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.

27.10.68 First performances and walking home...again

27.10.68

Dear Mum, I’m not sure how long it is since I last wrote, so if I repeat anything please forgive me.  I think it was about last Sunday wasn’t it?  Sorry that there are such long gaps between my letters to you but I seem to have been particularly busy this last week. I’m very grateful to get your letters so regularly; I’ve practically been able to rely on receiving one each Monday and Thursday for some weeks now, and it’s very nice. Got a Tablet, too, this week – with a postal note and a Peanuts [cartoon] inside.  The latter was especially welcome, and in fact, if you don’t mind, I wouldn't mind at all if you included the odd one in with the letters either. They’re real day-starters (told you mail arrives about 7.30 didn’t I?) so if you’ve got a pair of scissors handy...!  Thanks for the continued postal notes too – the extra amount brings two of them to 11/- and 8d, and though they always have to go away and check on the amount, it’s worth it – IF YOU CAN AFFORD IT!

Menotti as a young man

All this week we’ve had Ella Gerber on our hands of course, and I’m afraid to say everyone is glad to see the last of her.  She didn’t work at all like any producer I’ve ever met – she didn’t plot any moves out beforehand, and with the two Menottis seemed content to work it all out in her head and then wondered why what she’d say one day didn’t fit in the next!  She knows Porgy backwards, of course, but this didn’t seem to help either – the poor singers practically had to relearn the whole thing her way. It is now generally considered that when Gershwin wrote Porgy had no idea what he was doing and that he didn’t really mean to put anything down the way he did.  Ella has rediscovered it all and does it her way!  And to cap it all, Alistair, who was conducting Porgy, caught a whopper of a cold and was away from two of the most important rehearsals – so that when he came back and went to conduct the final rehearsal on Friday afternoon, Ella kept harping on about his having been away, and how so many things had been changed while he was away. The things he nearly did to her I won’t describe, but it was the most shambolic rehearsal I’ve ever been privileged to attend.  The Telephone and The Consul had gone off quite well at this rehearsal, so I don’t know why she got so Bolshy about this one!  Anyway, all 3 shows were equally successful in their own way in the evening.  We played them for the Friends of Covent Garden (people who subscribe to CG and get into the rehearsals) and our own friends in the University College Theatre, which is sort of North Central London.  All the Crowls came, and actually quite enjoyed it all, I think (I’d sent them a seven page set of notes that I typed out about the three operas so that they’d have a better idea of what they were all about) and Michael came, and for once didn’t think I played too loud, and Kingsley got as far as the tube station and couldn’t find the theatre itself.  He will not take the A to Z with him – seems to think he can always find his way about by merely looking at it at home here and then trying to do it all from memory. And then he wonders why he’s worried about getting lost!!  Perhaps this will have taught him a lesson. That all sounds a bit mean, but I can’t see why he’s too proud to use it.  He doesn’t seem particularly interested in making friends with people at Guildhall. Well, I don’t think I can help him there, it’s something he’ll have to do himself, and the sooner the better.  [Crikey, I sound like a fussy grandfather!]

I made a few blues in the playing of The Telephone, but nothing too worrying, and the audience really enjoyed it, and really laughed, what’s more.  The Consul was tremendously moving – I wouldn't have thought it could be, but yet some of the bits we’d thought most absurd during rehearsals were most effective.  I didn’t find Porgy and Bess nearly so moving – I don’t think Ella has ever managed to get anybody’s sympathy about it.  [I knew Porgy and Bess reasonably well from the NZ Opera Co’s production of it, which I’d seen when they toured it – I had ushered for it, so probably saw every performance in Dunedin.]

After the show, Mike and Hazel and David Gorringe (another stage manager and about 25, small with glasses and very friendly with a mad sense of humour) and David Syrus and I went to a nearby pub, and spent a while there doing considerably more talking than anything else – if that relieves your mind!  After that I went down to where Mike is now living – near Oxford St - and had a quick coffee because I didn’t want to get stranded in London city again – I told you about the previous Saturday, didn’t I?  Let me know if I didn’t.  So I shot down to the tube and caught the last train.  The only trouble was I started doing the Tablet crossword, and went straight past my station!  The next train was some time about 5 am, so I had to start walking back to Plaistow, which shouldn't have been far. But, the ticket-collector gave me rather obscure directions and I found (later) that I was actually walking north instead of west.  [Plainly I hadn’t taken my own advice about always carrying the A to Z!]  I finally caught a bus back to Plaistow to the street running parallel with Balaam St, and arrived home about one thirty. 

Kingsley and Mike and I went to Don Giovanni on Thursday (for nothing and sat in the front row!) and Kevin, who had just arrived back from Spain, came too.  It wasn’t a bad production, but the designing was terrible. None of the clothes belonged to any particular period – except one that looked like German 18^th century, and the sets were like a child’s play box on a larger scale.  Terrible! [This may have been the Sadler’s Wells production, the first production for the company at their new home at the Coliseum. It was directed by John Gielgud, and wasn’t well received, apparently.]

[Hazel, mentioned above, by the way, is from British Guyana, and has been here for about nine years or seven?  She’s twenty-seven, and has a very infectious laugh.)

Yesterday went out to the Crowls, and in the afternoon went with Reg to the jumble sale being held for the Intellectually Handicapped Children’s Society, and finished up selling old men’s clothes. Quite a lot of fun, actually, trying to match up the men who came along with the clothes we had. And this morning after Mass, Reg and I went and walked in Hampstead Heath, which goes on for miles in every direction, and would be very easy to get lost in. [We revisited Hampstead Heath in 2007 when staying with a friend in Kentish Town – I’d forgotten just vast it is.]  I better go and do some washing now as I didn’t seem to have much time to do anything last week.  Lots of love, Mike. 

30.9.68 - Travels and Travails

30.9.68

Dear Mum, how are the pair of you thriving?  I had a ridiculous day yesterday, Sunday, but quite interesting for all that.  In the morning I had decided to go to Mass at the Convent which is only a short distance from Newman Rd.  This was the first time I’d gone there because the first Sunday I went way up to the next parish and the last two have been spent in Wood Green. I arrived to find the place singularly quiet for a Catholic Church, and Mass just finished.  And not another!  However there was a priest there and we had a wee chat and he gave me a timetable on the newsletter, and said I could go to Mass at 12 at the main parish church down in the Barking Road. So I went home again and had breakfast, and then at 11.45 set off, thinking that this would give me plenty of time.  It turned out to be a longer walk than I anticipated but I made it with a second to spare.  On the way home it rained, and for once I didn’t have an umbrella.  So I got a bit wet, but it was one of those days when it suddenly pours out of a blue sky. 

 

I did some German – incidentally, the 3^rd Programme is starting a German lesson series on Monday, so I think I’ll get their little booklet and listen to that in conjunction with the OC’s classes.  (I'm still not very enthused over the Italian lessons – which makes it harder; at least Frau Radinger has a marvellous sense of humour and we really have a good time learning, but in the other class we waste more time than anything.)

 

After this I had planned to go to see a Laurel and Hardy Quartet of films at the NFT.  It poured as I was setting out for Plaistow station. Anyway, saw the films, which were very good, without getting very wet on the way, and then hopped on the usual train to come back. The gremlins were at work again.  We got as far as Mansion House and the train was stopped and everyone told to change.  So an entire train-load of people walked up over to the next platform, and waited...and waited.  A guard told a group of people near me that someone had jumped under a train at Aldgate East which was between there and Plaistow. But at another station they reckoned that something had collapsed on the line.  Anyway, the next train was going to Tower Hill, a little further on my way, so I got on that.  And would have got a Circle Line to take me on a detour, avoiding the station where the trouble was.  However the wait at Tower Hill was even longer.  On the trip to there I picked up a wee friend, a boy of about 10 or 11, who was going North-East.  He and I had a discussion going to TH as to what was the best route for him to take, though I wasn’t a lot of help. At TH, I picked up my 2^nd friend, a lady in her 30s, travelling with a great suitcase and a couple of bags, who knew her way around but who had got onto the wrong platform, and who was regretting having crossed over with her bags.  She didn’t say so, but obviously had, and anyway she was very helpful to us two kids in giving us an idea of the best way to get home.  A guard said that I’d have to go to Mile End, still before Plaistow, and get a bus.  However, no train appeared on our platform and so I offered to carry her case over to the other platform, where trains were going back the way we’d come, but where there was a chance of getting to Mile End.  So she very gratefully accepted, and we took our little boy with us, and crossed over and caught a train that was then waiting.  At Monument station we walked underground to Bank, got on the Central Line and were on our way. Actually we left her at Bank as the train which the boy and I got – it was his homebound one – wasn’t going far enough for her, and she waved and said God bless as we went.  She was very nice, but possibly a bit worried in case I took off with her case – people, according to Mike and K. don’t help each other much in London, but from things I’ve seen, just quietly, I think they’re wrong (M & K, I mean)!  Anyway, my little boy – who had a hair-lip scar – and I shot through to Mile End where he went on, saying thank you (I don’t know what for, because he probably knew more about it all than I do) and where by that time I was able to catch a very crowded train to P.  (This morning it was absolutely packed, and tonight was worse – I thought I’d seen the rush hour jam, but tonight when I put my arm up to take hold of the strap to hang on, I couldn’t get it down again, until we reached a station!)

 

My troubles weren't over: I’d bought some mince on Sat, and used half of it in my main meal on Sat, and had kept the rest for Sun. Was all organised, yesterday. I took the meat out of the cupboard, opened it, closed it, and threw it in the waste-bin, then I took the lot outside, and put it in the bucket!! Was I mad?  I thought it would at least last 24 hours!  Fortunately I had 2 sausages left over from breakfast, so I combined them in a thing called Italian Risotto Milanese, or some-such, substituting what I had in me larder for what they suggested in the recipe.  I think the only thing we both used was the rice!  However it did not kill me.  But I’m going to a different butcher in future.  Should never have trusted this one – he has the only dirty postcards I’ve ever seen hung up on his wall![I presume I meant that he was the only butcher who’d ever displayed dirty postcards. My inexperience as a cook keeps showing up in these letters; refrigerators were much less common, of course, and I don't think we had one at my home in Dunedin at that point, so keeping meat fresh was always a bit of an issue.]

 

Today at the OC the only thing I was down for all day was German, which seems a bit odd, but I went in at 10 all the same, and spent the morning doing things on my own, and this afternoon looked in on a coaching session by Norman Feasey*, one of the big reps in London.  Great on Wagner, apparently. (He was coaching Alan Opie, a baritone about my age, from Cornwall, and quite a friendly guy. He’s in one of The Telephone casts.) N.F was seated when I arrived, and I noticed as the lesson went on that though he was shorter than me when sitting he had enormous bone structure, so that when he did finally stand, he sort of expanded in all directions. 

 

Tomorrow is busy again, Wednesday not bad, although though I have the afternoon off, we’ve all got to go to a dress rehearsal of the Opera For All Group’s Italian Girl in Algiers at 6.00 which is a bit of a nuisance [handwritten] because it’s a waste of time and cash to go home in the afternoon.  Ann Gordon is in it.  Anyway I hadn’t intended to fill this whole air-letter!  Never mind.  Lots & lots of love Mike.

 

3rd letter 6.9.68

6^th Sept 68. OVC.  

Dear mum, to continue with things as from where I left off last time.  On Wednesday I met Mike in town, about 1.30, and he gave me the fabulous news, for him, that he had a job as Chief Press Officer for United Artists, in London.  He’d been ringing up all day Tuesday as we’d trailed around London, and he found out that morning.  Apparently he could have started in a fortnight, but he’d already planned to go hitch-hiking on the Continent, for a month, and so told them that he’d have to give a month’s notice at his present position – which in actual fact he doesn’t have.  [A not uncommon approach to negotiation from Mike.]

So once more we wandered around L., not really seeing very much this time, but gave me a better idea of where I was going, and what fits in with what.  Then we caught a tube, in the rush hour, which is nowhere near as frightening as I’d been led to believe, and went out to Arnos Grove Station, where we were to walk to Anne and Pat’s.  However they were on the same train, they’d taken the neighbour’s two kids to Battersea Park, and they were both looking a bit had it.   As we walked to their place, Anne told me all about an operation she’d had to have since she’d arrived – some infection that had grown to something very nasty – she’d caught it coming over  - and the first doctor she went to reckoned she was just neurotic! However she’s better now, although she can’t start teaching again on Monday, as she should have.

Well, they gave us a very nice meal – they live in a fabulous place, really – board with a lady who’s hardly ever there, and it’s all done out in carpet and very comfortable – the luck of some people I said!  While there I rang Reg [my English uncle, whom I’d never met, and had only corresponded with – my father’s brother] and he was thrilled to hear from me, apparently, and immediately invited me out to dinner the next night!  He gave me very precise instructions how to get there, and we checked it through on one of the few things I’ve bought – an A to Z of London – about 260 pages of maps and indexes on London alone!  But it’s quite indispensable.  Only 3/6.  [I probably mentioned the price because I had to live on £500 the first year I was in London.]  And I also have a tube map.  Let me tell you about these tubes.  There are about seven lines, and another, the Victoria, is opening shortly, and by going down any subway, anywhere, you can eventually get to where you want.  You buy a ticket for your ultimate destination, and as far as I can see there is nothing to prevent you from staying underground all day, as long as you come up at the proper destination.  And even then some of the tickets have your starting point on them, and so I suppose you could actually come up where you liked, as long as it was within the amount on your ticket.  I have no intention of trying that but the system itself is absolutely foolproof, as long as you know where you want to go!  [My first memory of the Underground was descending the long escalator at Piccadilly - I think that was the station - and seeing the hordes of people.  That was only time the crowds surprised me, seemingly.]

The buses are considerably more complex, but they are well signposted, and the conductors are very helpful. I learnt this yesterday, when I decided it was time to start home-hunting! I had bought a Weekly Advertiser the day before but, since it took me so long to find out where each locality was, I thought it would be better to see an agent.  I thought I’d try the OVC one, although Mike and K. had told me that they’d only have Earls Court stuff, and they were right.  However, the man there suggested going to the London Accommodation Bureau in Oxford St, and said you can’t miss it, it’s right beside Woolworths.  Well, it took me an age to find WW, and the LAB is still missing.  By chance, however, I saw a place called 139 Flat Service (also in O. St) and went on up, thinking that even if it cost me a bit to pay them it would be worth it.  They put me onto two places – 3, actually, but in the end that person wasn’t home, or some such – and so I wended my way out to the [other two].  This is where my A to Z and tube map came into their own.  You’d think I’d been living in London all my life!

The Troxy Cinema, which became the London Opera Centre

The first place is in Plaistow, on the East side, but quite a way out.  This was its only disadvantage, as it had three rooms: kitch., living, twin bedroom, and sharing the bathroom with the landlord. And though the area is scungy down at the tube station, it gets prettier and altogether better as you get near it.  The other place was only a short bus ride from Commercial Rd [where the London Opera Centre was situated, the place I’d come to study at], but had no linen, a shilling bathroom (!), and some other bods wandering around too. As it happened I arrived at the same time as another bloke who’d been in 139 when I had!  But as he was working on the south side of the Thames, he didn’t think it would suit.  The little man who showed us around it had so many keys it took him several minutes to open each door, and he had the improbable name of Muskeran!  The other person, in Plaistow, Mrs Marshall, was much more pleasant, and what’s more pointed out the disadvantages!  So I didn’t know what to do – the second place was tempting by virtue of its closeness to the school, but the other was cheaper and more comfortable.  So in the end, I decided on the Plaistow place.  Only hope it’s as good as I thought.  [I was committed to finding a place to share with another student, Kingsley McLaren, who was studying at a different college. He arrived a bit later.]

The address is 13 NEWMAN ROAD, PLAISTOW, LONDON, E 13.  So I’ll shift out there tomorrow, and take some of the gear out tonight.  I can leave whatever I can’t manage here for a couple of days, I should think.  Have just realised that I didn’t tell you about going out to the school.  I caught a tube, and then walked along Comm. Rd, which since it’s in the East End, is very, very scungy.  It improves as you get to the school, but I wasn’t feeling too happy about living in the neighbourhood.  They were expecting me there anyway, although there wasn’t anybody of importance around, and they had a little envelope with stuff to read and fill in.  I’ve since sent them a cheque for £50, for the first term, and hope that I don’t have to pay the lot at once.  Thought it just might help the bank balance.  A secretary [June Megennis, the Administrator, rather than a secretary] who was there showed me around the place – it’s on the lines of the Mayfair [Theatre in Dunedin], an old picture theatre but much bigger.  Well, that was about all I did there and then wandered back to the City.  I’ll carry on in another letter. 

Love Mike.

[There's an intriguing bit of coincidence in my moving into a house with the number 13 - in E 13 as well.  This number has been fairly significant in my life: my birthday's on the 13th, I was married on the 13th...!]