7.12.68 The big Christmas letter

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

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

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

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

30/11/68 Oil heaters, actors & fog

30/11/68

Dear Mum, how are you two?  [The letter was addressed to Mrs P Crowl and Fred – the cat, in other words] I got a book the other day called Mozart’s Letters: actually it was only a selection of them, but it’s nice to see that even he wasn’t all that original a letter-writer.  Like me, when he had something to say, he’d go on for quite a time, but otherwise he’s likely to make some excuse about not having enough paper, or no news – he’s always telling his family to send some news! – and what a load of old rubbish he writes at times: especially to his sister or cousin.  Suddenly in the middle of a paragraph he goes quite crazy and writes absolute nonsense!

 

About your Parkinson and Frodsham, I’m afraid I can’t find anything about them anywhere.  Change Alley appears not to exist – I wonder if it was bombed out of existence in the war? – because there’s no reference to it in the A to Z of London, and the name of the firm doesn’t appear in the telephone book, as far as I can see.  I even looked up chronometer makers in the local library’s trade dictionary, but there was only one entry, and that was in st Albans.  Don’t give up hope, however, I’ll ask our receptionist about it when he comes back to work on Monday (he’s had a bad throat) because he’s a mine of information, and may know something about the street at least.  [I don’t remember what this was all about, but certainly Parkinson and Frodsham were chronometer makers going back into the 19^th century at least.  I didn’t realise that Change Alley was short for Exchange Alley, which would have helped me. P & F had offices there, it seems.]

 

On Thursday morning, Kingsley suddenly vanished out of the house before I was even finished breakfast, and not obviously going to school, and I discovered the next morning what he’d been up to  - not having come home till fairly late on Thursday night.  (Got over the cold by the way – stayed home again on Tuesday – just couldn’t face trying to do work, and felt much better for it – got up at midday, and eventually got dressed, and sort of recuperated.)  Back to his lordship – he’d gone and bought an oil heater, saying that he can’t stand trying to sit round the fire any longer – truth to tell I find it just as cool!  I was prepared – in my usual irate fashion – to go crook at him, because he told me it cost £8!!, but he said since it was his idea, he was paying for it.  I can’t see that it’s a great advantage – as it smells oily of course, and trying to dry anything in front of it is a very slow process – you can put a minimal amount of stuff on top of it, but that’s all.  And I’m afraid, as I realise I’ve already said, that it’s no warmer.  I said I’d pay him something for it, but I don’t feel like dragging four quid out of the bank just like that.  Admittedly it’s surely quicker than trying to light the fire, and then waiting around for that to heat up, but at least that was already installed, and all we had to do was buy some coal every so often.  I don’t know what to think, and can’t say anything much as usual, without putting my foot in it.  I don’t know, perhaps I’m an unsatisfactory person to live with.  (I’m sure you’ll disagree, so there’s not much point saying it to you!) [maybe she wouldn’t have done] but I find it hard to say that something isn’t quite to my liking, without feeling sure beforehand that I’ll put my foot in it and cause some sort of upset.  While Kingsley has got a sense of humour (and while mine is rather malicious, I suppose) he is very serious about domestic matters, so to speak, and obviously gets that impression that I’m the type who merely muddles along while he knows how to do most things.  It’s true up to a certain point because he has a real nose for bargains and things, and I invariably wind up getting things for twice the price I need have, and because even though I do muddle along, I get there eventually, even if my discovery of how to do something is the way people have been doing it for a thousand years!  Still, I suppose to a certain degree I’ve got some imagination on my side, (it’ll probably turn up that’s really got a lot of that too!) and maybe that will compensate.  I’m afraid this is a gripe letter, so ignore everything up till now!

Paul Schofield

 

It was good to get back to work on Wednesday, even though I worked too hard when I did get there, because several people inquired how I was and where I’d been, etc, and I felt at home again.  On Thursday, Kevin and I went to see  A Hotel in Amsterdam, the latest John Osborne play – he wrote Look Back in Anger some years ago.  It’s not really a very good play but it has Paul Schofield in the lead, and this makes up for its defects.  He makes even the most uninteresting line worth hearing, merely by the modulation of his voice most of the time, and I would like now to see him in a really good part.  Alec Guinness is in a play revival here at the moment, and I’d very much like to see him, too.  [Don’t think I managed this.]

 

What you say about not believing I’m here most of the time doesn’t apply except on two occasions. (I don’t know why it doesn’t apply, but my mind seems to have accept it all.) These are, invariably when I come out of an underground gents (!) or even sometimes the Tube (don’t ask me why!) I have the funny feeling I’m going to come out in a different place, not necessarily home; and the other occasions are when I see actors on stage that I’ve seen in films – I just don’t believe somehow that they’re actually down there on the platform.  Otherwise, I feel quite at home here most of the time, because the run of the mill person around is exactly the same to look at, except out here in the East, where the majority of men have a very close-cropped hairstyle and a definitive way of dressing – mainly with jeans, and where the women come in two kinds: heavily made-up young ones, with very little beauty about them, or old ones (older) who have gone to seed, so to speak.  This is only the East End lot, the average proper Londoner, rich or poor, is generally a different animal.  [Oh the wondrous generalisations of youth!  Not sure that they improve with age.]

 

Tonight Mike and Hazel and I are making a short trip out of London, down south to Epsom – near Ascot, so they say, to see a production of The Turn of the Screw, the Britten opera based on the Henry James story. Invited Kingsley, but he wants to go and see Figaro at the Wells instead, even though this other is finishing tonight.  You might be interested to know I went to confession this morning, and the priest talked about practicing tolerance, and in your last letter you talked about it, and my one New Year resolution at the beginning of this year was on the same subject – so, if I don’t get to achieve anything at this rate, there must be something wrong.  I’ll have to start another letter if only to tell you a joke I heard in the play

 

Part II

 

There must be some other things to tell you anyway!  This joke was in the Osborne play: a girl went to a very strict convent to become a nun, and one of the vows they had to make was not to speak more than two words every three years. (!)  At the end of the first 3 years the young nun went to the Mother Superior who said, Well now, Sister, you may say your two words, and after a great effort the nun said, ‘Bad food.’  Three more years passed and the time came again. Well now, Sister, you may say your two words: and the young nun said, after a very great effort: ‘Uncomfortable beds.’ Three more years went by, and once again, the young nun came before the Superior.  The Superior repeated her usual speech but this time the young nun didn’t say anything for a very long time, and then finally came out, very quietly with, ‘I want to go home.’ The Mother Superior replied, ‘And a good thing too – you’ve done nothing but complain since you came here.’  And after that great effort, and considerable waste, I’ll leave the rest of this until tomorrow, in case The Turn of the Screw  is very interesting. 

 

[Handwritten] Michael sez thank you for looking after his Mum – re the address, I knew you’d commented it on but didn’t bother to look back and see if you’d actually told me the street!  Kevin’s ex fiancée is AGAIN ENGAGED – which seemed to relieve Kevin on any responsibility for the break-up!! I’ve now received your latest letter re Mike’s Mum and I’ll pass it on.

 

[Typed] What a terrible day it is here!  The fog is the thickest I’ve yet seen here, and everyone gets on the bus coughing and spluttering.  Plus the fact that the tops of the buses are generally full of smoke and if you’re not coughing for a start you soon start!  Fancy asking me if I wanted any more fudge and biscuits!  I’d thought I’d already hinted on this subject as it was – remember I asked if I should send the tin back to you.  I think the reason why it was so difficult to open was simply the fact that it had been stuck down for so long. Perhaps I should send the tin back to you with some books I don’t require any longer – although that might make a rather heavy parcel.  Kingsley had suggested ringing you up at Christmas by getting you to go up to his place, but then as it turned out his family had made some other arrangements, and this is no longer possible.  [Not sure why my mother needed to go to someone else’s place for a phone call, since we had a phone at home.] You’re probably happier anyway, not having to troop up there at that time, but he then said perhaps he could give me a couple of quid for Christmas as compensating!  The boy’s crazy – if I did ring I’d be paying for it.  However, if you don’t mind, I don’t think I will ring – I can’t see that I can say much in two or three minutes and neither could you, and we’d probably both wind up more miserable than we started!  So I thought I’d write you a long letter instead.  Do you mind?  It’s less the expense, than the fact as I’ve said, that we’d probably both be more upset about it than anything.  We’ll see.  And I’ll let you know if anything does come up. [International phone calls were very expensive in those days- I don’t think I actually rang her until around 1970!]

 

Megs Jenkins, in Green for Danger, 1946, 

We went to The Turn of the Screw on Sat.  I had to pick Hazel up from the Opera Centre, and as a result James Robertson, who was also going, gave us a lift to Waterloo Station.  We could have gone the whole way with him, but we had to pick Mike up there.  As it happened, Mike went another way, but I was glad we caught the train really, as Mr Robertson is rather hard going conversation-wise.  When we got to Epsom we were given the most elliptical set of directions and went the wrong way first.  How badly Londoners know their own area!  It was ages before we found someone who directed us correctly.  The show turned out to be an amateur one, and though the singing and playing was fairly good, and the words were excellent, the production was appalling.  Anyway, I enjoyed it to a certain point.  Then the three of us went back to Mike’s flat, and just as we were about to leave, Lindsay arrived in a bit of a flap saying that he had some people coming up.  All he meant was that we should tidy up, but we thought he wanted us to leave.  He didn’t, but we did!  Megs Jenkins, one of my favourite, smaller part players in films came up – she seems to be an especial friend of Lindsay’s.  So it was quite a thrill sort of being on the same floor as her!  I left to get a last bus, but apparently missed it, then discovered as I was about to walk home again that I’d left my keys at my own flat, and as I didn’t really want to wake everyone up at that time of night, went back to Mike and took up his offer of a spare bed!  [Handwritten again; possibly because the shift key seemed to be playing up.]  Then left at about nine next morning, not feeling very bright as I didn’t sleep too well due to the central heating and the electric blanket and the heavy quilt.  I’d intended to go to Petticoat Lane that morning but decided not in case Kingsley had wondered where I’d got to – he hadn’t of course! 

 

Went to Albert Hall (first had tea in Kensington High St) with Kevin but we were both so tired that we nearly went to sleep in the first half seemed to go terribly slowly!  [But what did we go to hear?]

Yesterday was technically a day off (Monday) but I went in anyway and spent so much longer at (the Opera Centre) that I didn’t have time to get home again.  Played the first of the songs I’d written for Kurt, but I’m a bit unsure of what he thought of it!  I’ve made some alterations to it anyway now.  Then we went to the pub next door and he shouted me a drink, and told me most of his life story – interesting but reasonably incredible!  Then Mike shouted me to a Royal Shakespeare play The Latent Heterosexual (what a title!) which was exceptionally well produced and acted (Roy Dotrice of Misleading Cases – he’s only in his forties – was superb in the lead) and nowhere near as bad as the title might imply!

Lots of Love, Mike

25.11.68: Cold in the nose and a great concert

Monday the 25^th [Nov 1968]  

Dear old Mum, I’m typing this in the kitchen after having got up at 2.00 [pm] to have some breakfast...!  the thing is I’ve decided to have the day off, because last Thursday I found I had a very sore throat – everyone at the school has something like that, and on Friday it was making me feel so rotten I took the opportunity to come home early, having nothing special to do, and went to bed very early that night.  I was due to go out to the Crowls on Saturday morning, and when I woke up, though I was still fairly croaky, I felt a lot better.  But I think the combination of their very hot house (and the cold outside) forced it up into my head – the cold that is – and so when I got back here last night I was very sniffly, etc.  I had intended going in today, because this morning, for a start, we were going to a rehearsal of Manon Lescaut by Puccini at Covent Garden, but when I found that the first thing my idiot nose decided to do was bleed like mad, I gave up and went back to bed.  And there I’ve been until now.  Actually this is the first trouble I’ve had since I’ve been here, and it’s a wonder it hasn’t happened sooner, because, as I say there have been colds floating around the Centre for weeks.  [I was always prone to bleeding noses – so this wasn’t unusual.]

THANK YOU FOR THE SECOND JERSEY!  The green one with Oddfellows!  [ I presume this meant the lollies known as Oddfellows, but I could be wrong!]  It’s even warmer than the brown if that’s possible, and fits very well.  You really are a trick, you know; it must have cost you more since I decided to go away than it was costing you to have me at home.  And, by the way, if I haven’t already said anything about the postal notes, for heaven’s sake, don’t worry about not sending them; it’s not a strict necessity, you know!  I like very much getting them, of course, but it would also be nice if you would look after yourself as well as your looking me, you know.  And thanks for the Peanuts – we get all the top papers at the Centre each day, but of course they’re too tops to have anything as interesting as Peanuts in them!  Harking back to the money bit, I was working it out the other day, and it appears that I’m living on an average of about £8 – 10 or less a week, if my cheque book is anything to go by, and also remembering that I’ve been on international (Crowl) assistance during the period I worked on.  If I deduct my rent from that it becomes six pounds, which is less than a pound a day, and rather surprises me now that I come to look at it.  Perhaps it’s right, however! 

What is the story about poor wee Francisco now?  Will you be getting a new address or something, do you know?  At least he has relatives, I suppose that’s something for the poor wee chap.  [This was a South Korean orphan that I supported, in South Korea.]

I noticed an article on the O’Flahertys in one of the Tablets – did you see it?  They’ve got seven children of their own!  [I don’t know who these were – though I had relatives by this name, none of them had seven children.]

[The next section of the letter can't be posted here.]

What’s wrong with John Stokes’ nose?  Nice to see Des Ryan again, eh? [A cousin, and an uncle.]

Since I last wrote, the crisis between Kingsley and self is over – at least, he didn’t know anything about it really – and the crisis-maker, yours truly, seems to have calmed down, and life goes on its way! 

By the way the fogs here are no longer the impenetrable ones they used to get, because so much of London is in the smokeless zone, but it was just driving in one that I found so bad.  London is in a state of haze most of the time anyway, and even on the brightest days you can’t see more than a mile or two from a tall building.  Funny thing with the Crowls, particularly Reg, they almost get a little upset it seems if I don’t go and see them – I’ve only been going on alternate weekends lately, because it’s just as tiring to go up there as to stay home and go out with Kevin or Mike.  I don’t really think they’re offended or anything – don’t know what it is really.  Perhaps it’s almost like having part of his brother at home, or something?  [My father, in other words.]

Peter Rowlands who lost his bubby – he’s not been married long either, and he’s in his 40s too – must have been rather hard on them.  [Peter was someone I'd known from the Dunedin music scene.]

David Gorringe, Kurt, and I went to a concert version of a new Malcolm Williamson opera on Monday last – he played the accompaniment himself, alternating with unbelievable rapidity between a piano and harpsichord, and percussion, or sometimes playing both instruments at once!  There were only four singers, and they all took several parts.  Though the story was pretty obscure, the music was surprisingly easy listening, and very enjoyable.  Hazel was there turning pages for him and handing him instruments to bash!  [This may have been The Growing Castle which is dated 1968. I can’t find anything about Williamson’s version of it, except that it was based on a play by Strindberg, was in two acts and lasted about an hour and a half. ]

On Tuesday David and I went to La Boheme – a terrible performance.  On Thursday, we both turned up again at a Festival Hall concert, and sat in seats two rows from the front!  They played a terribly exciting King Lear Overture by Berlioz, the Schuman Piano Concerto, and the Bruckner 3^rd Symphony.  This last was tremendous, uplifting, like Wagner without actually ringing you out at the same time!  We were so close we could see the loose hair on the lead violinist’s bow, the price tags on one of the other violinist’s socks, another old fellow only pretending to play through the Berlioz – they took him off limping after it – and we could also hear both the leader and the pianist breathing Very Heavily throughout!  Fascinating.  [Handwritten] Better go back to bed I think.  Listen don’t worry about flying over to nurse me.  I think I’ll survive.  Love, Mike.  [I remember the loose hair on the leader’s bow: it spent the entire overture trying to catch up and never quite made it.]

17.11.68: Hijinks at the Opera Centre & the difficulties of flatting

There's been a bit of a gap in uploading further letters to this blog because I was sent a dozen old letters I'd written to a friend recently, and I've been typing those up.  They cover a wider period from a few years before I went to England to sometime into the early 70s. 

There are two letters here, since the second runs on from the first, and they were sent together.

17.11.68

Dear Mum, how’s things with you two? Before I go any further, and before I forget, Kevin is no longer engaged – as far as I know, his fiancée broke it off, with some reasons about not leaving her mother, etc.  I rather suspect it’s for the best, for a number of reasons, and he doesn’t seem too greatly concerned about it. 

Mrs Tither, [Mike’s mother in Dunedin] incidentally, is in hospital as I write this – don’t know how long she’ll be there, but she had some rather unpleasant operation, and I’m sure Mike would be very pleased if you could see her some time – even after she comes out, perhaps.  She’s in Batchelor Ward at the mo’.  Do you know where they live in Mornington?  It’s that street (steep) beside the Post Office. [Brunel St.]  I said I’d mention it to you, to Mike, and he seemed a bit happier about it.

Another bit of news.  At the Opera Centre, as I think I’ve told you, we’re doing, for our end of term productions: Albert Herring, with a second year cast, and as a double bill, Dido and Aeneas, which Alistair and Henry are to play the harpsichord continuo in, and Angelique, which has piano part in the orchestra.  Because the other two were to do the harpsichord part, I rather suspected that I might be doing the piano part but since nothing had been said, I took it I wasn’t.  However, as I was leaving one night, James Robertson comes up to me and says, Michael, I want you to do the piano part in Angelique, so that was that.  I’ve now seen the part, and it has some very nasty spots in it, but I think I’ll manage to play it.  Angelique is one of the worst vocal scores any of us has seen – it’s been reduced for a pianist with three hands and six fingers on each of those!  I’m not alone in thinking this, which is something.  However so that is that, and I’m quite happy to be doing something in the show.  The two reps on Albert Herring won’t be doing anything at all apparently.  Gosh, how time flies – a week seems to go by in no time, and there seems in fact no time to do all the work necessary.  Oh, well.  

We’ve had Michael Moores at our repetiteur sessions for the last fortnight – we have 2 a week, and he’s the most down to earth of the four men we’ve had. [I don’t remember Moores, but he had a distinguished career – see below*]. Robertson was first of course and if one ignores his slightly overbearing and trying to be one of the young crowd manner, he’s not a bad old soul.  But few – in fact, I don’t think any of the students really like him, and he’s inclined to come into a session where someone else is working and brusquely interrupt, and embarrass everyone. The second rep-man was Myer Fredman, who had been working in Canada and also at Glyndebourne over the last couple of years, and who has also done a good deal of film music arranging – not composing.  (So has Michael Moores.)  They both seem to take something not necessarily very inspired and by dint of arrangement and orchestration turn it into something worthwhile.  Fredman was on Lawrence of Arabia, and Exodus (and reckoned the composer was hopeless, with no idea of orchestration!) As a teacher he wasn’t bad, although we spent many hours discussing the characters and the way they behaved, and the way they’re generally presented, which is a different thing! 

Peter Gellhorn

The next fellow was Peter Gellhorn – a German living in England, doing occasional conducting, and mainly in charge of the BBC Chorus, I think. He was fantastic in that if he wished to compare something in Fidelio (which we were doing) with something else that someone else had written, or Beethoven if it comes to that – he’d just sit down and play it, not really by memory, nor even by ear – he seemed to have it all in his head as a matter of course.  Fredman, who was one of his pupils (Moores worked under Robertson once too!) had told us that Gellhorn had been brought up in the old school of music where unless you could play a piece of music while reading the newspaper there was something wrong with you – and you were also expected to be able to transpose it as well (the music, not the newspaper!).  Moores, who did Boheme with us, was a nice casual musician, with a genuine love of music – all music.  And he was fascinated by the sort of background detail to the opera.  From the start he brought along the book that Boheme is based on, and read bits of it, and on the last day we did no music, but merely listened to him discussing the letters, and collaborations that went on between Puccini and his librettists, and how the story had changed by the time had passed form book to straight play version and ultimately to opera.  Very interesting, and very easy to talk to. 

On Friday in place of our usual lecture, we had an Audition Forum, which meant that half a dozen singers had to pretend they were auditioning – in front of the rest of the school.  The trouble was, as far as the reps were concerned, we had to play the stuff they sang from sight, and the five of us arrived with sort of shaky looks.  As it turned out I got a piece that nobody knew, so in actual fact it didn’t matter that I botched up a bit of it.  But it was all rather nervewracking all the same.  The last two singers were Alan Opie, and Jane Plant.  Alan, of course, is one of the best singers in the place, and when he came on looking all dishevelled, and puffing and panting, and then made a horrible botch of his song, we were convinced there was something wrong.  Actually at the start it appears he was to be sending it up so that we could really criticise, but John Kentish, the sort of student manager, [Director of Studies, in fact] sounded too gruff to be joking and some of us were a bit puzzled. Anyway he was supposed to be clowning so that we could (the singers rather) see what not to do at an audition.  Jane came on next, and she’s always appeared to me to be someone who’s not particularly interested.  She’s second year. But she gave an Academy Award-winning comedy performance as the sort of housewife with her eye on the bright lights type.  She wore a flowing black and white coat, had two or three bags, had a silver type of frontal-tiara on her head, had jangling bracelets on her arms, and was in flat shoes.  First she took off her coat with a great flourish while John Kentish quite seriously announced that she had offered to do either the First Act of Tristan and Isolde! or some other piece I didn’t know.  She did the latter, starting by going over to the piano and requesting in a stage whisper that Anthony play her a C when the time required it.

Part II

Then she sort of composed herself in front of the piano, then just as he was about to start, stopped him, and pouncing on her bag, set about finding her high heels.  After producing a couple of egg boxes and other sundries, she took her shoes off and flung them under the piano, and then put on the others.  Oh yes, somewhere along the line she set about powdering her nose, too.  She started the song eventually, and sang it all to John Kentish, who was sitting to one side in the front.  Then every now and then, she’d remember the audience, and sing to us all.  At one marvellous moment in the music, she sang four heavily accented notes, and accompanied each with a shake of her arms, causing all the bells to ring.  Mad, and, mad.  Still it took away the sour taste of the rest of the programme. 

Michael took us to a preview film showing at one of the little theatres (holding about 60) in Wardour St, on Thursday, and though it was directed by the same man [Norman Jewison] that made In the Heat of the Night, and though it was very well made, its content was such that I wouldst advise anyone to see it.  [I assume this was The Thomas Crown Affair.]  (Sorry the typing is so appalling tonight – though I’ve got a fire on here, it’s just a bit chilly and my fingers aren’t quite with it).  After this we went up to his flat and had tea: Kevin was there and also Pam, the ex-flatmate of a girl Kevin used to know over here. 

On Friday night, Hazel, from the school, and I went to see the Hitchcock, Strangers on a Train at the NFT.  The last quarter of an hour is still marvellous but it seemed a little less interesting than previously.  After this we went into the Festival Hall Coffee Bar next door  and talked so long that the people who had been going into the beginning of a concert when we arrived were leaving when we did!  We just talked about the various people at the Centre – not so much in a malicious way or anything, as just sort of discussing them – and it’s quite an interesting topic!  We also talked about ourselves, too, in the process.

Last night Mike was going to shout me to Canterbury Tales as sort of a repayment for the Operas he’s seen free with me.  And Kathy was supposed to come too, but since she has her brother’s bad habits, she was so late arriving at the restaurant where he was to meet her that he couldn’t get seats, so we went to see a revival of Ring Round the Moon, by the same company that had revived The Importance.  John Standing was in it, again, playing two identical brothers, and Flora Robson, Isabel Jeans, and Bill Fraser (of Bootsie and Snudge on TV some years ago) were also there.  It’s all a mad romantic comedy, which just about describes it, and of course there’s a lot of fun with the fact of one actor trying to be in two places at once.  On one occasion, Hugo points out that his brother is coming, goes and hides behind a bush – his brother walks in (must have been a double) at the back – passes the bush, and Frederick walks out, while we can still see feet of his ‘brother’ behind the bushes.  Then they reversed this process later.  Very clever.  There’s a marvellous line at the end.  Everyone is on stage except Hugo, and they all look off to see Hugo come in.  Someone says, Oh, he won’t come in, and Frederick, who is already on stage, says, practically to the audience, I knew he wouldn’t.  [In spite of my enthusiasm for this show here, I don’t remember it at all. I never went to see Canterbury Tales; it was described as very bawdy, and wasn’t to my taste at all.]

Thanks for keeping me posted on all the relatives and things; it doesn’t, to me, lose any interest by being further away than usual.  And thanks for the Peanuts – I find they remain readable, long after you’ve first seen the joke.  And for the Tablets – I sort of pick them up when I have only a few minutes to fill in, and they’re very interesting.  I see Father Gaffey saying that having a sense of humour should be one of the virtues!

Kingsley is at present away playing the organ for a church in the next parish – they’re going to pay him too. I don’t really know that it’s worthwhile being tied down to a job of any sort – I told you he was working three hours or less a night, didn’t I? – because so many things of worth come up, all the time, and they’re bound to come on the night that you’re working, I think I’m not really worried about my finances although I’m still being pretty careful, but I’m sure the good Lord has a special accounting-minded angel looking after it all.  Kingsley is a bit of a [...], really; at the weekend, I don’t get a chance to say what I’d like to eat for our main meal – he just goes ahead and cooks it, and though I’m grateful to have someone doing the work (I don’t even bother to help since he’s obviously much happier doing it on his own) it would be nice to be able to say, well, let’s experiment a bit this weekend, and have such and such – which possibly in the long run would cost us less.  We have sort of ‘good wholesome meals’, and once again I’m grateful, but though some of my experiments were a bit weird, they were always edible, and made quite a change.  He’s not a very imaginative lad I don’t think, and obviously feels he should stick to what he knows.  He even refuses to have a drop of curry in his spaghetti, now.  and he has stocked up the cupboards with tins of spaghetti and baked beans, because they’re cheap, and large large tins of coffee and marmalade, which consequently wreck my budget, which is organised to a certain point.  The tins of food are fine, of course, for snacks (ie evening meals) at night, but one gets very tired of the same thing each night.  And today we had dehydrated peas with our meal, which were absolutely awful, and yet they’re cheap.  I don’t know.  He has got much more talent for getting things cheaper than me, although again, I didn’t think I was doing that badly before, and yet he doesn’t really see further than his nose about the subject.  I haven’t caused an upset about it, but I have sort of quietly mentioned in passing that he wouldn’t have the same thing every night at home, etc.  I don’t know [handwritten] the trouble is he has so much more time to do the shopping than I have  - and perhaps I shouldn’t complain about it because he is sort of constantly getting a cup of coffee or supper or the aforementioned big meals.  Guess, a bit of time will sort it all out.  Perhaps I’ll be able to clear the air without a blow-up.  I’ve finished the chocolate chippies and fudge – shall I send back the tin FOR A REFILL? – only joking.  Lots of love.

PS He even puts my hottie [hot water bottle] in my bed for me – I’m more pampered than when I was at home!!  AAAGH – perhaps it’s good training in tolerance.  [We don’t know what Kingsley thought about me, of course! And I guess some of this is just typical adjustment to living with a different person and his different approach to domesticity. Sorry, Kingsley! I was no doubt also a bit of a pain to live with...]

*After a distinguished career in England, for Sadler’s Wells Opera, the British Broadcasting Corporation, films and records – a career which has taken him to many other countries, including Turkey and Japan, Michael Moores was invited, in 1976, to become Director of the Opera Workshop for the California State University at Los Angeles.  Mr Moores also makes regular visits to New Zealand, where he presents, conducts and performs piano solos with the New Zealand Symphony in his own television series.  Michael Moores came to Houston in 1979, where he is currently Associate Professor on the faculty of the University of Houston School of Music.  In addition he has conducted for Houston Grand Opera and the Houston Symphony Orchestra and will conduct in the Pop Series this season.