Tag: Simon Jacobs

Dating, Mandating & Catering To Scale At Keele, Mid To Late November 1982

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.

Photo by Glyn Baker: The Village & Sneyd Arms – a peaceful place (as long as landlord Geoff was not wrathful)

There are three noteworthy events in the diary for that mid to late November period:

  • getting Keele Action Group (KAG)’s long-planned mandate for an occupation through the UGM;
  • planning and holding a Jewish Society Friday Night meal;
  • a rather peculiar diary entry for the Saturday after that meal, which suggests, between the lines, some consternation.

Keele Action Group’s Long-Planned Mandate For An Occupation, 15 November 1982

I explained the background to KAG’s UGM mandate for a student occupation in a couple of earlier pieces – click here or below for the first of them:

Keele Action Group Springs Forth Campus-Wide, Constitutional Matters Mingle With A Crucial Culinary Debate In My Barnes L54 Flat, 8 to 11 October 1982

…here or below for the second of them:

Culture & Action At Keele, Late October 1982

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.

Photo by Olaf.herfurth, CC BY-SA 3.0 – our event wouldn’t have looked quite as authentic as this…

…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.

Busy With A Lexicon Of Learning At Keele Plus ABC At Hanley, 4 to 12 November 1982

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:

Culture & Action At Keele, Late October 1982

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.

ABC Leicester Mercury ABC Leicester Mercury 12 Nov 1982, Fri Leicester Mercury (Leicester, Leicestershire, England) Newspapers.com

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.

ABC HARRON GUARDIANABC HARRON GUARDIAN 19 Nov 1982, Fri The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

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:

(I Married A) Monster From Outer Space – And What That Did For One Of My Earthly Romances, 15 October 1982

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.”

Here is a link to my write up of Rohan’s performance piece.

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:

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:

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?…

…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:

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:

“Got Roped In To Playing Cricket All Afternoon”, Gentlemen v Players Cricket Match, Keele Festival Week, 24 June 1982

Mike Stephens, caught out

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…

…I did field.

In this 1982 match, I recall The Players captain Toby Bourgein (who sadly died in September 2020) sending me out to graze in the long grass, on the boundary, where he supposed I’d do the least damage. I recall that enabled me to keep a trusty pint of ale close at hand.

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…”

…it was a little reminiscent of the James Pitcher “TFC with single moment of glory” match against The Children’s Society 21 years later, almost to the day:

Match Of The Day & Play Of The Day, Z/Yen v The Children’s Society, Holland Park, 22 June 2004

I don’t think my derring-do was enough to help salvage this 1982 match for The Players, but revenge was sweet for the next couple of years.

My Second “Thanks For Coming” (TFC) Keele Festival Week Match, 21 June 1983
O Captain! My Captain! – Gentlemen Of The Right v Players Of The Left – Keele Festival Week Cricket Match, 26 June 1984

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.

Subsids, Subsidence & Sub-Standard Soccer At Keele, First Half Of June 1982

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).

Hey baby, would you like to Kammhuber to my place?

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.

I always enjoyed spending time with that gang and I guess the football session, humbling though it was, at least warmed me up for the festival of football madness that was to kick off a bit later in the month.

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.

The Business End Of My P1 Year At Keele, Last Three Weeks Of May 1982

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

Barnes M Block was behind that tall tree

I have already described why I chose to move into a Barnes flat around February 1982 and how I went about doing so -click here…

…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:

Sunday, 9 May 1982

Rose very late today after returning [from the aftermath of the Clint Eastwood & General Saint evening] about 8 am.

Went to union in the evening for a quiet one.

Monday 10 May 1982

Easyish day – did little.

Went to union for a few – Jon [Gorvett] and Mark {Ellicott] came back afterwards for [Tarot] readings etc.

Tuesday, 11 May 1982

Busyish day – as is common on a Tuesday – though not feeling too good.

Went to film nonetheless – Four Seasons – really good.

Returned still ill.

Wednesday, 12 May 1982

Easyish sort of day really.

Didn’t go to union in the evening as I was feeling terrible.

I have written elsewhere about my Tarot readings at Keele – click here or the image below:

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.

The “amphitheatre” is just behind that row of trees – picture “borrowed” from University website nature trails – click here or picture for those.

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.

The Cure, Clint Eastwood & General Saint – An Excellent Musical Start To A Keele Summer Term, Late April To Early May 1982

Robert Smith photo by Andwhatsnext, CC BY-SA 3.0

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.

I don’t recall playing the board game Diplomacy with those fellas, but it seems I did. I suspect I showed no more aptitude for Diplomacy with those fellas as I had shown for Risk with other friends a few week’s earlier.

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.

Aha – so our collective recollection that the motion failed, as reported in my Festering & Fomenting piece, was incorrect.

Festering & Fomenting At Keele Late In The Easter Break of 1982

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].

I really do remember the Clint Eastwood & General Saint concert fondly. Dave Lee also gives it a very good review in his book The Keele Gigs!

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.

Good times.

Festering & Fomenting At Keele Late In The Easter Break of 1982

Photo by: “Me, User:Mholland, CC BY-SA 2.5” via Wikimedia Commons

The Soundtrack Of Easter 1982

Before I talk about the festering and fomenting, I’d like to share a few thoughts on the sounds that were the soundtrack of my time at Keele that spring.

I was listening to some popular music of the time, naturally, but also I had started collecting and listening to albums spanning the late 1960s to that time.

I acquired Astral Weeks by Van Morrison around that time and listened to that wonderful album a lot. Here is the title track:

I was listening to several more recent albums too. Dare by The Human League and Wilder by The Teardrop Explodes are two examples of albums I almost played to death back then. A lot of us did.

As for the contemporary hit music of the time, I was playing the following mix tape a lot in the run up to and over the Easter Break:

Mix Tape Recorded From Radio, Mostly In February 1982

I’ll publish the one I recorded over Easter “in the fullness of time” – i.e. once I have dug out the track listing and got my head around it.

Festering & Fomenting

I started using the term “festering” as soon as I returned to Keele from London – daily mentions towards the end of the diary pages in this piece:

Ten Days In London For Passover & Easter 1982

Thursday 15 April 1982 – Easyish sort of day – festered quite a lot. Went to the Union in the evening.

Friday 16 April 1982 – wrote motion today etc. – showing it around quite a bit – went to Union in the evening – OK.

Saturday 17 April 1982 – Went into Newcastle during day – lazy afternoon. Went to Union in evening. Sally & Liz came back for coffee after.

Sunday 18 April 1982 – Rose rather late – did some work today – festered in the evening.

Trying to get my head around the fomenting involved in “writing a motion and showing it around”, I had a Zoom the other day (forty years on – April 2022) with Jon Gorvett and Simon Jacobs, both of whom I recall were involved in that fomentation (or whatever one calls it). I am delighted to inform readers that their recall is as hazy or hazier than mine. We managed the following vague recollections:

  • Sally & Liz were friends of Mark Bartholomew and we suspected that Mark was the Machiavellian figure behind this attempted grassroots student pressure on the committee.
  • Liz was skinny (I can sort-of recall her face even) whereas Sally was not;
  • That motion (whatever it was – something to do with “the cuts” – the exact content is long since forgotten) didn’t succeed in the summer term of 1982, but we learnt from it and fomented differently and more successfully the following term (autumn 1982) – I recall the second fomentation more clearly and you’ll read about it “forty years on” in the unlikely event that you are still a reader by then;
  • The trouble with Socialism is that it takes up too many evenings.

Monday 19 April 1982 – worked reasonably hard today – lounged around somewhat as well. Went to Union in evening – Liz came back for coffee.

Tuesday 20 April 1982 – Did some work today – went to Union – quite crowded – left quite early.

Wednesday 21 April 1982 – Did some work today and went to town. Easy evening in. Simon & Jon came round quite late.

Thursday 22 April 1982 – Easyish day – loads of people back etc. Went to Union in eve – lack to Rana’s [Sen] after for coffee etc.

Friday 23 April 1982 – Easyish sort of day – saw quite a lot of people. Union in eve – Jon, Liz & Sally came back after disco.

Saturday 24 April 1982 – Went to town. Andrea [Collins, now Woodhouse], Mary [Keevil] and Karen came over in afternoon. Went to Union in evening – OK. Jon came back after.

Sunday 25 April 1982 – Rose late – did a fair bit of work today. Went over to Rana’s for a while – worked quite hard.

Monday 26 April 1982 – Not bad day. First day of lectures. Lindsay in afternoon. Went to bar. Simon, Jon & Liz came back for coffee etc.

End Of Term Blues Band At Keele Before Speeding Off To Herefordshire, Mid March 1982

Photo: mfjordan / Olde-worlde facades, Eardisley (Herefordshire)

End Of Term Blues Band & The Interminable Signing On Ritual

Writing forty years on (March 2022) I am quite impressed reading about my diligence at the end of the second term of my P1 year…and how that diligence soon turned to partying and mayhem once my work was out of the way.

Friday 12 March 1982 – Easy sort of day. Went to the ball in the evening. Quite a good ball *. Jon [Gorvett] lost keys – stayed in flat.

I’m pretty sure that there is more than one reference in my diaries to Jon mislaying his keys and dossing out at my place.

According to Dave Lee’s book The Keele Gigs!, the ball that I described as “quite good” was controversial in its choice of The Blues Band as they had played Keele only a couple of years earlier and were not deemed, by some cognoscenti, as ball material. I remember finding them pretty darned good.

Was Paul Jones abandoned in the Keele gigging rigging by discontended roadies? Photographer A. Vente, CC BY-SA 3.0 NL (1967)

The Keele gig from 1980 is available on-line as it was recorded as a Rock Goes To College broadcast, so you can see it below. The 1982 manifestation was really quite similar:

Saturday 13 March 1982 – Rose late – went to Newcastle during day – shopped. Rana [Sen]’s dinner party in eve -> Simon [Jacobs]’s party – Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] up for weekend. V Good.

That’s quite a busy couple of evenings, even by my standards back then! No wonder I took it relatively easy the next day or two.

There is a strange comment in my diary on the Monday:

…went to union in evening – got mixed up in everyone else’s problems.

I have no idea who or what “everyone else’s problems” might have been referring to. Probably just as well I didn’t extrapolate in the diary and cannot remember a thing about it.

Tuesday 16 March 1982 – Last official day of term. Andrea [Collins] popped in to say goodbye – went to the union in the evening – much emptier!!

…and therefore fewer problems to interrupt my flow, presumably.

Wednesday 17 March 1982 – Went to sign on in morning – sent away again. Did little during day – stayed in evening.

Thursday 18 March 1982 – Did a little work today after signing on with Kath [I think the same person as Kate] after hanging around for hours – went to union in evening.

I have written before about the ridiculous bureaucracy of having students sign on each holiday. It’s good to see that bureaucratic nonsenses had “sending away empty handed” and “hanging around for hours” events even 40 years ago. Bureaucratic denial and delay techniques are more sophisticated and partially-automated forty years on, of course.

Speeding Away From Keele To Eardisley, Herefordshire

What did the beautiful little Herefordshire village of Eardisley ever do to deserve us?

mfjordan / Olde-worlde facades, Eardisley (Herefordshire)

The answer, it seems, is that Jon Gorvett’s parents had a cottage there and a Keele student posse decided to descend upon it when those parents were not around.

My poor memory had this as a “trip to Wales” rather than “on the English side of the Welsh border” but never mind. We did venture into Wales a couple of times.

Jon Gorvett writes, with more authority than my memory:

Trip to Wales… that wasn’t the trip to my folks’ place in Herefordshire, was it? 

It was right on the Welsh border. Gerry Guinan was there, indeed, and Julie McClusky and Vince [Beasley] and George Scully, along with the three of us [Jon Gorvett, Simon Jacobs & me] and two friends of Vince’s who came up from London. 

I seem to remember that my folks’ tiny cottage was rather jam-packed with people, with not a lot of sleep possible except on the floor - though possibly there wasn’t much sleep in any case because of the various substances imbibed…

Indeed.

My diary covers the event quite well:

Friday 19 March 1982 – Decided on impulse to go to Eardisley (Jon’s parents’ country home). Left Keele about 7 – got there – went to pub – ate dinner etc. Up most of the night I felt a…

Saturday 20 March 1982 – …bit ill – crashed – went out to Wales (c12:00) – great time there climbing hills etc – really nice. Got back quite late – had supper etc. – again up all night…

Sunday 21 March 1982 – …playing Risk etc. – walked a long way early morning – did little else – went back to Vince’s for supper – returned – crashed out very tired.

There are a few elements of this story that are clear in my memory but missing from the above notes.

I seem to recall that the impulse to do this trip came from the fortunate discovery that Jon’s parent’s cottage and the Keele Student Union minibus were both available for a group of us to use at short notice.

I do remember not feeling brilliant that first night, being relieved that I felt fine and had a great day walking the hills on the Saturday. I think that was my first “hill walking with friends” event and the joy of such walking has stuck with me ever since. A much better experience for me than my ill-fated school walking trip some eight years earlier.

As for the Saturday to Sunday all-nighter, I recall that I was desperately keen not to wimp out again and crash. I chose, on unsound advice, to try speed (Amphetamine).

This experiment certainly helped me to stay awake all night but I do recall that I almost bit my bottom lip to pieces in the process. I don’t think I did very well playing Risk in that state – I’m not sure I ever did well playing Risk. I would tend to play carefully, then get overconfident, invade somewhere beyond my means and get crushed.

Speeding as I was, I have a feeling that I didn’t even go through the “play carefully” stage and I have a dreadful feeling that I might have invaded Ukraine – it just always looked so enticing in the middle of the board. Forty years on, I hang my head in shame at my drug-addled, over zealous, over-confident, reckless former self.

My other unwritten but abiding memory of this trip was the long walk we did on the Sunday, walking from Eardisley across the border into Wales and back. WE must have looked like a right motley bunch by the Sunday and I particularly remember Gerry Guinan wearing a bright green cape-like outfit and remarking that the strange looks she was getting left her in fear of being burnt at the stake as a witch by the horrified-looking villagers as we strode through various villages.

A bit like this – brighter green, I think, and with a hood

But I am glad to report that there were no witch burning incidents or even “running the students out of our village” incidents as far as I can recall.

It was a seminal little trip for me in several ways. Perhaps I even fell in love with the look of Tudor-style architecture that weekend.

Eardisley (Herefordshire) probably looked like this 19 March 1982
Noddyland, (London W3) did look like this 19 March 2022

Postscript: Jon & Simon chime in with their memories

Jon makes the following informed contribution in addition to the notes (above) which he sent prior to my write up:

1982, eh? Eardisley… I have to say, though, that my folks’ old place there would have regarded the Tudors as fancy young interlopers with no sense of style or tradition at all, I’m afraid. The Cruck House, as it was known, was a 14th century jobby, made out of a single massive oak tree spliced vertically down the middle and then inverted into a kind of Plantagenet ‘A’ Frame. What the ghosts of the house made of us, mind you, speeding like crazy all weekend, I’ve no idea. Gerry Guinan’s cape might even have seemed comfortingly familiar…

The Cruck House, above picture by Lee Holland “borrowed” from the British Listed Buildings site.

Simon’s recollections are no more focussed than Jon’s and mine:

I remember our trip to Eardisley pretty well except that I can’t remember precisely who was there. Vince Beasley was, for sure. I recall going for a brief walk after a first or second night of not sleeping at all and having stomach cramps as a result of the somewhat toxic powder we’d been happily imbibing.

Cinema (e.g. Carrie), Casualty At Kings College and Cooper Clarke At Keele, First Half Of February 1982

John Cooper Clarke 1979 by TimDuncan, CC BY 3.0

Most of my diary notes from that period suggest that I had my head down working at that time. My impressionistic memory tells me that I was quite urgently seeking to switch from halls in Lindsay to a flat in Barnes at that time, although the diary is silent on that matter until a bit later in the month, when I pulled off that switch.

Still, the diary highlights some interesting events at Keele and an eventful trip to London at that time. Forty years on, it’s time for me to share the highlights.

Friday 5 February 1982 – …stayed in most of evening apart from dreadful film, “The Main Event“.

Yup, that’s not my kind of movie. Never mind.

Saturday 6 February 1982 – Went to Newcastle quite late. Did very little work really. Went to Michelle [Epstein]’s party in evening. Sharon & Louise came back after.

Richard van Baaren &/or Benedict Coldstream might well also have been at that party, as I recall Sharon & Louise being part of that crowd. No mention of Anju on this occasion – perhaps she had something else on. We missed Mari Wilson & The Imaginations for that party, so for sure there were other things to do on campus that night. At that stage, I think Michelle was going out with a character named Joel. I don’t think Michelle got together with Neil [Infield] whom she married – I kept in touch with both of them for many years – until much later in our time at Keele.

Sunday 7 February 1982 – Did some work during day. Went to see Carrie & Scanners in afternoon/evening + did some more work

I have one very clear memory from that psycho-thriller movie double bill at Film Soc. I went to see those movies with a young woman whose name completely escapes me. She was a close friend of Katie’s (aka Cathy) – she of my dad’s embarrassing moment a few month’s earlier. Those two were very close pals of each other and I remained a casual pal with both of them for much of my time at Keele

Update: Katie (Cathy) has put me back in touch with Linda (Jones), who was that young woman at Film Soc 40+ years ago.

In fact, we might not even have gone to those movies “as a date” but possibly both ambled along there solo and simply chosen to sit next to each other, as Film Soc folk often did.

*** Spoiler alert for the movie Carrie ***

At the end of Carrie, the following “jump scare” scene occurs:

…at which point, my young woman friend screamed, jumped and pretty much landed in my lap. Fortunately for me she was quite a skinny, light girl, so she did me no immediate damage. Nor did she injure herself with her jump, other than a little injured pride perhaps as she couldn’t stop apologising for her scare-movie-timidity for the rest of the event.

Ever since then, I haven’t been able to think of the movie Carrie, nor even jump scares in movies generally, without thinking about that young woman and her reaction to that wonderful scene. I was reminded of it the other day (as I write in February 2022), almost exactly 40 years on, when a young woman in front of me and Janie at The Royal Court jumped almost out of her skin at the pre-interval coup de theatre in The Glow:

The Glow by Alistair McDowall, Royal Court Theatre, 5 February 2022

But I digress.

In February 1982, I didn’t think Scanners was in the same league as Carrie.

Monday 8 February 1982 – …went to [Barnes] G3 for dinner…

It was the G3 crowd (which I think included Rana Sen and Kath), who helped me to find my Barnes flat. I have a feeling that the cunning plan that led to my flat room-for-halls room swap a few week’s later might well have been seeded at that very dinner. More on that swap next time.

Tuesday 9 February 1982 – …went to see Gloria in evening – OK-ish.

Again, not my kind of movie I feel.

Wednesday 10 February 1982 – very busy day – tutorials moved etc. J-Soc committee & Internal Affairs – very busy day all in all. Presidential forum – Simon [Jacobs] & Jon [Gorvett] came back for coffee.

I only vaguely remember being on Internal Affairs committee. Spike Humphrey (who was VP Internal that year) had been a leading light on Concourse the previous year, so I suspect that I was “open to Spiky persuasion” when asked. Forty years on, a simple googling of the fellow, still with his Keele nickname, finds him still doing committees. In the fulness of time that link won’t work, but here is a scrape of it in February 2022.

The controversy-ridden presidential election for 82/83 will have been the following day, but I make no mention of the election in my diary, perhaps because I wasn’t really involved with such things at that time. Yes, Truda Smith, who had, until recently, been going our with Jon Gorvett, was one of the candidates. But I didn’t actually support Truda for that election; I was supporting the official Labour candidate, a lovely lass named Jan Phillips, whose candidacy was ill-fated, perhaps because of Truda’s or perhaps because the power-brokers-that-were (e.g. Toby Bourgein) felt that Jan was unelectable. Meanwhile the Tory contingent, mostly under the Machiavellian guidance of a chap named Chris Boden, were looking to disrupt the election process that year. I’ll explain the resulting hoo-ha next time. Seems that I simply voted on the Thursday (not a noteworthy event) and got ready for my rare London trip.

Thursday 11 February 1982 – Lazyish day – did some work. Went to buffet supper in evening – did some work after.

Friday 12 February 1982 – Left for London early afternoon – Grandma Jenny had come for dinner – injured herself – spent evening in Kings casualty

If I recall correctly, the family crisis had already started to unfurl when I arrived at my parents’ house and we all went straight off to Camberwell. Now THAT’s my idea of a Friday night out in London!

King’s College Hospital by KiloCharlieLima, CC BY-SA 4.0

Saturday 13 February 1982 – Got up quite early. Did some taping – spoke to people. Mum & dad went out – had relaxing evening in.

Sunday 14 February 1982 – Got up late. Went to Polyanna’s for lunch. Made tapes and spoke to people for rest of the day – quite enjoyable.

I should return at some point to the tapes I was making back then, some of which catalogue the soundtrack of our lives in the early 1980s.

Not sure who dined at Polyanna’s – probably just me and my parents, as I don’t mention anyone else. Polyanna’s was a rare example back then of a proper European-style bistro restaurant on Battersea Rise. It seemed well-decent back then compared with most suburban fare. Now The Humble Grape.

Picture borrowed from Christine Eccles in Battersea Memories on FB.

Monday 15 February 1982 – Met Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] for lunch – > came back to Keele. Went to lousy UGM in evening -> Simon’s for coffee.

The lousiness of the UGM was no doubt linked to the presidential election hoo-ha, about which more next time.

Tuesday 16 February 1982 – Busy day as usual. Worked in evening – got quite a lot done. Didn’t go out at all.

Wednesday 17 February 1982 – Useful day. Spent afternoon in the library. Went to see Andrea [Collins, now Woodhouse] in early evening -> John Cooper Clarke -> Simon & Jon came back – up till quite late.

I am relieved to see several mentions of Simon Jacobs in the diary around this time, as Janie and I are seeing him for lunch tomorrow – Simon doesn’t much like these forty years on pieces unless he gets a few mentions!

I remember the John Cooper Clarke concert very fondly and am really glad I attended it.

Dave Lee’s book The Keele Gigs! has more on the topic of this concert. Dave kindly not only reminded me but sent me a copy of support act, Mightier than Kong, singing their only minor hit, a rather good cover version of Hey Girl Don’t Bother Me.

As for John Cooper Clarke himself, Evidently Chickentown went down extremely well, as did most of his set. Here is an audio of a live performance from around that time (late 1981). Trigger warning: contains…indeed more or less comprises…bad language.

I also recall a Ringroad sketch entitled John Cooper Clarke which was a parody of a JCC poem, each verse of which ended with the line “John Cooper Clarke”, each preceded by an increasingly bizarre simile which rhymed with Clarke. Was it one of yours, Frank Dillon? I might have a copy of it in my “Ringroad cornflake box copies file” at the flat – if so I’ll scan it and upload it in the next week or so.