Michael’s gone to London...

Writing runs in our family. When I went to England in the 60s, my mother (Pat) sent me this poem, one of several she wrote over the years. 

Fred was my first and much beloved cat, discovered at the back door one morning when I was still a child. Once she got her residential approval (took about two minutes) she made herself at home. She died before I returned to New Zealand in 1974. 

Stanley St was my home address in New Zealand.

Michael’s gone to London

And things are rather flat

At number 7 Stanley St,

With only Fred and Pat.

Fred was looking rather glum

On Friday, when Pat came home:

“What have you done with Mike?” she said.

“Mike’s on his way to Rome.”

“To Rome,” said Fred in great surprise,

“Is it just a port of call?

Or is he wishing with coins in a fountain,

Or perhaps tete-a-tete-ing with Paul.”*

“No, Michael’s going to London, Fred,

Not to see the Queen

But to do the things he’s longed to do

Since he was about sixteen.”

“Michael’s going to London!” said Fred,

“Well, what do you know about that.

He might have taken me with him,

Like Whittington took his cat.”

“You’d leave your home in Stanley St?

Oh, Fred, you wouldn’t, I bet.

You wouldn’t be game to go with Mike,

To London, and on a jet.”

“Oh, well, if you put it like that,” said Fred,

“Maybe I wouldn’t be game.

But I miss him so, and I’d like him to know

That I love him just the same.”

“Well, I can tell him, Fred,” said Pat,

“Next time I write a letter.”

“Oh, good,” said Fred, “that’s an idea.

Already I’m feeling much better.”

So here’s a note from Fred and Pat

To Mike, with all our love.

We wish his days to be filled with joy

And will ask the Lord above

To bless, protect and guard him

Every day of every year,

And to give him great contentment

While he is over there. 

*Probably Pope Paul. 

7.9.67 I arrive in Sydney

The first of a number of letters dating from when I went to Sydney, Australia, in 1967, to spy out the lay of the land regarding possibility of repetiteur work. Handwritten letters. Most of the letters have no date on them, but back in 1992 I appear to have got them sorted. I typed them up that year, printed them out, and then the original on-computer versions were lost. This year, 2018, I've typed them up again so that I have more than just a paper record. 

The comments in square brackets were added at the time the letters were first typed up, and a few more have been added in the 2018 update.

I’ve left some of the quirky spellings, most of which will have been intentional rather than accidental. 

The young fellow writing the letters - 22 years old at the time - was somewhat naive, a good Catholic, and sociable. And close to his mother, having not had a father in sight since he was three.

Manhattan Motel, Greenknowe Ave, Potts Pt, Sydney. Postmarked 7.9.67

Dear old

   Much-maligned

     Mum!

Please accept all apologies for general lousy treatment by yours truly of you over last couple of days. As you said once I got on the plane I was okay and thoroughly enjoyed the trip over. Chris Beckett and I had a couple of chats because we both had three seats each (the plane being only about half-full – it must hold up to 200!). [The identity of Chris Beckett is now not known at all – possibly he was someone I’d met at a Summer Music School.]

Tea (or Dinner) was the funniest thing you’ve ever seen. First a man (one of about four cabin stewards) appeared with a couple of very odd looking trays – he was holding them so high I couldn’t see what was on top, and I thought (the meal was four course, or supposed to be) that he was just bringing a few starting implements. However, the entire four courses were on this one tray! (About 18” by 24”). Soup was in one corner, sitting bubbling, then 2 little pottles (one with milk and the other with mint jelly for the lamb), then a tiny pair of pepper and salts, a packet containing two different biscuits and one of those quarters of Chesdale, a cup for the coffee (which arrived a little later), a packet containing knives, forks, etc, an oblong dish (divided down the middle) (about 6” long!) with a small piece of lamb in one side and two baby potatoes and a lot of peas in the other. There was also a small bread roll, and some butter. A real mini-meal. I’ve never got through a four course meal in less time!! [Things haven’t changed – they just don’t advertise it as a four-course meal anymore.] [Note in 2018: the very idea of a four-course meal is almost as unlikely as getting the sort of service that used to be provided on flying boats.]

Chris is going to Paris (via London and Vienna) to study piano!! Just like that – in the middle of a school year! (Upper sixth.)

The Manhattan is very enormous, compared to my usual sort of hotel (and is in the middle of dozens Kings Cross, naturally.] I am in a room with two beds, and a bathroom!! (Shower, bath, toilet.) And since no one else has arrived, I guess it’s all my own. [I have no idea why I thought I’d be sharing with some stranger, though it’s probable that had happened in NZ in a less expensive hotel.] It’s not luxurious, but it will do me fine. [Not quite sure what I expected for my money.] I have a fourth floor view of a lot of lights, and other buildings, and some ferry floating past. (And no fire escape either.) [Never satisfied. I probably hadn’t realised that the fire escape would be down the corridor, not directly off my room.]

More recent view from Greenknowe Ave window 

of other equally large hotels, just a couple of quite long streets away from the Cross. [

I wandered up and down for ages around the general area trying to get a paper, and finally gave up. Then I went into a bookshop that was open, and when I bought a book that I haven’t seen in NZ (and wanted) the lady gave me her paper when I told her me troubles.

Must mention customs. Of course, the moment the man started asking me questions I went all red and stammery and so he looked through my satchel (with such pornographic literature as David Copperfield) and through my bag (not the hanging one – he gave up before that) (and I’d recovered my self-control by then too!) and found all that carefully hidden contraband: Elastoplast, Enterovioform, underclothes, towel! [2018: Enterovioform is no longer generally available; apparently there were neurological side effects.]

Better go, this place looks quite interesting, after all!!!

XXXXXXX see ya, Mike.

A wee bit later,

Waall!!

(A) I’ve recovered me sense of humour (on the plane!) By the way, hardly saw the sea till practically at Sydney – flew over clouds from our West Coast.

(B)  I’ve fallen head over heels for Sydney!!

I went out before to post the rest of this letter, but couldn’t find anywhere with envelopes (although there’s all sorts of odd shops open) and couldn’t get the stamps I needed (PandPandP. Office on our corner.) [I think this means that there was a post office on the corner which I missed on the way out.] So I decided I’d have a look at the Cross before I went to bed. Well – (as it happens we came thru in the taxi before anyway) it seems to thrive mainly on strip-shows, with barkers outside telling you that the ‘show’s just started’ – and believe it or not a young frizzly blonde lady asked me as I was walking by, ‘Do you want a girl, love?’ (No, I didn’t believe it, either!) – she looked, and sounded quite nice, that was the funny part. I chuckled to myself all the way down the road! Bought meself some fruit (singly, not by the pound, I was informed!) because I’m starving.

See ya, Mike. [Oh, the arrogance of the naïve.]

These letters are indexed here

I come to a sudden halt...

I've just discovered that the next letter I have in the pile containing those I wrote from the UK to NZ in 1970 was written in December 1970. The ones following that are equally spasmodic. This doesn't mean I suddenly stopped writing; it just means that I probably have the letters written between March 1970 and December in another place. In fact, I've just hauled out a huge pile of letters from another part of the house: there may be a couple of hundred letters here. Not all of them were written by me to my mother; I've already found some from relatives and friends.

So my next task is to sort these into some sort of order. So far there have been several from the time when I toured around NZ with the NZ Opera Company. Plainly they'll have to be dealt with separately to the English ones.

I'll blog again when I've done the sort-out!

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.

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. 

4.7.69 Visiting Ashford in Kent

4.7.69

Dear Mum, sorry about this rather scrappy-looking piece of aerogramme but it’s been sitting at the bottom of my satchel and isn’t worth throwing away!

I was invited down to Ashford in Kent last weekend by David Gorringe, and went down after a rehearsal in the morning. By a fast train it only takes about an hour and so I arrived in the middle of the afternoon. The weather was fabulous all weekend ˗ they say in the paper that this has been the hottest June in 20 years (and it’s still staying very hot) ˗ and so David and I went for a couple of lengthy walks. David has a dog ˗ about a year or more old ˗ which was there on the Saturday, but which had to go to the local kennels on Sunday as Dave’s parents were leaving the next morning for the Jersey Islands. The dog, Susie, was very friendly once it accepted me, but when first Dave and she met me at the station, it just ignored me all the time, which was rather curious.

Godinton House, circa 1985

Anyway, on the first afternoon, we went to an area nearby that has been left to the people of the town and can’t be built on and it's called the Warren. It’s what we’d call a bush area, rather like Maori Rd’s bush, but without any traffic close by. On the next afternoon we went for a rather longer walk through the town (after looking in at the local church, which goes back several hundred years, and is rather fabulous in its own quiet way) and then went by rather devious ways (the way we should have gone was closed so we went round by the large Army Base, and across a cornfield) to a place called Godington Hall [think I mean Godinton House], which is one of those old Country Homes set in large grounds. This one still has some of the descendants living there ˗ it’s not so large that it needs to be turned over the National Trust ˗ and dates back to 1623, I think it was. It has a formal garden, which is absolutely fabulous, like something out of a film, and the house which we didn’t go into because we were both feeling rather tired by then, looks nice and cosy in spite of its size. We mainly wandered around the garden, which is full of statues, some of them slightly crumbling, and lily ponds and neatly cut trees, and walks, and ˗ well, I wanted to bring it all home with me but Dave wouldn’t let me. (I don’t know quite what is wrong with me today, but I don’t seem to be able to put down the right keys at all ˗ I have a touch of a sick headache; don’t know quite why, I think it’s a combination of overheated rooms (the English can’t believe that they don’t need heat in the summer) and late nights. I’m sorry to hear you’ve been catching bugs ˗ don’t do that anymore please ˗ there’s no one to look after you properly.)

[handwritten]

I sat in the bath this morning too long too, and though the ventilator is working there seems to be a curious smell about the air in there. Ten to one we’ll all be gassed in there one night ˗ in the flat I mean, not the bathroom.

London was in chaos yesterday ˗ I’m on the Blackheath station at the moment which reminded me ˗ half the tube lines were on strike and there was twice as much traffic on the streets and twice as many people trying to get to work by busses. I got to London Bridge by my normal train and decided to walk to Cheapside (I think) to get a bus to the Centre, but got myself lost for a hair-raising ten minutes. However, in this town, if you head in the right direction you eventually get to somewhere that looks familiar. Those three weeks of wandering around the place last September have stood me in good stead.

Next Thursday I’m to play at some sort of concert, accompanying a choir (of children, I think) and three singers. I only got the music yesterday and through there are some little problems I’ll probably survive.

Back to Ashford again. David’s parents were extremely nice and friendly, as you’d expect from Dave himself and I’ve been invited to go back anytime I want ˗ with or without Dave ˗ he’s now going off to Cardiff to join the Welsh Opera ˗ in August ˗ that’s where Jeff will be too.

On the Saturday night we went to a party given by people from Dave’s old Drama Group. Everyone there was single, which struck me as a little odd, when you consider they were of all age groups, up to the 50s. Except the host and hostess ˗ they were married, and one lady was divorced ˗ she’s the mother of a girlfriend of Dave’s and we went round and had coffee at her flat the next morning, and I got into an argument with her (in the most polite way) about whether the daughter in the flat below who’d become an R.C. [Roman Catholic] should go off to a convent and break her parents’ hearts. It seemed to me that they had each other anyway, and that she had more responsibility to herself than them. She’s going anyway.

Love, Mike.

5.2.69 - a bit of unnecessary gloom and doom

5.2.69

Dear Mum, I’m writing this in a time of some depression, so I’m afraid it may be all a bit miserable as far as reading goes. Perhaps you should throw it away now. The so-called results of the auditions have out ˗ with a letter to each of the three reps from the Centre who went in for it running thus: (after thanking us for playing) The Panel was interested to hear your performance, but felt that more time is needed to decide on the question of a pianist. Probably we shall ask you to re-audition within a month. [I think I'd always fallen comfortably into jobs in New Zealand, and assumed it would be the same in the UK.]

I ask you, what sort of a letter is that? John, whom I’m flatting with now, and who is in the know as to what goes on in the Centre ˗ he’s ‘assistant House Manager,’ whatever that is ˗ had already told me that this was what they were going to say to us, but I sort of wasn’t concerned. Tonight however when he bought the letter home with him, I ceased to be annoyed about the whole thing, and just became depressed. John let it drop that they seem to think that the standard at the C. isn’t as high as last year, and I feel that once again I’m not sure if I’m good enough. I keep telling myself that I am, and this keeps me going for a while, but then I know deep down that there is just so much I don’t know, and just so much that I don’t seem to be able to do with the ease that I should, that I wonder if I’m really cut out for it. But if I’m not cut out for this what am I to do? So once again, I lay the story in your lap, and know that you’ll write back and say, that of course I’m capable of doing it, but in this I’m afraid that your word isn’t sufficient! I’m glad to hear you say so, of course, but this doesn’t seem to help to make me the better musician that I should already be, and don’t seem to be getting. Oh, I know I’ve improved in some ways since I’ve been here, but the others have probably done the same, and are still just as far ahead.

You know, the Good Lord makes it a bit tough just landing us in this earth with scarcely any guide rules about how we are to cope with practical living: I mean like knowing that we have a certain talent but not knowing whether it’s sufficient to carry us through. Or to put it another way, to feel that the work we enjoy isn’t necessarily going to be the work we can do for a living. I know that He’s got his eye on us, and has obviously kept His eye on me since I’ve been here. In some ways I’ve never been so well looked after; but to have a talent that is halfway between being good or bad is very difficult. It’s the problem of coping with a mind that isn’t prepared to do ordinary office-work, or some such, because I just don’t have ambition in that respect, and yet this self-same mind has to cope with knowing that it’s possibly not good enough to do what it really wishes to do. I’ll keep on praying, and hope that He sees fit to let me know what he has in store and wants me to do. [This argument about the level of talent has continued long past my time in the UK ˗ what I didn’t realise at that time was that I wasn’t putting enough work into practice, into improving in the areas that I wasn’t so good at, and into learning how to do the things I couldn’t do. That would all have helped in some measure at least. And while I don’t believe the saying that the Good Lord helps those who help themselves, he still does expect us to put the work in to make our talent usable!]

Let’s get off the dreary subject of tomorrow, and have a look at something I know a bit about! I got me first letter at me new address today, forwarded from Plaistow, (tho’ left upstairs, at 23) so I feel as tho’ I’m beginning to belong here now. John and I get on very well ˗ whereas Kingsley barely said a word most of the time he was at no 13, John talks nonstop! It’s a refreshing change, and he is generally interesting. Julie is a nice wee soul, short and with long blonde hair, and fairly quiet ˗ as much as any girl ever is, I suppose! [Oh, so unbelievably patronising!]

Glad to see you enjoyed your little holiday, and are being looked after. This place is still a bit shambolic ˗ tho’ we had plates, saucers and cups, and basic cutlery, with a couple of pots, and a pan thrown in, we keep finding things that we need that we haven’t got. [Think this sentence must be an example of my Irish heritage.] And that were supplied at Plaistow. Never mind, we’re surviving, and I daresay we will continue to do so. (Just as an afterthought to my above unpleasant topic, wouldn’t it be nice if we could say to the Good Lord when we felt like it, Look, Lord, I think I’ve been down here long enough, how about finishing off this only occasionally pleasant life down here?  It’s probably just as well we can’t. [I bet my mother thought so too; such a jaundiced view of life from an inexperienced 23-year-old.]

Since I last wrote I’ve also met the other boy that was originally to come in here with the present other two. He’s a talker too, and funnily enough seemed to want to put me, particularly, off Julie. (Apparently his mother has been ill, mentally, of late which was the reason for his not coming in, but John also keeps talking about his having gone off to Paris ˗ he must have been there a very short time, that’s all I can say.) It’s all very confusing, and I only hope it’s not going to get awkward. Anyway, this other boy, also a John, came in the other night, and the way he carried on when Julie was here was just annoying to say the least. John Gray, seemed quite annoyed too and I think has second thoughts about any changes that might have been planned. I don’t know how it was all to work, but it seems this other John was to move in when Julie moved out, but just how Julie was to go I don’t know! Anyway, it seems to both John and me, that things are satisfactory enough as they are, and we present three are getting on quite well. Anyway strictly speaking this other John could do nothing about it, as John G. and I are the people who’ve signed the agreement for the place (for six months) and he hasn’t so...?

I think I’ll cope financially, in fact, I’m sure I will, and John has already given me some lifts back and forth from the Opera C. And funnily enough, it’s actually quicker to go from Charing Cross to Blackheath by British Railways, than it used to be to go from C. Cross to Plaistow by tube! And it costs the same. So though it seems as though I’m further out of London, I don’t know that I actually am. Greenwich Observatory is just near ˗ in walking distance, and so is the Thames, and the Cutty Sark and some other important boats are moored in dry dock on the way we go to work. Quite an old.

interesting area really. Blackheath Village is in a little valley ˗ we’re on one side of the hill; and the Catholic Church is 5 minutes away ˗ and

So ˗ that’s the present situation. Anyway, LOTS of LOVE Mike

P.S. Our Master Classes don’t end till Friday week ˗ very short rehearsal time. 

7.12.68 The big Christmas letter

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

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

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

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