16.9.69 - The Trojans

16.9.69

Dear Mum, What a life! I’ve just spent the whole weekend working, and then spent all day yesterday rushing from A to B and back again. One of the other cashiers had flu apparently so I was working from 11.00 or so on Saturday until much the same hour at night, and then again all day Sunday, from 2.00 till about 10.30. However, at least the money has been balancing out, since I’ve been doing it on my own, so that seems to point to the fact that it isn’t necessarily my mistake when the money is out.

I didn’t have to work yesterday at all, though they were contemplating it at one stage (!!!) and so David and I went to the full rehearsal of The Trojans which lasted from 10.30 in the morning until 5.15! But that was with about an hour and a half off and quite a number of unnecessary breaks. What a fantastic piece it is: it lasts about four and something hours in performance, without counting the intervals, and there are barely any spots of tedium at all. I can’t type for sour nuts this morning ˗ everything is going up the wop.

It’s in two parts really; the first concerns the acceptance into Troy of the Trojan horse, and shows how Cassandra was able to foresee it all happening and no one would pay any attention to her. It also introduces us to a whole host of characters in a big court scene, but very few of them have anything much to do except comment on the death of Laocoön, who has just been eaten up by a snake that came out of the sea. Aeneas is the most important character apart from Cassandra, and he and a few others escape (Cassandra and most of the Trojan women commit suicide rather than be captured) and make their way into the second part of the opera which is about the Trojans in Carthage where Dido reigns as Queen, and this section concerns the love story of Dido and Aeneas and her suicide when he goes off to Rome. (I think!)

It’s an epic piece and near enough needs the time it takes to tell ˗ in fact one would be very upset to lose anything much, it’s all so original. The opening has a long scene between Cassandra and her boyfriend, Chorebus (he is killed off stage somewhere later on) which is very dramatic, then we get the court scene where they describe the snake bit ˗ Aeneas sees it just prior to the opening of the scene; before this there is a bit done in pantomime where Andromache and her little boy enter in mourning (for whom?) while the chorus of people comment very dispiritedly: they dislike having sad things happening, but this is only the beginning of a long lot of tragedy. This court scene was designed in golds and blacks; very starkly brilliant. The people go off and discover the Trojan horse, and bring it on stage to much rejoicing: only momentarily thinking there may be something strange about it when a slight clatter of armour is heard from inside!

The next scene shows Aeneas asleep in his tent; and during a long introduction we hear the approach of Hector’s ghost ˗ he has come to rouse Aeneas up to battle; and the sudden shock in the orchestra when he does wake him is quite frightening! The last scene shows the Cassandra suicide. All this part of the opera is done in very dark colouring and dismal lighting. In the next part, colour abounds. (By this time I was sitting in one of the boxes with Alistair and we could see all the detail.) Dido first greets Aeneas on his arrival, and then promptly the latter saves the Carthaginians from being overtaken by the Nubians (I think!). Slowly we see these two fall in love, especially in a long gorgeous and yet very simple duet, that was done yesterday in the most fabulous way.

Aeneas goes off in the next scene and Dido commits suicide in the last in a very moving death scene. I really need about a dozen newsletters to tell you all about it and the wealth of detail, but suffice to say I think it will be one of the greatest successes that the Garden has ever had.

After this I rushed home because Mike had given me two tickets for The Battle of Britain premiere and as I didn’t have any clothes because I hadn’t been able to get to the laundrette when I should have over the weekend, I intended to go round then and wash myself something. I knew Hazel was also going to the film but was to be sitting a different seat[ing area]. I didn’t have anyone else to go with so I rang her and she said she’d come and sit with me, but then told me that I didn’t have nearly as much time as I expected. I went to the laundrette anyway, and found that I wasn’t going to have much time to dry the clothes so thought I’d just dry what I needed. Just as I was about to do so a woman stepped in and pinched the dryer! So I went back to the flat intending to iron the clothes I needed, dry, but this wouldn’t work either; so I borrowed a pair of David’s sox, and ironed my tattiest shirt, and set out with these and my dinner jacket. [My ‘dinner jacket’? I don’t remember ever having one of these!] I’d missed the train, then couldn’t get a bus, then couldn’t get a tube, then another connecting tube, then found I didn’t have a handkerchief and a cut on my face from shaving started to bleed!! AAAgh! What a night. The film turned out to be singularly dull, and isn’t worth seeing at all. In spite of its cast and fairly spectacular battle scenes. Douglas Bader went up the stairs while I was standing in the foyer with Hazel and we saw Kenneth More about two foot away afterwards. But otherwise it was a drag and not a good full stop to The Trojans! Love, Mike

7/8.8.69 - Alistair's wedding

7/8.8.69 [handwritten]

Dear Mum. Well, well ˗ this is the third day I’ve said to myself I must write properly to you ˗ I only posted a postcard today that I wrote last Monday ˗ but because we’ve spent so much time doing all sorts of things I’ve not had a minute really to spare. The weather has been constantly fabulous and I look more like a Red Indian than a Paleface.

Alistair’s wedding went off very well ˗ the reception was held at Woking, about 20-30 miles from London, at the house of Imogen’s parents, a large country house place with a magnificent flat garden with carefully looked-after shrubs and bushes, and far enough from Woking proper for it to be peaceful. The day, which started out as overcast, became very hot and sultry and all the younger men dispensed with their coats very quickly. I wore my old suit, but helped it on its weary way with a fabulous tie I bought a while back. This seemed to make me acceptable amongst all the superbly dressed people. Imogen’s family seem to be pretty well-off, and so, many of the relations were dressed in considerable finery. There was champagne flowing in all directions, and everybody was in high spirits until the heat quietened them down. Alistair had a gorgeous waistcoat on (he must have been very hot) that Imogen had made out of some furnishing material; it was all gold and bright and green. Imogen was in a white mini-skirt with gold trimmings and with her hair in a sort of Regency fashion. Alistair had composed an Epithalamium (a wedding piece they tell me) for the day based on the usual wedding march, and full of musical quotations, which was written for available forces ˗ mainly his Nottingham University friends ˗ which included David Syrus on piano, [plus] oboe, clarinet, bassoon, basset horn (his father-in-law) and several strings.

The reception broke up about 3.30 and David and I headed back to London, where because we had such a long time to fill in we went and saw A Night at the Opera (at the Station Cinema) ˗ me for the fourth or fifth time! [I must be exaggerating about this; I don’t know how I would have seen it this often.] Then on to Hastings, which is a combination of a seaside resort (unpleasant), a hilly town (pleasant), lots of parks (delightful), an old town (very quaint), and a gorgeous surrounding countryside. The beach, unfortunately, is another one of those pebble ones, although we did go out to Camber yesterday where it is all sand.

Mr Syrus is a dear old shoe shop owner of sixty-six, and Mrs S is from Sheffield, in the North, originally, and very easy-going, a good cook, very motherly (and though it’s perhaps a little hard on Mavis ˗ an efficient housekeeper without being unnecessarily tidy). Peter, David’s younger brother ˗ he’s twenty ˗ is another student musician, rather more practical than David (and a bit lazier ˗ but all young people are!) and very easy to get on with. Last, there’s Scamp ˗ their eight-year-old cat. Love, Mike. 

31.7.69 - New flat, end of year party, and movies

31.7.69 [First letter from 18 Bethune Rd, Stoke Newington.]

Dear Mum, sorry to have been such a long time in writing again, but things this week have been hectic. Even though the Opera Centre is officially finished, my ties to the place have not yet been severed and I’ve been in there every day this week ˗ but instead of my spending money because of my presence there I’ve actually been making a little, a pound a day in fact, for coaching Peter Lyon who goes to the Scottish Opera For All shortly to work.

Last Friday I not very cheerfully set out to start transporting all my stuff up to Bethune Rd [Stoke Newington] and the one trip convinced me that turning myself into a pack-horse wasn’t the answer. (I did tell you we’ve got the place ˗ or did I? Perhaps not!) So after having frizzled up in the heatwave (or drought as they’ve called it!) on the way up here ˗ via two trains and a tube ˗ I decided this was not good enough and rang up Reg and explained my trouble and without any more ado got all the rest of the stuff moved on Sunday morning. And then I stayed overnight at their place until Tuesday night (from Sunday) because the flat has not really been completely habitable until now.

Saturday night was the last performance night and after the show most of the students, and other odd bods, went all the way down to Forest Hill, in the SE of London (though not far from Blackheath) for a party at the Jennings house. (David and his wife, Teresa Brooke, have both been students. Her mother is Patricia Hayes, the actress.) It was far and away the best party I’ve been to for a long time, and was only wound up sometime after I left ˗ at 4.00 in the morning. Alistair and his fiancee, Imogen, and David Syrus and his brother Peter came back to Blackheath for coffee, and watched the sunrise. As I had to get up for 10.30 to meet Reg, and wasn’t quite with my packing, and would have to go to Mass somewhere along the line, I decided to stay up, and went out onto the Heath when the others had gone, and walked in the dew, and watched the most fabulous of skies gradually grow lighter and brighter. There was a weird peace around, actually, with only the sea pigeons and large black crows (?) to disturb me. There were cars in the distance, but they don’t count somehow, and I only saw one other person out walking ˗ which isn’t really surprising! I thought I would have felt very sad somehow, but didn’t really seem to, just a little contemplative. I suppose the older you grow, the more you accept that everyone of your friends disappears sometime, and all of these eras in life come to and end. (It’s probably just as well ˗ being the way we are, finickity ˗ we’d probably get bored otherwise). Then I went back and had a bath, and and cleaned the windows and went to Mass (and nearly dropped off at it) but the five hours or so that seemed to be a short time for sleeping in took a lot longer to be awake through.

Anyway, for the next three nights I stayed up at the Crowls’ trying to cause as little disturbance as poss ˗ and seeing far too much TV: including Woman of the Year (with Tracy and Hepburn, one of their best ˗ with a fabulous where she tries to cook breakfast for him when she’s never been near a kitchen in her life) and the original Frankenstein with Boris Karloff, which was interesting rather than horrifying. And for some reason it was all updated to the thirties (or late twenties anyway) and had one of those revolting English actors playing the Baron [Frederick Kerr], and supposedly getting all the funny lines ˗ ugh, that’s one thing that has outdated itself. Karloff was very good incidentally, and makes the film I think, which is only otherwise notable for its direction of the not over-inspired script.

Yesterday, Mike and Hazel and I went to an early showing of Chimes at Midnight, an Orson Wells film adapted from the plays that Falstaff appears in which were collaged together to make a portrayal of him as the more important character rather than as a subsidiary to the King. There is no such thing as a bad Orson Welles film; even his failures are immensely interesting. [I couldn’t have known this from experience, not having seen most of his movies; it was plainly something I’d read.] And this has a superb cast putting Shakespeare across in a superb way.

We then went up to Mike’s for a meal, and then went to Piccadilly to see a late preview of one of Mike’s company’s new films. At 11.30. it was positively the most sick film I’ve seen, I think, but very well done for all that. It’s a terrifying exposé of the really seamy side of New York life, but with redeeming features in the characters in the story ˗ they seem victims of their country rather than themselves: it was made by an Englishman, and possibly couldn’t have been done by an American. It’s called Midnight Cowboy, and for once I’ve seen if before you possibly can ˗ but I don’t suggest that you see it. It only shows things that have existed in humanity for centuries, but isn’t in the least bit pleasant for the acknowledging of them.

The drought broke incidentally, on Tuesday ˗ the very day on which I had to go wandering around the streets ˗ it was so wet I got soaked to the skin even though I perpetually carried an umbrella. And now that that’s been and gone we’re back to the heat again. The English don’t deserve to have the lovely weather ˗ they only say they like cold better.

We’re to have a telephone in this flat ˗ presuming it won’t cost too much (it’s already here but disconnected) and I had a little Irishman here yesterday who had been about to take it away until I said we wanted it. And did he talk!! And I’ve had two grumpy little men coming and going with furniture and cookers and fridges that they can barely lift ˗ and I always seem to be doing something wrong for them. I’ll be glad to be settled in here. Love Mike. 

This isn't 18, but a house a couple of doors along:
there was a long row of houses all with the same design.
Ours was similar to the left-hand one: the window to the right of the door
was the bathroom (someone pinched my shaving gear off the windowsill once).
The bow window to the left was my bedroom. 

15.7.69 Changing flats

15.7.69

Well, well, and hullo. (15th July). Hope you are still recovering properly like a good wee girl. I’ve had Fred’s alter ego in here twice just lately ˗ a cat that is growing up to look like Fred. At least as I remember her. (Do you know in this day and age of photos I don’t possess a single one of you! And I’ve got three of Francisco, whom I’ve never seen.[This was a Korean orphan boy I sponsored for a few years.] Send me one, will you? Even if you have to have it especially taken with all the rest of the Hannagan clan.) This cat is terribly cheeky and walks in whenever I have the back door open and food cooking. I was in the middle of a Sunday meal one weekend, and suddenly felt something rub across my leg ˗ only on this occasion the door wasn’t even open. What a fright. She’d come in an open window! But she’s very like Fred, and I enjoy her company.

Well, several things have happened of interest. To go backwards, today, Hazel and I received a summons to go and see Mr Kentish after one of the rehearsals. Well, remember that TV business that we had going on at the Centre a while back? And how I was shot sitting doing absolutely nothing? Well, they want the people who appeared in that scene to go to Edinburgh in September to shoot a scene up there as a follow-up and they pay! Everything. Great great great.

On Sunday night I went up to town and after going to Church in the evening at six at my little French church off Leicester Square (Mass in French ˗ and sermon!) (it’s a beautiful church actually built with the same sort of material as in Moran Chapel, but about six times as big, right next to a cinema currently showing a hit film on Lesbians.) [Moran Chapel is/was in the centre of Dunedin, in the Octagon: a tiny place that might hold twenty people.] (I’ll have to get a new ribbon.) (Hold on...) [I changed the fading ribbon to an equally faded red one; almost impossible to read.]

As I was saying, I met up with David and Hazel and Dave’s flatmate John, and a friend of Hazel’s called Kathy Bird. And it turned out that Kathy had found a flat which she wanted to move into but found that she wasn’t going to have enough people ˗ again someone had opted out at the last minute. I said that if David agreed (Syrus, that is ˗ the one I was to share a flat with) it might be suitable for us to come in on. It’s a place with room for five people and six if wanted. So anyway last night David and I went out to look at it (after David had said he liked the idea ˗ I’ll still be going down to Hastings though, I think; I don’t see any reason not to see a bit more of the place) and it’s massive ˗ five bedrooms, a large lounge, a kitchen, bathroom, and lots of funny little off rooms, that don’t seem to have any purpose in life, and a private garden which at the moment looks fabulous. It’s on the ground floor of an old three-storeyed house, and the place has so many doors ˗ most of the rooms have two (?) that it looks like the set of a French farce! It’s not actually ours yet, but Kathy and I are going in tomorrow to look at it, so I’ll not finish this until it’s definite and then if it is you can start addressing mail there. [A woman lived upstairs on her own, as I recall, which meant she must have had an enormous amount of space. As for most of the rooms having two doors; I think this is nonsense. Mine did, but not the rest, as I recall. ]

Tomorrow night I go to NZ House near Piccadilly to a reception being held by the High Commissioner for NZ for James Robertson and Kiri [te Kanawa] before they go to NZ for Carmen. [A recording of this production is available on You Tube, though for video there are only still shots.]

Last night before going to see the flat David and I had tea at Alistair’s house (which he’s renting prior to getting married); actually Dave lives there too at the moment; and very nice place it is. An old three-storey place too, semi-detached, which means that you go up and down all the time to get anywhere, and that it’s rather narrow, but it’s also very cosy and comfy. And the sort of place that anyone would be happy in let alone newlyweds.

I’ll leave the rest of this till tomorrow.

Tomorrow is now here and this morning we went up to the agents near Oxford Circus and filled out an application for the flat. Now they’ve got to send away for three references from each of us, which will take about a week. I only hope that if they do accept us they don’t take too long about it, because the date they seem to think we should go in is about three days after I’m supposed to have left here!

This evening I went up to NZ House (after spending the entire day mucking around doing nothing at all in London ˗ it has been so hot that it’s impossible to do anything; a real muggy sort of heat, which is killing the English. I sat in St James Park this arvo doing absolutely nothing except watching the people go by for about two hours ˗ even went to the all cartoon show to fill in time for an hour ˗ it was cooler, and anyway they had a Laurel and Hardy, as well as part twelve of one of those old serials) for this reception for Robertson and Kiri, and it was pretty deadly and I didn’t really meet anyone new.

Our production of Il Tabarro promises to be really something. James conducted it while I played for a rehearsal the other day, and didn’t even complain about my playing in any way. A change. But as a show it should be fabulous ˗ and will knock the audience for six.  Ande Anderson, who is producing, is putting rather more into it than perhaps he would normally, because the situation rather parallels a marital situation he’s been involved in (he hasn’t said so, but it’s obvious from the knowledgeable way he speaks about the feelings of the characters involved.) [I suspect someone amongst the students suggested this and it became a reality.] I’ll be playing the celesta in the actual performances, which doesn’t mean much, as neither Schicchi nor Tabarro have much for the instrument. [Handwritten] That’s all for now. See ya, love Mike. 

11.7.69 Chelmsford, trains, shifting

11.7.69

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

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

Neil Jenkins

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

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

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

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

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

Love, Mike

25.4.69 Flatting and fudge

25.4.69

Dear Mum, sorry it’s so long since you had a letter, tho' at least last time I did write rather more than a few lines! Just been re-reading your letter about the newly-weds. (What’s the married name?) [I have no idea which newly-weds these would have been; presumably a cousin of mine marrying someone. Nor do I know who it was that ‘descended’ on my mother.] I am sorry to hear that you’ve once again been descended upon by one of my obviously bludging generation ˗ sorry, two ˗ and it always seems to happen to your holiday, too. The only thing I can hope about, and the fact that Mary comes and goes so often, is that it lessens any loneliness you may be experiencing. [I think the 'Mary' referred to here was probably also a cousin.] Though why you should I can’t imagine ˗ I’ve had all this place to myself since Easter (!) and now find that since Julie has come back that I quite got to like having the place to myself. Purely selfish, I am, and yet I like having other people around too. I know, tho’, even tho’ you say that it spoilt your holiday, that you do enjoy cooking for other people ˗ and that it’s probably good that they’re there because means that you’re definitely eating properly. I’m only sorry to hear that it doesn’t sound as tho’ they paid you very much towards it. We are a selfish generation I know, and yet I always seem to wind up being sympathetic towards my fellow youngsters. We’re very spoilt, that’s the trouble. 

The cover of Talbot's 1986
recording, The Golden Tenor. 

You’ll be interested to know that I’ve just shown around the place (the flat) a new occupant ˗ making four of us here, and bringing the rent per person down by over a pound. Not that it seemed to be making much difference to me at the price it was, but it seems silly to have so much room and to be spending money unnecessarily. It’s a Welsh (!) tenor (!) of 24, who is going to be at the Centre for the coming term, and who happened to mention that he needed a place to stay, just as I was thinking that a fourth person would come in handy. I had talked to John about it and one night this week when he was here, we shifted the beds around in our room, just to see how much space there was, and really, you could hold a dance in there now! What also sparked off the idea was that Mike had said they had a divan in the cellar of their flats, and that it would only get damp down there. So it’s arriving tomorrow, and Jeffrey (Talbot) arrives on Monday. To me he seems a nice guy, coming from a similar family situation as me, and tho’ he’s a typical tenor, he’s also down-to-earth as well. I think it’ll work out all right, since none of us is ever here that much anyway!

John and I are going out tomorrow to see if we can’t get some cheap furniture (2nd-hand) as the flat, tho’ furnished, has large bare patches, and the living room looks more like an Ideal Home exhibition stand than a living room. We’ve decided how much we can spend and with a bit of luck, may pick up something worthwhile. Or several somethings.

I’ve been sticking up, with double-sided sellotape, cut-out pictures from magazines, and tho’ that sounds revolting, it’s much better than bare white walls. Actually, apart from the fact that they’re a little crooked ˗ some are ˗ they don’t look bad. But I stuck one lot up so crookedly, I had to stick the others up around it crookedly to compensate! (I can hear you screaming from here.)

Have I told you what I thought I might do at the end of term? Don’t recall doing so, but the last letter was too long to remember all I said. I’m thinking of say getting a part time job ˗ preferably musical of course ˗ there was a job as a Music Librarian in this week’s Stage (the trade paper) which would have suited nicely if I hadn’t been studying. It was part time. And with this I’d like to spend about 6 months at least catching up on repertoire ˗ I don’t feel satisfied with what I know at present ˗ and do whatever coaching comes my way, with anything else in that line. Actually, on Wednesday, I again went to ElthamAdult Education and am getting £5- 12 for coaching amateurs for about two hours! The boss-man said that there was a possibility of more work there ˗ and if it could be relatively constant, that would be very nice. The normal rep is away, at Glyndebourne, and that will be for a while. (Spring must be here ˗ it’s eight o’clock and still light ˗ and fairly mild.)

I got your latest parcel a couple of days ago, with the biscuits and cheese and meat and fudge. Dear mother ˗ you put the fudge in a box in a plastic bag, remember? Well, guess what happened? The fudge returned to its natural state, and was a lovely solid squelchy block! It was terribly funny. I left it out in the air (no, not right outside!) for a day or so (including in the sunlight from the window, which didn’t help) and it’s starting to harden up again. I’ve had one or two irresistable pieces, and I think it’s coming right. Hazel has demanded that I take some to her ˗ she’s had NZ fudge before apparently! (Funny, the Canadians and Americans and Hazel all go for the same kind of things as the NZs: milkshakes, hot-dogs...fudge! The English don’t know how to make these things, tho’ they pretend. Oh yes, hamburgers too.)

We’ve already had a very busy first week ˗ we’ve had one of the Ring Cycle ˗ Wagner ˗ in our first Reps’ class, which hasn’t been as bad as it might have been, and we have Rosenkavalier coming up in May. Man, that’ll be hard work! I’m still one of the two Reps with nothing special to do (Alistair and David are doing work outside) and so I’ve got lots to do. Might as well be busy!

Lots of 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.

3.10.68 - Students and subsidies

Letter not dated but postmarked 3^rd Oct, 1968

Dear mother, you silly old thing, just because your little poem upset me a little once doesn’t mean to say that you should give up what is obviously a new career opening before you!  The first time I read it, it had an amusing effect – I just read it again, on the wrong day.  But while we’re on the subject, so to speak, of upsetting things, I’d better say that for this Course to be worthwhile in the long run, I’ll have to stay in the UK after it’s over.  Not that I wouldn't come home tomorrow, if I could bring London with me!  But, presuming that I come out of it all with the degree of success expected, I can see obviously that it would be a waste to go straight home again – not that they wouldn't like me anymore, or find something to do with me, but there’s that much more room for expansion, here, and since I seem to be cut out for something in this line, it’s no use constantly chopping and changing for the rest of my life.  I know you will understand, and I know too that the amount you miss me, is equal at least to the amount I miss you and everybody else at home.  But it seems the Good Lord intended things to go this way – you never know he might change the whole look of things tomorrow, and I may find that things are different entirely. Anyway, that’s the position as it stands.  To think that I might never see Dunedin again doesn’t bear thinking about, as you realise, I know, but when I hear, just for example, that to put a student through at the LOC costs somebody £1500! it’s only fair I should do my best to come out at the other end at least with the look of what I went in there for!  And even if there wasn’t a mysterious somebody paying that amount there are two unmysterious bods – you and me – paying considerably more, by contrast, towards my future, and I don’t think I should let us down.  It’s all very serious isn’t it, and I started out on this letter in a happy frame of mind, so as long as we can content ourselves with being as close as mum and son can across a few thousand miles, I dare say we’ll pull through.  I hope that hasn't upset you; don’t wish to make you miserable when I send you a letter.  [Until I re-read this letter I'd forgotten that someone must have subsidised me to go to the LOC. I don’t think I ever knew who it was: perhaps it was Prof Peter Platt, from the Music Department at the University of Otago who had spoken on my behalf to the LOC and who encouraged me to go; perhaps it was Bertha Rawlinson, the Dunedin singer.  Perhaps it was a group of people associated with the Dunedin Opera Company. I don't think I've ever known.]

Let’s change the subject. I sent a card to Marg. But it won’t arrive until after the date. It’s just a postcard – they’re 10d to post but at least it shows we’re thinking of her; after all I used to get on very well with her, didn’t I?  [Regrettably, I'm not sure who this ‘Marg’ was – I suspect she was more my mother's friend than mine.]

Finally wrote to Kevin R[owlands] since that seemed safer than trying to contact him at the theatre, and asked him if he’d let me know what was the best way of getting in touch with him.  [I was obviously feeling obliged to contact this man because our neighbours had been keen that I should do so, and you can read that in the lines.]

I still don’t feel that I am in London – I’ve just never got that feeling I expected of being in such a place.  I think for one thing it’s because the places seen in photos so often are quite different in reality.  Trafalgar Square looks impressive in a verydifferent way here to the way the photos make it look and so does Piccadilly Circus. Silly, isn’t it? Big Ben gets me though – it is remarkably beautiful – there’s something quite golden about the look of it, which is something that I’d never seen in photos.  And crossing over the Thames anywhere is something that I find enchanting. London skies always seem to be a sort of lovely grey, and the buildings go so well with this, and the river, that that’s my favourite part of the city, I think. 

Do send the Tablets, if it’s not too expensive – I haven’t had any yet, so they’re a treat in store.  [Again, I think this was note that I felt obliged to put in; I can’t remember ever feeling that strongly about the magazine.]

The school goes on as busily as last week, and when I’ve done a day there, I really feel as though I’ve been working. It’s the sheer concentration, I think. And my bottom is getting calluses on it from sitting on hard chairs so much!! 

We saw the dress rehearsal of An Italian Girl in Algiers last night, done by the LOC Opera for All Group.  (There are Welsh and Scots ones too.)  And it was a delight, after a slightly shaky start.  Rossini really was a comic master.  There is one ensemble – the story is too incredible for words of course – where seven mixed characters sing – everyone something different, on top of a simple um chah accompaniment.  And it’s so so funny – just because each time you think it’s going to go off in another direction it starts all over again.  The ensemble singing of the cast was excellent. 

While I have a bit of space let me tell you about some of the students, so that you’ll have something to refer to if necessary. John Opie! [he was actually Alan Opie, as I wrote in an earlier letter – the exclamation mark is because I’d worked with a Ramon Opie in the NZ Opera Quartet] from Cornwall, who is a baritone, and takes off my NZ accent – when I’m not taking off an East End one – there’s such a variety of accents at the school that we spend half the time taking each other off, and when it comes to a language class!  John has a good sense of humour – lacking in some of the more London type singers (and others).  David Cyrus [actually Syrus, who became my best friend out of the student intake of that year], a rep, a sort of ungainly boy, and awkward to look at, and who makes me feel as though there is perhaps someone else around whom I’m on a par with.  [David was, and still is, somewhat awkward in mannerisms – it’s part of his charm.  He was forever apologising, so much so that when I berated him for it in a letter from NZ once, after I’d been back here for some years, he sent by return mail an aerogram with a single, tiny word stuck in the middle on the page – ‘Sorry’. David would go on to be Head of Music at Covent Garden, where he began work in 1971 and still remains.]

Alistair Dawes, a rep, and friend from youth of the above.  Smokes a pipe, has a shock of hair (or perhaps the hair itself has had the shock!), and, like four of the reps, has permanent specs, and is able to be amused. (So is D.C)  Anthony Negus, the most pro of the reps – he freelanced in coaching last year [I conveniently forget at this point that I’d already worked for at least two years as a professional repetiteur and accompanist], is mad on Wagner, on opera in general, and looks hurt if you criticise anything [related to opera, that is]. Very confident, and generally with good reason.  Henry Ward, seemingly the odd-rep-out, no glasses, full of fire, apparently, but with an extremely lackadaisical attitude to work, and an intense dislike of stuff that doesn’t please him.  A very friendly smile but rather unapproachable (he’ll probably go somewhere). [I can’t find anything on the Net about Henry; he left LOC in the first half of the year, I think, because he didn’t feel it was teaching him anything, and possibly went onto a conducting job with one of the Northern Opera Companies.]  A.N. also pipes – his is worse smelling, (though still not unpleasant) than A.D’s.  Keith Stoppard, baritone, married to the daughter of a top Engineer (at present head of the Plessey Co in Aussie), an ex-engineer himself, and, unfortunately no relation to Tom Stoppard who is at present one of London’s top dramatists.  [I seem to remember Keith had difficulties as a married student juggling everything in his life; he was possibly the only married student apart from Kiri. I can’t find anything on the Net to say what became of him. He was one of the friendlier – and more mature – singing students.] David Patmore, one of the S.Ms [stage management students], slight stutter (which makes his German tricky!) very friendly with the reps, and a very nice guy.  [He also became a good friend during this time.]  He and the other 4 reps are all ex-OXFORD!  What distinguished company.  [handwritten] Oxford can’t be so highbrow after all!  There are no girls here [in this list of names, rather than not at the Centre at all] because I can’t remember who they are from day to day – they change their hair styles.  [Yup, a pretty weak excuse – of course there were girls, and of course I already knew some of them.]  Love, Mike