7.1.69 First letter of 1969

7.1.69

Hullo, is this the first letter I’ve written you in the New Year?  Happy New Year anyway.  There seemed to be a bit of delay in mail here and I’ve only just (a day or two ago) received a letter you wrote on Boxing Day.  I think I’ve had everything you’ve sent from Fr Deslandes; not quite sure but I think I’ve two.  And they arrived without extra charges or anything.  [Father Deslandes, as I recall, ran the orphanages for South Korean orphans.  My mother and I each sponsored one of these boys for some years.]

 

Both Margaret and Mavis’s birthdays are in December!  Mavis’s was on one Saturday that I was up there and I think you’ll find a reference to it not so long ago in a letter, but I can’t remember the actual date, and Margaret’s is just a short while before Christmas – but again I’m not sure of the date – perhaps I can find out – plenty of time anyway!  Do you think I should have at least sent a card or someut?  It’s a bit late now of course.

 

Got me $10 without any great fuss , except that the gits at this end had sent the copy where I could then collect the money to a Post Office way around up the main street, instead of sending it to the Main Post Office, which is two minutes walk from the house!  It’s a little branch in the back of a Chemist’s shop.  There are almost as many Post Offices here as pubs – four branches within close walking distance!  And guess what else turned up – I was riding along in the bus just last week from the Opera Centre, a way I’ve come dozens of times and the bus passed a little notice on the wall saying: Change Alley!  It was where it should have been, but is too small to be in the A to Z.  I was on my way into the Strand but decided to come back later and have a proper look.  I did (and incidentally discovered that I’d never walked along Fleet St before in the process) about 10.30 at night and went in and had a look at it – at considerable risk to my life and limbs if any mugger had seen me no doubt!  In Change Alley there are now the back entrances to the St Martin’s Bank  and Lloyds Bank and one or two subsidiary buildings’ rear ends, but no Frobshm and Whoojy.   Sorry, they just don’t appear to exist anymore. 

 

Got some Tablets today – with all the guff inside them.  Thank you.  Also the 2 bob bit! 

 

Well since I last wrote what’s happened?  On Tuesday, New Year’s Eve, I went up to Ann and Trish’s for a meal, and to go to a party with them. They had been carol singing with some Anglican group, and the people at the party were from this – but not a very friendly mob.  I talked to the same guy nearly all night, and one or two others.  The majority of them left us alone – the 2 girls, Anne’s sister Marie and self – until after we came back from Trafalgar Square, when most had gone home and there were less to contend with.  I’m supposed to be going to a meal at a pub called the Swiss Cottage on Sunday with 12 of them – some of those I got to know vaguely, but I’d sooner not go – it sounds a rather too expensive, and unnecessary evening.  The four of us went to T. Square to bring in the New Year, but apart from the spectacle of hundreds of balloons floating away up at midnight, and some nits prancing about in the fountains – we watched from a little distance on the St Martin’s in the Fields Church steps – it wasn’t very exciting.  And we were only there for a short while.  None of the girls wanted to go in the crowds, and though I might have if I’d been with Mike or Kevin or someone, they made me feel rather panicky with their constant insistences that we all hang onto each other ALL the time.  By the time we got home from the party it was about three – I was to sleep on a couple of chairs in a sleeping bag at the girls’ place – and I was feeling rather unpleasant generally – I helped those girls wash up the dishes twice that night, at the party, while the hostess stood around looking on!  And we missed a lift home to the girls’ house as a result.  (Aaaagh – what a mess this is.) I didn’t mind doing them the first time  - but twice was too much!  And then I slept badly, I had a bit of Kingsley’s sore throat, and I’m always too hot in a sleeping bag.  What a night!  And then I had to go to the copyist’s all day straight from the girls’ without a shave – I was too lazy to carry my shaving gear as well my pyjamas, but since I’d gone to the copyist’s on the Monday with a day’s growth then too, they probably think I live in a state of permanent bristle. I hadn’t been due to go anywhere on the Monday and had got caught out.  Anyway, Pat cooked me a fantastic breakfast – beans, an egg, sausages, toast – and since I was still feeling rubbishy I couldn’t even finish it!  She’ll make someone a marvellous wife – not me, though – I don’t think I could stand someone quite as scatty as those two can sometimes be around me for life!  [Apparently unaware that people do grow up.] Actually they’re not so scatty as of yore – just indecisive – eg, if I hadn’t sort of organized them about getting off and going to T. Sq, we’d never have got there. For all their close and long friendship, they don’t think alike enough for me.  [What?]

 

To go on, I went to the copyist’s - did I tell you his name – George Bamford, in his late 40s I should think, glasses, little mo, and though apparently disorganized, a very thorough copyist – though even he with Zerox [sic] machines and all finds keeping up a task.  How did they do it in the old days?  His wife does all the photo-copying for him – he does all the necessary writing.  And though they appear to be a middle-class sort of couple they talk when their boy is there – he’s 19, 20, like East-enders.  In fact, George talks a good deal of the time  - and copies away while he does so!  But it was most fascinating to hear the talk around me of recording sessions, the Rolf Harris show (which they do all the copying for) concerts, etc.  I spent all day from about 11.15 till 6.00 cutting single lines of music from photo-copies, pasting them on (with double-sided Sellotape) another sheet (and editing them so that the players could turn over conveniently), in order that these sheets could then be cleaned up with a white paste substance (so that the edges of the cuts don’t show ) so that they could then be photographed again, blown up to a bigger size – the print was tiny – and thus turned into completely new parts.  Most of the work as awkward as this – this stuff was just too

 

Part II

finickety to copy out.  They gave me a luncheon voucher for three bob for lunch and I just went out – determined that I wasn’t going to starve because I’d been feeling so rotten – and had a 5/6 lunch – four courses!  And not too badly either.  The Bamfords are a very nice couple – they seemed to be giving Christmas presents – belated, to nearly all the kids in the block of flats they live and work in! Certainly there were enough kids there at various times.  And he’s very patient – though I think I was working well enough (since I did the whole job of four complete parts in the one day) and I think that some work (more of it) will definitely come my way.  He’s been asking me to ring and find out about checking some more parts, but so far he hasn’t had time to do them.  He even said tonight, since it was the third time he’d had to put me off about the work, that it would definitely be given to me, when he was ready, so! this will be a little extra cash in hand. 

 

However withal this filling in my time – and Hansel and Gretel and Les Girls (film) on Thursday, the first with Kevin and the other with Mike, the week that I’d planned to spend in practice slipped through my fingers somewhat.  However I did get some work done.  Hansel and Gretel was rather a delight, with two adults in the parts looking like kids!  The witch was a bit disappointing – played by Aussie tenor Ronald Dowd, but he looked unhappy as a dame – and consequently the last act was nowhere near as good as the other two.  Les Girls is a Gene Kelly, Kay Kendal, Mitzi Gaynor, Leslie Phillips, Patrick MacNee (Avengers) musical, which Mike has been insisting  for years was very very good – and it was.  The music, for Cole Porter, wasn’t up to scratch, but it was well performed, and the whole was very enjoyable. 

 

On Friday I came home after playing the piano most of the day and spent the time copying out my songs for Kurt.  Did this all day Saturday too, and didn’t even go out as I thought I might have done at one stage.  (While I think about it, cooked myself a pie tonight with: two half-cooked sausages I started for breakfast but which I’d originally intended having on last Sunday and forgot – forgot yesterday too -  a half cauli, also intended for Sunday’s meal, two enormous potatoes, mashed, a left-over tomato, an onion, and a small tin of vege soup, without the water added.  And cooked for about a quarter of an hour: it was delish! Crowl the chef is back!  Actually I got the general idea from a recipe I’d used one other time, with considerable adaptation.)

 

On Sunday, just for interest’s sake, and I suppose to keep Kevin company, I went to Worthing with him, by train.  He was going back to pay his ex-employer a fiver he had had to borrow when he arrived back in England, and so we went via Brighton.  Saw quite a bit on the way down – passed Gatwick Airport where only a night before a plane had plowed into a house a mile from the airport, and where also there’d been a train crash – didn’t see either of the wrecks, of course, but when it got to Brighton it was already dark – five o’clock – and drizzling and windy.  But we walked around a bit for ¾ of an hour, and had a quick glance at the place.  When we went on to Worthing, a nice enough wee town – also a coastal place – and spent an hour talking to mine host, his wife, and dog. 

 

Monday, we were back to work with a vengeance – a free morning, but straight into rehearsals for the coming master-classes.  I’m out of working condition, I can see – we were spoilt over the pre-Christmas time because we had no language classes and no coaching sessions.  Still it’s very nice to see everyone again, and though this morning’s reps’ class was rather terrifying, and the forthcoming Opera for All auditions at the end of the month don’t help either, but once again it was all very good.  The class this morning was taken by John Gardner – that’s all I know about him – on Massenet’s Manon.  It was terrifying, because I was first to play and had to play the overture!! Fortunately it was playable, but he was very finickety about right harmonies – wrong notes don’t matter as long as the harmonies are right, he says; fair enough, but I hadn’t even looked at the overture!  Still, that wasn’t the worst: when my turn came round again , he wanted me to play one bar and of course do you think I could get the blasted thing right for him, on the spot?  Makes me shake to think about it all.  But he said something that interested me: that he was rather of the opinion that we shouldn’t prepare these works beforehand for the rep classes – we were expected to be able to sight-read this sort of thing as a normal course of duty, and he said that you were inclined to lose your nerve if you got flustered after you had prepared it or if your sight-reading was constantly letting you down.  I think I have lost my nerve (!) because there was a time, in the dim distant days, when you could lay anything down in front of me and I’d have a go at it.  But now it worries me.  And yet, in my own coaching sessions, I cope quite adequately with what is given me.  I think it’s the fact of having an unknown quantity in the presence of a particular rep, and the presence of the stage managers.  Oh, dear.  Well I suppose if I can survive this morning’s battering and still look the others in the face things can’t be all that bad.

 

That’s pretty brought things up to date – went to Mike’s for tea last night thence to see The Canterbury Tales, a musical, of sorts, which I enjoyed in large spots, but not entirely.  Kate and Mervyn Jarvis also ran [came? Mervyn was a good friend of Mike’s and I’d also had a bit to do with him back home.] The latter’s over here on a business holiday till the end of the month. 

 

Oh, well, pray for me!  That I’ll get through this next month, and term without too many bruises and that I’ll get some of the old confidence back.  I think perhaps that’s what lacking, you know.

[handwritten] Anyway, lots of love to you both – Mike XXXX

10.11.68 End of term, Wigmore and Coventry Cathedral

This post consists of a very long letter - it was originally sent on two aerograms. 

10.11.68

Dearest of all dear old souls I know, I received your parcel with the jersey and biscuits and fudge in it a couple of days ago, (and after I’d spent nearly an hour getting it open had a marvellous time!)  The jersey is perhaps a bit big, but I don’t know – it’s long, but this doesn’t matter, and there’s plenty of room in the sleeves, but otherwise it’s fine, and I intend wearing it all the this week and to run it in so to speak.  [I don’t remember this jersey, but plainly it wasn’t up to my mother’s usual standards of fitting properly!]

I’m writing this letter on Reg’s typewriter, in order to post it to you this arvo, but it’s resulting in a bit more mess than usual.  Since I last wrote I’ve been, as usual, rather flat out – even though I stayed home on both Monday and Tuesday nights.  Part of the trouble was that I’d got an idea to write some music, from Norman Thorn, [a Dunedin amateur conductor - not the one who's still conducting in the city, however] before I left home (whether it will actually come to anything finally I don’t know, but I’d like to try it) and this has taken up more time than I expected.  Also, one of the NZ students at the school happened to hear that I’d written some music – from me, of course; got to blow my own trumpet -  and it must be of some interest if Don Mackenzie [organiser of the Summer Music Schools held in Dunedin] wasn’t too rude about it, and he said he’d like me to write some songs for him some time, but though I’m very keen, it’s a matter of time, and also finding the right sort of words for this particular singer – he’s a bass, Kurt Gänzl is his name – he was Brian Gallins [actually ‘Gallas’] till he came here – he’s adopted his own family name again! – and to my way of thinking songs for basses aren’t necessarily the same type of thing as songs for soprano!  Norman Thorn had said on the way to Invercargill that time that it had surprised him that no one had ever written any music on the theme of the Stations of the Cross – so I wanted to see if I could and use a brass band into the bargain.  This of course necessitated some research into brass band orchestration.  [I don’t think anything came of any of this – when I did write some bass songs – to words by Thomas Hardy – a year or so later, I think I’d by that time lost touch with Kurt. As for there not being any music on the Stations of the Cross, a quick search on Google proves how wrong I was. I finally wrote music for brass band many years later, in the 21^st century, and that was after I’d had considerable experience playing for brass players.]

At the Centre we’re into work on the two end of term productions: Albert Herring, which I’m NOT concerned with (?) and Dido and Aeneas coupled with a curious modern French comic opera called Angelique which is all about a man whose wife is such a witch that he conspires with a friend to sell her, and the chaos that ensues – even the Devil won’t have her!  It’s mad, and horribly tricky, but generally I’ve been managing to play it.  [Angelique, which I don’t remember at all, was by Jacques Ibert. Kiri te Kanawa sang Dido, and was really very good in it. The question mark after Albert Herring may indicate that I was surprised not to have been involved with it, since I'd worked on it with the NZ Opera Co.]

On Wednesday night we went somewhere, oh, yes to the Wigmore Hall – where one of the second year students was giving a concert.  The Wigmore, as you no doubt know, is the place where most young musicians make their debut.  She was on with a clarinettist, whom I thought was very much under par, probably through nervousness, but whom the critics seemed to think was pretty good?  I’m definitely beginning to distrust the critics here. There seems to be some shifty work going on backstage somehow.  [I apparently spent my time disagreeing with the critics.] The girl who sang wasn’t bad, although some of her music I didn’t find all that interesting, but she sang a new song cycle by a London bloke, which though it was scarcely terribly original was quite pleasant – I’d played a few of them for her one day at a coaching session, and quite liked them. [Unhelpfully, I don’t tell my mother who the composer was.] The accompanist was very good but inclined to overshadow his accompanees, to coin a word, probably because he was so much more experienced. It was hearing these new songs however that prompted the conversation with between Kurt and myself. 

After this, I went for a short time to a party being held in the same street, by one of our stage managers (at her flat, it was, on the fifth floor!) but didn’t stay late, though it was a nice quiet party, which is what I enjoy.  The next day David Syrus had invited me to accompany him to dinner at a lady friend (of his)‘s place, and this was equally quiet and enjoyable.  There are four girls actually at this basement flat, but the one David knows, from his University days, Mary, is an archivist now and at present is working in Lambeth House, the home of the Archbishop of Canterbury.  She is cataloguing letters and such belonging to various previous archbishops from the 19^th century.  Another girl joined us for tea, Frances, who works in the Tate Gallery (an art gallery) as a secretary.  We spent so much of the meal talking, that the three courses took from about 7.45 till 10.15! (at least, Mary did most of the talking, not in a brash overbearing way, but just quietly and interestingly.  We other three probably said less together than she!)  They live in Pimlico, very near the Thames, in St George’s Square, where, presumably, most of the four or 5 storeyed houses have been converted into flats. 

On Friday at our lunch-time lecture we had Ronald Dowd, an Aussie tenor, whose been over here for some years now, and he was interesting in a waffly sort of way.  I don’t think I told you that we’d had Professor Thurston Dart the week before, lecturing on Dido and Aeneas, and bringing the whole tragedy to the level of ordinary people in a very funny way. At the lecture he seemed like a very friendly if rather cynical man – and yet, in the afternoon when he took those concerned through the music of Dido, he was frequently very rude to the singers without appearing to try and understand their reason for not having done a thing the way Purcell wanted it – this last was his most heard comment throughout the afternoon, and we were a bit taken aback by his rather surly tongue. 

On Friday night I came out to the Crowls, and listened to The Magic Flute on the radio with Reg, trying to explain what it was all about as we went along.  I’ll see if it’s possible to get some free seats for them for a performance, which will make up a little for all their generosity. I’d come out the day earlier so that we could leave early in the morning to go to Coventry to see the Cathedral that’s there. That’s the one built adjoining the ruins of the old, where The War Requiem was first performed.  It’s really unbelievable in a modern architectural way, and some of it is beyond description, I think.  Here goes. We went there via the M1 (just Reg and I; Mavis has been feeling a bit crook, and the other two had been fairly recently) and this road alone is worth comment.  We couldn’t see anything on the way, and not much more on the way back because the fog was too thick. In some places, unpleasantly so, and it’s a bit worrying to not be able to see far ahead of you on such a fast road. Reg is a good driver, I think, although sometimes he goes a little too fast for my liking. 70, for instance!  In spite of its six lanes, I dare say the M1 is very safe, but the traffic weaves in and out a lot (there are three speeds, so to speak, according to the three lanes) and though I didn’t see anything troublesome on the trip I didn’t always feel too happy. Coventry is not a very large city – I should think smaller than Dunedin, although I couldn’t always see it all for the fog, which did clear in the town at least,  - but it’s very new, particularly in the centre, and well-designed for a modern city.  The Cathedral isn’t the only decent piece of architecture.  The very centre of the town has a huge shopping mall (this part is called Broadgate) which the traffic goes around, or parks inside a large parking building, and it’s very busy as far as the pedestrians are concerned.  We didn’t stop to look at that – it was too cold to stop and look at anything...  [handwritten] to be continued.  Love Mike

Part II

because the weather for the last week has been very bitter indeed, and though I haven’t been wearing a coat yet, I have made considerable use of that scarf you gave me, and my gloves.  (And also, to digress even further, on Tuesday last, Mrs Marshall got us some coal – on our behalf – and we’ve been using that for the time since.  It’s cheaper than the electricity – and possibly more economical altogether, because the coal burns SO slowly that we hardly use any in a night). 

The sun was shining and the day was beautiful to look at in a sort of frostbitten way, but not the best to stand around in.  So we headed across this Broadgate – me leading Reg – he says he can never remember more than the first of a set of instructions on how to get to a place – we’d acquired these from a lady, who instantly knew we were strangers – not only because we were asking the way to the church, but because we said ‘where is St Michael’s Cathedral, and she only knew it as the Cathedral!  Anyway, as you go into the Cathedral two things hit you.  The massive window on your right made of about fifty or more stained-glass windows ranging from yellow and gold at the base to green and reds and blue and purples. This is all over the top of the baptismal font area.  The font is a huge rock from Bethlehem with just a niche carved into the top.  The other thing is the Graham Sutherland Tapestry, which frankly I find even less impressive in life than in the photos.  It has Christ in majesty seated with the four evangelists in their usual guises of lion, ass – or horse, perhaps – man, is it, and eagle, surrounding him.  But it’s all done in a sort of off-white and green, and to my way of thinking isn’t particularly attractive in any sense of the word.

St Mike and the Devil - photo taken by me in 2007

The building is of a pink-gray stone outside (with an immense statue of St Mike with a long spear, standing over the Devil in chains – both of them obviously attached to the wall but somehow appearing to not be attached) and the inside is a white stone with a great deal of wood panelling, carving, ceiling, planking, seating, you name it, etc.  On the left, inside, is the Chapel of Unity, with the Star of Bethlehem set in the floor in sort of a marble type of mosaic, but not as small as mosaic is.  In the prongs of the star are, again, representations of the evangelists, considerably modern in style, and designs representing the five continents. Further into the centre are typical Christian symbols.  The points of the star go into the walls which are not just flat, but (in an already circular room) are separated by both ordinary glass in extremely narrow windows, and also by stained glass in a variety of hues, which are always darker at the base than the top.

Outside in the main church, as one goes towards the altar, you realise that there are other windows besides the huge one over the font.   But these are all so designed that you can’t see them unless you look from the altar end.  Those on one side are connected with God or the spiritual side of man, and the others with his human side.  There are five windows on each side, perhaps three yards across, each, and they represent man’s journey through life, the green ones at the far end of the Church being his childhood, the red ones next showing his passion in youth, etc, the next are multi-coloured showing middle life, with all the trials and tribulations belonging – these aren’t shown in so many pictures, but are all sort of abstract! – the next with deep purples and blues and golds show wisdom, etc, and the next, which my guide book doesn’t mention, are curious.  On one side there is a very pale window, off whites and pale yellow, and on the other a different thing again.  Anyway, presumably it means you reached your goal! 

As you come down both sides of the church there are five panels (on each side) with Christian texts, sort of roughly carved in nearly foot high letters.  If one turns round and looks at the back of the church you can see the completely glass-covered back wall with figures of saints and angels set into them.  These are modern too, naturally, but interesting, and like so much else in the church, intricately designed.  There are sets of organ pipes on both sides of the principal altar (but I couldn’t see the organ).  There is a little archway beneath these pipes on each side leading round behind the main area to the altar beneath the Tapestry.  On the way on the left side is a little collection of the various opening ceremony implements, and yet another set of stained glass windows.  crossing over to the right we come to another chapel, Christ in Gethsemane, with a frame of the crown of thorns through which the, I think, bronze angel set with coloured glass holding the cup can be seen.  This is lit by three narrow unseen windows. 

There is yet another altar (like the Chapel, sort of outside the main structure of the church) the Chapel of Christ the Servant.  It is fairly simple in design and has windows looking over the surrounding town area.  Other features of the church are the Iron Bird ?? with the three nails taken from the old Cathedral embedded between its body and the pedestal, the canopy made up of dozens of three-pointed wooden things over the Bishop’s seat, and each of the accompanying seats has one too.  I see now that my description of the Baptismal window is inaccurate.  The centre is of yellow and gold, the surrounds vary from blue to green to red.  There is a new addition to the Church.  A crucifix, about ten foot high, hanging near the font.  It is a gift from Czechoslovakia.  The whole building is very angular, and yet doesn’t make it uncomfortable to be inside. 

We went outside after and had a look at the shell of the old church, with the cross made from the wreckage, and the altar made from the stone.  The entire bell-tower is still standing and most of the walls.  Crazy, isn’t it.  We also had a look (after lunch in the Cathedral Refectory Restaurant) (!) at the church next door, which except for the loss of its original stained glass was scarcely touched (it now has a new and very detailed window facing the altar, with a very athletic Christ, and a host of well-known saints) – and it dates from 1200 or something. It’s much cosier than the other church, although its spire must be equally as big, and there are some very old things remaining in it.  The lectern dates from the origin of the church, but looks like new!, and there is a lovely carved fresco of Christ and the 12 apostles all standing about 8 inches high.  Over the altar is another carving, this one in stone (the other is wood) with the usual Christian scenes on it. Each of the pew-ends has a different type of leaf shown on it, although at first glance it appears there are only two patterns. 

That’s about it.  Last night Reg and I played firstly Scrabble with Mavis, and then played through a couple of chess games from a book by Gerald Abrahams.  The second game was that played by two computers!  I’m leaving here early today, to meet Kevin in town about five, since this is his only afternoon off!  He has Thursday off, all day off, but of course that’s no use to me.  I’ve got most of Monday off.  Might be able to catch up a little.  [handwritten] This term seems to have gone terribly quickly – finish on the 21^st Dec.  We start about 6^th Jan again. Thanks again for parcel. Mike

Another photo taken at Coventry in 2007