14.4.69 Four letters in one...so this is *very* long

[The next four airletters were all sent together as parts I- IV. They were apparently all written consecutively on the 14th April.]

Dear Mum, it’s taken me nearly ten minutes just to go this far and I don’t seem to be having much success. [The airletter starts off typed, reverts to handwritten, then four lines later reverts to typed.] I was trying to be clever and use the office machine that is at present in the common room (instead of the C.R. machine which chews up the paper!) but I can’t seem to get it to work for me somehow. [The airletter was apparently abandoned till the next day, when it was continued at home on my own typewriter.]

Well, it’s the next day, and I’m doing this standing up waiting for my breakfast to cook. Well, we’ve had a hectic and very lively but also very enjoyable time since I last wrote to you. I don’t mean at the flat of course ˗ I’ve seen John about twice in the last 10 days, and Julie less. I quite honestly don’t know whether John still lives here or not! He said he was coming back on Sat and I got some meat for Sunday dinner and tea, and he still hasn’t arrived and I ate the lot! I don’t know if he has a job or what ˗ but as long as he pays the rent I don’t suppose it really matters whether he lives here or not.

Anyway, on the day I last wrote we were just beginning the most wonderful spell of hot weather. We had 3 days of it before it became overcast again tho it did remain hot. Everybody has suddenly dispensed with all the paraphernalia of winter: coats, hats, scarves, gloves and so on, and looks alive again. Since the last weekend however the skies have returned to their habitual grey, and umbrellas have been much in evidence, altho a lot of people seem to have thought that (like myself) once you have thrown off your winter coats it’s a shame to have to put them on again and so we haven’t bothered. In spite of the rain and wind it seems to be staying mild so there may be hope yet.

To recap on the week’s events, anyway. On Tuesday I had arranged to go out to David and Teresa Jennings’ place: she was doing an audition in the Stuyvesant semi-finalist (four prizes of scholarships to the Opera Centre next year) and I was to go and do some coaching. [The only reference I can find to David is here; it’s a very common name, of course. Teresa was actress Patricia Hayes’ daughter but I don’t know what happened to her subsequently. Both were at the LOC.] This was the first of the really brilliant days, and I was sitting on our back patio when Teresa came to pick me up. I wasn’t prepared for the weather however and was still garbed in warm winter woollies! The Jennings were both wandering round in bare essentials at their home. A French au pair girl and another who works down the road were also in their garden, dressed as I was: in the past season’s apparel. The Jennings house is just one of many semi-detached in South-East London, but it is terrifyingly lived in, inside. The furniture and props [I don’t know if I meant theatre props] cover so much space that you have to wend your way through all sorts of articles to get anywhere. Rather fascinating, however. And on the walls they have photographs and prints of a variety of ages and these turn out to be Jennings’ respective ancestors dating back to the 17th century. I must go to Somerset House one of these days and track down some of my relatives.

Photo courtesy of Roger Perriss, flickr.com

After I’d done the coaching which went quite well (although she said she didn’t sing too well the next day at the audition ˗ but, thankfully, neither did a lot of the others; glad it wasn’t my coaching!) I went to Earls Court and met Hazel, who had suggested the previous night (after running into one of the many fairs that crowd London at Easter) that we go to Battersea Park. She was working at Earls Court and the Park is only a short bus ride across one of the bridges. The park itself is a great expanse of land, in which a smaller area is devoted to the fun fair. Well! I’ve never had such a nerve-wracking night. I think if we’d gone alone we would neither of us have gone on anything, but we were both setting out to save face by showing that we weren’t scared of anything and consequently went on every one of the monstrosities in sight. NEVER AGAIN! We started off on the Ferris Wheel which is much like F.W.s anywhere in the world ˗ only unpleasant when you slowly go over...the...top...! Next we went on a machine in which you were alternatively thrown at the side of the roundabout and then at the middle. This wasn’t too bad, except that the centrifugal (you’ll hear a lot about him before I’m finished!) force put all of Hazel’s weight onto me and nearly squashed my shoulder. (Hazel isn’t really a light young lass, and I haven’t put on any weight!)

I don’t remember which of the next two we went on, but both were singularly unpleasant. One had you in a bucket seat with your friend, and as well as going round at some considerable speed, young blokes riding the central merry-go-round pushed your personal bucket round at an operative moment which sent you going round at a speed rather faster than sound I think. My neck nearly broke in that one! Funnily enough Hazel liked that one ˗ heaven knows why! She even wanted to go back on it!! [Some people don’t learn: a few years later my wife, Celia, and I went to Battersea and got into a similar machine: we both came off it feeling so dizzy that we walked drunkenly for quite some distance.]

The other revolting machine, also Hazel’s suggestion, was a circular disc, called, inappropriately to my mind, the Satellite, in which you were sat in one of a number of small joined seats, and then this thing went round and then tilted! By some curious coincidence I again had Hazel on top of me, all the way, and this put my shoulder out of joint completely I think! Actually, once I got accustomed to the sheer torture of it, it was not too bad. We were both getting brave by this time and decided to go in a thing called the Dive Bomber. From the ground, and a distance, it looked as though you were completely encased in a little elongated egg-shaped vehicle that did a flip in mid-air so that you never went upside down.

PART II

After we’d paid our money we suddenly saw that the thing had only a partial top of caging, and some of it was open to the air. It seemed ominous when they strapped you into the cage, and bolted the door shut. It was when we were in mid-air that we found that at a certain given stage of your trip you weren’t actually upside-down, but that you looked at the earth from a vertical position ˗ it was like being suspended in mid-air by nothing more than a piece of leather strap. First we only did one flip to get us up top while they strapped in two more unfortunates, and this sitting in mid-air discussing the future was the worst part. Or so we thought ˗ when we started to go round in a seemingly quite uncontrollable way, We then knew that the beginning was quite pleasant! I hadn’t shut my eyes up until then on anything, but I did during that trip, and would have screamed aloud if I’d thought it would do me any good. Thank God, nothing in this world lasts, and even that nightmare came to an end, and Hazel and I went off and had a couple of sherries each!! We were quite cheerful ˗ we’re both the sort to laugh rather quickly about things like that, but we both shook for about a half-hour afterwards. I feel sick at the thought of it now.

Anyway, we’d saved the Big Dipper up until the end, and strangely enough this turned out to be quite mild in comparison. I wouldn’t have minded going on it again in fact, but Hazel didn’t seem too keen! The worst thing about it isn’t the sudden descent downhill after a slow climb (if you’re brought up on cable cars, this sort of thing shouldn’t bother you) but when on one descent you suddenly go into pitch blackness it’s amazing how it puts the wind up you. [The Maryhill Cable Car in Dunedin began its trip by suddenly dropping over the edge a fairly steep hill; you could slide off the wooden seat if you were little.] I think the most horrible kind of torture would be to throw someone into sheer darkness without his being aware of what was in the darkness. (The ghost trains at fun fairs spoil themselves by having too much [of the ride] in too much light. ) After that we went home!

On Wednesday I went into the Centre as arranged to do some work with one of the blokes who is doing a 20-minute program for some contest (I think I’m accompanying him) later this month, and also to run over the music that was to be done that night at a Policeman’s concert with Peter Lyon and Mary Masterton (she’s from NZ). It was another hot muggy day, and none of the singers at the Stuyvesant were feeling very happy ˗ one poor guy even fainted. Anyway I went up to Peter’s for tea. Peter is one of the few London-born people in London, and talks 19 to the 12, in a sort of overbearing way. Basically I reckon he’s a nice guy, but he’s got a curious chip on his shoulder that puts other people’s backs up with regularity. I discovered at his home that his father is exactly like him ˗ very tactless ˗ and I think the best thing Peter could do is to go and live in a flat somewhere. His father talks to him man to man, but somehow contrives to show to others the he (dad) is the boss and knows all....! Anyway, they gave me steak for tea, so I can’t really complain. And Somerset cream on a very nice apple pie. I’m glad to see some Londoners have taste buds. [Just when you think I’ve managed to overcome my know-what-other-people-should-say-and-do attitude, I manage to undercut it again, and it gets worse.] (If you could smell the stink of the stale and nasty hot dogs they sell all over Central London, especially Piccadilly Circus, in little open-air stands, you’d know what I mean.)

The concert went off reasonably well, although it was such a variety concert that we didn’t seem to fit in somehow. Peter had to follow Jack Warner (74! ˗ the Dixon of Dock Green man, and also a long-time entertainer), and a pop-group. Still, they paid us on the spot, which is a change, and a fiver too for something like half-an-hour’s work.

The next day was Hazel’s birthday, and she, David Gorringe, and I had planned to do something interesting to celebrate it. Originally we were going to picnic in Epping Forest, but decided on Hampstead Heath instead ˗ although the weather had decided to change as well that day. I had to meet David at Charing Cross, but he didn’t get my card about it until Thursday morning, and missed the fast train by one minute ˗ he was home in Ashford, Kent. (Incidentally I live in Kent too, altho we’re also part of Greater London.) So David sent a message up over the wire to Charing Cross to say he’d be late, and even his casual comments somehow went the distance too. They told me at C.C. that it was suggested I go off and have a drink somewhere! [I don’t remember what form of communication this was, but it sounds intriguing.] Actually I went to a cartoon theatre next door to the station, and saw the same cartoon as I’d already hated at another cinema, and two very old, but absolutely marvellous Tom and J’s, and half of a Batman episode! Then I picked Dave up, and after a detour to his flat we went on to the Heath to meet Hazel and Kathy, one of here friends. I don’t know what people think of my friends ˗ altho they always seem to get on with them ˗ but Hazel seems to have the most curious lot of mates. Kathy is very vague, and I’ll introduce you to some more later.

Well, we picnicked on the Heath beside one of the ponds and had a lovely lunch of healthy foods: Russian salad, cold (or is it cole slaw), apples, brown bread, lumps of cheese, coffee, tomatoes, etc. [Plainly I was unfamiliar with coleslaw at this point.] Then we just played around (except Kathy, who wandered) like 3 kids ˗ ran, skipped, capered, found an old ball with a hole in it in a pond which provided a good deal of amusement because it had a life of its own, and chased and played with other people’s dogs. Sounds madly irresponsible, doesn’t it, but while we 3 can enjoy ourselves thoroughly, we wouldn’t hurt or annoy others ˗ even if we might surprise them. [I think most Londoners were, and still are, beyond surprise at what other people get up to.]

PART III

Photo courtesy of Getty Images

Where was I? I had to go out and get another airletter to finish! Oh, yes. Kathy had to go early so as we were walking her back to the station we met another Opera C student, (Alison?) and she invited us up to her flat for some tea. So up we went and had a nice rest and coffee, and biscuits, and finally left. We still had some time to fill in so thought we’d go somewhere else and finished up, after some discussion, in tubing to St Paul’s, where we wandered around for some time before we went up into the dome. We should have gone up earlier because it was shutting as we were half way up. Anyway, we whispered in the Whispering Gallery while somebody tuned the organ downstairs, and discovered just what a fabulous building it is. (Although fairly obviously Wren had been to St Peter’s the week before!) The detail in the place is as usual astonishing ˗ but we forget I suppose that detail like this takes years to accumulate in a massive building, and it’s silly to say that modern buildings of a similar nature are too plain etc.

Anyway, we did have time to go up outside the roof, though not so high as we might, and the view is really rather fab. Although London is spoilt by having too many four-square buildings. You really notice from that height.

Anyway, after this Hazel went off in a taxi, while David and I wandered a bit more before we went back to his flat to collect my present for H. I got her a kettle! She just didn’t have one ˗ always bought something else instead, she said - and a card with ‘Don’t be discombobulated ˗ bless the day you was created.' And then we went our way to her flat, where she, and I think Kathy, had prepared a marvellous spread of biscuits with Russian salad, cole slaw, etc!! No, it wasn’t quite that bad; I don’t really know what was on half the crackers. At the party were Lorna Brindley and her boyfriend, Jim ˗ she’s a mezzo,he a tenor, and both should go far. Lorna, and I think, Jim, is Scottish, and has a marvellous down-to-earth approach to life, and a great sense of humour. [Lorna's 'Scottishness' seems incorrect, according to the link.]

Mike [Tither] came, and 3 of Hazel’s friends: Derek and Fran, married: he sat in the corner and played records that no one listened to all night, and Fran, though she started out being with the crowd eventually receded into the background. The third ‘friend’ (I suspect Hazel labels everyone she knows as a friend!) was Graeme, an Aussie, a writer, and who is thoroughly bored with all those around him. Seems to me he has problems ˗ especially if he’s a writer! The party went into the two groups: these 3 and the rest. Jim left early in the evening, after arranging to see me for some coaching on Monday, [handwritten] and the rest of this is being in a train so it may be a bit obscure! Well, after we polished off supper and had drunk quite a bit of wine ˗ I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t get drunk ˗ I either fall asleep, ie, get so tired I don’t want anymore, or else get happy to the point that I don’t want anymore. There seems to be an inbuilt mechanism that helps me to keep control. Not that I’ve tried to get drunk, nor been at a party where it’s been routine to overdrink so perhaps I’m being presumptuous. Anyway, Lorna, Hazel and I (David had gone back to Ashford and Mike was talking) decided, just for a change, and to get some air, to go for a walk, and liven up the first pub we came to. Well, the pub was incapable of being livened up and they looked a bit askance at us that anyone should think of going out and enjoying themselves. (Pub-going, in the suburbs, is a ritual, not a pleasure, or a night out.)

Anyway, after we played the jukebox, it was nearly closing time. There was an absurd barmaid in this place ˗ she was about 40, and remarkably plain (and seemed to think plain, too, if you follow) but she had a pink bow tied onto a bun!! Aagh! [Hard to know why this impressed itself on my brain, but who knows the vagaries of a young man’s mind.]

We went back to the party where things were still meandering along, and by this time I’d been invited to stay the night again (Lorna was [staying] anyway) and since we three were feeling tired, and the others apparently were not, we were in a bit of a spot. We were, however, in such a cheerful condition that we set about removing all the furniture from the living room as a hint that the people should go. We didn’t have enough courage to shift the chair that Fran was sitting on, and anyway our plan didn’t seem to get through to these

PART IV

folk. No doubt their thinking isn’t, or wasn’t, quite as illogical as ours. Finally after much yawning and general carrying-on, they left, and I settled down very quickly on that revolting camp stretcher, tho once again I was too tired to care.

Next morning Jim came round and cooked breakfast! He’s an ex-chef apparently, and made a great mixed dish of sausages, fried bread, toast, fried eggs and something else ˗ was it tomatoes? I was still feeling energetic enough to have already done all the party dishes before he arrived, and all his dishes after breakfast. So I felt that perhaps I wasn’t entirely useless around the place.

Meanwhile I wanted to get seats for Megs Jenkins and LindsayCampbell for Saturday night’s performance of Fledermaus, and so had to go into the Centre. Hazel, during some part of the Schicchi season, had left her valuable papers in the safe at the Centre, including her cheque-book, and asked me to pick it up for her. So later, I met her in Charing Cross station, in the midst of a crowd waiting for delayed trains, at rush hour (!) ˗ C.C. is the smallest station, fortunately ˗ and we then went and had a meal at one of the 1000 Italian restaurants round London, and went to the NFT to see an old (1936) Hitchcock called Sabotage. A very curious and slightly sick film. The next day I went out to Holland Park to do some coaching with Marjorie McMichael [also] ˗ an ex-Opera Centre girl, and got 30/- for my trouble. I’m going there again now, though I shouldn’t imagine that I’ll be there as long this time as before. After my previous time, Marjorie and I went and had a meal at an Indian restaurant; the first time I’d ever done so. I had something called Malay Meat which consisted of meat (lumps of beef I think cooked with pineapple and other odds and ends, and served with an enormous plate of rice, some of which I had to leave. [I don’t remember this meal, but I do remember one at another Indian restaurant ˗ near Hampton Court, I think ˗ when I must have ordered a meal that was very spicy, and thought I was going to die.]

On Sat night I took my slip to the Wells to collect tickets and they informed me that they didn’t give out complementaries on Saturdays. I was rather upset because it meant telling Megs and Lindsay that they couldn’t go, but they took it reasonably well. Mike and I went to a set of eight plays on the subject of marriage (after missing the first one because we had to wait longer than expected in a Pizza Bar ˗ the pizza was nice all the same). The actors (4 of them) were generally rather better than the plays. [I think this would have been ‘Mixed Doubles’.]

On Sunday Kevin and I went to an Italian film about Oedipus Rex, which was very good. Filmed in Morocco with lovely photography all harsh with the vibrant colours; and the acting and direction was on a vibrant level too, which left you a bit worn out. [I think this was the Pasolini version made in 1967.] Yesterday I went into the Centre and coached, working with Moira Paterson in the morning on a group of songs she’s doing for Scottish BBC. It’s amazing how much different a song becomes when you get the singers, by suggestion and assistance, to open their eyes to its possibilities. One song that seemed very dull became very exciting and it pleases me as much as them when they get it working properly. Last night Mike, Mickey (a girl friend of his) and I went to Tosca ˗ a Zefferelli production. It was fabulous and tremendously exciting.

Love Mike. 

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

March 1969 - Colds in the head and chest, and an exciting win

10.3.69

Dear Mum, I’ve been meaning to get going on this letter all week, since I received your one about the Linguaphone records, but it has been one hell of a week and I just haven’t got round to it. Anyway, about the records: yes, I did bring them with me, and funnily enough, the day I received your letter I was taking them to Lindsay Campbell, who’d been asking me for them for about a month! Does that put you in a very awkward position? Certainly, as soon as Lindsay is finished with the, I’ll post them out if you’d like. [No idea why my mother wanted these records, which I must have brought over with me from NZ.]

About the Italian and German newspapers, I’m waiting for an opportunity to be in the West End at the time of day when the shops are open. I dare say there are other places, but Piccadilly is the only one I’ve been able to recall seeing foreign papers in. Actually I was there on Friday evening...and forgot!

Well, to bring you up to date on recent events. When I last wrote it was at the end of a day in bed, and I was just thinking that I was getting over that sore throat I had, when blow me down, I suddenly found I was the possessor of another cold! You wouldn’t believe it would you? Colds at home always used to start in the head and go down to my chest. But here they do what they please, and I’ve had them going up and down with great abandon. Anyway I had to go in on Friday (though they sent me home early in the end ˗ not for my sake, but for the singers!) and I thought that perhaps I could get something to knock the cold back, so I went and got some Coldrex tablets (which I wouldn’t normally touch, as they leave me feeling all drugged) and they did the trick eventually, by sort of holding the thing up in my head somewhere, and not letting it run all over the shop. I felt revolting, because I kept feeling as though I was in a permanent dream state, but they seemed to calm the effects of the cold down enough to enable me to go into this last week with some degree of calm. 

However, it left me with a most horrible chest cough ˗ one where the phlegm was so far down in my chest that I couldn’t cough it up. And though I took some cough medicine that someone at the Centre suggested it didn’t help. The same person suggested that I might be getting bronchitis, which gave me scare, as you’d expect, so when I got up to the Crowls on Friday night I said that I thought I’d better see a doctor soon, as the whole thing was worrying me terribly. Reg suggested we get hold of a doctor up here in Palmers Green, and tell him that I was just visiting up there and see if they would do something for me ˗ rather than wait until I could find out where the doctor hangs out in Blackheath. So yesterday morning, he rang up someone and they made an appointment for ten to ten, and I went round and a Lady doctor (it’s always embarrassing that ˗ now I know how it feels for a woman to have a male doctor examining her) listened to my chest and said I didn’t have bronchitis, and gave me some sickly sweet, but bitter, medicine which does seem to be doing some good. At least when I cough now, something dislodges, rather than staying there!

Back to last week ˗ and again, just to keep things in chronological order! On Sat morning, I hired a studio at the Blackheath Conservatoire ˗ like everything else, about two minutes walk ˗ and went in intending to do three hours work on the stuff for the re-audition of the Opera for All that was on the following Monday. However, about three-quarters of the way through my time, I was rung up by John Kentish (our Director of Studies, whatever that means, at the Centre, and a man who doesn’t even recognise me when I meet him round the place!) He wanted to know if I would come up in the afternoon and play Traviata for the people from the Opera Federation which was meeting at the Centre over the weekend. They must sing through the opera while James Robertson takes them thru it and gives them an idea of how it should go. Well, I wasn’t very keen, quite honestly, as I had all the weekend shopping to do, and also still felt rotten with my cold, but when he said the magic words: we’ll pay you, I accepted! (They paid me three guineas in the hand for two hours work ˗ and I didn’t play a good deal of the time! No wonder they don’t make any money. I felt a bit silly throughout, as my eyes were watering, and I couldn’t even concentrate on what I was doing completely.) Anyway, the people from the Opera Fed. Who are out and out amateurs, wouldn’t have worried because they barely seemed to know what they were doing, let alone anyone else.

Went to bed reasonably early on both Sat and Sunday nights, and on Monday morn went to the first Fidelio with the 83-year-old [Otto] Klemperer conducting. Or so they say: to my eyes he appeared to be asleep most of the time. It seems a bit curious to me. I mean, when a man is so old that he can no longer do an even reasonably good job of work, I don’t see the point of his doing it ˗ however great he may have been. Klemperer has been a fine conductor, and perhaps some of the finer details of this production were due to him, but really it seemed more to me that the orchestra was looking after itself, and that the singers were doing likewise. Considering they couldn’t even see his beat, it was so tiny, I don’t see how they could have been following him! I’m told the prompter in the prompt box was really who was keeping the singers together! And it was so slow. [This slowness is confirmed by someone else online.] This is also due to his age, and while some small details, that might normally be overlooked, came to light, the thing fell apart dramatically. I didn’t stay for the second act (though I would have liked to ˗ because in spite of all I’ve said above, there was a curious fascination about it all. The soprano, some of whose singing was like mine ˗ horrifying ˗ had a lot of personality. Again she shouldn’t really be doing the part ˗ she can’t in actual fact sing a lot of it properly ˗ but she does make you watch her) but went back to the Opera Centre to do a bit more work on my audition music. (I don’t know what’s wrong with this typewriter but it’s constantly wrecking the side of this page and tearing it to pieces!)

act of a rehearsal of

The audition was later in the afternoon, and I was first. This time they really listened to us, by contrast with the previous occasion when they had raced through the reps. But in the end it made not much difference, as I didn’t get a job. Robertson called each of the reps into his office the next day, and had a long chat with them. Alistair [Dawes] got the English Opera For All tour, but the other job which was going hasn’t been filled at all for some reason. If Alistair hadn’t got it, I would have been a bit annoyed because he is the one who really deserves it, but I also feel that I could have done it. Anyway, Robertson and I had this talk, and it at least cleared a few things up. From what he says it is worthwhile my continuing in this profession, but he seems to feel that I have some catching up to do ˗ which is what I’d felt all along, because the others have all been doing full time music for so long.

continued on a second aerogram.

The problem is of course, how to do this catching up. He reckons I work very hard ˗ in fact he said he sometimes wonders if I don’t work too hard ˗ good grief! ˗ but as far as I can see, I’ve got to work hard to stay with the others. Isn’t it a problem? I just don’t know where to start to help myself. I’d thought perhaps of going to some small opera house in Germany or somewhere (there is a lot of work there) but it’s a matter of getting there. He suggested I might try teaching for a while but while I don’t fancy it it may do some good, even if it was only part time. I’d thought of some part time work ˗ preferably musical (for example with George Bamford if he’d take me on ˗ he obviously needs an assistant) and filling in the rest of the time with coaching. But here too I’m at a disadvantage, as I only know a limited number of people. I’d thought of going back to Aussie, where at least the standards aren’t quite so high [!], and where perhaps I could get the sort of experience I need to help me cope over here. But as Michael says it’s a long way away from the mainstream of things and it wouldn’t be worthwhile going back there unless I definitely had some work. And unless they’d take me on my Opera Centre background, I’d probably have to go all the way out there to audition or something. AAAAAAgh! (excuse me!) Whatever happens I’ll have to start getting onto people soon, and get something underway before the next term is too far advanced. So there we are.

On Wednesday, the Tauber competition was to take place in Wigmore Hall, and so Abigail [Ryan] and I went along, and found that we were something like eleventh on the list, out of twelve. What a long wait. From where we were it sounded as though Abigail didn’t stand a chance, the voices seemed to be so good, and when we did go on, I don’t really think she sang all that well. Anyway, after everyone was finished we went down into the hall, and waited with a whole pile of Abigail’s relations who had made an occasion of it and come down from Manchester. There was her mother, a lovely plump homely woman with the sweetest eyes I’ve ever seen, and her aunt (whom I later found out was likely to burst into an old Music Hall song on the slightest pretext) and her two sisters, Mary (who was mad as a snake and three months pregnant)  and Vera, a rather more straight-laced girl, but still very friendly. And there was also Tommy her brother, a tall, balding very gentle man.

Eventually the judges came out and of course the hall was electric. They then announced after considerable spiel, that though there had been many lovely voices there this afternoon, the aim of the prize (a year in Vienna studying at the Academy with all expenses paid) was to help someone with potential to develop, and the prize therefore went to Abigail Ryan. Well, you’ve never seen anything like it. Abigail was by this time sitting with her sisters and aunt, while I was with her mother and her flatmate, a middle-aged spinster of American origin, and her young friend, an Anglican girl doctor (who practises in Wood Green ˗ I thought she might have turned out to be the lady doctor I was to have yesterday) who has recently come out of a convent where she spent 18 months before deciding it wasn’t for her.

Abigail’s mother gave me a kiss and a hug (which nearly made me vanish from sight) then rushed over and hugged the American woman (Miriam is her name) and meanwhile Abigail had stood up, sat down again, been clapped, stood up again, tried to get out of the row she was in, walked briskly up the aisle to fin there was no way to get up on stage (!) walked round through the connecting doors and arrived on stage looking considerably confused, and there she was presented with a large bouquet of flowers, and congratulated by the judges and photographed by a funny little man who suddenly appeared from nowhere. I think we were all as excited as she was.

I was terribly pleased, especially as when I had been sitting down at first and Abigail had gone off to talk to someone (this was before the announcement) some idiot German woman behind me had been spouting off in a know-all fashion about this Abigail saying she shouldn’t be singing dramatic soprano, as though she was a specimen of some sort, and she had got a bit of a shock when she recognised the accompanist was sitting right in front of her ˗ I hope she got even more of a shock when the winner was announced. These people who have all the knowledge of the world tucked away in their brains annoy me not a little. [Possibly the pot calling the kettle black, I suspect.]

Naturally this all called for a celebration. I was the first to arrive backstage ˗ and Abigail gives me a big kiss ˗ in front of all the dignitaries and officials and judges. They didn’t seem to mind, and I can’t say I did either. Anyway, we all (family and friends) went off to the pub down the road, and stayed there for about an hour ˗ filling the air with laughter at a whole lot of in-Catholic jokes: the whole family is Catholic of course. And they’re terribly friendly people, and terribly funny. We all went off after this (we’d picked up another one of the students by this time, David Harrison, who’d just come into a whole lot of money and insisted on paying for things left right and centre ˗ the evening cost me practically nothing ˗ though I did try to pay ˗ and with him in tow, nine of us (Miriam had left by then) went to a restaurant called the La Laguna, near the Coliseum [Theatre], and took over the basement section. We must have been a bit noisy, as there were some other people there originally!) Then they went to another pub, and just sat, and then we all went to Miriam and Abigail’s flat in St John’s Wood (by tube) and stayed there for a while, watching a foggy TV picture (it starred the man all the women had seen in a musical in the West End the previous night and they’d all fallen in love with him) and playing some songs on the piano.

I left quite early as I still had a hectic couple of days to follow. I had to play for 5 of the singers auditioning at the Wells on Friday, and we were told on Thursday that instead of only having to sing one song each they should have two prepared, so this meant a whole lot of last minute work. I can’t say I felt particularly happy about any of the playing I did, and anyway, we all think that the whole business was merely a courtesy thing because the Wells always used to audition the singers that were leaving the Centre and had stopped doing this last year.

Yesterday, Reg and I went down to Southend, because in the last few days the sun has come back to us (we’ve hardly seen it all winter ˗ it’s horrible). We spent about four hours wandering around ˗ it’s a resort, of sorts, because it’s actually on the Thames estuary ˗ tho this is very wide. (They call it Southend-on-Mud!) It has the longest pier ˗ a mile ˗ and at the end of it are restaurants, cafes, theatres, etc. It’s quite a thing ˗ with even an electric railway running its length.

With a bit of luck the fresh air may have done some good ˗ lots of love, Mike.

30/11/68 Oil heaters, actors & fog

30/11/68

Dear Mum, how are you two?  [The letter was addressed to Mrs P Crowl and Fred – the cat, in other words] I got a book the other day called Mozart’s Letters: actually it was only a selection of them, but it’s nice to see that even he wasn’t all that original a letter-writer.  Like me, when he had something to say, he’d go on for quite a time, but otherwise he’s likely to make some excuse about not having enough paper, or no news – he’s always telling his family to send some news! – and what a load of old rubbish he writes at times: especially to his sister or cousin.  Suddenly in the middle of a paragraph he goes quite crazy and writes absolute nonsense!

 

About your Parkinson and Frodsham, I’m afraid I can’t find anything about them anywhere.  Change Alley appears not to exist – I wonder if it was bombed out of existence in the war? – because there’s no reference to it in the A to Z of London, and the name of the firm doesn’t appear in the telephone book, as far as I can see.  I even looked up chronometer makers in the local library’s trade dictionary, but there was only one entry, and that was in st Albans.  Don’t give up hope, however, I’ll ask our receptionist about it when he comes back to work on Monday (he’s had a bad throat) because he’s a mine of information, and may know something about the street at least.  [I don’t remember what this was all about, but certainly Parkinson and Frodsham were chronometer makers going back into the 19^th century at least.  I didn’t realise that Change Alley was short for Exchange Alley, which would have helped me. P & F had offices there, it seems.]

 

On Thursday morning, Kingsley suddenly vanished out of the house before I was even finished breakfast, and not obviously going to school, and I discovered the next morning what he’d been up to  - not having come home till fairly late on Thursday night.  (Got over the cold by the way – stayed home again on Tuesday – just couldn’t face trying to do work, and felt much better for it – got up at midday, and eventually got dressed, and sort of recuperated.)  Back to his lordship – he’d gone and bought an oil heater, saying that he can’t stand trying to sit round the fire any longer – truth to tell I find it just as cool!  I was prepared – in my usual irate fashion – to go crook at him, because he told me it cost £8!!, but he said since it was his idea, he was paying for it.  I can’t see that it’s a great advantage – as it smells oily of course, and trying to dry anything in front of it is a very slow process – you can put a minimal amount of stuff on top of it, but that’s all.  And I’m afraid, as I realise I’ve already said, that it’s no warmer.  I said I’d pay him something for it, but I don’t feel like dragging four quid out of the bank just like that.  Admittedly it’s surely quicker than trying to light the fire, and then waiting around for that to heat up, but at least that was already installed, and all we had to do was buy some coal every so often.  I don’t know what to think, and can’t say anything much as usual, without putting my foot in it.  I don’t know, perhaps I’m an unsatisfactory person to live with.  (I’m sure you’ll disagree, so there’s not much point saying it to you!) [maybe she wouldn’t have done] but I find it hard to say that something isn’t quite to my liking, without feeling sure beforehand that I’ll put my foot in it and cause some sort of upset.  While Kingsley has got a sense of humour (and while mine is rather malicious, I suppose) he is very serious about domestic matters, so to speak, and obviously gets that impression that I’m the type who merely muddles along while he knows how to do most things.  It’s true up to a certain point because he has a real nose for bargains and things, and I invariably wind up getting things for twice the price I need have, and because even though I do muddle along, I get there eventually, even if my discovery of how to do something is the way people have been doing it for a thousand years!  Still, I suppose to a certain degree I’ve got some imagination on my side, (it’ll probably turn up that’s really got a lot of that too!) and maybe that will compensate.  I’m afraid this is a gripe letter, so ignore everything up till now!

Paul Schofield

 

It was good to get back to work on Wednesday, even though I worked too hard when I did get there, because several people inquired how I was and where I’d been, etc, and I felt at home again.  On Thursday, Kevin and I went to see  A Hotel in Amsterdam, the latest John Osborne play – he wrote Look Back in Anger some years ago.  It’s not really a very good play but it has Paul Schofield in the lead, and this makes up for its defects.  He makes even the most uninteresting line worth hearing, merely by the modulation of his voice most of the time, and I would like now to see him in a really good part.  Alec Guinness is in a play revival here at the moment, and I’d very much like to see him, too.  [Don’t think I managed this.]

 

What you say about not believing I’m here most of the time doesn’t apply except on two occasions. (I don’t know why it doesn’t apply, but my mind seems to have accept it all.) These are, invariably when I come out of an underground gents (!) or even sometimes the Tube (don’t ask me why!) I have the funny feeling I’m going to come out in a different place, not necessarily home; and the other occasions are when I see actors on stage that I’ve seen in films – I just don’t believe somehow that they’re actually down there on the platform.  Otherwise, I feel quite at home here most of the time, because the run of the mill person around is exactly the same to look at, except out here in the East, where the majority of men have a very close-cropped hairstyle and a definitive way of dressing – mainly with jeans, and where the women come in two kinds: heavily made-up young ones, with very little beauty about them, or old ones (older) who have gone to seed, so to speak.  This is only the East End lot, the average proper Londoner, rich or poor, is generally a different animal.  [Oh the wondrous generalisations of youth!  Not sure that they improve with age.]

 

Tonight Mike and Hazel and I are making a short trip out of London, down south to Epsom – near Ascot, so they say, to see a production of The Turn of the Screw, the Britten opera based on the Henry James story. Invited Kingsley, but he wants to go and see Figaro at the Wells instead, even though this other is finishing tonight.  You might be interested to know I went to confession this morning, and the priest talked about practicing tolerance, and in your last letter you talked about it, and my one New Year resolution at the beginning of this year was on the same subject – so, if I don’t get to achieve anything at this rate, there must be something wrong.  I’ll have to start another letter if only to tell you a joke I heard in the play

 

Part II

 

There must be some other things to tell you anyway!  This joke was in the Osborne play: a girl went to a very strict convent to become a nun, and one of the vows they had to make was not to speak more than two words every three years. (!)  At the end of the first 3 years the young nun went to the Mother Superior who said, Well now, Sister, you may say your two words, and after a great effort the nun said, ‘Bad food.’  Three more years passed and the time came again. Well now, Sister, you may say your two words: and the young nun said, after a very great effort: ‘Uncomfortable beds.’ Three more years went by, and once again, the young nun came before the Superior.  The Superior repeated her usual speech but this time the young nun didn’t say anything for a very long time, and then finally came out, very quietly with, ‘I want to go home.’ The Mother Superior replied, ‘And a good thing too – you’ve done nothing but complain since you came here.’  And after that great effort, and considerable waste, I’ll leave the rest of this until tomorrow, in case The Turn of the Screw  is very interesting. 

 

[Handwritten] Michael sez thank you for looking after his Mum – re the address, I knew you’d commented it on but didn’t bother to look back and see if you’d actually told me the street!  Kevin’s ex fiancée is AGAIN ENGAGED – which seemed to relieve Kevin on any responsibility for the break-up!! I’ve now received your latest letter re Mike’s Mum and I’ll pass it on.

 

[Typed] What a terrible day it is here!  The fog is the thickest I’ve yet seen here, and everyone gets on the bus coughing and spluttering.  Plus the fact that the tops of the buses are generally full of smoke and if you’re not coughing for a start you soon start!  Fancy asking me if I wanted any more fudge and biscuits!  I’d thought I’d already hinted on this subject as it was – remember I asked if I should send the tin back to you.  I think the reason why it was so difficult to open was simply the fact that it had been stuck down for so long. Perhaps I should send the tin back to you with some books I don’t require any longer – although that might make a rather heavy parcel.  Kingsley had suggested ringing you up at Christmas by getting you to go up to his place, but then as it turned out his family had made some other arrangements, and this is no longer possible.  [Not sure why my mother needed to go to someone else’s place for a phone call, since we had a phone at home.] You’re probably happier anyway, not having to troop up there at that time, but he then said perhaps he could give me a couple of quid for Christmas as compensating!  The boy’s crazy – if I did ring I’d be paying for it.  However, if you don’t mind, I don’t think I will ring – I can’t see that I can say much in two or three minutes and neither could you, and we’d probably both wind up more miserable than we started!  So I thought I’d write you a long letter instead.  Do you mind?  It’s less the expense, than the fact as I’ve said, that we’d probably both be more upset about it than anything.  We’ll see.  And I’ll let you know if anything does come up. [International phone calls were very expensive in those days- I don’t think I actually rang her until around 1970!]

 

Megs Jenkins, in Green for Danger, 1946, 

We went to The Turn of the Screw on Sat.  I had to pick Hazel up from the Opera Centre, and as a result James Robertson, who was also going, gave us a lift to Waterloo Station.  We could have gone the whole way with him, but we had to pick Mike up there.  As it happened, Mike went another way, but I was glad we caught the train really, as Mr Robertson is rather hard going conversation-wise.  When we got to Epsom we were given the most elliptical set of directions and went the wrong way first.  How badly Londoners know their own area!  It was ages before we found someone who directed us correctly.  The show turned out to be an amateur one, and though the singing and playing was fairly good, and the words were excellent, the production was appalling.  Anyway, I enjoyed it to a certain point.  Then the three of us went back to Mike’s flat, and just as we were about to leave, Lindsay arrived in a bit of a flap saying that he had some people coming up.  All he meant was that we should tidy up, but we thought he wanted us to leave.  He didn’t, but we did!  Megs Jenkins, one of my favourite, smaller part players in films came up – she seems to be an especial friend of Lindsay’s.  So it was quite a thrill sort of being on the same floor as her!  I left to get a last bus, but apparently missed it, then discovered as I was about to walk home again that I’d left my keys at my own flat, and as I didn’t really want to wake everyone up at that time of night, went back to Mike and took up his offer of a spare bed!  [Handwritten again; possibly because the shift key seemed to be playing up.]  Then left at about nine next morning, not feeling very bright as I didn’t sleep too well due to the central heating and the electric blanket and the heavy quilt.  I’d intended to go to Petticoat Lane that morning but decided not in case Kingsley had wondered where I’d got to – he hadn’t of course! 

 

Went to Albert Hall (first had tea in Kensington High St) with Kevin but we were both so tired that we nearly went to sleep in the first half seemed to go terribly slowly!  [But what did we go to hear?]

Yesterday was technically a day off (Monday) but I went in anyway and spent so much longer at (the Opera Centre) that I didn’t have time to get home again.  Played the first of the songs I’d written for Kurt, but I’m a bit unsure of what he thought of it!  I’ve made some alterations to it anyway now.  Then we went to the pub next door and he shouted me a drink, and told me most of his life story – interesting but reasonably incredible!  Then Mike shouted me to a Royal Shakespeare play The Latent Heterosexual (what a title!) which was exceptionally well produced and acted (Roy Dotrice of Misleading Cases – he’s only in his forties – was superb in the lead) and nowhere near as bad as the title might imply!

Lots of Love, Mike

3.11.68: Operas, Concerts, and du Pre

3.11.68

Dear Mum, I had intended to write on Friday, but what with one thing and another, especially the very busy week we’ve had, I just didn’t get round to it.  I had originally planned a not very busy week after the exhausting Ella Gerber period, but found in the end that I was out nearly every night.  On Tuesday, I had planned to go to The Italian Girl in Algiers at the [Sadlers] Wells with Michael – Kingsley had already been on the previous Saturday – but as things turned out I went with David Gorringe (think I’ve mentioned him before, if not, he’s small, 25, from Canterbury, an ex-furnishing business man, who’s very interested in the theatre) and Kevin, who had come back from the South Coast to get a job. Apparently the work over the winter period down there is considerably lessened and the hotel he’d been at couldn’t keep him on.  So anyway, he’s now going to be working in London, near Hampton Court (as far West as we are East) from tomorrow.  When he’s going to see his fiancée, I don’t know, because he only has Thursday – all day – and Sunday afternoon off!  He’s still working as a barman, incidentally.  [I don’t know who this ‘fiancée’ was – I don’t think I ever met her, or at least not more than once, and the engagement got broken off in due course.]

So we four went to the Italian Girl, and though it had some marvellously funny bits, I think I enjoyed the Opera for All production that much more.  Besides, where we were sitting in the Coliseum (the new Sadler’s Wells) in the Dress Circle we found that much of what was being sung on stage in the bigger ensembles was completely lost.  And they left out the funniest thing in the whole show, by not repeating the never-ending septet at the end of the first act, which I think I mentioned previously.  But it was very beautiful to look at, full of lovely luscious greens and blues, and with a marvellous set consisting of three variously-shaped platforms that fitted together sometimes, but other times would sort of float apart to form different levels.  It was produced by Wendy Toye who has also made several films. 

Prior to this I had gone up to David’s place to have a snack tea – he lives near Great Portland St, which is near Regent’s Park, Baker St, and Madame Tussaud’s, in a very nice, centrally-heated penthouse which he shares with a bloke who’s working on the Opera for All at the moment, but he only pays a quarter of the full rent because the flat is actually also leased by another bloke who uses it as a base for the business he partners with the other bloke (the OFA man – get it?).

Next night Michael and Lindsay Campbell (from Dunedin, an actor in his 50s whom Mike shares a flat with – near Oxford Circus – I think I told you).  Anyway I was invited up to their place for tea before I went because I was getting them in free (as I had the previous night – great isn’t it?) and we had a very nice meal cooked by Lindsay, who then also shouted us a cab to the theatre, and brought us a drink in the interval!  He was very appreciative.  According to Mike, though he (LC) has lots of friends he doesn’t really have many close ones and so it seems that he’s very happy to be taken somewhere so to speak.  [Lindsay Campbell had been one of Dunedin’s top amateur actors before heading for London; he appeared in a number of roles on TV from 1964 onwards and had a tiny part in A Clockwork Orange a few years after this letter was written.  He also claimed that he’d suggested the theme music for The Onedin Line.]

Anyway we went to La Belle Helene, by Offenbach and after I’d changed seats after the first act – I was sitting behind Hazel, from the Centre, and she had a lot of hair on! – I enjoyed it a lot.  Denis Dowling [a singer originally from Ranfurly, in Otago] was in it, by the way, and the whole thing was a hilarious spoof on Classical Mythology.  It was rather like a Gilbert and Sullivan on a slightly different scale.  It was produced, originally (this particular performance is a kind of re-production) by Basil Coleman who spoke at one of our lectures one day.

Oh, on the Tuesday night I forgot to say, Kevin came out and stayed with us, and slept on our divan which apparently he found quite comfortable. The only trouble was that we sat up and talked after we’d got home till about one.  Also forgot to say that on Monday morning we’d been to see Madame Butterfly at the Garden, and though the production, especially the lighting wasn’t always the best, it’s always worth watching Puccini.  And the singing was generally very fine. 

On Thursday night, Mike and Kingsley and I went to the Festival Hall, only because it was free, (I’d intended to stay home as I felt very tired) to see a gala concert – seats at anything up to 20 guineas! – and quite honestly it was the most disappointing concert I’ve attended.  Andre Previn was conducting, and Jacqueline du Pre was the cellist in two concertos.  They started off with a Weber Overture, which was interesting, and then Mrs Daniel Barenboim (he’s a pianist and she’s du Pre in private life) [did I mean she was du Pre in public life?] came out and played the Bloch: Schelomo (whatever that is) for Cello and Orchestra.  Bloch was a Jewish composer and this comes through quite strongly. Unfortunately he’d never had to contend with Miss DP, which we had to.  She plays the cello as though she wishes to tear its strings to pieces (authorities tell me one of her strings was off pitch anyway) and constantly produces a grating sound as she hacks at it, and then when she’s finished a section she turns and looks either at the conductor or the first violinist in a way that suggests they’d better not criticise or she’ll get up and belt them.  She’s all elbows too, and has a fierce look on her face throughout.  Her finest achievement of the whole evening was when she played down to the lowest notes on her cello, and instead of letting it vibrate with her left hand, she let that go, and continued bowing her right – I’m sure Mr Bloch never intended that ugly sound.  This overall effect was so off-putting that when she played her next, the Saint Saens, I looked anywhere but at her, and the effect was much more pleasant, although the SS is nothing to write home about.  The orchestra finished up with the Rachmaninov 3^rd Symphony – which dragged on until nearly the entire audience was asleep.  Perhaps this was Mr Previn’s fault, because people who said they knew the 3^rd, said later perhaps they didn’t!  What really got me was that the papers gave the whole mess a good write-up!!  And I though the London papers were supposed to be amongst the most fiercely critical in the world!  [It doesn’t occur to me that I may have been wrong about this concert; plainly something upset me in terms of the playing or the music. For an opposite viewpoint on it, check out Hywel David’s article, which says that the playing made him feel as though he was in ‘seventh heaven.’]

On Friday I went to Mass in the evening, All Saints Day, and then went again yesterday morning.  I couldn’t remember if one or both or neither were Holy Days of Obligation so I went both times to make sure!  They didn’t announce them as being anything special last Sunday, but however. [handwritten] Have to stop apparently. LOTS of love, Mike.

[Handwritten on the return address page] Kingsley sez thanks very much for the money for the trunk – he didn’t have time to say it before he left.