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!!

20.3.69 Some catch up stuff

20.3.69

Dear Mum, there are so many odd fragments of news I thought I’d better write again to you. I’ve sent off the two foreign newspapers to Dale, but heaven knows when she’ll get them. They’ve both got news of the space men in them. [Not sure who Dale is, though it could be a second cousin.]

(As you can see I’ve finally been given one of these new type air letters: but I see that they don’t have on the outside where to cut them open except on one side; I almost invariably make a mess of one of these and cut them everywhere but where they’re supposed to be cut! Think I’ll put a wee note on the outside.) [These ‘new type air letters’ had only about two-thirds as much room to write on, which must have been frustrating for yours truly.] 

I’m finally getting my tax thing away too, but I’m sending it to you if you don’t mind, because I quite honestly am not sure of completing it from such a distance, and I thought perhaps if you were to give it straight to Des, it might not get lost in the rush of the end of the year. Anyway, it’ll take a while yet. [Presumably my tax return for 1968/9. Des was one of my uncles, who worked in the Inland Revenue in Dunedin; this was in the days when you could go into the office, speak to a human being and get them to help you fill out your tax return. In fact, you could go in and ask for your uncle is you so desired.]

I’m sure I’ve got dozens of other things to say, now what are they all? I know: on Tuesday, I’d been informed that I’d got to go to a rehearsal at 5.30 in the evening, and so said to myself that I’d fill the day in on my own. When I finally arrived at the Opera Centre, the rehearsal had been shifted forward into the early afternoon, and I’d missed it entirely and the two pianists from the other show had had to do it. They’d tried to ring me here at the flat, by phoning upstairs, but of course D was out all the time. We can’t be expected to know they’re going to change their minds like this at the last minute all the time. It’s very poor organisation and quite a number of the singers have been complaining about it too.

Anyway, on the same morning I’d rung up George Bamford to see if he had any more stuff for me to check, and he said he still wouldn’t be ready until that night, and so I said all right then I’d call around in the late afternoon. He also said, of course you don’t do copying do you, he said, I could do with help on that more than anything else. Well, like the twit that I am, I said, No, I don’t, because he’s never sounded keen on my doing it before. Anyway, after I’d rung off, I thought to myself, well, perhaps I could force his hand a little, since he was in such an awkward position as far as time went, and go in and say would it be any use if I did do some copying for him. Well, I did go in, and he, without too much apparent second thoughting, said all right, he’d let me have a go. (He offered one other time to give me some pointers on the business, but never did.) So I sat down eventually, and got started, and apart from his scrubbing the very first thing I did ˗ actually it was a bit of a mess, the pen I’d started to use had scratched on the paper and ink dots had gone everywhere! Also I seemed to be picking up dirty marks from the pen all the time. So finally I went off and washed my hands, and started again, with a not too efficient blotter ˗ it was doing most of the mucking-up of things, I discovered ˗ and using the exiled piece of paper to cover up the page until I actually used it [wrote on it] each time, I got on all right. Didn’t do very much in the end ˗ he said he’d prefer that I went a little slower than not (I thought I was going slow!) and even though the place is away from the mainstream of things, there are a lot of people coming and going, and George and his wife talk a lot, always apparently starting a conversation up without informing the other who or what they’re talking about! And Mrs B made me a couple of ham sandwiches and an enormous cup of coffee, and this delayed things a little too.

Anyway that was that and I then went to the OC. Well, I felt a bit put out at not having anything to do, so in the end David Gorringe, and Hazel and I went to the pictures (a local cinema where it’s cheaper, but where the audience seems always to consist of morons ˗ they don’t laugh or do anything.)  We went to Finian’s Rainbow ˗ a Monica-taking picture, if it hasn’t already been to Dunedin. [Presumably meaning my mother should take my aunt Monica to see it. She was the wife of my uncle Des mentioned above.] It is full of marvellous lines, with a lot of very clever jokes on racial problems in the South of America. But it all went over the heads of the people here ˗ they really are thick, you know. [Oh, dear, what a bumptious know-all this guy is!] (The same day I went down to our post office in Blackheath to get our mail delivered to our doorstep instead of the flats upstairs, and the first bit of mail arrived this morning ˗ Upstairs!). Heaven knows what’ll happen when they get decimal coinage. I think most of them will just give up!

Yesterday, I got up early and went in to get seats for the Dance of Death with Olivier. Got three quite decent seats, without having to queue with a very big crowd ˗ a dozen perhaps, and then since I had 3 hours to fill in before going down to East Croydon where the rehearsal are being held just now (the local art school is doing the designing of the show) I went to the cinema in Waterloo Station where they were showing On the Waterfront with Brando. Fabulous. A very moving story, with a priest who was a priest in it, instead of the usual wishy washy characters you get, and Brando is superb.

Last night Mike and a friend of his he found in a pub recently called John from Ohio (he’s here for an indefinite time, and very pleasant) and I went to D of D. It’s a rather rubbishy play though the first act is at least several times better than the second, but it was great to see Olivier in the flesh, and Geraldine McEwan, his co-star, is outstanding.

Lots of love Mike.