11.2.70 - new staff at work, bathroom leaks, and Lent

11.2.70  [two aerogrammes]

Dear Mum, me again. I received some more books! Another little parcel, with the Hamlet book I was asking about, Pickwick Papers, Verse and Worse (I told you Mike gave me another copy of that for Christmas, didn’t I?) and the copy of Nicholas Nickleby which I’d forgotten I had. I thought I had another copy of that which was in the same edition as some of the others I had ˗ perhaps that was the one that I borrowed off Flora Edwards. [A singer who’d been involved in the Dunedin Opera Company.] The copy you sent unfortunately is the abridged edition (Whitcombe and Tombs claiming to be able to improve on Dickens), and has so much missing it isn’t true. [W&T was a Dunedin retail and publishing company.] Never mind, perhaps I didn’t even have another copy of that: if that’s the case I’ll get another one one of these years. Sorry to keep muddling you up over these books ˗ just goes to show you how little I knew about what I had or didn’t have.

I finally heard from Kevin Rowlands, by letter, in which he merely tells me that he is working in Promises, Promises (which has been playing in the West End for quite a while) and gives me his address and phone number. Quite honestly since that leaves me to do the contacting again, I don’t know that I can be bothered ˗ probably any more than he can. [See more about this man here.] Well, we’ll see; I may pluck up whatever is required to contact him ˗ though I can’t see the point much, since he has no reason to want to know me, I think, and the same rather applies to me! I try to be outgoing, really I do, and I’m more than I was, but dear, dear, it’s difficult when you have to arrange a meeting where neither party is especially interested. It has the same opening gambit difficulties as Britain has been experiencing with the Common Market!

Hey, I’m glad you’re sending that new James Baxter. I have a tremendous amount of time for him, even though he’s sometimes inclined (or was, perhaps) (especially in his plays) to explain things that ought to be left for the reader or auditor to figure out for himself. But who am I to criticize? He’s certainly one of the greatest poets to come out of NZ (completely without any foreign influences, so to speak) and he’s one of us as well! [Baxter was all of this; later he would become something of a cult figure when he gave up ordinary society and went to live as a kind of prophetic hermit in     the middle of the North Island; young, drifting people gravitated towards him.] Did I tell you bought his latest collection (published by Oxford University Press, no less) recently? Worth every penny.

I’ve something else to say to you. What is it? It’ll come back, perhaps. It’s Ash Wednesday today ˗ gee, it has come round quickly this year. And as usual I’m unprepared for its (now self˗enforced) rigours. Though the older I get the more things there are that I ought to overcome, and obviously this is the time to resolve to overcome them. I don’t know why I’d always assumed that as I grew older I ought to become a better person, because that doesn’t seem to be the case. I think I’m improving in one direction, and I take off the blinkers and see all the other faults I’ve been carefully ignoring, or that have walked up behind me when I was pretending to be holier than thou! Age seems to bring greater awareness, of one’s own self anyway, and that no doubt is a good thing ˗ but good heavens the more I find out about myself the more I see what a difficult job my (so-far much ignored) guardian angel ˗ (definitely Fred, by the way!) - has to cope with. Poor beings ˗ they must be nearly visible with all the pity that they must needs show for us humans! (Angels, I mean ˗ this is all a bit mixed up.) Despair however is as much a sin as any of the seven deadlies, and with Fred’s firm arm holding onto me we may get there yet.

No more news from the CIB yet: I calculated it would take until at least the beginning of next week anyway before I’d hear anything, so in the meantime I’m remaining clam (no! calm!)

We’re in the middle of depression at work ˗ with the two managers having left, things have got so unlively, it isn’t true, and when Margaret comes in it’s like the circus arriving in the middle of an out-of-the-way town. She performs to me and I return the compliment (if you follow the rather messy metaphor) and the lights go on again in that part of London, but it’s amazing what a casual atmosphere reigned in that place before. Everybody has so much time on their hands that they tell you their life stories, apart from the long discussions Margaret and I have on everything and everybody. The doorman we have at the moment is a twenty-two-year-old who is the most sex-obsessed person I have ever met. If all he says is to be believed he has a pretty busy life (!) and while some of it horrifies me and some it even now shocks me, he isn’t really a bad wee guy at heart, and a sympathetic ear (though not generally agreeing one in this case!) doesn’t do any harm, I think. And the night usherette told me her life story the other night (she’s a Catholic, incidentally ˗ Irish as 99% of the London ones seem to be) and dear God, she’s been engaged, or attached, to three different men and they’ve all been killed! She’s about thirtyish, I suppose, but one died in an air crash, another in a car crash, and the third of a very premature heart attack. It’s a wonder she survived herself, somehow. But she came to London some time ago (six years or so) and seems now to be getting over it all. It all happened back home in Ireland. She’s not a bad stick, but a little, just a teeny bit, dreary ˗ and anyway she goes for older men, I think. Am I getting suspicious or something? I should really stop here ˗ but I’ll go onto another sheet.

P.S. The shop is going to give me another pair of shoes!

[second aerogramme]

Still about the people at work, in case I don’t send this with the other. The new assistant manager, a twenty-one-year-old (!) South African (born in Ireland actually, and lived in London for a little of his youth) is quite a nice guy, but he takes life terribly seriously, and as soon as a problem arises, as Margaret says, it shows ˗ all over his innocent face. I suppose I was like that all those terrible four years ago, and I think was probably worse, though I don’t think I’ve ever subscribed to the school of letting everyone know that now-and-at-this-instant I have a problem! Not at least once I got past the embarrassment stage; well, pretended that I had. My problems boil up inside, with my putting them aside for ages before anyone knows they’re there. And to tell someone one of my problems, at least up until recently, was quite a considerable effort. I still in a lot of ways tell myself that I’m quite capable of handling everything, and would sooner muddle around for some time before getting help. Obviously I revolve around my own little axis too much, and eventually would have screwed myself into the ground if I hadn’t realised that people don’t mind helping you!

The new manager, Mr Rogers, is an ex-policeman, I’m told, and smokes a pipe, and has a nearly grown-up family, and is very home-minded ˗ all the things that most of the mangers on the circuit aren’t. This is nothing against him, of course; he’s very sincere, and a true person at heart, but like John, the assistant, he doesn’t really understand the sort of slightly round-the-bend people that Margaret and I are. Don’t gasp, mother, I haven’t become any more crazy than I was at home ˗ but I don’t really think I have a dreary personality, and life apart from its fraughts ought to be quite a happy thing. The saints, after all (my examples, not my fellows!) were happy people: they knew where they were going, they knew that the world could be harmonious if it weren’t for the warped minds that we all have that make us think we know better than God. So, as I say, things at work aren’t as effervescent as they were, which is a pity really, because it makes me see the place in the pitiable light I would have seen it in previously if it hadn’t been for the previous staff. [Breathes.)

We’ve had a lot of fun at the flat over the last weekend: a leak in the bathroom developed overnight, after merely persisting quietly for some time, into a flood, and so we stuck a basin under it. The funny thing was that the water was somehow managing to jump out of the basin and walk across to the other end of the room. We discovered then that we had another leak. So we called in the two little men who fix things on the estate (we’re part of a number of houses all belonging to the same landlords) and they came and fixed up the more humble of the two leaks (at 8.30 in the morning just as we were all getting up to go to work or whatnot) and left its big brother for another drippy day. Fortunately they’ve now fixed that fellow up too (one of them giving himself a great big bump on his forehead in the process, and both of them leaving dirty footprints all over the bath, the plastic curtains done up into a bow, the wall singed where they soldered the pipe, lovely sharp little happy pieces of solder all over the floor, our toilet gear and such in the midst of the mess, and the covering to the Ascot water heater half-on, or perhaps it was half-off!), and we’re now reasonably back to normal again. I cleaned up most of the mess, being the only person in and up at the time, and then Angela did lots of finishing touches, so that it now looks like the bathroom we knew and loved.

I went to my second [piano] lesson on Monday, and if I’d any doubts about Doris as a teacher (did I say Reg seemed to infer I ought to have gone only to the best?) they were pretty firmly dispelled. I think this decision at least has the makings of a success. And there was considerable improvement in my general impression over the one I gave at the first lesson, too. It will take it seems about another year ˗ did I say that? ˗ to get to the stage of LRAM, but since I started things backwards, by going out and working as a musician before I was really ready for such things, it doesn’t matter I guess. [This is a bit of nonsense: I was perfectly capable of doing the music when working; additional training never fails to come in handy, of course.]

But I must get another job: for one thing, it doesn’t pay that much, and for another, it’s just driving me up the wall, though I have a lot of wall to go yet. I don’t want to leave just yet, but I think decision number five is called for soon. But I’ll have to get an interesting job ˗ if I’m to work in the daytime, say. Since this is one of the biggest cities in the world that shouldn’t be toooo hard. That’s for tomorrow, anyway. Today I have another hour and a half to face before I’m allowing myself anything to eat. And there will be gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair, etc. I’ve been on a Bible-reading ‘course’. That is, I read a certain specified section or chapter each night: I’ve kept it up for some months now, too. But dear me, some of the Old Testament is odd!

I can’t give up sweets for Lent ˗ I hardly ever eat them. Love. XXXX

P.S. Remembered what I was going to say in Part I! Kingsley rang the other night and I’ve invited him up for lunch on Sunday ˗ hope he survives! 

28.1.69 A new flat out of nowhere

It's been a very long time since I added any of these letters from the UK onto this blog; the last one was back in 2013, and consisted of the letter written the previous day to this one, when I was troubled about having to find a new flat. 

28.1.69

Yippee!!!!!  What did I say just yesterday about fortunes changing within the space of a few hours? I was just thinking, too, yesterday night about the old Bible line: about not a sparrow falling without the good Lord knowing about it and lo and behold, he surely has got his eye on this sparrow!

Today’s happenings: I rang the flat service to tell them that I hadn’t liked the other place either, and Mr Atkins said he thought he had another place at New Cross ˗ it was a £5er a week, though, but sounds quite good. New Cross is fairly well served by the tube to the Opera C, and so I said well, could he make an appointment with the owner. He couldn’t get hold of the fellow till six-thirty tonight, so said for me to ring back. Now David Syrus overheard a conversation between John Gray, our receptionist at the Centre, and someone else, about how John had been let down at the last minute by a friend when they had arranged to share with another person a flat in Blackheath, which is also down South of the Thames, like New Cross. This flat was fully self-contained, with new furniture, and all conveniences. David apparently mentioned that I was looking for somewhere, and John got onto me, took me down with him in his car to the flat and my new address is 23A Montpelier Row, London SE 3. [Looking at this site on Google now, I don't recognise it at all!]

I think I’ll shift in this weekend. The Marshalls are quite easy, so here goes. There are so many advantages at this early that it all seems a bit much. The rent if £4-13-4 a week, which while it is more by a bit, quite a bit, than at present, it means that I have a whole flat and complete privacy within it. I can catch either a bus reasonably directly to the Centre or get a train, not tube, to Tower Bridge, and get a bus along Commercial Rd. In fact looking at the map it rather seems that trains go direct from Blackheath ˗ 20 yds down the road from the flat to Stepney East ˗ 20 yds from the Opera Centre! But I’m not sure about this. Anyway, John has a car, works at the same place as me...need I say more. That’s his idea, not mine! And we both go to the same sort of concerts quite often, too, soooo...! [Looking back, £4-13-4 seems the oddest amount to be paying for anything per week. Still it was a darn site cheaper than the £242 being asked for a similar location a couple of years ago.]

The flat is the basement of a huge house ˗ four storeys ˗ an old Georgian Mansion, in fact, looking out over Blackheath Common, which is also huge, and the village, which has an olde worlde charm that I wouldn’t have thought existed so close to the rest of the Thames area, which is scungy. The place above us has been turned into bedsits, though it was formerly a YWCA, but ours is an ex-storeroom area, and covers most of the area in the basement. We have our own patio at the back, and there is an immense garden. [Which I don’t remember ever using. Nor did the other two.] The furniture is all new, and the place is newly decorated ˗ in white throughout! ˗ but with carpets in the main rooms, an enormous kitchen, dining room, a great lounge, two bedrooms (have I already said all this?). 

One thing which I feel perhaps you may not feel too happy about is the fact that the third person is a girl. (Cries of horror from 12,000 miles). The point is that she is an old friend of John’s, and since he is doing this with his mother’s eagle-eye on him, and I think the girl has been living in the house with his family, anyway, I think it should be all right. As it is I doubt that we’ll see each other very much anyway, and since the place is so big I can’t see us getting in each other’s hair. And John assures me that she isn’t the sort of person around whom untoward things occur, so if you do object, do so now, or forever hold your peace as they say! I think you can trust me, don’t you? [Good grief: even for 1969 this all seems a bit olde worlde; perhaps Blackheath Village had some effect on my brain at the time of writing. As it was I barely ever saw this girl; if she wasn’t staying in her room, she was out, and then eventually she just up and left.]

I feel terribly excited about it all, as though I was going to my first real home, here. One where you’re not constantly running into your landlord ˗ not that they’ve been any trouble ˗ and they have been wonderful to me really. I must get them a small something before I go.

My second bit of news is that the four storey place KateTither and her friend lived in was burnt out the other night ˗ not completely but enough to be a nuisance, and so at present they’re in a bed-sit with another friend. I rather hoped that the Marshalls might feel like doing a room swap and taking them on, but they don’t seem too keen, really, because Kate’s friend has a boy of four, and partly because they don’t think the girls would be too happy about trailing outside to the toilet. (We have two! in the new place!) However things may still work out for them.

I now have to contact Kingsley who has left me no address ˗ only a phone number ˗ and also that great thundering trunk and his heater. What a complicated life it is but it isn’t getting me down. And I’ve got back some of my nerve as regards playing goes. That rep who came to us and said something about it, put me on the right track, even if he hadn’t intended to, and I just refuse to be upset about the reps’ classes anymore. And have started to enjoy them more than I have for some time. In fact I’m beginning to feel the way I did when I first arrived, which was rather more confident than I have been for some months.

Re the flat again ˗ the new one ˗ it seems somehow more permanent than this place has been. I think I’ve always known I’d have to leave here sometime, but this new one seems like going home again. Wonder why? Must go ˗ I still have to ring his lordship, and do German homework, and I haven’t really had any tea yet. What a life!

Tons of love, Mike (you’ve been praying, haven’t you?)  Love. 

16.1.69 Post-Christmas activities

I started adding these letters I sent from the UK to my mother back in the sixties to the blog some time ago...the last one I added was in May this year. So there's a certain irony/serendipity about the first line of this letter ...

16.1.69

Unending apologies for making you wait so long for a letter, but I really have not an idea where the time has gone.  If I thought I was busy last term – I didn’t know what was coming in this one!  WOW!  The mails have been all up the whop here because I got two aerograms from you on one day last week – dated four days apart. 

Re Reg’s Christmas presents: he got yours prior to Christmas by about a fortnight, and we spent one Sunday morning making a quite detailed trip through the book, along with the other one you sent a couple of years ago, on Dunedin.  I don’t suppose you got my present in time, either, in spite of the airmail, and Mike was telling me he was a bit annoyed because he’d sent stuff way back in October and it only arrived in the New Year.  All the mails were fine at the end – can’t understand them down under.  Thanks for all the Peanuts. 

Kingsley told me this morning a nice bit of news before I went to the Centre – he’d been offered board at a place – one of the Old Hostels in Notting Hill Gate –that’s sort of West – it’s a place where he has his own room he thinks, and they provide full board for £4-10-00 a week.  It means mainly less expense travelling, and his mother won’t be sending him anything more for a while for fares, as she had a heart attack just recently (but seems to be okay) as he’s quite a bit closer by tube to the Guildhall.  Hope he’ll be happy there.  It’s obviously got other advantages: TV, etc, but I wonder if he’ll get much peace.  Anyway, it left me in a bit of a spot because I don’t particularly want to move out of here, inconvenient as it may be in some ways, and I had visions of shifting to a bedsitter or what have you.  He was definitely going, come what may anyway, so I thought when he said could I find someone to share the place: Who would come?  The only person I could think of was David Syrus, one of the other reps, not mentioned in these dispatches for a while, and who I knew lives in one room in North Central or somewhere, and might be glad of a bit more space.  I thought though that he was probably paying less rent, and mightn’t be very agreeable, in view of the way-out-ness of the place.  I put it to him, after a few quick prayers to the Good Lord, and his eyes lit up immediately!  Seems he is actually paying £2-15-00 a week, as well as 1/- for the bathroom, and this was one advantage.  Also it’s that much closer to the Centre, about 20 minutes on his bike, if that, and he has the 3 rooms.  He hasn’t said definitely yet, because, he has paid a month’s rent in advance when he first shifted into his room, and doesn’t know if he’d get it back.  So!  A change is in the air by the looks of it.  Kingsley has to leave by the 25^th, so I may have to have the place to myself for a fortnight or so.  That’s the stop press news. 

Back to the previous weekend.  I haven’t told you about my Worthing trip have I? Kevin and I went down on the Sunday, (after standing on opposite sides of a box notice board waiting for each other for about 20 minutes at Victoria) and – I have told you about this haven’t I?  Sure I have.  Perhaps it’s not so long since I last wrote after all.  I think I’d better work backwards with the news, as I’m not sure now where I left off.

Last night Kevin and I went to Orpheus in the Underworld, which is now in its ninth year revival – it was first performed in ’60, and has toured the world since then.  It was fairly good though a little tired, and obviously an awful lot of the sparkle of the original performances has vanished.

On the previous Sunday, I’d come home in the evening about nine, feeling not to hot, but I thought I was just tired.  However during that night, my head went on fire, and my legs ached something terrible.  This is a symptom as far as I’m aware of one of the 'flus at present in fashion, and though I got up and went to the Centre on Monday – had to do an Angelique rehearsal – I came home early and stayed in bed till Wednesday morning, consuming sort of alternately: oranges, Bovril, and aspirins!  Actually I’d had a headache at the Crowls on Sat, but it had seemed to go off, although I slept terribly on Sat night – worse than I usually do there!  (I just can’t get used to sleeping in hot houses.  Now I just take all the top bedclothes off, except for a couple of blankets, and sleep like that.) (They provide: a hottie, 3 blankets, a heavy eiderdown, two rugs!) I’d gone up to the Crowls on Friday night – at 11.15 (with my uncles’ acquiescence – he didn’t mind at all he said, they always stay up till midnight – they do too – nearly knocks me out the way they go on!) – because originally Mike and Mervyn Jarvis were going to go The Force of Destiny (a new Verdi production) but we couldn’t get in, so we went to the pictures instead!  It was a film called Hot Millions with Peter Ustinov (who also collaborated on the script, and it showed in the dialogue), Robert Morley (in two tiny scenes) and my favourite actress: Maggie Smith.  (Remember The VIPs? She was Rod Taylor’s secretary; and also Desdemona in Olivier’s Othello!) And the first thing Ustinov does in the film, almost, is get on my bus! A no. 15 going to East Ham.  I felt quite proud.  And it’s full of bits of recognisably London, not landmarks, but streets that look very familiar, and even shops.  And there was also a shot in Rome from the top of St Pete’s, which I’d been on!  Yippee!  See it if you can – it’s a ‘take Monica Stokes type’!  [Because my auntie Monica would have laughed throughout.] and don’t let the people leaving at the end let you think it is the end; it’s not quite. 

Anyway, after this, I went, via the new Victoria Line, which to my uneducated eye didn’t seem anything remarkable, except perhaps that it was a little cleaner!, to the Crowls, where my illustrious uncle was planning his usual exhausting day’s outing for me!  It was supposed to be the Vic. and Albert Museum, but we went to Madame Tussaud’s instead.  (Had to go round Regent’s Park to park the car.  Fabulous fabulous houses and mansions round there.  All Georgian with pillars

Part II

and statuettes on the outside of buildings, etc.  Lovely stuff. In one part they’ve pulled down all but the front of a whole section of these houses, and all that’s standing looks like a whole lot of sightless eyes with the sky – grey – behind. Madame Tussaud’s is most curious. None of the models are quite life-size – always just a bit smaller it seems, and some of them have heads that are much too big. Some in fact are so bad they’re not even recognisable ([Samuel] Johnson for one, and heh, heh, heh, Holyoake for another). However the majority are good, and some are remarkable.Though the show biz section is consistently bad, and out of date. The Chamber of Horrors was in a state of repair, and only a few murderers were still sitting in their coffins. Most of the older exhibits are excellent, though they include rather odd subject matter. And there is a section that represents the two lowest floors of the ship the Victory with Nelson dying in one bit, and the usual sound of men dying all around and guns booming and the ship creaking and the smell of gunpowder, and generally it just made me feel sick. All the facts and figures of how Nelson won his great victory. And a footnote: 300 (?was it?) of the men in the battle went deaf as a result of it. Great...

We went onto the Planetarium after lunch and tho it was only for ½ an hour it was fantastic. You go into a great round room holding possibly 5 or 600 people and seat yourself and look, while you’re waiting, at cut-out silhouettes of London landmarks set up round the entire room with lights behind them. In the centre is a machine that is in fact a massive projector controlled from one side of the room by a panel with a man commentating. The roof is dome-shaped and when the show starts we grow [go?] through a quick version of the sky coming into night as the stars gradually appear. And then the whole thing moves right across the dome, at the will of the operator. Also on the dome are flashed pictures, sometimes moving, of close-ups, so to speak of other galaxies that appear like masses in our sky; the Milky Way for instance. This was much more interesting than the two hours at Madame T had been. And above all it made me feel terribly insignificant. If you move one inch forward in your chari as you read this, you will be one inch closer to England. That is comparable to what our voyage to the moon is in size to the entire galaxy we inhabit. And that’s only one of millions of galaxies. Doesn’t say much for our importance, does it.

Back to the Crowls for tea, and Winnie Crowl came too. Remember her? She’s Reg’s cousin. A dear old lady who really makes an effort, like Reg, to talk to you as an equal, not as a youngster – tho she’s getting onto 65 or 70. She doesn’t always succeed, anymore than Reg does, but they do try not to alienate themselves from someone who is so much younger. With a little persuasion I played some Beethoven sonatas – bits of them for them, explaining as I went along what was happening. Reg recorded most of it! Good grief! Things must sound pretty terrible on that piano actually, because it’s out of tune, and sticks, and notes won’t repeat, and oh, dear.

On that morning, Nina had said just before we went out that she would wash my scarf for me if I didn’t think that was being rude suggesting it! I accepted gratefully of course, and she gave me one for the day, and then gave it to me full stop! She’s a real dear, and I don’t think Mavis could do without her. She looks after Margaret much more it seems to me than her parents (!) and Marg is really attracted to her. So am I – she’s lovely, and has a marvellous sense of fun. I rather think perhaps that Reg has been living in a house with 3 women too long, and this is why I’m so acceptable! I often wonder if Mavis really cares to have me there every other week, although she too is extremely kind, and I’m no doubt doing her an injustice, because of her very quiet way. They also washed a shirt that I’d left there by mistake over Christmas – I’d had a funny feeling I was a shirt down! – and also told me which soap powders were best for whites. We chat about all sorts of domestic things there! (!!!!!: Penalty!)

Patricia Hayes

Anyway, on Sunday after lunch Reg took me over to Ann and Pat’s – five minutes away – as I had to play for these two at some Charity do. It turned out to be for the Assumption Sisters’ friends: the people from the families they’ve helped over the years. It’s an annual affair: one week (last) for the men, and the one we went to for the women. And they provide supper in a huge room, at tables, not buffet either. It was one of those thrown together concerts, and the worst part about the girls’ items, was that they didn’t know them. I hate that, I’m afraid, and find it very embarrassing. But the biggest surprise of all for me was that several actors came along to do some poetry readings and in the group was John le Mesurier – you do know, from George and the Dragon: the Colonel!  And he’s also, as they said, been in practically every British comedy ever made. He was a delight. Whether or not he was acting all the time I don’t know, but he was just like he always is. Must be his public image. He read a couple of poems, and said he’d never done this sort of thing before, and wasn’t quite sure if he’d do it right, and made every word he said before he even started like the lines from a comedy. Marvellous. The others were all good too, and though some of their faces seemed familiar, their names meant nothing. (One of the women at the do was Patricia Hayes, an actress. Ring any bells. Made films, a few, round the 40s and 50s. [The daughter was Teresa Jennings; she’s mentioned in the obituary. She was small, like her mother. Her husband was considerably taller.] Another student has a brother in a pop-group which I’d heard of back home.) The concert went on rather long however, with too many bad items, including ours, and not enough good. There was a lady ventriloquist (looking very like BerthaRawlinson!*) who was very good: her [handwritten] dummy took over completely – and had an argument with a lady in the audience! In fact it really does seem that these people get a bit schizophrenic as the dummy did all the talking nearly.  

Centre, a student, I mean, but married to another one of the students, is the daughter of

LOTS of love, Mike

*Bertha Rawlinson - see entry in Te Ara Biography.

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

7.12.68 The big Christmas letter

This is the longest letter by far.  For once it was typed on ordinary paper rather than on an aerogram, and it ran to a massive eight pages, with additions and postscripts.  
Started 7.12.68 
Dear Mum, in one of my most recent letters, I talked about sending you a long letter, as a part Christmas present, instead of one of these eternally too short aerograms.  And what a mess I’ve made already of this letter!  I may not send this for a few days, the last mails don’t close till the 13^th I note, so if you haven’t received my usual (nearly!) weekly letter, you’ll know when you get this, why.  Follow?  I’ve passed on what you’ve said about the Tithers to Mike, and I think he’s quite pleased about it.  Still haven’t been able to locate that chronometer makers’ place.  Apparently the bloke I was going to ask about it has left, so that closes up that avenue of detection too.  I’m not really going to grow a beard, though I still think that in this climate the more you can have covered up the better.  [Ironic, since I grew one a few years later, and have hardly ever taken it off since.]
Glad you don’t mind keeping me up on all the bods at home, not just the family, but others in the parish etc.  Funny to think that the kids round the place are starting to set out on careers.  Makes me feel as though I’m very disorganised, and only having just got started, so to speak, and even now, still not sure that I’m quite in my right field. I don’t know.  [I obviously wasn’t impressed with the fact that I’d already worked for five years in an office before touring with the Opera Company; career was the big thing in those days.] There seems to be so much that I don’t know, about basic operas even and such, and I’ve never had less confidence in my sight-reading before!  Strange is it not?  I seem to cope all right, but it seems to take a lot more work than it takes the others – or perhaps they do do the same amount of work, and I just never see it.  I find the one that I get on easiest with is Alistair.  He (and David) is 22, but very capable and originally intended taking up science! but couldn’t do it at University because he hadn’t done Latin, or some such!  Great to be able to drop something as involved as that and pick up something else like music full-time.  But Alistair always says hello, and looks pleased to see you and have a chat – David does too, but I feel he’s often a little condescending in his approach.  [Interesting that the one I maintained contact with, and got to know best, was David. I went to Alistair’s wedding but had little to do with him after that.]  He approaches music like too so perhaps it’s just his general nature.  [I wrote a footnote to this in the letter: But he seems less secure in himself than even I am sometimes – though he’s a very competent musician.] (I find it very annoying – well, perhaps not, just a bit curious – when people will talk to you one minute and then ignore you the next.  Using you as a sounding board because there happens to be no one better around obviously.  Lots of the singers are like this – actually that’s an exaggeration.  Some of them are, especially the second-year ones.) [I'm not sure who I'm talking about in regard to 'condescending' - David certainly wasn't, and I don't think Alistair was either!] Anthony is still very much the old man of the reps, it seems, though how he comes by this position I’ve no idea, and I find him the sort who isn’t prepared to accept a person’s limitations.  Fine, up to a certain point, but I think it may land him in some awkward spots later.  And he’s also the type that can get offended by being had on – this is an English fault, I think – as long as the joke is general it’s acceptable, but if it starts to knock their dignity somewhat, they get shirty.  [The difference between the Kiwi approach and the English one, I think.] Mona Semke was very much of this sort.  [Mona, an English immigrant to NZ with her family was very involved with the music scene in Dunedin, and we actually got on fairly well.]  Henry Ward is the one we least see – and has that vague, lost air, though I’m sure he’s neither, and consequently the women seem to fall for him. Especially the sopranos – the mezzos don’t seem to find him interesting, and neither do the girls in the stage managers class!  Funny!  He too, is a come-and-go acquaintance, and no one seems to know quite where they stand with him.  Give me people, any day, who will always acknowledge your presence!  That’s all I require.
I seem to have got over the cold all right, although the germ is still very prevalent in the school.  Everyone has had it, or has it still, and it’s unbelievable the number of singers who have it at present.  I had had a bottle of sherry in the flat since I first arrived, mainly for this very reason, or to occasionally soothe my ruffled feathers after a particularly wearing week – and at the time I had my cold it had only just run out – it had taken me nearly two months to finish it, so there’s little chance of my becoming alcoholic at this rate!  - and until I could go and get it myself I was unable to use it for its usual medicinal purposes! 
About the heater that Kingsley bought: he actually refuses to let me pay for it, and I have mentioned the subject once or twice more since he got it and he still won’t take anything, so!  As it is I don’t think he’s likely to run into any financial difficulties, what with his job, his organist position – did I tell you?  He’s organist for a church in the next parish – the fact that his mum is paying ten pound a month into his accounts for travelling expenses...and so on!  so I didn’t really feel that I’m being mean and sponging. 
We received the bill for the trunk yesterday – not only has it cost whatever it was in Dunedin, but it’s now over a month and a half late, and the other one has also come!, but the trunk is costing another £18!!!! at this end, and the small box £12!  Again I offered him a cheque for half - £15, but he wouldn’t take it, as he said the box was his idea, so he only wanted £9 for the trunk.  [I don’t remember, but we must have shared sending a trunk to the UK.] Well, I’m afraid I’m not really in the position to be overgenerous, and when someone says they don’t want money, I take them at their word.  Do you think this is fair enough?  Anyway, the heater is in my opinion (and, of course, do you think I can get it to work properly? It always does what the instructions says it must not do when I light it) is of questionable value, because although it heats the room reasonably, it’s next to useless for drying anything on, and consequently I’ve got a fire on here tonight to air my washing.  (And the fire went out the first time I lit it too!!!  Why, oh why, wasn’t I born practical?)
Re the Crowls, I haven’t gone up again this weekend, so that’ll be three weeks since my last visit, but this weekend we had a rehearsal this morning – Saturday – and I really felt I needed a break from travelling somewhere in London!  [There’s a footnote to this rehearsal on a separate page: This morning’s rehearsal: conducted by James (Robertson) so everyone calls him – or Big J!! and he was a lot more even-tempered, especially with me, than I expected! Keeps forgetting I’m only a student, ha! ha!]  Anyway, I can do next weekend, as I know we haven’t a rehearsal, and hope they don’t mind the long gap!  Funny isn’t it, since before I came, you were worried that I might wish myself on them too much!  Another funny thing.  Remember I said Kingsley was doing all the shopping.  Well, this weekend, he asked me if I was going up to the Crowls, as usual, and when I said no, he explained that he’d thought it might be better from now on to live entirely on small meals – for him, I hasten to add!  - at least, at weekends, I think his idea is.  So this meant that I’m now back in the position of being able to experiment if I wish!  Talk about things falling into place.  So this afternoon, after the rehearsal, I got off at the big supermarket in Barking Road, next to the open-air market it is, and spent some time trying to be a little different, but anyway finished up buying things with a bit more flavouring to them.  E.g. instead of plain spaghetti I got spaghetti Bolognese, and I bought some rice risotto too.  In tins of course – these are just for snacks at night – or tea, that is, as opposed to the reasonable meal we get at the school in the midday.  (That mess is a tear in my tape). [The typewriter tape, that is, making splodges in the words.]  Got some soups too, and also some mince for tomorrow – it should keep in the present cold atmosphere [handwritten footnote: Continual frosty, misty atmosphere, cold, but not unbearable – though I wear gloves and scarf all the time – and am thinking of buying a thick (cheap!) overcoat.] – instead of the roast that K usually turns up with at the weekend.  Not that I don’t think the latter isn’t quite a good idea – but to get a reasonably cheap roast and a meaty one is almost an impossible task, and I can’t see much point in getting a piece of meat that I for one am not going to eat very much of!
I must write to Marilyn, [a former girlfriend] too, tonight, it’s ages since she sent me her last letter – with a postal note to pay for the return stampage!  (The p.n. needless to say has long since gone in the Crowl kitty, and equally needless to say it will now have to come out again.)  How are you doing with all those bills and things I seem to have calmly left you with?  I feel rather awful about it all: the TV, the insurance, the Building Society, and all your own normal ones.  Are you coping?  If not, scrub the insurance – I can always start again. [I presume these were items I’d been paying for up until this point at home.  We did cancel the life insurance.]
What a delightful story about Fred.  Isn’t she a horror?  I nearly had a fit too when you said she’d practically laid down and died – I hope she doesn’t do anything as silly as that; she’s the one thing that I know keeps you permanent company, and I’d hate to see her bash her head on something!  Talking of cats, have you heard any more about the Mrs Leslie and Kevin [Rowlands] thing?  I’ve never heard a word from him – do you think I should start again?  did you know you included a blank sheet of paper in with your last letter?
I’m in the middle of reading a life and discussion of Puccini – seems this is another branch of the business that I’m very much behind on. (The lives of people.)  Fortunately, the tickets for the library that our [Opera] Centre Library made us members of, also enables you to get books out in any other library in London.  This means therefore that you’ve a fantastic choice.  The only trouble is, how am I going to read two or three million books in the next nine months?  Do you know – yes I’m sure you do, that I’ve been here three months?  It’s quite unbelievable.  The time just absolutely flies, and I’m convinced that the average English day is considerably shorter than those in NZ.  Perhaps when they’ve been mucking around with the Standard Time they’ve lost some hours somewhere.  This is the first year they haven’t had the change, and of course they’re making a great to-do about it in some quarters.  [The standard time used in Britain all the year round from 1968 to 1971, set one hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time and equalling Central European Time.] A little boy was killed going to school in the dark, and the headlines were almost as big as those for the death of a Queen.  As I see it, the poor kid could just as easily have been killed in the daylight.  He was only five, after all.
[Edited section]  Anyway, Figaro (which is one of the most popular operas in the world no doubt, and yet this is the first time I’ve ever seen it – I was quite amused when one of the visiting reps said he’d be amazed if there was anyone in the room who’d never seen Figaro!) was very good – its faults lying rather in the opera than the cast, except perhaps Raimund Herinx, the baritone, who annoys me constantly.  I lie, actually, when I say that – he is very good as long as he doesn’t have to do anything that requires him to stand out too much from the crowd.  His aria last night was pathetic.  His Rigoletto, which I saw the night I arrived in London, was surely one of the biggest casting mistakes ever perpetrated at the Wells, his solo part in Belshazzar’s Feast was an uninteresting mess, and the best thing I’ve seen him do was a part in The Violins of Saint Jacques, where he does nothing particular, which seems to suit him fine!  [And yet, he was in constant demand throughout the singing world.]  The girl who played Susanna – Margaret Neville – though not possessed of a big voice, is a delight to behold, and exactly the right type for the part.  I found the third act very slow, mainly because absolutely nothing except the writing of a letter and its sending take place, but it takes an age!, and this is Mozart’s fault if anyone’s. 
Mentioning the Violins of S.J., by the way, I may as well tell you about that too. It’s another Malcolm Williamson – remember I saw The Growing Castle? – but this one is a little older, about 18 months, and this performance I saw was the last this season which is a pity, because you need to see a new opera a few times to get hold of it.  Particularly as far as the story goes in this one.  I’d read the first act synopsis before it started and had gleaned from amongst a welter of acts that three of the four people I’d see were related: a brother and sister, and their cousin.  When the brother proved to be in love with the cousin (a girl), and the cousin was in love (good grief) with the sister!, I thought I’d got my facts wrong – but this was all correct!  No wonder the island blows up at the end of the opera.  (They live on an island with an unfriendly volcano, a host of mad Carnival dancers and islanders and a group of neurotic French

Colonials of the Upper Class.)  In spite of all this, it was very entertaining, the ballet being far and away the best I’ve ever seen in any opera.  (The ballet in the Wells are always far too obtrusive, and stick out from the chorus as being somehow different.  But here it didn’t matter.)  And after a very lushly scored first act (horribly sensuous music, with lots of mysterious off-stage singing) the second act was delightful – a ball, (with Jennifer Vyvyan as the aforementioned brother and sister’s mother – constantly tipsy, and delightfully mad, and consequently very neatly and humorously handled by Williamson.  He seems to have these sort of funny little bits in his operas.  There was a ‘daughter’ in The Growing Castle, who finished up pasting up the whole house with paper, over doors, windows, ceiling, floor – singing ‘I-i-i-i paste, I-i-i-i paste,’ endlessly over an equally endless accompaniment.)  Apart from the very curious story, I enjoyed the opera a good deal, and don’t care what highbrow musos may say: Williamson is definitely contributing something to English opera. (He’s an Australian, by the way.)  Some very interesting effects, too.  The opera opens and closes on the sea – with a rocking boat – halfway between the floor and the ceiling (and a rocking background), and after the first of these two scenes, during an orchestral accompaniment, the sea scene clouds over, and slowly dissolves before your very eyes into a lush bush scene.  Done with gauzes but very effective.  It’s all there in the music, but all they did was turn the red lights up very high with everyone on stage staring blankly off, then total darkness, then a curtain came down with a reddish light slowly growing behind it. 
On Friday afternoon, I had nothing to do, and didn’t feel like working, having reached, once more, a saturation point – or having got musical indigestion as they say here, and so I caught a tube to Blackfriars, since I’d never got on or off there, and walked out along the Embankment to Charing Cross.  As a result I saw a part of London that I must have passed under several times and at a distance (on the river): the Temple.  I’ve been in and out of the Temple station a number of times, but always gone in the opposite direction.  The Temple, strictly speaking, I suppose is a collection of buildings comprising the lawyers’ apartments and rooms.  There are several buildings, of probably mainly last century’s vintage, possibly earlier, but on their river side, is a lovely open part, strictly for the use of members of the Temple.  Dickens, (of course) talks about the area a good deal, along with Lincolns Inn Fields (another law area, particularly for students and young lawyers, I think) which is further north, and has only a semblance of grass still in existence, let alone fields.  Approaching the Temple area from the other side – I think it comes out around Fleet St or Ludgate Hill (Hill?!) [it was nothing like the hills I lived on in Dunedin] (which was so bombed during the war that not a sign of Dickens’ old houses and buildings exist anymore – even a lot of the streets have vanished.  To digress even further, he mentions Commercial Road in one story, where the Opera Centre is now, and how going towards the river it was all slummy etc.  Well, I just noticed the other day that a number of the streets running off C. Rd towards the river are all about thirty yards long with very new buildings and estates cutting off their other ends.  I can only assume that most of this area was bombed too and that the major parts of these streets were destroyed.  An awful lot of the East is suspiciously new. Approaching, as we were, the Temple, you go into some lovely old courts that are, I think much older than Dickens.  And he mentions them too.  There’s even a plaque or memorial in one where David Copperfield, or was it one of the other boys?, is supposed to have stopped for a drink!!  Mike and I were round that way very early in my sojourn, but I must go back and have another look.  The day we were there it rained very heavily, but briefly. 
Can you smell oranges?  I’m in the middle of one at the moment.  They’re fairly cheap here, particularly off the street or market stalls.  I don’t know how these people stand it; they seem to stay right through the winter, out in all weathers.  There must be quite a collection of them, and all ages, because they’re all over London.  Some streets – Petticoat Lane, on Sundays, for example – are taken over by them more or less permanently, and in other places, the original market sites, I guess, still exist and are used.  But it’s really rather funny in Barking Road.  There they have a market right outside a whole collection of modern shops, and will even tell you to go inside if they haven’t what you want!
I’d better finish here – perhaps I’ll send it a little earlier to make sure that it arrives for Christmas – but I’ll definitely write again before then – if the mails will take the stuff!
Lots of love and the very happiest of Christmases, if I don’t get through again before then.  XXXXX
[But wait, there’s more.]
I’ve decided to start another page, because I’d intended all along to tell you about Angelique, and then forgot.  It’s really a farce with music, rather than an opera, or even an operetta. The way they are doing it in this production is as based on the French Music Hall, almost, with everybody very much aware of their audience.  The story is consequently a bit naughty, I suppose, but not crude or anything, as English farce might be.  It opens with a violent piece of orchestral music that doesn’t really go anywhere, although it introduces a theme that is used a good deal in the ensuing number and also once later as

Angelique’s own theme.  The music rushes straight into the opening scene with a crash as two plates hurtle out of Angelique and Boniface’s house.  Then Boniface himself comes running out of the house followed by a very irate Angelique who is telling the world what a terrible husband she has and how she could have had a choice of all the best suitors in the town (a seaside resort).  She is in fact a real harridan, and Boniface is a timid mouse, which is quite obvious in spite of what she says.  Anyway, she belts poor old B over the head with a vase, and he collapses.  She goes inside slamming the door, as two female neighbours look on (and a group of four ‘neighbours’ who appear from four bathing tents at the back emerge) and these delightfully down-to-earth old bags say what a terrible life she (Angelique) leads!  They have a little tune of their own, always the same, which runs into a piece of spoken-in-time-music that invariably leads to their saying they must go and not interfere! (The last time they do this, they are about to carry on into the speaking bit when they are interrupted still with their mouths open by one of the other characters.)  Charlot, a neighbour from across the square appears to comfort Boniface, and during the ensuing conversation they ponder what to do.  Charlot hits on the brilliant plan of selling her, which Boniface gladly agrees to (anything to get rid of her) as long as he (Charlot) can convince Angelique that it is a logical thing.  Charlot then goes and tells Angelique that they’ve decided to sell her and says that she shouldn’t have to put up with Boniface when there are men willing to buy such a beauty as she is – after all, don’t the men of the East buy their women, he says.  Angelique agrees, he vanity mainly having been played upon, and they agree to a signal when a customer is approaching – Beethoven’s Fifth: Tah, tah tah, Taaah!  Charlot meanwhile hangs up a sign saying Wife for sale.  The two neighbours once more appear and comment upon this lamentable wrongdoing!  Charlot appears, whistles, and an Italian appears dancing to a delightfully wrong waltz time.  Angelique begins to sing inside the house and the Italian listens gleefully.  Angelique appears at the window, and the Italian, after serenading her a little, begs her to come down.  She does, and soon he is romanticising about his villa in Southern Italy.  The song resolves into a mad tarantella, with Angelique distinctly at a disadvantage, being swept literally off her feet.  Charlot arrives, and demands the money for her, and the couple dance off.  Boniface appears hopefully, and Charlot hands him the money.  Just as they are rejoicing however, the couple return shouting at the top of their voice and Angelique throws the Italian out, then grabs Boniface and chases him inside.  Charlot puts up the sign again, and the two gossips appear, gradually changing their tune to feeling sorry for Boniface!  Charlot comes back with an Englishman, who talks of buying Angelique as though she were a horse!  How many teeth has she, etc.  Charlot gets Angelique and once more the pattern goes on: this time with a parody of those opera ensembles where several people say they are going to go and never do!  Anyway, they go, and once more Boniface appears even more timidly.  Peace has set in temporarily, because the pair are very soon back, squabbling.  She throws the Englishman out.  Then goes into the house to have a sleep.  Neighbours again, this time in support of Boniface.  A Negro appears and does a shuffling jazzy sort of dance.  Much to Boniface’s horror he runs into the house to see Angelique asleep and comes out in utter bliss – she is unbelievably beautiful.  He goes off to get some money, leaving the conspirators discussing how to get Angelique to accept the Negro.  (He is the King of the Bambaras, whatever that is!)  Charlot gets a shawl to cover Angelique’s face, so that she won’t see the Negro, but tells her that it is because it is the custom of the King’s country.  The Negro returns, and in a quartet tells her how much he loves her, in a lovely quasi-Arabic-African song.  They go off, but naturally soon return arguing.  Angelique dismisses the Negro, and is about to re-enter the house, when Boniface, thoroughly fed-up, tells her to go to the Devil; or more specifically, The Devil take you!  And the Devil appears through a trap-door and takes her off!  When the darkness clears, Boniface is alone, but not for long.  All the irate suitors return demanding their money back; Boniface puts them off temporarily by offering drinks all round, but suddenly the Devil returns, a broken spirit!  Angelique has even caused chaos in Hell, and the Devil begs Boniface to take her back. Boniface, meanwhile, has fetched a rope and is determined to hang himself, but everyone cries not to, especially Angelique, who says she couldn’t bear to see him hang himself because of her.  Celebrations ensue, but just before the curtain falls, Boniface cries out, But she is still for sale! as Angelique doesn’t show any sign of improving. 
Mad, is it not?  But quite a lot of fun.  Lots of love and Happy Christmas. 
 [But wait, there’s even more, this time handwritten.]

P.S. Forgot to mention the Cecil Beaton Exhibition I went to the other day: Friday.  It’s something like 600 of his most famous and best photos set out in periods and groups – actors, musicians, artist, writers etc.  Some are fantastic – the way the character of the subject isn’t only shown by themselves but by their grouping and relation to the ‘props’ around them.  Picasso is one of the most photographed: he appears almost as 3 generations of himself, growing gradually older, and always in surroundings like his paintings.  Marilyn Monroe is there in about 25 studies, only a few really outstanding.  Curiously enough the theatrical ones are less interesting than the non-theatre, because you expect former to be in interesting surroundings, whereas it comes as an original idea to see non-theatricals in slightly outlandish surroundings.
Lots of love
PPS or is it PSS?
Went, with Hazel and Kurt, to the former’s local flea pit picture theatre (after a brief digression to a ‘props’ shop in Cambridge Circus – three floors of theatrical props – fabulous!!) to see two horror films – by way of a complete change!  They were both fairly gory, and both quite unbelievable, unfortunately.  (The first also sported the most idiotic mid-fifties beatnik – boy, was I glad when he was done in!)  Then we went round to Hazel’s flat in Islington for a bite to eat and talked and talked and talked – on everything but music.  I left Kurt at the bus stop, finally, in the middle of a religious discussion (!!) – he’s an atheist – he thinks!  Lots of love.