20.9.67 - The waiting game

Sydney 20.9.67

Hullo, me old friend,

Well, things go along very slowly here – everyone seems to think I’m here to stay and can afford to sit round and wait for them all. Haven’t heard anymore from Krug and Co yet – they’re the slowest of the lot.

Went to see Robert Pikler yesterday; was supposed to have lunch with him, but he was even too busy to do that; he was very kind and helpful – the way everyone is, here (for a start, anyway), and he promised to ring one person at the University who is a conductor there, and also to see the chief coach at the Con and also the Opera School Head, there. Since he’s on the inside, he may be able to do something for me. He sez there are two people there who do nothing but coaching of singers and he reckons they’re both flat out. (They might like to stay that way – since neither is on a salary, but a commission basis.) Anyway, I’ve got to ring him back, or he’ll ring me; something or other, before the week’s out. This means I’ll have to stay till the end of this week at least; awkward, isn’t it. I wouldn’t mind if I was assured of work, but this sitting around waiting all the time rather gets me down. But there’s little I can do, I think. [2018: There’s a considerable lack of gratitude here, considering how generous all these people were. Perhaps Krug and even Pikler thought I wasn’t interested enough in work and didn’t pursue things further.]

I’ve spent most of this morning ironing shirts and hankies. Did a big wash yesterday, now that I was able to get some soap powder. Used to wash me sox in the hotel and leave them in the bathroom to dry – it was always so hot in there, they’d generally dry overnight. Discovered yesterday that I still had one of the keys to my hotel room! Dropped it into them while I was in seeing Pikler.

Watched an odd movie on TV last nite – All the Brothers were Valiant (felt as though I’d seen it before, too) – it had Robert Taylor, Ann Blyth, Stewart Granger and Betta St John in it. (The latter is the wife of the guy who came out to do Fledermaus last year.) [Peter Grant, who also appeared in a few movies.] It was a pretty weird story, but it did have one very good sequence where they were catching a whale – though the whole thing was done in the studio, it was extremely well done – certainly the best thing in it.

It’s a gorgeous day today – lovely warm sun – it’s in the 60s, I think.

I’m still ploughing slowly through my German, but I think I’m progressing. Anne, who spent a year in Vienna, asked me something in it last night – and I didn’t understand a word – so I’m still very much a beginner.

That seems to be all just now, so see ya, Love, Mike

15.9.67 - Not listening to good advice

Sydney 15.9.67 (Noon)

Pencil economy! Not really – just haven’t a pen. Hullo! Have recovered my usual buoyant sense of humour (probably as a result of enjoying Fiddler so much, and because it’s so warm, and because I’m going quite well with my German – if I can keep it up.)

It’s a funny sort of day. Sort of diffused – if you know what I mean – there’s a haze over the city, but the sun is filtering through – and my left arm is feeling, and looking, rather burnt. I’m sitting in one of about a dozen parks (small) in KC, just down the road from the Hotel. These parks (even the very smallest) seem to have fountains and trees and shrubs, and there are any number of seats – in fact there are seats all over the city, and parks!

[back in ink again]

LATER Got a letter from me mother! Hurray! I laughed at it all the way up in the lift (otherwise empty) and along the corridor and into my room. Looks like I’d better take my umbrella into town with me tonight – it’s been raining most of the afternoon – should be okay – the repair job seems to be all right.

MICHAEL CROWL – MUSICAL DIRECTOR, No, no. MUSICAL DIRECTOR ----! That’s totally funny – I’d probably be awfully inept at it. [Not sure what the reference here is; probably my mother trying to cheer me up. 2018: anyway, I’d done musical directing in various ways before I’d gone to Oz, so I’m not quite sure why I found it so funny.]

I’m going to ring the Trust in about half an hour and see if I can get some satisfaction. Hope that today I’ll know what the future will be. I haven’t gone anywhere much for the last couple of days; it’s been sort of frustrating to have to sit round and wait like this. Can’t even book me flight home. And I’ll have to go easy on the old pocketbook, too, if I’ve got to stay on a bit longer. Anyway, I’m determined to come home with something left over. I would have had a lot more if the Hotel bill had been what I expected. (Don’t be surprised if every now and then you find nouns with capital letters in the middle of a sentence. In German all nouns have capitals and the ones that I know in German I’m inclined to put down with a capital! Silly, isn’t it?)

I’ve spent most of this arvo in the little library round the road reading Tobias and the Angel, a comedy on the Bible story, by James Bridie. The Aussies don’t seem to be able to put books in order. It’s awfully hard trying to find anything in the 2 libraries I’ve so far been in. The Main one in town has only a vague order. Nothing is alphabetical as far as I can see, so how they ever find anything! [Still griping about libraries 25 years later.]

LATER I’m really beginning to think that I need a business manager or something – I, myself, must be handling things wrongly – or something! Just rang the Trust, again, and now we’ve got to wait till Mr Krug gets himself moving re the Ballet Co. He’s their conductor. (P. Schwartz apparently stayed in Sth America or somewhere obscure – how odd!) [Peter Schwartz was a chain-smoking Austrian conductor who’d made his home in NZ; he was involved in the Summer Schools in Dunedin where I met him, where he was very encouraging in terms of my accompanying. I hadn’t heard of him since for years until I became involved in the brass band movement, and there he was conducting a band as one of the many strings to his bow. 2018: I wonder if I intended the wordplay/pun?] So they were going to wait till Tuesday, but I said that my time was limited (so it is; I’m fed up with waiting around for them) and so I’ve got to ring them on Monday at lunchtime. Heavens, they do muck around, don’t they! They must surely know whether they’ve got room for an extra pianist, or not – their excuse, according to the (not so) charming Miss Swan is that they’ve got people dotted all over the country just now. Marvellous!

I don’t know what to do about Pikler, now. Doubt if he can do much at this stage, and anyway, the place he’s mainly concerned with is the Conservatorium, and I’ve been there! And that other fellow that Cecil introduced me to, John Hammond, reckoned if he were in my shoes he’d get a job, any job, just to be on the spot. [A sound piece of advice which I obviously wasn’t hearing.] I’m inclined to think I’ll get as much musical experience back home – (where I’m obviously appreciated – heh, heh) and where I won’t have to pa out exorbitant amounts for lodgings. Look out, I’m going to scream – [printed very large:] AAAAGH!

That feels a lot better.

Courtesy Creative Commons

Better go, got all me packing to do tonite – go to Anne’s tomorrow. Mary Williams, who was also in Fledermaus, a cellist (whose flat Claude and I went to for tea, remember?) is coming over for the afternoon, on Sunday, so we can have quite a chat. [Claude was a genuine Frenchman [2018 I’m not sure why I wrote ‘genuine’], a clarinettist. There was some relationship between him and Mary but I’ve no idea how serious it was. I seem to recall Claude mooning around after a fairly disinterested Mary. My one other great memory of Claude, who was an excellent clarinettist, is that he couldn’t get a single note out of a clarinet I owned, and which I took on tour with me round NZ, and could actually play!] My poor old left arm’s burnt nearly through, while the right is only red.

Oh, well, see ya, love Mike.

14.9.67 - Filling in another day

Sydney, 14.9.67 Morning.

Hi there! 

Spent an odd day yesterday not getting anything much done – Stephen Hall should have contacted me by last night, but there was nary a word. I’ll ring him this arvo if I don’t hear from him by then.

Had breakfast with a Mrs Notts (that’s right!) yesterday, and she and I chatted quite a bit. She comes from up country (near the Castlereagh River) and is down to see her daughter who’s been in hospital about a month with a baby that’ll have to arrive too soon. This morning had breakfast with a Melbourne man in Civil Aviation (he detests opera, but chatted about it) and he was very interested in the flight I had over here. (These two days are the first times I’ve had breakfast with anyone – generally the ‘woman who guides you to your seat’ plunks me down in some far corner where everyone (particularly the waitresses) ignores me!

Went outside after that (yesterday again) and did No 2 lesson in German – it’s not nearly as hard a yet! Then since I hadn’t heard from the Trust, I decided to go to Luna Park – it was shut until Friday; went to Manly on the Hydrofoil, but Manly was rather cold – there were still quite a few on the beach, though. If I thought it was cold, heaven knows how they felt! Didn’t stay there long, but it was about 2.30 when I finally had some lunch. Thought that I might go to Fiddler on the Roof, so I asked directions to get to Her Majesty’s, [as opposed to His Majesty’s Theatre which still went by that title in Dunedin] to see if I could get a seat. Still haven’t found H.M’s, but found about 3 secondhand bookshops! I don’t know what Customs will think – perhaps I’d better post some of them home! (There’s only nine including 2 I bought with me!)

language as I was led to believe –

Went back to K.C. via taxi after not finding H.M’s, and as usual arrived with me heart nearly popping out of me mouth. Sydney’s taxidrivers are probably the best in Australasia, but I wouldn’t bank on it! Back to town to see Barefoot in the Park which was quite a lot of fun, but not as funny as Mrs Notts had led me to believe. Had some tea in a place called the Poet and Peasant (I don’t know why) and then decided to be madly daring and go and see Guide for the Married Man (directed by Gene Kelly) which really was funny – Mrs Notts hadn’t liked it as much! [Not sure why I needed to be ‘madly daring’ to go and see this.] The theatre was apparently situated above the subway, as every now and then there’d be a terrific rumbling and the place would shake a little. GFTMM, which is all about a man trying to learn how to have an affair without letting his wife know about it (sounds a terrible subject, doesn’t it?) is actually a very moral film (!) because  not one of the characters is allowed to get away with any misdeed at any stage of the film. So it’s a Guide in more ways than one. [I think I was trying to reassure my mother that I wasn’t watching anything immoral.]

Back to me little room where I was too tired even to write to you – so I hope this catches the post and doesn’t break what must be an all-time record for me! See ya, love Mike.

(PS Thanks for the Peanuts – marvellous!) 

12.9.67 Post-audition day

Sydney 12.9.67

Dear Mother, Another day spent wandering hither and yon – gee, I think I’ll go in for the long distance walk soon!

Breakfast – got the worst waitress every today – and for once I was down comparatively early – I might as well have gone down at my usual late hour. That’s the worst thing altogether about this hotel – there’s only one or two decent (that is, quick) waitresses in the lot – and I never get ‘em. [Boy, what a snob!]

Decided to make use of Ricordi’s again, so spent another hour in there.

El Alamein Fountain

Came back to K.C. for lunch and watched a fellow in a white bathing suit blithely step into the El Alamein fountain, take a short (very cold) shower and step out again, whence he started to dry himself on an enormous striped towel, that, along with his briefcase, seemed to be all he had! He was there traipsing around the fountain, looking like a latter-day prophet for about 10 minutes before a cop told him to leave. The prophet then splashed water in all directions (not at the cop) and went stalking off, presumably mumbling something about his rights as a citizen!

About one, a quartet, with a piano, from the State Opera Co came and performed a group of about 16 songs (mainly love, and only 2 of which were from operas!) in the Fitzroy Gardens (where the Fountain is) over a loudspeaker, which meant their voices bounced beautifully off the surrounding buildings – quite a lot of people stayed!

Back into town and during the course of the afternoon I disposed of practically everybody on Robin Lovejoy’s list! The State Opera Co is now actually defunct – don’t know where the quartet fits in; the Conservatorium of Music has pretty well finished for the year as far as opera goes; the Opera Centre are interested, but already have a pianist, and would only require part-time work; Rochdale Opera Co are in the same boat; the ABC don’t need another pianist!!! So I might really just as well come home – unless the Trust turns up trumps; but I don’t think they will till next year.

So – I was going to go to the Opera again (Don Pasquale) but couldn’t stand it straight away again, [another opera, that is] so went to Half a Sixpence which is based on Kipps instead. Not as good as Oliver but still with plenty of  pep, and some easily memorable tunes. Nice relaxing night. [I thought I’d seen this already in Dunedin – maybe I did later.]

Decided I’d better start doing something about German, since I’ll be required to have a basic idea of it, and Italian, if I work with the Trust (they do all their operas in the original languages), so I bought a Teach Yourself, and went quite well on the first lesson!

See ya, Mike

25.6.69 - The year begins to wind up

25.6.69

Dear Mum, I’ve just been down to the shop to see if I could get a card for Daphne and Jack, but they had nothing that was either sufficiently funny or pleasant, so I’ll have to get you to pass on my congratulations. I don’t think I remember their address anyway. (Why did they call him Peter? We’ve surely got enough confusion in this family already. [Jack was my mother’s youngest brother, and Peter he and Daphne’s fifth child, their first boy. I already had another cousin called Peter.] They’re certainly determined not to let the Elgin Road Hannagans beat them are they? [Terry was older than Jack and he and his wife Monica had their fifth ˗ and last ˗ child in 1968.]

And what about this snow? You poor old things. Our weather is staying fairly warm, although it has been raining for the last couple of days. I think it’s clearing now. This week is our last with formal lessons, and we’re saying goodbye to the various teachers; next week we start rehearsals most of the time. The German teacher said she would take me on as a private pupil if I wished, though I don't know if I could afford it. But if I can, she’s certainly worth keeping on with.

We’re rehearsing two operas (The Consul is also going on but I’m not working on it) and they are Gianni Schicchi, which the Centre did last term but which I didn’t work on, and Il Tabarro, which is another one in the trio of operas that go under the heading of Il Trittico, and is, of course, by Puccini. We had our first production rehearsal today with Ande Anderson, and things seemed to be going fairly smoothly.

I don’t know if I told you that, a while back, when I was sitting in the train one night waiting for it to leave Charing Cross, I was marking some music ˗ actually I was putting some new words into a vocal score ˗ when a young negro fellow came along and looked over my shoulder through the window. I didn’t notice him at first, and got a bit of a shock! Anyway, he jumps in the carriage and sits down next to me and starts telling me about his interest in playing the classical guitar, and so we talked on and off until Blackheath. Well, on Monday, I was sitting in a carriage again, doing a crossword, when a figure went flying past, and then came back, and it was the same guy again. And he popped into the train, and again started talking. This is quite unusual here, which is what makes it worth telling ˗ it’s so rare than anyone will talk to you in a train ˗ in fact people wouldn’t say anything if you stood on their foot; I don’t think they’d expect you to apologise! This is how far they’ve taken this sort of don’t speak to your neighbour bit. This time he was saying how he had to learn a whole two-page spiel for the next day to use in his job as a door-to-door salesman for an encyclopedia firm! He’s an engineering student I think normally, and this is a sort of holiday job.

At present at the Centre ˗ well yesterday, anyway ˗ they were holding auditions for singers and reps, and I went in to listen for a moment and suddenly realised that the pianist auditioning was Bill Southgate ˗ do you remember him? And he was apparently very nervous (though I didn’t hear him do the stuff he’d prepared) because when it came to doing sight-reading he made some fearful blues! (Am I glad I didn’t have to audition there!) [I auditioned by tape from NZ, I think.]  I went and had a cuppa with him afterwards and I think he was in a bit of a state, because he was rambling a bit! Anyway I got his address from him, and I must go and see him. [Bill Southgate - or William Southgate as he is more usually known these days - was from Dunedin, and eventually would become one of New Zealand’s better-known conductors. Strangely, when my wife and I came back from the UK in 1974, we met the Southgates at Auckland airport; they’d just returned as well.]

I think we’re talking about different things as regards the mysterious palette knife (!) ˗ I think I know what a spatula is, but wasn’t there a long (about 8 ˗ 10 inches, plus handle) implement, about an inch wide, and with a rounded end?? It’s driving me mad ˗ surely that isn’t a spatula?

Again, don’t worry about Postal Notes; I’m surviving quite well, thank you, and though they are nice when they do come, they aren’t part of my contract or anything! I’ve sent a letter to Monica H[annagan, wife of Terry] and Co, but I haven’t to the Stokes ˗ suppose I should, shouldn’t I? I’ll try and do it. Aerogrammes are actually cheaper than postcards ˗ you know? ˗ but harder, even for me, to fill up! [I have no idea why I was supposed to be writing, unless it was just a matter of keeping in touch with Dunedin relatives I’d had a great deal to do with over the years.]

I suppose as usual it is too late to suggest another film for you to go and see, but one called The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is superb, and except perhaps for one small sequence (which I think in this case is probably necessary) I think you would find it wonderful. It’s a deaf-mute trying to live amongst normal people, and the fact that no one else realises he is as lonely as the ones he helps. The acting is unbelievable. 

We went to a rehearsal of Macbeth, the opera, at the Garden yesterday ˗ what an appalling production ˗ it never fails to amaze me just how bad some of their productions are ˗ they live so far in the past that you’d think they’d never heard of the word imagination. [Elena Souliotis made her debut at Covent Garden as Lady Macbeth in this production, as well as singing the role for the first time.]

Last Friday our normal lecture at the Centre was replaced by a talk with films at the Generating Board Theatre in Newgate St. The films were made by the man who talked ˗ he’s an ex-executive film man, and is experimenting, now that he has the time, with film and music. The two examples he showed us were very interesting (his name is James Archibald and you’ll see it occasionally on some of the 50s films ˗ English ˗ on TV) but the one he likes more of the two seemed to me less good. We went back to the Centre with him (Jeff took he and J Robertson) (and me) and he said it was because I’d only seen half of his favourite: and that was about half an hour! Love, Mike. [I don’t remember this at all, and I’m not sure quite why people from the Centre went to it.]

23.5.69 Birthday and mid-term shows

23.5.69

Dear Mum, glad to get your confirmation that you are okay ˗ please don’t worry about being terribly regular with letters, but I do like getting them ˗ I’m very selfish I’m afraid, and get a wee bit disappointed if I don’t get any mail for several days. Actually, so many odd things arrive me here that not many days do go past without something arriving.

Some more about the birthday. On the actual day, Hazel and I went out and had dinner at a Chinese restaurant ˗ David G was supposed to come too but got tied up with something else at the last minute. I was also allowed that morning to open something else they’d left on the day of the pre-b. (They’d given me a couple of crazy presents then.) It was a roll-collar nylon shirt, which everyone is wearing at the mo’, so I felt quite with it when I went into the Centre that day. Forgot to tell you ˗ Mike gave me two paperbacks (copies of which I’d had at home but didn’t bring!): The History of the Symphony, and Kathy gave me that terrible shocking book: Ulysses, which has just come out in paperback. Actually, there are some passages that even now seem (at least to me) a little purple, they are very down to earth, and I don’t think pornographic for their own sake ˗ they really stress just how human the characters are, and how little different any of us are from one another. Apart from these parts, the rest of the book is so fabulously written ˗ the English has to be read to be believed (!) and it really is marvellous. I don’t profess to understand all its classical references; though there is a short commentary at the back of the book, but I think it can be read without being entirely aware of them. [I’m intrigued to think that I might have actually read the book: I don’t recall doing so, and a later attempt to get into it left me unenthused after the first few pages. My comments about the book being shocking probably relate to the showing of the movie version a few years earlier: in New Zealand the audiences were segregated by sex, so concerned was the censor at some of the scenes.Which, it turned out, weren’t any worse than some of the European movies I’d seen in Dunedin.]

The Crowls gave me a cheque for £2, did I tell you? And Margaret gave me a very nice ballpoint pen. With your money ˗ or rather because it boosted the finances somewhat ˗ I went and got a copy of Der Rosenkavalier vocal score ˗ £4˗10 (!), but since we’re doing it in class for the next 3 weeks I thought I may as well have a copy.

This week we’ve had our mid-term performances on, and on the day of the first of them I felt so fed up with the clothes that I normally wear to these, that I thought ‘Blow!! I’m going to dress a bit more interestingly for a change, and decided to get myself a waistcoat and a tie. Well I had to try 3 shops before I could a cloth waistcoat (they all have wool ones) but it was worth it, and I got a very nice beige (I think it is) for £3 something. The tie took a bit of choosing, but it is rather fabulous, and some of the really natty dressers round the Centre have complimented me. It’s basically a light (but not too much) blue, with (!) black, green and orange designs. I can hear you gasping from here! Actually it isn’t anywhere near as like a neon light as that sounds ˗ the price is what will really make you faint : 30/- !!! I must admit that was rather more than I expected it to be but it is pure silk, and I like it, and it was me birthday!

I had a nice surprise in German class the other day: the teacher asked me what I was doing at the end of the term, and I said having a holiday I think!, and she said would I like to go to Switzerland! Apparently she knows a lady who has contact with the Zurich opera house, and she said if I wrote her a letter telling what I’d done she’d pass it on to this woman and see if anything would come of it. So I’ve sent it off but am not going to worry about it anymore ˗ just let things take care of themselves. She said it was because I’d worked so hard at German that she thought she’d do something for me! Actually she has also let Dave Syrus in on it, but I shouldn’t think it’ll matter ˗ I’m neither expecting to get something or not to. (If that’s possible!)

For the mid-term shows we’ve been doing two operas: a bad re-hash of Manon by Massenet, called Portrait of Manon, which was either not written by Massenet or else just started by him, and finished by some hack. It has both a terrible plot and no climax ˗ just peters out. The other piece: Fiesta, by Milhaud, was written about 1958, and is very dissonant ˗ if you don’t know it (and still pretty dissonant if you do) but is rather exciting and horrible and atmospheric (tho’ less so with only piano accompaniment), and has been very well produced. The other piece gets there but hasn’t had such a competent man on it, and only just works. I’m playing for the Manon, and putting in odd notes in the bass for the Fiesta. And playing a bell for four bars!

There is also a demonstration of movement by the singers, and on the first night we found that there was a great gap in the timing while some of them got ready for Fiesta, so Alistair and I on the second night played a duet version of The Thieving Magpie overture! We’d been filling in time with it the previous day ˗ playing just for fun, and had to do quite a lot of work on it to tidy it up. (Secretly, we’ve been told it’s the hit of the show!) After we had done it the first night, Robertson came up to us and said that he didn’t think it was quite right it didn’t fit in with Fiesta straight after, but I said that that was because they’d started Fiesta too soon after it, and it had sounded as though David was playing wrong notes! He said not to do it again, but because he is away rehearsing Aida (and was last night) the stage managers went to Mr Kentish and asked him if we could do it again ˗ and so we did! Generally the shows have been going very well, tho’ last night wasn’t too hot and in a way I’ll be sorry to see them finished. Love Mike [I assume that I mean what I wrote, rather than that I wouldn’t be sorry to see them finished.]

P.S. I still have got over £200. I don’t believe it! Thank the Stokes for the card and cash, please. 

P.S. I wrote to Prof Platt ˗ finally ˗ hope he can follow it!

P.S.S. Go and see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang if it hasn’t already gone by.

30.9.68 - Travels and Travails

30.9.68

Dear Mum, how are the pair of you thriving?  I had a ridiculous day yesterday, Sunday, but quite interesting for all that.  In the morning I had decided to go to Mass at the Convent which is only a short distance from Newman Rd.  This was the first time I’d gone there because the first Sunday I went way up to the next parish and the last two have been spent in Wood Green. I arrived to find the place singularly quiet for a Catholic Church, and Mass just finished.  And not another!  However there was a priest there and we had a wee chat and he gave me a timetable on the newsletter, and said I could go to Mass at 12 at the main parish church down in the Barking Road. So I went home again and had breakfast, and then at 11.45 set off, thinking that this would give me plenty of time.  It turned out to be a longer walk than I anticipated but I made it with a second to spare.  On the way home it rained, and for once I didn’t have an umbrella.  So I got a bit wet, but it was one of those days when it suddenly pours out of a blue sky. 

 

I did some German – incidentally, the 3^rd Programme is starting a German lesson series on Monday, so I think I’ll get their little booklet and listen to that in conjunction with the OC’s classes.  (I'm still not very enthused over the Italian lessons – which makes it harder; at least Frau Radinger has a marvellous sense of humour and we really have a good time learning, but in the other class we waste more time than anything.)

 

After this I had planned to go to see a Laurel and Hardy Quartet of films at the NFT.  It poured as I was setting out for Plaistow station. Anyway, saw the films, which were very good, without getting very wet on the way, and then hopped on the usual train to come back. The gremlins were at work again.  We got as far as Mansion House and the train was stopped and everyone told to change.  So an entire train-load of people walked up over to the next platform, and waited...and waited.  A guard told a group of people near me that someone had jumped under a train at Aldgate East which was between there and Plaistow. But at another station they reckoned that something had collapsed on the line.  Anyway, the next train was going to Tower Hill, a little further on my way, so I got on that.  And would have got a Circle Line to take me on a detour, avoiding the station where the trouble was.  However the wait at Tower Hill was even longer.  On the trip to there I picked up a wee friend, a boy of about 10 or 11, who was going North-East.  He and I had a discussion going to TH as to what was the best route for him to take, though I wasn’t a lot of help. At TH, I picked up my 2^nd friend, a lady in her 30s, travelling with a great suitcase and a couple of bags, who knew her way around but who had got onto the wrong platform, and who was regretting having crossed over with her bags.  She didn’t say so, but obviously had, and anyway she was very helpful to us two kids in giving us an idea of the best way to get home.  A guard said that I’d have to go to Mile End, still before Plaistow, and get a bus.  However, no train appeared on our platform and so I offered to carry her case over to the other platform, where trains were going back the way we’d come, but where there was a chance of getting to Mile End.  So she very gratefully accepted, and we took our little boy with us, and crossed over and caught a train that was then waiting.  At Monument station we walked underground to Bank, got on the Central Line and were on our way. Actually we left her at Bank as the train which the boy and I got – it was his homebound one – wasn’t going far enough for her, and she waved and said God bless as we went.  She was very nice, but possibly a bit worried in case I took off with her case – people, according to Mike and K. don’t help each other much in London, but from things I’ve seen, just quietly, I think they’re wrong (M & K, I mean)!  Anyway, my little boy – who had a hair-lip scar – and I shot through to Mile End where he went on, saying thank you (I don’t know what for, because he probably knew more about it all than I do) and where by that time I was able to catch a very crowded train to P.  (This morning it was absolutely packed, and tonight was worse – I thought I’d seen the rush hour jam, but tonight when I put my arm up to take hold of the strap to hang on, I couldn’t get it down again, until we reached a station!)

 

My troubles weren't over: I’d bought some mince on Sat, and used half of it in my main meal on Sat, and had kept the rest for Sun. Was all organised, yesterday. I took the meat out of the cupboard, opened it, closed it, and threw it in the waste-bin, then I took the lot outside, and put it in the bucket!! Was I mad?  I thought it would at least last 24 hours!  Fortunately I had 2 sausages left over from breakfast, so I combined them in a thing called Italian Risotto Milanese, or some-such, substituting what I had in me larder for what they suggested in the recipe.  I think the only thing we both used was the rice!  However it did not kill me.  But I’m going to a different butcher in future.  Should never have trusted this one – he has the only dirty postcards I’ve ever seen hung up on his wall![I presume I meant that he was the only butcher who’d ever displayed dirty postcards. My inexperience as a cook keeps showing up in these letters; refrigerators were much less common, of course, and I don't think we had one at my home in Dunedin at that point, so keeping meat fresh was always a bit of an issue.]

 

Today at the OC the only thing I was down for all day was German, which seems a bit odd, but I went in at 10 all the same, and spent the morning doing things on my own, and this afternoon looked in on a coaching session by Norman Feasey*, one of the big reps in London.  Great on Wagner, apparently. (He was coaching Alan Opie, a baritone about my age, from Cornwall, and quite a friendly guy. He’s in one of The Telephone casts.) N.F was seated when I arrived, and I noticed as the lesson went on that though he was shorter than me when sitting he had enormous bone structure, so that when he did finally stand, he sort of expanded in all directions. 

 

Tomorrow is busy again, Wednesday not bad, although though I have the afternoon off, we’ve all got to go to a dress rehearsal of the Opera For All Group’s Italian Girl in Algiers at 6.00 which is a bit of a nuisance [handwritten] because it’s a waste of time and cash to go home in the afternoon.  Ann Gordon is in it.  Anyway I hadn’t intended to fill this whole air-letter!  Never mind.  Lots & lots of love Mike.

 

23.9.68: The course starts...

Dear Mum – the 23^rd! – and we’re away to a flying start.  [I presume this was the day the course at the Opera Centre started.] Just before I go on, I must say one or two things that I keep forgetting.  Thank you for all the odds and ends of news from home; you say that you haven’t answered my letters, but I’m just as bad.  Thank the aunts for their little St Cecilia; it may be a wee while before I can write – do you know I think it’s actually cheaper to write one of these air-letters than it is to send a postcard!  Last time I wrote I was going to answer one or two things and didn’t get any further than the [the cat] poem, which set me off again, and made me rather miserable; though it was after the more distressing day that I’d just had previously so it must have been a combination of both.  I’m all right at the moment, anyway.  What I’ve kept meaning to tell you about was the squirrel I met in Regents Park, the day I didn’t go to the Zoo.  This cheeky wee thing must have thought I would have some food, and it kept coming up and then running off, until it finally came so close I could have hand-fed it if I had had some food.  Must have got disgusted with me when it discovered I didn’t and ran off.  But it was quite beautiful, with a lovely silver streak down its tail. 

On Friday we had the concert that I mentioned, with Ann and Kiri, and it was held at a NZ club way down at Wimbledon.  We nearly didn’t get there – Kiri was driving this car of hers (she and her hubby, who is at present in Persia) have a neat wee sports model, I suppose it is, but holds four if you follow, and they live in the Kensington are, which is quite toney, really; Joan Sutherland is a couple of streets away!) and after we’d picked up Mrs Thelma Robinson, the ex-mayoress, by about 2 years, of Auck., who was arranging our side of it, we drove off towards W. via the Putney Bridge: - the approach, alone, to the bridge took 20 minutes of easing forward in the late rush-hour traffic!!  Ann came on much later by taxi.  This club is next to the famous tennis courts, and is run by a rather snobby class of NZer, who are exactly the same as that sort of group are at home – particularly in the Nth Is.  So it was really like being NZ, quite honestly, and just as phoney as that sort always are there. [My longstanding egalitarianism coming out.] However, there were some pleasant people amongst them, especially an old lady (they said she was 90) who had recently come from Honolulu, via USA, by leaps and bounds, and was the person I most enjoyed talking to and from whom I was dragged away too early.  The concert didn’t go off badly, although I got fouled up rather badly in one of Kiri’s numbers, and though I recovered was a bit put out by it.  She very nicely said after that we only learn by our mistakes, and if that makes her sound just a trifle uppity, she is, but rather more nice than uppity! (Fortunately). [Biographies of Kiri, discussing this period in her life, tend to agree with my ‘uppity’ assessment of her at this point in her career. She’d been somewhat spoilt as a student by having more money than most, gifted from her supporters in NZ; she’d already made a movie in NZ, and she was hugely popular in the country.] 

Luton Hoo as it was in 1829 -
it was substantially altered after this. 

Out to the Crowls for the weekend again.  Nina had a cold, so didn’t go to Luton Hoo with us.  This is a stately home near Luton (the Hoo means a hill), but the place is well known almost entirely for its art and such collection, as the house is a mess – having been so altered and changed and partially burnt that none of its once [original] glory remains.  But it has 3 Rembrandts!, and a host of really beautiful odds and ends, particularly in the miniature line; that is, tiny glass cases with a whole crucifixion scene inside and other such miracles of miniaturisation.  How they can (a) had the patience, and (b) been able to see what they were doing with these tiny things is beyond me.  Then we each did what we wanted in the evening: Reg and M. listened to Bonaventure on the radio, Nina and Marg. and I watched a film on TV.  [Luton Hoo, which I don't remember visiting at all (!) was converted into a hotel in 2007; the priceless art collection is now on display at Ranger's House in London. Interestingly, the Wikipedia article doesn't mention any Rembrandts!]

For a short while on Sunday afternoon, Reg and I went to see Waltham Abbey, which has great historical interest as it is right near where the 1066 battle was fought.  King Harold is supposed to be immured (after he was dead, of course) in the stone work, but they don’t know where. [Once again, my 'facts' may not be quite up to the mark.] And it is a beautiful church. Reconstructed, I should think, but very cleverly.  Small, but gorgeous, with a crypt (so has Clement Dane’s, which is in the middle of the Strand – in the middle of the street, along with another church!, and which I stumbled into one day) a ceiling of wood panelling, with, good grief (!), the signs of the Zodiac down the centre, a painted set of carvings on the altar, some small but crowded, and original stained glass windows, and most unusual of all, an American vicar, with, ugh!, the most nauseatingly hale fellow well met line of patter I’ve struck!  Outside is the remains of a mill – the watercourse (2 of them actually) is all that’s left – it runs right under the houses and street built next to it – and the archway that has been there since the original Abbey – just the archway!  But it’s marked historic monument – so?!  [I'd love to know who this American vicar was and what he was actually like....]

TODAY!  Nothing to do this morning, it was a get acquainted with the school time, but this afternoon I had my first German lesson, along with 6 other beginners, an Oxford student (all these are ex, of course), a Royal College Maltese girl: very sweet and attractive (I shared my book with her...ahem?!), a Scots girl, a music teacher and a female arts student (both stage management [students]) and another boy with an endless laugh. What a team! But we are getting there. The lady teacher is Frau (?) Radinger. And she’s very nice, and sweet and a happy sort of person. I was supposed to have a coaching session after that with one of the singers, but she didn’t turn up!  I found out after that she’d been called off to do another something, but nobody bothered to tell me! Aaagh!

Tomorrow will be a much bigger day – I was home at 4.45 today – with a reps’ [répétiteurs] class all morning and two coaching sessions, and an Italian lessione! Wed doesn’t look very busy, but Thursday is again. (We go to a Götterdämerung rehearsal in the morning, at Covent Garden, I think!)  Friday seems easier again.  We have lunch time lectures on Friday and they promise to be very interesting.  At the moment, I’m less worried about how bad I am by comparison, because even though the others have all done lots of varied things, they must be there to learn something too, so!  Met some interesting [handwritten from here] students; Peter Lyon(s), who is very talkative, and quite interesting as well; a tenor who has worked (toured rather) with the B + W Minstrel Show and the Scottish Opera, and so on.  I’ll write again when there’s been a bit more happened.  Lots of love, Mike XXXXXX

[Peter Lyon got on well over the year; he went on to work for the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, doing Gilbert and Sullivan roles.  After that he seems to have vanished from the Google history books.]