University of Keele – Ian Louis Harris

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.

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 Mike’s 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.

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

Three Weeks Of Easter Holidays, London & Keele, 1985

Having run myself down in the early spring of 1985, doing the Keele Students’ Union sabbatical thing, I took a bit of a break during the Easter holidays and then returned to Keele for a relatively calm period before the storm of my final term.

“Holy Week” & Passover Resting/Convalescing At My Parents House

Of course Holy Week had no meaning in my family, but the week or so in question was the run up to Easter and the Easter weekend. It coincided with Pesach (Passover) that year.

Monday 1 April 1985 – Lazy day – went shops – stayed in mainly taping, reading and feeling low.

Tuesday to April 1985 – Lazy day in – taped, read etc – feeling grotty and lazy. Stayed in evening also.

Image borrowed from Amazon, where this book can be procured.

Strangely, although the diary is silent on this matter, I very clearly remember reading Something Happened by Joseph Heller during that particular Easter break. It didn’t cheer me up, but I remember finding the book jaw-droppingly good. I had loved Catch 22 and had not expected to be that impressed by Heller’s so-called difficult second novel. Something Happened is a much under-rated classic in my opinion, but I digress.

Wednesday 3 April 1985 – Went to town [West End of London] today – went Newman Harris & Co – Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] for lunch – shopped etc. Lazy evening in.

Thursday 4 April 1985 – Went to Edwina [Green, doctor] in morning. Went to Dad’s shop in the afternoon and had an easy evening in.

Friday, 5 April 1985 – Did little today – went for a [traditional bank holiday, with Dad] walk etc. Had a nice dinner and watched TV etc. – lazy day.

Saturday, 6 April 1985 – Easy day – did some taping etc – went to seder that evening with Grandma Jenny. Very pleasant evening.

Sunday 7 April 1985 – Lazy day – nice lunch – went to Briegals [Jacquie, Len, Hilary & Mark] afternoon and evening – had a nice time there.

I’m trying to remember whether the Briegals were still in Wembley at that time (I think so) or had yet drifted further south to Swiss Cottage. Mark will no doubt let me know. Were smoked and pickled fishes involved? It’s hard to imagine that they weren’t, but 1985 was before the competitive aspect of herring feasting had been formalised.

Pickled Herring Of The Year Competition and Other Delights, 12 October 2016

Monday, 8 April 1985 – rose quite late. Had a nice lunch. Went to Auntie Frances [Harris] in the afternoon. Lazy evening in on phone and in front of box.

No doubt Angela, Vivienne & John (Kessler) will also have been there – this picture is of the former two a few years earlier in Auntie Frances’s flat:

Returning To Keele & Preparing For The New Term

Tuesday, 9 April 1985 – rose quite early – Winfred [May – neighbour & Mum’s friend] came over for lunch. Petra [Wilson] came over – returned to Keele – had dinner and early night.

That will have been the first time that my parents encountered Petra. I recall that dad was quite taken with her and that mum didn’t have a clue that we were going out with each other, probably because mum was so weird still about that sort of thing. Mum – I was 22 years old FFS.

Wednesday 10 April 1985 – rose late – lazed around. Went shopping in afternoon. Met Ashley [Fletcher] had a drink and stayed in. Lazy evening.

Thank goodness. Another Ashley mention to keep Ashley happy.

Thursday, 11 April 1985 – rose early – Union Committee in morning – lazy afternoon – went to union. Had a drink with John [White] in evening and then home for dinner, etc.

Friday, 12 April 1985 – Lazy-ish morning. Rose late. Had lunch – went SC – busy afternoon and evening – had nice meal etc.

If any of you Keele alum detectives can fathom what SC means in this context, please help me out. I am clueless.

Saturday 13 April 1985 – rose quite early went to Chester for the day – lunch – Toy Museum – drinks etc. Stayed in evening had a nice dinner etc.

I do remember an enjoyable day trip to Chester with petra, but I don’t in truth remember the Toy Museum there. Perhaps the place wasn’t all that memorable as it permanently closed down some years ago, as I write 40 years on.

Sunday, 14 April 1985 – Rose quite late had nice food went for a walk, etc. Big meal in the evening – did little. Nice day.

Monday 15 April 1985 – More or less worked all day – sorted some things out. Petra and I went for a very nice walk after. Lovely evening.

Tuesday, 16 April 1985 – Took day off – went Mainwaring. Shops – did some work etc. Ashley popped in. Lazy evening very pleasant.

Don’t panic – The Mainwaring Arms is still there in Whitmore.

Picture borrowed from the Google Review – click here or the picture to visit it.

I don’t find it extraordinary that my mood was clearly much better when recuperating at Keele in Petra’s company, compared with convalescing at my parents’ place. But what I do find interesting is how clearly the changed emotions ring out (and how well my memory can be triggered forty years later) by so few words in my diary entries.

Wednesday, 17 April 1985 – Easyish day in office – union committee morning – Petra went home – easy evening – walked with Annalisa early eve, stayed in evening, early night.

Thursday, 18 April 1985 – Fairly light day in office today – did a little work in the evening. Ashley and Co came around – cooked them a meal etc.

Friday, 19 April 1985 – Busyish day at work getting odds and ends done. Went over to Kate’s in the evening – got drunk and stayed late.

Saturday 20th of April 1985 – Rose late – shopped with Kate – did a little work and then did disco [with John White] in evening.

Sunday 21 April 1985 – Stayed in most of the day – saw Kate and Annalisa for a while and did work on birth control leaflet.

I really must get around to putting up some more “John & Ian Disco Playlists” after the success of the Bust Fund Disco one. Watch this space.

A 1984/1985 Keele Students’ Union Bust Fund Disco Playlist

Interesting that, in April, I was still referring to the publication that became “Sexplanations” as a birth control leaflet, as it became more than that between April and its publication in June. Watch this space for that too.

Addendum To Jilly Black’s Spring 1985 Visit To Keele: The Great Tampon Controversy

Photo by TitiNicola, CC BY-SA 4.0.

I didn’t expect controversy to arise from my article covering late March 1985, including Jilly Black’s visit to Keele:

But it did.

Jilly chimed in with this:

…one thing I do remember about a visit to Keele was… round to someone’s house…going into the kitchen for supper and being somewhat disturbed by the fact someone was sitting at the table with just a towel on. Do you remember who that might have been? Thank you anyway for another trip down memory lane. I remember our having an argument about what size of tampons should go in the machines in the women’s toilets at the university as well. What a selective memory I seem to have!

I suggested to Jilly that the venue was Ashley Fletcher’s place and that “towel man” was almost certainly Simon Legg, one of Ashley’s flatmates at that time. Simon might confirm or deny.

I then, perhaps foolishly, asked Jilly to elaborate about the great tampon debate. The following diatribe came:

Now, as far as the tampon size argument is concerned, I’m now trying to remember if Annalisa [de Mercur] was the one to support me in the argument that we had. Anyway, it was the year when you were running the student union or similar (please forgive my lack of specific information, as I didn’t keep diaries like yours unfortunately) but I do remember you were involved in deciding what tampon machine would go into the ladies loo, and, together with (I think) Annalisa, I was quite indignant over your choice of tampon size to go in the machine, as this had been made without suitable consumer experience of the selected product, and we were both of the opinion that your judgment on this occasion might not be so well appreciated by the eventual product users. If I’m not wrong, it seems that you took an executive decision and decided to stock the tampons you liked the most in the facilities without further consultation or discussion, and I frankly wonder to this day how it might have affected the overall wellbeing of those women who weren’t fortunate enough to make their own informed choices at the time.

I, personal care product expert, early 1980s

In my own defence here, I cannot imagine that I ever made a decision about the products to be supplied in the women’s (or indeed anyone’s) lavatories.

This debate feels to me, like the work of wind-up merchants, which might well have included Ashley, Simon and, if I’m not mistaken, Helen Ross, who also shared a flat with Ashley. I don’t think Annalisa was there that evening.

I can certainly imagine all three of them: Ashley, Simon and Helen, wickedly confirming: “oh yes, Ian makes all of those personal care decisions in the union, with reckless abandon and no regard for the opinions of the service users”.

I can also imagine that any attempt at denial by me would have been systematically refuted by the others as a weak attempt by me to cover my dictatorial tracks in the matter of personal care products.

Ashley: “Wind-up merchant? Do I look like a wind-up merchant?”

But Jilly’s strange memory piece raises a genuine question in my mind. Was there ACTUALLY an issue with regard to a mismatch between the products that students wanted and the products that were supplied in the Student’s Union loos? The truth of the matter, of course, was that the decisions about the specific mix of products in the machines would have come from the commercial provider. The economist in me believes that such a provider should, by dint of simple sales data, be able to provide a near optimal mix of products to maximise sales and satisfy demand. I realise that Ashley might now be laughing his head off while waving a copy of Careless Talk at me.

Anyway, putting politics and economics to one side, I would genuinely be interested to know whether or not Keele students from that era (or indeed any other era) actually felt that the vending machines were dispensing the wrong menstrual products.

As the Rolling Stones put it on the album Let It Bleed, “you can’t always get what you want”.

Late March 1985 At Keele: Finishing Off Wot Subsid Plus Several Visitors To My Horwood Flat – Scheduled & Unscheduled!

Thursday, 21 March 1985 went to doctors and onto CGH [City General Hospital?] etc. Went to see Ashley [Fletcher] and Co – after back to office. Not feeling too good. Did some work etc.

I was working on two publications that Easter Holidays. I was completing an update of Wot Subsid, and I was also starting research into an idea of my own – a publication on sexual health for students – which gained the title Sexplanations. More on the latter publication over the coming months.

Ashley gets very uppity if his name is missing from these “40 years on” pieces for too long, so it was a relief to see him mentioned twice in the space of 10 days in late March 1985. I am trying to remember who “and Co” might have been at that time. Helen Ross? Simon Legg? Ashley might remember.

Friday, 22 March 1985 – busyish day with Wot Subsid etc – not feeling too industrious. Stayed in evening – early night.

Saturday 23 March 1985.– Worked on What Subsid – shopped and worked some more – popped in to union and met Annalisa [de Mercur].

Annalisa is one of the two people I thanked especially for helping with Wot Subsid. The other person so named in my introduction is Sarah Heatherley.

Annalisa (above) & Sarah (below). Pictures by Mark Ellicott.

Annalisa and Sarah must have been incredibly tolerant, if that thank you is anything to go by, although I cannot imagine either of those two being silently tolerant! Both of them will have been among the un-named page collators, back in the days when that sort of thing had to be done by hand. I did my fair share of the collating and I recall Graham Pitt was a great help whenever collating was needed.

Graham Pitt – again from the Mark Ellicott collection

If you want to read the whole Wot Subsid booklet – and I find it almost impossible to imagine Ogblog readers not wanting at least to have a skim of the thing – I have scanned and uploaded Wot Subsid 1985/87 in all its glory.

Click here to read and/or download Wot Subsid 1985/87.

Sunday, 24 March 1985 – Rose quite late – worked on Wot Subsid. Played host to Margaret [Gordon] and Simon unexpectedly due to Contact lockout – fed & sheltered them and did some work.

In truth, although I remember Margaret Gordon well I don’t remember Simon. I’m not sure whether he was Margaret’s significant other at that time or a co-volunteer with her at Contact.

Contact was Keele’s Samaritans-like service managed and run by student volunteers. I’m not quite sure what went awry for Margaret & Simon that evening/night. Perhaps they had planned to use the Contact room as temporary accommodation for the night but discovered that it had been locked up for the vacation.

My little Horwood flat was not exactly proportioned for several overnight guests, so I can only wonder how we dealt with that, but there was some sort of a sofa and some floor space as well as my modestly proportioned single bed.

I also recall Margaret interviewing me at length about the Foundation Year (FY) for a piece she was writing for Concourse. Whether she took the opportunity to conduct the interview that night, or whether she just set up the interview at that time, I don’t remember. But here is the result of that piece of journalism, which was published in the May 1985 Concourse:

Let me see if I can track Margaret Gordon down and find out if she remembers anything about this.

Monday 25 March 1985 – busyish day in office today – stayed until quite late finishing Wot Subsid etc.

Tuesday 26 March 1985 – Easy sort of day in office – did very little work. Jilly nearly came to Keele, but didn’t. Had quiet evening.

Wednesday, 27 March 1985 fairly easy day in office. Jilly [Black] came today – had trauma with Kate [Fricker]’s flat etc – had nice meal tho and Kate stayed also.

I have no idea why Jilly nearly came but didn’t on the Tuesday, but clearly her change of plan was merely a delay of one day.

I also have no idea what went wrong at Kate (now Susan) Fricker’s flat to cause “trauma”, but Kate was quite a robust person, so I suspect it was something quite serious, such as a burst pipe or electricity failure, rendering the place temporarily uninhabitable.

Stretching my food supply out to feed multiple people was never too difficult in those days, as I always had plentiful supplies of grub in the flat and my choice of dishes tended to be expandable ones.

I should really produce an additional booklet for the Keele Students’ Union, full of my delicious, nutritious and eminently-expandable recipes, to assist future students in their choices of home-cooked meals. I think I shall name that booklet “Wot Subsist”:

In addition to eating, I am pretty sure that Jilly, Kate and I spent some time that evening listening to the records that Jilly had helped me to buy on my visit to Cardiff a couple of week’s earlier.

Twixt Keele & Cardiff: Classical Collections & Connections, Early March 1985

Here is a link to a YouTube Music playlist with those very albums on it. If our recent (forty years on) e-conversation about my “Cardiff Classics Collection” is anything to go by, Jilly would recommend in particular Harold In Italy by Hector Berlioz.

As for the sleeping arrangements in those, once again, unexpected and overcrowded circumstances, I don’t suppose any of us can remember.

Jilly – I’m pretty sure from an earlier visit to Keele – there is an autumnal look about the place.

Thursday, 28 March 1985 – Union Committee in morning – lazyish afternoon – Jilly and I went to Ashley’s for dinner. Very nice. Left quite early.

I have quite a strong memory of that very enjoyable visit to Ashley’s place for dinner. Jilly and Ashley had enjoyed meeting each other on a previous occasion. Ashley was keen to host us when he found out that Jilly was going to visit. In particular I remember a conversation about whether Marmite was a suitable product to use as “vegan stock” or not. Some elements of that conversation would not pass the student acceptability test today.

Friday 29 March 1985 – Rose early – Jilly left early – [I] tied up loose ends – came down to London – had a lazy evening in with folks.

Saturday, 30 March 1985 easy day – went to High Street – did very little today – stayed in evening.

Sunday 31 March 1985 Rose late – had nice Chinese lunch – lazy day in with folks – had a walk and watched TV.

A few days with the folks – other people spoiling me for a brief change. That Chinese meal can only possibly have been at Mrs Wong’s.

Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Ronnie Frankenberg & The Keele Day Nursery Nurses But Were Afraid To Ask – Plus Other Tales From The End of Spring Term 1985

The Keele Day Nursery, Spring 1985, reimagined with the help of DeepAI

There was a lot going on in the Students’ Union and University life in the first half of March that year. Add to that the fact that Petra got some sort of lurgy that landed her in the health centre and I was intermittently poorly too. My diary entries are not exactly upbeat but they are revealing.

4 t0 10 March 1985 – Meetings & Writings &Workings & Dancings…

Monday, 4 March 1985 – busy day – got some work done – FP [family planning] meeting in the afternoon. Constitutional committee in evening – Petra came over.

The family planning meeting was with Dr Anne Pedrazzini, who was a big cheese in the North Staffordshire family planning world at that time. This was the first of several research meetings that led to my magnum opus, Sexplanations. More on that publication once the ideas conceived in March gestated and came to term…the following term.

Tuesday, 5 March 1985 – union committee in morning – busy day. Did Bust Fund disco in evening – Petra came round after.

I recently published a Bust Fund disco playlist, curated jointly with John White, with whom I DJ’d those events. Click here to listen to the YouTube Music playlist directly or below for the article that contains the list:

A 1984/1985 Keele Students’ Union Bust Fund Disco Playlist

Wednesday, 6 March 1985 – meetings etc. all day. Had a relatively easy evening and early night for once.

Thursday, 7 March 1985 – busy day with meetings etc. all day – cooked Petra a meal in evening – nice, stayed.

Friday, 8 March 1985 – went to DHSS in morning. Busy day – social secretary election and big fuss in evening – went Kate’s briefly in evening – not feeling too good left early and slept well.

I think the DHSS meeting was also connected with research for the nascent idea that became Sexplanations. I don’t recall what the big fuss was over the Social Secretary election that Friday. I was a veteran of big fusses over elections by 1985, especially, it seems, on days when I wasn’t feeling well. The story linked here and below, from two years earlier, is my best story about such an evening:

A Week When Everything At Keele Made Me Feel Sick, Even Smoke-Filled Rooms & Students Union Politics, 6 to 11 February 1983

The March 1985 Social Secretary shenanigans was probably a mere bagatelle compared with the golden era of election shenanigans.

Saturday, 9 March 1985 – shopped etc. today and worked all day in office. Went to Nigerian do for awhile – Petra came over later.

Those Nigerian community events were great fun. I’d got to know that community well the year before my sabbatical. There was a fair smattering of Cameroonian students who also “qualified” and tended to hang with that crowd, so “West African” might be a more accurate description of the events. The parties were lively; there was always music and dancing aplenty.

No doubt some seriously funky Fela Kuti music formed part of the scene. The following clip will give you an idea of the Fela Kuti vibe at that time:

Sunday, 10 March 1985 – Rose late. Busy day working today in office etc. Worked till late – stayed at Petra’s.

I was working hard and playing hard that year – no wonder I was poorly a fair bit of the time. I’m feeling a bit run down right now, just thinking about all that activity and typing about it.

Ronnie Frankenberg & The Day Nursery Crisis

Monday, 11 March 1985 – busy day with meetings all day – Petra in Health Centre – UGM in evening – didn’t go too well.

Tuesday, 12 March 1985 – busy all day – union committee and Reading folk up for the day. Day Nursery, hustings, RingRoad rehearsal in the evening. Also visited Petra in evening.

I don’t in truth remember the visit from the Reading folk, but I do very clearly remember the Day Nursery crisis.

RAI 39784 Portrait of Ronnie Frankenberg photographed by Jochen Resch, c. 1990s ©RAI – this picture from the Royal Anthropological Institute site, used on a fair use basis and to provide a link to the RAI’s biographical note on Ronnie – click here or the picture.

As Education & Welfare Officer, I was, ex officio, a Trustee of the Keele Day Nursery, which was a small, non-profit organisation, existing solely to provide day nursery facilities for toddlers of staff and students alike. The Chair of the Day Nursery was Professor Ronnie Frankenberg, a wonderful fellow who had been the initiating energy behind Keele’s highly-regarded Sociology & Social Anthropology department. Here is a link to his Guardian obituary from 2016.

The day nursery crisis was caused by an outbreak of pregnancy among several of the handful of nursery nurses who operated the day nursery. I can’t remember how many staff we had (not many), but the team was sufficiently small that having two or three on maternity leave at the same time was going to generate a hugely problematic shortfall of staff. Even in those days, there were strict staff to toddler ratios and it was proving prohibitively expensive to cover multiple maternity leave periods with temporary, qualified staff.

I remember Ronnie making a genuinely interesting and hugely informative speech at the meeting – quite a long speech – explaining the sociological… or perhaps I should say anthropological… phenomena, making it surprisingly likely that a day nursery might be blighted with such “outbreaks” of pregnancy by several members of the team around the same time. Psychological factors, social factors, cultural factors and even biological factors all come into play, we learnt. It was like a mini Foundation Year lecture. I almost found myself making notes and thinking up a really good question for the Q&A at the end of the lecture.

But in reality, my mind was juggling the engrossing complexity behind the causes of our problem with the practical realities that the tiny trust’s coffers were emptying at an alarming and unstoppable rate.

As Ronnie’s extrapolation wound down, I interjected by saying, “this is all absolutely fascinating, Ronnie, but where are we going to find the money to cover the additional costs?” My comment raised a laugh and also refocussed the meeting. I can’t remember what fundraising ideas we came up with, but I suspect that they only partially solved the money problem. A begging bowl in Registrar David Cohen’s direction probably helped to make up the remainder of the shortfall.

That is my favourite (but not only) memory of Ronnie Frankenberg…which is, by the way, pronounced “Ron-knee Frank-en-berg”:

Joking apart, my memory of Ronnie Frankenberg is that he was not only a very impressive Professor in his field, but also an extremely likeable and decent man.

Wednesday 13 March 1985 – loads of meetings all day (including Senate). RingRoad rehearsal. Petra came over after.

Thursday, 14 March 1985 – busyish day – followed by rehearsal and performance of RingRoad – went well. Petra came over after.

Friday 15 March 1985 – horrid mood today – E&W election – v worried – Hayward [Burt] won – hooray – cooked Petra dinner and she stayed.

I have no idea why I was so worried about Hayward’s chances in the Education & Welfare election for 1985/86. Presumably there was a candidate competing with him who I thought might win and then undo a lot of the initiatives I had been working towards. While Hayward and I did not see eye to eye politically on all issues, I basically saw Hayward as “one of the good guys”, who would work hard and build on many of the things I was trying to achieve. Indeed I’m sure he did.

Saturday, 16 March 1985 – got up quite early cooked Petra lunch and took her to the station. Had a very early night.

Sunday, 17 March 1985 – Rose quite early – pottered around – cooked Kate lunch – had a lazy day. Had another early night.

Someone sneakily added some unrepeatable graffiti in my appointments diary about that Sunday lunch with Kate. The graffiti is in Petra’s handwriting. I don’t think I could have spotted it at the time – otherwise I’d doubtless have scratched it out – so I suspect that the outrageous mock-diary-entry has sat there, previously unread, for forty years. I must admit it made me smile out loud, all these years later. Private requests only for a copy of that note. Young people, honestly!

Monday, 18 March 1985 – went doctors etc in morning – rather an unproductive day. Ruth and Jackie [Wong] came over – had earlyish night.

Ruth and Jackie were both friends/neighbours of Petra. Lovely lasses, both. I wonder whether Petra is still in touch with either of them?

Tuesday, 19 March 1985 – union committee in morning. Last day of term – hassle over disciplinary hearing etc. Had some wine – earlyish night.

Wednesday, 20 March 1985 – Pady and I took a day off – shopped and cooked meal for Crawfy’s [Andy Crawford’s] birthday. All got drunk.

Me, Pady & Crawfy. As usual, thanks to mark Ellicott for the lovely picture.

Oh dear, that last line: “All got drunk.” Well, I suppose it was the end of term.

A 1984/1985 Keele Students’ Union Bust Fund Disco Playlist

Were John & Ian the only ones dancing?

Click this link to see the 40 track, 150 minute example playlist of a John White & Ian Harris Bust Fund Disco from 1984/1985.

Don’t be put off if the link looks struck through – anyone can play the playlist. If you don’t have a YouTube Music subscription you’ll get occasional adverts, that’s all.

John and I have separately tried to remember our most regular and favoured tracks, then swapped notes…

…eventually a metaphorical puff of (totally legal) white smoke came out of a metaphorical chimney.

Your role, dear reader, is simply to enjoy the playlist. But please, if you wish, do chime in through comments with your own memories of bust fund discos, which I believe started several years before our sabbatical year and presumably went on for some years after.

For any readers who might be baffled by what a Bust Fund disco might have been – I explain the phenomenon in this piece – click here or below:

Keele Sabbatical In Court Twice In One Day, Discos Including A Bust Fund Disco, Courting Controversy & More, 15 to 22 February 1985

John White and I tended to focus mainly on ska, rocksteady, reggae and dub – as had oft been the wont of bust fund discos, plus a nod to sixties/psychedelic music, which “bust-fund-disco-istas” also tended to like.

Our DJ-ing style was to cluster types of sound and to favour segues that had some meaning…even if you needed a degree in musicology and/or expertise in music of those particular styles to get the gist of the segue choice!

For those who just want to look at the list rather than click and listen – the track listing is shown below.

But surely you’ll see something you want to hear – here’s the link to the YouTube Music playlist again, where you can skim the list just as easily.