Wednesday, July 29, 2009

A Question of Talent

Today

Coming back from the gym today, I listened with great pleasure to a performance of the overture to "The Bartered Bride". What a joyous piece it is. I was reminded of an equally joyous WNO production many years ago, which opened with a harvest scene filled with golden light, looking liked a Millet painting. I thought about how the set designer would have researched to find the right ambience and collaborated with the lighting designer to produce that autumnal warmth.

In My Day

I don't know what it was that made me decide that I should pursue a career in theatre design. Perhaps doing a couple of school plays to some acclaim inspired me. Or maybe I just thought it sounded cool.

I was offered a place to do a City & Guilds at the West Sussex College of Design in Worthing (not a very cool place, I know). I joined a fairly motley group who had a variety of skills, from the strictly practical, woodworking category to the solidly artistic.

I turned out to be a fairly competent carpenter and could knock up "flats" for stage sets quite easily. I even learned how to make mortise and tenon joints, although I've now forgotten the knack.

I wasn't bad at making costumes and produced fairly convincing corsets. And once I produced a model of the interior of Chichester Cathedral for a performance of "everyman".

But I wasn't particularly talented. My designs were mediocre and my drawing only so-so. I used to gaze, enchanted, at the stylish and original designs produced by my classmates. What had I been thinking? It was in this spirit that I applied to train to teach art in secondary schools, an only slightly less deranged decision than the one to study theatre design.

After our final exams we were all given work placements. Mine was an assistant in the ladies' ballet wardrobe at Covent Garden. My main duties, it seemed, were to replace the feathers on Margot Fonteyn's Swan Lake costume, daily, and to hold pins while ballerinas were fitted into their costumes. I found the atmosphere stifling, both physically and socially and was very glad when my placement was over. I never thought of asking for an extended stay or a placement elsewhere (I might have been given the men's ballet wardrobe) and was simply relieved to be shot of it.

I don't know whether any of my colleagues from Worthing ever entered the world of theatre but have a sinking feeling that even those who did remained bottom of the heap.

My experiences have certainly caused me to question the ability of eighteen-year-olds to make realistic judgements as to their futures, and made me glad that I had the sense to cut and run.

Monday, July 27, 2009

Frocks

Today

I went to a wedding yesterday. Paul had offered the Bentley to the Bride's mother, so we drove over to the Bride's tiny house as the rain clouds gathered. In the house there were the Bride, seven bridesmaids, a pageboy, a makeup artist and the parents of the bride. Four of the bridesmaids were fully-grown women of considerable stature and the bride was no midget, either. As we squeezed in the front door the coat rack crashed to the floor, taking some plaster with it.

The Bride, wearing nothing but a white bustier, tracksuit bottoms and her veil, greeted us loudly. Given the chaos, the obvious thing to do was to get stuck in; sorting out the little ones' tiaras, stitching up bits of the Bride's dress, shoe-horning the chief bridesmaid into her dress and drinking champagne.

Eventually we all set off, in the right order, with only a little of the Bride's voluminous train catching some mud on the hem.

In My Day

My sister Beatrice was married, at the age of eighteen, at All Saints' Church, Upper Norwood. This was a very do-it-yourself affair and I had been given the responsibility for making the Bride and bridesmaids' outfits. Like yesterday's bride, Beatrice was not petite, and I came up with a Russian theme for the affair (well, I was at theatre design college at the time). I made Beatrice a full-length, ivory wild silk dress, with a high collar and many-many silk-covered buttons down the front and along the deep cuffs of the sleeves. The bridesmaids wore peasant style outfits with hand-embroidered blouses, waistcoats and skirts.

These affairs are never without their cliff-hanger moments; I was running out of time on the skirt embroidery so Mamma completed one - I can always tell which because she slightly overdid the tension.

My flatmate Sue, trained in theatrical millinery, agreed to make the headdresses. I sent her the fabric and money for the additional bits and pieces. The wedding approached; no sign of the headdresses. I couldn't get hold of Sue on the phone. The night before, I hastily stitched some snoods which I thought would do. I abandoned all hope of finishing my own dress and whizzed up to Crystal Palace to buy one.

At one in the morning Mamma stitched flowers onto the muff which Beatrice was having instead of a bouquet.

The morning of the wedding arrived, along with the postman, who bore a large box containing the headdresses. Three wonderful Russian-styles creation were revealed and pinned onto the Bride and maids and my snoods were put aside.

The final cliffhanger moment was also to do with dresses. Beatrice arrived at the church before the choir (consisting of me, brother David and friends Frances and Gregory) had fully assembled, because Frances was also trying to finish a hastily cobbled-together dress and had ended up fixing the hem with Sellotape. She and David dashed in, about a quarter of an hour late, while Beatrice sat in the church porch, waiting patiently until we could sing her in.

While I can see the attraction of one's wedding arrangements operating like a well-oiled machine, it's often the more home-spun elements that bring back the memories most vividly.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Flood II

Today

Once again, we discovered that torrential rain had overpowered the gutters at no9, chucking water at the small bedroom windows and sending water running down the rear corridor. Fortunately, Frank and Maureen had popped in and stemmed the tide using my towels. Frank made some further adjustments to the door's own drainage system to try to make the water run away, rather than inside.

That's the 2nd time in a month - just one of the hazards of owning an old property, one might think.

In My Day

Certainly, older properties were, even at the time of building, less protected from the elements and wear and tear does take its share.

I don't remember large scale floods at 4bh; the effects of the elements were far more subtle, just as damaging and a lot more sinister.

I guess we had colder winters then; certainly there was often a cold snap and Daddy would start to worry about our water supply which was provided by lead pipes between the floors. Now lead is a relatively soft metal which doesn't expand and contract very well. For reasons that I don't understand, our pipes were never lagged. Water would freeze in the pipes, expanding and causing a split somewhere in the weakest point of the system. The trouble was, you couldn't tell whether or where this might have happened until the water thawed, when water would then leak through the ceiling.

This might be given away by a brown patch on the ceiling or a wet patch on the floor. Often you could hear the "drip" "drip" but not see it and some detective work was needed to find its location. Buckets were requisitioned to catch the water. Dealing with the leak involved taking up floorboards and applying a blowtorch to the affected part until the lead melted and rejoined.

The whole process was quite spooky, we feared this insidious internal destruction of our house deep within its structure. I was always anxious in case the ceiling came down or we were engulfed in water.

We used to call this phenomenon simply "The Drip" and it caused as much fear as any Stephen King film, especially to Beatrice who was absolutely terrified and probably would have preferred the weather to be freezing all year round, rather than endure "The Drip", dip-dripping.

At least at the flat our purchase of an extravagantly high-quality carpet has been justified as it's simply shrugged off the dirt.

Saturday, July 04, 2009

Flood

Today

It comes to something when your sister prompts you to write the next blog instalment.

Another of those Internet "getting to know you" quizzes "20 things I'll never forget", which, as usual, I was quick to complete. Beatrice's comment on mine was "more on the fishtank in the till incident, please"

Here goes

In My Day

Was it 1998? We were in Kilcrohane, just Paul, me and the girls. Visits to Eileen's were de rigeur where we usually wound up the day. One of her regulars had paid a visit to Skibereen fair where they'd won a fish. You know, one of those wretched creatures in a plastic bag circling hopelessly with a vacant expression.

With a grand gesture they gave the fish to Eileen, who now had to locate a fishtank and somewhere to put it. She found a tank from somewhere and squeezed it into the tiny space above the till below the wine bottles. This was before the smoking ban which might be why the fish itself didn't last more than 48 hours, or maybe it didn't like the noise or the journey back from Skibereen. The expired fish was removed but somehow Eileen didn't quite get around to removing the tank.

Saturday night was, as usual, crowded and noisy at Eileen's. Vigorous discussions, jokes, flirting and snatches of song. Somehow, no-one noticed that it was way past closing time, as we all partied. Eileen just kept on pouring the Guinnesses and taking the money, faster and faster.

All these rapid movements were her undoing; with a sweeping gesture she knocked the fishtank into the open till. Water got into works and the till started spewing out paper receipts without stopping. As these curled onto the floor, the punters demanded more drinks and laughed even louder, Eileen tried to get onto her support helpline. It was about half-past twelve at night, so the helpdesk was probably on skeleton staff. Eileen couldn't hear what they told her, couldn't hear herself speak and the till kept on churning. Using her vast store of expletives, Eileen told her customers to shut up. Which instruction they completely ignored, shouting jibes and encouragement.

I don't know how the evening finished; I expect the till ran out of paper. Eileen decided that she could take money for drinks without a till, business being business. I think she turned the till upside down to shake out the water and hoped for the best.

We left the pub at about one am, stumbling the few yards back to Fawnmore, leaving the revellers who kept things going till about three.

Just another normal day in Kilcrohane, then.