The next letter was a double - so much to write about that it required two aerograms sent at the same time.
10.9.68
Dear mum, I received a letter
from you before I left the OVC, by the way, in case you thought I hadn't got
anything. Got a letter from wee Glenda
Ferrall in Aussie today. [ I think she worked on the NZ Opera Co’s Die
Fledermaus as part of the backstage crew. Certainly there was a Glenda Ferrall
listed as a stage manager in Australia ]
She says she did a war-dance
around the school when she got the news that I’d come over here – but I don’t
know whether to believe her or not...!
Well, to bring you up to date. On
Saturday, due to receiving a last minute message to see [Mike] at NZ House at
11.45, I scampered out to Plaistow at eight in the morning – making the people
at OVC think I hadn't and wouldn't pay my bill – and then when I’d had
breakfast at the flat, I scampered back to town and just arrived in time to be
there before Mike. He and Kathleen were
off to Spain, hitch-hiking, and so I gave them my address and we chatted a bit,
and then I said I must be off to see Reg. So I dashed onto another train, although at that stage I had a good
half-hour up my sleeve, and arrived out at Wood Green station at midday. Unfortunately that day was the day they
introduced a new bus service, and the bus that I’d caught with ease on the
Thursday night wasn’t running. So after
standing there cursing and muttering, I decided to walk to Reg’s place. I knew it was a fair distance, but I thought
I’d do it before 12.30, after which time I was supposed to have rung them to
tell them that I might be late. Well, I
walked and walked (!) but still after going for half an hour hadn't got to the
street that connects with Woodland Way [where
Reg and Mavis lived]. And it was so
hot. (The weather has been superb since
I arrived – you can’t see the sun, but the surrounding haze is very warm). Anyway, I thought I’d ring him, and tell him
I was having difficulties. By the time
I’d discovered that since I was so close to the place I was ringing and was
ringing from a Post Office (on a Sat. – everything is open) [in New Zealand at this period, everything
was closed on a Saturday] and had found I didn’t need the sixpence
I’d just carefully changed for two 3ds, it was getting on. [A
slightly confusing sentence I can’t unravel.] However, as it turned out, I
was only a street away from the connecting road. Aagh.
Anyway, it didn’t matter – lunch
was by no means ready, and Reg and I sat in the garden and talked. Met Mavis’ sister, too – she’s not nearly the
invalid I’d imagined, just looks pale and wan, but has a cheeky sense of humour
– like so many of the British. You
really begin to understand what kept them going through all the war years when
you’re living amongst them. [I probably never told my mother this, but in
my first week in London, I stopped at a stall that was selling stationery and
asked for a rubber – as erasers were then known in New Zealand. He looked at me
quizzically, and made one of the cheeky remarks that I claimed above that was
typical of the British. Probably thought
I was a twat. The Brits on the other
hand didn’t always get our NZ humour, which has a slightly darker streak to it,
I think. I remember one of the other
students at the Opera Centre telling me that people thought some of the things
I said were rude; to me they’d merely been typical examples of NZ humour.]
 |
| St Albans Cathedral from the west, showing Grimthorpe's 19th century west front |
After dinner – NZ lamb! – we went
for a long ride, originally the intention being that we should go to St Albans Cathedral, last on the rather lengthy list of several places we went to. Follow?
But we spent so much time wandering about Epping Forest, and Nazeing,
where they all used to live (Mavis’ family next door to Reg and Mavis) and of
course stopping off for the essential cup of tea and cakes (at a really old
place – the walls were all ye olde wood, and it was held up by great logs that
looked as though someone had taken a hack at) and collecting a dozen eggs
because they are farm-fresh, that by the time we got to St A’s it was closing
time. so we got in the door and out
again. But what a fantastic place! It seems to go on forever, length-wise, and
is tall and wide to match. And this is
only one of the lesser churches. (St
Paul’s, which I’ve now been in twice, is always in the middle of a service, and
one can’t go right round and see everything.)
With a bit of luck however we’ll call there this coming Saturday! I’ve been invited out to stay the night this
time – supposedly because it’s such a long trip from my place to theirs. It’s more awkward than long. I have to change
tubes about three times. [It was typical of a trip in the Anglia that
we never got where we wanted to go, quite, and that it took us forever to get
home again, because everyone else would be out for a weekend ride as well, and
traffic jams were common.]
After tea, Reg showed me (and the
others) some slides. Quite frankly, I
could have done without them, but they were fairly interesting, and I could
scarcely be rude when they were doing so much for me. This troubles me a bit, or more than a bit,
really – they’re doing so much for me, for my pleasure entirely almost, and I
can’t do a thing in return. However,
this Sat, I’ll try and get some flowers to take out – that’s a start.
On Sunday, I spent an hour almost
looking for a Catholic Church. The only
trouble with the A to Z Guide is that
it merely marks a church as existing, it doesn’t say what religion it is, so I
went in an entire circle, or rather square, by the time I’d been and come back,
and saw just how much suburbia there is here.
I’d rather imagined that Plaistow would sort of stop, there’d be a gap,
and then I’d come to whatever the next place is; but no, the Coronation St
type-streets go on and on and unbelievably on.
and many of them really do resemble C. St. Anyway, I eventually went to Church in the
next suburb completely – and found out that the local church is only marked Convent on my map, and is only two
streets away! Aaagh! But at least I saw
a lot of the area. It’s quite fantastic
the way it never ends. (The ride with
Reg showed this too.)
In the afternoon I caught up on
all the washing, but haven’t done any ironing yet. Was to do it tonight, but I think it’ll be
too late, now. I’ve got an iron – did
all the washing in the sink with a basin in it.
[I tried washing the sheets in the
bath, and then was told by my landlady that she did those as part of the rent.]
Yesterday I decided it was time I
did some piano work, and so after checking with the school went and used one or
their practice rooms for about an hour.
[These were in the basement of the
building.] Met up with Ann Gordon
again – had I told you? I met her when I
first went there last week and thought it was funny how distant she was,
because during Albert Herring, I’d
become practically her father-confessor!
[Who knows now what this means...]
Yesterday she explained that she hadn't quite been able to place me, though she knew my name all right. This was quite a relief as I thought perhaps
she was embarrassed or some such at my being there!
After this I walked along the
Commercial Road (incidentally it is now raining outside!) and then continued to
walk until I came to the Tower Bridge and the Tower of London itself. (You can actually walk into town from C. Rd,
but I keep getting sidetracked, apart from its being a long walk.) [It is a long walk, but I used to walk a lot
in those days; I remember walking from the Opera Centre to Oxford St, about
four and half miles, very soon after I arrived.] So after a bite to eat, on
the Embankment, I went and got a ticket to go to the Tower. Just by chance I caught a Beefeater as he was
starting his spiel, and so I joined with..
[handwritten] I’ll have to carry on in another letter, luv Mike.
********
Dear mum, carrying straight on:
with his group, and it was very informative and interesting. And frequently
wryly amusing. Ugh, some of the things
that have gone on there. It’s quite
horrible really. After he disposed of
his group in the Chapel Royal (I think)- (carefully standing at the door so that
everyone had to tip him as they went out, and telling those left that they’d
have to leave as well because the next group was just about to come in; still
he was worth 6d) - I went on and looked at the armour museum. (The crown jewels had such a crowd I left
them for another day.) The collection of
armour and weaponry they have here is absolutely astonishing. Some of it goes right back to Henry 8th
and earlier, and how they must have boiled in the suits. Most of them cover all the front, except of
course what I suppose is the equivalent of a man’s fly these days, and only the
back of the torso at the back, but some of the suits cover everything, and I
mean everything. Ugh! [This
is possibly a reference to one of the suits having a metal codpiece: see photo] There were horses’ suits and even an
elephant’s. Most of them are on models
too, which makes it much more interesting.
On the second floor of the White Tower which is the one you can see in
all the pictures, is a beautiful little chapel – all white and clean, and
un-stained-glass. Apparently, originally
the three floors, and the basement of this tower had no windows! and it was C.
Wren who was commissioned to put them in – through 15 feet of stone! (Dear old Wren turns up all over the place –
he built the Monument to the Great Fire, which was where I was headed
yesterday, but didn’t get to till today, and it stands near the Thames, and
involves a climb of 311 steps round and round.
But the view through the haze is tremendous.) And his house is just opposite the Church on
the other side of the Thames. I spent
quite a while at the Tower – so did some other people, about 15 to 20 years in
some cases, in one or two rooms – and then I hopped on a boat which took me
down to Westminster and which showed us some of the sights (which we could
actually see from the land of course!) [Plainly, in the light of my limited budget,
it was cheaper to be a tourist in London in those days.] There are lots of visitors here all the
time. Americans, in droves, and all knowing
nothing about where they are or what they’re looking at, as far as I can see,
and also French (who take it all in with great interest, but making
considerably less noise about it) and Germans and Italians. So what with them speaking tongues I don’t
understand and the great variety of dialects, I might as well have stayed in
Rome! I have no intention of speaking
beautiful English, incidentally – very few Londoners do, even the middle-class
lot; in fact I’ll probably wind up speaking like an East-Ender, which is really
harsh and grating. [I had to learn to speak more clearly for the English in general; the
normal quiet Kiwi voice just wasn’t understood by many Brits. I came home eventually speaking a good deal
more like a middle-class English person than a Cockney, incidentally.]
Anyway, I’d gone up to the West
End (which doesn’t necessarily entail going to the Theatre, as I’d always
imagined!) to see if I could get a standing room seat for a play that Richard Briars is in, (actually the box-office
lady said that I’d really have to stand though Mike said this isn’t so), but
all the other seats in the house hadn't been sold, so, I went down and got a
Gallery seat for The Importance of Being
Earnest, for 4/-. [This production apparently ran for nine months, continually sold out.] This meant leaning
forward and seeing the whole thing under the rail separating us from the Upper
Circle, but it was worth it. And the
hard high seats. A very beautiful
production, with a lot of excellent acting and details, and with a marvellous
cast: Daniel Massey (guess whose son?) and John Standing (whom I’d seen in
three films and who was the best in this cast) as the two young men, Isabel
Jeans as Lady Bracknell, Flora Robson as Miss Prism, amongst others. But there was an American girl behind me,
with an Arabian girl, I think, and all the American got out of it was the fact
that it was all terribly artificial, which was precisely the cast’s intentions,
and some very obscure points that neither Wilde nor the Producer can have been
greatly bothered with. Two French girls
who sat through the first act must have felt very lost, and left after
that.
Today I went back to the Opera
Centre – I’ve discovered just how quickly I can get there – by cutting out two
stations entirely and walking for about ten minutes through some not-too-back
streets. It’s 6d cheaper too. I then went to the Monument, and then just
wandered. Got church-mania – and kept on
finding another in a most unexpected spot.
There are dozens around London and not just small ones either – all have
at least pretensions at greatness. In two I found someone doing some organ
practice, the first was actually having a lesson and was playing something very
bright, and in the second the lady was preparing for a recital tomorrow, I
think, and played two fairly lengthy things both based around a simple tune,
but filled up and around and below and behind with all sorts of interesting
ornamentations and effects. I’ve never
heard anything like some of the sounds that evolved: curious wind-like
whistlings, great lugubrious rumblings, etc, and not just plain old harmony
either – both had some very weird and wonderful chords in them, unless the lady
wasn’t as good as I thought.
Had my first large tea here
tonight. Pork chops (more meat on them
than lamb, I think) with potatoes and cauli.
Nothing was really thoroughly cooked, however: the meat seemed to me to
be catching fire all the time, and probably didn’t have a chance with me
anxiously looking at it all the time, and the potatoes and c. didn’t have
enough time, because I though that the meat was being overcooked – it wasn’t! But I thoroughly enjoyed the lot – had to put
it on a bigger cold plate, too, after keeping a plate in the warming part all
the time! Still the oven has a good
booklet accompanying it, so I’m sure I’ll have some success yet. May even be able to invite Uncle R and Aunt M
out for tea!!? (I’ve decided I’d better
call them that – it seems that they prefer it, by the way Uncle Reg refers to
Aunt Mavis all the time). Thank God for
their radio, incidentally. It’s been
invaluable already – particularly when all the electricity goes off – as it did
in the middle of cooking the meal tonight!! Lots of love, Mike.
