24.2.70 Mostly about the new job

This letter is out of order in these blog posts, but the list of blogs shows where it should fit.

24.2.70 [Typed on both sides of three and a half narrow and short, pale green, sheets of paper]

Dear Mum, I was all set to sit down and write to you and discovered I seem to have run out of air letters, so I hope the look of this didn’t shock you too much. Still no news from the CIB which naturally enough I’m finding a bit distressing. The stage we’re at, at the moment, is that of the girl making up her mind what she thinks of me from the scanty information she has and the shocking photo. Obviously it’s a difficult task! I can’t contact her personally at all until after she has replied to the CIB to say she’ll have an ‘introduction arranged for her’ and then they write to me again, and tell me I can write to her but still through them ˗ Oh! What a complicated business! It’s only after she then replies directly to me that either of us finds out who the other is and where they live! The more I think about it the funnier it seems. I’m glad I went into that like that because it’s shown me the funny side of it that I’d lost sight of. I read a little CTS pamphlet the other day which had a quotation from a poem by Francis Thompson (whom personally I don’t much care for but who seems in this case to have come up with a very nice little saying). It was:

Is my gloom after all
Shade of His hand outstretched caressingly?

which, once you’ve worked out the slightly upside down grammar is rather to the point, though in our usual way we manage to think God is mismanaging things for us instead of probably (quite definitely!) the other way around.

I had Michael T and a girlfriend of his, Mickey, and Kevin Rowlands up to lunch on Sunday afternoon, and though Kevin bought a bottle of vino with him (I had bought one and so had Mike) he doesn’t drink, and so we other three, possibly a little rudely, but....sat round and drank off one bottle ˗ the other two can now wait for another party sometime! He seems a pleasant sort of chap though not a conversationalist to any degree which makes things a little difficult (and Mike wasn’t as co-operative in this department as usual; he’s getting all introspective lately) but we all survived, and he has returned the compliment and I’ll have to wend my way down to his flat (with two other guys and four cats and three dogs!) sometime when he calls to arrange a date. I hope he’s more at home in his own place. There’s not much of the theatrical about him ˗ he strikes me as one of those totally theatre people whom you could still pass on the street and barely notice. He’s tall, a little heavier than that photo Mrs Leslie showed us, and generally quiet. And strangely enough reminds me a lot of Kevin Flaherty. (Have you ever noticed how people of the same name tend to have certain characteristics [in common]? Or am I just making that up to suit my argument? But even in our family at home the various namesakes are all more than a little alike, whether they would necessarily admit it or not.) (Perhaps it’s just what we take from the name: when we meet someone else of the same name as someone we already know we start to look for similarities.)

Well, I started my new job yesterday, with the worst nerves I’ve had in a long while; though it may also have been the fact that I slept very badly the night before. I had thought I’d grown over all that sort of thing, but it would appear not. I certainly wasn’t the only one ˗ even our instructress, a Mrs Bullitt (would you believe?) seemed nervous, which was rather nice. She’s nothing that her name might imply; it has rather Dickensian overtones, and one imagines a gaunt upright severe person who has a not a jot of patience with dunderheads. She is, however, a littler lady, about 5’2” or 3” with a pleasant though tired expression and isn’t always quite with what is going on, so that her smile tends to follow after the joke, and after everyone else has laughed. She is inclined to not always quite say what she means though generally the meaning is clear, and only needs verification. That is the classroom Mrs Bullitt. The extra-tutorial Mrs B is even more pleasant, not so tired, taller (?), and ever so slightly livelier. I hesitate to think that it’s because she has been doing the job for a good while, but I suspect that’s the case. She is probably in her late forties, though the classroom Mrs Bullitt seems somewhat older.

Did I tell you that we have seven weeks training before we’re let loose on the public? I think they have to have us at some stage before that but I’m not sure. And we’re paid throughout ˗ though 2/- less for some reason, per week. We spend this time round Cannon St or Wren House, which is opposite St Paul’s. So it’s an area I’ve not really spent a great deal of time in before and it’s rather interesting. One of the other men and myself went for a walk at lunchtime today and went over the London Bridge where they are at present building a new one while the other is shipped, stone by stone, to America. The Tower is five minutes’ walk away, and it’s altogether one of the older parts of London. I go to Liverpool St on a real train, not a tube, from the station three minutes away (instead of ten or twenty as they were before) and it’s 6d cheaper than before, and then walk for about seven minutes down to Cannon St. One could go by the main roads from Liverpool St to C. St, but fortunately the ancient residents of London beat pathways between all these which still exist in the form of one-way alleyways, and by following about four of these down, I save quite a bit of time. They all connect to each other practically, so obviously I’m following in the footsteps of some old Londoner who wasn’t bother to spend his time touring back and forth when he could go direct.

Our class has already dwindled from eleven to eight in the first two days: two of them never arrived and one middle-aged lady just didn’t come back today. The rest of the class consists of two other men (thank God ˗ one poor bloke two weeks ahead of us got stuck by himself in a class of women) (and spends his afternoon teas alone. He seems a nice enough guy, though not bubbling with personality ˗ how cruel can women be? And anyway I thought they were the predatory sex? What are they doing?) [More to the point, perhaps, what on earth am I talking about?] one of whom is probably somewhere along the line of Jewish extraction and is called Jerry Levi, and seems a not too bad guy, married with a couple of kids, thin (don’t be fooled by the two cardigans, his wife, I have no doubt, has made him wear under his shirt) with a wide grin of a mouth, and a smoker’s ˗ a heavy smoker’s ˗ laugh. About 45, let’s say.

The other guy is Larry Boyles (what a name, I ask you?) ˗ huge, weighs sixteen stone, looks about 25 or so, but an Eastender, which means he has a certain non-youthful characteristic. For example, he talks like an old man, seems to find life just a little on the puzzling side, and never manages to hear what you say in quite the way you say it, because like most Eastenders, he assumes what you are going to say and gives the answer to that, when in fact you may have been a little more subtle. Perhaps it’s me ˗ I don’t speak so good, maybe?

The women are two middle-aged buddies (though I suspect they’d never met before yesterday), both divorcees-again-married, both the bright sparks of the company; a quality of their age more than their personalities, since one who is married to an American (previously to a Chinese!) and who has lived around the world for some years has few of the qualities one associates with a well-travelled person, and the other, who used to work at Scotland Yard (and who claimed she’d heard and seen everything there ˗ I felt like telling here where I’d been for the last six months!!) and who has been nicknamed Fuzz, seems only to be a cynic, and doesn’t really the true appreciation of the funny side of life that makes a cynic bearable.

There are two quite young girls (one named Miss Weller, who, being an Eastender, reminds me irresistibly of Sam Weller in Pickwick Papers) and a girl of I suppose twenty-two or so, who is something like a beanstalk in a mini-skirt, with glasses. But everybody is very friendly in that they return your smiles and only laugh at you because they’re glad they didn’t put their foot in it.

The building is very hot in true Civil Service style ˗ though as everybody is at pains to point out, the Post Office is now a Corporation not a Govt. Dept., and I stopped wearing the t-shirt that I had on under my shirt today in order to try and let a little air in. I always thought that 60o was the sort of comfortable temperature but I’ve seldom struck a place that is as cool as that. (The theatres here, particularly the Opera Houses, are horribly hot in winter.)

About your [Bonus] Bond(s) ˗ I hope that you eventually get something out of them ˗ it would be nice for you to be provided with a decent sort of ‘pension’ as it were for your old age. (I mean when you’re pushing one hundred or so!)

About the books: it seems that we’ve nearly got everything sorted out again. Would it seem like very bad manners on my part if sometime in the near future I made up another little list? You could stop two or three of these postal orders you aren’t supposed to be sending me to compensate, couldn’t you? It’s some odds and sods books which I’ll think about; but one or two may come in handy for the teacher’s exam. Doris had a friend of long-standing over here who died recently and left her all his music. Perhaps I should say that he left me and some other pupils all his music, as this is where it seems to be finally ending up. I have bought one lot from her so far for a £1(quite how the economics work out I don’t know) which in fact would have cost me a lot more, secondhand, to buy and even more new. About £10 at least. So I’m glad. And I’ve bought some other music off her that is old stuff she no longer can use, for very minimal amounts, which will come in handy for sightreading and perhaps teaching music.

Remember Margaret from work, at the cinema? We had a huge chat on the last night, when she stayed right through my working hours sitting just to talk. I’ve given her my phone number and she’s already rung me once since ˗ and I told her she must come up for a meal, because for a start she lives on her own. I don’t think there is any danger of things getting involved ˗ I hope not; perhaps I’m a bit thick where women are concerned, but from what she has said (I’ve had a good deal of her history) it seems unlikely that she is interested in me for any other reason than friendship. Friendship in the quite ordinary sense. Oh dear, I hope things won’t be messy. No, I don’t think they will. What’s this? [the last line ran downhill on the page.] Love Mike.

27.1.70 - an Irish citizen, socialising

27.1.70

Dear Mum, Mike Tither has just received the news this morning that he is now an Irish citizen ˗ which means, as far as I know, that he ceases to be a New Zealand citizen, in the meantime, anyway. This have been the only way he could legally stay on in Britain, that he was able to discover, that didn’t involve some kind of fraud. He received a ‘paper’ in the post that morning written in Gaelic (!) and had to ring the Irish Embassy (or whatever it is) to find out if it said ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

Remember that Unity service I went to? I meant to mention also that the minister who gave the sermon had the most curious speech coloration I’ve ever heard. By some defect his final ‘s’es were left behind the word so that they followed at a second or two’s delay: alway...s, curiou...s, servi...ce!!

I went up to the Crowls’ on Sunday for dinner (couldn’t stay the weekend as Margaret has bought a new bed and the old one is cluttering up my usual small room, and Nina hasn’t yet moved. She will on Wednesday.) And then I went onto Doris Berry’s place. Have I spoken much about her before? She’s the lady who did the Carmen rehearsals with me back home [in Dunedin], and who has now returned to her home in London. She had invited four of us up for tea: three Christchurch people and self. These were Neal and Jan something (he’s about twenty-eight/nine, I suppose, she’s perhaps somewhat younger) and Margaret Williams, a teacher of about twenty-four/five, I guess (or perhaps younger). The married couple are working here just now and intend just touring and seeing things all over the world for the next few years apparently. Margaret (like most New Zealanders) speaks at a tremendous rate with no stops for breath: her sentences will often either die for lack of breath or lack of anywhere to go. This is a funny thing lots of us do; we forget to take a breath when we ought in the natural break of this sentence, and wonder why we’re going blue in the face before we’re through. Doris has the same tendency in a different form ˗ she knows where she’s going and is in such a hurry to get there that not only her tongue talks, everything else about her head does too, and it’s like a little kettle about to boil over. She’s very sweet and kind and nice to know, and though we all had to endure some slides of Margaret’s European Tour (we were much more appreciative of Doris’ NZ ones ˗ what parochialists!) the evening was very pleasant generally. But it had been a day of conversation ˗ Reg and I had got ourselves tied up in knots about theology (!) before dinner and having to make conversation with unknown people is a very tiring task. I generally just ask pertinent questions, and let them go on! [Reg and Mavis had been enthusiastic Methodists when younger, but had ceased having anything to do with the church when I met them. However, some time after I left England in 1974 ˗ by which time Mavis had died ˗ Reg went back to a local Methodist church which had had something of a revival, and became just as enthusiastic again. He eventually met his second wife-to-be there.]

I was going to continue this, but I’ll start another one later. Love, Mike. 

18.8.69 - Back to London

18.8.69 [handwritten] Back at Bethune Rd

Came home today to a bonanza of letters from you, and also Korea, and the Home Office (I’m now free to stay here, apparently for an unspecified length of time) and a long overdue postcard from Michael T in Rome ˗ I’d seen him back in London before I left! I’m very pleased to hear that you’re doing so well, and I was quite delighted with the slightly ‘droopy’ letter of the 12th! Sorry that you weren’t sure what to do with the mail ˗ I did get two letters (I think that was all) in Hastings, via the flat, but the others might have all arrived here after the date when I said not to send anymore on. It’s great that, as usual, you’re making so many friends and seeing all those others you haven’t seen for years. Have you had that race down the Ward yet? Or are you leaving such trivial things to those who are fairly new to this hospital business?

The flat here has started to look quite lived in ˗ I was quite glad not to have had to go through the transition period of getting everything into place once the others moved in.

My foot, I’m afraid, is misbehaving somewhat though it can hardly be expected not to be upset after what I did to it yesterday. As it was the last day, I went in twice (in the water, sorry) and almost ran on it. The result was, naturally, that I could barely walk on it when we finally got home and it’s been feeling fairly tired all day today.

Mrs S fell flat on her face going to work the other morning (she works three days a week in a typing office) and has a chin slowly going purple. She's really very sweet and we get on very well. I was quite sorry to leave this morning in fact, though I had thought, up till then, how nice it would be to get back to London again. I’ve been invited back again anytime ˗ which seems a fair enough criterion, doesn’t it? [More to the point it was extremely generous, since I doubt that I contributed anything to my board while I stayed there!]

If my foot clears up sufficiently to be able to walk comfortably before the end of the week I’ll try and get a job. I don’t know if I’ve already said I’m thinking of trying a job working front-of-house in some theatre ˗ that way I should have quite a bit of the day free to study in. It seems to be full of disadvantages ˗ there’s so much I won’t be able to see, but I can’t see any other way of working. If I get thoroughly fed up I’ll just have to try something else.

Keep getting well, Love, Mike. 

12.5.69 A birthday party and copying work

12.5.69

Dear Mum, the letter that should have followed up my last one immediately never has, so this will have to fill its place. Just a small point ˗ I notice that your letters aren’t coming with anywhere near the regularity that they were and since they have been coming at the rate of nearly two a week for the last eight months, I’m just wondering if there’s anything wrong ˗ you’re not ill or anything? I’m not in the least worried about their irregularity, and this isn’t a dig to get you writing the same number per week again or anything, but do let me know if you’re okay, won’t you? You’re not allowed to get sick any more than I am!

I was lying in bed the other night, on a particularly sleepless night, and suddenly remembered that my birthday was just around the corner ˗ so I said to Jeff, who also had trouble getting to sleep (we finally got up and had a cup of chocolate each ˗ about two!) that I thought I might give a party in the weekend preceding the actual date, and as things worked out I did. And it seemed to go off fairly well too. Hazel came down early and helped with the catering, which was very good, because it wouldn’t have been a patch on that otherwise, and about a dozen people came in all. David Gorringe and Hazel were the first to arrive, and since it was an absolutely perfect afternoon (I suggested they come down early) we went for a walk across the Heath and into Greenwich Park.

When we got back Michael was sitting on the bit of Heath nearest my place reading; he’d been there nearly 3/4 of an hour! Kevin came (and a kitten arrived from next door) and after we’d got the food ready, and it was still warm (we had all the doors open) we played cards for a while. Then as it was still fabulously mild outside, we went back on the Heath again, with Kate, who arrived just in time, and walked for ages, playing around in great style ˗ talk about second childhoods! We went back into the Park, just before it closed, and then returned home as it was getting dark. By this time Jeff had come back with Moyra Paterson (from the Centre; a Scots girl and a very down-to-earth person) and her flatmate (also LOC) Joyce; they’d been there for a bit before we came back. I felt that we’d been a bit rude going out, and apologised, but it seemed a pity to waste the weather (it’s been up to 73 degrees today, they said) and they didn’t really seem to mind. [I think the UK must still have been using Fahrenheit at this point.]

John arrived eventually; he’s still going about in a half-with-us state ˗ was supposed to start a new job today, and was also supposed to be coming back here to stay last night, but didn’t. I quite honestly think he’s mad keeping a flat on when he either hasn’t enough money to afford it (or says he hasn’t; I have my doubts) or just never stays here! He took Hazel and David home last night after the party, and apparently said to them on the way home ‘I don’t think Michael quite understands me yet! ˗ I’m afraid that very few other people do either. Julie thinks he’s barmy!  (Did I tell you incidentally to go and see Finian’s Rainbow? It’s something I think you’d enjoy very much, in spite of Fred Astaire!) [ I seem to remember my mother was never very impressed with Astaire; she didn’t think much of men dancing in movies, for some reason.]

I got paid today for both the work I did for Wilfred Josephs, and the stuff I did for David Syrus last week. I charged the Josephs £3-5 for the seven hours work I did on two nights last week ˗ it was the most boring job I’ve ever done, and I felt like charging them more! But he sent a nice wee note with the cheque thanking me and saying he was very pleased with the work, so, you never know, something else may yet come of it. They did mention some other work when I was there, but only mentioned it. They have one of the many three-storied (plus basement) semi-detacheds that are right on the edge of Hampstead Heath. Anyone who’s anyone lives in Hampstead ˗ they say! 

I did most of my work in a sort of spare front bedroom, full of junk they were trying to sell. It also looks as tho’ it was used for just relaxing in, as a sort of non-visitors’ lounge. I worked on a built-in dressing table, surrounded by old copies of Music and Musicians, etc, children’s toys, old sofas and chairs, 19th-century miscellania, posters advertising works of Wilfred Josephs ˗ particularly his Requiem; it seems to have [been] the high spot of his composing. His own music room is rather fabulous: it has a grand piano covered with stuff so that only the keyboard is visible ˗ hundreds of books (including Ellery Queen in some profusion) and tapes, hundreds of photos, signed and unsigned, music stands with copies of his works, and a marvellous air of comfortableness ˗ how he does any work in there I don’t know. He has what looks like an old scullery or kitchen done up as a little recording studio with tape machines and hi-fi, etc. He seems rather pleasant ˗ plump, and 45-ish, and his wife hides quite a good business head, I should think, behind an air of quiet control. They have two talkative “English” children. [I have no idea what the emphasis on ‘English’ is here.] (And an au pair, and three very friendly poodles!)

Mr Bamford, whom I’m slowly getting use to ˗ you let his bluster run off you like water on oil, and find that he never means to be rude ˗ is amazingly rude to his wife. They have phones [handwritten] connecting their basement workshop and their flat, five floors above (and the lift hasn’t worked for two months or more!) and one day he spoke to her terribly rudely and I expected to go up and find her in tears ˗ but she was smiling quite happily. Obviously she pays no more attention to him than I’m slowly learning to! Love Mike

P.S. Cheque and P.N.’s arrived on the 13th!! Glad to hear you’ve just been busy. I suspected that you and Mrs Ryan might team up. Hope it’s all working okay. Thanks. [I presume this my mother's sister, my aunt.]

Re FUDGE: Hazel, David, John etc have all taken to it. Please send either a recipe or some more!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo courtesy of Roger Perriss, flickr.com

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

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

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

PART II

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

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

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

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

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

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

PART III

Photo courtesy of Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

PART IV

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

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

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

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

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

Love Mike. 

13/3/69 - Hamlet and Hertford

13/3/69 [Completely handwritten letter on an aerogramme]

Dear Mum, I’m writing a few words now before I forget again. THANK YOU for the sweets & biscuits which arrived nicely in time for LENT. However, I didn’t think it would really be wise to leave them another six weeks so I gave myself a special dispensation and have started on them. The biscuits, I’m afraid, got very knocked about; I think the packing had come loose and they were crushed but eatable. Please don’t make a habit of this. 3 Post Orders a week ˗ I don’t want a bankrupt mother on my hands!!

Thanks too, for all your concern and prayers about me ˗ I am feeling a lot better, though I still have this choky cough, but at least I’m beginning to feel a little like my old energetic and cheery self again. You know that I used to boast that I could never feel blue for long? ˗ well, this was the longest time I’ve ever felt and I was beginning to wonder really what was wrong with me ˗ no life, listless, etc. But others in the place (the Centre) have had the same trouble. Must be a bug or someut..

We’ve (Mike, Kate and friends) just been to a production of Hamlet at the Round House ˗ an old railway turntable building converted into a theatre. The audience sits, almost, on three sides of the stage, and consequently everyone is very close, and feels right in it. Nicol Williamson was Hamlet ˗ and fabulous, as he always is. The rest of the cast was equally superb. Man alive, it really is a fantastic play, and the mere fact of knowing it so well (this is the 4th or 5th version I’ve seen) made it all the more effective. In two scenes I felt like crying out loud ˗ where Hamlet and his mother have the long argument, and when Laertes tries not to cry on hearing that Ophelia, his sister, has just drowned, but can’t restrain his tears. The fight scene at the end was horrifying, it was so well done and so close. And actors would come right thru the audience ˗ you really were in the thick of things. I’d like to go again!!

NEXT DAY ˗ Spent a boring morning at the Lortzing ‘Opera Rehearsal’ rehearsal. [I presume this must have been a production put on at the Opera Centre, though I don’t remember anything about it.] What a load of old rubbish this is ˗ some of the music is “pretty,” but the dialogue is the sort of stuff I gave up writing years ago!! [Remembering at this time that I was an ancient man of 24] I feel it’s just a waste of time.

Later this afternoon Delia Wallis and I set off for Hertford (pronounced HARFORD) where I was to accompany her (unpaid except for expenses) at an Old Folks party. At Kings Cross [Station] we met up with her boyfriend Robert, who seems a pleasant gentle soul. (But he’s a singer!! Just been touring with the Welsh Opera For All.) We travelled rather slowly up to Hertford and walked in heavy rain to her (family ) home, which is a large (3-storeyed) place of the type I thought had all been converted into flats. Hertford seems rather pleasant ˗ some of it old, some very mod. We had some tea there, and eventually her brother-in-law, Clive (married to Coral), drove us to the Corn Exchange where hundreds of old people were  being treated to a party-cum-concert. We were on after a party of schoolgirls who sang a seemingly endless medley of songs, and vaguely danced. On arriving at the piano and playing I soon discovered it had no sustaining pedal which was a considerable handicap!!  However the songs (4 oldies) were all very very popular and after this I was driven back to the station.

When I got to Kings Cross again I remembered George Bamford [the music copyist] had said he had some more stuff for me. The lift in their flats isn’t working and after climbing 5 flights I found he wasn’t ready to give me the stuff ˗ I’d originally said I’d go tomorrow! Anyway he invited me in to watch an old pro on TV (colour ˗ which isn’t very attractive; it’s too inconsistent) who was playing jazz on a vibraphone ˗ with four sticks. Which is almost like trying to hit the right keys on a piano with sticks. He was fabulous and made the climb worthwhile.

Lots of love, Mike

*[Delia Wallis sang with Convent Garden, and later must have moved to the USA to work. She was on the staff of Fredonia State University of New York prior to her death in 2009.]

Late Feb, 1969: hectic schedule...

28.2.69

Dear Mum, how are things with you? I’m at home once more ˗ in the middle of the week when I should be at work ˗ I just don’t know what is wrong with me of late. In spite of taking some vitamin pills since I had my last cold, I woke up yesterday with a screamingly sore chest, and wobbly legs, and a sore head. Anyway I went to school, and though I had intended coming home in the afternoon ˗ I had nothing set out to do ˗ I stayed on and did some of the work for the very busy week I’ve got next week: the re-audition for Opera for All on Monday, playing for Abigail Ryan at the Wigmore Hall for the Tauber contest on Wednesday, and playing for three of the singers doing an audition for the Wells on Friday. I intended going in today, and even got up and was dressed, but once again I felt all shakey, and finally went back to bed. I was supposed to go and have dinner with Mike [Tither] tonight too. I’m not feeling bad just at this moment but equally I don't feel a hundred per cent. I’m really fed up with being below par, and wish I knew what to do about it.

Sorry there have been such long gaps between letters, but I was terribly busy last week. Went with Abigail to a play called the Delicate Balance, done by the [Royal] Shakespeare Co. The acting of this company ˗ it’s a repertory one ˗ is always superb, and even if the play isn’t much good, the cast is well worth seeing. Actually it was a fairly interesting play, though I can’t say I saw the point of it all. Peggy Ashcroft was in it, and also Michael Hordern and Sheila Hancock ˗ who used to be in a crazy TV thing called The Rag Trade. Abigail and I decided at the last minute to go ˗ we were on a [number] 15 bus, which meant we could go all the way into town, and both had originally intended to go straight home. But I had to collect some stuff from George Bamford, the copyist, and so we 

St Patrick's Catholic Church, Soho Square

decided to see if we could get seats. [It sounds like this was a patch in which I thought Abigail and I might become an item. It wasn’t to be, though for a very good reason.]We did, and then I went tearing up to Kings Cross while Gail went and got some seats at Convent Garden, and when I got back we went to Ash Wednesday mass at St Pats in Soho. They had a choir singing old 14th century music, and the sound seemed to float all around the ceiling. Gorgeous, and there was a little old drunk in the back of the church who spent the last quarter of an hour using all the four-letter words in his vocab to mutter his way through the mass. And no one did anything to stop him; I don’t suppose there was much that could be done anyway! [

When we came out of church it was snowing hard, as it had been on and off all day, and we got covered in the stuff going to the theatre. This was one of the worst falls I’ve seen, adn there was complete chaos all over. I was lucky that the trains had started running again by the time I got out of the play but other people had been waiting for about two hours!

The next night Kevin and I went to see The Cocktail Party, by T S Eliot, with Alec Guinness in the lead. If anything this was even more obscure than the previous night! But it was very well done generally, with the exception of one of the actors, who recited his verse with the accents all wrong (the play is in blank verse) and made it sound all unnatural.

The next night I had my first experience of a laundrette, and found it quite interesting. I also realised just how clean washing things in a machine like that is to washing them by hand. [!] my shirts have always seemed to be clean, but this was the first time my underclothes and hankies were really whitened again! I went up to Crowls that night too. Next morning I had to go back down to Kings Cross to collect a huge pile of music to be checked; it subsequently took me all weekend, ! ˗ and then meet one of last year’s rep students who is now at the Wells whom [Uncle] Reg had met up with at his church, and whom he had invited around so that I mgiht have a chat with him. We spent about an hour and a half talking, and it was very interesting. I’m afraid the Crowls must have thought I was being a bit rude, doing nothing but work all weekend, but the thing was that I had to take it back to Bamford on Sunday evening. (And then I got some more on Monday ˗ which completely filled in another evening. It was music for a film score, for Alfred the Great, and had to be ready for recording on Wednesday ˗ that is, yesterday. [The film score was written by Raymond Leppard, who, as Wikipedia puts it without the pun intended, ‘played an instrumental role in the rebirth of interest in baroque music.’ ]

On Sunday night Kevin [Flaherty] and I and some others from the Centre went to a concert at the Festival Hall conducted by Andre Previn, with John Ogdon playing Rachmaniov’s Third [Piano] Concerto. I didn’t like this latter much, but they also played a Haydn Symphony very well, and a Symphony by William Schuman, a modern American composers, which was very exciting. [Sunday 23 February 1969 André Previn Symphony No. 85, ‘La Reine’ HAYDN Symphony No. 3 WILLIAM SCHUMAN Piano Concerto No. 3 RACHMANINOV John Ogdon piano.]

On Tuesday, I went to see Gloriana ˗ by Britten. It’s an opera that was written for the present Queen’s coronation, and wasn’t much of a hit at the time: certainly by comparison with his others. It does have a rather weak first act, and the last act is only good up to a certain point ˗ it’s basically the libretto that is the fault ˗ because the music is fabulous. One scene especially makes the opera worthwhile. This is the quartet scene in the second act. It’s only about seven minutes long, but it is so exciting the way it builds up from the single character on stage to a marvellous quartet bit with 3 of the characters singing a sort of vengeance piece while the fourth character, a woman, does great sweeps around the stage in great anxiety. It’s full of very neat touches too. At the end of the first act, a prayer scene, the curtain falls on complete silence ˗ no one dared clap until it was down. There is a masque in the beginning of the 2nd act, which is entirely accompanied by unaccompanied chorus singing. (?) And the ball scene in the end of the second act, where the queen, in making a fool of someone also actually makes a fool of herself, is partially accompanied by an onstage band, which every now and then is taken over by a rowdy and horribly orchestrated (with sliding trombone sounds and lots of percussion) version of the band music.

[handwritten] I’m glad to hear Mary [?] is coming up to see you ˗ that’ll be very good for you I should think. A pity isn’t it that you can’t cook meals for Fred [the cat].

Reg didn’t blink when I told him there was a girl staying in the flat. Thought I’d better tell him. [Goodness knows why!]

I’ve also got some checking to do for the Centre’s Gianni Schicchi parts. More cash I hope! Mike. [The Opera Centre included Gianni Schicchi in one of its student productions.]

21.12.68 Double Bill and holidays

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Part II

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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