25.3.69 Various wanderings

25.3.69

Dear Mum, I’m beginning another letter, because since the time that I’ve felt better, all the silly little things that happen have seemed much more interesting. The rather obscure last sentences on yesterday’s letter were to say that I’d bought myself six scores (remember I was grumbling about how they expected you to buy stuff without money?) with a fiver that they paid me for some trifling work that I did on the Gianni Schicchi scores. Parts, not scores! Anyway it was far more than I felt I should have got but didn’t complain. John had arrived home from shopping on Sat (I’d had to go out: see below) with a score he’d bought in a shop (2nd-hand) around the corner, and he painted vivid pictures of the stuff they had going in the musical line for practically nothing. Well, 'nothing' in the English sense! But slowly and surely I’m beginning to understand that you need to take everything John says with a large number of grains of salts [sic] because when I arrived at the shop there were two scores that were of the least use, and the rest of the stuff was a load of old rubbish! Unless I’m going blind, but I couldn’t see any of the wealth of things he described. It was the same with the flat, before I first looked at it ˗ according to John, it was a luxury flat with all mod cons, and so on. Well, it’s got the occasional odd mod con, but as for luxury..!  Anyway I’ll sift the evidence a little more carefully in future.

I did go into town later on in the day, and went to a bookshop in Cecil Court near the Coliseum, (where I knew they have a lot of music, 2nd hand, and finished buying four more scores there. They were worth it I think. If I’m to get anywhere, I must have some stuff of my own to work on, I think.

Back to Sat. The stage managers had to work from 10 till one, and then from 7 till 10 again, and so had all that time to fill in. Hazel had asked me if I’d like to meet her and David Gorringe at the theatre and go to the pictures in the afternoon. I had to go up to town with some Bamford stuff, so it worked out nicely. We met up with Pete Lyon who was also at the Wells, and he thought he’d like to come too, so we said we’d meet him at Oxford Circus later at 2.30. David and Hazel and I get on very well, as a group it seems ˗ we all understand each other fairly well, and ca’t offend each other unintentionally. It’s almost like it used to be with Kevin and Mike and I at home. Anyway we went and had some lunch, and decided we’d like to go and see Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, [one of my all-time favourite musicals] because it was close, it was convenient as far as time went. (There were other films but David wouldn’t have got back to the Wells in time.) We got to Oxford Circus, and after losing and locating and losing each other again, found Peter, who’d brought two of the wardrobe girls with him! Well, they didn’t want to go and see what we wanted to see and as we would have spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get something to please everybody, we three departed to Marble Arch where the film was showing. On arrival we found it was showing for 10/- and upwards ˗ for a revival! ˗ and so we thought no thanks and decided to spend the afternoon in Hyde Park, just over the road. This was great actually, because it gave us some fresh air, and we really enjoyed it. We were going to go rowing on the Turpentine (as Dave insists on calling it) but it was a little cold for that. (Good heavens, the sun’s shining out here at the mo’!) So we just walked and talked etc.

Then we thought as we still had 3 hours to go we might pop down to Battersea Park ˗ nothing like going completely back to childhood! ˗ but discovered while we were waiting for a bus that it doesn’t open till Easter. So we waffled around Kensington for a bit ˗ the people there are a wonder to [handwritten] behold, clothes-wise. (The typewriter won’t type down here.) And then we thought we’d go to Charing Cross and spend the next hour or so at a newsreel theatre, where [typed] they show such brain-taxing pieces as Tom and Jerry, Mickey Mouse and Batman! But we didn’t have time to see the whole programme when we arrived and so went and had a cup of coffee and then Dave went back to the Wells while Hazel and I went to the NFT to The Thief of Baghdad* ˗ the English version of about 1940, and full of magic carpets and genies and flying horses and heaven knows what. It was very good, and had Sabu as the Thief and John Justin as the hero. Then I went back to Hazel’s and we had something to eat ˗ originally intended to be a snack, but she’s like you, she doesn’t like cooking unless it’s for someone, and so she cooked omelettes and other odds and ends.

On Sunday, after cooking our dinner, I went for a walk, though it was rather too cold, over to Greenwich Park, and wandered around the Observatory (it used to be, but now is a museum; the original house was by Wren) and the park, where there are squirrels and deer.

Last night, I saw that TheBofors Gun, which has Lindsay Campbell [originally from Dunedin] in it for about 3/4 of a minute (!), was on in Putney so I wended my way down there. It’s south-west while Blackheath is south-east. [handwritten] To my mind, Lindsay was Lindsay! He seems mainly cast over here as a typical English soldier type!!

I keep meaning to tell you about another Catholic Church I found near Leicester Square. It’s run by French priests (tho’ Mass is said in English) and I’ve been able to pop in twice around six and go to Communion. It seems fairly modern inside tho’ outside it doesn’t. A bit like the Moran Chapel on a larger scale. [A tiny chapel in the Moran Building in the Octagon, Dunedin.]

Love Mike

24.3.69 Chance meetings and kerfuffle at the flat

24.3.69 [handwritten]

Dear Mum, what a small world it is! Apart from meeting up with Don Rutherford today ˗ I’ll explain about that in a minute ˗ I was sitting in a little restaurant in Charing Cross Rd, reading thru a score of a rather difficult one act opera we’re doing in the middle of next term. A man came and sat opposite me as there wasn’t much room, and as he was about to leave, he asked me if I was reading it for pleasure or if it was being done somewhere. I said, yes, at the Opera Centre, and he says, in the East End?, and I says, yes, and he says, is it as bad up the right way as upside down, and I said it was and showed him ˗ he turned out to be a rep from Covent Garden, and mentioned he was working on Cellini (Benvenuto Cellini, by Berlioz ˗ it’s his anniversary this year). We had a wee chat about difficulties of playing un-pianistic stuff before he left, and he wished me luck with it and said he was glad he wasn’t doing it! But this cafe isn’t close to Covent Garden, and is only one of hundreds in this area ˗ I’m now in the all-night P.O., about five minutes away. I discovered this restaurant the Sunday I was looking for St Pat’s in Soho, and it was about the only place open that Sunday morning.

Don [Rutherford, a singer from Dunedin with whom I worked on a couple of local amateur shows. He was also instrumental in getting me the job with the NZ Opera Company as pianist on their La Boheme piano tour, which he sang in. He moved to Canada, and then spent most of his operatic career in Germany.) is over here to ‘cover’ (a nicer word than ‘understudy’) the role of Hamlet in the

Humphrey Searle

new opera of the same name by Humphrey Searle. Don had done it in Canada and since the guy who has the role is likely to walk out any minute because he doesn’t think he can do it, Don was brought over for seven and a half weeks (with his wife) just to sit round in case. [It wasn’t because the other singer, Victor Braun, couldn’t do it, but because he was having considerable trouble with his voice. And then Donald himself got encephalitis and never performed.] They were rehearsing at the Centre today (they do a lot of Garden rehearsals there) and I met him in the canteen for a few minutes. He hasn’t changed at all ˗ except that he has slightly wispy sideboards currently in fashion here (and apparently in Canada) and he has a touch of a Canadian accent.

Things at the flat have been undergoing rapid changes of late. John, you see, is a notoriously late getter-upper in the morning and consequently is seldom on time for work. Well, both Noel Gibson at the Centre (who is sort of his boss) and June Megennis, who’s the Director’s secretary) and who practically runs the place, had been asking me where John gets to in the mornings and complaining, as I thought, reasonably enough. Well, I was getting a bit brassed off at them constantly going off at me about it and told John so ˗ which caused a rather heated argument! Anyway, I apologised in the end for going on at him about it and a lot of useful matter came out. According to John, he didn’t have to keep strict hours, and a whole lot of other guff, some of it reasonable enough and some of it slanted with John’s rather curious outlook. Next day, he gave in his notice!! saying he was tired of the place and the corrupt way its run ˗ the previous day his car brakes had failed and now he has neither car nor job !!! (But he does have money in the bank at least.) He seems quite happy and is looking for something else to tide him over until he gets in (he hopes) to the Royal College, in September. So!

Today I spent a fiver on buying old Vocal Scores ˗ I’ve got to have them ˗ but it was payment for a job, so it worked out nicely!

Love, Mike.