Marvellous: Neil Baldwin - My Story. Neil Baldwin

Marvellous: Neil Baldwin - My Story - Neil Baldwin


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near Stone, and not far from Stoke, until I was ten, when we moved to York. When I returned to North Staffordshire to come to Keele I was away from home for the first time. I approached the Students’ Union nervously. A rotund, jovial figure offered a confident handshake and said, ‘Welcome to Keele. I’m Neil Baldwin.’ I’m pretty sure he had a dog collar on. I thought he was a few years older than I was – it was some time before I realised we were born in the same year.

      I appreciated his warm welcome, but who exactly was he? The university chaplain? I wasn’t quite sure. And so it has always been with Neil, who lives by many roles. It is not that he doesn’t know the difference between fantasy and reality, but rather that he renders the distinction irrelevant and continually turns one into the other across the loves of his life: Keele University, Stoke City, the Church, circuses, the Boat Race and famous people.

      We chatted, and he reminded me that Stoke City were at home a couple of days later. That was how our lifelong friendship started.

      NEIL

      The job at Swinnertons was all right, but I knew things weren’t right and I left in 1964 after four years and went to work at Dewar’s butchers in Newcastle-under-Lyme, cutting up meat and serving customers. That was good because it was easier to get to Keele in the evenings, because Newcastle is just down the road from Keele. It’s a very short bus ride.

      I did it for a year-and-a-half, but it meant I couldn’t go to watch Stoke City on Saturdays and I didn’t really like the blood, so I went to work at the pottery Woods and Sons. I worked there for fifteen years, right up to 1980. I was a dipper’s assistant, and what I did was, I helped the dipper. I helped the dipper check the plates and put them in glaze. It was all right, but towards the end I thought the pottery business was going down.

      I’d finish work, go home, have some tea, get the bus up to Keele. On Saturdays I’d go to watch Stoke City, then to Keele, where I’d go to the union bar and the snack bar. On Sundays I’d go to the chapel at Keele. That’s where I met the vice-chancellor, Harold Taylor. He always went to chapel, and Sunday morning I would always meet him. He was an excellent vice-chancellor. He was a nice person, he was nice to me. He was a lovely chap. I’ve known all the vice-chancellors since then.

      MALCOLM

      Harold Taylor was Vice-Chancellor from 1960 to 1967, and, long before he left, his old-fashioned and straitlaced ideas were coming into conflict with the sixties generation of students who were coming to Keele.

      One Sunday morning, early in 1965, the BBC came to Keele for the morning service on the radio. It was a big event for Harold Taylor. He was delighted that his university had been chosen, small and new though it was. He was sitting in his place, and, a couple of rows away, there was Neil.

      And what neither of them knew was that a student had fixed the wiring, so that, just as some devotional song was beginning, what those in the service and those listening on the radio actually heard was a very loud, raucous pop song, featuring revving motorbike engines, by the Shangri-Las, which the BBC had unaccountably banned – the lyric sounds pretty tame now. It was called ‘Leader of the Pack’.

      NEIL

      When ‘Leader of the Pack’ came on, I was really upset for Harold Taylor. It was the first time he’d appeared in public after his wife died, and it was only two days after Winston Churchill’s death. I think it was shocking.

      Anyway, he retired two years after that, in 1967, and went to live in Cambridge. I went to see him there, in his retirement. I rang him up and said I was coming. I hitchhiked down there and I went to his house. He remembered me from Keele. That’s where I met Mary Glover, who married him after his wife died; she’d been his secretary.

      We talked about Keele. He said what a lovely place Keele is, and I said it is. We talked about my work at Keele. And we talked about Princess Margaret, who was the chancellor. I met her at the Students’ Union before the Royal Ball one year, and she talked to me again after it. She was the guest of honour. Many years later I performed in front of her as Nello the Clown at a special royal performance of the circus in London.

      And another thing happened in 1967, which was marvellous. My friend Malcolm Clarke was elected Students’ Union President. That meant he had to dance with Princess Margaret, the university chancellor, at the royal ball – it was one of the things the union president was supposed to do. That was very funny because he can’t dance. He’s too big and gangly. Our friend Francis Beckett who was also a student calls him ‘a man of many parts, clumsily assembled’. Mrs Boote, the Students’ Union receptionist, tried to teach him, but she couldn’t. I felt sorry for Princess Margaret. I think she got kicked a lot. That’s no way to treat the university chancellor.

      MALCOLM

      It’s true. I was advised to keep her in the bar until the formal dance band had gone, so that I didn’t have to attempt a waltz. When I finally took her into the ballroom, a jazz band was playing. She said, ‘I only do the bunny hop,’ and draped her arms round my neck. The problem was that I’m six foot four and she was small, so she was staring at my navel. I had no idea what a bunny hop was, so I ended up kicking her shins all through that dance. It was the only dance we had all night. Neil wasn’t impressed when I told him. In 2019, the BBC talked me into re-enacting this infamous dance in a documentary shown on BBC 2 called Princess Margaret: The Rebel Royal, which is available on iPlayer, DVD or YouTube.

      The late 1960s was a very lively time at Keele, as it was at universities throughout the country – indeed, the world. We thought we could change the world by starting with changing the university. The only question was how long it would take us.

      Students wanted a much greater involvement in the running of the university and less control by the university over our private lives. Tensions built up throughout my year as president, and, towards the end of my term of office in 1968, I went to the senate to present the students’ case. I knew that, if significant concessions were not made, it was likely that the union would decide to take direct action, but the senate gave me very little to take back to the members. A large union meeting was held shortly before the end of term to consider what to do.

      I didn’t support taking direct action, even though I didn’t have any principled objections to it. I just thought it unwise to play our strongest card only a few days before the end of the academic year because the university would just ride out the storm and the threat of direct action would lose much of its potency in the future. I spoke against the motion but it was carried, and the students occupied the registry. I resigned as president because, having opposed the action, I was not the right person to lead the negotiations with the university on the terms on which it would finish. In the end the occupation ended after a couple of days without the university having made any further concessions.

      Throughout all this turmoil, Neil simply remained as a constant, dispensing his usual good humour, and continuing to live his life as normal in the Students’ Union, and taking an active role in the student Christian community.

      They didn’t support me over the occupation, but the union general meeting did agree, without any opposition, with my proposal to make Neil Baldwin an honorary life member of the union. And, looking back, I think that was more important than the occupation.

      NEIL

      They were funny times. I didn’t really like the students marching into the registry, and sitting in the registrar’s office, but they meant well. I told them that they were being a bit silly but they didn’t listen to me – but that’s sometimes the trouble with young people: they have to learn.

      A few years later things turned more nasty and there was a firebomb thrown at the registrar’s house, which was shocking. Once, a few of them took all their clothes off on the roundabout and walked naked into the shop, and it got all over the papers. I didn’t like that because it harmed Keele’s reputation, and Keele is the best university in the world. Another time they all marched up to the Clock House, where the vice-chancellor lives, and made a humming noise to try to make it go up in the air. How silly was that!

      I’m very pleased that Malcolm made me an honorary life member of the Students’ Union and


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