13.6.69 Family kerfuffles, cake and flat-letting

13.6.69

[handwritten]

Dear Mum, it never ceases to amaze me how little we really ever get to know anyone else. I don't think I told you last time about the situation up at the Crowls. Nina barely made an appearance all weekend. She was at the crisis point of one of her depressive periods, it seems. She lives on drugs, because of illness, although if she didn’t she would be alive, but rather weak. Anyway normally she’s very pleasant, at least to me, but this weekend she, as I say, hardly appeared, even for meals. On the way back to the station, however, I mentioned to Reg that Nina hadn’t seemed to be herself for quite some time (even the previous time I’d been there) and it set off a reaction from Reg which rather surprised me ˗ not at me, I hasten to add, in case you think I’d been putting my foot in it ˗ about how difficult Nina was to live with altogether! Apparently she takes her illness out on them, even more so on Mavis, according to Reg. I said something to him, trying to see her side of it, and he said that was fair enough but that was no reason for her to be so bloody-minded!! Strong words for Mr Crowl! Anyway things seemed to have sorted themselves out again up there as R & M are going on holiday on Monday and Nina is to look after Margaret.

15.6.69

Your parcel arrived yesterday. Thank you very, very much. I’ve already started on the fudge and biscuits. The cake, I’m afraid, due to the knocking about these parcels get, had some of the icing broken up, and I’m afraid it’s a trifle difficult to read what was on top. Is it Musical Birthday Michael? Anyway, the icing tastes great and no doubt the cake will too. I’ll have to eat it all myself probably ˗ Jeff and John don’t eat cake, and Julie (all the J’s!) who’s barely here these days, never eats anything that anybody else has, preferring not to risk being poisoned, it might seem!! Mad, I call it.

The parcel arrived on Saturday morning when I was lying in the bath trying to get my back cleaned up ˗ it’s peeling over everything ˗ and I had to get out and answer the door! Already the same morning, I’d been rudely awoken (about 10 I must admit) by 3 people wanting to see the flat. They were very nice all the same, but it’s a bit of a bind having people calling in when the place is in a mess. You get no warning, you see. They said they would take it, but so did 4 young ladies who called last week. And I had a married couple in one other night.

The weather is keeping up very well here ˗ it’s really hot hot, and seems to want to continue. I’ve been making the most of it naturally, love Mike.

PS How do I boil new potatoes and still make them taste nice? Mine always seem to taste very dry. I’ve been playing with a ‘Fred’ for about an hour this afternoon ˗ think it belongs next door. 

9.6.69 Hampton Court and Brighton Beach

9.6.69

Dear Mum, sorry it’s rather a while since I’ve written ˗ in fact I have been getting slack, I’m afraid, on my letter writing in general. I got an answer back from Prof Platt thanking me for writing, but it was a very short letter ˗ about ten lines, I think ˗ he wanted to know because he says Murray Holmes is thinking of coming over ˗ I don’t know what he intends doing over here, though. [Nor do I now remember who this man was.]

We’ve been having fabulous weather here over the last weekend, and it’s still fine in fact ˗ temperatures up in the 70s.

On Sat I went with Mike to Weybridge which is near Hampton Court, for lunch with one of his girlfriends ˗ her name is Maureen, but for some reason she’s called Mickey! Weybridge is quite a way from London Central ˗ about forty minutes by not very fast train (they have fast trains which take you direct, and semi-fast ones that stop at some stations, and not very fast ones which stop occasionally, and slow ones which take all day to get there) and is one of the wealthy areas, like Blackheath, with a pretence at being in the country ˗ though Weybridge succeeds rather more than Blackheath does. Anyway, after lunch we went to Hampton Court and spent some time there, and though the place has certain fascinations, it isn’t as interesting as some other spots. It has the distinction of having no two chimneys alike ˗ they each have a different pattern, and there are dozens of chimneys ˗ and of housing lots of grace and favour people ˗ ones who live in royal apartments (there are some in London too), rent free, because of some royal relationship or service. But it isn’t very looked after generally speaking ˗ certainly not inside in the royal apartments where the furniture just looks patchy instead of antique, and where they have some of the dreariest paintings I’ve ever seen. Plus the fact that there is so much you can’t see there that it gets a little frustrating after a while running constantly into No Admittance signs.

We went in the Maze, which is in a rather bad way ˗ people have rather wrecked it at various times by trampling through the hedges, and now most of the hedges have iron fences in their centres which rather spoils the attractiveness. But it’s not a bad maze ˗ everyone goes around with silly grins on their faces ˗ there are several dead end paths, and no one coming out of one tells the people going into it that it is a dead end. There are some very nice formal gardens there ˗ one with tiny hedges about six inches high all in designs with flowers between ˗ but only ones that aren’t going to grow higher than the hedges. And others with statues and fountains in them.

The building is rather fabulous ˗ especially the old Tudor bits which they are gradually restoring to something of their former beauty, and they are also restoring the massive murals ˗ some walls are nothing but paintings, and the ceilings too. They have cleaned these up and they look very bright. One room is full of weapons, but all arranged in geometrical designs and hung on the walls, so that a hundred pistols in a circle cease to have their warfaring value and become something of beauty.

After the Court we went down to Kevin’s pub ˗ about 500 yards from the Palace gates, and sat there for quite a while talking.  It is actually quite an old building, but what looks like age inside it is apparently phoney, and it was decorated in an old style just a few years ago! [This wasn’t a pub that Kevin Flaherty owned, but one he worked in for a time.] After this we we went and had a very nice Chinese meal, and then finally went home. [This obviously wasn’t the time I had an Indian meal that nearly burnt my mouth out; something I thought happened near Hampton Court.]

Brighton Beach, about 1967
by Tony Ray-Jones

Yesterday about eight of us from the Centre went to Brighton, and it turned out to be the hottest day this year. Well, we lay on the beach (and swam, twice, in extremely cold, but very buoyant water) for something like four hours, and naturally we all look rather more than pink today. I knew I was getting more burnt than I ought, but it was just so wonderful to be in actual sunshine that actually lasted for more than an hour that I couldn’t resist it. Fortunately I didn’t get burnt as much as that time the kids and I went to St Kilda [in Dunedin; I’m not sure what kids I’m referring to. Possibly my cousins.] ˗ remember? ˗ we all came home looking like fresh beetroots and could barely get dressed or sleep or anything. I slept very well last night, just by ignoring the discomforts I did feel, and except for my legs (the backs of them of course!) and back, which are both rather tender, particularly when I’m sitting, I’m not too bad. But what a day! It made life worthwhile and I even felt like swimming, which surprised me as I don’t normally like sea water. But there were barely any waves, and it was nowhere (that I went in) very deep. But the beach was PEBBLES! and the area between the ball and heel of both my feet have great blue bruises on them ˗ it was impossible to walk comfortably ˗ though at least there was only sand under the water.

I’m going to have to leave this flat ˗ John has now decided that he needs a flat in North London, because we’re too far away from his Royal College. Actually I don’t mind (apart from having felt quite settled here) because it gives me an excuse to part with him and it seems as though I may be able to go into a flat with Davids Syrus and Gorringe ˗ who both have to move shortly. And anyway, North London is more central ˗ especially if you’ve missed a train late at night. Strange isn’t it that Jeff and I get on well together, and that we both find John rather difficult to get on with. [handwritten] Jeff and I, for example, have just been for a long walk around Blackheath, which is something John always reckoned he’d do, but never would. John always considers himself to be an intellectual ˗ with the inference that we’re not ˗ you know? Not to worry, 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!!

25.4.69 Flatting and fudge

25.4.69

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lots of love, Mike.

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. 

25.3.69 Various wanderings

25.3.69

Dear Mum, I’m beginning another letter, because since the time that I’ve felt better, all the silly little things that happen have seemed much more interesting. The rather obscure last sentences on yesterday’s letter were to say that I’d bought myself six scores (remember I was grumbling about how they expected you to buy stuff without money?) with a fiver that they paid me for some trifling work that I did on the Gianni Schicchi scores. Parts, not scores! Anyway it was far more than I felt I should have got but didn’t complain. John had arrived home from shopping on Sat (I’d had to go out: see below) with a score he’d bought in a shop (2nd-hand) around the corner, and he painted vivid pictures of the stuff they had going in the musical line for practically nothing. Well, 'nothing' in the English sense! But slowly and surely I’m beginning to understand that you need to take everything John says with a large number of grains of salts [sic] because when I arrived at the shop there were two scores that were of the least use, and the rest of the stuff was a load of old rubbish! Unless I’m going blind, but I couldn’t see any of the wealth of things he described. It was the same with the flat, before I first looked at it ˗ according to John, it was a luxury flat with all mod cons, and so on. Well, it’s got the occasional odd mod con, but as for luxury..!  Anyway I’ll sift the evidence a little more carefully in future.

I did go into town later on in the day, and went to a bookshop in Cecil Court near the Coliseum, (where I knew they have a lot of music, 2nd hand, and finished buying four more scores there. They were worth it I think. If I’m to get anywhere, I must have some stuff of my own to work on, I think.

Back to Sat. The stage managers had to work from 10 till one, and then from 7 till 10 again, and so had all that time to fill in. Hazel had asked me if I’d like to meet her and David Gorringe at the theatre and go to the pictures in the afternoon. I had to go up to town with some Bamford stuff, so it worked out nicely. We met up with Pete Lyon who was also at the Wells, and he thought he’d like to come too, so we said we’d meet him at Oxford Circus later at 2.30. David and Hazel and I get on very well, as a group it seems ˗ we all understand each other fairly well, and ca’t offend each other unintentionally. It’s almost like it used to be with Kevin and Mike and I at home. Anyway we went and had some lunch, and decided we’d like to go and see Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, [one of my all-time favourite musicals] because it was close, it was convenient as far as time went. (There were other films but David wouldn’t have got back to the Wells in time.) We got to Oxford Circus, and after losing and locating and losing each other again, found Peter, who’d brought two of the wardrobe girls with him! Well, they didn’t want to go and see what we wanted to see and as we would have spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get something to please everybody, we three departed to Marble Arch where the film was showing. On arrival we found it was showing for 10/- and upwards ˗ for a revival! ˗ and so we thought no thanks and decided to spend the afternoon in Hyde Park, just over the road. This was great actually, because it gave us some fresh air, and we really enjoyed it. We were going to go rowing on the Turpentine (as Dave insists on calling it) but it was a little cold for that. (Good heavens, the sun’s shining out here at the mo’!) So we just walked and talked etc.

Then we thought as we still had 3 hours to go we might pop down to Battersea Park ˗ nothing like going completely back to childhood! ˗ but discovered while we were waiting for a bus that it doesn’t open till Easter. So we waffled around Kensington for a bit ˗ the people there are a wonder to [handwritten] behold, clothes-wise. (The typewriter won’t type down here.) And then we thought we’d go to Charing Cross and spend the next hour or so at a newsreel theatre, where [typed] they show such brain-taxing pieces as Tom and Jerry, Mickey Mouse and Batman! But we didn’t have time to see the whole programme when we arrived and so went and had a cup of coffee and then Dave went back to the Wells while Hazel and I went to the NFT to The Thief of Baghdad* ˗ the English version of about 1940, and full of magic carpets and genies and flying horses and heaven knows what. It was very good, and had Sabu as the Thief and John Justin as the hero. Then I went back to Hazel’s and we had something to eat ˗ originally intended to be a snack, but she’s like you, she doesn’t like cooking unless it’s for someone, and so she cooked omelettes and other odds and ends.

On Sunday, after cooking our dinner, I went for a walk, though it was rather too cold, over to Greenwich Park, and wandered around the Observatory (it used to be, but now is a museum; the original house was by Wren) and the park, where there are squirrels and deer.

Last night, I saw that TheBofors Gun, which has Lindsay Campbell [originally from Dunedin] in it for about 3/4 of a minute (!), was on in Putney so I wended my way down there. It’s south-west while Blackheath is south-east. [handwritten] To my mind, Lindsay was Lindsay! He seems mainly cast over here as a typical English soldier type!!

I keep meaning to tell you about another Catholic Church I found near Leicester Square. It’s run by French priests (tho’ Mass is said in English) and I’ve been able to pop in twice around six and go to Communion. It seems fairly modern inside tho’ outside it doesn’t. A bit like the Moran Chapel on a larger scale. [A tiny chapel in the Moran Building in the Octagon, Dunedin.]

Love Mike

24.3.69 Chance meetings and kerfuffle at the flat

24.3.69 [handwritten]

Dear Mum, what a small world it is! Apart from meeting up with Don Rutherford today ˗ I’ll explain about that in a minute ˗ I was sitting in a little restaurant in Charing Cross Rd, reading thru a score of a rather difficult one act opera we’re doing in the middle of next term. A man came and sat opposite me as there wasn’t much room, and as he was about to leave, he asked me if I was reading it for pleasure or if it was being done somewhere. I said, yes, at the Opera Centre, and he says, in the East End?, and I says, yes, and he says, is it as bad up the right way as upside down, and I said it was and showed him ˗ he turned out to be a rep from Covent Garden, and mentioned he was working on Cellini (Benvenuto Cellini, by Berlioz ˗ it’s his anniversary this year). We had a wee chat about difficulties of playing un-pianistic stuff before he left, and he wished me luck with it and said he was glad he wasn’t doing it! But this cafe isn’t close to Covent Garden, and is only one of hundreds in this area ˗ I’m now in the all-night P.O., about five minutes away. I discovered this restaurant the Sunday I was looking for St Pat’s in Soho, and it was about the only place open that Sunday morning.

Don [Rutherford, a singer from Dunedin with whom I worked on a couple of local amateur shows. He was also instrumental in getting me the job with the NZ Opera Company as pianist on their La Boheme piano tour, which he sang in. He moved to Canada, and then spent most of his operatic career in Germany.) is over here to ‘cover’ (a nicer word than ‘understudy’) the role of Hamlet in the

Humphrey Searle

new opera of the same name by Humphrey Searle. Don had done it in Canada and since the guy who has the role is likely to walk out any minute because he doesn’t think he can do it, Don was brought over for seven and a half weeks (with his wife) just to sit round in case. [It wasn’t because the other singer, Victor Braun, couldn’t do it, but because he was having considerable trouble with his voice. And then Donald himself got encephalitis and never performed.] They were rehearsing at the Centre today (they do a lot of Garden rehearsals there) and I met him in the canteen for a few minutes. He hasn’t changed at all ˗ except that he has slightly wispy sideboards currently in fashion here (and apparently in Canada) and he has a touch of a Canadian accent.

Things at the flat have been undergoing rapid changes of late. John, you see, is a notoriously late getter-upper in the morning and consequently is seldom on time for work. Well, both Noel Gibson at the Centre (who is sort of his boss) and June Megennis, who’s the Director’s secretary) and who practically runs the place, had been asking me where John gets to in the mornings and complaining, as I thought, reasonably enough. Well, I was getting a bit brassed off at them constantly going off at me about it and told John so ˗ which caused a rather heated argument! Anyway, I apologised in the end for going on at him about it and a lot of useful matter came out. According to John, he didn’t have to keep strict hours, and a whole lot of other guff, some of it reasonable enough and some of it slanted with John’s rather curious outlook. Next day, he gave in his notice!! saying he was tired of the place and the corrupt way its run ˗ the previous day his car brakes had failed and now he has neither car nor job !!! (But he does have money in the bank at least.) He seems quite happy and is looking for something else to tide him over until he gets in (he hopes) to the Royal College, in September. So!

Today I spent a fiver on buying old Vocal Scores ˗ I’ve got to have them ˗ but it was payment for a job, so it worked out nicely!

Love, Mike.

17.2.69 - nosebleeds, snow and master classes

17.2.69 This letter was written on both sides of two sheets of paper, and runs to some 2,500 words - good grief. 

Dear Mum, I was all set to write a letter to you and discovered that I didn’t have an aerogram, so I thought I’d start anyway, and if I don’t finish this I’ll copy it onto an airletter tomorrow. Julie has been prancing round the house all happy tonight, because she got a Valentine Day card ˗ actually it came on Friday last, but she was away for the weekend, and didn’t come in again till tonight. She and I have just been having a long chat on things in general, and she’s been showing me snapshots of her family and her trips abroad, etc, and it’s generally been very interesting. We get on very well, all things considered ˗ we scarcely see each other except for the odd occasion like this ˗ and she’s rather nice kid really; kid ˗ she’ll be 21 in June. (John, whom I thought was about 26 is only getting on for 22 in March!) Julie’s mother looks only about thirty-something herself, and is still very attractive, I think. Heaven knows why these people want to leave home ˗ Julie only lives at Orpington, which comparatively speaking is just down the road, and John lives even less far away in Eltham (is it?). Seems to me they’d certainly be more comfortably off at home. I can see it up to a certain point, certainly if they don’t get on too well with their families it’s fair enough, (for both the parents and them) but otherwise it seems a bit strange. Julies seems to get on all right with hers, although there is some business about a stepfather somewhere, which may be the trouble. But with John, I don’t know what the reason is. I don’t mind flatting, but being either a typical male or just lazy, I’d much sooner have someone looking after me!! [It doesn’t seem to occur to me that the other two want their own space and don’t want to be beholden to their parents.]

By the way, please don’t growl at me in your next letter at what I’m about to tell you. ((((I’ve had another cold....I’m sorry...!)))) And I’ve just spent the weekend in bed, mainly, and also taken today off, because although I had recovered quite a lot, I didn’t really think it was worth while risking it to go back straight away. The big trouble was that when I got the cold ˗ very suddenly on Thursday ˗ right in the middle of a very hectic week, I couldn’t take Friday off because it was the final night of our master-classes. What a time for it to come. I spent all day Friday feeling absolutely rotten and fortunately it calmed down when it came time to play. But I think if I’d been able to stay home on Friday , I wouldn’t feel quite as under-par as I still do. Anyhow, I’m determined to knock it on the head, because I bought some Vitamin Tablets today, and started a three-week course of them, and hope that this will bring me back up to scratch. The trouble is I suppose that I can’t really eat too well ˗ just can’t afford to, and there’s nothing to be done about that side of it ˗ I haven’t had a steak since I’ve been here for instance, and though we can get meat at the Centre, it isn’t wonderful, and certainly isn’t very generously given out. I’ve been eating salads for the last week or more, because it seamed to me they were more healthy than the meals that we were getting otherwise but of course the only meat in them is ham. However, as much as I object to having to take pills like this I think it’s the only solution in the meantime, and of course I haven’t been up to the Crowls for nearly a month ˗ thru circumstances ˗ and this may have been a partial cause too. Anyway, though I sometimes think I am, I’m not starving, and probably eat more than my actual share of things. Never mind, I’m not dead yet, as I keep thinking I’m saying.

(John has just arrived home, and I doubt if the rest of this will be very comprehensible.) The flat is getting to be more comfortable as we fit up more of the place with odds and ends, and as it begins to look less bare. But the big problem of the place is that it’s very hard to get enough hot water for a wash in the bathroom let alone a bath! The water heater is very temperamental somehow ˗ it’s one of these gas things where whenever you turn on the tap the whole thing lights up off a pilot light; the other night it blew up in my face, and gave me quite a shock, but didn’t do me any damage. It blew the front off the thing in such a way that it now hangs on by only three corners, but seems to be working all right since then. But the water still doesn’t stay hot for very long - I don’t know what’s wrong with it ˗ I think we’ll have to get the Land Agent people on to it.

And as you already know we’ve had snow, snow and snow, and snow. Until it makes you sick. One night last week when we were rehearsing late it came down while we weren’t looking, and when we went out hit us all in the face. The way I get to the Opera Centre now when I don’t get a lift is to go via the Shadwell Tube Station, about seven minutes walk, via Commercial Road, and Watney Street (where the coldest open-air market in London is), and on this particular night I though that in spite of the snow, I’d save meself 5d and walk instead of getting a bus. Well, I arrived at the Tube Station, unable to see through my glasses, frozen right through, and looking like an abominable snowman. And of course all the trains were late. I was carrying more than usual, and I was thoroughly fed up.

One thing here, when it does snow is that they get on the job pretty quickly, and clear up the roads, and even the pavements in some places. This is very necessary, because it seems invariably to freeze up straight away. Either that or it turns to the most revolting slush, and makes it like walking on water. Anyway, so that is the snow for you. It’s still attractive to look at but by golly it’s cold, and very unpleasant to be out in. It sort of gets right inside your head, and these last few days I can feel the cold air right inside my sinuses. Even when I was in bed on Sat it was driving me mad, in spite of Aspros and everything, because I couldn’t get any relief when I breathed. It just ached, and finally my sinuses and my eyes and my gums all felt as though someone was driving nails through them. Nasty, that!

And yesterday, Sun, when I did get up for quite a long time, my nose suddenly poured blood in the good old way that hasn’t happened for a long time ˗ when I sneezed. But at least it seems to have relieved a few things .

May as well go on a bit [this was by now the third page of a typewritten letter] and include some things about the master classes. Incidentally, thanks once again for the postal notes, and the cuttings. I don’t keep many of the latter ˗ they make interestingly reading, but of course there is little point in keeping them all as you no doubt realise. It’s now the next day, by the way, and if I finish this it’ll be lucky. I’ve had another nose-bleed ˗ it came on in the middle of the Italian class, and I had to go out [because] it poured so much. But then, as I had to go into the West End to see if I could get myself an Italian-English Dictionary and a German-English Dictionary ˗ both very useful of course, but they both cost money of course. Honestly it gets my goat, and no doubt other students’ goats, too, when visiting lecturers and our own tutors rant on about how we should have a copy of such and such, and so and so ˗ and to my eyes at least if we have barely enough money to feed ourselves up to the point where we don’g flag from a semi-malnutrition how on earth are we supposed to buy all these books etc? (This is not a hint, just a general moan for poor old students ˗ even those on grants are limited in scope.) [I don’t mention that I obviously spent a good deal on going to the theatre and the movies here; though certainly I did feed myself fairly sparsely at times.]

It’s the same with the work we’re supposed to ˗ especially the reps: we’re at everyone’s beck and call, we’re supposed to be able to learn up new music constantly and really know it, and we’re also supposed to read up on every subject to do with the theatre and music under the sun. No human being can do it in the space of the ordinary average English day!

Anyway, I’ve strayed completely from what I started on. I got the German dictionary by the way, but not the other. Anyway as I was walking through St James park to get to the Victoria library to return a book, my nose started to bleed again, and has barely stopped since!! I’m now at home, and in desperation froze the whole area around my nose with a cold flannel ˗ this stopped it for long enough to go out and have a precarious meal (I’d originally intended having one in town) with odd drips coming my way, but then the thing is still running even now, and nothing on earth seems to be able to stop it. It’s calm at the moment but feels as though it’s just about to strike again. [The story of my life: nosebleeds were commonplace in spite of cauterization; and my mother used to get them regularly too.]

Got your letter this morning about your telling me in reply to grumbly to letter to buck up, cause you were keeping an eye on me in your prayers. Actually I’ve been feeling quite cheerful ˗ even during periods of the cold and the great bleed, but I also notice that I bit all my nails down to the bone yesterday, and that my lips are sore from being chewed. At least I’ve got not SPOTS!! AAAAAgh! I’m falling apart I think, but as long as I get to the end of this year, and can start earning, perhaps, a little dough, I’ll be right. Who’d be a student.

I love the mental side of the life, but honestly ˗ practically speaking it’s for the birds! Thanks for being so un-upset about the flatting situation ˗ re Julie, I mean ˗ I knew you would understand, being of that sort of person, but I haven’t told Reg and Co that she’s here ˗ she’s John to them at the mo’! I don’t know how broadminded he is about something like this. I leave it as being another boy at the moment I think ˗ I think I shock them enough, unintentionally, at the best of times!

About seeing someone to tell me what they really think about me ˗ this seems an impossibility at the Centre ˗ certainly amongst the teaching staff. They’re all too mixed up in their own little politics to really be properly concerned about all their students ˗ certain obvious excellent ones, yes ˗ but those they aren’t too sure of ˗ they just leave them alone!

I was talking this over with one of the girls last week ˗ Abigail Ryan (a dooley [Catholic], not surprisingly ˗ there are getting to be more every day), and we seemed to conclude between us that you’ve just got to go ahead an push yourself onwards, because no one else, over here at least, is really interested in helping you. I’ll still surviving in spite of setbacks, and can only think that I’m as good as I know I am and hope that’s good enough for others. As a coach, I seem to have certain qualities: I spend most of my time being Father Confessor to my ‘pupils’, and as a rep, I seem to have the knack of making it all exciting time and time again without much flagging, and I even survived my session as a conductor in the Master Classes without much bother. I enjoyed it actually though I still have no pretensions that I am a conductor. I know how I like a thing to go and am fairly definite about getting it that way, but I think there is still something lacking on that side, and anyway, I see no reason to do something like that when I don’t greatly care for it. On that side the highest I would really like to go [would] be a chorus master, but that would be a long way away, yet, with my present capabilities.

James Robertson thought some of the speeds in the Cosi chunk I did were a little slow, and unexciting, but at that stage I was happier concentrating on getting things rather more accurate than exciting. (This was the last rehearsal ˗ at the performance I let go a bit more, but apparently it was still a little slow.)

The piano playing, while not madly accurate, in whole sections of Jenufa (which is tremendously exciting music, by the way ˗ all Czech) though I got the basic chords right which is the essential thing, and think it was rather exciting, and certainly the audience tension was very obviously there. Funny how you can feel it ˗ an audience can feel it itself too, if it comes to that. In the Tchaikovsky, The Queen of Spades, again very exciting stuff, the cause and the results were much the same. Michael Hadjimishev, from the Sofia State Opera, was a fantastic man to work with. He had the characters so thoroughly understood by the time we were finished (at least the reps, and some of the singers understood, some of the others can’t be told anything) that we could [see] exactly why everything was so in the score. On interpretations he is fabulous. Not an innovator, I shouldn’t think, but well worth meeting to really understand what characterization is all about. (The man doing our present reps class, Mauritz Sillem, has done nothing but recitatives in our present session on The Marriage of Figaro ˗ both as spoken dialogue and ordinary recit, and we’ve also read the original play on which it is based. It has been fascinating ˗ singers don’t think enough about the dramatic side of things. The other Master Class, on TV Opera, was also fascinating. They did it on the night with dummy cameras and you could actually visualize the whole thing. They used the whole auditorium floor and with these great spaces and hints of scenery you could really get the feel of it. Love, Mike

More on wartime experiences

Since we're having a bit of a focus on wartime experiences at the moment, here are some comments from John Stokes on his father Des's time during World War II...

Dad was a fighter pilot trained in NZ and Canada and sent to the Solomon Islands where he completed two and a half tours before the surrender. Because the Nips [Japanese]

had very little airpower left by the time he got there, the Corsairs he flew were ground attack and so spent their time bottling up the Japanese troops in Rabaul and other garrisons throughout the Solomons chain. 

The NZ squadrons spent a lot of time supporting the Australian Army in Bougainville; I've spoken to Aussie and NZ vets and while they do concentrate on the funny things that happen, the reality is that it was a really savage set of actions - no quarter given or taken - with no real purpose other than to show the Americans that "Hey, look; we're still fighting, too!!"
The casualty lists published in the Australian papers were more than a little sobering, especially after VE Day when half the world went euphoric; men were still fighting and dying in squalid conditions very close to home....

Des at Wanaka, with an example of one of the planes he flew. 

Des is on the wing of the plane, second from left of those seated. 

ANZACs

Yes, it's a very long time since anything was posted on here, but as a result of my daughter Abby finding a website called Shadow Battalion, we discovered that according to their records not only was Frank Hannagan (my great-uncle) present during the First World War - he died in 1917 at Passchendaele - but two other relatives appear to have served there at some point: Albert Alexander Hannagan, and John Blaney Francis Hannagan.

Albert was my great grandfather's nephew - the son of Charles Hannagan Senior (I've listed him as 'senior' because my own grandfather was also Charles). John Hannagan was Albert's brother.

Digging deeper

After my last post I heard from John DeCourcy who gave me some updates on the information I'd supplied and added some further details - plus an interesting picture.

Firstly he added some clarity to the story of Francis Hannagan. We've mentioned this before, some time ago. He writes:

Are you aware of this particular skeleton in the family cupboard.? How Francis had a wife in Dunedin (Catherine Comer) then went off to the Victorian goldfields, claimed Mary Ann Cairns/Kearns as his wife there, had 4 children with her, came back to Dunedin, had Charles with Catherine, Catherine then dies a few months later (no cause of death on the death certificate), and he then officially marries Mary Ann Cairns in Dunedin? No wonder our very proper grandparents thought there was no point at all in pursuing Hannagan genealogy! I have much of the official documentation around this, which I un-earthed by a chance encounter with a Marnie Hannagan in Melbourne who is a descendant of Mary Ann.

Well, that certainly adds a bit of colour to the family tree!

He also pointed out that the copy of John and Bridget's family picture that I posted is actually a reverse version of the original:

The other day I wrote that there were two girls in the photo. There aren't. One of the girls is actually John Hannagan....it wasn't uncommon to dress boys in what we would now regard as a girlish fashion, especially on formal occasions like having a photo taken. John DeCourcy thinks he would have been 3-4 years old at this point.

And now to the 'interesting' picture.


John writes about this photo: The Hannagan photo I am really interested in is attached. The version I have looks like a copy of a copy of a copy, and is a generation earlier than the one you have. I would dearly love to know where the original of this set of photos is, and would be happy to pay to have a good-quality reproduction done. Brian Hannagan?? [He's wondering if Brian Hannagan, my mother's cousin, has a copy. I haven't checked yet.]

It shows Family of Francis Hannagan, b 1825, at top. Clockwise from him, deduced by age: John H b 1844; Brigid H, b 1842; wife Catherine Connor, b 1824; Francis jnr, b 1845; Margaret, b 1848; at centre Charles, b 1867.

If you click on the photo, you'll get a larger version, which may be easier to see. If anyone knows any more about this photo, send me an email.