Tag: University of Keele

Live Bands, Movies, Mystery Girls, Campaigning Against Cuts & Fascism…Even Some Studying, Keele, Late October 1981

Hut picture borrowed from the Keele Oral History Project – click here.

By late October the first term of my P1 year was into full swing.

Wednesday 21 October – OK day – got some work done – went to see John Martyn in evening.

Thursday 22 October – not bad day – went round blocks for cuts thing in evening.

Dave Lee’s excellent book, The Keele Gigs! reviews that John Martyn gig well, reminding me that there was a good ska support act too – Bumble and the Beez – which was a bonus. I saw John Martyn several times at Keele over the years – I don’t think this particular gig was my favourite among them.

Friday 23 October – Day OK – Met Karen & Myrna in eve – union etc.

Saturday 24 October – went out during day – went to Union & party in evening

Karen & Myrna – I owe you both a wholehearted apology. You clearly came up to Keele to stay with me for the weekend, but I simply cannot remember who you are or how I got to know you or what you look/looked like or anything. It’s a complete mystery. If someone out there can help me out and nudge my memory, I might have an “aha” moment and be able to muster a few hundred words on that lovely pair of lasses.

MYRNA LOY, MGM portrait, 1930s

I’m pretty sure that “mystery visitor Myrna” was not Myrna Loy (depicted)

Sunday 25 October – K&M left – went to J-Soc meeting – delivered leaflets in afternoon – worked in evening

Monday 26 October – day OK – went campaigning against the cuts in evening -> Sneyd Arms

Tuesday 27 October – day OK – campaign against cuts and film (Raging Bull) in evening.

I’m glad to see that I was out campaigning against the cuts so early in the academic year, although this does make me think about one of my favourite Oscar Wilde quotes.

I was also busy helping to organise the Anti-Fascist day for early November – mentions of it come up regularly in my diary for late October 1981.

Wednesday 28 October – busy day – viewed films for AFD [Anti-Fascist Day] in afternoon – Labour Club & restful evening

I remember that afternoon viewing films so clearly for two reasons. Firstly, the circumstances in which I viewed the films. A sort of media facility in one of the old Nissen huts that still peppered the campus at that time, twixt the Students’ Union and the Chancellor’s Building.

Borrowed from the Keele Oral History Project

Secondly, I so clearly remember the content of the footage I reviewed – it still gives me the heebie-jeebies to think about it. Documentary footage about organisations such as The League of Saint George and other less arcane ones such as The British National Party and The National Front. Much unsurprising but some material truly shocking and worrying to the 19-year-old me. I still shudder at the thought of some of it.

Thursday 29 October – Busy with Anti-Fascist Day. Went to see Altered Images in the evening.

Dave Lee’s The Keele Gigs! reviews the Altered Images concert in far more detail than I could muster from that slight diary entry. My impressionistic memory is that I was not too impressed with them. It would have looked a bit like this:

Friday 30 October – Busy rushing around for J-Soc. Went to film – Jabberwocky – pub with Lloyd [Green] etc.

Saturday 31 October – Very busy with J-Soc. Cooked for 8 hours (Rice salad). Went over to Harrowby after…

Cooking for 8 hours on a Saturday is not a very J-Soc thing to do. This can only have been preparation for the Anti-Fascist Day and I assume we had started the thought process, which continued into the far more positive International Fairs that followed that day – that an event that celebrates diversity through encouraging people to eat and congregate together can do more for the cause than fretting about the bad people.

Why rice salad might take 8 hours to cook I have little or no idea – although if we were trying to use small pans and hall kitchens for a large-scale catering, that might explain it.

“Harrowby after” I am pretty sure is the night I met Anju Sanehi and her friends Louise and Sharon. Richard Van Baaren and Benedict Coldstream were there too. No mystery there; Saturday night in Lindsay Hall, Keele.

A New Keele Year Beckoned, Once Lloyd Green & I Had Prepared, Atoned & Got To Keele, Eventually, In Lloyd’s “Trusty” Motor, 9 & 10 October 1981

Forty years on, Dave Lee at Freshers Mart selling his wonderful book, The Keele Gigs! – available by clicking here. Picture “borrowed” from Dave Lee’s Facebook posting.

Between finishing my holiday job in late September…

The Last Four Weeks Of My 1981 Summer Job, Including New & Old Friends, Preparing My Return To Keele, A Near Miss & Losses, 30 August To 26 September 1981

…and returning to Keele, I squeezed in quite a lot of activity.

Some of the activity is more than a little illegible or indecipherable. I know that Lloyd Green and I were working hard those last couple of weeks towards a Keele racism awareness day, Anti-Facsist Day as it was badged. That activity, at places such as Hillel House, needed to be co-ordinated around the Jewish Holidays – Rosh Hashanah (New Year) was 30 September/1 October that year. Col Nidre/Yom Kippur 7/8 October.

Interspersed with those activities (with minimal regard for the rigours of the Jewish holidays on my part) were plenty of socials:

Sunday 27 September …Anil [Biltoo]’s for dinner party…

Wednesday 30 September …Met Jim[Bateman] at Rose & Crown…

Friday 2 October …Paul [Deacon] came over in the evening

Saturday 3 October …Anil came over for supper – went on to a party with him & friends -> back to Anil’s till early hours

Tuesday 6 October -…went up to town to look at Hi-fi [to help choose replacements for items stolen in a burglary a couple of week’s earlier] – met Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] for lunch. Buy books…

OMG – “buy books” – at last a mention of something that might be vaguely connected with preparing for a new academic year at Keele. I was certainly preparing well for the social side of it.

In those days, I would attend South-West London Synagogue (colloquially known as Bolingbroke) with my dad for Col Nidre & Yom Kippur services – the latter being pretty much a whole day affair.

Even by 1981 the congregation was on the wane; just a few dozen people. I was one of a handful of younger people who would still show their faces there.

I’ll write more about that congregation elsewhere, but I was reminded recently (forty years on) of one regular attendee on those high-holy days, Miriam Margolyes, who would regularly attend with her partner. Far and away the most interesting “nodding acquaintances” amongst what was mostly a small group of traditional old men.

CelebHeights.com, CC BY-SA 4.0

With all of that effort preparing an honourable education campaign against racism and the many hours spent atoning for my first year at Keele, I might have anticipated an easy time getting back to University the next day.

But no.

Friday 9 October 1981 – Left home midday – [Lloyd Green’s] car broke down – arrived late – key not to be found – stayed at John’s

By my reckoning, the journey to Keele from Streatham would normally be about three hours, so Lloyd and I clearly had quite a lengthy ordeal as a result of that break down. I don’t remember the details – Lloyd might of course and I’ll certainly report back here with his remembrances, if he has any. It might be that breakdowns twixt Keele and Streatham were a fairly regular event for him back then.

I think “The Lloydmobile” was something like this

I owe “John” both thanks and an apology. Thanks for putting me up/putting up with me that night and apologies because I have no idea which “John” this diary mention is talking about. If there is a John out there who wants to put up his hand and claim the merits for this act of charity, please chime in with your claim.

Saturday 10 October 1981 – Rose Early – Freshers Mart – went to town after. Simon [Jacobs]’s party quite good in evening.

Judging from the headline picture above from 10 October 2021 – thanks again Dave Lee – Freshers Mart has not changed much in forty years. Did I mention that Dave is at Freshers Mart forty years on selling his wonderful book The Keele Gigs!?

That book is/will be an invaluable source for my Ogblogging. I learn, for example, that Simon Jacobs’s party saved me from seeing Mud in the ballroom that night. Simon (and his sister Sue) had studiously avoided seeing Mud at Lindsay the previous term, whereas I had seen them then.

Visits & Magical Memories As Clear As Mud: Towards the End Of Summer Term At Keele, 9 to 20 June 1981

Mud, like Morris Dancing, is one of those experiences one should try once at the very most, I feel.

Still, I was back at Keele for another year. Hooray.

When Worlds Collided And A Crazy Social Whirl Resulted: My Keele Friends Sim & Tim’s Weekend To The Alleyn’s & BBYO Version of London, 7 to 9 August 1981

Photo: PAUL FARMER / The Crown and Greyhound Dulwich Village (aka The Dog)

My diary, from forty years ago as I write, tells me that this was one crazy weekend, during which I zig-zagged my visiting Keele friends, Sim & Tim (Simon Ascough & Tim Woolley), hither and yon across London for a couple of days.

I had been spending a fair amount of time with those two towards the end of that academic year, much of it in the Student’s Union snooker room:

Essaying With Exams, Girls & Snooker Towards The End Of My Foundation Year At Keele, 31 May to 8 June 1981

Sim was from Doncaster and Tim was from Moseley, South Birmingham. I have an inkling that they had never been to London before…or at least “not visited a Londoner” before.

Reading my diary and assessing the activities I inflicted upon them, they might have formed a lifelong skewed opinion on what London life is like. I’m not sure I had a weekend quite like it before or since.

Friday 7 August 1981 – A Mini Pub Crawl Following In My Alleyn’s School Footsteps

Fox On the Hill Jwslubbock, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0g

7 August – Work OK – Sim & Tim arrived -> ate -> Fox -> Dog -> met Mark from Keele -> his place ’till late

Mum will have given us all a hearty family meal on the Friday evening ahead of the mini pub crawl. I cannot remember whether we did all of our dashing around London by car or by public transport. I think it must have been the former; if so it must have been Tim who had a car with him.

That first evening, I wanted to show Sim & Tim the places I used to drink with my friends before I went to Keele. The Fox On the Hill (aka The Fox) on Denmark Hill and The Crown & Greyhound (aka The Dog) in Dulwich Village. I thought we might bump in to a few old friends from Alleyn’s in at least one of those places, but that didn’t happen.

Indeed, my most vibrant memory from that whole visit was my embarrassment in The Fox when, for the first time ever, the barman questioned whether I was old enough to buy drinks in the pub.

I remember feeling like saying…

…but I’ve been buying drinks in this pub for years…since I was fifteen… and no-one has ever questioned it before…

…but I feared that such an admission might prevent me from being served or get me barred, so I simply asserted myself as a University student down after my first year at Uni and had my word accepted.

No ID cards for pub-going youngsters in those days. Why The Fox had started asking questions all of a sudden back then I have no idea – perhaps they had experienced some youngster trouble since my previous visit.

As for “Mark from Keele” whom we met in The Dog, I’m not sure which Mark this might have been. I don’t think it was Mark Bartholomew – perhaps it was a mate of either Sim or Tim’s who lived in or near Dulwich and was named Mark.

Diary says we didn’t return to my parents house until late – in fact I am trying to work out what the sleeping arrangements might have been. There was a studio couch in the small (fourth) bedroom which was ample for one sleeping visitor but would not have been comfortable for a couple, let alone two individual sleepers. Perhaps one of them slept on the floor in a sleeping bag.

Saturday 8 August 1981

The Saturday really was a crazy day of haring around town. Allow me to translate that diary note – I needed a bright light, a magnifier and a cold towel around my head to work it all out:

8 August – Earlyish start -> Knightsbridge -> Notting Hill -> Soho – met Mark Lewis -> Ivor’s -> eats -> Hendon -> Ivor’s -> home (knackered).

Frankly, I’m knackered just reading about that day.

I’m hoping that this article will help me to track down either Sim or Tim or both of them – perhaps their memories of this day will help me to unpick it.

I suspect that we went to Knightsbridge because one (or both) of them had a crazy craving to see that place, with its Harrods & Harvey Nicks reputation.

Possibly the same applied to Notting Hill and Soho. Possibly I encouraged the Notting Hill idea, as it was, even by then, a place with a hold on my heart, not least for the second hand record stores, which I had been visiting for a few years by then.

What we got up to in Soho I have no idea. Given that, whatever it was, we did it with my old BBYO friend and now media law supremo Mark Lewis, I suggest that readers keep their baseless allegations to themselves.

I’m not even sure whether Mark joined us on our subsequent BBYO-alums crawl to visit Ivor [Heller, in Morden, where I had enjoyed warm hospitality for many years]…

Ivor Heller’s Fifteenth Birthday Party, 20 to 21 May 1978

…then Hendon, where I imagine we visited Melina Goldberg, as I don’t recall staying in touch with anyone else from that BBYO group…

…then back to Ivor’s – why the diary doesn’t say – perhaps Ivor had organised a bit of a gathering of old friends from Streatham BBYO – it wouldn’t have been the first time nor the last.

Sunday 9 August 1981 – Lunch & Then Wendy’s Place Before Sim & Tim Left London

Took it easy in morning -> lunch -> Wendy’s -> Sim & Tim left, I returned home & slept a lot!

What a bunch of wimps. We’d hardly done anything the day before.

Anyway…

…I’m sure mum would have wanted the visitors to have another hearty, home-cooked meal before heading off – otherwise what might they think of us?

Eat, eat…

Then on to Wendy (Robbins)’s place, in Bromley, for a final visit of the weekend.

Not sure whether any of the other Streatham BBYO people were there. Andrea possibly, Ivor possibly…

…in any case, Bromley is probably not the ideal location out of all the places we visited that weekend from which to head back to Birmingham and Doncaster on a Sunday afternoon – but those logistical details matter a lot less to 18/19 year olds than they do to me, forty years on, re-treading the tangled maze of visits that was our London odyssey that weekend.

Goodness only knows what Sim & Tim made of it at the time, nor what they might make of it now, if they see this piece and are reminded of the weekend. I’d be delighted if others, e.g. Sim and/or Tim, got in touch with their memories to help me enhance this Ogblog piece. If they do, I’ll publish a postscript.

Please help fill in the blanks.

A Very Special Week, The Last Week Of My First Year At Keele, But There Was A Catch… 21 to 28 June 1981

My impressionistic memory of that last week of term is a blissful one. The weather was brilliant. I had a nice spot outside my room where I could sit reading and/or listening to music.

If I fancied a quiet spot for reading, I ambled down to the centre of campus and sat on the grassy knoll in front of the library, reading books for leisure.

The Keele Library grassy knoll was appropriate for me that season, I now realise, having studied modern history as an FY sessional with Trevor Jones, in which the Bay of Pigs and a better-known grassy knoll loomed large.

The book I especially remember reading that week was Catch-22. I still have the well-thumbed copy I read back then – it is depicted above, on the shelf where it now lives. I think I read a few play texts as well.

The word “lazy” appears in my diary a lot for that week. “Restful” and “relaxing” also appear.

I have described playing snooker with my friends Sim & Tim in an earlier piece…

Essaying With Exams, Girls & Snooker Towards The End Of My Foundation Year At Keele, 31 May to 8 June 1981

…we did a fair bit of snooker playing in the evenings of that final week.

It was a special week in more ways than one; the Summer Ball was graced by The Specials…

Paul Williams/Richard Andserson/Mike Laye, CC BY-SA 4.0

…and if you’re wondering now if they were any good…take my word for it, they were a special act for most students of our era. Forty years on, Dave Lee’s forthcoming book The Keele Gigs! will no doubt answer our questions about that gig and a great many others.

The diary says I was up all night for the ball (seems realistic) and that I went to bed very early the next night in the hope of a long night’s sleep ahead of my parent’s first visit to Keele and the journey back to London with them on the Sunday.

I really had fallen in love with Keele and was delighted with the prospect of three more years there. In fact, as it turned out, I stayed four more years.

At the time, during those carefree, idyllic, summer days at Keele, I remember the 18-year-old me thinking that I could happily live at Keele for ever.

But there is/was a catch.

Let’s call it “Catch-18” in this case. In fact, Joseph Heller originally titled his seminal work precisely that, before other works with numbers in the titles pushed him and the publishers towards a different choice of number for his catch.

My 18-year-old’s catch is this: if you are wise enough at the age of 18 to realise that a perennial summer break surrounded by books, youngsters, sunshine, beer and gigs would be a wonderful way to live your entire life…

…you are also wise enough to realise that no such life is realistically possible.

Oh shoot!

On the Monday I started my holiday job and by the Tuesday I had been sent to Braintree to audit a furniture factory.

Brenda Howard / Braintree Town Hall Centre, Fairfield Road, Braintree / CC BY-SA 2.0

“Vedi Braintree e poi muori”, as Goethe would not have said, had he ever been to Braintree. But he might have said “Vedi Keele Library e poi muori” while sitting on that grassy knoll.

Jonathan Hutchins / Keele University Library

Visits & Magical Memories As Clear As Mud: Towards the End Of Summer Term At Keele, 9 to 20 June 1981

Was it Mud at the Lindsay Summer Ball that year?

I have a very strong, impressionistic memory of enjoying myself thoroughly during the last few weeks of the summer term of my Foundation Year at Keele.

Unfortunately…perhaps because I was having such a good time…my memories of specific details are less than special and my diary entries pithy to say the least.

I’ll do my best, but could seriously use some help from the hive mind of those who were also there at the time.

A Short Trip To London, Then Caroline Came Up To Keele With Me, 9 to 12 June 1981

Tuesday 9 June 1981 – Up quite late – had lunch came home. Supper – early night.

Wednesday 10 June 1981 – Haircut in morning – met Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] for lunch – Cyril Monty. Job – early night.

Not many mentions of haircuts in my diaries from that era – a rare event which, I suspect, came as a result of some serious emotional pressure from mum, combined with the reality that I would need shorter hair for my summer job and was not allowing time between coming down from Keele on the last Sunday of June and a presumed work start date of the Monday!

Meeting Caroline for lunch was quite a regular thing in those days. I think she was at Harrods then, so it would have been one of those quite up-market but affordable eateries in Knightsbridge, of which there were plenty at that time.

Caroline: “let’s lunch” – with thanks to Jilly Black for this photo.

Cyril Monty was an orthopaedic surgeon who, along with his family, were friends of my family. I had suffered an industrial injury while working during the Easter holidays that year:

Industrial Injury In Cavendish Square, c26 March 1981

Cyril Monty told me that I was likely to be prone to back problems throughout my life, but if I did plenty of exercise and avoided injury I might get away with it. I invested in a second hand exercise plan book (along with many other books) on the following Friday…

…and did exercises from that book for the next few years. But I am getting ahead of myself.

“Job” will simply mean that I popped around from Cyril Monty’s Harley Street consulting room to 19 Cavendish Square to confirm my summer job starting arrangements.

Thursday 11 June 1981 – Dentist [Harry Wachtel] in morning – shopping – cataloguing tapes etc. Early night.

Friday 12 June 1981 – Up for lunch – taping etc. – met Caroline. Came up to Keele – lazy evening.

On reflection, the taping sessions I described for my unscheduled visit to London in May…

We Interrupt This Keele FY Summer Term: Matters Of Life & Death, Plus A Couple More Mix Tapes, 8 To 19 May 1981

…were probably undertaken (or at least were completed) on this June visit.

Caroline’s Visit, Segueing Into Richard’s Visit, 12 to 16 June 1981

Saturday 13 June 1981 – Hanley for lunch – Gladstone Museum – Mis’s party in evening.

MartynDavies, CC BY-SA 3.0

I was rather hoping that Caroline would remember some details about this visit and Mis’s party. Simon Jacobs (as usual) drew a blank. Caroline’s response to my request for further information:

I’m with Simon, if you think my memory is going to be better than your diary!. I do remember the weekend as described, particularly a boozy party, but unable to add anything to enhance the description!

I describe the next (Sunday) morning as an early start, although what one did with an early start at Keele on a Sunday is a mystery to me. “Early” might be a relative term, of course and I suspect that we went to the campus store to get some food in, as Simon apparently made lunch and I made dinner that Sunday.

Sunday 14 June 1981 – Early start – buying…lunch at Simons [D Block Barnes], lazy afternoon. Dinner here [F Block Lindsay] lazy evening.

Monday 15 June 1981 – Late start. Lunch – Caroline left in afternoon. Richard [Marks] came. UGM -> party – up till late, v drunk.

Richard remembered…but not for this visit

Neither Simon nor I remember this visit from Richard. I clearly remember his earlier visit during the first term;

Richard Marks Visits Me & Simon Jacobs At Keele, Not Least For Stoke v Manchester United, 19 & 22 October 1980

I wonder what he made of a Keele UGM and the “v late, v drunk” party. I suspect Richard only stayed around for a day or so (the diary is silent on this) as I suspect he was visiting us as part of a road trip which included friends in Manchester and/or Leeds.

Tuesday 16 June 1981 – Good for nothing today – did likewise. Lazy evening etc. Film bad.

Wednesday 17 June 1981 – Earlyish rise – cat etc. Went to disco etc. in eve – played snooker

Thursday 18 June 1981 – Up really early for J-Soc exec meeting. Went to Sneyd in evening.

I wonder how early “really early” was for that meeting. I didn’t have anything else to report until the evening, which might be a clue.

Sue Jacobs Visit & The Mystery Lindsay Ball, 19 & 20 June 1981

Simon Jacobs’s sister Sue – with thanks to Jilly Black for this photo

Friday 19 June 1981 – Lazy day. Bought Books. Susan came in evening. Film Salon Kitty, Lindsay Ball. Mark [probably Bartholomew] & [Liz?] came & stayed late

That book buying session did a great job of getting me started with summer holiday reading plus some basic texts for my impending P1 year.

Salon Kitty was an X-rated movie and Sue was only 16 at the time, but the experience does not seem to have done Sue any harm, nor does it seem to have stuck in her memory.

I have a feeling that this Lindsay Ball must have been the one at which Mud played, but neither Sue nor Simon reckon that they have ever seen Mud. Then again, Simon didn’t even remember that Sue visited us that year. Forty years on, Simon says:

Just because you claim that my younger sister paid us a visit, doesn’t necessarily mean that we attended the Lindsay Ball. Which brings us back to Mud. If they were the top attraction of the night, I might well have found a reason to do something else… x

Sue’s “forty years on” take on all this was as follows:

Fancy Simon not remembering me visiting….no surprise there! I did visit, although no idea of the details at all. Except that we saw a hypnotist show? Simon also did take me back to his room to put me to bed and then to go off again himself…I have no idea about his return…! Happy days!

The hypnotist would have been at the ball and I have a feeling that we did all go to the ball and/but that Simon (& thus Sue) dipped out ahead of the band. So I’m sticking with Mud, as it were, as my best guess for the band for that occasion.

That’s right, that’s right, that’s right, that’s right…

I certainly did see Mud there on one occasion and cannot find another Lindsay Ball mention in my diary that might have been Mud. Hopefully someone amongst the Keele alums out there can confirm or deny my theory.

On the occasion I did see Mud, I recall the Keele audience all-but ignoring the band until they played the only hit of theirs that tended to catch the imagination, at which point everyone danced and chanted wildly:

Muddy Postscript

Helen LeGrand has helped to confirm that Mud’s visit to Lindsay must have been that summer ball in 1981. She adds a very specific memory of her own: “Don’t think it was the original Mud line-up. Memorable for the encore when the lead singer [Les Gray – the only survivor of the original Mud line-up by then] came back on stage completely naked. I’m sure I’m not misremembering that. 😲“

I am pretty sure I didn’t hang around long enough to see the encore, which explains why that mental picture (more smutty than muddy) mercifully does not form part of my own memory.

Saturday 20 June 1981 – Simon & Susan for lunch – went to Newcastle shopping – lazy evening – late night.

Essaying With Exams, Girls & Snooker Towards The End Of My Foundation Year At Keele, 31 May to 8 June 1981

Did The Keele Students’ Union Snooker Room Look Quite This Modern?

After the drama and excitement of the first part of that late May weekend…

From Morecombe To Wise(r) Via A Linguistically Out Of Key Note, Keele, 29/30 May 1981

…the next few days read quieter and calmer – apart from a few signs of aftershock from the abusive note incident.

Sunday 31 May 1981 – Late rise – did little all day (essay) – Union in evening – reasonably early night.

Monday 1 June 1981 – Union Committee in morning – finished essay in afternoon – UGM in evening – Mark [Bartholomew]’s afterwards.

Tuesday 2 June 1981 – Late rise – handed in essay – went to see The Last Waltz – awful – latish night.

I don’t honestly remember attending Union Committee on the Monday morning. I do remember that word reached the SU about the abusive note that had been placed under my door on the Friday evening and that they took the incident very seriously. In some ways more seriously than I took it.

I think some people, with all good intentions, were considering an emergency motion at the UGM that evening or some sort of statement. I think I dissuaded them.

I’m pretty sure Simon Jacobs (plus others, no doubt) were at The Last Waltz (a highly-regarded film that simply did not work for me, nor did it seem to work for most of my entourage that evening, if I remember correctly) with me and would have been part of the unmentioned activities (probably beer and smokes somewhere) that led to the latish night.

A Veritable Procession Of Visitors

I’m sorry to say that I have no real recollection of the “so-called revision day” on Wednesday 3 June, which reads to me more like a visitors day than a revision day:

Wednesday 3 June 1981 – Revised today – OK – Mary [Keevil], Rani, Miz [Miriam Morgan], Hilary [Kingsley] etc. popped in -> Sneyd -> coffee with Hilary

Where this sudden burst of popularity with females had come from, I have no idea. Perhaps Sandra had been talking me up. More likely, these were well-intentioned check-ins from concerned friends in the matter of the abusive note, which seemed to be affecting some others more than it was affecting me.

Forty years on, I find it hard to imagine getting much, if any, revision done with that number of visitors.

My handwriting analysis suggests that I wrote this part of my diary up some days after the event. But still, the word “etc.” after a string of four visitors suggests that there were several others.

I’m pretty sure that part of Hilary’s purpose (a visit AND post-pub coffee) was to persuade me to agree to sit on the JSoc (Jewish Society) committee, something I had previously stated my extreme reluctance to do. I’m not sure whether Hilary was yet going out with Lloyd Green (a friend of mine from my Streatham childhood and coincidentally a Keele student a year or so ahead of me) but they did go out with each other at Keele and subsequently married each other.

Thursday 4 June 1981 – Exams today?? – Roy’s binge in evening – quite entertaining.

Friday 5 June 1981 – Politics exam today – Union in evening -> Sands [Sandra]!

Saturday 6 June 1981 – late rise – restive afternoon – went to Union with Sim [Simon Ascough] – supper – Union again – dullish evening

Roy was Simon Jacobs’s boyfriend pretty much throughout that year. Roy will have completed his finals around that time, so my guess is that the binge was related to that. Simon did not keep in touch with Roy after Roy left Keele. Nor did I keep in touch with Sandra after she left Keele, nor did I see much of her the following year, when she was doing finals.

I think I probably meant “restful” when I said “restive” afternoon, although there is something restive about my tone for the next few days. I needed to go to London to resolve some matters ahead of my late June return for the summer and/but was no doubt itching for the more exciting-sounding events that would form the end-of-term/end-of-academic-year summer activities.

A whole weekend between exams must have seemed like an imposition.

Darker. The UKSU snooker room was darker if I recall correctly.

Sunday 7 June 1981 – Late rise – did little – snooker – bar in eve – dull day.

Monday 8 June 1981 – Read in morn – exam in afternoon, Union in evening – v late night.

I mention snooker a few times in my diary towards the end of that summer term. I recall playing the game a few times with Sim and Tim – I’ll write that up a bit more when I get to the second half of June – but perhaps these early efforts were with Simon Jacobs.

Forty years on, Simon and I discussed this matter when he visited us (late May 2021), agreeing that our ability to play snooker was slightly improved by a drink or two, then rather more dramatically diminished by each subsequent drink. If only we had been able to retain information from formal scientific experiments in class as well as we have retained the empirical evidence from those informal “clinical trials”.

Anyway, by the Monday, that was it, academically-speaking. Last essays done, last exam done. I had no formal purpose at Keele for the next few days, so I popped back down to London on the Tuesday.

An Horrific Time At Keele Towards the End Of My Foundation Year, 20 to 28 May 1981

By Seulatr – Public Domain.

The final term of my FY year was pretty darned great, actually. So when I say, “an horrific time”, what I really mean is, “a short period during which horror seemed to feature a great deal”.

Wednesday 20 May 1981 – OK day. Went to see The Cramps – OK.

Such gigs will be properly reviewed in Dave Lee’s book, The Keele Gigs!, due out Summer 2021. Suffice it to say that my mini review: “OK”, doesn’t help much. I do recall that The Cramps style of music was described as Psychobilly and we were even told that their 1981 phase had its own sub-genre name: Voodooswampabilly.

It looked and sounded very much like this 1981 live clip from San Fransisco later that year:

Thursday 21 May 1981 – Last day of lectures – union in evening.

Nothing horrific about finishing with lectures. Of course when I say “lectures”, in my case I really mean, in respect of that day, “lecture” as the ticks and crosses in my FY programme book make it very clear that I only made it to the 11:00 job that day: Mr Allinson talking about the electronics of television.

Not that television played any part in my day to day life back then – I had no television of my own and didn’t visit the television rooms much during my whole time at Keele – I’m not sure I went into them at all in my FY year.

I did interview a television personality around that time, though – Patrick Moore – an event that didn’t seem important enough to record in the diary but is already up on Ogblog:

My Keele Interview With Patrick Moore, Conducted In My Little Study Bedroom (Lindsay F4), circa 28 May 1981

But I digress.

Friday 22 May 1981 – OK day. Amityville Horror -> Union in evening. Back with people after – late night.

Film Society, perhaps in cahoots with the Union, seemed to be having a horror-themed week. They showed The Shining the following Tuesday. The Amityville House in Long Island is depicted in the headline picture btw.

Putting to one side the fact that my stroppy relationship with my dad’s old Rolls Razor at that time was yielding similar amounts of real blood as those movies were yielding the fake stuff…

The Shaving Razor’s Old And It Stings, A Keele Fresher’s Facial Fiasco, Summer Term 1981

…I developed a form of cognitive dissonance towards such films at that time, which never went away. I was/am, in almost equal measure, thrilled and shocked by them, yet also amused by the over-the-top melodrama of some elements of those film productions.

I was clearly doing a lot of reading at that time, presumably for my final essay (which was on topology if my memory serves me well) and in preparation for the sessional exams in politics and history.

Saturday 23 May 1981 – Earlyish rise – reading loads – Cabaret Futura in evening.

Have I yet mentioned Dave Lee’s book The Keele Gigs! due out in Summer 2021? No doubt he will cover that Cabaret Futura gig better than I did in my diary – not even a one word review from me for that one. I vaguely remember enjoying the evening for its quirkiness without really digging the music.

Good article here about Richard Strange and the Cabaret Futura thing from 1981 in The Guardian.

I’m pretty sure that Eddie & Sunshine performed the following as part of the Cabaret that night. Anyway, I recall electro-weirdness of this kind…and the reel-to-reel tape recorder to make me feel at home:

Sunday 24 May 1981 – Plenty of reading again – Union in evening.

Monday 25 May 1981 – Wrote essay today – out in evening

Tuesday 26 May 1981 – Handed in essay – went to see The Shining after drinks – coffee after, late night.

Wednesday 27 May 1981 – Easyish day (not good). Relaxing evening, late night again.

Thursday 28 May 1981 – Not bad day (laundry, vote etc). Easy evening in union after celebration.

I’m not too sure what we were voting on 28 May nor why I was joining in celebrations. The major elections tended to be over long before late May, but perhaps it was Steve “Spike” Humphrey’s election against Tony Roberts, which had to go to a re-ballot, as reported but not explained by the cub political editor back in March.

Roberts, vanquished but still smiling. Photo thanks to Mark Ellicott.

The thought of the FCS managing to get a ballot voided and then get their candidate elected would have been horrific, so Spike prevailing in the revote would have been cause for celebration.

But all such horrors – musical, cinematographical or political, were mere aperitifs for the seminal yet horrifying matters that unfolded over the following day or two. I wrote those up a few years ahead of this “forty years on” series, so the next episode is already there to be read:

From Morecombe To Wise(r) Via A Linguistically Out Of Key Note, Keele, 29/30 May 1981

Trigger warning: an horrific example of racial and linguistic abuse is described within that piece.

We Interrupt This Keele FY Summer Term: Matters Of Life & Death, Plus A Couple More Mix Tapes, 8 To 19 May 1981

The summer term of my Foundation Year (FY) at Keele was mostly, in my memory, idyllic. The music I was listening to at the time, on the Philips Spatial Stereo Ghettoblaster/Boombox depicted above, still brings to my mind so many sensations from that first spring/summer at Keele, forty years ago as I write.

I have just written up the comedic story of that ghettoblaster’s procurement, in Bournemouth just before I set off for Keele. It should please those who like slapstick sitcom scenarios:

A Week In Bournemouth: “Nothing To Do Here” (Apart From Master Blaster Jamming), 21 to 27 September 1980

Anyway…

…one thing my memory does not recall one jot is the Friday evening of 8 May 1981, when, according to the diary:

…went to Burslem in evening. Enjoyable evening. Back here [my salubrious new room, Lindsay F4] for coffee.

What on earth was there to do in Burslem back then that was enjoyable? I hope someone remembers and chips in with a memory or two.

I went to see And Justice For All at Film Soc on the Tuesday (heavy, star-studded stuff). They were clearly into star-studded, deep stuff that term, as the following Tuesday I saw The Deep.

I reported several essay and exam results 12 & 13 May (all B+s and B-s, median returns for a 1980/81 FY student, I should imagine), before the utterly unexpected interruption; the sudden death of my Uncle Manny, which I wrote up a few years ago:

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

That was serious, growing-up stuff, as I explain in my write up of the circumstances and the funeral.

I like the way I wrote up Monday 18 May in my diary:

Decorator moved in – I moved out! Back to Keele – finished politics.

The decorator was named Ron Day. Why I remember that fact, when I cannot remember the names of people I met recently and whose names I have good reason to remember, I cannot fathom. Anyway, it’s good to know that I had completely mastered politics by 18 May 1981.

But before I moved out – almost certainly on the Saturday evening which I describe as an “easy evening”, I made a couple of mix tapes for myself, mostly from the second-hand records I had been buying at Record & Tape Exchange over the preceding few years:

Visiting Record & Tape Exchange With Paul Deacon, 29 April 1978

Those readers who like this sort of thing might enjoy the listings and the recordings below. Where possible this time I have used the digitised versions of my actual old crackly records.

Hidden Treasure Side A
Hidden Treasure Side B – minus the two tracks (presumably from the radio) embedded below

Dusty Side A
Dusty Side B

A real mixed bag there.

As I have said elsewhere, anyone who lived south-facing in Lindsay D, E and especially F blocks, plus the military outpost that was G Block that year, all enjoyed the benefit of my musical miscellany at high volume on my blaster for the remainder of the summer term of 1981 whenever it made sense to open the windows and/or sit outside – which was quite a lot that summer term if my memory serves me well.

Image “borrowed” from a defunct catawiki listing on fair use basis for identification

The Shaving Razor’s Old And It Stings, A Keele Fresher’s Facial Fiasco, Summer Term 1981

Rolls Razor Picture by Dr.K. 03:53, 5 October 2007 (UTC), CC BY-SA 3.0

A Couple Of Years Before I Started Keele

In the late 1970s, an American entrepreneur named Victor Kermit Kiam The Second announced that he was so impressed with the Remington electric shaver his wife bought him as a gift, he henceforward would eschew the use of the wet shavers he had used throughout his life and…

…get this…

…Victor Kiam bought the company that made Remington shavers.

My dad was way ahead of Victor Kiam in switching from blades to Remington electric shavers; by the late 1970s, dad had several of them. Two at the house, plus one at the shop, where dad’s routine required a five-o’clock shave, removing shadow ahead of late afternoon customers (or mostly lack thereof, by the late 1970s). Dad was not ahead of Victor Kiam in the matter of entrepreneurship. 

In my early days shaving, I used dad’s spare Remington at home to remove the odd visible patch of dark fluff from my face.

My First Term At Keele – The Shaving Story

Vintage Remingtons are still available for purchase, e.g. on e-bay

When I set off for Keele University in autumn 1980, dad lent me that spare Remington, plus lotion bottles (pre shave and after shave) plus an old spare illuminated art-deco-style shaving mirror. The makeshift electrical wiring and plugs for that paraphernalia looked like a physics experiment.

But whereas prior to Keele, my facial hair only became visible once every few days, I soon started to notice daily patches of hair and started to shave regularly.

Increased Remington use combined badly with regular intake of beer, cigarettes and the rest. My face and neck became sore losers of facial hair; itchiness and blotchiness abounded. 

Second Term At Keele

For my second term at Keele, Dad switched my loan from the old Remington to a more modern foil-headed electric shaver…

Another style of vintage Remington still available e.g. on ebay.

…but the skin irritation persisted; possibly it even got worse.

Bloodbath At Keele – Summer Term 1981

Dr.K. 02:46, 5 October 2007 (UTC), CC BY-SA 3.0

Thus, over Easter 1981, contra-Kiam as it were, dad and I agreed that I would switch from electric to to wet shaving. Dad rebundled my loan, replacing the Remington with the Rolls Razor he had used as a young soldier during the war. This contraption, which they stopped making before I was born, was a metal box containing a strop and a re-useable safety razor. You would sharpen the blade on the strop, then detach the razor for your wet shave. Eventually you would change the blade, which, if memory serves me well, required a screwdriver and a fair bit of dexterity.

The other thing that needed dexterity was the safe use of such a safety razor.

We could not buy the company that had made Rolls Razor – it had gone bust by then – but we should have invested in the makers of styptic pencils and sticking plasters.

Styptic Pencil –  Anhydrous aluminium sulfate seeing as you (didn’t) ask
Photograph by Rama, CeCILL

I recall seeing several horror films towards the end of my first year at Keele; The Amityville Horror and The Shining spring to mind, so I had plenty of suitable similes to describe the bloody bathroom scenes of my early Rolls-Razor efforts.

Aftermath And Analysis

I did eventually get the hang of it and that Rolls Razor took me through most of my five years at Keele. In fact I wet-shaved for 25 or more years, until I “went beard” at the end of 2007.

But why did a long-haired ha’porth of a student, with two cack hands and a skin-sensitive face even bother with shaving?

The answer lies not in the facial hair itself, but in the gaps between the patches of facial hair.

It was OK for the youngsters who were blessed with a full growth of facial hair at the age of 18. Simon Jacobs, for example, had five-o’clock shadow from the start at Keele.  But most of us looked ridiculous with sparse facial hair.

I recall Richard Van Baaren naming our Lindsay F-Block corridor’s five-a-side football team ‘Tempted ‘Tache, in honour of fellow undergraduate males’s failed attempts at moustaches.  No, I didn’t play for that team; I have two left feet as well as two cack hands.

Sorely tempted ‘tache-wise in Paradise, 2016

Inadequate facial hair was like a flashing neon sign saying JUVENILE…BOY…NOT YET A MAN.  No self-respecting Keele fresher wanted that. The tell-tale wispy, fluff-stuff had to go, even if the result was bloody carnage, born of cack-hands and a pimply face.

The Six O’Clock Alarm Would Never Ring, Starting My First Keele Summer Term, 24 April to 9 May 1981

It’s sometimes difficult to get up in the morning when you are a first year Keele student. Who knew?

Back then, I had an alarm clock a bit like the one depicted above. I could easily sleep through the ringing of that alarm. I remember bringing back a metal biscuit tin after the Easter holidays with the sole purpose of increasing the volume of the ringing, by placing the alarm clock within the biscuit tin. Didn’t work, I know, I know.

The Key To Getting A Good Night’s Sleep As A Keele Undergraduate

Mind you, it doesn’t help if you start the term as described above. Here is a transcript for any readers not so well versed in the rarefied script that is my handwriting:

24 April 1981 – Exams today. After dinner went to Mark’s [Bartholomew] -> Union. Talking till late with Sim [Simon Ascough], [Mad] Harry & Dave [Johnson, I think].

25 April 1981 – Easy day. Went to Union in evening -> Roy’s for drinks – Melanie [Print], Ashley [Fletcher] & Louise [Lorenc] – locked out – stayed…

26 April 1981 – …overnight. No sleep. Found keys in morning- had lunch – wandered aimlessly & slept from 6 pm until 8 am.

With thanks to Ashley for recalling Melanie & Louise’s names. Neither of us really remember what passed that night, other than a lot of bullshit chat no doubt and Ashley probably went to town with his Adolf Hitler and Ian Paisley (senior) pastiche/parody speeches.

“The flag of my country is hanging upside down outside this building”.

I simply cannot imagine sleeping 14 hours straight through any more. It’s not just that I know I couldn’t do it; I really cannot even imagine it.

Still, that extended night’s sleep got me up in good time for the first FY lecture of the term. What a fresh start.

My First Rolo & My Last Rolo

That peculiar sleep pattern got me up in time to see Professor Paul Rolo’s 9:00 history lecture and Professor David Adams’s 11:00 American Studies lecture.

I recall being fascinated by both of those lectures. Peculiarly, the allure of Russian and Fascist revolutions did not enable the alarm to rouse me on the Tuesday, but the idea of another Paul Rolo lecture somehow enabled the alarm to interrupt my slumbers on the Wednesday and get me to the FY Lecture Theatre for 9:00.

Similarly, the prospect of order in the post-war international system, combined with the alarm clock, failed to get me out of bed on the Thursday morning, yet the subconscious thought of another David Adams lecture woke me and got me to the Chancellor’s Building for the 9:00 lecture on the Friday for the third time that week.

This is the first sign of a pattern that persisted throughout my student years; I was able to get up for lectures, even at 9:00, if I thought they’d be worth the candle. Otherwise I tended to skip the lectures, read up on stuff at leisure (if need be) and sleep in like a teenager…which is what I was.

I didn’t get to know Professor Paul Rolo – he left a year or so after I did FY – but he could lecture and he sounds like a fascinating chap.

Professor David Adams I did get to know when I sat on Senate and also prior to that, when I sat on the train from Stoke to Euston or from Euston to Stoke. He must have gone to London quite a lot because I remember encountering him several times. A really interesting and lovely chap.

What Else Did You Get Up To, Kid?

Ok, ok, I’m getting to it.

Monday 27 April 1981 – First lectures etc. – finished moving etc [all the way from pokey Lindsay F1 to salubrious room with a view Lindsay F4] after dinner -> Union, quite pleasant

Tuesday 28 April 1981 – Light day. Went to see film in evening (Fame – v good,) -> on to union with gang – quite good.

Wednesday 29 April 1981 – OK day. Went to Concourse meeting – on to Mis [Miriam Morgan] & Heather [Jones] for heavy evening

Thursday 30 April 1981 – easyish day. Did little. Short stay in Union – reasonably early night.(Simon [Jacobs] & Sim [Ascough] came back after)

Friday 1 May 1981 – not bad day. Busy afternoon (Kallah photos). Went to see film (yuk). Went back to union – bon.

I’d started going to Film Society by the end of the second term and went a lot in this third term. I am pretty sure the 1 May film which I did not name but described as “yuk” was Fellini Satyricon. If I remember correctly, there weren’t all that many of us in the FY lecture theatre at the start of the movie and by the end I think just three or four of us had stuck it out.

Saturday 2 May 1981 – Easy day. Shopped in Newcastle – went to see David [Perrins] & friends, supper they came over -> Sneyd, Union bop -> Amanda’s.

Sunday 3 May 1981 – Lazy day – went to Lloyd’s [Green] and Amanda’s -> Union in evening.

I feel bad saying this, but I cannot remember who Amanda is/was, but she was unquestionably a diary highlight that weekend. Simon might remember. Lloyd might remember. But I feel that it is me who should remember. Apologies. If you are out there, Amanda, please do get in touch and jog the memory…if by chance you remember anything about it.

Tuesday 5 May 1981 – Busyish day. Saw All That Jazz in the evening. Simon’s [Jacobs] for coffee after – good.

Wednesday 6 May 1981 – OK day. Went to see Discipline and Lounge Lizards in evening – v good.

Dave Lee’s forthcoming (as I write in April 2021) book The Keele Gigs! will no doubt review Discipline (whom in truth I don’t really remember), and The Lounge Lizards (a gig I remember well and very fondly). You can see something quite similar to the gig we saw on YouTube – click here:

Thursday 7 May 1981 – Easyish day. Laundry etc. Easyish evening.

Friday 8 May 1981 – Busyish day. Went to Burslem in evening. Enjoyable evening. (Came here for coffee).

Saturday 9 May 1981 – Late start, Newcastle shopping – ate – Union in evening – back here after.

That new room of mine, Lindsay F4, was salubrious enough to become a focal point to the extent that people had started coming back to my place. It might also have had something to do with the fact that I was going in to Newcastle on the weekend to buy food so always had something to eat – possibly even some left overs of cooked food but at the very least plentiful biscuits. My mum would have approved.

I should highlight the fact that Simon Jacobs gets a couple of mentions in this piece – he wrote to me saying that he was mightily put out that he didn’t get a mention in the previous Keele piece.

Bless my cotton socks, I’m in the news…