John White in the SU Secretary’s Office which was, in December 1983, Viv’s office. “Wouldn’t have happened on my watch”, says John (SU Secretary 1984/85). Photo by Mark Ellicott.
Monday 19 December 1983 – Rose quite late – laundered. Got drunk in Viv’s office – then ate ->Veras [Veera Bachra’s] – pub crawl – stayed in Wolstanton
It’s a bit of a miracle that I’m still alive. I remember even less about the Wolstanton pub crawl than I do about the Barnes L54 one. If Veera was there I’m sure her friend Debbie was there and I guess some of their crowd. Ashley, Bob and Sally might have formed part of that “off campus” excursion but I don’t remember those two social circles ever overlapping…not that absence of remembering that level of detail is evidence of anything.
I’m guessing that Veera and co were living in Wolstanton at that time. My main memory of them is from Barnes but I think they moved on after 82/83.
The pub crawl would no doubt have taken in The Archer and The Plough… perhaps we ventured further than Wolstanton on that crawl.
Tuesday 20th December 1983 – Got up early – left Wolstanton went to ‘Castle – then Keele – packed and left – arrived at Marianne’s [Marianne Gilmour] early evening – stayed in.
Wednesday 21st December 1983 – Rose fairly early – did a few chores in afternoon etc – went to see Rear Window at Hampstead [Everyman] – most pleasant.
That was my first ever visit to the Everyman and I remember it most fondly. The Rear Window showing was, if I remember correctly, a recently remastered print which showed the superb cinematography of that movie in all its glory.
Clearly I was not in a mad rush to visit my folks that Christmas, as I spent three nights at the Gilmour residence in Stanmore before returning to the bosom of my own family. I think Marianne’s folks were away, which is why she and I ran around after her grandparents a bit.
I think Christmas dinner “at The Benjamin’s” was still in Woodfield Avenue that year, but perhaps they had already moved to Putney by then. I expect there were just eight of us around the table – four Benjamins, Doreen’s mother (named Jessie Jackson) and us three Harris folk. Possibly Lisa was already with Nathan by then.
I have collaborated with Dall-E 2 to produce this and the following images in this piece.
..one of the great benefits, to me, from securing a front-facing Barnes flat for 1982/83 (Barnes L54) was the view across the playing fields to the tennis courts.
My plans to spend a fair amount of the spring and summer of 1983 on the tennis court seemed to have been thwarted by my debilitating indisposition with glandular fever in February, but still, I recall, Alan “The Great Yorkshire Pudding” Gorman and I had agreed to bring tennis rackets back from our Easter breaks as we intended to do battle with each other on the tennis court.
Neither Connors nor McEnroe would have seemed more brattish than Pudding or Harris
I was religiously exercising to try to strengthen up a bit, following the dreaded glandular fever, using a Royal Canadian Air Force Exercises book I had procured, for a few pence, a couple of years earlier (soon after I knacked my back) at the Students’ Union Book Fair:
Now a rare book, that 1964 edition. I should still have mine somewhere; ironically out of reach
…but should specifically apologise to the residents of L51, especially whosoever was unfortunate enough to dwell directly underneath me, for the “thud thud thud” of those exercises. I also apologise unequivocally to my spine, for I am now reliably informed that those “space cadet style” Royal Canadian Air Force Exercise Plans were not intended for the likes of me and my back.
Anyway, I remember asking Dr Scott, towards the end of the Easter recess, as the weather started to improve, about the possibility of me playing tennis.
“Good idea”, said Scotty. “Outdoor exercise like tennis, in moderation, should work well for you.”
“What comprises moderation, Scotty? How long might I play for?”
“Your body will tell you”, said Scotty.
So, before Pudding’s return to Keele, I started my preparations, seeking some warm up games with anyone who was around.
Tuesday 12 April 1983 – …went to Mike and Mandy’s for dinner and haircut…
Wednesday 13 April 1983 Did a little work today – played tennis in afternoon with Veera & Debbie…
You won’t see many mentions of hair cuts in my diaries. Mike had been a hairdresser before he went to North Staffs Poly and I recall Liza insisting that he cut my hair. I would normally resist, but clearly I was seeking some vital streamlining for the tennis to come.
Veera & Debbie were my neighbours from Barnes L52. I don’t think they were particularly sporty but were happy to have a go with me in the interests of my physical wellbeing. I think Debbie was a bit better and keener on tennis than Veera.
Thursday 14 April 1983 – …went out for meal at Mil????/ with Liza…
Friday 15 April 1983 – …played tennis with Hamzah [my flatmate] Yazzid & Bai [Malay guys from Barnes Q92]…
I cannot read my own handwriting on the name of that restaurant/cafe on the Thursday. Mildred’s? A “proper” game of doubles with the South-East Asian contingent on the Friday. Yazzid & Bai were quite sporty. Hamzah wasn’t.
Most of that gang no doubt imagined Vitas Gerulaitis to be a Latin term for glandular fever
Sunday 17 April 1983 …tennis with Debbie…
Yes, I recalled correctly that Debbie was keener and probably a tad better than my other friends and neighbours, all of whom were great fun to play tennis with, regardless of the quality of the tennis. Mine was probably pretty shoddy at that time anyway.
Tuesday 19 April …played tennis with Hamzah…
Thursday 21 April …got economics result…53% v pleased…played tennis for 4 hours…
Saturday 23 April …played tennis in afternoon (poor) & then went to Liza’s new place
The intriguing thing about these postings is that I mention the opponent in every posting except the last two, which were, of course, matches played with (against) Alan Gorman.
It seems I had established my intention, to play this game with Alan, so clearly in my mind, that I didn’t need to mention who I was playing against when the opponent was Alan. Obviously it was Alan.
Alan and I might have looked a bit like this
Less obviously, my definition of “moderation” and “letting my body tell me” extended to a four hour marathon match that first time we played each other. It established a tradition which we implemented with more fervour the following year – that we would battle a best of five sets to the bitter end – an indulgence that I simply cannot imagine (at least in the matter of singles) any more.
No wonder I was “poor” a couple of days later.
I mentioned my economics result in the diary. I wouldn’t be “v pleased” with 53% for economics these days – only gold medals will do – but having been so poorly and having missed so much class, I remember Peter Lawrence encouraging me to sit the mock exam without much expectation of a pass, hence he (and I) thought that result pleasing in the circumstances.
As a footnote – we would often see Economics department folk – not least Peter himself and Professor & Mrs Fishman – on the tennis courts. Not many academics (or students) used them, but they did. I’ll have more to say on that when I write up 1984. But some readers might be surprised/fascinated to learn that Professor Fishman’s grand-daughter, Leo, worked for my firm for a number of years. Despite Leo being a tennis neophyte, she successfully won our mini-tournament in 2010:
That first season of it, my play was interrupted in part by my spending lots of time with Liza at Rectory Road, Shelton, where she now resided with her North Staffs Poly pals.
Also by some waves of indisposition as a result of glandular fever relapses, which probably were exacerbated by four hour tennis marathons – who knew?
Tuesday 26 April 1983 …played tennis for a while…
Friday 29 April – …played tennis…
Sunday 1 May – …not v well today went back to Shelton…
Footnote – A Clarification From Professor Lawrence
In response to me sending him a link to this piece, Peter Lawrence sent the following clarification about the professorial tennis:
You did indeed see me on the courts usually playing my then wife. I remember seeing Les Fishman on the courts but never his wife Ellie. Les usually played with the wife of someone in Maths whose name will come back to me after I have sent this email. Not sure who made up the four, probably the maths guy to keep an eye on his wife maybe but who else I remember not.
Not only were the academics keeping an eye on each other and each other’s wives, but they were, at times, keeping an eye on me. On more than one occasion, that spring and especially the following one, my finals year, either Les or Peter commented to that I seemed to be spending a lot of time on the tennis court just ahead of my exams. I no doubt demurred with a “healthy body, healthy mind” type comment, but they did have a point.
This posting is really just an excuse to publish a couple more mix tapes (or playlists as they are now, forty years on, known), following the success of the previous posting with Liza O’Connor’s mix tape.
There was a suggestion on the Forever Keele Facebook Group that I might have been responsible for disturbing the peace of revising finalists next door, in Barnes L53.
But my diary reminds me that I spent little time in my own flat in those vital revision weeks, early in the summer term of 1983, once Liza moved into a flat in Shelton – Ogblog will write up those events in good time.
It also occurred to me that I had two other cracking good mix tapes given to me around that time. One, “Singles Without A Cause”, was made for me by Veera Bachra in Barnes L52 across the corridor – the other, “Hamzah Varieties” by Hamzah Shawal who was one of my own flatmates in L54. His compilation only stretched to one side of a tape – he was more of an album dude I suppose.
Very distinct tastes in music, both tapes differently eclectic and both very interesting in their own way. Veera’s music tended to blare out from L52 while Hamzah’s music could be heard blaring out from L54. The discerning listener could surely tell which type of music was in play.
They’re great mix tapes, anyway. In particular Veera’s one still gets an airing in my household quite often. Here they are.
Singles Without A Cause – Collated By Veera
Jumping Jack Flash, The Rolling Stones
Twelve Thirty, The Mamas and the Papas
Teenager in Love, Dion (and the Bellmonts)
Pleasant Valley Sunday, The Monkees
The Locomotion, Little Eva
Tears of a Clown, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles
The UGM That Never Was (Photo: KUSU-Ballroom-1962-John-Samuel)
Don’t ask me why 7 March 1983 was noteworthy in my diary as “UGM That Never Was…”. Presumably some of us sat around for some time hoping for a quorum but the quorum never came.
Lots of mentions of Liza visiting me and even me visiting her at The Sneyd, so any hangover form my post-glandular-fever grumpiness had presumably abated…
…lots of activity and lots of mentions of being busy…although I do recall getting uncharacteristic waves of fatigue for many weeks after my release from the Heath Centre.
Friday 11 March 1983 – Rose early – did quite a lot of things. Alan went home – election appeals – went to see film with Liza – back here after…
…I think Alan had some serious partying to do back home that weekend and had finished all of his course work for the term that Friday. I recall that Alan returned to Keele several weeks later looking a whiter shade of pale green, having been out on the lash with his mates just before returning to Keele. I wondered whether a single binge-boozy-party had been sustained throughout all of those weeks and asked him that very question.
ALAN: Feels a bit like that today.
ME: You look a very funny colour, to be honest.
ALAN: You haven’t exactly looked rosy-cheeked yourself lately, mate.
ME: Fair point.
But I digress.
I’m irritated that I didn’t write down the name of the film that Liza and I saw that night – but I needn’t have worried. A private message to Tony Sullivan, Filmsocista extraordinaire from that era, secured the vital piece of information.
…Liza, Mandy and I went to Hanley, saw Rocky Horror…
This must have been the Theatre Royal Hanley production – the theatre had just reopened in a new guise and I think we saw a pilot or preview version of the production of Rocky Horror that ran there for years. There is a wonderful web page of memories from that production on this “Memories Of Theatre Royal Hanley” WordPress site. (If anything ever goes awry at that site, here is a scrape.) Also this newsreel footage from when the resulting touring production closed in 1988. Lots of Keele students must have seen this show in the 1980s:
I had seen the stage production of Rocky Horror in London in the late 1970s with my BBYO pals, so felt very much “ahead of the curve” in the company of Liza and Mandy that night – a rare feeling in the matter of the arts with Liza and her “art school crowd”.
To add to the horror, I did a class test on the Tuesday morning (15th March) which must have been the formal last day of term as I signed on 16th March. [For younger readers who haven’t been following this series avidly for years, “signing on” was something students all needed to do each holiday if we wanted in effect to have our grants extended to cover holidays. The thought of the bureaucracy required to have most higher education students signing on and off the dole three times a year is truly mind-boggling.]
Friday 18 March – Easyish day – did a little work – watched TV in eve with Hamzah and Yazid.
Hamzah Shawal was my Bruneian flatmate. Yazid was one of the Malay guys who lived in a Q-Block Barnes flat with three other Malay guys, not too far away from our Barnes L-Block flat. I have no idea what we watched, but it is interesting that it was such a rare thing for me to do that I noted the fact that we watched TV. We might well have watched The Tube early evening, as Bono was interviewed that day:
I’m pretty sure this would have been one of the rare occasions I cooked for the South-East Asian gang, rather than them cooking for me. They were quite strict on Muslim dietary laws, which rather restricted my meat-based diet.
However, I did have a couple of tricks up my sleeve which satisfied their religious structures. I always had a supply of Osem Chicken Soup Mix
This product is not only kosher but it is actually vegetarian, allowing me to make chicken soup & kneidlach (Matzo Ball Soup) for vegetarian and carnivore friends alike.
With thanks to Dall-E for collaborating with me on this image
My other piece de resistance for the halal & veggie crowd was potato latkes:
Again Dall-E produced this image based on my instructions.
If or when I can find my mother’s yellowed, hand-written pages of instructions for these delights I’ll publish the recipes. Hers were variations on the traditional Florence Greenberg & Evelyn Rose recipes.
Cheap, cheerful and heart-warming food.
Saturday 19 March 1983 – Liza came over in morning. Went to meet Julie -> Mike & Mandy’s -> dinner -> cam home quite early.
Sunday 20 March – Rose quite late – went down to lakes & back to Sneyd. Visited Ashley later.
I’m so glad that Ashley gets a mention that fortnight – albeit right at the end. Ashley has been known to complain if there aren’t enough pieces about him.
Over that seasonal holiday 1982 into 1983, there are several references in my diary to taping and cataloguing tapes at Keele.
The fact that I have kept those catalogues provides me with some clues:
My Bruneian flatmate, Hamzah, had a pretty decent stereo system and a “not so bad” collection of records. Not all my taste, but eclectic. That Christmas, I think he went down early to stay with friends in London and gave me licence to listen to and tape whichever of his albums I fancied.
The result was some interesting additions to my cassette collection.
But ahead of those, I notice three cassette tapes that I “bought” (or more probably sent away for having collected a sufficiency of vouchers) from Duracell. I still have those cassettes and each of them contained at least one or two tracks that I really liked and previously lacked. I believe I acquired those during that term.
I’ll write about the Comedy Classics tapes separately. I had been working on those the previous summer and I think I completed them (or at least brought them up to Keele) after a visit to my parents during that autumn term. Alan Gorman and I listened to those tapes a lot – especially certain bits of them. As did Liza O’Connor.
Making Movies and Love Over Gold by Dire Straits were huge hits – the latter very much part of my sound track of that autumn term, as Hamzah played the album a lot. Here’s one of the best known tracks:
Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mine – The Doors compilation album – added to my little collection of their wonderful work, as did Veera’s The Doors Vol 2. I seem to recall hearing Riders On the Storm emanating from Hamzah’s room a lot in Barnes L54.
Of all those “Hamzah and Veera” records I got into that winter, I particularly remember enjoying Handsworth Revolution by Steele Pulse. It had sort of passed me by when it came out a few years earlier, but i caught up with it good and proper that winter. Here’s one especially good track – Prodigal Son, performed live:
In truth I listened to East Side Story by Squeeze a lot less, but I did (and still) like several songs from that album, including this one:
Hypnotised by The Undertones was another album that passed me by at the time, but, thanks to Veera, I caught up with it (and it with me) in late 1982. Here’s one choice track:
The Gift by The Jam was a super album, containing hits and some excellent album tracks too. I especially liked this funky track – Precious:
The Jam was actually in most of our thoughts that Christmas, having been topping the charts with Beat Surrender, before that song surrendered to Renee & Renato – I won’t torture you with the latter:
I would have sworn I ripped Abbey Road from Liza’s collection of Beatles albums, but it seems it was from Hamzah’s. There’s something:
I did listen a lot to Forever Changes by Love, nearly wearing out the tape listening to Alone Again Or, which I still rate as a truly great track:
Bat Out Of Hell by Meatloaf just struck me as one of those albums that I lacked, despite it’s sounds having been following me around since my school years. This was probably my favourite track from that album:
Kev Davis had introduced me to some pockets of reggae that had escaped my attention. Red by Black Uhuru was one such excellent album. I listened to it a lot at that time.
I subsequently got into Al Stewart’s Year Of the Cat album far more than Time Passages, but the latter was in Hamzah’s collection. The title track follows – sort of appropriate for a “soundtrack of forty years on” posting:
With thanks to Graham Sedgley for these photos: Sunset At Keele, Winter 2022
For reasons I probably don’t need to explain in detail, I stayed up at Keele for best part of a fortnight after term finished in December 1982. The diary mostly mentions seeing Liza (who lived at The Sneyd Arms, so of course was still around) and doing a bit of academic work.
For those who haven’t been avidly following this “forty years on” series and weren’t around in the heady days of the early 1980s, students were required to sign on the dole every holiday if they didn’t have a holiday job and needed the financial support. But I especially like my above Tuesday write up:
Rose late. Did little. Union in afternoon & evening -> Kev’s – got very out of it!
Kev in that instance will be Kev Davis, who was quite a character. Alcohol, cannabinoids and amphetamines might well have been involved, although by then I expect I demurred on partaking of the latter, having previously found the experience unpleasant.
More time with Liza and doing some work. Also another mention of shopping – this will have been food shopping only – I have never been through a “retail therapy” phase.
A most unusual diary entry on 19 December 1982:
…watched play on TV in evening…
Alan Gorman had kindly left his portable TV behind in the flat when he went home at the end of term, enabling me to watch some TV when occupying the flat for most of the Christmas break.
Some detective work with Mr Google reveals that the television version of Richard Harris’s wonderful play about cricket, Outside Edge, was first broadcast that night, 19 December 1982. Superb cast, as you’ll see if you click the preceding link. I do remember thoroughly enjoying that play, but I was too polite to name it in the diary!
Paul Eddington & Prunella Scales in Outside Edge – picture grabbed on a “fair use for identification purposes basis” from classictelly.com.
Monday 20 December 1982 …did some taping…
Yes, I can see in my cassette log that I got busy around that time. Hamzah had a “proper hi-fi” including a record player and cassette deck. He also had some records I fancied listening to some more, as did my lovely neighbour from the flat across the way, Veera Bachra and as did Kev Davis.
I’ll write some more over the seasonal break about those music tapes and also about the comedy tapes we (by which I mean primarily me, Liza and Alan) were listening to at that time.
But for now, let’s look at Graham Sedgley’s glorious Keele winter sunset picture once again.
I had arrived at Keele a few days before almost everyone else that academic year, to learn that my flatmate from the preceding few months, Ahmed Mohd Isa, had dropped out of Keele and was to be replaced by an allocated fresher.
Hence, my flatmates for 82/83 were to be:
Hamzah Shawal – a Bruneian mate of Ahmed and the Malay crowd, who was to be a finalist that year and who seemed like a very nice chap on the one or two occasions I had met him the previous year;
Chantelle Conlon [I think, surname], a “yeller belly” from the latterly-to-be-internet-unfriendly town of Scunthorpe. Ahmed, Hamzah and I had found Chantelle through the flat share notice board at the end of the previous academic year, as flat application forms needed to have four names and none of us had a chosen fourth. She seemed like a nice young woman and passed the interview by dint of agreeing to join us and signing the form;
Alan Gorman – the allocated fresher. Provenance entirely unknown until arrival.
This inauspicious sounding team selection resulted in…SPOILER ALERT… a happy final year for Hamzah, two very happy years for me and three such years for Alan in that flat.
Monday 4 October 1982 – Got a few things done today – some new neighbours moved in etc. Went to Union in evening etc. Julia stayed over…
I’m pretty sure the new neighbours in question were Veera Bachra (who became a good friend) and at least one of her flatmates (probably Debbie). Julia was a friend of Veera’s (or perhaps Debbie) who had dropped out of Keele but came up to see her friends there at the start of term. I remember Julia as a sweet young woman whom I had admired from afar in my FY year. The happenstance of Julia visiting my new neighbours presented an opportunity for us to admire each other at closer quarters that night.
This hit from that late summer/early autumn became my earworm for a few days at the start of that term:
A little unfortunate, as I never much liked Duran Duran, but I have for forty years retained a soft spot for that song. I digress.
Tuesday 5 October 1982 – Rose quite late. Hamzah arrived. Kept busy etc. Went to union in eve – the calm before the storm
Wednesday 6 October 1982 – Rose quite early. Alan arrived at flat – lunched etc – showed around – shopped etc etc. Chantelle arrived. Went to union freshers do in evening etc. Up late.
I have an absolute favourite memory of the morning of Alan’s arrival at the flat.
The Gorman family came from (I think still come from) Chorley in Lancashire, not much more than an hour’s drive to Keele. They arrived quite early.
On that October morning, Barnes didn’t much look like the publicity picture I have used as the headline, it looked more like this:
With thanks again to Paul Browning for this picture
On such misty autumn mornings, the playing fields would be populated by a few hippy-ish students in search of psycho-active fungi.
I made Harold and Theresa a cuppa and sat them at our kitchen table, which overlooked those playing fields.
Oh look, Theresa, there are some biology students out on the fields collecting samples…
…said Harold, enthusiastically. I didn’t have the heart (nor did I have the guts) to tell Alan’s parents the truth of the matter.
I don’t think I shared this story with Alan on day one. Alan had a fierce and sharp sense of humour – perhaps not apparent in the whirl of arrival with parents, but evident very soon after that. I’m pretty sure I shared the story with Alan soon after that first day; we’d have had a good laugh about it. But did Alan ever tell his parents about those “mycology students”?
Very sadly, my use of the past tense throughout the above paragraph is not a grammatical error; I learnt while researching this piece that Alan Gorman died in 2015. But I have made contact with his widow Susan and, through her, his family might see this and future pieces about Alan. Thus I am hoping for some feedback to help refine my memories, but they will unfortunately not be directly from Alan.
Thursday 7 October 1982 – Rose quite early – still sorting out flat etc. I got somethings done, not too hectically. Went to union in evening – up till late.
It looks as though Alan and I started the “up till late” chatting habit very early in his University career.
