19.1.69 - London Opera Centre tours to Southampton

19.1.69

Dear Mum, just another few words, as I now have returned from Southampton, and may as well tell you about it while I have a minute free.  (Incidentally, I seem to have got over bug of earlier in the week without any more troubles, which is good.)  Well, on Friday morning, after I last wrote, I had to get up at the revolting hour of 7.00!, in order to have plenty of time to get to the Waterloo Station to catch a train at 9.47. As it was I was much too early by about ¾ of an hour, but it didn’t matte,r even though Waterloo is a very draughty station. There were only seven of us going down by train, Kiri [te Kanawa], Jane Plant (another married soprano, a bit dithery), David Smith, the Canadian tenor – and a curiously mixed up boy – 21 – sometimes very nice, sometimes downright over-rude; Keith Stoppard, and Bob Lloyd, also both married (!), Henry Ward, one of the reps, and me. Bob and Henry and I talked all the way down, and found out a bit more about each other, tho Henry is inclined to be a bit reticent, and the comparatively short time – about an hour and a half – passed quickly.

Southampton seems a nice place, though I didn’t really see much of it at all, except when travelling from A to B, but it looks a bit quieter than London. And it’s quite near the New Forest – some of which wanders into the town. The theatre we were playing at was the Nuffield Theatre, in the University and like much of the University, very new, and except for the outside nicely designed.

Everyone was to be billeted with local professors and lecturers and students, and they were all supposed to meet us before the rehearsal in the afternoon, but very few did. However it didn’t matter, and after we had collected our meal tickets, we went and had lunch in the University Union. Here for the first time I struck some of the cast playing this game (which they had apparently played all the way down in one of the cars, and it spread amongst the whole Opera Centre part of the company) which entails someone having a name beginning with, say, C, and the others have to ask him if he is, eg, an American composer (Copland) and if the person with the name doesn’t know an American composer the rest get a ‘free’ question which means they can get some more definite clue about the person. It takes an awful lot of concentration, and since it was played at practically every meal with generally anything up to ten people, and also all the way round a little trip of Southampton we took last night and also all the way back in the car this morning I feel fagged out! Came home and just slumped down on me bed for an hour.

Anyway, our rehearsal went off not badly, (with me conducing the off-stage chorus in Dido – and string quartet – tho they really could probably have done without me!) and after this I caught up with my billet. To jump ahead a bit, they turned out to be a late-twenties couple – he is an ex-second fiddle with the Allegri Quartet, which has quite a good reputation over here, and has toured a lot of the world, including NZ (tho this particular member didn’t, just Canada, and the States), and his wife is a very good cellist called Sharon McKinley – he is Peter Thomas.  And they were so informal and so nice – she was a delight in fact – that I felt very relaxed and happy with them. They only lived two minutes from the theatre so I was enabled to go and come as I pleased – they gave me the back door key!

Queen Elizabeth I

On Friday night the show went very well, I think, and even better last night. Better I think than it ever did at the Wells. The orchestra decided to have a little fun too, and at the end when the curtain calls were running thru, as Theresa Cahill comes out as Angelique, she brings the sign with her: Wife for Sale, and the orchestra all threw money up at her!  During [between?] yesterday’s shows, half a dozen of us went to see if we could see the Queen Elizabeth but couldn’t get passes, so we went across on the Hythe Ferry instead, which at least took us out over the harbour area, quite close to it. The others all reckoned she wasn’t as big as the old pair of Queens, but I wouldn’t know. She looked a fair size to me, and rather neat and lovely. However one of the wardrobe girls was also telling me that she had a closer look at it and it looks badly put together. In fact, it seems to me to be generally a rather bad piece of workmanship altogether. [This observation apparently based on what the wardrobe girl said..!]

Alan Opie - a more recent photo

After last night’s show, Alan Opie and his girlfriend Kath Smales, (also a student) and Tony Baldwin (who   Some of the humour was rather crude, and there were a few rather unbelievable lines to some of the songs, but it was a very pleasant atmosphere in spite of this.

brought me back today) and I went to a pub up the road from the theatre and walked into a sing-song that was going on, and sat down and joined in and really enjoyed ourselves.

This morning, on the way back – David Smith was with us too – we stopped off at a nicely built – in an old-fashioned style (tho a reasonably new place) – pub, and had a sort of second-breakfast: and the atmosphere was straight out of Dickens: the host seemed to be expecting us just to walk in at that particular moment – he had sausages sitting there ready and waiting, and coffee and rolls appeared out of thin air, and there was a nice roaring fire. Lovely. And not very expensive either. He told us to come back again, and made it quite obvious that he would be just as ready next time.  There was a lovely little fast-flowing stream running past the place, and a little short-haired terrier mooning about the lounge.

So that’s me Southampton jaunt – much pleasanter than I expected it to be – and with a welcome back anytime from the Thomases.

Better go and do some washing – see yah!

[handwritten] Love Mike.

PS I’ve got to play both the difficult pieces in the Master Class AND conduct the third! Good Grief!

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.

21.12.68 Double Bill and holidays

Dear Mum, (21^st Dec)  It seems to be ages since I wrote to you last, and I’m sorry about that.  At least for once I have an honest excuse: this week has been the week of our three productions and we’ve been really flat out.  To show you how little I’ve been home, two weeks ago I went and bought some tins of snacks to have for tea at night during the week that was to follow.  I’ve still got them!  Last weekend I did have a break from Opera, and went up to the Crowls again.  On Saturday afternoon we went to a Christmas Party, for about half an hour, that was being held for the Mentally Handicapped Group.  I didn’t actually have to go, but Uncle Reg (I think I’d sooner call them that, in spite of theirs and mine agreement to the contrary [wonderful piece of grammar here, the result of not being able to go back and correct] had said he had told them that if his nephew wanted to come for a short while he would go, but he also said that he felt he should put in an appearance.  So what could I say?  Anyway, as it turned out while we were there, there was a young bloke about my age doing a Magician’s act, and he hit it off remarkably well with these folk, just knowing how far to go with teasing them by telling them a red thing was blue, etc.  He was very funny really.  I hadn’t been particularly keen on going , as I really felt only like sitting completely still and doing nothing, but it was quite an enjoyable half hour. 

 

That night I just sat glued in front of the TV and watched an old Glenn Ford cowboy film that was worth watching in spite of its title: Cowboy and the Redhead!  And then a rather clever Sci-fi film.  On Sunday, we went in the afternoon to a Carol Service being held at Highbury (still in London) where Reg works, a few days a week.  [Reg did accounts there.  Part of the complex was Stephenson Hall, where a few years later I went to train in Residential Child Care and met my future wife.]  I had already said I’d go to this so was prepared and it was a pleasant half hour of carols, old and new, and then ‘High Tea’ after.  Honestly I drink so much liquid at a typical Crowl weekend, it’s a wonder I don’t drown from the inside.  Also arranged to go and stay there over the three days at Christmas. Kingsley is going on Christmas Day to have dinner with someone who’s a friend of a friend, which saves my feeling that he’s being left on his own. 

 

THANK YOU AND FRED AND FATHER CHRISTMAS for the endless succession of postal notes!  AND the chocolate chippies.  AND the fudge AND the cake – Kingsley doesn’t eat cake at all so I’m sharing it with myself!  It’s rather funny about these postal orders with stamps; the blokes in the Post Offices invariably look askance at them, but now I’ve been in so often, that I can tell them what page it is in their reference book which saves that much time.  Sometimes I get a shilling for two 5c, and sometimes 11d.  I don’t really think they know what they’re supposed to do with them.  [Obviously I knew nothing about the complexities of exchange rates.]  This morning one of the clerks even refused to believe me when I said where he could find the information, and even when he looked it up he reckoned that he’d never given out money on stamps before.  It was only the arrival of another man who’d paid out on another lot previously that saved the day!  Incidentally about that $10, apparently an office in Chichester or somewhere informs me by post when it’s ready for me to receive.  I got that off the obstructive guy today, but the bloke who helped out in the end had told me previously that I should come back in a few days and see if it had arrived.  Government departments: !!!! [It’s hard to credit this kind of bureaucracy now, when you can transfer money so readily.]

 

I hope you realised that the money I sent you was FOR YOU and not to pay any bills and things of mine!  I thought it was better than trying to send a not very satisfactory Christmas present.  Last weekend I didn’t take anything to the Crowls, mainly because the little lady who sells flowers on the street wasn’t there that Saturday, and of course it turned out to be Mavis’ birthday!  I’ll take something bigger up to them on Tuesday. 

 

On Monday last we had our first rehearsal in Sadler’s Wells.  In the morning a piano rehearsal which went quite well, and then an orchestral rehearsal in the afternoon, which was especially interesting to be able to hear the sounds I’ve been attempting to make for the last couple of months.  I think it is very well orchestrated, as clever in its parody of 1920s sounds (early jazz bands, palm court orchestras, etc) as the whole thing is clever in its general parody of opera altogether.  (Seem to be some mighty confused sentences here today!)  But the orchestra players themselves are a rather scungy lot, considering they’re being paid, which I don’t think I am.  (I am being paid for selling programmes at the two performances of Albert Herring though, which I hadn’t expected!)  They are from the Royal College, and while the bulk of them aren’t a bad crew (and altogether they’re a very good orchestra) there are several who have made James Robertson’s life hell, and also the rehearsals.  One of the last rehearsals was so bad in fact that the poor singers scarcely knew where they were. It is very, very poor I think.  [I wonder if the musicians were actually sharper than Robertson...?]  Of course, as with everything I get everybody’s side: from Mr Robertson to the players to the singers!  Anyway, I am very much enjoying myself playing the piano part: though last night I seemed to be getting mental blocks or somut, [attempting to spell a Cockney version of ‘or something’ perhaps] as on two occasions I sat happily there when I should have played a note or two, and on another occasion I got a full 10 bars behind, briefly thank goodness, and played a completely contrary chord!  Fortunately in this sort of music, the audience would never know!  But I felt pretty silly anyway.  I don’t think Robertson noticed – he didn’t say anything  - but I think some of the players did!  Urgh!  [This doesn’t appear to be the time I had problems with an orchestral piano part during a rehearsal and had to be assisted by a friendly wind player at the back of the group.  I’ve never felt wonderfully confident in an orchestra.]

 

Sheila Thomas, the outside rep in charge of Dido and Angelique, and who is the nicer of the two ladies in this capacity, brought me a cup of coffee for the work I’d done on Angelique!  She is nice!  Unfortunately she isn’t working on the same stuff as me next time, for the coming master classes, but I’m working again with Alistair, who as I think I’ve said before, I get on very well with.  On Monday, after Albert Herring (which was very good, perhaps a little over-produced if anything, and which got good reviews though not enthusiastically wild ones) I went round to Hazel’s (in the same suburb it is) and several others joined us for a party.  I didn’t stay very long, however [handwritten] to be continued. 

 

Part II

as we had another lot of rehearsals the next day at Sadler’s Wells, by the way, the old theatre, that is, is the most maze-y place I’ve ever been in.  [This was the fifth theatre on the site, and has now been replaced by a sixth. The Sadler’s Wells Opera Company had moved out earlier in the year to The Coliseum.]  It took me about three days even to begin to find my way around it, and I can still get lost quite easily.  And I’m still finding places I didn’t know existed.  It’s large backstage – probably almost as big as the actual auditorium – which isn’t huge, but three-tiered – and there are rooms for everybody, stage staff, music staff, conductors, ballet rooms, rehearsal rooms, showers (quite a luxury in a NZ theatre) and all the usual accoutrements.  (Of course I would have to spell that wrong!) [I’d left out a ‘c’. I seem to remember that it was on the first day of rehearsals at the theatre that James Robertson bawled out Alan Opie for being late (he’d slept in) in front of everyone – singers, orchestra, stage crew – and told him he’d never make it as a professional with that attitude. Opie seems to have done all right in spite of this!]

 

Incidentally the SUN is shining here today – the first time in about three months.  Perhaps the rain has cleared up the cloud.  In Islington the other day, where the theatre is, it’s quite hilly, and the water was just pouring down the streets.  It hasn’t been that cold here lately, except for one very bad week, but it’s always damp.  Not to worry – the mould hasn’t appeared on me yet!

 

Thursday night was the Double Bill’s opening night, and it went off very well I think.  The papers, however, while they didn’t slate the actual productions, weren’t in the least bit enthusiastic about the way Dido was done, nor about the choice of Angelique at all.  These people get too serious about art I think, and fail to realise that something with a bit of humour in it has its own place.  Dido is a very interesting production, I think.  The leading singers are all dressed in very ornate costumes of considerable beauty – except Aeneas, who is in an awkward armour type thing that makes him look as though he has his shoulders around his chin all the time – and instead of the chorus being on stage they are in the pit with the orchestra.  Their place is taken by the ballet who dance in very symmetrical and angular patterns to the singing chorus.  And to their own dance music, thoughtfully provided by Purcell.  They are dressed in green tights, boys and girls (they’re all so young – 15 or 16 I think) and when the story is going on, recline in designs similar to those that you see in 19^th century paintings – where classical people (very overdressed) were surrounded by dressed cherubs lying in attitudes all over the place.  I like this production, but only a few others do.  The scenery is very simple – Dido’s Court being a set of steps covered on the audience side by what looks like half a jelly (patterned, of course) and at the back a raked platform: ie higher (by a lot in this case) at the back than the rest, with a single rectangle reaching from its left centre to the flies.  The witches appear through trap doors and have great swirling cloaks over tights, and curious make-up that in the half light looks like their faces are hollowed out almost.  Horrid.

 

Next Day.  The scene in the forest consists of nothing but bogus and very large leaves flown from the flies plus more green in the lighting and a sort of dappled green effect thrown all over the stage.  The principals, except Aeneas, all come on in green cloaks too.  (I’m typing this in a short space left before I go out – also listening to the last few moments of Götterdämmerung, er, rather the last 20 minutes or so – it is fabulous.)  In the sailors’ scene there is a projected light onto the backcloth simulating water in the distance.  Angelique is done in sort of pop-art colours, though done relatively realistically as far as the scene itself is concerned, and all the characters are dressed in over-stated versions of their 1920-30 counterparts.

 

Well as I write this we’re now finished with the Double Bill and strictly speaking are on holiday.  There is talk of the Double Bill being taken to Southampton, but what the story is I don’t know.  As usual the reps are the last to know.   After the show last night we all went over to the Shakespeare’s Head, a pub opposite the stage door, and talked.  Everyone was a bit put out that there wasn’t a party arranged, except for some special people, somewhere, [probably those who actually put the money up to fund the shows] and so a group of us decided to have a party of our own somewhere and finished up going to Sara Wilson’s flat.  She is one of the stage managers, and her flat-mates are away home for Christmas.  She lives at the Marble Arch end of Wimpole St (though it’s not called that in typical English fashion), five flights up.  Most of us stayed onto (ye gods!) 4.30, and then I went home with Mike, who had come with me, and stayed at his place for the rest of the night.  It was a nice quiet affair, with a fair mixture of Opera Centre bods; funnily enough, with a few exceptions, not one of the usual cliques, but made up of people from different groups.  Had it struck home to me yesterday that I’m not the only one in the position of being far away from home at Christmas, and it’s obviously struck some of the others a bit too. There are quite a lot of Colonials at the Centre; in fact at this party last night, if we include Mike, there were only 4 out of about a dozen or more people that were born here.  Mad. 

 

Tonight I’ve been invited out to dinner by Diana Reid, another stage manager, with David Gorringe.  I’m a replacement at the last moment for a boy that Diana’s been trailing around with all term, and who has now been dropped or has dropped her.  Either way it sounds a bit of an awkward position, but unfortunately I didn’t find out about it all until after I’d gladly accepted the invitation!  I’ve been so busy the last fortnight that I’ve completely run out of sox and am now trying to dry a pair to wear tonight!  Thank goodness it’s the holidays.  I find that I’m looking forward to them more than I’d expected.  Not that I dislike the course, but the rest will be most welcome.  Actually I’ll only really take this coming Christmas week off, as the Opera for All auditions are coming up in January, and I’ll have to do some hard work to catch up for them. 

 

I got a card from Monica Stokes [my mother’s sister], well all the Stokes actually, and 3 postal notes!  Isn’t she a trick?  Will you give her my love and tell her thanks very much indeed.  Barbara Green sent me a card too with a cute little angel saying her prayers on it [handwritten] and tried to tell me it was her!  Lots and lots of love - it’ll possibly be New Year before you get this, Mike. 

 

[written on the back of the aerogram] P.S.  The trunk finally arrived – Wednesday last – day before I needed my dinner suit!!  It had been in the U.K. for nearly 3 weeks.  We now have so much junk here there’s hardly room to move. I think Kingsley has shifted everything he possesses over here!  AAAGH!