5.2.70 - more about the decision-making

5.2.70

Dear Mum, what fabulous news about Monica [Hannagan]! But do you know when you said in your previous letter that she was amongst the finalists I knew she would get the prize, and I wasn’t in the least bit surprised when your next letter came! The closest I’ll ever get to second sight perhaps! Give her my congratulations and love will you, please; she really is a marvel. What a terrible photo of everybody, though ˗ Les Simpson looking as though his hair was flying away in great tufts, and the Festival Queen looking pleased, but more beautiful than pleased...! And Monica’s by no means middle-aged, anyway; she’s the one relation whose age I can positively remember: she’ll always be ten years older than me, to the month! [I'm not sure which of the several prizes Monica won over the years this was; she went in for competitions where you had to answer general knowledge questions.]

If you see Des Stokes, by the way, thank him for his letter, and tell him that the reason for the long delay on the last article is that I temporarily lost the note I had of what he wanted, and since I’ve now found two or three more shops where there is a likelihood of my finding what he wants I’ll give it another try.

I started piano lessons again on Monday last ˗ eeergh! it was like going back to school again. But Doris is very nice and even suggested that if I wasn’t tied up to staying in Stoke Newington there was a vacancy in the house next door to her. However in spite of the extra amount it costs for fares I don’t really wish to leave this flat: the six of us (or seven generally) get on so well (with occasional mix-ups) that I don’t fancy going to live on my own, albeit above a landlady. Doris even gave me a guinea off the fees as well, and also said she has a whole lot of good secondhand music that might be of use to me.

We discussed the sort of exams I should probably try for and I’m inclined to think that it’s little use merely going for another performer’s exam: I only learn pretty much what I already know. I think it would be better to go for a teacher’s exam even though it means a lot of studying over at least the next full year, because then, finally, I might have something to fall back on that I could do competently, rather than having to go for crumming (yes, crumming, it’s a newly invented word) office jobs where I’ll barely be existing on the sort of money they’ll give me. The thing is that most of the better singers at the Centre last year had at least been through something like the Royal College, while the reps had been through Varsity, and somewhere along the line if I’m to be even partly as competent as they are at their work (though it seems to me I did have certain advantages over one or two of last year’s, and this year’s lot as well) I must have a wider general knowledge of music behind me. I keep feeling myself to be the talented amateur in a professional world as I am at the moment. I always think that I ought to be a ‘qualified’, so to speak, professional, with a more secure foundation than that on which I’m based just now. And it’s no use going on merely on my own, I can see. Even though the time wasn’t wasted: I learnt quite some theory in the time, but I must have someone driving me, because I’m basically so lazy!! I’m never really prepared to work unless I have to ˗ I have a little bit of my brain that says things will always fall into my lap. [Up to this point they had, to an extent, especially in New Zealand.] I know this just isn’t so. One eventually becomes a vegetable under those conditions.

National Children's Home, in Harpenden.
The buildings were still the same when I worked there
many years after this photo was taken.

Reg was quite pleased when I told him ˗ I think I’d been worrying him a bit, though he’d never actually say so. I know I don’t have to explain myself to you to any extent, but I like to let you have as full a picture of what I’m (now) trying to achieve. And anyway learning is never a waste of time ˗ even if you turned round and never used it again (like some of the things you learn at school) the brain expansion achieved is of great use! This teacher’s exam will involve learning not only theory and practical points but also teaching ones, and who knows ˗ they will no doubt come in handy if I can ever working satisfactorily as a rep. It doesn’t bother me at the moment if do or don’t, but I think my idea of a short ago of giving up music entirely and devoting myself to Good Works (in some shape or form: I think I had something the National Children’s Home in mind) is not very practical. [Reg was involved with NCH, and after he retired, he worked for them in an accounting capacity. Plainly this idea didn’t go away completely: I eventually wound up working at NCH a couple of years later: still under the impression that somehow I wasn’t doing enough for other people.] I think existing extra-musically would quite possibly drive me mad! [That is, without doing music at all.] Anyway, I’ll let you know what progress we make.

About my other decision of last week - writing to the CIB: I finally sent my questionnaire off on Sunday night. I had been going to wait a while, but finally didn’t see any point. The biggest problem (apart from trying to describe yourself to any extent, which was terrifying because you feel all the time that you may be giving the wrong impression) was to supply a photograph of myself. So I finally went and took four of myself (for 3/-!) in one of the booths that develop them and everything on the spot within minutes. They were four rather terrible photos, so I sent the least bad, which isn’t at all what I think I look like, but obviously is since we’re led to believe the camera doesn’t lie! I’ve had an acknowledgement (receipt) this morning, and now wait (still), with a deep terror way down inside and tremendous good humour on the outside, for some results. The Good Lord has never seen so much of me before! I’ve been in and out of any church that comes by, more asking that he just keep a watchful eye on things rather than necessarily make everything turn out exactly right without problems! But, as the CIB suggests, it’s often the only way to meet R.C’s in a place like London. The people at the Parish Church are not especially friendly ˗ I don’t help either, but they seem to be rather middle-aged!!

About the Time magazines ˗ there really isn’t any point in keeping them, is there? Wouldn’t they be of more use somewhere, where they’ve being read?? Leave it up to you, Love Mike (heh, heh!) [I'd subscribed to Time magazine for some years, so there was a stack of them - mostly unread - in my bedroom wardrobe at home.]

P.S. I’ve only had one lot of books ˗ the other’s must have been held up somewhere. 

28.1.70 - Troubles at the Crowls', and looking at my future

28.1.70

Dear Mum, here’s the rest of what I was going to say in yesterday’s letter, which you will no doubt have received by this time, and equally no doubt can probably barely read. On Monday, I went back up to the Crowls’ to give Reg a hand throughout the day at the Mentally Handicapped Centre, to do stocktaking of the Christmas stuff they had left. We spent a fairly calm but hard-working day doing this, and he took me to lunch at a place across the road about 1.00. Did I say that Nina is finally moving today, in my last letter? I don’t think so, but anyway this is the end result it would seem of nine years of not-very-happiness in the Crowl household.

I got most of the following at the lunch we had, and honestly I really feel very sorry for Reg. He’s a marvellous person and fabulously generous, and to have had this sort of tension in his house for the last nine years is pretty hard. In fact, up until this latest episode which has resulted in Nina’s going, I had never thought he looked old, or behaved like an old man, and it’s only now that he’s started to look tired and weary and a bit fed up. [He was sixty-four at this time.]  He’s even said he’s feeling old which isn’t like him at all. 

As I’ve said to you before I’ve always found Nina charming, so that it seems incredible that she has been in that house for the last two months and Not Spoken to Reg once! The only time I’ve ever come up against anything other than charm was at Westgate that time, when if Reg and Margaret and I went out and were relaxed about the time a bit [as in getting back for the all-important tea], we were told off not by Mavis, but by Nina. And on one or two other occasions I’ve dared to argue about something with her the surface Nina has gone and a much less pleasant lady has appeared. Reg puts it down to her having been spoilt all her life because of her heart trouble ˗ it would seem there is probably no reason why she shouldn’t have ever worked, but she never has. And while she hasn’t ever lived off anyone in particular, she’s nearly always lived with one of her sisters since her mother died. She has a pension but obviously this isn’t enough.

And Reg is worried too about Margaret who must obviously be left on her own some day. He says that Mavis’s sister Phil would look after her for a start at least, but it seems both to him and me that she must get used to not necessarily living with her relations. Margaret in fact is apparently quite happy with the idea of staying somewhere else ˗ boarding with someone for example ˗ but it is the relations, and especially Mavis who won’t hear of it. This seems very short-sighted to me. I said for a start to Reg that at least she had plenty of relations, but he was just sourly amused: Mavis’s brother and wife, who would be the most able to look after her, have carefully never bothered to look after Nina for more than some months when their mother died, although, Reg says, he promised his mother that he would. So it seems as if there is no likelihood of their doing anything about Margaret, either. What a business, isn’t it? The Good Lord will no doubt keep an eye on her, but as with any problem, he likes us, I’m sure, not just to sit around waiting for him to make a move. [After I returned to New Zealand, Margaret got married, in fact, to Brian, who also had some degree of mental disability. He died later, and Margaret seems to have coped since then, keeping in touch with some relatives on Mavis’s  side.]

Which brings me to me again! I went to a play last night (Edward II, with Ian McKellan, the new up and coming boy, it would seem, and it was very good too, even though I must have missed about the first twenty minutes!) and on the way home as I was doing my usual ten minute walk from the tube ˗ I do most of my meditating there!! ˗ I fell again on the problem of where I am going and what I am ultimately to do with myself. And honestly I must have been getting so worked up about it lately, that I finally burst into tears (!) and snuffled my way along quite a considerable bit of the road. That cleared the air at least, and I’m sure I felt a conciliatory pat on my shoulder from my much neglected Guardian Angel (I wonder what his name is? Fred, do you think?)

And at Mass this morning (that’s one of the advantages of going to work at night, I can go to Mass on both Wednesday and Saturday) I said to the Good Lord again to give me a push in the right direction, because I don’t know if I can be bothered with much more of this rather futureless outlook, and the idea has arisen in my head that it might be worth carrying on and completely my ATCL [Associate of the Trinity College of London, in piano], and possibly LTCL [Licentiate], and looking into teaching, because the more I look at it the more it seems to be clear that I’m just not good enough to take up repetiteuring full-time. I could get there in each case, but I’m not quick-witted enough, I think, to know what I’m doing without having worked at it. Therein has always lain my problem, I believe.

So I’m writing to Trinity College to find out if my Practical bit of the ATCL is still valid and if it is, or even if it isn’t, I think at least having that aim in view might be more valuable than carrying on as at the moment, hoping one day I’ll know when I’m ready enough!

One of Mike’s friends, Mervyn, that I met again last night when we three and Kathy went for a drink on Mike’s Irish citizenry, said something about teaching ˗ he teaches foreign students more advanced English ˗ and that is probably where the notion has arisen. What sort of teacher would I make? That doesn’t matter yet ˗ but I’ll see how this Trinity College business works out. I begin to think that I must always have sort of aim in view otherwise I don’t bother. We’ll see what gives from here, anyway.  Love, Mike.

[A good deal of this was a real loss of confidence after being regarded as something of a failure at the Opera Centre by the staff. I was actually a good sight-reader, and capable of working hard musically. I suspect if I’d pushed myself I could have made a living in London, musically, doing a variety of jobs, and in time would have had enough contacts to keep the work coming in. C’est la vie.]

30.12.69 - Morose post-Christmas feelings

Dated 30.1.69 but more likely 30.12.69 - handwritten over two aerogrammes.

Hullo, hullo, you won’t get this letter for another year, but never mind, any news that’s in it won’t be quite that old. I hope you had a fabulously happy Christmas, surrounded by lots of cheery relations ˗ that makes you sound a bit matriarchal, but I don’t quite mean it that way! I hope the post-Christmas period didn’t quite get you the way it got me ˗ I enjoyed myself thoroughly up until about 10.00 on Christmas night, and then a great feeling of depression crept over me (especially when I found I had to make a great Tube detour in order to get home from Mike’s) and has stayed with me, on and off, since then. I’m beginning to feel that I must be getting to be a neurotic or summat; I keep swinging from fits of bustling energy and effervescence to fits of torpor and turpitude (that is if there are two such words!). There are a great variety of reasons ˗ each counterbalanced by pointing to the fact that I oughtn’t to be depressed!

David’s been away for a fortnight so my usual ‘sounding-board’ is out ˗ but Cathy has been more friendly of late ˗ but Ian has been miserable, and plays the same Joan Baez record till the early hours while he tries to finish not the best painting he’s ever done ˗ and I revised a song the other day and thought it was now much more acceptable and it only seems just as wrong in a different way (oh, the problems of artists!!!) and they’ve brought in a new rule at work that means we have to fight and argue with half the people that go in and yet I’m getting on fabulously well with my co-workers, the boss Trevor, and Mike, his assistant from Jersey (he’s only about 25) ˗ but they are both leaving in a month ˗ and Margaret, one of the other cashiers ˗ the most delightfully crazy person I’ve ever met ˗ we have each other in hysterics within minutes, much to the bemusement of the customers ˗ and one of the ‘perks’ of the place is the ability to get in free at any West End Cinema; and I’ve felt homesick for NZ lately and yet find Londoners the most fascinating bunch of individuals I’ve ever come across ˗ in spite of the fact that 60% of them are very thick, and seem to have no initiative (and are the biggest pack of ‘fiddlers’, though on the most petty scale) ˗ the immense variety inherent in 12,000,000 people has to be seen to be believed. [My apologies to Londoners: this is the typically opinionated viewpoint from someone who likes to generalise!]

Mike and I went to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve ˗ at the Brompton Oratory ˗ with a Mozart Mass performed (I couldn’t see the altar but we were right beside the singers and orchestra!) and the crowd of South West London trendy types and ‘fashionable’ Catholics (and nons) [non-Catholics, presumably] was out of this world. I then walked home afterwards ˗ London isn’t sufficiently go-ahead in its ideas to have transport after 12.30 [this from someone who’d grown up in a city where such late night transport still doesn’t exist] ˗ and because everyone else was picking off the taxis as I hailed them ˗ well, would you believe...? ˗ I walked about four miles and was within two minutes of home (by taxi) when I finally got one. And my feet were wet through! But Mike and I had spent the evening talking more than usual but about all we got out of it is the fact that we don’t either of us seem to be getting anywhere or

[second aerogramme]

have any particular viewpoint in view. Reg was saying to me that it’s great, he thinks, that people don’t have to settle into a job when they’re young as his generation did, but there is the other side of the coin, in that, because it’s so easy to get work, one tends not to bother to settle into anything, and to waffle around. Life always seems to be too short, at twenty-four!!

Again, I’d like to see a lot of things, in Europe, etc, but I’d also quite happily be married ˗ and unless I find a very accommodating wife, the combination of the two would be difficult. I always seem to be harping on this marriage thing, don’t I, but it seems to be very much on my mind of late. But of course, as you no doubt understand, it’s a hangover from the H. business ˗ one doesn’t value a thing until one loses it. I don’t suppose I need explain this much, to you ˗ that’s another fault of youth ˗ we can’t get it into our thick heads that other people have the same sort of feelings and experiences! So the end result of this long misery, is that I’m just a mixed-up kid!!

And there’s this usual fluctuation about the music angle. Whether it’s worthwhile carrying on with it or whether I’d be better to go off as a hobo for the next few years, and settle down to a nice quiet (ugh! I’m sorry) office job! I’m afraid I’ve got the troublesome spirit in me that seems to have caused Dad all his bother ˗ an unhealthy mixture of adventure and security ingrained in my bones. Not only unhealthy, but fairly irreconcilable. You’ve got it, too, haven’t you ˗ though the security side of it seems to have got the upper hand ˗ the only present sign of the other is your inclination to manage to live on a much smaller bank account than you ought to have at your age ˗ and to give away any little excess you may have to your next-to-useless son.

I sometimes think it’s better to have no brains at all (I mean me, not you!!) ˗ then you have considerably less worries because all your interest in life is pared down to basic essentials. Want a set of brains? ˗ they don’t seem to be much good to me ˗ what’s the use of a feverish quest for knowledge? You only find a whole new vista of unanswered questions before you and the effort of taking stands upon certain points of view is incredibly wearying. No wonder ‘Humanists’ think Catholics are wrong ˗ to them the Catholic way of living seems to go counter to every type of desire there is, and there’s nothing like a Humanist for giving into the present desire. What the consequence is, is no doubt unimportant...

I had a lovely Christmas day ˗ apart from the fact that Mike gave me Verse and Worse for a present!! (he gave me a book I already had for my birthday too!) ˗ but half a dozen of us went to Mike’s flat, and it was warm and convivial and jovial and quite Dickensian and delightful. And yet of the present too. One of the girls had her two year old son there ˗ the most affectionate child I’ve ever struck (no, I didn’t!) [strike the child, I presume I mean: weak attempt at humour]. The three bachelors there, (self included) all became quite fatherly. The boy’s father is no longer within ken ˗ as far as I could make out ˗ not dead, but no longer with us! It wasn’t necessarily better than last year’s Christmas, just much more relaxed: five New Zealanders, and an Aussie ˗ what could you expect??  Love, Mike. 

23.12.69 - clothes, Christmas shopping and Ben-Hur in 70mm

23.12.69

Dear Mum, just a note to let you know all your recent parcels and letters have arrived safely, and to let you know as well that I now realise why I am a less than thrifty person. I’ve obviously inherited it from you. Fancy sending so much money! Next time I hear from you the address will no doubt be The Poorhouse. I was sort of thinking in terms of maybe two or three quid with which, as I said, I could buy a book. With this lot I’ll be able to start a library! No, actually, as you say, I’ll get me some clothes. I was thinking of a suit, but I really think some sort of sports clothes would be better. A coat and pants anyway. I seem to have a fair few shirts, and other odds and ends. My present pair of pants are wearing very well, though naturally the pockets aren’t too happy.

Did I ever tell you I’d altered the crease on them? They used to drive me mad, because when the tailors had altered them originally the leg crease went towards the centre making me look as though I was bandy-legged! You can barely see the original crease now, and my own creasing is ‘permanent’ apparently.

The other blue trousers I brought with me just don’t fit anymore ˗ I lost so much pudding round the middle that they won’t stay up. Anyway, they are going very thin at the knees. Do you remember the pair I bought just before I came away? They were very trendy (!) and had flared leg-bottoms (?) They seem too long actually, so one of these days I’ll take them up an inch or two and they’ll look quite normal. I’ve also got thin enough for them to look ‘decent’ as well, though all your young men here wear hip-fitting trousers. (They’re a bit of a curse, really; you can’t get your hands into the pockets, let alone carry anything in them. It looks as though you’re malformed!)

My sports coat is lasting well, of course, but the right sleeve cuff has worn away entirely and is a bit of an embarrassment. I don’t quite know what to do to repair it. Any suggestions?

The fudge, by the way, arrived some time ago, did I say?, and has gone the way of all your superb fudge ˗ and not even all into my mouth either.

As usual I left all my Christmas shopping till the last ˗ and on Saturday went along Oxford St to see what I could see. (Nothing but the best for Crowl’s recipients.) But in spite of the most wide selection of stuff imaginable it was very difficult to decide what to get, and I finished up with nothing. However, yesterday (Monday) I set out again with firmer intentions and more idea ˗ I’d had no clue as to what I would get anyone on Saturday ˗ and wound up with a pair of cups for Reg and Mavis (glass cups with copper holders; I’d wanted something copper for them ˗ and they already have everything!), a modern type of brooch for Margaret, and an Indian scarf for Nina. I was originally going to get Margaret the scarf, and to get some serviette rings for R and M (they use them all the time) but my plans got changed as I went along. I got Mike a record, as I’m going to his place for dinner, and Kathy (Tither) I’m going to give a copy of Zorba the Greek that Marilyn sent me ˗ after I’d bought my own. Or does that seem mean? But I don’t see the point of it hanging around doing nothing.

The amount of jewellery that is around is incredible. Lots of it is very cheap (well, above a pound, but under three) and very individual and very attractive. The trendy people these days are wearing about three rings on each hand (!) and so the variety is enormous. And they do such interesting things to make jewellery. I saw one shop where they had butterfly wings (an incredibly vivid blue) encased in gold surrounds, and another shop where sea plants had been enamelled and coppered, etc. And the variety of colour of jewels, whatever they are, is dazzling. Of course if you’re well off, in London, and like lots of ‘trinkets’, you can have a fabulous time. I have a fabulous time, just shop-window-gazing.

In Burlington Arcade, for example, or in White’s (?) Galleries (an old cinema, I think, now filled with tiny one room shops) [I can't identify this place.]. The pendant I sent you (and which I hope arrived), is a goldstone ˗ from Indonesia, I think the girl said. It’s about as small as pendants come just now ˗ I’m presuming your taste hasn’t altered that much ˗ because the average one is three or four times as large, clustered around with trimmings, and even with little bells in some cases.

I actually quite enjoy Christmas shopping ˗ it isn’t only the wares that are varied; the people are an incredibly fascinating mixture, and just as interesting. And I like wrapping up things too ˗ though last year was a bit of a mess, and not the most pleasant Christmas I’ve ever spent.

Margaret’s brooch is the shape of a flat orange-quarter, with an enamel content, but with an abstract painting on it, somehow varnished in. Sounds a bit weird, but it’s rather attractive. I thought of lots of things I could get the Crowls, but they wouldn’t go with their house. I found an old typewriter ribbon case for the brooch and padded it out with tissue paper left over my cold! I must have picked up some of the Hannagan ingenuity after all.

Since I started this letter I’ve made 30/-; Pete Lyon rang me up the other day to get me to do some coaching, today. And I went to a trade showing of Ben-Hur (back, in 70mm) on Sunday (!) morning with Trevor Neilsen from work [he was the Australian manager I’d mentioned previously]; I found a lot of it quite moving, though I hadn’t remembered enjoying it much the first time. It’s still very much a Hollywood piece and a lot of it is a bit rubbishy. The 70mm process is often disconcerting: hills sloping off at the side of the film turn out not to be hills, and the sea bends! Ships coming at each other in one scene from the sides of the shot are coming uphill at each other!!

Love Mike, and Happy New Year!

15.12.69 - Shopping, family, operas, Catholicism

15.12.69 [Typed with a new ribbon on two aerogrammes]

Dear Mum, it shouldn’t be hard to guess what I’ve finally bought myself. And what a job it was to get one! It was hard enough finding a typewriter shop (and of course there turned out to be a much closer one) but then it was one of those places where they expect you to find everything yourself, and in the end I had to give up and get the assistant. This is one of the more annoying things over here about the shops ˗ it’s okay if you’re just browsing, but if you’re in a hurry, and want something, they still ignore you. Foyles, that great and renowned bookshop, is the worst I’ve struck. There it takes you ages to work out who the assistants are, and then they turn out to be all foreigners with only limited English, and once you’ve got what you want, you have to re-find the assistant, who then wraps the book, but doesn’t take your money; for this you have to find a cashier! And then once you’ve paid your money, you have to find the wretched assistant for the third time and hope he hasn’t given your purchase to someone else!

I’ve been doing some other purchasing too. I was so displeased with the Christmas present I sent you after I’d sent it that when by accident I saw another elephant in the Shepherd Market, in Mayfair, (though what an elephant was doing in Shepherd Market I don’t know) I thought that since it was a much smaller elephant I would send it by airmail, and perhaps it would reach you before Christmas. (Margaret’s birthday, by the way, is the 23rd of December.) [Margaret Crowl, my only English cousin.] I haven’t actually posted it yet, but it’s all wrapped up anyway. When I’ve sent it I’ll let you know a little more about it and its origin.

Re the Crowls ˗ I’ve finally been up again (it was two months since the last time, though I don’t know how the time could have gone like that) and things are sorting themselves out for them. Nina is to move into a room above those occupied by a man who looks after the ‘almshouses’ and will share a bathroom and kitchen with another lady. This room is bigger than what she presently occupies in Woodland Way, so it should suit her reasonably well. She is apparently now happy about the whole idea and glad it would seem to be going out on her own. I didn’t see her all weekend, as for the most part she was in bed with the flu that is knocking down Britishers like flies (but not NZs) and which had a touch of pleurisy with it. And anyway she still, I think, isn’t speaking to Reg!

She and Margaret had been to a concert in Westminster on the night I arrived, and it turned out the soloist had been Peter Baillie, who was Albert Herring in the production I worked on at home! Funny how people pop up again like that, isn’t it? The Crowls were as usual pleased to see me, and spoilt me left right and centre. And to cap it all they gave me my Christmas present when I left because I may now be going to have Christmas dinner with Mike and Kate (the Crowls said I was under no obligation to go up there, which at least lets me know they’d like to have me but won’t force me, so to speak). I went all the way home quite sure in my mind it was a rather large box of chocolates, but it turned out to be a large, beautifully illustrated book called The Wonderful World of Nature. It’s a Reader’s Digest publication, and looks to be rather fascinating. Heaven knows when I’ll get time to read it.

Here’s why: I realised recently that my letters to Francisco were all the same, rather dull, and surmised that I was trying to write to someone whose background I know nothing about. So I made a decision to alter this state of affairs, and set off to my local library to see what I could see. They had next to nothing! I went to the other local library. Ditto. I went to the library in the West End. Ditto. The next day I went back to the first library and discovered that in spite of appearances they were actually the London library that specialised in collecting books on Asia! But they have them hidden away, and you have to ask. There are about fifty on Korea, so I have some reading ahead! Actually, many of them are accounts of the war, and many of these no doubt will cover pretty much the same sort of material. However, I started off with one that gave a general background ˗ the sort of book we used to use at school for Social Affairs (was it?) ˗ and then went on to one written by a social worker, and have now just started one which gives a good number of legends, fairy tales, fables, etc. It seems that the London libraries each specialise in some subject: and I had to go down to Kensington to get a book on the language of Korea.

About the middle book of those mentioned above. It’s called The Never-ending Flower (most books on Korea are called The Land of the Morning Calm) and is by a woman called Susie Younger. She is a Catholic convert, and has been in Korea for nine years as a social worker, living as a Korean in fact. She is absolutely charming, and is as remarkable a woman in her own way as all the other people she calls remarkable in her book. I have got more information from her on the differences and similarities that exist than from the straightforward text books, naturally, and I will go more

[second aerogramme]

quickly through the book again before I take it back, in order to refamiliarize myself with the details of life and living in Korea and amongst the families.

At the end of the book she has a little chapter dealing with herself, as an answer to those who wonder why she remains (a) single, and (b) in Korea. It also gives a little of her history as far as becoming a convert is concerned. While the actual groping towards the light of final conversion is, or was, a fairly lengthy process, the actual awakening of the truths in her was quite a sudden, casual thing. Something that could not have been foreseen, and therefore all the more obviously the work of his Lordship above. I’m mentioning all this, just to bring up again the subject of my own conversion, so to speak. Not that I haven’t been a sort of Catholic for years, as you know, but it’s only since the H business, where I was forced to state my case either for yea or nay, and even more from a follow-up when they held Forty Hours at the parish church, and when I managed to spend, for the first time with ease, an hour each day just meditating (for want of a better word) and also starting to understand, via that marvellously human priest-writer, Father Quoist, just what it is to be a Christian, but more particularly, a Catholic, that I’ve felt I know where I’m going ultimately. I can’t say I much like the look of the road, and it seems a hell of a ˗ or perhaps a heaven ˗ of a long way to go (!), and 99% of me objects to the trip entirely, but at least the other one percent has said that the idea is rather more worthwhile than I would have said a short while ago. This is all a bit vague, and I could do with Susie Younger’s gift of putting it down with proper humour, and better clarity. I’m a bit like one of those faith-healed people who shout “I’ve got religion!’ I know I have more than for any other reason because the ‘it’ helped me through that dreadfully dark patch that came in the wake of the recent chaos, and which is still helping me to push on when part of my mind says, ‘forget all this faith gunge and go back to your girl ˗ why put more trust in something you can’t hold in your hand?’  

In spite of what I’ve said about the help I know I’m receiving, I feel more alone than ever sometimes. Can you understand this sort of rather paradoxical situation? And yet having said that, perhaps I only now realise how really truly alone I was before, and how much more happy and inner-cleansed (!) I feel now when something turns up where I can try and help. Since I opened up my thoughts to David about H that time, we’ve been much closer, and often have long chats and discussions about things and ideas I’ve never talked about with anyone before. We are all the same, yet how remarkably different we all are! We all go through the same process, yet what infinite graduations [gradations, maybe] mould us into the strange, crazy beings we are. And yet in spite of the continual presence of the Good Lord, (and also my guardian angel ˗ I’d carefully forgotten about him for some time) I find it very easy to sink deep into despair when I don’t seem to overcome faults (when I don’t even seem to want to!) and desperately want to cry out for the helping hand that I need to hold to get me through. Still I think perhaps it’s better to be that much more alive than to be vegetating, soul-wise, as I was before.

You didn’t know you’d raised a lunatic; though you must have guessed it by now from all the ravings above. Not to worry, I’ve discovered in the last few weeks just how unbelievably understanding mothers are too!

I’m now about to change the subject entirely, so you can start to relax again. This last week has been rather hectic as it’s been the end of the term for the Opera Centre, and I managed to get to see both their shows as well as going to The Rake’s Progress at the Wells on Thursday night. This is an opera by Stravinsky ˗ set to an English text, and has some very funny moments, and some very tender ones and some very tense ones, and finally some very movingly sad ones. In short all the sorts of things that the best story-tellers have been using since time immemorial. And the music is some of the most melodic and rhythmic that Stravinsky has written. The Wells do it very well too ˗ it happens by chance to be very much associated with them rather than with an American company as one might expect since it was written over there. (But first performed in Italy, incredibly!)

The first of the Centre’s pieces is a rather bitsy affair called The Carmelites [Dialogues of the Carmelites] with, to quote David, some rather curious theology, and which finishes with the guillotining of about a dozen nuns, just off-stage. Not a very good piece really, though with many fine moments, and here with a well performed production. The other was a double bill of The Telephone (again!) [again, because I’d worked on this with the Dunedin Opera Company, and it had been done by the Centre as well], quite well done, and Malcolm Williamson’s four or five-year-old piece English Eccentrics, as a sort of vaudeville of 18th century eccentrics, gathered together to comment on each other and to perform their sad and mad little histories. This is by far the best thing I’ve seen the Centre do, though perhaps not having been in on it has biased me somewhat. But it was certainly a very fine production excellently performed. Love Mike. 

30.11.69 - Berlioz, haircuts, flatmates, family

30.11.69 [First paragraph typed with a faint red ribbon, then the rest handwritten]

Dear Mum, you poor old thing! I didn’t know that you were to have a further operation! Of course I don’t mind have a hospital-trotting mother, but good grief, have you actually got anything left that you can have taken away? It’s about time, to my mind, that they started giving you something back. (Sorry about the red tape, but it’s my theme song again: the black part of this tape has now completely disintegrated: there’s a great rip extending itself throughout the entire tape as I type this.) Oh dear, things have got completely chaotic here and the tape is spreading in every direction!!

Well, well, back to a more productive method. I’m just about to go out I think to see an exhibition on Hector Berlioz at the Victoria and Albert Museum. I’ve also got (from the library) a book of his memoirs that have just come out in this, his centenary year. This is the first time they’ve been available in a complete version. 

Before Mass at 12 (I don’t go to 10.30 because it’s in Latin and sung) I cut my hair again ˗ did I tell you before? (that I’d cut it) ˗ it’s more practical at this time of the year because the barbers are convinced that you need it all off, no matter how cold it is. I’ve just trimmed it ˗ somewhat roughly at the back I must admit ˗ and left the most part of it on. Why freeze?? Incidentally, it snowed yesterday (!!) I thought, ‘ugh’ at first, but now, today, that the sun is shining I feel quite happy about it ˗ I must admit it’s quite attractive, and not so cold as it’s been over the last week.

Angela’s sister has just arrived ˗ she’s homeless at present (been staying with relatives since she gave up her flat); we’ve got quite a bit of her stuff here already, such as a spare (though ancient) Hoover, a spare bed, a spin dryer, etc. She looks rather pleasant, certainly if she’s like Angela she’ll be very nice to have around.

The Crowls are having Nina problems ˗ she’s not speaking to them (she’s been at Westgate (remember the Easter seaside bit?) for a week, but is back here for the weekend. I suggested keeping out of the way until things clear up; she will have to move permanently shortly anyway, but why she should feel so hurt I don’t know. I suppose it does mean a loss of some of the comforts of the Woodland Way place, but she could never have expected to live there forever anyway. [An odd comment: she’d lived there for years already. Sounds like something Reg might have said.] Reg says it’s the quietest week they’ve spent for a while. There’s no use my being up there to complicate things at this weekend ˗ though Reg says I’m quite a cheerful person to have round, which is nice of him!

We have a new guy coming to live at the flat ˗ a sixth! He’ll take over the present music room, and we’ll shift the piano into the bedroom. [The music room was fairly small;the piano was shifted in beside my bed, in the large room I shared with David. It was probably originally intended to be a dining room or lounge.] It’s not definite yet, however, though probable.

My boss at work gets more interesting every day˗ I knew he was mad on science-fiction, but he actually writes short stories as well ˗ and gets them published as well. He was giving me the outline of one he was writing, at work, yesterday. Very intriguing. 

8.11.69 - fight on a bus, and books from home

8.11.69

Dear Mum, I’m writing this very late at night, or perhaps it’s actually very early in the morning ˗ but the trouble is of late that when I arrive home, somebody always suggests that we have coffee, and either this or else the lack of conversation at work during the evening tends to cause me to lie in bed for ages awake. So I thought I might as well stay up awake and do this instead. Thank you for the photo ˗ I have the funny feeling that I’ve already thanked you, but as I have that about everything these days I’m always under the impression that I’ve actually written letters I never have. You look a little plump (and so does Barbara [my younger cousin]) I must say; I’m certainly glad to see you looking so well and fit. Another request: can you send me one where you’re smiling? You look a little as though John had said something rude to you, or something! [John was Barbara’s younger brother.] No, seriously, though thanks for the photo, very much ˗ it mainly reassures me that I hadn’t forgotten what you look like after all!

I said to Reg that you’d sent it, and he was most interested because he hadn’t seen a photo of you since you were married. Good grief! They’re moving house soon ˗ don’t know if they’ve actually got a place, but the point is that Mavis has been told that the present place is too much for her (it’s a two-storey semi-detached, and the stairs even kill me ˗ I like to think I can run up any set of stairs anywhere; not this lot!) and so they are going to get a smaller bungalow. Which means Nina will have to go somewhere else, though Reg was a bit vague on where exactly. The funny part about that is that Nina does do a fair bit of the housework, so she may turn out to be a bit of a loss; and anyway they always have the place so spick and span it's positively unlived in; no wonder they kill themselves with work! (By contrast the flat is pretty messy frequently, though never despairingly so, and Angela is a great one for house cleaning at weekends, but we survive without going to great lengths to ensure that everything is always in a certain place. (That’s an old philosophy of mine anyway, isn’t it?) [I may not have adhered to it as strongly as Reg, who certainly had the motto: a place for everything and everything in its place.]

...The Fight on the Bus, by M F Crowl

I went upstairs on a rather full bus one night, followed by a slightly stewed group of East End boys, with two or three of their girls, and because there wasn’t enough room for them all to sit down up there (and no one is allowed to stand upstairs) they started clowning around and sitting on each others’ laps, etc. One even went bowling headlong down the bus and fell up against the front. Somehow or other they got arguing with some slightly older boys on the front right. And before we knew what was happening, the most drunk of these boys (the E. Enders) was punching someone violently on the head and his mate wasn’t trying to create much peace either. The other slightly less drunk ones, and particularly one girl, got worried at this and they tried to get the worst offender off the bus, and this just created chaos. Fortunately the bus stopped, and as well as several other people getting off hurriedly, so did all this lot of louts ˗ but apparently one of them was caught, I presume by some handy copper. End of Incident, though the bus sat there for ages after that while things were sorted out. the main victim had a bleeding lip, and blood all over his sportscoat. Ugh! Everyone’s adrenalin must have gone spinning around during those few moments ˗ my blood was certainly going a trifle berserk.

Can you do a small thing for me? I’ve been feeling it’s a waste of time having several rather useful books sitting around at home doing nothing, and I’m wondering if it would be too expensive to send them over? If it would be then we’ll forget the whole idea, and be done with it, but it was mainly a few reference books I mean. For example, Piston’s book on Orchestration, the three paperbacks comprising Dante’s Divine Comedy (Dorothy Sayers edited [translated, in fact]: are Hell or Inferno, Purgatory and Heaven); suddenly all the others I thought of have gone. Tell you what though, if next time you write an enveloped letter, can you on the back of the newsheets write a list of those music books, poetry books (just the paperbacks here will do) and books on films that are say later than 1950? If it doesn’t take up too much of your time, that is; and I’ll tell you which would be worth sending (cost considering, of course). Novels aren’t much use bothering with I think ˗ I can always get a cheap copy here if necessary. Hope this won’t be too much trouble ˗ I can’t new remember whether I had them classified purely under authors or if the reference stuff was separate. Anyway, good luck to you! I’d rather like the Beethoven Sonata and Bach P. and Fugues books too, I think. [Even for me, this seems an extraordinary request. The books would have weighed a ton.]

26 Nov '69 - meals and a burglary

26 Nov 69 

Dear Mum, I’m sitting here writing this while waiting for my dinner to cook ˗ mid-day dinner that is, though it’s now about four thirty. I usually have it somewhat earlier than this, at least an hour (!) but don’t have to get along to work today, so I can afford to be a little later. It’s my permanent concoction: I started off very brightly at this flat once I’d got a job, endeavouring to have something new and interesting each day, and above all to eat meat all the time; I think that’s where the trouble may have lain last year, cold wise. Anyway, my ambitious scheme has, as usual, melted down into a day after day recipe that I use, to nobody else’s concern by mine own, which has a basis of braising steak, and turns itself gradually into a sort of stew as the cooking process goes on. The steak, while not the cheapest of meats, is more use, than say chops, which tend to look as though all the meat has been cooked off them by the time they’re ready to eat, and anyway as I only buy a half pound at a time, and this lasts me for two days, or more, depending on whether I actually have time to cook it ˗ some days I have to eat in town ˗ it works out quite economically. I have the occasional chop (pork seems to me the most use as the lamb chops are very meagre here unless you’re willing to buy the whole lamb), and occasionally some mince, but I should be able to eat this favourite recipe for a while yet!

I fry the steak first, only for a few seconds each side though, otherwise I wind up with singularly well-done steak, and then using the same pan, pour some vegetable soup mix, with its water over it, and then gradually (depending on how long it takes to prepare them) add chopped up carrots, potatoes (sliced up), onion, tomatoes, sometimes mushrooms, a bit of curry some days, and anything else that will mix in reasonably well. I cook some greens as well ˗ again much the same ones each day: brussel sprouts ˗ they seem to cook easiest and best ˗ and this makes a lovely big dish; in fact it’s often too much and the leftovers sit in the fridge until I feel like reheating them. (Or else as has happened twice, someone has come in looking hungry and finished it.) So I am surviving quite well thanks.

We’ been waiting for snow for the last week and last night there was a bit of a flurry but it came to nowt. But in the meantime London is slowly freezing to death under his great overhanging cold.

...do you remember I’d said that we’d had an intruder? Well, on Sunday night while there were three of us in the house going to bed ˗ would be believe? ˗ some twerp opened our front bathroom window, and presumably because he couldn’t get it further than six inches open, pinched all, or most, of the stuff off the windowsill. This being a very wide sill, and because we haven’t got a cabinet, all the boys’ toilet gear is stored there as well as some of the girls’ stuff. David had been away for the weekend and so his stuff wasn’t there this time, but the blasted burglar pinched my toilet bag whole with all my shaving gear and a variety of other things in it, as well as other odds and ends that were lying about. No great loss of course, except to my convenience, and my sentiment: I think the razor was the only one I’ve ever had and the little blue nail brush and that plastic black comb both went too. Rather upsetting really, but what can you do?

We rang up the estate agents and they’ve given us the go ahead to fix proper locks on all the windows, but it’s a bit late of course. I went down to Woolworths and restocked and this was quite expensive to do all in one go. I haven’t bought another bag of course ˗ little point unless I’m going away somewhere special. The trouble as well was that it came in the same pay as the one I’d sent three quid out of for Francisco ˗ I haven’t had a thing but it must be due ˗ oh, yes, I said to her to send the receipt to you in your name ˗ it’s more use to you than me. And also I’d just sent a parcel off to Korea for him ˗ at long last ˗ and this had set me back a touch more than I expected.

What am I going to get you for Christmas? The time is getting shorter and I haven’t even started to think about it yet. The Crowls by the way are definitely going to move, did I say? Mavis is on the verge of a state of nervous collapse apparently, and the doctor said they’ve got to separate her and Nina, for the former’s health’s sake. So things are a bit gloomy up there just now: I haven’t spoken to Reg since the weekend, but he sounded older than usual by some years, and not happy at all.

I went and filled in for a rehearsal for Dave on Sunday ˗ a children’s choir doing modern music; good grief they’re fantastic; I felt very inadequate, but fortunately wasn’t called upon to do anything especially awkward. The kids (ranging from under ten to late teens) have marvellous senses of pitch; they were singing stuff that was a semitone apart with ease. Better go; my meal is about to bubble all over the .....

Love Mike. 

16.8.69 - travel and some foot damage

16.8.69 [handwritten]

Dear Mum, I’m presuming that you’ve written again since your last letter and I hope it contains good news about the ops. The thing is I’m not yet back in London ˗ will be next Monday ˗ and as I said to the others at the flat not to forward any mail after Wednesday, I’ve now made things a bit awkward because I can’t keep up with the news. I was invited to stay over yet a third weekend, rather than go back to London, and so I accepted. But I definitely must get back on Monday in order to see Kevin before he goes. I’ve decided I won’t go to Belgium with him ˗ basically because I’ve not yet heard from the Home Office; they still have my passport in fact, and as I have no way of knowing whether it will now be returned in time I don’t think it’s worth the fuss. [This, I think, was to get a certificate of patriality - now called a Certificate of Entitlement - so I could stay on in the UK, my father being English.] I wrote off and cancelled the tickets, so I hope everything sorts itself out there. Reg said he’d let me know if anything arrived from either the Home Office or the Bank of NZ (where the travel arrangements were being made) by phone, and last night he called to say that he’d received a letter from the Bank addressed to Mr Flaherty! Honestly the amount of time wasted over carelessness like this here is phenomenal. As I’d already written off to cancel the tickets I hope that all that will work out okay.

Harbour Arm, Hastings
courtesy gofishing,uk

The weather here is only today returning to its former glorious self ˗ we’ve had two days of very miserable, though mild weather ˗ and I’m sitting on the pebbles here watching the other two dry off. I didn’t go in because on Wednesday evening we met up with Paul again, and prior to going for a drink with him went out on the old rock Harbour Arm. Coming back off it I jumped down off one rock onto another, and either through being over-cautious, or else thinking that the distance was greater than it was I gave my whole left side a terrific jolt, right through my body. Fortunately the only apparent damage done was to my left foot, and though it seemed okay it got progressively stiffer and sore as the evening went on, so that finally I was in difficulty walking. It was a little less bad the next morning but I went to the doctor just the same. He only prodded around my toes and instep, taking the usual practitioner’s delight in finding the tender spots, and declared that possibly it was a little dislocated, but unlikely to be anything serious. Anyway, he was nice enough I suppose, but probably thought I was making a fuss about nothing. I was glad to have gone because at least it calmed any thoughts of its being something really nasty. It's today walkable on, but this causes it to ache rather much (up till now I’ve been limping around ˗ doubt that does it much good) but I guess it’s improving all right.

The sea looks strange here: it’s artificial somehow. Because the sky merges into it ˗ they’re both very grey at the horizon ˗ the end of [it] doesn’t seem far away and it looks as though the people are swimming in a gorgeously designed (and rather enormous) bath. And the waves are provided by some mechanical means. They’re far too gentle to belong to Mother Nature! Get well, love, Mike.

(P.S. I got Mrs S some flowers today ˗ they’ll arrive on Monday, I trust.)

31.7.69 - New flat, end of year party, and movies

31.7.69 [First letter from 18 Bethune Rd, Stoke Newington.]

Dear Mum, sorry to have been such a long time in writing again, but things this week have been hectic. Even though the Opera Centre is officially finished, my ties to the place have not yet been severed and I’ve been in there every day this week ˗ but instead of my spending money because of my presence there I’ve actually been making a little, a pound a day in fact, for coaching Peter Lyon who goes to the Scottish Opera For All shortly to work.

Last Friday I not very cheerfully set out to start transporting all my stuff up to Bethune Rd [Stoke Newington] and the one trip convinced me that turning myself into a pack-horse wasn’t the answer. (I did tell you we’ve got the place ˗ or did I? Perhaps not!) So after having frizzled up in the heatwave (or drought as they’ve called it!) on the way up here ˗ via two trains and a tube ˗ I decided this was not good enough and rang up Reg and explained my trouble and without any more ado got all the rest of the stuff moved on Sunday morning. And then I stayed overnight at their place until Tuesday night (from Sunday) because the flat has not really been completely habitable until now.

Saturday night was the last performance night and after the show most of the students, and other odd bods, went all the way down to Forest Hill, in the SE of London (though not far from Blackheath) for a party at the Jennings house. (David and his wife, Teresa Brooke, have both been students. Her mother is Patricia Hayes, the actress.) It was far and away the best party I’ve been to for a long time, and was only wound up sometime after I left ˗ at 4.00 in the morning. Alistair and his fiancee, Imogen, and David Syrus and his brother Peter came back to Blackheath for coffee, and watched the sunrise. As I had to get up for 10.30 to meet Reg, and wasn’t quite with my packing, and would have to go to Mass somewhere along the line, I decided to stay up, and went out onto the Heath when the others had gone, and walked in the dew, and watched the most fabulous of skies gradually grow lighter and brighter. There was a weird peace around, actually, with only the sea pigeons and large black crows (?) to disturb me. There were cars in the distance, but they don’t count somehow, and I only saw one other person out walking ˗ which isn’t really surprising! I thought I would have felt very sad somehow, but didn’t really seem to, just a little contemplative. I suppose the older you grow, the more you accept that everyone of your friends disappears sometime, and all of these eras in life come to and end. (It’s probably just as well ˗ being the way we are, finickity ˗ we’d probably get bored otherwise). Then I went back and had a bath, and and cleaned the windows and went to Mass (and nearly dropped off at it) but the five hours or so that seemed to be a short time for sleeping in took a lot longer to be awake through.

Anyway, for the next three nights I stayed up at the Crowls’ trying to cause as little disturbance as poss ˗ and seeing far too much TV: including Woman of the Year (with Tracy and Hepburn, one of their best ˗ with a fabulous where she tries to cook breakfast for him when she’s never been near a kitchen in her life) and the original Frankenstein with Boris Karloff, which was interesting rather than horrifying. And for some reason it was all updated to the thirties (or late twenties anyway) and had one of those revolting English actors playing the Baron [Frederick Kerr], and supposedly getting all the funny lines ˗ ugh, that’s one thing that has outdated itself. Karloff was very good incidentally, and makes the film I think, which is only otherwise notable for its direction of the not over-inspired script.

Yesterday, Mike and Hazel and I went to an early showing of Chimes at Midnight, an Orson Wells film adapted from the plays that Falstaff appears in which were collaged together to make a portrayal of him as the more important character rather than as a subsidiary to the King. There is no such thing as a bad Orson Welles film; even his failures are immensely interesting. [I couldn’t have known this from experience, not having seen most of his movies; it was plainly something I’d read.] And this has a superb cast putting Shakespeare across in a superb way.

We then went up to Mike’s for a meal, and then went to Piccadilly to see a late preview of one of Mike’s company’s new films. At 11.30. it was positively the most sick film I’ve seen, I think, but very well done for all that. It’s a terrifying exposé of the really seamy side of New York life, but with redeeming features in the characters in the story ˗ they seem victims of their country rather than themselves: it was made by an Englishman, and possibly couldn’t have been done by an American. It’s called Midnight Cowboy, and for once I’ve seen if before you possibly can ˗ but I don’t suggest that you see it. It only shows things that have existed in humanity for centuries, but isn’t in the least bit pleasant for the acknowledging of them.

The drought broke incidentally, on Tuesday ˗ the very day on which I had to go wandering around the streets ˗ it was so wet I got soaked to the skin even though I perpetually carried an umbrella. And now that that’s been and gone we’re back to the heat again. The English don’t deserve to have the lovely weather ˗ they only say they like cold better.

We’re to have a telephone in this flat ˗ presuming it won’t cost too much (it’s already here but disconnected) and I had a little Irishman here yesterday who had been about to take it away until I said we wanted it. And did he talk!! And I’ve had two grumpy little men coming and going with furniture and cookers and fridges that they can barely lift ˗ and I always seem to be doing something wrong for them. I’ll be glad to be settled in here. Love Mike. 

This isn't 18, but a house a couple of doors along:
there was a long row of houses all with the same design.
Ours was similar to the left-hand one: the window to the right of the door
was the bathroom (someone pinched my shaving gear off the windowsill once).
The bow window to the left was my bedroom. 

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. 

8.4.69 Easter holiday in Westgate-on-Sea

8.4.69

Dear Mum, I too have been lax - HAPPY EASTER!!! It’s no use sending an Easter egg from this end; they have the silliest and most useless eggs here. I brought some for the Crowls, and all I could get that were reasonable and worthwhile were mere shells with packets of lollies inside. (As it turned out I didn’t give them to them after all ˗ on Sunday morning no eggs appeared on the breakfast table, so rather than embarrass them by bringing mine out, I left it. Reg commented during the meal, anyway, that they were getting too old for eggs! Obviously I’ve reached my second childhood rather prematurely. I brought the eggs back, and they can go in my lolly store.)

We had a rather windy time down at Westgate [Westgate-on-Sea] ˗ or hadn’t I even told you we were

Westgate-on-Sea

going? Reg’s brother-in-law has brought a house down there, and leases it out over the season, so we went down for Easter. It’s a pretty wee place, though they can’t convince me that their beaches are a patch on ours, but on the first two days, tho’ the sun was shining in an unbelievable fashion (and still is), the wind was blowing in off the North Sea, and it was more unpleasant than anything. However, yesterday, the day on which we came home, it stopped and the temperature rose accordingly.

Reg and Marg and I went for a long walk in the morning which was nice anyway, and when I got back to London after a very hot car ride, the weather was lovely and mild. Fabulous. The weekend as a whole was fairly pleasant, but it was interesting to see that when the Crowls got out of their natural surroundings in Woodland Way, the situation between them became a lot clearer and rather curious. Nina, it would almost seem, runs the women’s side of the house ˗ in fact I suspect that she has brought Margaret up! She still sort of suggests what should be done most of the time in connection with anything domestic, and tho’ she asks Mavis what should be done it’s quite obvious she already knows. This makes her sound rather horrible, but she is really rather sweet. And yet, towards Reg she can be very nagging without actually nagging. Good grief this is complicated! Mavis seems even more childlike than I’d ever noticed before ˗ perhaps it’s because of her deafness, and she has withdrawn into herself rather a lot. Reg would be the most informal of the lot if he got the chance, but he’s lived in formal surroundings so long that it’s hard to get him to relax.

I probably come as a complete shock to their system, I think, and cause some internal chaos by my mere presence. They certainly must think I’m getting madder ˗ and perhaps I am, tho’ it harms no one ˗ because I seem to keep them in a perpetual state of hysterics, especially on the long car trips. But I feel and I think for once I’m right to do so, that a holiday is for relaxing on, not for working twice as hard as you would normally. Nina and Mavis were quite determined that the house should be spring-cleaned from top to toe, if only they’d had the time between trips to other places. And they must always have meals punctually ˗ so that if Reg and I are out we must be back on time ˗ and yet if we arrange to meet them at a certain time, they’re likely to come anywhere within a half an hour of the time!?!

No wonder men have invented puzzles they can solve, because it seems that women are just about the most unsolvable puzzles on this earth. Still I suppose they’re worth it! [Obviously forgetting that I’m writing to a female of the species...]

Bleak House, Broadstairs

We did an awful lot of travelling around ˗ to Dover (where the cliffs are grey), Folkestone, which is very built up in the same sort of way that Kensington in London is ˗ very posh, and rich; to Broadstairs: Reg and I alone the second time, after we’d discovered its Dickensian associations ˗ one of the many homes that D lived in is there ˗ now called Bleak House, tho’ it isn’t the one in the book; and the town, a tiny place with terribly narrow streets, has Dickens restaurants and cafes, and ‘D slept here’ places, and at some time in the year a D festival. His study, where he wrote quite a lot of his middle period stuff, overlooked the wild sea ˗ no wonder the sea scenes in Copperfield are so effective ˗ tho’ they too are set in a different place.

As we were coming back to Westgate that night (it should be called Eastgate, incidentally), we saw for a few seconds before the houses blotted it out, the upper semicircle of the setting sun, outlined on the sea’s horizon, blazely red, but not so bright that it couldn’t be watched. We foolishly didn’t stop there, but raced to get past the houses only to find that it had already vanished, within seconds, and the grey mist was obscuring the line between the sea and sky.

We went to Canterbury Cathedral which is overpowering in its beauty. Either the men who built it were angels or else the Almighty took quite a frequent hand in its construction. And it’s a gold mine of history. We didn’t really have enough time to absorb everything, and neither did we have time to casually walk around the town which is also full of historic buildings. I’ll have to go back to these places on my own, or with someone younger perhaps, and really get my teeth into them. We did too much car travelling and not enough walking really, I think, tho’ some of the countryside, still regrettably in a late winter state, is very appealing in its great green, brown and grey sweep.

[handwritten] I want to send you a birthday present ˗ I can afford to, so there! ˗ but heaven knows when you’ll get it!!  Love Mike. 

Late Feb, 1969: hectic schedule...

28.2.69

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

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

St Patrick's Catholic Church, Soho Square

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

15.9.68 - St Alban's and a second cousin

15.9.68

This great photo appears on a blog by
Jeremiah Watt.  It gives some impression of
St Alban's beauty. 

Dear Mum, England is at present having the sort of floods we had earlier this year – great chaos, but not where either the Crowls or I live.  I rang Kiri tonight, but she’s a victim of the floods and is still down south somewhere according to Ann Gordon, who was at K’s place.  They’re going to let me know tomorrow. Well, I went out to Woodland Way yesterday, and started the stay off with dinner!  Then we went on our projected tour of St Albans – this time Nina, Mavis’ sister wasn’t with us, but was looking after someone sick.  We got to St A’s (by the way, the town of St A’s is very attractive, it hasn't been too spoilt with lots of new blocks but retains its nineteenth and earlier century charms) and went in and walked down to the West End of the church.  It’s the most remarkable building: part of it dates back to 1077 (!) then another wall dates from a century or two later, and is different in style, then another bit had been added again in a different style, and consequently the whole place could be a mess. As far as design goes it probably is: nothing quite lines up with anything else: the roof is at least four different heights, and has a 19^th century ceiling in one part, another bit is painted with squares of two or three different colours, the next bit is vaguely polka-dotted with a variety of colours, the next bit is beautiful, and so on!  There is a lady altar, which is very attractive, but fairly simple, then the main altar, but in the middle part of the church, which is the smaller part than the west end which is for a big congregation, has an altar depicting the Resurrection and must have over 50 statues, all about 2 or 3 feet high, and a number of smaller ones, all quite different and depicting various saints, and a larger crucifix in the middle.  Fantastic!!

St Alban’s tomb, if you walk into it, is interesting but decaying, but approach it from the lady altar, and the three arches in front of it take on a strange light, and there is a curious pink glow about it all, which seemed to have no particular source. The amount of carving, not only of the statues but of endlessly detailed and decorated archways, and pillars, is astonishing.  There are murals, now being cleaned, that date back to the beginning of this particular church, and there are stones in the tower, I think, that were used in the building of the Roman town of Verulamium, or somesuch, next door, which must date back to the first or 2^nd centuries!  There has been a church there since the 3^rd, of some sort.

But we ran into troubles again – last time we couldn’t get in.  This time we got down to the West end, and Reg (which is what I’m to call him) wandered off into the middle while we other 3 were admiring some plaques that dated back to 1686, and next thing we found Evensong had begun and we couldn’t follow Reg through.  The same little man was stopping us at the door between the two parts.  So we went out the West door and back in the other end, and another man said would we sit down, so we did, sighting Reg trapped, somehow, on the other side of the door, which he’d managed to go out though we couldn’t come in it! The service went on and on, and though we tried to leave during on bit, we were asked very firmly to sit down again! And the choir, of boys and men, which though it was very good, sang the same sort of thing over and over again, seemed never to stop!  Trapped!  In due course it all came to an end, but we were a bit annoyed, really, because it had taken up so much of the short time we had.  Not to worry. 

After this we went and had tea and cakes – indispensable; I’m even beginning to think so myself – homemade, too, at a little place just up the street.  Home, and then we had tea proper!  After this we watched the last night of the Proms on TV – the last night of 52! – but it was the 2^nd half and all pretty rowdy – the audience is quite mad on the last night. [At this point the Last Night of the Proms wasn't something I knew much about.] Reg then went out to collect Nina, and he made a tape on his return of me playing some music, as well as all the chat that went on in between.  I’m afraid I wasn’t too happy with my playing, but it seemed to come out quite well on the tape.

This morning to Mass just down the road, and very crowded it was too.  It was a High sung Mass, but the music didn’t seem to be particularly interesting.  At least the hymns were familiar. 

This afternoon Reg and I had a game of chess which he won...!  I had him fooled for a while, though; he wondered what the new opening was that I made: completely Crowl! [In other words I was making it up as I went along; my usual amateur tactic – Reg could actually play well.] This afternoon, too, we went and visited Winnie Crowl, Reg’s cousin, my second, according to her, and she’s a lovely old lady, not that old, I suppose, about 60-something, but very bright.  A Cockney too.  She pronounces her name to rhyme with Crow, which is curious, because Reg pronounces it the way we do [rhyming with Owl].  She lives in a maisonette, which is the upper floor of a semi-detached – I think – near Arnos Grove.  Which is near where Anne and Pat live.  She’s invited me to come round any time I feel like letting off steam!  She says she’s a good listener, but she is very easy to talk to.  It’s marvellous how pleased these people are to see me – perhaps it’s my origin, i.e., from NZ, or perhaps the fact of whose son I am – though Reg reckons that anything I want to know about you Winnie can tell me! She and Reg are fairly close I think.  But she really did welcome me with open arms.  Great isn’t it? I’ve felt a bit embarrassed about the shower of gifts, almost, that the Crowls have presented: particularly in the way of hospitality, and also in gifts of fruit and eggs, and cake, and now an alarm clock (my wee clock’s fine, except for the alarm), so this time I gave Mavis a small box of chocs – I’d wanted to get some flowers which she loves but since it’s been so wet, the flower sellers weren't around.  And I’ve been invited out again next weekend!  They’re marvellous, aren’t they?  I thought the home relatives were a good lot, but these are wonderful too.  Reg reckons he’s learning more about London all the time – I’ve been to several places he hasn't!  Mad, isn’t it? 

At the moment on the radio there’s an interview with a woman who’s a divorcee, and a widow, discussing her problems of being on her own – it’s very emotional.  She keeps breathing very heavily.  It’s quite surprising what they’re discussing.  Mike

[In spite of Winnie’s warm welcome and encouragement, I don’t ever remember going there on my own. I may have gone once or twice more with Reg, but I don’t remember. As for her being a Cockney – well, she may have been born, like my father was supposed to have been, within the sound of Bow Bells – but there wasn’t a hint of Cockney in her speech, any more than there was in Reg and his family’s. My amazement at St Alban’s was no doubt due to its being one of the first ancient churches I visited. ]