Tag: University of Keele

Guest Contribution: Mark Ellicott’s Response To His Summer 1982 Mix Tape

Mark Ellicott more recently (actually 2016)

In response to my “forty years on” piece about a mix tape Mark made for me in 1982…

Informal Contemporary Music Subsidiary Course At Keele In The Summer Of 1982, Tutor: Mark Ellicott

…which is probably worth reading before reading the following response…

…Mark responded with some fascinating reflections of his own about that music “forty years on”, along with his thoughts on what the follow-up mix tape should have been. I shall try to replicate that “thought-experiment mix tape” within this guest piece.

Ah Ian,

Every one of those tracks still gets a regular airing in my household! For me they have never aged because I’ve never gone through a prolonged period not listening to any of them. Anything by Grace Jones in that early eighties period always brings back memories of six in the morning in Freehold Street, Newcastle in the spring and summer of 1982 after a night at the 141 Club in Hanley  with the likes of Anna Summerskill, Mark Bartholomew, Vince Beasley and Jan Phillips, amongst others. Invariably all of us stoned / tripping and / or speeding. The ‘Nightclubbing’ album just tailor made for the wee small hours after a long night out just as everyone was coming down. It was THE album I most associate with that crazy summer term when I went through that cathartic metamorphosis!

The Grace Jones version of ‘She’s lost control’, originally by Joy Division, on that tape I made you was one of the more eccentric covers I’ve heard. Back in 1994 I had the good fortune to meet the great lady when she was booked to play at The Fridge in Brixton. It was touch and go whether she’d make it onto stage - she was several hours late I recall before the show eventually started - but I did ask what had prompted her to cover such a track by such a band. It transpired she knew nothing about the band, knew nothing about Ian Curtis’s suicide and had merely heard the original track before deciding there and then to do her own version. It ended up as the B side to her single ‘Private Life’. She was rather horrified when she found out about Curtis’s demise and that the song was about epilepsy - a condition he suffered from. 

The Roxy Music track ‘Both ends burning’ (from 1975) is etched into the memory because of their performance on Top of the Pops promoting it. Bryan Ferry dressed up as a GI with an eye patch dancing awkwardly as two heavily made up women, also dressed up in military garb, swung their hips behind him - looking vaguely glassy eyed in the eyeball department.

‘Violence Grows’ by the Fatal Microbes was always being played by John Peel. The singer was 15 year old Honey Bane, a schoolgirl who’d been signed up on the strength of her already provocative stage performances. This was a howl of rage from a time when there really didn’t seem much hope for young people as unemployment skyrocketed. Her indifferent tuneless vocal delivery for whatever reason just resonated. 

‘Atmosphere’ by Joy Division arguably my favourite track released just after Curtis’s death  a fitting tribute to the man’s genius. He was only 23 when he died - just imagine what might have come later on in his career had things been different. I wonder how ‘Blue Monday’ by New Order might have sounded had he gotten his teeth into it. I still recall John Peel announcing his death on air and playing ‘Atmosphere’ and being quite shocked. No one then could have imagined the cult status they would 40 plus years later enjoy. 

‘Typical Girls’ by the Slits just a wonderful piece of pop-punk-reggae by the original riot girls. Ari Up the singer (alas she died of cancer some years ago) was John Lydons (nee Rotten) stepdaughter. John married Ari’s mother Nora, a German heiress, back in the eighties. It’s a track that despite its 43 years of existence still sounds like it could have been recorded in 2022.

Mark then went on to suggest a follow-on mix tape:

Had I made a second tape for you that year it would have undoubtedly included the following. All from that 1982ish period. 

‘My face is on fire’ - Felt
‘Fireworks’ - Siouxsie & the Banshees
‘Temptation’ - New Order
‘How does it feel?’ - Crass
‘Torch’ - Soft Cell
‘The back of love’ - Echo & the Bunnymen 
‘Second skin’ - The Chameleons
‘Persons unknown’ - Poison Girls
‘Hand in glove’ - The Smiths
‘Treason’ - Teardrop Explodes
‘Requiem’ - Killing Joke
‘Dead Pop Stars’ - Altered Images
‘Alice’ - Sisters of Mercy
‘Eat y’self fitter’ - The Fall
‘Painted bird’ - Siouxsie & the Banshees
‘Let’s go to bed’ - The Cure
‘Capers’ - The Birthday Party
‘Nightclubbing’ - Grace Jones
‘The look of love’ - ABC
‘Being boiled’ - Human League
‘Pissing in the river’- Patti Smith
‘Walking on thin ice’ - Yoko Ono

OK, let’s give that mix tape a go. I have really enjoyed listening to these tracks and hope readers enjoy them too. Many thanks, Mark, for your kind note and further selections forty years on.

FoodCycle, GoodSAM, The Samaritans, 1981 Keele/BBYO Redux & Being Boilered, This Is Lockdown 3.0, 20 February 2021

With thanks to Rachelle Gryn Brettler for snapping us in Rossmore Road, preparing to do our FoodCycle run on a wet winter’s day

We don’t get out much in Lockdown 3.0, other than to buy food and do our charity work.

That is giving me a chance to crack on with my retro-blogging; I’m working through 1995 & 1996 to cover the Ged & Daisy (Ian & Janie) “25 years ago” story. I’m needing to give more thought, though, to the formerly less well-documented, “40 years on” story of my early days at Keele University.

Strangely, 1981 and 2021 seem to have collided, forty years on.

I wrote last summer about my joy at being asked to make our FoodCycle collections from St Paul’s in Rossmore Road…

FoodCycle’s Spiritual Home In Rossmore Road & Other Tales, 24 June 2020

…mentioning the superb tapes Graham Greenglass used to make for me, including quirky numbers such as Rossmore Road by Barry Andrews. I still hum it or sing it more often than not when Daisy and I do FoodCycle from there:

Dreamy use of sax and double bass on that track.

Last week, I wrote up the very weekend during which several visitors descended on Keele and Graham presented me with a few cassettes, including that very track. The piece below is a thumping good read, even if you weren’t there, including an excellent undergraduate recipe for spaghetti bollock-knees:

The Best Pot I Had In Five Years At Keele, i.e. The First Weekend I Tried Cooking In The F Block Lindsay Kitchen, 11 to 15 February 1981

On Wednesday, before Daisy and I did our FoodCycle run, I did an NHS Responder gig to collect a prescription. Strangely the prescription was to be collected at the Tesco Hoover Factory in Greenford. Strange, because also on that little collection of quirky recordings given to me in February 1981 was the song Hoover Factory by Elvis Costello:

So, by some strange quirk of fate, forty years after being given recordings of those two rather obscure (but wonderful) recordings about lesser-known places in West London, I found myself doing charity gigs from those two very places.

I have already written up the ear worm I got from Hoover Factory a few months after first hearing the song:

Uncle Manny’s Funeral & The Hoover Factory, 15 May 1981

But the early 1980s connection this week does not stop there.

While I have been cracking on with the NHS Responder/GoodSAM app as well as FoodCycle, Daisy has been training to become a Samaritan and this week moved on from being a course trainee to becoming a mentee (i.e. doing real sessions with real calls under the supervision of a mentor).

Towards the end of her course, Daisy had been waiting with a little trepidation to find out who her mentor might be. Mentors work closely with their mentees for a few weeks. She knew that it might be one of her course trainers or possibly someone she hadn’t encountered before.

A couple of weeks ago Janie announced that her mentoring instructions had come through and her mentor was a new name to her: Alison Shindler.

GED: Oh, yes, I know Alison Shindler.

DAISY: What do you mean?

GED: She was a leading light in BBYO towards the end of my time there.

DAISY: Might not be the same person…

GED: …Ealing BBYO – bet it is!

Of course it is.

What a pleasant surprise.

Less of a surprise though, after their first session together, is that Alison & Daisy seem to be getting along really well. I’m confident that the mentoring partnership should be a very good one.

Meanwhile Alison has furnished me with a photo from so far back in the day, the biggest surprise is that we were in colour back then:

With thanks to Alison Shindler for this photo

That’s a c17-year-old me turning around, next to me Simon Jacobs who was central to my “going to Keele” story and part of the “cooking weekend”. In the red scarf I thought was Jilly Black (who has remained friends with me, Daisy and Alison throughout those decades – in fact it is a little surprising we haven’t overlapped before now )…but it turns out to be Emma Cohen disguised as Jilly. Opposite Simon is Lauren Sterling plus, slightly upstaged by Simon’s head, Caroline Curtis (then Freeman) who visited me and Simon at Keele the February 1981 weekend following the “cooking” one.

A Short Visit From Caroline To See Me And Simon At Keele, 20 to 22 February 1981

It’s all too weird, in a good way.

But now, after all that excitement, Daisy and I are in temporary exile at the flat. The replacement of the Noddyland boiler has over-run by a day, making Daisy right and me wrong, as usual.

Stock boiler image: neither the actual old nor the actual new boiler

I’ve been grasping for a quirky early 1980s musical connection for a boiler replacement. So my earworm for the tail end of this tale is by that early 1980s mainstay, The Human League – Being Boiled:

God’s Gift, Pure Genius, Or Both? Annex To Alleyn’s School Class Of 1980 Virtual Buttery 3, 20 January 2021

When I reviewed last week’s virtual gathering, I forgot to mention Paul Driscoll’s anecdote about the optional “prefect’s blazer” available to those of us who attained such giddy heights at Alleyn’s School. The blazer was emblazoned (pun intended) with the school crest and motto.

That motto was God’s Gift. Edward Alleyn no doubt meant that motto to symbolise education. But the phrase has a sarcastic meaning in modern parlance; e.g. “he think’s he’s God’s gift.” And as Rohan Candappa so ably puts it, “We are Alleyn’s. If you cut us we bleed sarcasm.”

Unsurprisingly, very few of us took up the offer of this optional, distinguishing garment. Beyond the sarcasm, such an emblem had every chance to land us in a heap near North Dulwich railway station, where the Billy Biros (pupils from William Penn School) needed little excuse to isolate an outlier from the Alleyn’s herd, taking severe retribution for invented sleights and offenses.

The main senior school uniform was a two-piece or three-piece suit. I have only one picture of myself wearing mine:

Me And Wendy Robbins, Autumn 1979, Westminster Bridge

I was reminded of all of this by a posting on Facebook in the Keele University alums area.

In the late 1980s, just a few years after a left Keele, when Guinness had a particular advertising slogan on the go, some fine folk in the University of Keele Students’ Union produced the following tee-shirt.

It dawned on me that I am a very rare example of someone eligible to wear not only the Alleyn’s God’s Gift blazer but also the Keele Pure Genius tee-shirt underneath the blazer.

In the dying moments of the Trump US presidency, this suitably modest mental image should be shared with the world and saved for posterity.

It’s just a shame I was unable to model the two garments together back then. I would have looked magnificent; indeed it would have been the best look ever, anywhere, for anyone.

With all due modesty…

The Day I Saw Slade & The Smiths At Keele, 10 January 1995

With profound apologies to lovers of 1970s & 1980s popular music who clicked this page under false pretences; I just couldn’t resist the headline. But I am talking about the day I went to Keele and met Dr Eddie Slade while seeing Professor Mike Smith for the first time. Later, I had dinner and stayed over with Mike Smith and Marianna, at their house in Church Plantation.

Professor Mike Smith, who sadly died suddenly, 12 November 2020

It happened like this. My business partner, Michael Mainelli, had worked with Mike when Michael first came to The British Isles in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Coincidentally, mostly while I was at Keele.

Michael and Mike had kept in touch. Mike Smith went on to become, in 1990, Professor of Health Informatics at Keele in the departments of Computer Science and Medicine. He concurrently held the position of Director of Information at North Staffordshire Health Authority.

Our business, The Z/Yen Group, was starting to thrive. I was looking after the civil society side of the practice and was starting to itch for bright resource, around the time that Mike was starting to look for opportunities to mix some fresh commercial activity in with his academic work.

Michael suggested that Mike and I meet. Knowing that Keele was my alma mater, Michael suspected that an excuse to stop off at Keele the next time I was heading north would be an attractive proposition for me.

So, between client appointments near Euston on the Tuesday morning and client appointments in Manchester on the Wednesday morning…

…Mike Smith said he would be delighted to see me on the Tuesday afternoon & evening, insisting that I should stay with him and Marianna at Church Plantation.

I think that first house might actually have been The Smiths’ house!

Mike also asked if there was anyone still at Keele that I would especially like to see, as he had time that afternoon to wander down memory lane with me.

I suggested Eddie Slade. I had seen most of the people who had taught me and were still active at Keele on earlier visits, but had not seen Eddie since my Education & Welfare sabbatical year, some 10 years earlier, when Eddie was Senior Tutor.

I recall that Mike didn’t rate our chances of getting in to see Eddie, commenting that he didn’t think he’d ever had an audience with the Director of Studies (as he was now titled).

But when I arrived at Keele, Mike told me that, to his surprise, Eddie had remembered me and said that he would like to have a meeting with both of us.

A recent (2020) picture of Eddie, borrowed from the Douglas MacMillan Hospice site, a wonderful cause

It was great swapping stories with Eddie from the distant past…9 to 10 years earlier. We’d not seen eye-to-eye over everything, but on the whole had got on very well and had worked together to resolve some “little difficulties”. Some of those tales might yet emerge in my write ups; some might best remain unwritten.

We also discussed how the Students’ Union had changed in those 10 years. I was delighted to learn that the Real Ale Bar was one of the union’s great commercial successes, as that had been one of our 1984/85 innovations.

I then asked what turned out to be a daft question about the television rooms. In our day, there had been three television rooms and the addition of a fourth TV channel (Channel 4) had caused some consternation. I asked Eddie how they regulate the television rooms now that there are multiple channels…

…Eddie laughed and explained to me that any student who wanted to watch television in the 1990s had their own TV. The former TV rooms had long since been repurposed.

With thanks to Mark Ellicott for this 2016 picture of the Students’ Union

After saying goodbye to Eddie, we had time for me to have a look around the Students’ Union, so I could see for myself the fate of the former TV rooms and far more besides.

This was also interesting for Mike, who confessed that he had never been in the Students’ Union building before, so it was my turn to give him a guided tour for the most part. It hadn’t changed all that much.

In 1995, there were still quite a few staff in the SU from my era. For sure Pat Borsky was there to be seen in the Print Room, for example; I think Barbara also.

Disappointingly, though, nobody said…

…”cards please”…

…as we entered the Union, although I did have my dog-eared life membership card with me, just in case.

Wally…where were you? Thanks to Mark Ellicott for this 1985 picture

Anyway, after having a good look around the union, we retreated to Church Plantation where I met Marianna for the first time, we three ate a hearty meal, enjoyed a wide-ranging conversation and the rest, as they say, is history. Mike and I worked together and became friends for 25 years, until his sudden death so sadly intervened.

I write this piece, the tale of how Mike and I first met, in late November 2020, just a couple of days before Mike’s funeral and just a couple of weeks since I wrote the personal tribute linked here and below.

A Personal Tribute To Professor Mike Smith, 12 November 2020

A Letter From Keele, Professor Les Fishman, 2 September 1985

I have no idea what must have gone wrong with the earlier correspondence, unless it turns up in a pile I have not yet excavated. I got on well with Les, both in my capacity as a student and as a students’ union officer. He was, in my experience, a wonderful lecturer and steward of his undergraduate students. So my comment about the long-forgotten faux pas would have been tongue-in-cheek on my part, as would Les’s rebuttal have been on his part.

Les Fishman Letter 2 September 1985

In 2008 I went to the memorial mini-conference Professor Peter Lawrence and others held in Les’s honour. I ended up meeting and hiring Les’s grand-daughter, Leo, who thus worked at Z/Yen for a few happy years.

 

Memorial Conference for Les Fishman, Management Centre, Keele University,15 October 2008

The Very End Of Autumn Term At Keele, Including Sweet Sorrow & The Dynamic Disco Duo, 12 to 17 December 1984

Cartoon from Geordie Mag, depicting John White

The headline cartoon brings back to my mind the way that the early part of those Students’ Union discos were – especially when John and I were on the record decks.

The truth of the matter was that the discos only really started to fill up after last orders in the Main and Allright bars. For many of the punters, attendance no doubt had more to do with the fact that we had licence extension in the Ballroom Bar for gigs and discos, than a burning desire to dance. Plenty of people were up for the dancing of course, but the place was pretty quiet for the first 90 minutes or so of the show.

John & I tended to take full advantage of that early section, playing stuff that we and a handful of devotees liked leaping around to. And yes, I suppose, occasionally, John would have been the only one (or one of only two) dancing. I mean, one of us needed to look after the decks if the music was to be continuous.

I asked DeepAI to replicate the scene – not a bad depiction.

Here are the diary extracts for that end of term period.

Wednesday, 12 December 1984 – Busy day – office and Senate in afternoon. Very tired in evening. Petra [Wilson] came over distressed – Annalisa [de Mercur] coped.

I don’t recall why Petra was distressed – I think it was just a “parting is such sweet sorrow” thing at the end of her first term at Keele. Both Annalisa and Petra had put a lot of energy into being my Education and Welfare (respectively) No 2s that term – and indeed for the whole year. There is some irony in Annalisa (Education) despatching the welfare solace to Petra.

Thursday, 13 December 1984 – Bad day. Very tired today – meeting with solicitor in morn – have to sleep in afternoon – ball in eve – Ringroad and slave auction went well.

I’m glad I felt that the Ringroad show went well, after the Lenny Henry warm-up act debacle a couple of weeks earlier:

When Lenny Henry Came To Keele & Ringroad Performed The Warm-Up Act, 29 November 1984

I cannot remember who played that Christmas Ball – John White and/or Pady Jalali might remember. And I absolutely dread to think what a “slave auction” might have been in that context. I feel like cancelling myself for something I don’t remember and possibly didn’t really play much of a part in.

Friday, 14 December 1984 busy day etc – got up late and UC in afternoon – celebration after – UC takeaway my place – JW [John White] and I did disco – then Petra came over after.

I have a feeling that several members of the committee joined us early in the piece for that last disco of 1984, a little unlike the ones described in the first few paragraphs of this article. I think a lot of students had already gone down by that Friday, so we would have had a lot of space to leap around for the whole evening.

Saturday, 15 December 1984 – Went shopping with Kate [Fricker] in morning – then worked all day for IT [Industrial Tribunal – now known as an Employment Court]. Had meal in evening over at Annalisa’s.

Sunday, 16 December 1984 – Kate came over fairly early – worked and had lunch together and worked some more. Cooked Annalisa a meal in the evening.

Monday, 17 December 1984 – Did very little today – got ready for tribunal – went out for Indian meal with sabbaticals.

The next episode will take us to Shrewsbury for the start of the Industrial Tribunal. Watch this space.

Funnily Enough…Hackgrass, More Concourse, And Non-Laughing Matters At Keele Towards The End Of Autumn Term 1984

The Hackgrass column as published in December 1984

Despite the embarrassment of the Ringroad performance when supporting Lenny Henry in late November, my diary notes that we did a couple more performances that term. Get straight back on the bike after falling off and all that. It was probably part of the deal for having our Lenny Henry support show pruned.

And on the subject of pruning comedy, the headline picture is the entirety of the Hackgrass column as published in that December issue – much shorter than the piece submitted.

“Uncle” Quentin

This was to be Quentin Rubens’s last swipe at Hackgrass with the editor’s pen, as this was his last Concourse issue.

To be fair on Quentin, I think I had more or less completely run out of gas with Hackgrass by then. It was one thing to snipe pseudonymically at the committee from the side lines, but as sabbatical hidden in plain sight, it made no sense. In an attempt to disguise myself still and to “up the ante” some of the stuff I threw into that piece were both visceral and unfunny. Whereas some of my earlier griping about being pruned was fair, I think Quentin actually helped me to dodge bullets when he edited that column.

There are one or two not so bad jokes in there.

Actually I think the funniest stuff from that Concourse was in the letters. Annalisa de Mercur, who had done a two page spread on the miner’s strike (see below) wrote a coded letter which she now thinks was something to do with mushrooms (non-psycho-active ones)…

Cryptic to say the least

…while Richard “Wally” Hall, in his epistle, slagged off H Ackgrass for being the sort of person who snipes at those who speak at UGMs while not participating himself. Clearly he, like most folk, still hadn’t guessed who I was.

Lacking awareness of all kinds

Here are the extracts from my diary:

Saturday, 1 December 1984 – Shopped and did some work today. Went over to Kate’s [Kate, now Susan Fricker] for dinner – stayed late

Sunday, 2 December 1984 – Rose quite late – did some work in afternoon. Performed Ringroad in evening – went to Petra’s [Petra Wilson] briefly after.

Monday, 3 December 1984 – worked hard today – stock report came through [still losses, although at least the new bar managers had some ideas on what to do about it] – meetings. Early night.

Tuesday 4 December 1984 = Lots of committees etc – very busy in office. Went to Annalisa’s birthday party. Petra came over later.

Wednesday, 5 December 1984 – busy day with lots of meetings etc. John Boy [John White] came over for dinner in evening.

Thursday, 6 December 1984 – Busy day – solicitors in morning – committees – very busy afternoon. Went to KRA and Lindsay Ball. Petra came over later.

Friday, 7 December 1984 – Up early. Worked before UC in morning – very busy afternoon. Went down to London in Eve.

I have written up that weekend in London separately – it was an absolute corker and well worth a read if you like London, theatre and/or the 1980s.

A Weekend In London, Including The Pope’s Wedding by Edward Bond, Royal Court Theatre, Dinner At The Mayflower After Theatre & Lunch At The Swiss Centre The Next Day, 7 to 9 December 1984

Saturday, 8 December 1984 – Got up late – had late lunch – bummed around all day. Went to Royal Court to see The Pope’s Wedding – on to Mayflower after.

Sunday, 9 December 1984 – Got up quite late. Went into West End – had meal in Swiss Centre – came back to Keele – Petra came over.

Monday, 10 December 1984 – very busy day in office etc. Last UGM of term in the evening – went well.

Tuesday, 11 December 1984 – Very busy day today – work and meetings (Residential Services etc). In evening rehearsed Ringroad till late.

For the completists and/or deep readers amongst you, below are scans of Annalisa’s extraordinary piece about her visit to see the Silverdale Miners – for those of you who remember Annalisa and remember what Silverdale miners looked like, I can imagine Annalisa standing on a stepladder in order to interview those guys face-to-face:

If you are brave enough, you can also read the unexpurgated version of that H Ackgrass column. I apologise unequivocally, with the hindsight of age and better comedic judgment, for the visceral rubbish that got edited out.

When Lenny Henry Came To Keele & Ringroad Performed The Warm-Up Act, 29 November 1984

Lenny Henry 1980s (c1985), Photo by Jane McCormick Smith, CC3.0. Did Lenny learn that face from Olu? For sure Olu was using it prior to 1984.

Imagine Taylor Swift having Susan From Accounts as her support act – after all, Susan does go down reasonably well at the open-mic sessions down The Greyhound. Or Oasis being preceded by The Venn Diagrams – that nice band of “sixth-form graduands”, who performed with such exuberant confidence at their end of school bash.

Actually, the idea of Ringroad supporting the Lenny Henry as originally conceived was even more grandiose; the idea being that Ringroad would perform a warm up act and then a warm down act in the main bar that night. I still have the running orders from the project as originally conceived:

That was probably every last scrap of vaguely suitable material Ringroad had to hand at that time. I have some of these sketches in my Ringroad file. Those which I performed and/or in which I had a part, mostly.

I wrote up the preceding week, including the Ringroad context and early rehearsals, here:

We Interrupt This Keele Student’s Union Sabbatical For A Short Visit To London Including A Bagel Hunt And A Heap Of Ringroad Show Rehearsals, 16 to 23 November 1984

Here are my personal diary notes from the few days before and the day itself:

Saturday, 24 November 1984 – shopped etc. Rehearsed Ringroad in afternoon – wrote [H Ackgrass] column in eve – Annalisa [de Mercur] came over for a while.

Sunday, 25 November 1984 – Rose quite late – spent most of day in office. Cooked Petra [Wilson] a meal in eve – stayed.

Monday, 26 November 1984 – Very busy with lots of committee meetings etc. Rehearsed Ringroad in evening.

Tuesday, 27th November 1984 – Lots to do today in office. Rehearsed Ringroad until very late – quite knackered.

Wednesday, 28 November 1984 – Busy day in office. Petra came over to help me learn scripts etc. – stopped.

Thursday, 29 November 1984 – Lots to do today in office. Performed Ringroad at Lenny Henry gig in evening. Got plastered after.

Those notes tell the story in their own way, but I should fill in some gaps.

I’ll write more about that particular H Ackgrass column in a separate piece. Suffice it to say here that I very much remember Annalisa visiting me that afternoon. She was one of “my spies” for H Ackgrass and that will have been the main purpose behind that visit. I recall Annalisa asking me that day, “how do you fit all of these activities in and get so much done?” and I also remember feeling a bit smug about that. Actually, reflecting now on the relatively poor quality of my extra-curricular comedic output at that time, my answer to Annalisa’s question, forty years on, is to admit that I was substituting quantity for quality.

I also recall that I recruited Petra as an H Ackgrass spy the following day, as she was vexed at my caginess about my activities the previous day. It seemed easier and more sensible to recruit an additional Ackgrass spy than to lie about something so trivial so early in our relationship.

I’m going to guess that we didn’t cull the Ringroad show until the day of the show, hence the night before desperation of learning scripts, with Petra’s help. I can’t imagine that it was much fun for either of us, trying to cram my brain with Ringroad lines, while there was so much else swirling around in said brain at that time. But I did have a very good short-term memory back then, it is much diminished in power for such things now.

How and when the decision to cull our Ringroad act from two parts to one was made, I have no idea. Pady Jalali might remember. All I recall is that the decision was hastily made and I don’t suppose for one minute that anyone calculated the length of the resulting show or consider the logistics around our performance being in the Main Bar ahead of a Lenny Henry gig in the Ballroom. Here’s the cobbled together running order for the show Ringroad actually performed.

Oh look – I’ve been honoured with the closing number as a solo…

I don’t think the show went down very well. But my abiding memory is of the most awkward spot I found myself in towards the end of the act. I had just started my “Dracula” solo, when word came across the tannoy (probably the dulcet tones of Wally), that the Ballroom doors were open and that Lenny Henry would be starting in five minutes.

More or less the entire audience, quite understandably, made a bee-line to the Main Bar entrance in the direction of the Ballroom to try and grab good spots to watch the main show.

OK, clever clogs reader, what would you do in those circumstances? Would you admit defeat and stop the Ringroad show in mid sketch, or would you take “the show must go on” approach, continuing to perform the sketch to the ever-shrinking, backs-of-heads audience? I chose the latter, albeit embarrassing, approach. I think the other Ringroad performers and a handful of friends, such as Annalisa and Petra, stuck around…but perhaps I was truly alone by the end of the sketch.

Hello! I’m still here! Where’s everybody gone?

Unquestionably my most embarrassing experience as a performer, ever. More embarrassing even than the sword fight that went wrong in Twelfth Night at school six year’s earlier:

Twelfth Night, Alleyn’s School, 12, 14, 15 & 16 December 1978

But I digress. And you want to read about Lenny Henry, not Ringroad, nor Alleyn’s.

The Lenny Henry Gig At Keele

Securing Lenny Henry at that time was a bit of a coup for Pady, in my opinion. Lenny Henry was on the cusp of real stardom at that time, having just been given his own TV show, which aired in the early autumn, just ahead of his gig at Keele.

Here is the preview story from The Evening Sentinel:

Lenny Henry Preview Sentinel ClipLenny Henry Preview Sentinel Clip 26 Nov 1984, Mon Evening Sentinel (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England) Newspapers.com

I remember the Ballroom being absolutely packed. I think we Ringroaders watched from a balcony spot; a sole perk for our efforts and blushes. I thought Lenny Henry was an excellent performer and his show had far more in it than I had expected, with songs and set pieces as well as classic stand up material.

Alistair Perkins interviewed Lenny Henry at length for Concourse and also reviewed the show at length. Here are the very pieces that emerged in Concourse ten days or so after the event:

Here is Tim Bevington’s review from The Evening Sentinel:

Henry Review Tim Bevington SentinelHenry Review Tim Bevington Sentinel 30 Nov 1984, Fri Evening Sentinel (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England) Newspapers.com

To get a flavour of Lenny Henry back then, you might want to see the first episode of his 1984 TV Show, which is available on The Internet Archive – click here.

Or you might get more of a feel for his 1980s live performance from the following YouTube, which starts with the live material about 7’30” in:

Epilogue

I saw Lenny Henry live a couple of times in 2023. Firstly, in a wonderful one-man-play which he both wrote and performed, August In England, at The Bush Theatre:

August In England by Lenny Henry, Bush Theatre, 6 May 2023

…and then again a few months later when dining with John White in Jikoni:

It’s Not All Black And White: Meet-Ups With Annalisa, Jilly Black & John White, Mid-October 2023

I was far too polite on both of those occasions to get my own back on Lenny – for the embarrassment he inadvertently caused me in 1984 – which I could easily have done, either by walking out of his show or confronting him in front of his friends in the restaurant. I’m far too nice a guy for that. I don’t bear grudges. Anyway, in truth, I had deep filed my memory of that ill-fated Ringroad performance, until going through the old materials brought the memories flooding back.

Lenny Henry 1980s (c1985), Photo by Jane McCormick Smith, CC3.0.

“Perfection isn’t everything, some mistakes are pretty groovy.”- Lenny Henry.

We Interrupt This Keele Student’s Union Sabbatical For A Short Visit To London Including A Bagel Hunt And A Heap Of Ringroad Show Rehearsals, 16 to 23 November 1984

A well used copy of The Clearing Song from Ringroad

What possessed me, given that I was so darned occupied that year as an SU sabbatical, to persevere with performing Ringroad? I guess I caught the bug during the summer, doing mini Ringroad gigs for the Open University students with Frank Dillon (and occasionally also Adrian Gorst).

My First Ringroad Performance and Related Memories, Keele, 18 August 1984

Further, it probably didn’t occur to me that semi-rehearsing and winging our way through Open University gigs in the summer was all very well, but Ringroad proper, during the term, would be large audiences, who had an expectation of evident preparation.

But before I get into all that, I’ll talk about the end of a momentous week and a short visit to London:

Friday, 16 November 1984 – Busy day – UC and getting staff out of the way. Went to London – arrived quite late. Had a drink and earlyish night.

I blush at the phrase “getting staff out of the way”, which sounds like dismally bad management practice. Looking at my appointments diary, it looks to me as though I had lined up a meeting with the cleaning staff for the Monday morning but also had a plethora of other meetings thrust upon me that day. My guess is that the staff agreed to bring the meeting forward to the Friday to lighten my – and probably also that of Kate Fricker and John White – Monday load.

“London” would have been Bobbie’s new place up in Finchley at the top of the Archway Road. She was sharing in a large house with several other trainee lawyers (mostly solicitors; Bobbie was a pupil barrister).

Chinese Dining & Bagel Hunting

Saturday 17 November 1984 – Rose late – did nothing in particular in afternoon – then went to Joy King Lau for evening.

Kake 新醉瓊樓 (Joy King Lau), Chinatown, London WC2 CC 2.0

Joy King Lau was one of my favourite Chinese restaurants back then. John White reckons that a visit he and I made (probably with others) was his first taste of “proper” Chinatown Chinese food. But the 17 November 1984 occasion will have been with Bobbie and possibly one or two of her new flatmates.

Sunday, 18 November 1984 – Late start again – went bagel hunting and meal then returned to Keele – arrived back quite late and did some work.

A brace of bagels that succumbed to a bagel hunt, many years later, displayed as trophies in my flat prior to their dénouement in one of my cricket picnics

I cannot believe that Bobbie would have been front and centre in seeking a bagel hunt. I think the impetus came from at least one of her other flatmates and for some reason my faint memory points, perhaps unfairly, at Sharma Gupta as the possible ringleader of the “lets go on a bagel hunt” idea. The hunt probably got no further than Finchley or Hendon. Even back then, the London Borough of Barnet was a pretty sensible place to hunt for the big five (bagels, blintzes, kugels, rye bread and matzo balls).

Back To Keele For Meetings Galore & Ringroad Rehearsals

Monday, 19 November 1984 -Busy day interrupted with meetings etc. Carol Holder’s in early evening and on to UGM evening – Petra came back.

Tuesday, 20 November 1984 – Hard-working office today – meetings et. al. Rehearsed Ringroad in evening also.

Each of those days included three or four meetings. I was SO “committeed out” and “meeetinged out” by the end of that sabbatical year – looking at my appointments diary I can see why. I get a headache just thinking about it.

The Ringroad team at the start of the 1984/85 year comprised Olu Odunsi (a comparative veteran of Ringroad), Dave Griffiths, Jo and Jackie [if someone can remind me of their surnames I’ll insert the full names]…plus me.

As the year went on, we beefed up the team, adding:

  • John Bowen (who was a relatively junior academic at that time, subsequently Professor of Modern Literature at Keele and currently – forty years on – Professor of 19th Century literature at York)
  • Warwick Cairns, who also went on to more serious and arguably greater things post Keele
  • Karen [again, to my shame, her surname escapes me. Jo and Jackie were both very good at playing assertive, strident women; Karen, with a gentle Scottish accent, tended to take the more subdued female parts].

Meanwhile our initially small Ringroad team of five’s first big project – and my goodness this was provisionally conceived as a ridiculously big project – was to support a Lenny Henry gig in the Students’ Union with a warm up act and a warm down act for the evening. Suffice it to say that this idea, on its original scale, was biting off more than even the most seasoned metaphorical bagel-munchers could metaphorically masticate in one go.

Image produced using DeepAI. No actual people or bagels were harmed producing this image.

Some Events Including Mystery Meetings

Wednesday, 21 November 1984 – Went to Stafford Demo in morning – committees in afternoon. Did disco with John in evening – went Petra’s after.

According to my appointments diary, I had Welfare Committee at 1.00 and Policy Staffing & Development Committee at 2;15, so that trip to Stafford (presumably to support a North Staffs Polytechnic demo) will have been an early start and a relatively short demo. It didn’t make the press (not even The Sentinel) by the looks of it. Crumbs – that Wednesday reads like a very full day.

Correction: the demo did make one paper…a Concourse Freebie. That freebie also had a full page write up of the Monday UGM, which I think must have been the one Ashley Fletcher remembers as a particularly raucous debate about the miners’ strike:

Additional Evidence From Concourse On Stafford Demo & Keele UGM, Mid November 1984

Thursday, 22 November 1984 – Busy day with meetings etc. Had quiet drink in evening – Petra came over later.

The appointments diary for that day lists four meetings:

  • 1.15 WPAR Room 13 [answers on a postcard please as to what WPAR might have been – I have no idea]
  • 2.15 DVC [that will have been Deputy Vice Chancellor which presumably means Professor Don Thompson who was Acting Vice Chancellor that term. I got on well with Don, who had been my Civil Liberties professor. He pretty much always came up with a fair determination when I had to appeal dodgy disciplinary matters with him]
  • 4.30/5.00 Farm & Fricker. [“Farm” was my former flatmate Chris Spencer. “Fricker” was Kate…now Susan…Fricker. I am in touch with both of them again now and can ask them why I was meeting the two of them about something that day. I think it is unlikely that either of them will remember. And unless something crops up in a future diary entry that provides clues, the matter will remain a mystery]
  • 7.00 Mergers. [I’m not sure what might have been merging with what. Sounds like something Kate and John might also have attended. I’m no more expecting either of them to remember the subject matter of “mergers” than I am expecting Farm and Fricker to remember the content of their meeting.

Friday, 23 November 1984 – UC in morning – busy in office all day – rehearsed Ringroad in evening.

I shall go into more detail about that Ringroad/Lenny Henry gig in my next piece, which will report on the week leading up to the Lenny Henry gig and the gig itself. For now, I’ll whet your appetites with one sketch I remember performing jointly with Olu in our capacity as a pair of newsreaders:

I think, on at least one occasion with that sketch, I announced myself to be Trevor McDonald and Olu announced himself to be Alastair Burnett…

…maybe you had to be there.

Enter Petra Wilson, Stage Left…Plus A John Martyn Gig On The Keele SU Ballroom Stage, 8 to 15 November 1984

Petra Wilson, Summer 1985

Of course Petra didn’t “enter the stage” on 8 November 1984, but that date is her first mention in my diary.

My Education & Welfare portfolio had two key voluntary assistant posts – Academic Secretary & Welfare Secretary. Annalisa de Mercur subscribed for the academic one and was incredibly helpful, both during the late summer when resits and appeals were all the rage…

Keele Education & Welfare Officer In Training: University Of York (Education), University Of Reading (Welfare), University of Keele (Resit Result Appeals) & University Of Life (Beer Tasting), First Half September 1984

…and then throughout the 84/85 academic year.

I have a feeling that someone had subscribed to take up the 84/85 welfare secretary post but needed to withdraw before the autumn 1984 term started. Perhaps it was unfilled all along. But for sure it would have been too much for Annalisa to fulfil both, although she did a sterling job of the pastoral support role with the resit/appeals community and also the early days/weeks of term.

I advertised the welfare secretary role at the start of term and I’m pretty sure Petra, who was an FY fresher, put her hand up quite quickly. She had been helping out in the welfare office and proving her considerable worth in that role for some two or three weeks before…

Thursday, 8 November 1984 – Worked hard today – rushed about – election count [to fill the controversially vacant VP External position] then Petra came over for dinner – stayed till quite late.

One thing led to another.

I was living in the resident tutor’s flat (that was basically two study bedrooms and the end of a corridor combined) on the ground floor of K Block Horwood; Petra’s room was very nearby (H Block I think).

Friday, 9 November 1984 – Union committee in morn and then busy afternoon – Ali’s [Ali Dabbs’s] birthday – all got drunk in union (after chasing assurance!!).

Saturday, 10 November 1984 – Went shopping in morning – went to office in the afternoon – Petra helped and came back for food and stayed late.

Sunday, 11 November 1984 – Rose late – went to office and worked in fairly leisurely style. Early night.

I have no idea what “chasing assurance!!” means – I can only guess that it was a Union Committee in joke at the time. Perhaps a John White-ism or a Hayward Burt-ism for trying to get University officials to commit to a course of action.

You might notice that I was putting in the hard yards – tending to work some (although not all) weekends. I’m sure Petra remembers, as does John White, that my catch phrase was:

I’m very busy!

(Janie might complain, 40 years later, that I still take on more than I should and still bark, “I’m very busy!” with alarming regularity.)

Who? Me? Trying not to look busy, Autumn 2024

John Martyn Gig, Keele SU Ballroom, 12 November 1984

Monday, 12 November 1984 -Busyish day – did quite a lot of work – meetings etc. Went to see John Martyn in evening – latish night.

For some reason, I still have the flyer for that concert. Perhaps it amused me then, as it does now. Perhaps I kept it because I was very keen to see John Martyn again (having seen what was, to me, a less memorable gig of his in October 1981). Or perhaps I’d simply used that piece of paper as a place marker in something I ended up keeping.

Well done Pady Jalali for getting John Martyn at a good price and enabling Keele folk to see him for less than half the price of anywhere else. And well done Pady for emphasising that pricing point. The messaging is SO YOU.

I’m listening to some John Martyn while writing this piece, to get me in the mood.

He played quite a lot of stuff from his more recent albums, not least Sapphire which he was releasing in conjunction with the tour. But he also played a lot from his canon. I remember getting very excited when he played this favourite of mine:

The following video was recorded less than two weeks after the Keele gig, with the addition of percussionists who weren’t there at Keele but with Foss Patterson who was at our gig on keyboards and backing vocals:

If the first piece reminds you a bit of Nick Drake and the second one reminds you a bit of Phil Collins, you’re not far wrong. John Martyn was a bit of a style magpie (in a good way), who hung out with, amongst many others, Nick Drake in the early 1970s and Phil Collins in the early 1980s.

I remember the gig being rather different from my expectation (my knowledge of him was stuck in the 1970s) but I still remember very much enjoying that gig.

In my vague memory Petra was with me at that gig, but that might be a false memory. The diary is silent on that point.

Back To Reality…With A Bit Of A Bump

Tuesday, 13 November 1984 – Not feeling at all good today – went home (sent home in afternoon). Much fuss made and Liza [O’Connor] came over in evening to cap it all.

Wednesday, 14 November 1984 – Pretty wretched day – Senate dragged on and on – not feeling too good – went home for an early night.

Thursday, 15 November 1984 – Hard day – work – met solicitor [John Cheetham] in afternoon. Went to Leo [Hamburger] & Sarah’s party in evening – Petra came back after.

Although more than 18 months had passed since my dalliance with mononucleosis (glandular fever)...

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

…I was still prone to the occasional “feel absolutely terrible for no apparent reason” spell. Actually, reviewing my diaries 40 years on, I think I can observe a pattern, suggesting that a late night after a bit too much to drink usually preceded such a day or two. I can certainly vouch for the fact that, 40 years on, it only needs to be “a tiny bit too much” drink the night before to make a mess of the next day.

I love the phrases “went home (sent home…)” and “much fuss made”. I don’t really remember it, but I can imagine Kate (now Susan) Fricker and Pady Jalali going into matronly mode, even in their young adulthood. John White would have supported them. Petra too, no doubt.

The home visit from Liza O’Connor (my ex from 82/83)…

Culture & Action At Keele, Late October 1982

…probably did not go particularly well. I cannot imagine that it was anything other than a coincidence that Liza was around to pop in on such a day. I’m pretty sure she was in Manchester studying that term, so presumably had briefly come home (to The Sneyd Arms) for some reason and tracked me down to my new bijou pad. “As if my life isn’t getting complicated enough”…was probably the subtext of my phrase, “to cap it all”.

For the Wednesday, “Senate dragged on and on” and “not feeling too good” gives me a clears sense of how I felt sitting there that afternoon. Kate Fricker had campaigned hard with the University to allow me to be the second SU representative on Policy Staffing & Development (PS&D) committee, which was the place where all the decisions tended to be made. Senate was more of a “rubber stamp or posturing” chamber for most matters…certainly those which had already been discussed in detail and approved by PS&D. For that reason, when PS&D approved items came around at Senate, my heart tended to sink even at the best of times if someone (usually a Professor who had lost a debate at PS&D) went over old ground, loquaciously, for a second and futile time at Senate.

Filibuster, anyone?

The Tommy & Ralph saga was never too far away that term.

A Week To Forget (Apart From Four Quirky Music Acts), Culminating In A Meeting To Regret: Tommy & Ralph’s Appeal To A Students’ Union EGM, 17 To 25 October 1984

The solicitor visit on Thursday 15th November would have been about the impending Employment Tribunal, scheduled for mid to late December. John Cheetham was the University solicitor – Kate and I had felt unconfident with the SU solicitor who had no real experience of employment tribunals. The registrar, David Cohen, had been helpful in allowing us use of the University solicitors for this purpose. He also took great pains to remind us, just in case it needed pointing out, that we couldn’t use John Cheetham for anything disputatious between the Students’ Union and the University.

“For the avoidance of doubt…” David Cohen 1960s COPYRIGHT KEELE UNIVERSITY

John Cheetham was a very good solicitor and looked after us sympathetically as well as professionally. He also, I clearly remember, was very cognisant of the mental strain that Tommy and Ralph were undergoing and went easy on them…which is more than can be said for Derek Bamford of NUPE’s approach to us…but that’s another story for another time.

As an avid Private Eye reader (back then and still), I was constantly amused by John Cheetham’s name, as a solicitor. He would surely have fitted in well at Private Eye’s fictitious law firm: Sue, Grabbit and Runne.

Leo Hamburger and Sarah’s party. I remember Leo well and recall keeping in touch with him for a while after Keele. He was very helpful in the Education & Welfare office, although he didn’t have a formal role in the way that Petra and Annalisa did. But it was my style to have a team of helpful people. As much as anything else, if the welfare office was to be staffed most of the time during office hours, I needed volunteers to do that while I was in meetings half the day.

I have managed to track down Petra prior to writing this article but have not yet tried to contact Leo, but I shall do so. I hope one of them will remember who Sarah was in this context. Possibly Sarah Hetherington who went on to marry Andrew Moran? Or possibly another Sarah.

Unfortunately we have no photographs from student parties such as Leo and Sarah’s from the mid 1980s. Photography had only just been invented and certainly wasn’t intended for such events back then.

But no matter – I have asked DeepAI to depict an appropriate scene and it has done a grand job of it:

Interesting that DeepAI depicts “UK students partying in a room in the mid 1980s” with mostly food and just a few signs of drink. My recollection, albeit fuzzy, is that it was much the other way around.