5.2.69 - a bit of unnecessary gloom and doom

5.2.69

Dear Mum, I’m writing this in a time of some depression, so I’m afraid it may be all a bit miserable as far as reading goes. Perhaps you should throw it away now. The so-called results of the auditions have out ˗ with a letter to each of the three reps from the Centre who went in for it running thus: (after thanking us for playing) The Panel was interested to hear your performance, but felt that more time is needed to decide on the question of a pianist. Probably we shall ask you to re-audition within a month. [I think I'd always fallen comfortably into jobs in New Zealand, and assumed it would be the same in the UK.]

I ask you, what sort of a letter is that? John, whom I’m flatting with now, and who is in the know as to what goes on in the Centre ˗ he’s ‘assistant House Manager,’ whatever that is ˗ had already told me that this was what they were going to say to us, but I sort of wasn’t concerned. Tonight however when he bought the letter home with him, I ceased to be annoyed about the whole thing, and just became depressed. John let it drop that they seem to think that the standard at the C. isn’t as high as last year, and I feel that once again I’m not sure if I’m good enough. I keep telling myself that I am, and this keeps me going for a while, but then I know deep down that there is just so much I don’t know, and just so much that I don’t seem to be able to do with the ease that I should, that I wonder if I’m really cut out for it. But if I’m not cut out for this what am I to do? So once again, I lay the story in your lap, and know that you’ll write back and say, that of course I’m capable of doing it, but in this I’m afraid that your word isn’t sufficient! I’m glad to hear you say so, of course, but this doesn’t seem to help to make me the better musician that I should already be, and don’t seem to be getting. Oh, I know I’ve improved in some ways since I’ve been here, but the others have probably done the same, and are still just as far ahead.

You know, the Good Lord makes it a bit tough just landing us in this earth with scarcely any guide rules about how we are to cope with practical living: I mean like knowing that we have a certain talent but not knowing whether it’s sufficient to carry us through. Or to put it another way, to feel that the work we enjoy isn’t necessarily going to be the work we can do for a living. I know that He’s got his eye on us, and has obviously kept His eye on me since I’ve been here. In some ways I’ve never been so well looked after; but to have a talent that is halfway between being good or bad is very difficult. It’s the problem of coping with a mind that isn’t prepared to do ordinary office-work, or some such, because I just don’t have ambition in that respect, and yet this self-same mind has to cope with knowing that it’s possibly not good enough to do what it really wishes to do. I’ll keep on praying, and hope that He sees fit to let me know what he has in store and wants me to do. [This argument about the level of talent has continued long past my time in the UK ˗ what I didn’t realise at that time was that I wasn’t putting enough work into practice, into improving in the areas that I wasn’t so good at, and into learning how to do the things I couldn’t do. That would all have helped in some measure at least. And while I don’t believe the saying that the Good Lord helps those who help themselves, he still does expect us to put the work in to make our talent usable!]

Let’s get off the dreary subject of tomorrow, and have a look at something I know a bit about! I got me first letter at me new address today, forwarded from Plaistow, (tho’ left upstairs, at 23) so I feel as tho’ I’m beginning to belong here now. John and I get on very well ˗ whereas Kingsley barely said a word most of the time he was at no 13, John talks nonstop! It’s a refreshing change, and he is generally interesting. Julie is a nice wee soul, short and with long blonde hair, and fairly quiet ˗ as much as any girl ever is, I suppose! [Oh, so unbelievably patronising!]

Glad to see you enjoyed your little holiday, and are being looked after. This place is still a bit shambolic ˗ tho’ we had plates, saucers and cups, and basic cutlery, with a couple of pots, and a pan thrown in, we keep finding things that we need that we haven’t got. [Think this sentence must be an example of my Irish heritage.] And that were supplied at Plaistow. Never mind, we’re surviving, and I daresay we will continue to do so. (Just as an afterthought to my above unpleasant topic, wouldn’t it be nice if we could say to the Good Lord when we felt like it, Look, Lord, I think I’ve been down here long enough, how about finishing off this only occasionally pleasant life down here?  It’s probably just as well we can’t. [I bet my mother thought so too; such a jaundiced view of life from an inexperienced 23-year-old.]

St Mary's Catholic Church,
Blackheath

Since I last wrote I’ve also met the other boy that was originally to come in here with the present other two. He’s a talker too, and funnily enough seemed to want to put me, particularly, off Julie. (Apparently his mother has been ill, mentally, of late which was the reason for his not coming in, but John also keeps talking about his having gone off to Paris ˗ he must have been there a very short time, that’s all I can say.) It’s all very confusing, and I only hope it’s not going to get awkward. Anyway, this other boy, also a John, came in the other night, and the way he carried on when Julie was here was just annoying to say the least. John Gray, seemed quite annoyed too and I think has second thoughts about any changes that might have been planned. I don’t know how it was all to work, but it seems this other John was to move in when Julie moved out, but just how Julie was to go I don’t know! Anyway, it seems to both John and me, that things are satisfactory enough as they are, and we present three are getting on quite well. Anyway strictly speaking this other John could do nothing about it, as John G. and I are the people who’ve signed the agreement for the place (for six months) and he hasn’t so...?

I think I’ll cope financially, in fact, I’m sure I will, and John has already given me some lifts back and forth from the Opera C. And funnily enough, it’s actually quicker to go from Charing Cross to Blackheath by British Railways, than it used to be to go from C. Cross to Plaistow by tube! And it costs the same. So though it seems as though I’m further out of London, I don’t know that I actually am. Greenwich Observatory is just near ˗ in walking distance, and so is the Thames, and the Cutty Sark and some other important boats are moored in dry dock on the way we go to work. Quite an old.

interesting area really. Blackheath Village is in a little valley ˗ we’re on one side of the hill; and the Catholic Church is 5 minutes away ˗ and

So ˗ that’s the present situation. Anyway, LOTS of LOVE Mike

P.S. Our Master Classes don’t end till Friday week ˗ very short rehearsal time. 

28.1.69 A new flat out of nowhere

It's been a very long time since I added any of these letters from the UK onto this blog; the last one was back in 2013, and consisted of the letter written the previous day to this one, when I was troubled about having to find a new flat. 

28.1.69

Yippee!!!!!  What did I say just yesterday about fortunes changing within the space of a few hours? I was just thinking, too, yesterday night about the old Bible line: about not a sparrow falling without the good Lord knowing about it and lo and behold, he surely has got his eye on this sparrow!

Today’s happenings: I rang the flat service to tell them that I hadn’t liked the other place either, and Mr Atkins said he thought he had another place at New Cross ˗ it was a £5er a week, though, but sounds quite good. New Cross is fairly well served by the tube to the Opera C, and so I said well, could he make an appointment with the owner. He couldn’t get hold of the fellow till six-thirty tonight, so said for me to ring back. Now David Syrus overheard a conversation between John Gray, our receptionist at the Centre, and someone else, about how John had been let down at the last minute by a friend when they had arranged to share with another person a flat in Blackheath, which is also down South of the Thames, like New Cross. This flat was fully self-contained, with new furniture, and all conveniences. David apparently mentioned that I was looking for somewhere, and John got onto me, took me down with him in his car to the flat and my new address is 23A Montpelier Row, London SE 3. [Looking at this site on Google now, I don't recognise it at all!]

I think I’ll shift in this weekend. The Marshalls are quite easy, so here goes. There are so many advantages at this early that it all seems a bit much. The rent if £4-13-4 a week, which while it is more by a bit, quite a bit, than at present, it means that I have a whole flat and complete privacy within it. I can catch either a bus reasonably directly to the Centre or get a train, not tube, to Tower Bridge, and get a bus along Commercial Rd. In fact looking at the map it rather seems that trains go direct from Blackheath ˗ 20 yds down the road from the flat to Stepney East ˗ 20 yds from the Opera Centre! But I’m not sure about this. Anyway, John has a car, works at the same place as me...need I say more. That’s his idea, not mine! And we both go to the same sort of concerts quite often, too, soooo...! [Looking back, £4-13-4 seems the oddest amount to be paying for anything per week. Still it was a darn site cheaper than the £242 being asked for a similar location a couple of years ago.]

The flat is the basement of a huge house ˗ four storeys ˗ an old Georgian Mansion, in fact, looking out over Blackheath Common, which is also huge, and the village, which has an olde worlde charm that I wouldn’t have thought existed so close to the rest of the Thames area, which is scungy. The place above us has been turned into bedsits, though it was formerly a YWCA, but ours is an ex-storeroom area, and covers most of the area in the basement. We have our own patio at the back, and there is an immense garden. [Which I don’t remember ever using. Nor did the other two.] The furniture is all new, and the place is newly decorated ˗ in white throughout! ˗ but with carpets in the main rooms, an enormous kitchen, dining room, a great lounge, two bedrooms (have I already said all this?). 

One thing which I feel perhaps you may not feel too happy about is the fact that the third person is a girl. (Cries of horror from 12,000 miles). The point is that she is an old friend of John’s, and since he is doing this with his mother’s eagle-eye on him, and I think the girl has been living in the house with his family, anyway, I think it should be all right. As it is I doubt that we’ll see each other very much anyway, and since the place is so big I can’t see us getting in each other’s hair. And John assures me that she isn’t the sort of person around whom untoward things occur, so if you do object, do so now, or forever hold your peace as they say! I think you can trust me, don’t you? [Good grief: even for 1969 this all seems a bit olde worlde; perhaps Blackheath Village had some effect on my brain at the time of writing. As it was I barely ever saw this girl; if she wasn’t staying in her room, she was out, and then eventually she just up and left.]

I feel terribly excited about it all, as though I was going to my first real home, here. One where you’re not constantly running into your landlord ˗ not that they’ve been any trouble ˗ and they have been wonderful to me really. I must get them a small something before I go.

My second bit of news is that the four storey place KateTither and her friend lived in was burnt out the other night ˗ not completely but enough to be a nuisance, and so at present they’re in a bed-sit with another friend. I rather hoped that the Marshalls might feel like doing a room swap and taking them on, but they don’t seem too keen, really, because Kate’s friend has a boy of four, and partly because they don’t think the girls would be too happy about trailing outside to the toilet. (We have two! in the new place!) However things may still work out for them.

I now have to contact Kingsley who has left me no address ˗ only a phone number ˗ and also that great thundering trunk and his heater. What a complicated life it is but it isn’t getting me down. And I’ve got back some of my nerve as regards playing goes. That rep who came to us and said something about it, put me on the right track, even if he hadn’t intended to, and I just refuse to be upset about the reps’ classes anymore. And have started to enjoy them more than I have for some time. In fact I’m beginning to feel the way I did when I first arrived, which was rather more confident than I have been for some months.

Re the flat again ˗ the new one ˗ it seems somehow more permanent than this place has been. I think I’ve always known I’d have to leave here sometime, but this new one seems like going home again. Wonder why? Must go ˗ I still have to ring his lordship, and do German homework, and I haven’t really had any tea yet. What a life!

Tons of love, Mike (you’ve been praying, haven’t you?)  Love.