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:
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;
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 & 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.
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?
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.
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…
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.
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:
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!
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.
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.
Early that term, I recall taking a tumble on the slope that led to the Chancellor’s Building from the Lindsay Hall end, while rushing to get to a lecture or tutorial on time.
A little dazed, I soon realised that someone had hoicked me up and I was being stared at by none other than “ABC” Dick Hemsley, asking me if I was alright. “Yes, I’m fine”, I said, embarrassed to have found myself in such a vulnerable circumstance with one of the better-known right-wing villains of the campus. “No”, said Dick firmly, studying my reactions carefully, “I think you might have bumped your head. Really, are you OK?” Thankfully I hadn’t banged my head and most of the bruises were to my “left ego”. That incident stuck in my mind, because it made me realise that Dick, despite our opposing political views, when it came to the crunch, was instinctively concerned about my welfare.
Possibly term seemed like an anti-climax; possibly the weather got to me – I have never much liked icy-cold weather and this was a proper cold spell.
The diaries – which are shown at the bottom of this piece but upon which I shall not expand this time – suggest a relatively dull phase – at least in my mind…
…until the Ronnie Scott & Friends Jazz Night on 16 January, which was a hugely memorable event in all sorts of ways.
Ronnie Scott co-founded the legendary Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in the late 1950’s. It was already an institution by the early 1980s and we were truly blessed that Ronnie liked visiting student venues and especially liked the vibe in the University of Keele Students’ Union Ballroom. I saw him perform there several times while at Keele – this was the first of those times.
The following clip, from some time in the early 1980s, is pretty close to what the ensemble looked and sounded like at Keele that night:
For those who know little about Ronnie Scott/Ronnie Scott’s and would like to know more, the following hour-long Omnibus film from 1989 is quite comprehensive and almost of that time:
There is am even more comprehensive 2020 documentary movie, which I have seen and can confirm is a very interesting watch, which you can find out about on IMDb here.
My memories of this particular January 1982 evening at Keele are a strange mixture of clear and blurry. The diary entry only tells a small part of the story:
…went to Jazz Night in the evening. ** got pissed during and after!!
This suggests that only alcohol was imbibed at our table, although in my mind there was also whacky backy involved. Perhaps that was because Ronnie kept saying, “I must stop smoking this stuff” whenever he muffed his jokes/lines, which he did with charming frequency.
We sat at tables in the style of a jazz club like Ronnie Scott’s and I remember it all seeming very grown up and sophisticated at the outset. I think we drank wine and cocktails rather than beer at our table, which is probably why we got pissed unusually quickly.
I was at a table with, I am pretty sure (in reducing order of sureness): Miriam Morgan, Heather Jones, Ashley Fletcher, Helen Ross and one or two others. One person who was certainly at our table was a rather exotic-looking (to me) gay female with whom, for reasons I cannot with hindsight fathom, I started to dance. I’ll guess it was initially her idea, because dancing isn’t something I can imagine myself ever having spontaneously initiated.
Mercifully, this Jazz Night was long before the age of smart phones, pocket video cameras, TikTok and the like, so there are no moving pictures of our “performance” – indeed not even any stills to my knowledge.
It probably looked a little like the following clip at first, except that John Travolta is a very capable dancer trying to look awkward, whereas…
We danced in an increasingly frisky manner as time went on, until a pivotal moment when I suddenly felt drenched. Someone from a nearby “Tory Boy” table tipped a jug of water over us with the entreaty, “you two need to cool down”.
I’m not sure who did the tipping; it might have been Mark Ellicott (who still sat at Tory Boy tables back then) or it might even have been ABC Dick. Whoever it was, the gesture was done without menace and with a witticism thrown in, such that we and everyone at the tables around us found the joke funny, so we joined in the laughter and redoubled our frisky efforts.
Strangely, I ran this story by Simon Jacobs and Jon Gorvett just the other evening – forty years on. Both of them confirmed that they were not there on this evening.
Yet Simon, who usually claims not to be able to remember anything about our Keele days, immediately identified the young woman in question as “Nicola from Crewe and Alsager College”, which of course was the right answer. Respect, Simon, respect.
Nicola ended up going out with Miriam, which I think brought the Miriam and Heather era to a close, although I might be muddling the sequencing and/or duration of that episode. Others might well be able to put the record straight.
My diary states clearly that we all carried on drinking after the Ronnie Scott Jazz Night had concluded, but the frisky dancing with Nicola was definitely merely a “moment in time” thing during the jazz night.
Postscript – Remembering Nicola
Within minutes of me posting this piece, Ashley Fletcher commented on FB, reminding me that, a couple of years later, he shared a place in Newcastle with Miriam & Nicola, who became and were still very much an item after that January 1982 time.
Diary pages for the week or so leading up to Ronnie’s below. For the completists. There’s a prize if anyone can work out who or what I went to see on Tuesday 12th!
Postscript – Remembering Nastassja
Following an entreaty from Kay Scorah that she wouldn’t sleep until the 12 January diary entry mystery was solved, I gave the matter some deeper thought. Then I looked at the Rosetta Stone for a while. Then I concluded that the pathetically scrawled four-letter word, which I had thought all along was probably the title of a film, given that Tuesday evening was film night…
My teenage hormonal head would have been full of Nastassja Kinski for a few days…until Nicola came along. Sorry Nastassja.
You can sleep now, Kay.
Postscript To The Above Postscript – Remembering Tash, Tess & Nastassja
The mention of Tess generated quite a postbag and I realise that I was mistaken in attributing the 12 January scribble to that film. John White writes:
Don’t think that says Tess btw. The word begins with an s and ends with an h. Sure it wasn’t a person?
But I was buoyed by Jon Gorvett’s memory flash, inspired by my mention of Tess:
Anyway, also bizarre that you should mention Heather Jones, Tess, Nastassja Kinski and crushes all in the same post, Ian, as I recall both myself and Heather taking a sudden interest in Thomas Hardy around then, after Kinski had appeared on the cover of the version of Tess of the d’Urbervilles on sale in the Keele bookshop. Noticing this, we both later confessed to a massive crush on the said daughter of the great director (and massive child abuser, I see now), leading ultimately to enormous enthusiasm for Cat People, when that hit the screens later that year.
…so I responded as follows:
100% sure it was Tess. Memory flash corroborated by Jon Gorvett, who said that note brought a flood of memories. Gilted Jon (by Truda) and gilted Heather (by Miriam) both salivated over Ms Kinski at that time. My handwriting was truly appalling at the best of times and I often wrote up diaries when pissed or stoned.
But I did see Tess around that time – I’m guessing it must have been the film shown 15 January, which I don’t name – I simply describe it in my diary as “boring”. Frankly, I do recall finding the excruciatingly long Tess movie boring in every regard except for the visual charms of Ms Kinski.
He had recently uncovered some old Keele scraps, including the following press clippings:
Page 11 of the Evening Sentinel – can we possibly do any better than this?
Yes we can! Page 3 of the Morning Star
So there we have it. Page 11 of the Evening Sentinel but, more importantly, Page 3 of the Morning Star.
Jon is the young man with the “numerate graduates” placard in the first photo above (naturally Jon has gone on to become a foreign correspondent journalist). Jon is also seen wielding a mallet on the far left of the Morning Star picture.
I can be seen in the first photo struggling to retain hold of both the campus model and my sartorial dignity (wearing THAT donkey jacket). I’m gutted that a photo with me in it didn’t make it to Page 3 of the Morning Star, despite the donkey jacket.
Of course I am still part of the story in the Morning Star. But still, it’s not my image on Page 3. Close but no cigar.
The compensation for my Page 3 disappointment, though, is to be reconnected with Jon Gorvett. He and his treasure trove of clippings might prove very helpful for future Ogblog pieces about the Keele years. I also strongly suspect, based on our e-mail exchanges over the past couple of days, that I shall very much enjoy his company once our paths cross sufficiently for us to meet again in real life.
I resolved to dig out my diaries and see if I could find out some more about it. Soon enough, I found this page:
Actually the diary entry is not too revealing about this protest. Nor are the pages around it, which refer a lot to “meeting up with the usual friends…various people…some people…the crowd…” as if I would naturally remember all the details when I want them, 34 years later.
Indeed, the entries around the time of the protest have triggered many other memories about how I felt at that time and why I started to plot my escape from halls of residence into an on-campus flat in the early months of that year. Another story for another posting or two.
So I must rely almost entirely on memory for this story.
“The Cuts” (to university grants) was the biggest political issue on the higher education agenda at that time. There were marches and things, which I attended occasionally, but I’ve never been a great one for marches.
A few of us decided that we needed to do something a bit more eye-catching, yet unquestionably in the non-violent protest arena. We hatched a plan for a media/profile grabbing event; a dramatic protest outside the University Grants Committee (UGC) offices on one of their big committee days, when Rhodes Boyson would be attending; 6 January 1982.
In simple terms, we would make a crude replica of our Keele Campus and destroy it in front of the UGC building while the committee met, announcing “this is what you are doing to our University”. Naturally we would alert the media in advance to the fact that there would be “a happening” outside the building during the UGC meeting.
In order to implement our plot, several of us returned to Keele immediately after Christmas. I’m trying to remember who was involved. I’m pretty sure Jon Gorvett and Truda Smith were involved and they do get a name drop in my diary 2 January. I’m also pretty sure that Simon Jacobs was heavily involved, although something tells me that he did not return to Keele early, but joined us in London on the day. For some reason my mind is linking Diana Ball with this event, but I might be mistaken. Similarly I think Toby Bourgein had a leading hand in plotting the protest and possibly even drove the minibus down from Keele, but again I might be mistaken. Surely Pete Roberts was involved?
I love the fact that my diary entry says that I signed on before we set off for London to protest. In those days, the ridiculous student grant system meant that the grant only applied to the term-time weeks and that you had to sign on to the dole to get some money for the non-term weeks. What a palaver for the Social Security people to have to administer.
Of course, the social security system for students has been vastly simplified now; the poor students simply get “the square root of nada”.
I recall that we gathered in a pub on the Hampstead Road, near to Laurence Corner. I’m pretty sure it was the Sols Arms, now defunct. I suppose it was possible to park without restriction on that north side of the Euston Road in those days. We enjoyed a drink in that pub and then all went to the cloakrooms to don dark jumpers and balaclava helmets. We then rescued the crude facsimile of the campus (mostly papier mâché and balsa wood, I think) and our mallets from the union minibus, toddled across the Euston Road to the Bloomsbury offices of the UGC and conducted our protest.
I don’t recall how much media attention we got – press I’m sure but I don’t think the TV people bothered with us. I report being very tired on return, so I guess there was enough buzz to keep us talking for a while. Perhaps we retreated to the Sols Arms for a few more jars before returning to Keele a little tired and emotional. What do I mean, “perhaps”?
These days, of course, I don’t think we’d get very far in those dark tops, balaclava helmets and mallets before the armed fuzz would intervene. You’d be lucky to survive such a stunt. They were simpler times in many ways.
Apologies to anyone named (or not named) for the failings of my memory. If anyone else remembers more about this extraordinary day, I really would love to hear some more memories of it in the comments. I’m sure that, with some help, my own memory of the event could improve.
Chris Parkins, who had left Keele by then, came along and took a colour picture. he upped it to Facebook recently and I have asked his permission to show the picture here. If the picture is still here when you read this, Chris has either replied yes or not replied at all. Thanks for the picture, Chris, although I’m a little gutted that I am not in the picture. Serves me right, I suppose, for tiring and having someone else take over my model-holding duties:
I needed to get some work done towards the end of my first term of P1, studying Law & Economics, with subsidiaries in Psychology and Applied Statistics/Operational Research.
The words and symbols in my diary suggest that I did indeed get my head down during that period, while still finding time for some fun.
I’d better translate some of that:
Sunday 22 November 1981…went to Alexander’s. Did some work. Asian supper & disco in evening.
I think Alexander was one of my law friends from the Chinese-Malaysian community, as was the lovely Tina, who gets a mention on the Thursday. I’d started to get involved in some of the cultural societies around Keele; keen for combining forces as most were really very small groups when standing alone.
Justice for all?
It will be difficult for modern students to get their heads around this, but, back then, some of the published resources we wanted (or even needed) to prepare our tutorials and write our essays were rare and in very short supply. We were expected to buy our law textbooks of course (quite a large chunk of the grant went on those) but there was also material – such as the detailed law reports on cases or journal articles on specific topics, that we had to borrow from the library’s tiny stock of copies and share amongst our friends who all needed to see the same stuff around the same time of year.
No doubt I could also find on-line the old journal articles that tutors such as Michael Whincup, Philip Rose and Mike Haley were so keen for us to read to enhance our understanding. I especially remember hunting around for a journal article that supposedly would contextualise the High Trees House case for us P1 students -there were three library copies for the whole year to share.
I think “Int Aff” stood for International Affairs and that was the group that had been established to oversee the Anti-Fascist day and follow up on it’s activities. Joe Andrew was the lead protagonist on the academic side and very good at that he was too.
I do remember those early meetings concerning themselves rather too much on “assumed” rather than actual problems. In particular, I remember the chaplains worrying about possible strife between Chinese-Malaysian and Malay students, and/or between Jewish and Muslim students, whereas the reality “on the ground” was that those groups tended to get along just fine.
A major upshot of that focus group, once it focussed on accentuating the positive, was the hugely popular Keele International Fairs, which became a twice-yearly feature of Keele campus activity and I believe still features on the calendar today. One of my proudest, lasting achievements; just being involved with the early stages of that development.
Thursday 26 November 1981 – Usual busy Thursday. Went over to Tina’s in evening till late
Friday 27 November 1981 – Work OK – did Economics essay afternoon & eve – went to Simon’s party later ***
Saturday 28 November 1981 – up late – went to town – wrote law essay all evening
Sunday 29 November – latish start – wrote Psychology essay today lazy evening
That’s a lot of essays in a short period of time. No wonder I tailed off for a couple of days, then:
Wednesday 2 December 1981 – Worked quite hard during day. Went to Alexander’s for dinner -> UGM
Thursday 3 December – Busy day – doing odds and ends, meetings etc. Lazy evening in
Friday 4 December – Worked reasonably hard today. Went * to * Lindsay * Party ** in evening – late night.
I don’t remember UGMs being any day other than a Monday, but perhaps some strange circumstance had led to that particular UGM being unusually scheduled for a Wednesday.
I can’t remember or recognise what the symbols in my diary entry for the Lindsay party might mean, so I suspect that the girl or girls in question similarly remember little or nothing about it forty years later.
Saturday 5 December 1981 – up late – went into Newcastle – lazy day – played cards in evening.
I remember playing cards with some of the guys on my block (F Block Lindsay), including Richard van Baaren, Bob Schumacher, Simon Ascough, Malcolm Cornelius and especially Benedict Coldstream.
Never gambling, although I think we might have played some poker and never bridge, although I think we sometimes played whist-based games.
The game I especially remember learning from Ben Coldstream was piquet, which I found fascinating and which we played quite a few times, especially at that tail-end of the autumn term in 1981.
I am fascinated now to look at the game ofpiquet again, learning that it is a very old game, dating back to the Renaissance or earlier. This sits neatly with my more recent interests in real tennis and Renaissance music:
It is even reminiscent of my own (rather unusual) real tennis serve which is, coincidentally, called the piquet – (in truth normally spelled piqué or pique for tennis).
Returning to playing the card game piquet – unfortunately we have so few photos from our time at Keele, but I have managed to find an artist’s impression of F Block Lindsay folk “at piquet”, supervised by appropriate academics – I’m sure I have identified each of the characters correctly:
Seated left to right: Malcolm Cornelius, Bob Schumacher, Ian Harris (at cards), Simon Ascough, Benedict Coldstream (at cards). Standing left: Mike Haley & Philip Rose adjudicating. Crouching centre: Joe Andrew. Standing right (sword in hand): Richard van Baaren.
I’d love to give piquet another try some time. Anyone out there up for it?
Ballroom Image Borrowed From Keele Oral History Project – John Samuel
This was the business end of my P1 (first year of actual degree) initial term. It seems I did some work.
But that didn’t stop me from having weekend visitors aplenty – Caroline Freeman (Now Curtis) and Alan Tucker braved the journey to Keele on Friday 13 November 1981.
CarolineAlan
But before that, on Monday 9 November:
Not a bad day – UGM in eve – not a very good one
UGMs tended to be quite argumentative affairs as I remember them, although (by many accounts) relatively peaceable compared with the political bun-fights at some of the larger University’s Students’ Union meetings.
Was this one “not very good” because it was insufficiently pugnacious for my taste at that time, or because it was too pugnacious. In truth I don’t remember, but with Mark Thomas as President at that time, I suspect it was too tranquil by my taste.
Some of us were “cruising for a bruising” over the painful grant cuts being imposed by the UGC at that time and I suspect that, in November anyway, some of us felt that the Union wasn’t doing enough.
On the Tuesday evening I went to see the movie Brubaker. I must admit to little recall of this movie. Whereas the film I went to see the following Tuesday, Bad Timing, really stuck in my mind as a shocking story about sexual violence.
Simon Jacobs was clearly very much involved in the Caroline and Alan visit; not least because they were very much his “friends from home” as much, or in many ways more, than mine.
We went to a disco in the Union on the Friday evening, to Simons, then the Union, then a “party thing” on the Saturday evening. Then, on the Sunday:
Simon, Heather Caroline & Alan came for lunch.
How I catered for five of us in the tiny kitchen in F Block Lindsay I have no idea. I have even less idea how (or where) we all ate lunch in my study bedroom. Not all at the same time, perhaps.
Then, after Caroline and Alan had gone home, I went down with a rotten cold. It seems I had intended to go to London for a couple of days 18/19 November but didn’t go because of the cold.
The diary says I “watched football” on the Wednesday evening – a World Cup qualifier match – they might have put up a big screen in Lindsay Bar for that. Of course, the sort of screen that qualified as a big screen in those days is the size that many people today would turn their noses up at if proposed for their home. But I digress.
Wendy Robbins arrived for a visit on Friday 20 November.
We “did little” on the Friday night but then made up for it on the Saturday:
Went on cuts march – did work in afternoon, went to two parties in evening – up till late.
Sunday 22 November – Wendy left…
That sounds more like it. A proper Keele weekend day. Guess I must have recovered from that Keele autumn cold quite quickly.
…and returning to Keele, I squeezed in quite a lot of activity.
Some of the activity is more than a little illegible or indecipherable. I know that Lloyd Green and I were working hard those last couple of weeks towards a Keele racism awareness day, Anti-Facsist Day as it was badged. That activity, at places such as Hillel House, needed to be co-ordinated around the Jewish Holidays – Rosh Hashanah (New Year) was 30 September/1 October that year. Col Nidre/Yom Kippur 7/8 October.
Interspersed with those activities (with minimal regard for the rigours of the Jewish holidays on my part) were plenty of socials:
Sunday 27 September …Anil [Biltoo]’s for dinner party…
Wednesday 30 September …Met Jim[Bateman] at Rose & Crown…
Friday 2 October …Paul [Deacon] came over in the evening
Saturday 3 October …Anil came over for supper – went on to a party with him & friends -> back to Anil’s till early hours
OMG – “buy books” – at last a mention of something that might be vaguely connected with preparing for a new academic year at Keele. I was certainly preparing well for the social side of it.
Even by 1981 the congregation was on the wane; just a few dozen people. I was one of a handful of younger people who would still show their faces there.
I’ll write more about that congregation elsewhere, but I was reminded recently (forty years on) of one regular attendee on those high-holy days, Miriam Margolyes, who would regularly attend with her partner. Far and away the most interesting “nodding acquaintances” amongst what was mostly a small group of traditional old men.
With all of that effort preparing an honourable education campaign against racism and the many hours spent atoning for my first year at Keele, I might have anticipated an easy time getting back to University the next day.
But no.
Friday 9 October 1981 – Left home midday – [Lloyd Green’s] car broke down – arrived late – key not to be found – stayed at John’s
By my reckoning, the journey to Keele from Streatham would normally be about three hours, so Lloyd and I clearly had quite a lengthy ordeal as a result of that break down. I don’t remember the details – Lloyd might of course and I’ll certainly report back here with his remembrances, if he has any. It might be that breakdowns twixt Keele and Streatham were a fairly regular event for him back then.
I think “The Lloydmobile” was something like this
I owe “John” both thanks and an apology. Thanks for putting me up/putting up with me that night and apologies because I have no idea which “John” this diary mention is talking about. If there is a John out there who wants to put up his hand and claim the merits for this act of charity, please chime in with your claim.
Saturday 10 October 1981 – Rose Early – Freshers Mart – went to town after. Simon [Jacobs]’s party quite good in evening.
Judging from the headline picture above from 10 October 2021 – thanks again Dave Lee – Freshers Mart has not changed much in forty years. Did I mention that Dave is at Freshers Mart forty years on selling his wonderful book The Keele Gigs!?
…the next few days read quieter and calmer – apart from a few signs of aftershock from the abusive note incident.
Sunday 31 May 1981 – Late rise – did little all day (essay) – Union in evening – reasonably early night.
Monday 1 June 1981 – Union Committee in morning – finished essay in afternoon – UGM in evening – Mark [Bartholomew]’s afterwards.
Tuesday 2 June 1981 – Late rise – handed in essay – went to see The Last Waltz – awful – latish night.
I don’t honestly remember attending Union Committee on the Monday morning. I do remember that word reached the SU about the abusive note that had been placed under my door on the Friday evening and that they took the incident very seriously. In some ways more seriously than I took it.
I think some people, with all good intentions, were considering an emergency motion at the UGM that evening or some sort of statement. I think I dissuaded them.
I’m pretty sure Simon Jacobs (plus others, no doubt) were at The Last Waltz (a highly-regarded film that simply did not work for me, nor did it seem to work for most of my entourage that evening, if I remember correctly) with me and would have been part of the unmentioned activities (probably beer and smokes somewhere) that led to the latish night.
A Veritable Procession Of Visitors
I’m sorry to say that I have no real recollection of the “so-called revision day” on Wednesday 3 June, which reads to me more like a visitors day than a revision day:
Wednesday 3 June 1981 – Revised today – OK – Mary [Keevil], Rani, Miz [Miriam Morgan], Hilary [Kingsley] etc. popped in -> Sneyd -> coffee with Hilary
Where this sudden burst of popularity with females had come from, I have no idea. Perhaps Sandra had been talking me up. More likely, these were well-intentioned check-ins from concerned friends in the matter of the abusive note, which seemed to be affecting some others more than it was affecting me.
Forty years on, I find it hard to imagine getting much, if any, revision done with that number of visitors.
My handwriting analysis suggests that I wrote this part of my diary up some days after the event. But still, the word “etc.” after a string of four visitors suggests that there were several others.
I’m pretty sure that part of Hilary’s purpose (a visit AND post-pub coffee) was to persuade me to agree to sit on the JSoc (Jewish Society) committee, something I had previously stated my extreme reluctance to do. I’m not sure whether Hilary was yet going out with Lloyd Green (a friend of mine from my Streatham childhood and coincidentally a Keele student a year or so ahead of me) but they did go out with each other at Keele and subsequently married each other.
Thursday 4 June 1981 – Exams today?? – Roy’s binge in evening – quite entertaining.
Friday 5 June 1981 – Politics exam today – Union in evening -> Sands [Sandra]!
Saturday 6 June 1981 – late rise – restive afternoon – went to Union with Sim [Simon Ascough] – supper – Union again – dullish evening
Roy was Simon Jacobs’s boyfriend pretty much throughout that year. Roy will have completed his finals around that time, so my guess is that the binge was related to that. Simon did not keep in touch with Roy after Roy left Keele. Nor did I keep in touch with Sandra after she left Keele, nor did I see much of her the following year, when she was doing finals.
I think I probably meant “restful” when I said “restive” afternoon, although there is something restive about my tone for the next few days. I needed to go to London to resolve some matters ahead of my late June return for the summer and/but was no doubt itching for the more exciting-sounding events that would form the end-of-term/end-of-academic-year summer activities.
A whole weekend between exams must have seemed like an imposition.
Darker. The UKSU snooker room was darker if I recall correctly.
Sunday 7 June 1981 – Late rise – did little – snooker – bar in eve – dull day.
Monday 8 June 1981 – Read in morn – exam in afternoon, Union in evening – v late night.
I mention snooker a few times in my diary towards the end of that summer term. I recall playing the game a few times with Sim and Tim – I’ll write that up a bit more when I get to the second half of June – but perhaps these early efforts were with Simon Jacobs.
Forty years on, Simon and I discussed this matter when he visited us (late May 2021), agreeing that our ability to play snooker was slightly improved by a drink or two, then rather more dramatically diminished by each subsequent drink. If only we had been able to retain information from formal scientific experiments in class as well as we have retained the empirical evidence from those informal “clinical trials”.
Anyway, by the Monday, that was it, academically-speaking. Last essays done, last exam done. I had no formal purpose at Keele for the next few days, so I popped back down to London on the Tuesday.
