remember wandering off in the early hours, after that ad hoc party of Mark & Simon’s, with a chap whose face I can picture but whose name I’ve forgotten and we ended up jabbering some sort of a theatrical role play of our own devising in that amphitheatre until well after sunrise. As with my speed-induced writings, it seemed terribly profound when we were doing it and then on reflection the next day was mere drivel. Still, it was fun and every Keele student should have a spring or summer nighter down the amphitheatre under their belt before they leave Keele.
On rereading my diaries forty years on, I realise it is just as well I didn’t have too much serious academic work or examinations to prepare that term – I was well off the pace in the spring of 1982.
Forty years on, I realise that Keele student life is not all about parties and gigs…
…except in some ways it is. The most memorable stuff in my diary around the start of that summer term of 1982 is all about parties and gigs.
If some Keele alums from that era are reading this and thinking, “crumbs, I REALLY don’t remember The Cure coming to Keele that term”, you can relax. The Cure didn’t come to Keele – I went with some Keele mates and got to see them play in Leicester.
Blooming marvellous they were, thank you for asking.
It happened, as best I can recall it and transcribe my hand-writing, like this:
Wednesday 28 April 1982 – Easyish sort of day – did quite a bit of cooking etc. Rana, Paul, Rick ate at mine & stayed till quite late – Diplomacy etc.
If I recall correctly, those Diplomacy fellas were quite heavily involved in the Rag Week and one of the things we talked about was going off in Rick’s car for the weekend to sell Keele rag mags to poor, unsuspecting students in other universities. The fellas had identified Leicester as a suitable place for Friday night as there was to be a Cure gig there and one of the guys had access to a crash pad for us in Leicester that night, from whence we could go on and sell more in Nottingham.
That’s what we did, after I spent Thursday attending many meetings so interesting I didn’t bother to describe them and a “busy morning” on Friday – lectures and tutorials I would guess.
Friday 30 April 1982 – Set off in afternoon for Leicester…sold mags there – went to pub -> Leicester Union – The Cure – more mags – stayed over in empty house.
Actually I don’t think the venue was Leicester Union – I suspect the gig was held at De Montfort Hall under the auspices of the Leicester Students’ Union. (Correction – The Cure Gig list tells us that it was Queen’s Hall Leicester that night – that hall was part of the Students’ Union in Leicester.)
My recollection is that going door to door around the halls on a Friday afternoon was hard work and not very effective for sales – mostly because few rooms were occupied at the time – whereas we hit pay dirt in the evening at the concert venue – selling loads of rag mags in a short space of time.
The students at the venue were very welcoming to us and the organisers absolutely insisted that we went in to the hall and watched the concert in consideration of our efforts towards the rag cause. This was an unexpected bonus, not least because The Cure were utterly superb live.
Here is The Cure song that sticks in my mind from that experience:
While here is a recording of a concert held just four days earlier in Edinburgh – the one we saw & heard will have sounded mighty similar:
Saturday 1 May 1982 – Rose quite early – went to hall -> Nottingham campus & town. Went on to Uttoxeter – pub and then on to party. Decided to return to Keele therefrom.
I didn’t realise that I used archaic adverbs like “therefrom” back then. I’m not sure about it. One for the adverb colander next year perhaps.
Anyway, I don’t think the return to the hall or the Nottingham campus proved all that fruitful for rag sales – at least not compared with the door of The Cure gig. I have a feeling that the Uttoxeter party was something to do with Rick and something to do with pre-nuptials for someone-or-other – his brother or sister perhaps.
Monday 3 May 1982 – Busy sort of day – sorting out for evening etc. Motion at UGM went through – Simon [Jacobs] & Jon [Gorvett] came back after.
The “failure” of it, I suspect, was that it was insufficiently specific to guarantee that the Union Committee did anything sufficiently radical for our taste, as we took an all-too specific occupation motion to the Union early the following academic year – with predictably hilarious results to be reported when those events become “forty years on”.
Tuesday 4 May 1982 – Busy day working. Went to film (9 To 5) in evening – quite good. Rana & Chevonne came back after for coffee.
I’m not sure how well all this “having people back” was going down with my new finalist flatmates – more on them anon.
The rest of the week reads relatively quiet. “Helen’s in evening – crowd there” on Wednesday 5th is probably Helen Ross, a big personality who was very friendly with Ashley Fletcher. I choose to mention Ashley in this context because he complained recently that he was getting insufficient coverage in the more recent Ogblog pieces.
Saturday 8 May 1982 – Lazyish day around campus. Went to Union in evening – Clint Eastwood & General Saint. Very good. Went back to Mark’s [Bartholomew] with loads of others – rolled back early hours [Sunday, presumably].
It seems they appeared on the Old Grey Whistle Test just a couple of weeks before our gig, so their rendering of the anthemic Another One Bites The Dust shown below is probably quite similar to the version we saw:
I certainly recall them getting all to shout out “another one bites the dust” in the stylee depicted in the above video.
