21.8.69 - Kevin leaves for NZ

21.8.69 [Typewritten again; must have connected with my portable typewriter again]

Dead Mum, I presume this is the day before you go back to out-patients, but like a ninny, I’ve just realised that this won’t get to you until after everything has been seen to, so there’s little use in my saying good luck, is there? Much better if I go to Mass tomorrow for you ˗ that’s a much quicker system than these letters! I hope anyway that the energetic life you’re going to lead isn’t going to be too strenuous ˗ just as well you don’t drink or we’d have you (by doctor’s orders, of course) out getting stoned (and probably stoney broke as well) merely in order to get rid of a very rude little stone that’s had the temerity to outstay his welcome! (UGH! sez mother.) [I suspect this is in response to equally ridiculous puns from her.]You haven’t gone and dug over the potato patch, have you? No? Good ˗ just thought you might perhaps try to find a twin for the one you’ve already got. (Actually in spite of your injunction to treat this whole episode lightheartedly, don’t get the impression I’m not concerned about you, will you? As Reg says I am pretty placid ˗ I think it bothers him sometimes; when he gets more concerned about me than I do! ˗ but I’m not stoney-hearted, and though I don’t let it worry me too much (you and I know there’s only one Being around that really gets worried about these things ˗ we’ll leave the worrying to Him, in fact) I do remember you all the time in my prayers ˗ even more than usual, in fact ˗ so you should come through all right. What with the care of the best doctors you’ve ever seen and a little fifth dimensional care as well, you’ll be fine in no time!)

I’ll probably set about job-hunting today, though on the other hand I might give my foot a rest if poss. It hasn’t had much time to relax since I came back to London ˗ never knew I did quite so much walking. The big trouble probably was that because Kevin was to leave yesterday, on Tuesday I met him (and also eventually the two Tithers) and we spent the afternoon and evening doing little else but walking, it seemed. We actually went to a not over-funny piece of film called MonteCarlo or Bust in the afternoon, then met up with Mike in a pub somewhere. And finally when Kathy arrived (several hours later it must have been!) we went and had a rather nice meal in a place I rather like between Piccadilly and Trafalgar Square. (I’m slowly accumulating nice ˗ and reasonable ˗ eating places all over London; though I must start doing my own cooking too, soon.) And after that we went and had a few more drinks (we all remained delightfully sober!) and eventually wound up looking for one of those little cubicles where you can have your photo taken for 2/6 ˗ four photos, in fact. We squashed the four of us into the booth, and when the photos finally came out, they showed nearly always a huge Kathy face, a perpetually grinning Flaherty face, a Hitler-like Tither face and an almost non-existent Crowl face. Except in the last one (which was the one I kept) where I was in the process of pushing Kathy’s head a little further down in order to be seen ˗ and the camera has caught a huge hand apparently covering Kathy’s head entirely!

Kevin that night went back and stayed at Mike’s, and I went and caught the last tube home to Finsbury Park. Normally I would than catch a bus to Bethune Rd, but I’d missed the last of those and was about to do some more walking, when I discovered that I couldn’t make out which way to go from the road-map that was very conveniently placed for people going in every direction but mine. A taxi-driver stopped to deliver something on his way home, and I asked him if he could tell me the way to Manor Road. (The bus normally goes almost direct to this street, but the street is called three different things in its various parts, and I couldn’t recall the name of the one that it was to begin with.) He said he was going very near there and told me to jump in so I did and he took me within a couple of recognizable blocks of home! For free! The people round here generally seem to be just that much more friendly than those in the South or East of London. Which is rather nice.

I’m getting used to the flat again, and slowly accustoming myself to the Ascot gas water heater going off like a little Atomic bomb noise everytime I turn the water on. They are apparently not supposed to be installed in as small a place as a bathroom, but both this one and the one at the Syrus home are, and if they can have put up with this sort of explosion for so many years so can I, I dare say. There seems to be quite a collection of people coming and going as well ˗ apart from those who live here (I haven’t seen Ian since Monday, Kathy only once ˗ on Wednesday, I think! [Kathy Bird, not Tither]) ˗ in fact some of those I’ve seen here seem as much at home as I do. I think one of them sleeps here, but I’ve no idea where!! I knew it would quite likely seem a lot less crowded than one would think with five living here.

I meant to finish off the Kevin story. I met him at Mike’s yesterday morning to help him carry his bags to Victoria (and wound up returning with his umbrella, which he decided at the last minute would be too much of a nuisance) and he wasn’t feeling too happy and I wasn’t much better, though I tried, and he seemed quite miserable when he finally left. I had some time to fill in so I went into one of those continuously showing theatres where they had a mixture of cartoons and news etc. The last film was about giraffes, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that I was about to leave, I would have sat there silently bawling my eyes out! The men in this film wanted two giraffes for a Zoo and [handwritten] though they were obviously all good fellers the animals were just so philosophical about it all and just stood there taking it all in and pretending not to be homesick at all! [Not sure whether I was going to bawl my eyes out because Kevin was going back to New Zealand, for good, or because of the homesick animals! Maybe both: Kevin and I had been friends since the third form at High School.]

Mrs Syrus might be quite pleased to hear from you. She wrote to say how much she liked the flowers ˗ sounded a bit like one of your letters! 39 Newgate Rd, St Leonards-on-Sea.

Don’t seem to need Stoke Newington on the address, the N 16 is the important one.

I’m financially fine ˗ re Francisco. Love Mike. 

16.8.69 - travel and some foot damage

16.8.69 [handwritten]

Dear Mum, I’m presuming that you’ve written again since your last letter and I hope it contains good news about the ops. The thing is I’m not yet back in London ˗ will be next Monday ˗ and as I said to the others at the flat not to forward any mail after Wednesday, I’ve now made things a bit awkward because I can’t keep up with the news. I was invited to stay over yet a third weekend, rather than go back to London, and so I accepted. But I definitely must get back on Monday in order to see Kevin before he goes. I’ve decided I won’t go to Belgium with him ˗ basically because I’ve not yet heard from the Home Office; they still have my passport in fact, and as I have no way of knowing whether it will now be returned in time I don’t think it’s worth the fuss. [This, I think, was to get a certificate of patriality - now called a Certificate of Entitlement - so I could stay on in the UK, my father being English.] I wrote off and cancelled the tickets, so I hope everything sorts itself out there. Reg said he’d let me know if anything arrived from either the Home Office or the Bank of NZ (where the travel arrangements were being made) by phone, and last night he called to say that he’d received a letter from the Bank addressed to Mr Flaherty! Honestly the amount of time wasted over carelessness like this here is phenomenal. As I’d already written off to cancel the tickets I hope that all that will work out okay.

Harbour Arm, Hastings
courtesy gofishing,uk

The weather here is only today returning to its former glorious self ˗ we’ve had two days of very miserable, though mild weather ˗ and I’m sitting on the pebbles here watching the other two dry off. I didn’t go in because on Wednesday evening we met up with Paul again, and prior to going for a drink with him went out on the old rock Harbour Arm. Coming back off it I jumped down off one rock onto another, and either through being over-cautious, or else thinking that the distance was greater than it was I gave my whole left side a terrific jolt, right through my body. Fortunately the only apparent damage done was to my left foot, and though it seemed okay it got progressively stiffer and sore as the evening went on, so that finally I was in difficulty walking. It was a little less bad the next morning but I went to the doctor just the same. He only prodded around my toes and instep, taking the usual practitioner’s delight in finding the tender spots, and declared that possibly it was a little dislocated, but unlikely to be anything serious. Anyway, he was nice enough I suppose, but probably thought I was making a fuss about nothing. I was glad to have gone because at least it calmed any thoughts of its being something really nasty. It's today walkable on, but this causes it to ache rather much (up till now I’ve been limping around ˗ doubt that does it much good) but I guess it’s improving all right.

The sea looks strange here: it’s artificial somehow. Because the sky merges into it ˗ they’re both very grey at the horizon ˗ the end of [it] doesn’t seem far away and it looks as though the people are swimming in a gorgeously designed (and rather enormous) bath. And the waves are provided by some mechanical means. They’re far too gentle to belong to Mother Nature! Get well, love, Mike.

(P.S. I got Mrs S some flowers today ˗ they’ll arrive on Monday, I trust.)

11.7.69 Chelmsford, trains, shifting

11.7.69

Dear Mum, Great, great ˗ I’m glad to see you’re back on the road to recovery; though I must admit I didn’t expect anything else ˗ you’ve had so many nurses to look after you that you couldn’t help but get better. And I’ve had two more reports since I last wrote which has pleased me very much. All you have to do now is not work toooo hard and stop going out so much so late at nights ˗ I’m sure it’s all these late nights that’s caused the trouble! (Heh, heh, heh!) Give old Fred a special pat (all right, she’s already got one...!) for me and tell her she’s a marvellous wee soul to have around when you’re sick. It’s her constant attention that gives me the sneaking suspicion that perhaps cats aren’t quite the little snobs they pretend they are. Anyway, keep getting better. Please.

We had our concert last night, and generally speaking it was quite successful, though as I said last time I’d have loved to have been working on the stuff for a lot, lot longer. Anyway, Keith Kent, the conductor, seemed fairly pleased though I think he felt his choir let him down a little. At one place, it was partly my fault, I think, in the Polovtsian Dances, I went gaily on only to find that the chorus hadn’t sung anything when they should have come in with the biggest noise of the evening! They came in two bars late but with the stuff they should have sung two bars earlier. I spent so many bars wondering if perhaps I should stop and start the bit again that I forgot I could save the day by merely doubling back on myself by two bars, and fortunately did this just before we reached another change of speed, where it would have been disastrous if I’d gone into a new tempo while they were still in the old. [I presume this was one of the fast passages. Such jumping around eventually becomes ‘normal’ for experienced accompanists!] Actually another reason for my delay in acting was that I wasn’t sure exactly what bit they’d come in on, and it wasn’t till I heard some rather grating un-Polovtsian type chords that I guessed entirely what had happened. There were some other moments of adjustment too, but mainly because the choir, who haven’t been used to having Keith out front, don’t always watch, and consequently tend to lag behind somewhat. He’s been playing for rehearsals up until this week. (I think if I wanted it, there’d be a job there for me ˗ though apart from the fact that Chelmsford is about 40 miles from the centre of London [not twenty, as I wrote in the previous letter] ˗ the trains do it in just over half an hour though ˗ and perhaps I’ll get in touch with them again next term ˗ it may be worth my while. He seemed keen enough to have me back.)

Neil Jenkins

The tenor and soprano (hereafter called Neil Jenkins and Anne Collins) were supposed to arrive about 5 pm so that we could do some more rehearsal, but got caught up in the traffic jams caused by the signalmen’s strike which of course was affecting the very trains I had to get to Chelmsford!

On Wednesday, I got up there but couldn’t get back the same way, and one of the choir who lives near Upminster (which is the furthest point on the line that I used to get to Plaistow) gave me a lift down there and I got a tube to Charing Cross and just caught my Blackheath train with two minutes to spare. And last night I missed a train at Liverpool St and had to wait for another three-quarters of an hour till four, and then when that train left it got about ten minutes up the line and ran into a points failure and we sat there for nearly half an hour. I suspect actually it was more likely something to do with the strike, as other trains going in the same direction passed us every few minutes. And each night that I got into Chelmsford I finished up getting a taxi to the School Hall because the buses only run every half hour or less, and I just never saw one going my way! What a week.

Anyway last night I got a lift back to town with Neil and Anne in his car, and only then discovered just how far it was. It seems very roundabout by car, in spite of the motorways. Neil is the brother of Terry Jenkins who did Albert Herring in the first term, and has just been married ˗ four weeks ago. Anne is the ex-flatmate of Neil’s wife! Complicated, isn’t it? Neil seems to have led an interesting life career-wise ˗ he has somehow got himself connected with Menotti, and sings the role in The Consul of the magician Magadoff everywhere that Menotti does it now. He’s sung it in Israel (in Hebrew!) and in Spain - in Spanish. He now wants to sing it in English, but no one (except the Opera Centre) seems to be doing it! He thinks also that they’re going to Japan to do it soon. He’s also part of the present Deller Consort, which just at the beginning of the week made a full recording of Acis and Galatea, as it should be done.

After the concert last night we went and had a Chinese meal, one for three ˗ so that we had about five different dishes to mix together. And they showed me how to eat with chopsticks, which isn’t quite as difficult as I’d thought, but not really suited to the English way of eating; if you could hold your plate up to your mouth the way the Chinese do it would be much easier.

[Handwritten] When I leave the flat on the 28th (I have told you, haven’t I?) I think what I’ll do is this: go and stay with David Syrus in Hastings ˗ I’ve been invited by his parents ˗ David says they like having the house full ˗ but leave most of my stuff in London with Alistair (who has recently rented a house because he gets married in early August ˗ I’m going to the wedding). And then perhaps when Kevin goes to Belgium on his way home I’ll go too ˗ it only costs about £4 (!) and stay the couple of days that he’s there, as it’s the last time I’ll see him for a while probably. And then I’ll come back and look for a flat for David and self ˗ I’ve got several places in London where I can stay! So! That’s the present plan. I might get you to address letters to the Crowls after the 28th if they don’t mind.

Love, Mike

8.7.69 Rehearsals and payments

8.7.69

Dear Mum, I’ve only just received your letter telling me about when you were sick. Well, this is not good at all ˗ what does Fred [the cat] think she’s up to letting you get ill? I’ll have a word to say to her when I write! And what you are doing eating stones?? [I think my mother had a gallstone problem at this time.] It must be all this gardening you do. Anyway, I hope that by now you are getting better again, and haven’t gone back to work too soon. I’m very glad that all those marvellous brothers and sisters of yours were within calling distance. They really are great to have around in time of crisis. I’ve written a short letter to Monica, [Stokes] (it is 24 Argyll St, isn’t it?) and I’ll get you to thank everybody else, including Mr B, for looking after you for me. [Mr Bevan and his wife lived around the corner from my mother, and were very good friends.]

I’ve got the morning off this morning (we’re in the middle of production rehearsals so that I always have a little more time to myself) so I’m writing straight away, and I hope to be able to go Mass at 10.00 just to make sure you get better. (Believe it or not it’s only 9.40 now ˗ I do get up early sometimes.)

I went to the first rehearsal of this thing that I have to play for on Thursday night last night. And though I practised the stuff I had to play I didn’t feel very happy at all, and I don’t think the conductor did either. But between you and me, I found him a very difficult conductor to follow, and I’m very glad that there is another rehearsal on Wednesday, before the show. I felt so inadequate last night (when I arrived he was playing for them in great style, and bringing them in with his head ˗ though he does have the advantage of having had the music to work on since last Easter) that I began to get annoyed with my apparent uselessness (essessess), but I thought this is no good, Mike; pull your sox up and even if you aren’t as good as he is, do your best and make it worth their while paying you such a ridiculous fee. They’ve giving me seven guineas! [It seems more ridiculous now that anyone was still paying fees in guineas.] Which works out to about a pound an hour for the hours I work for them. Still I think it’s worth it, because of the amount of practice I have to do on the stuff to make them sound even remotely reasonable. I also went to another rehearsal with the two soloists on Saturday morning, and wasn’t very happy to find that the Mezzo didn’t know her work ˗ and they are supposed to be professionals. Anyway, it was quite a good rehearsal in spite of that, and I got two shocks from it: late in the time I was there they suddenly foisted a Britten Canticle for tenor, mezzo and piano on me which I had to sightread! (I knew it by ear a bit, fortunately, from the record.) [Probably: My beloved is mine (Canticle I) for soprano or tenor and piano (words Francis Quarles), 1947] The second shock was that I did sightread it, and quite well ˗ I was beginning to wonder if I’d been suffering under a delusion all these years I could sightread! And they are intending to perform this piece at the concert too ˗ I think almost, that they should pay me another couple of guineas for the shock treatment!

The biggest bother with this sort of thing is that everything is done in a hurry ˗ and you don’t have time to absorb the music into your system before it has to be performed ˗ music really needs a good working out, and then a rest and then a rejuvenation treatment, and by that time it’s become part of you, and seems to lie under your fingers all that much easier, and to come from you the way it should instead of being forced. (I’m just off to Mass, I’ll finish this later.)

Back Again. To continue. I was under the impression that Chelmsford, the place where the concert and rehearsals are taking place, was somewhere in the North East of London, but I discovered last night that it was about 20 miles or more from Liverpool St, which in itself is about three quarters of an hour from Blackheath. I wondered why they offered to pay my expenses as well as the fee. Thank goodness I didn’t refuse.

They now tell me at the Centre too that I may have to go to Bristol at the end of the week to play the celeste in the orchestral rehearsals for Schicchi and Tabarro which are being held there. The reason for this is that the orchestra we are using this time is the Bristol BBC training orchestra. But I doubt if I’ll actually get there as there is nothing important for me to do on the celeste and to me it seems hardly worth the expense of getting me down there. But that sort of thing ˗ expense, I mean ˗ is what the Centre is rather absurd about. They spend money on all sorts of crazy things (like hiring an orchestra from a town over a 100 miles away when there are just as good here, and having to pay for their travel etc).

You know my large, large grey case? Well, it’ll shortly be on its way back to NZ. Kevin and I are swapping cases ˗ he needs a big one for stuff he is sending by sea, and I find that that case is too large to carry stuff around in, in London, so he’s giving me a smaller one. Because his only day off in the week is Thursday and because I can’t meet him this Thursday, I’m taking it up to Waterloo’s left luggage, and leaving it, and then sending the ticket down to him by post! Sounds like a couple of old-fashioned spies on the job, doesn’t it? Hope you don’t object to my giving presents away like that! I’m sure you won’t. Well, I’m nearly at the end of this aerogramme and I want nothing but GOOD reports from now on.

Lots and lots of love, Mike

9.6.69 Hampton Court and Brighton Beach

9.6.69

Dear Mum, sorry it’s rather a while since I’ve written ˗ in fact I have been getting slack, I’m afraid, on my letter writing in general. I got an answer back from Prof Platt thanking me for writing, but it was a very short letter ˗ about ten lines, I think ˗ he wanted to know because he says Murray Holmes is thinking of coming over ˗ I don’t know what he intends doing over here, though. [Nor do I now remember who this man was.]

We’ve been having fabulous weather here over the last weekend, and it’s still fine in fact ˗ temperatures up in the 70s.

On Sat I went with Mike to Weybridge which is near Hampton Court, for lunch with one of his girlfriends ˗ her name is Maureen, but for some reason she’s called Mickey! Weybridge is quite a way from London Central ˗ about forty minutes by not very fast train (they have fast trains which take you direct, and semi-fast ones that stop at some stations, and not very fast ones which stop occasionally, and slow ones which take all day to get there) and is one of the wealthy areas, like Blackheath, with a pretence at being in the country ˗ though Weybridge succeeds rather more than Blackheath does. Anyway, after lunch we went to Hampton Court and spent some time there, and though the place has certain fascinations, it isn’t as interesting as some other spots. It has the distinction of having no two chimneys alike ˗ they each have a different pattern, and there are dozens of chimneys ˗ and of housing lots of grace and favour people ˗ ones who live in royal apartments (there are some in London too), rent free, because of some royal relationship or service. But it isn’t very looked after generally speaking ˗ certainly not inside in the royal apartments where the furniture just looks patchy instead of antique, and where they have some of the dreariest paintings I’ve ever seen. Plus the fact that there is so much you can’t see there that it gets a little frustrating after a while running constantly into No Admittance signs.

We went in the Maze, which is in a rather bad way ˗ people have rather wrecked it at various times by trampling through the hedges, and now most of the hedges have iron fences in their centres which rather spoils the attractiveness. But it’s not a bad maze ˗ everyone goes around with silly grins on their faces ˗ there are several dead end paths, and no one coming out of one tells the people going into it that it is a dead end. There are some very nice formal gardens there ˗ one with tiny hedges about six inches high all in designs with flowers between ˗ but only ones that aren’t going to grow higher than the hedges. And others with statues and fountains in them.

The building is rather fabulous ˗ especially the old Tudor bits which they are gradually restoring to something of their former beauty, and they are also restoring the massive murals ˗ some walls are nothing but paintings, and the ceilings too. They have cleaned these up and they look very bright. One room is full of weapons, but all arranged in geometrical designs and hung on the walls, so that a hundred pistols in a circle cease to have their warfaring value and become something of beauty.

After the Court we went down to Kevin’s pub ˗ about 500 yards from the Palace gates, and sat there for quite a while talking.  It is actually quite an old building, but what looks like age inside it is apparently phoney, and it was decorated in an old style just a few years ago! [This wasn’t a pub that Kevin Flaherty owned, but one he worked in for a time.] After this we we went and had a very nice Chinese meal, and then finally went home. [This obviously wasn’t the time I had an Indian meal that nearly burnt my mouth out; something I thought happened near Hampton Court.]

Brighton Beach, about 1967
by Tony Ray-Jones

Yesterday about eight of us from the Centre went to Brighton, and it turned out to be the hottest day this year. Well, we lay on the beach (and swam, twice, in extremely cold, but very buoyant water) for something like four hours, and naturally we all look rather more than pink today. I knew I was getting more burnt than I ought, but it was just so wonderful to be in actual sunshine that actually lasted for more than an hour that I couldn’t resist it. Fortunately I didn’t get burnt as much as that time the kids and I went to St Kilda [in Dunedin; I’m not sure what kids I’m referring to. Possibly my cousins.] ˗ remember? ˗ we all came home looking like fresh beetroots and could barely get dressed or sleep or anything. I slept very well last night, just by ignoring the discomforts I did feel, and except for my legs (the backs of them of course!) and back, which are both rather tender, particularly when I’m sitting, I’m not too bad. But what a day! It made life worthwhile and I even felt like swimming, which surprised me as I don’t normally like sea water. But there were barely any waves, and it was nowhere (that I went in) very deep. But the beach was PEBBLES! and the area between the ball and heel of both my feet have great blue bruises on them ˗ it was impossible to walk comfortably ˗ though at least there was only sand under the water.

I’m going to have to leave this flat ˗ John has now decided that he needs a flat in North London, because we’re too far away from his Royal College. Actually I don’t mind (apart from having felt quite settled here) because it gives me an excuse to part with him and it seems as though I may be able to go into a flat with Davids Syrus and Gorringe ˗ who both have to move shortly. And anyway, North London is more central ˗ especially if you’ve missed a train late at night. Strange isn’t it that Jeff and I get on well together, and that we both find John rather difficult to get on with. [handwritten] Jeff and I, for example, have just been for a long walk around Blackheath, which is something John always reckoned he’d do, but never would. John always considers himself to be an intellectual ˗ with the inference that we’re not ˗ you know? Not to worry, love, Mike. 

Late Feb, 1969: hectic schedule...

28.2.69

Dear Mum, how are things with you? I’m at home once more ˗ in the middle of the week when I should be at work ˗ I just don’t know what is wrong with me of late. In spite of taking some vitamin pills since I had my last cold, I woke up yesterday with a screamingly sore chest, and wobbly legs, and a sore head. Anyway I went to school, and though I had intended coming home in the afternoon ˗ I had nothing set out to do ˗ I stayed on and did some of the work for the very busy week I’ve got next week: the re-audition for Opera for All on Monday, playing for Abigail Ryan at the Wigmore Hall for the Tauber contest on Wednesday, and playing for three of the singers doing an audition for the Wells on Friday. I intended going in today, and even got up and was dressed, but once again I felt all shakey, and finally went back to bed. I was supposed to go and have dinner with Mike [Tither] tonight too. I’m not feeling bad just at this moment but equally I don't feel a hundred per cent. I’m really fed up with being below par, and wish I knew what to do about it.

Sorry there have been such long gaps between letters, but I was terribly busy last week. Went with Abigail to a play called the Delicate Balance, done by the [Royal] Shakespeare Co. The acting of this company ˗ it’s a repertory one ˗ is always superb, and even if the play isn’t much good, the cast is well worth seeing. Actually it was a fairly interesting play, though I can’t say I saw the point of it all. Peggy Ashcroft was in it, and also Michael Hordern and Sheila Hancock ˗ who used to be in a crazy TV thing called The Rag Trade. Abigail and I decided at the last minute to go ˗ we were on a [number] 15 bus, which meant we could go all the way into town, and both had originally intended to go straight home. But I had to collect some stuff from George Bamford, the copyist, and so we 

St Patrick's Catholic Church, Soho Square

decided to see if we could get seats. [It sounds like this was a patch in which I thought Abigail and I might become an item. It wasn’t to be, though for a very good reason.]We did, and then I went tearing up to Kings Cross while Gail went and got some seats at Convent Garden, and when I got back we went to Ash Wednesday mass at St Pats in Soho. They had a choir singing old 14th century music, and the sound seemed to float all around the ceiling. Gorgeous, and there was a little old drunk in the back of the church who spent the last quarter of an hour using all the four-letter words in his vocab to mutter his way through the mass. And no one did anything to stop him; I don’t suppose there was much that could be done anyway! [

When we came out of church it was snowing hard, as it had been on and off all day, and we got covered in the stuff going to the theatre. This was one of the worst falls I’ve seen, adn there was complete chaos all over. I was lucky that the trains had started running again by the time I got out of the play but other people had been waiting for about two hours!

The next night Kevin and I went to see The Cocktail Party, by T S Eliot, with Alec Guinness in the lead. If anything this was even more obscure than the previous night! But it was very well done generally, with the exception of one of the actors, who recited his verse with the accents all wrong (the play is in blank verse) and made it sound all unnatural.

The next night I had my first experience of a laundrette, and found it quite interesting. I also realised just how clean washing things in a machine like that is to washing them by hand. [!] my shirts have always seemed to be clean, but this was the first time my underclothes and hankies were really whitened again! I went up to Crowls that night too. Next morning I had to go back down to Kings Cross to collect a huge pile of music to be checked; it subsequently took me all weekend, ! ˗ and then meet one of last year’s rep students who is now at the Wells whom [Uncle] Reg had met up with at his church, and whom he had invited around so that I mgiht have a chat with him. We spent about an hour and a half talking, and it was very interesting. I’m afraid the Crowls must have thought I was being a bit rude, doing nothing but work all weekend, but the thing was that I had to take it back to Bamford on Sunday evening. (And then I got some more on Monday ˗ which completely filled in another evening. It was music for a film score, for Alfred the Great, and had to be ready for recording on Wednesday ˗ that is, yesterday. [The film score was written by Raymond Leppard, who, as Wikipedia puts it without the pun intended, ‘played an instrumental role in the rebirth of interest in baroque music.’ ]

On Sunday night Kevin [Flaherty] and I and some others from the Centre went to a concert at the Festival Hall conducted by Andre Previn, with John Ogdon playing Rachmaniov’s Third [Piano] Concerto. I didn’t like this latter much, but they also played a Haydn Symphony very well, and a Symphony by William Schuman, a modern American composers, which was very exciting. [Sunday 23 February 1969 André Previn Symphony No. 85, ‘La Reine’ HAYDN Symphony No. 3 WILLIAM SCHUMAN Piano Concerto No. 3 RACHMANINOV John Ogdon piano.]

On Tuesday, I went to see Gloriana ˗ by Britten. It’s an opera that was written for the present Queen’s coronation, and wasn’t much of a hit at the time: certainly by comparison with his others. It does have a rather weak first act, and the last act is only good up to a certain point ˗ it’s basically the libretto that is the fault ˗ because the music is fabulous. One scene especially makes the opera worthwhile. This is the quartet scene in the second act. It’s only about seven minutes long, but it is so exciting the way it builds up from the single character on stage to a marvellous quartet bit with 3 of the characters singing a sort of vengeance piece while the fourth character, a woman, does great sweeps around the stage in great anxiety. It’s full of very neat touches too. At the end of the first act, a prayer scene, the curtain falls on complete silence ˗ no one dared clap until it was down. There is a masque in the beginning of the 2nd act, which is entirely accompanied by unaccompanied chorus singing. (?) And the ball scene in the end of the second act, where the queen, in making a fool of someone also actually makes a fool of herself, is partially accompanied by an onstage band, which every now and then is taken over by a rowdy and horribly orchestrated (with sliding trombone sounds and lots of percussion) version of the band music.

[handwritten] I’m glad to hear Mary [?] is coming up to see you ˗ that’ll be very good for you I should think. A pity isn’t it that you can’t cook meals for Fred [the cat].

Reg didn’t blink when I told him there was a girl staying in the flat. Thought I’d better tell him. [Goodness knows why!]

I’ve also got some checking to do for the Centre’s Gianni Schicchi parts. More cash I hope! Mike. [The Opera Centre included Gianni Schicchi in one of its student productions.]

16.1.69 Post-Christmas activities

I started adding these letters I sent from the UK to my mother back in the sixties to the blog some time ago...the last one I added was in May this year. So there's a certain irony/serendipity about the first line of this letter ...

16.1.69

Unending apologies for making you wait so long for a letter, but I really have not an idea where the time has gone.  If I thought I was busy last term – I didn’t know what was coming in this one!  WOW!  The mails have been all up the whop here because I got two aerograms from you on one day last week – dated four days apart. 

Re Reg’s Christmas presents: he got yours prior to Christmas by about a fortnight, and we spent one Sunday morning making a quite detailed trip through the book, along with the other one you sent a couple of years ago, on Dunedin.  I don’t suppose you got my present in time, either, in spite of the airmail, and Mike was telling me he was a bit annoyed because he’d sent stuff way back in October and it only arrived in the New Year.  All the mails were fine at the end – can’t understand them down under.  Thanks for all the Peanuts. 

Kingsley told me this morning a nice bit of news before I went to the Centre – he’d been offered board at a place – one of the Old Hostels in Notting Hill Gate –that’s sort of West – it’s a place where he has his own room he thinks, and they provide full board for £4-10-00 a week.  It means mainly less expense travelling, and his mother won’t be sending him anything more for a while for fares, as she had a heart attack just recently (but seems to be okay) as he’s quite a bit closer by tube to the Guildhall.  Hope he’ll be happy there.  It’s obviously got other advantages: TV, etc, but I wonder if he’ll get much peace.  Anyway, it left me in a bit of a spot because I don’t particularly want to move out of here, inconvenient as it may be in some ways, and I had visions of shifting to a bedsitter or what have you.  He was definitely going, come what may anyway, so I thought when he said could I find someone to share the place: Who would come?  The only person I could think of was David Syrus, one of the other reps, not mentioned in these dispatches for a while, and who I knew lives in one room in North Central or somewhere, and might be glad of a bit more space.  I thought though that he was probably paying less rent, and mightn’t be very agreeable, in view of the way-out-ness of the place.  I put it to him, after a few quick prayers to the Good Lord, and his eyes lit up immediately!  Seems he is actually paying £2-15-00 a week, as well as 1/- for the bathroom, and this was one advantage.  Also it’s that much closer to the Centre, about 20 minutes on his bike, if that, and he has the 3 rooms.  He hasn’t said definitely yet, because, he has paid a month’s rent in advance when he first shifted into his room, and doesn’t know if he’d get it back.  So!  A change is in the air by the looks of it.  Kingsley has to leave by the 25^th, so I may have to have the place to myself for a fortnight or so.  That’s the stop press news. 

Back to the previous weekend.  I haven’t told you about my Worthing trip have I? Kevin and I went down on the Sunday, (after standing on opposite sides of a box notice board waiting for each other for about 20 minutes at Victoria) and – I have told you about this haven’t I?  Sure I have.  Perhaps it’s not so long since I last wrote after all.  I think I’d better work backwards with the news, as I’m not sure now where I left off.

Last night Kevin and I went to Orpheus in the Underworld, which is now in its ninth year revival – it was first performed in ’60, and has toured the world since then.  It was fairly good though a little tired, and obviously an awful lot of the sparkle of the original performances has vanished.

On the previous Sunday, I’d come home in the evening about nine, feeling not to hot, but I thought I was just tired.  However during that night, my head went on fire, and my legs ached something terrible.  This is a symptom as far as I’m aware of one of the 'flus at present in fashion, and though I got up and went to the Centre on Monday – had to do an Angelique rehearsal – I came home early and stayed in bed till Wednesday morning, consuming sort of alternately: oranges, Bovril, and aspirins!  Actually I’d had a headache at the Crowls on Sat, but it had seemed to go off, although I slept terribly on Sat night – worse than I usually do there!  (I just can’t get used to sleeping in hot houses.  Now I just take all the top bedclothes off, except for a couple of blankets, and sleep like that.) (They provide: a hottie, 3 blankets, a heavy eiderdown, two rugs!) I’d gone up to the Crowls on Friday night – at 11.15 (with my uncles’ acquiescence – he didn’t mind at all he said, they always stay up till midnight – they do too – nearly knocks me out the way they go on!) – because originally Mike and Mervyn Jarvis were going to go The Force of Destiny (a new Verdi production) but we couldn’t get in, so we went to the pictures instead!  It was a film called Hot Millions with Peter Ustinov (who also collaborated on the script, and it showed in the dialogue), Robert Morley (in two tiny scenes) and my favourite actress: Maggie Smith.  (Remember The VIPs? She was Rod Taylor’s secretary; and also Desdemona in Olivier’s Othello!) And the first thing Ustinov does in the film, almost, is get on my bus! A no. 15 going to East Ham.  I felt quite proud.  And it’s full of bits of recognisably London, not landmarks, but streets that look very familiar, and even shops.  And there was also a shot in Rome from the top of St Pete’s, which I’d been on!  Yippee!  See it if you can – it’s a ‘take Monica Stokes type’!  [Because my auntie Monica would have laughed throughout.] and don’t let the people leaving at the end let you think it is the end; it’s not quite. 

Anyway, after this, I went, via the new Victoria Line, which to my uneducated eye didn’t seem anything remarkable, except perhaps that it was a little cleaner!, to the Crowls, where my illustrious uncle was planning his usual exhausting day’s outing for me!  It was supposed to be the Vic. and Albert Museum, but we went to Madame Tussaud’s instead.  (Had to go round Regent’s Park to park the car.  Fabulous fabulous houses and mansions round there.  All Georgian with pillars

Part II

and statuettes on the outside of buildings, etc.  Lovely stuff. In one part they’ve pulled down all but the front of a whole section of these houses, and all that’s standing looks like a whole lot of sightless eyes with the sky – grey – behind. Madame Tussaud’s is most curious. None of the models are quite life-size – always just a bit smaller it seems, and some of them have heads that are much too big. Some in fact are so bad they’re not even recognisable ([Samuel] Johnson for one, and heh, heh, heh, Holyoake for another). However the majority are good, and some are remarkable.Though the show biz section is consistently bad, and out of date. The Chamber of Horrors was in a state of repair, and only a few murderers were still sitting in their coffins. Most of the older exhibits are excellent, though they include rather odd subject matter. And there is a section that represents the two lowest floors of the ship the Victory with Nelson dying in one bit, and the usual sound of men dying all around and guns booming and the ship creaking and the smell of gunpowder, and generally it just made me feel sick. All the facts and figures of how Nelson won his great victory. And a footnote: 300 (?was it?) of the men in the battle went deaf as a result of it. Great...

We went onto the Planetarium after lunch and tho it was only for ½ an hour it was fantastic. You go into a great round room holding possibly 5 or 600 people and seat yourself and look, while you’re waiting, at cut-out silhouettes of London landmarks set up round the entire room with lights behind them. In the centre is a machine that is in fact a massive projector controlled from one side of the room by a panel with a man commentating. The roof is dome-shaped and when the show starts we grow [go?] through a quick version of the sky coming into night as the stars gradually appear. And then the whole thing moves right across the dome, at the will of the operator. Also on the dome are flashed pictures, sometimes moving, of close-ups, so to speak of other galaxies that appear like masses in our sky; the Milky Way for instance. This was much more interesting than the two hours at Madame T had been. And above all it made me feel terribly insignificant. If you move one inch forward in your chari as you read this, you will be one inch closer to England. That is comparable to what our voyage to the moon is in size to the entire galaxy we inhabit. And that’s only one of millions of galaxies. Doesn’t say much for our importance, does it.

Back to the Crowls for tea, and Winnie Crowl came too. Remember her? She’s Reg’s cousin. A dear old lady who really makes an effort, like Reg, to talk to you as an equal, not as a youngster – tho she’s getting onto 65 or 70. She doesn’t always succeed, anymore than Reg does, but they do try not to alienate themselves from someone who is so much younger. With a little persuasion I played some Beethoven sonatas – bits of them for them, explaining as I went along what was happening. Reg recorded most of it! Good grief! Things must sound pretty terrible on that piano actually, because it’s out of tune, and sticks, and notes won’t repeat, and oh, dear.

On that morning, Nina had said just before we went out that she would wash my scarf for me if I didn’t think that was being rude suggesting it! I accepted gratefully of course, and she gave me one for the day, and then gave it to me full stop! She’s a real dear, and I don’t think Mavis could do without her. She looks after Margaret much more it seems to me than her parents (!) and Marg is really attracted to her. So am I – she’s lovely, and has a marvellous sense of fun. I rather think perhaps that Reg has been living in a house with 3 women too long, and this is why I’m so acceptable! I often wonder if Mavis really cares to have me there every other week, although she too is extremely kind, and I’m no doubt doing her an injustice, because of her very quiet way. They also washed a shirt that I’d left there by mistake over Christmas – I’d had a funny feeling I was a shirt down! – and also told me which soap powders were best for whites. We chat about all sorts of domestic things there! (!!!!!: Penalty!)

Patricia Hayes

Anyway, on Sunday after lunch Reg took me over to Ann and Pat’s – five minutes away – as I had to play for these two at some Charity do. It turned out to be for the Assumption Sisters’ friends: the people from the families they’ve helped over the years. It’s an annual affair: one week (last) for the men, and the one we went to for the women. And they provide supper in a huge room, at tables, not buffet either. It was one of those thrown together concerts, and the worst part about the girls’ items, was that they didn’t know them. I hate that, I’m afraid, and find it very embarrassing. But the biggest surprise of all for me was that several actors came along to do some poetry readings and in the group was John le Mesurier – you do know, from George and the Dragon: the Colonel!  And he’s also, as they said, been in practically every British comedy ever made. He was a delight. Whether or not he was acting all the time I don’t know, but he was just like he always is. Must be his public image. He read a couple of poems, and said he’d never done this sort of thing before, and wasn’t quite sure if he’d do it right, and made every word he said before he even started like the lines from a comedy. Marvellous. The others were all good too, and though some of their faces seemed familiar, their names meant nothing. (One of the women at the do was Patricia Hayes, an actress. Ring any bells. Made films, a few, round the 40s and 50s. [The daughter was Teresa Jennings; she’s mentioned in the obituary. She was small, like her mother. Her husband was considerably taller.] Another student has a brother in a pop-group which I’d heard of back home.) The concert went on rather long however, with too many bad items, including ours, and not enough good. There was a lady ventriloquist (looking very like BerthaRawlinson!*) who was very good: her [handwritten] dummy took over completely – and had an argument with a lady in the audience! In fact it really does seem that these people get a bit schizophrenic as the dummy did all the talking nearly.  

Centre, a student, I mean, but married to another one of the students, is the daughter of

LOTS of love, Mike

*Bertha Rawlinson - see entry in Te Ara Biography.

7.1.69 First letter of 1969

7.1.69

Hullo, is this the first letter I’ve written you in the New Year?  Happy New Year anyway.  There seemed to be a bit of delay in mail here and I’ve only just (a day or two ago) received a letter you wrote on Boxing Day.  I think I’ve had everything you’ve sent from Fr Deslandes; not quite sure but I think I’ve two.  And they arrived without extra charges or anything.  [Father Deslandes, as I recall, ran the orphanages for South Korean orphans.  My mother and I each sponsored one of these boys for some years.]

 

Both Margaret and Mavis’s birthdays are in December!  Mavis’s was on one Saturday that I was up there and I think you’ll find a reference to it not so long ago in a letter, but I can’t remember the actual date, and Margaret’s is just a short while before Christmas – but again I’m not sure of the date – perhaps I can find out – plenty of time anyway!  Do you think I should have at least sent a card or someut?  It’s a bit late now of course.

 

Got me $10 without any great fuss , except that the gits at this end had sent the copy where I could then collect the money to a Post Office way around up the main street, instead of sending it to the Main Post Office, which is two minutes walk from the house!  It’s a little branch in the back of a Chemist’s shop.  There are almost as many Post Offices here as pubs – four branches within close walking distance!  And guess what else turned up – I was riding along in the bus just last week from the Opera Centre, a way I’ve come dozens of times and the bus passed a little notice on the wall saying: Change Alley!  It was where it should have been, but is too small to be in the A to Z.  I was on my way into the Strand but decided to come back later and have a proper look.  I did (and incidentally discovered that I’d never walked along Fleet St before in the process) about 10.30 at night and went in and had a look at it – at considerable risk to my life and limbs if any mugger had seen me no doubt!  In Change Alley there are now the back entrances to the St Martin’s Bank  and Lloyds Bank and one or two subsidiary buildings’ rear ends, but no Frobshm and Whoojy.   Sorry, they just don’t appear to exist anymore. 

 

Got some Tablets today – with all the guff inside them.  Thank you.  Also the 2 bob bit! 

 

Well since I last wrote what’s happened?  On Tuesday, New Year’s Eve, I went up to Ann and Trish’s for a meal, and to go to a party with them. They had been carol singing with some Anglican group, and the people at the party were from this – but not a very friendly mob.  I talked to the same guy nearly all night, and one or two others.  The majority of them left us alone – the 2 girls, Anne’s sister Marie and self – until after we came back from Trafalgar Square, when most had gone home and there were less to contend with.  I’m supposed to be going to a meal at a pub called the Swiss Cottage on Sunday with 12 of them – some of those I got to know vaguely, but I’d sooner not go – it sounds a rather too expensive, and unnecessary evening.  The four of us went to T. Square to bring in the New Year, but apart from the spectacle of hundreds of balloons floating away up at midnight, and some nits prancing about in the fountains – we watched from a little distance on the St Martin’s in the Fields Church steps – it wasn’t very exciting.  And we were only there for a short while.  None of the girls wanted to go in the crowds, and though I might have if I’d been with Mike or Kevin or someone, they made me feel rather panicky with their constant insistences that we all hang onto each other ALL the time.  By the time we got home from the party it was about three – I was to sleep on a couple of chairs in a sleeping bag at the girls’ place – and I was feeling rather unpleasant generally – I helped those girls wash up the dishes twice that night, at the party, while the hostess stood around looking on!  And we missed a lift home to the girls’ house as a result.  (Aaaagh – what a mess this is.) I didn’t mind doing them the first time  - but twice was too much!  And then I slept badly, I had a bit of Kingsley’s sore throat, and I’m always too hot in a sleeping bag.  What a night!  And then I had to go to the copyist’s all day straight from the girls’ without a shave – I was too lazy to carry my shaving gear as well my pyjamas, but since I’d gone to the copyist’s on the Monday with a day’s growth then too, they probably think I live in a state of permanent bristle. I hadn’t been due to go anywhere on the Monday and had got caught out.  Anyway, Pat cooked me a fantastic breakfast – beans, an egg, sausages, toast – and since I was still feeling rubbishy I couldn’t even finish it!  She’ll make someone a marvellous wife – not me, though – I don’t think I could stand someone quite as scatty as those two can sometimes be around me for life!  [Apparently unaware that people do grow up.] Actually they’re not so scatty as of yore – just indecisive – eg, if I hadn’t sort of organized them about getting off and going to T. Sq, we’d never have got there. For all their close and long friendship, they don’t think alike enough for me.  [What?]

 

To go on, I went to the copyist’s - did I tell you his name – George Bamford, in his late 40s I should think, glasses, little mo, and though apparently disorganized, a very thorough copyist – though even he with Zerox [sic] machines and all finds keeping up a task.  How did they do it in the old days?  His wife does all the photo-copying for him – he does all the necessary writing.  And though they appear to be a middle-class sort of couple they talk when their boy is there – he’s 19, 20, like East-enders.  In fact, George talks a good deal of the time  - and copies away while he does so!  But it was most fascinating to hear the talk around me of recording sessions, the Rolf Harris show (which they do all the copying for) concerts, etc.  I spent all day from about 11.15 till 6.00 cutting single lines of music from photo-copies, pasting them on (with double-sided Sellotape) another sheet (and editing them so that the players could turn over conveniently), in order that these sheets could then be cleaned up with a white paste substance (so that the edges of the cuts don’t show ) so that they could then be photographed again, blown up to a bigger size – the print was tiny – and thus turned into completely new parts.  Most of the work as awkward as this – this stuff was just too

 

Part II

finickety to copy out.  They gave me a luncheon voucher for three bob for lunch and I just went out – determined that I wasn’t going to starve because I’d been feeling so rotten – and had a 5/6 lunch – four courses!  And not too badly either.  The Bamfords are a very nice couple – they seemed to be giving Christmas presents – belated, to nearly all the kids in the block of flats they live and work in! Certainly there were enough kids there at various times.  And he’s very patient – though I think I was working well enough (since I did the whole job of four complete parts in the one day) and I think that some work (more of it) will definitely come my way.  He’s been asking me to ring and find out about checking some more parts, but so far he hasn’t had time to do them.  He even said tonight, since it was the third time he’d had to put me off about the work, that it would definitely be given to me, when he was ready, so! this will be a little extra cash in hand. 

 

However withal this filling in my time – and Hansel and Gretel and Les Girls (film) on Thursday, the first with Kevin and the other with Mike, the week that I’d planned to spend in practice slipped through my fingers somewhat.  However I did get some work done.  Hansel and Gretel was rather a delight, with two adults in the parts looking like kids!  The witch was a bit disappointing – played by Aussie tenor Ronald Dowd, but he looked unhappy as a dame – and consequently the last act was nowhere near as good as the other two.  Les Girls is a Gene Kelly, Kay Kendal, Mitzi Gaynor, Leslie Phillips, Patrick MacNee (Avengers) musical, which Mike has been insisting  for years was very very good – and it was.  The music, for Cole Porter, wasn’t up to scratch, but it was well performed, and the whole was very enjoyable. 

 

On Friday I came home after playing the piano most of the day and spent the time copying out my songs for Kurt.  Did this all day Saturday too, and didn’t even go out as I thought I might have done at one stage.  (While I think about it, cooked myself a pie tonight with: two half-cooked sausages I started for breakfast but which I’d originally intended having on last Sunday and forgot – forgot yesterday too -  a half cauli, also intended for Sunday’s meal, two enormous potatoes, mashed, a left-over tomato, an onion, and a small tin of vege soup, without the water added.  And cooked for about a quarter of an hour: it was delish! Crowl the chef is back!  Actually I got the general idea from a recipe I’d used one other time, with considerable adaptation.)

 

On Sunday, just for interest’s sake, and I suppose to keep Kevin company, I went to Worthing with him, by train.  He was going back to pay his ex-employer a fiver he had had to borrow when he arrived back in England, and so we went via Brighton.  Saw quite a bit on the way down – passed Gatwick Airport where only a night before a plane had plowed into a house a mile from the airport, and where also there’d been a train crash – didn’t see either of the wrecks, of course, but when it got to Brighton it was already dark – five o’clock – and drizzling and windy.  But we walked around a bit for ¾ of an hour, and had a quick glance at the place.  When we went on to Worthing, a nice enough wee town – also a coastal place – and spent an hour talking to mine host, his wife, and dog. 

 

Monday, we were back to work with a vengeance – a free morning, but straight into rehearsals for the coming master-classes.  I’m out of working condition, I can see – we were spoilt over the pre-Christmas time because we had no language classes and no coaching sessions.  Still it’s very nice to see everyone again, and though this morning’s reps’ class was rather terrifying, and the forthcoming Opera for All auditions at the end of the month don’t help either, but once again it was all very good.  The class this morning was taken by John Gardner – that’s all I know about him – on Massenet’s Manon.  It was terrifying, because I was first to play and had to play the overture!! Fortunately it was playable, but he was very finickety about right harmonies – wrong notes don’t matter as long as the harmonies are right, he says; fair enough, but I hadn’t even looked at the overture!  Still, that wasn’t the worst: when my turn came round again , he wanted me to play one bar and of course do you think I could get the blasted thing right for him, on the spot?  Makes me shake to think about it all.  But he said something that interested me: that he was rather of the opinion that we shouldn’t prepare these works beforehand for the rep classes – we were expected to be able to sight-read this sort of thing as a normal course of duty, and he said that you were inclined to lose your nerve if you got flustered after you had prepared it or if your sight-reading was constantly letting you down.  I think I have lost my nerve (!) because there was a time, in the dim distant days, when you could lay anything down in front of me and I’d have a go at it.  But now it worries me.  And yet, in my own coaching sessions, I cope quite adequately with what is given me.  I think it’s the fact of having an unknown quantity in the presence of a particular rep, and the presence of the stage managers.  Oh, dear.  Well I suppose if I can survive this morning’s battering and still look the others in the face things can’t be all that bad.

 

That’s pretty brought things up to date – went to Mike’s for tea last night thence to see The Canterbury Tales, a musical, of sorts, which I enjoyed in large spots, but not entirely.  Kate and Mervyn Jarvis also ran [came? Mervyn was a good friend of Mike’s and I’d also had a bit to do with him back home.] The latter’s over here on a business holiday till the end of the month. 

 

Oh, well, pray for me!  That I’ll get through this next month, and term without too many bruises and that I’ll get some of the old confidence back.  I think perhaps that’s what lacking, you know.

[handwritten] Anyway, lots of love to you both – Mike XXXX