Today
I had a long day yesterday. I drove to Leamington Spa and back for the purposes of an English Concert Singers rehearsal. We're all off on a concert visit to Salzburg at the end of next month and there were a lot of new pieces to sing and our conductor Roy had to weld us into some kind of ensemble.
We meet irregularly, usually for a few Sunday rehearsals, before a big concert. Yesterday there were about seventy of us.
The members of this group also permeate the English Concert Chorus which provides the vocal element to a range of classical "pop" concerts in London and Birmingham and also the British Choral Institute which offers various choral workshops during the year. People travel from all over the country, although there are clusters from Essex, the Midlands and Sussex, probably reflecting places where Roy has lived and worked.
So how I did come to be involved?
In My Day
At one time, back in the 1990s I was secretary to my local choir. This entailed, among other things, receiving large quantities of junk mail relating to musical events all over the country. In 1994 I was all prepared for a week away covering for the regular choir at Exeter Cathedral. I'd done this the year before at Gloucester and had a splendid time. So I was very disappointed when the Exeter event was abruptly cancelled.
There I was, all dressed up with nowhere to go, so to speak. I disconsolately leafed through the junk mail and noticed a flyer for a choral study week at a very posh girls' school near St Albans in Hertfordshire. There were chamber choirs, opportunities to learn singing in foreign languages and advice on choir administration. I called and was told that there was a place left. I booked and went off, entirely alone and not knowing a soul.
This event was run by the British Choral Institute, director Roy Wales. He had gathered around him a creme de la creme group of conductors and vocal trainers. It was clear that Roy had a passion for choral singing. His wife Chris did all the administration and smoothed many paths and ironed out all difficulties. The sun shone all week and I had a lovely time. We all sang together every night (I've never known the reason why Roy chose a requiem each evening...) and gave our closing concert in St Martin-in-the-Fields. I went home feeling refreshed.
After that, I contacted Roy to see if he would do a vocal techniques day for our choir, this he did, staying overnight at our place.
I soon discovered that, once on Chris' mailing list, you were never off it and my next adventure with BCI was the first Alfriston Choral weekend where about ninety of us sang Israel in Egypt with a string orchestra, entirely filling the little church. I found that people whom I'd last seen in Hertfordshire greeted me like an old friend. So I kept on going year after year. The events gave me an opportunity to sing the "big" works which were unsuitable for my smaller choir.
Chris Wales never missed any opportunity to advertise other events and I soon became aware of ECC events. In 2004 off I went to sing in "The Glory of Christmas" at the Barbican and Symphony Hall, Birmingham. While I wouldn't call these cultural high points, they were great fun and I began to cement a few friendships.
Finally I was allowed into the hallowed inner circle of the ECS. I've sung with them in Dubrovnik, Yarm, Peterborough, Leamington Spa and Birmingham, to name a few places and the repertoire has been wide and quite different from that of either Laetare or Cantilena. I never cease to be fascinated by Roy's passion and energy and amazed to the point of intimidation by Chris's efficiency. And I'm really looking forward to Salzburg.
All of which makes a mere five hours' drive and another five singing seem a mere trifle compared to the rewards.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Vertigo
Today
More on our walk to Brighton Pier last week. We bought ourselves ice-cream (where did the name "99" come from?) and decided to walk along the pier. These days it's just "The Pier", as the West Pier slowly disappears beneath the waves and the 3rd pier is confined to the history books.
We mostly kept to the sunny side and I took pictures of the sunnily-shimmering sea, the rotting piles just showing above the waves and the various bits of funfair apparatus. The whole of the far end of the pier is devoted to a permanent funfair and we watched the crazy people being swirled about in the air above us. Piped chart music kept us company the whole way.
The floor beneath was still composed of wooden planks, through which the sea could be seen. I looked down and tried to recapture the way I used to feel about this when I was small.
In My Day
Readers of this blog will by now know that Brighton was a very familiar place to me in my childhood. It was (and still is!) the nearest seaside resort to South London. Fifty minutes on the train from East Croydon and ten minutes from the station and we were at the Pier.
"Palace Pier" sounded so grand and, just as Paul and I did last week, we often were bought ice creams before sauntering along the wooden planks so precariously and arrogantly set over the turbulent sea.
Brighton was rather gone to seed in those days and the Pier seemed, to my junior eyes, to be a dangerous place. The metal struts were rusty and the wooden supports rotting. The gaps between the planks seemed huge and I wondered what would happen if my foot became stuck between them. Or, worse still, if I actually slipped between them into the raging waves.
There was a moment to be savoured as the view beneath one's feet changed from reassuring pebbles to treacherous water. In a flash I moved from safety to danger. Somehow it always seemed impossible windy.
There were still the little shops down the middle selling all kinds of rubbish and I remember clearly the glass animal man blowing molten glass gently into fantastic shapes. How I wanted to buy some but was never allowed.
Eventually we got to end of the Pier. There was no funfair is those days; rather the structure ended abruptly and I faced the unending ocean with all its terror and fantasy. People were fishing from the end and I stood astonished at their fearlessness. I was always quite glad to be back on terra firma proper, so to speak, never having quite trusted this rickety structure.
One thing I have learnt since then is how to eat a whole ice cream cone without losing most of the ice cream onto the pavement.
More on our walk to Brighton Pier last week. We bought ourselves ice-cream (where did the name "99" come from?) and decided to walk along the pier. These days it's just "The Pier", as the West Pier slowly disappears beneath the waves and the 3rd pier is confined to the history books.
We mostly kept to the sunny side and I took pictures of the sunnily-shimmering sea, the rotting piles just showing above the waves and the various bits of funfair apparatus. The whole of the far end of the pier is devoted to a permanent funfair and we watched the crazy people being swirled about in the air above us. Piped chart music kept us company the whole way.
The floor beneath was still composed of wooden planks, through which the sea could be seen. I looked down and tried to recapture the way I used to feel about this when I was small.
In My Day
Readers of this blog will by now know that Brighton was a very familiar place to me in my childhood. It was (and still is!) the nearest seaside resort to South London. Fifty minutes on the train from East Croydon and ten minutes from the station and we were at the Pier.
"Palace Pier" sounded so grand and, just as Paul and I did last week, we often were bought ice creams before sauntering along the wooden planks so precariously and arrogantly set over the turbulent sea.
Brighton was rather gone to seed in those days and the Pier seemed, to my junior eyes, to be a dangerous place. The metal struts were rusty and the wooden supports rotting. The gaps between the planks seemed huge and I wondered what would happen if my foot became stuck between them. Or, worse still, if I actually slipped between them into the raging waves.
There was a moment to be savoured as the view beneath one's feet changed from reassuring pebbles to treacherous water. In a flash I moved from safety to danger. Somehow it always seemed impossible windy.
There were still the little shops down the middle selling all kinds of rubbish and I remember clearly the glass animal man blowing molten glass gently into fantastic shapes. How I wanted to buy some but was never allowed.
Eventually we got to end of the Pier. There was no funfair is those days; rather the structure ended abruptly and I faced the unending ocean with all its terror and fantasy. People were fishing from the end and I stood astonished at their fearlessness. I was always quite glad to be back on terra firma proper, so to speak, never having quite trusted this rickety structure.
One thing I have learnt since then is how to eat a whole ice cream cone without losing most of the ice cream onto the pavement.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Pebbles
Today
Yesterday I worked away at Paul's waistcoat until the heat on the veranda became too much and the sparkling sea beckoned us out.
We walked via the Enclosures onto Madeira Drive and crossed the Volks railway line onto the beach. We slid and scrambled over the pebbles to the shore. We looked at the waves and made our way, eventually, back up to the promenade. Our feet adapted to the sliding pebbles easily and we even felt that the scramble was doing us good.
"Of course", I said to Paul "Pebbly beaches are what I'm used to."
In My Day
Most of our excursions to the seaside during my childhood involved Brighton; sometimes Eastbourne and, at a pinch, Hastings. All these resorts have pebbly beaches, some rebarbatively so. Some show a scrap of gritty sand at very low tide, but, basically, the East Sussex coast is pebbles.
I don't think I minded; somehow I couldn't quite believe in beaches where you could make a sandcastle. When I read the Rupert Bear annuals in which he visited "Sandy Bay" and sat on and played with sand, it seemed more fictional than the wildest fairy tale.
Having said that, one of my earliest seaside memories involves sand. The holiday was in 1951 to Southbourne, near Littlehampton. There wasn't just a sandy beach; there were sand dunes, Pictures in the family album as well as a visit I made when a student in Worthing attest to the truth of this.
I remember that holiday. How I so wanted to clamber up the enticing dunes after Mamma and the boys. I tried, but they were too steep for my little three-year old legs and I slid to the bottom. My memory is that Mamma and the boys all laughed at me. Can that be true? I don't know but I still remember that sense of being too small and insignificant to achieve what the others were achieving with such ease. I can still see that steep, steep hill of sand from which I felt so excluded . Certainly the album has a picture of me at bottom with spade and the boys and Mamma scrambling to the top.
Who, knows, this experience may have contributed to my aversion to beach life and my complete lack of interest in sand. What I do know, is that I had a lovely time yesterday.
Yesterday I worked away at Paul's waistcoat until the heat on the veranda became too much and the sparkling sea beckoned us out.
We walked via the Enclosures onto Madeira Drive and crossed the Volks railway line onto the beach. We slid and scrambled over the pebbles to the shore. We looked at the waves and made our way, eventually, back up to the promenade. Our feet adapted to the sliding pebbles easily and we even felt that the scramble was doing us good.
"Of course", I said to Paul "Pebbly beaches are what I'm used to."
In My Day
Most of our excursions to the seaside during my childhood involved Brighton; sometimes Eastbourne and, at a pinch, Hastings. All these resorts have pebbly beaches, some rebarbatively so. Some show a scrap of gritty sand at very low tide, but, basically, the East Sussex coast is pebbles.
I don't think I minded; somehow I couldn't quite believe in beaches where you could make a sandcastle. When I read the Rupert Bear annuals in which he visited "Sandy Bay" and sat on and played with sand, it seemed more fictional than the wildest fairy tale.
Having said that, one of my earliest seaside memories involves sand. The holiday was in 1951 to Southbourne, near Littlehampton. There wasn't just a sandy beach; there were sand dunes, Pictures in the family album as well as a visit I made when a student in Worthing attest to the truth of this.
I remember that holiday. How I so wanted to clamber up the enticing dunes after Mamma and the boys. I tried, but they were too steep for my little three-year old legs and I slid to the bottom. My memory is that Mamma and the boys all laughed at me. Can that be true? I don't know but I still remember that sense of being too small and insignificant to achieve what the others were achieving with such ease. I can still see that steep, steep hill of sand from which I felt so excluded . Certainly the album has a picture of me at bottom with spade and the boys and Mamma scrambling to the top.
Who, knows, this experience may have contributed to my aversion to beach life and my complete lack of interest in sand. What I do know, is that I had a lovely time yesterday.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Buggy
Today
The bus is a great way to travel in Brighton. On Friday, after doing some shopping in town we hopped onto the number twelve. It was pretty crowded - this is a popular route - and Paul & I sat on little fold-up seats. Just past the pier a young woman with a baby in a pushchair boarded. The pushchair was quite big, with splayed wheels and the mother was having difficulty finding somewhere to put it. Paul & I gave up our seats so that she could wedge herself in. She and her machine took up about four seat spaces. I found another seat next to a chatty woman of about my age.
"I remember getting the smallest pushchair I could", I said "one that would easily fold up on the bus." "Oh yes", she said "Baby Buggies."
In My Day
The girls basically had two forms of transport. When they were tiny, I used a carrycot which went on foldable wheels. If I needed to go on the bus, I put them into slings which buckled onto my body. Once they were able to sit up they went into the Baby Buggy. This was a very basic framework of a deckchair-type fabric slung onto a frame that could be closed up, using one hand and a foot, to little bigger than an umbrella and slung over one arm.
They were made of aluminium and were very light. Travelling on the bus was easy!
The buses in Eastbourne at that time were single-decker. You got on at the front to pay your fare and got off either at the front or the middle. The driver relied on his mirror to tell him that people were alighting from this middle door. My routine, once Lizzie was walking, was to alight with buggy, open it up on the pavement, then reach up and get Lizzie down and pop her in. Easy! However, this routine had to change and this is why:
On one occasion, I was getting off the bus at Hampden Park. Door opened and I alighted and opened up the pushchair. Turned to get Lizzie only to see, to my horror, the doors closing and the bus beginning to pull away. Seems that the mirror used by the driver didn't give him a view of the lower down position of a toddler. Fortunately the bus was still quite full and, as I ran alongside the bus, passengers yelled at the driver to stop. I grabbed Lizzie and changed the routine to child-out-first. A similar thing happened to Beatrice with Becky some years later.
At least this was unlikely to happen to the woman on the Brighton bus as she was taking up about half of the lower deck and could hardly be missed.
The bus is a great way to travel in Brighton. On Friday, after doing some shopping in town we hopped onto the number twelve. It was pretty crowded - this is a popular route - and Paul & I sat on little fold-up seats. Just past the pier a young woman with a baby in a pushchair boarded. The pushchair was quite big, with splayed wheels and the mother was having difficulty finding somewhere to put it. Paul & I gave up our seats so that she could wedge herself in. She and her machine took up about four seat spaces. I found another seat next to a chatty woman of about my age.
"I remember getting the smallest pushchair I could", I said "one that would easily fold up on the bus." "Oh yes", she said "Baby Buggies."
In My Day
The girls basically had two forms of transport. When they were tiny, I used a carrycot which went on foldable wheels. If I needed to go on the bus, I put them into slings which buckled onto my body. Once they were able to sit up they went into the Baby Buggy. This was a very basic framework of a deckchair-type fabric slung onto a frame that could be closed up, using one hand and a foot, to little bigger than an umbrella and slung over one arm.
They were made of aluminium and were very light. Travelling on the bus was easy!
The buses in Eastbourne at that time were single-decker. You got on at the front to pay your fare and got off either at the front or the middle. The driver relied on his mirror to tell him that people were alighting from this middle door. My routine, once Lizzie was walking, was to alight with buggy, open it up on the pavement, then reach up and get Lizzie down and pop her in. Easy! However, this routine had to change and this is why:
On one occasion, I was getting off the bus at Hampden Park. Door opened and I alighted and opened up the pushchair. Turned to get Lizzie only to see, to my horror, the doors closing and the bus beginning to pull away. Seems that the mirror used by the driver didn't give him a view of the lower down position of a toddler. Fortunately the bus was still quite full and, as I ran alongside the bus, passengers yelled at the driver to stop. I grabbed Lizzie and changed the routine to child-out-first. A similar thing happened to Beatrice with Becky some years later.
At least this was unlikely to happen to the woman on the Brighton bus as she was taking up about half of the lower deck and could hardly be missed.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Speak up
Today
There's an old question: which would you rather be? Deaf or blind? For most people there's no choice: deaf is better. Paul's hearing seems to be deteriorating - he doesn't always realise it but he often bends his head sideways to catch what I'm saying and he's confused when there's a lot of background noise, finding it hard to pick out specifics. I guess it's a normal part of ageing, but it's irritating for sufferer and others alike. And that's the thing: it's seen as an irritant, something that makes you foolish, even something to laugh at.
So it was salutary to be among my nephew's new in-laws, both of whom are deaf, one profoundly from birth, at the recent family wedding. Father-in-law made the usual speech, with a signer to interpret for his deaf friends and Jacob gracefully included signing in his groom's speech.
We visited their beautiful home the following day and felt welcome, not awkward. It was a new experience for me to see them with a group of friends, all chatting away in complete silence. The point is, the quality of their lives didn't seem at all lessened and I felt privileged to be among such warm and creative people.
In My Day
I suppose Daddy began to go deaf during his '60's. We were heartless, as children often are, laughing about Daddy's "selective deafness" and treating it as though it was a choice he'd made, rather than an affliction. Given that his profession was as a shorthand reporter, it was absurd to imagine that he'd go without hearing for the dubious reward of being able to ignore unwanted requests. After he had his stroke, at the age of seventy-four, his hearing deteriorated very rapidly. He did wear a hearing aid, items that were of dubious value then, although they're much improved now.
He suffered in much the same way as Paul: confused when there was a hubbub. One-to-one, conversation could be carried on much as usual, although louder. He grieved very much over the loss of enjoyment in music - it gradually began to sound like a meaningless cacophony - but otherwise took to beaming silently when we were all gatherd around him, happy to be a little cut off.
The other part of the question is: is it better to be born deaf or to lose hearing later? With Jacob's in-laws in mind, it does seem that they have a very full and productive life. I salute them.
There's an old question: which would you rather be? Deaf or blind? For most people there's no choice: deaf is better. Paul's hearing seems to be deteriorating - he doesn't always realise it but he often bends his head sideways to catch what I'm saying and he's confused when there's a lot of background noise, finding it hard to pick out specifics. I guess it's a normal part of ageing, but it's irritating for sufferer and others alike. And that's the thing: it's seen as an irritant, something that makes you foolish, even something to laugh at.
So it was salutary to be among my nephew's new in-laws, both of whom are deaf, one profoundly from birth, at the recent family wedding. Father-in-law made the usual speech, with a signer to interpret for his deaf friends and Jacob gracefully included signing in his groom's speech.
We visited their beautiful home the following day and felt welcome, not awkward. It was a new experience for me to see them with a group of friends, all chatting away in complete silence. The point is, the quality of their lives didn't seem at all lessened and I felt privileged to be among such warm and creative people.
In My Day
I suppose Daddy began to go deaf during his '60's. We were heartless, as children often are, laughing about Daddy's "selective deafness" and treating it as though it was a choice he'd made, rather than an affliction. Given that his profession was as a shorthand reporter, it was absurd to imagine that he'd go without hearing for the dubious reward of being able to ignore unwanted requests. After he had his stroke, at the age of seventy-four, his hearing deteriorated very rapidly. He did wear a hearing aid, items that were of dubious value then, although they're much improved now.
He suffered in much the same way as Paul: confused when there was a hubbub. One-to-one, conversation could be carried on much as usual, although louder. He grieved very much over the loss of enjoyment in music - it gradually began to sound like a meaningless cacophony - but otherwise took to beaming silently when we were all gatherd around him, happy to be a little cut off.
The other part of the question is: is it better to be born deaf or to lose hearing later? With Jacob's in-laws in mind, it does seem that they have a very full and productive life. I salute them.
Monday, September 07, 2009
Three's a crowd
Today
We've had the kitties for over a year now and Abby doesn't seem to be any closer to accepting them. In fact, it's getting slightly worse, with Abby only coming in for meals and growling even when sitting on my lap.
I feel a combination of anxiety and irritation. I want both to reassure her and to tell her to stop being so silly and get over it!
In My Day
When a customer of Paul's told him that they had a cross-bred Abyssinian cat to give away he jumped at the chance to get it for me. Abyssinians are renowned for their intelligent and affectionate natures and for their beautiful short, dense coats in which each hair is striped, honey, brown and "tipped" either with red or black. These kittens were "cross-bred" because their owners, who kept two pure-bred females for breeding, were bad at security and one female regularly escaped to enjoy the attentions of the local tomcat population. This resulted in unsaleable kittens and a queen spoiled for future breeding.
Just about as soon as Paul had committed himself to taking the kitten, we discovered that our cat Amelia was pregnant. About a week after the kittens were born, the Abyssinian, now called Agamemnon, came home. He displayed the usual playful interest in the kittens whose eyes were still closed and Amelia, without so much as a growl, let Agamemnon know that he could look but not touch. She allowed him to join in at feeding times, which he did by lying down behind her and grabbing a nipple from above.
Once the kittens were running about and had their eyes open, Amelia was completely laissez-faire and allowed Agamemnon to bat the kittens about, He never injured them and they came back for more.
For all their long lives together, Amelia and Agamemnon were close companions, usually curling up at nights to sleep together. Amelia continued in her maternal duties by washing Agamemnon regularly, pinning him down by one ear.
If only I could explain to Abby that she's nothing to fear and that life would be more rewarding if she could welcome the kitties into her heart.
We've had the kitties for over a year now and Abby doesn't seem to be any closer to accepting them. In fact, it's getting slightly worse, with Abby only coming in for meals and growling even when sitting on my lap.
I feel a combination of anxiety and irritation. I want both to reassure her and to tell her to stop being so silly and get over it!
In My Day
When a customer of Paul's told him that they had a cross-bred Abyssinian cat to give away he jumped at the chance to get it for me. Abyssinians are renowned for their intelligent and affectionate natures and for their beautiful short, dense coats in which each hair is striped, honey, brown and "tipped" either with red or black. These kittens were "cross-bred" because their owners, who kept two pure-bred females for breeding, were bad at security and one female regularly escaped to enjoy the attentions of the local tomcat population. This resulted in unsaleable kittens and a queen spoiled for future breeding.
Just about as soon as Paul had committed himself to taking the kitten, we discovered that our cat Amelia was pregnant. About a week after the kittens were born, the Abyssinian, now called Agamemnon, came home. He displayed the usual playful interest in the kittens whose eyes were still closed and Amelia, without so much as a growl, let Agamemnon know that he could look but not touch. She allowed him to join in at feeding times, which he did by lying down behind her and grabbing a nipple from above.
Once the kittens were running about and had their eyes open, Amelia was completely laissez-faire and allowed Agamemnon to bat the kittens about, He never injured them and they came back for more.
For all their long lives together, Amelia and Agamemnon were close companions, usually curling up at nights to sleep together. Amelia continued in her maternal duties by washing Agamemnon regularly, pinning him down by one ear.
If only I could explain to Abby that she's nothing to fear and that life would be more rewarding if she could welcome the kitties into her heart.
Sunday, September 06, 2009
Oats
Today
In Tesco yesterday Paul looked longingly at the tins of condensed and evaporated milk. "When we start having porridge again, I'd really like some with condensed milk", he said "Or do I mean evaporated milk? What's the difference?" I replied that I thought that condensed contained sugar and evaporated didn't, but added that we could have porridge whenever he wanted. A quick glance at the labels on the tins proved me right and some evaporated milk was bought.
"So long as you don't do a Pooh Bear who, when asked if he wanted condensed milk or honey with his bread, said "both" and added "but don't bother about the bread" so as not to seem greedy," I joked "You'll be fine."
We've just had our porridge, which I make with skimmed milk in a porringer, and Paul enjoyed his with the evaporated milk and honey.
In My Day
Porridge was very much a winter breakfast when I was a child. Both Mamma and Daddy made it but Daddy was the recognised expert. It too was made in a porringer or "double saucepan" as Mamma called it. This pan wasn't used for anything else as far as I remember. It was aluminium and the bottom section was encrusted inside with lime deposits from the water and never seemed to be washed up. There's a picture of Beatrice, aged about two, pulling this pot off the trolley to finish up the congealing contents.
The porridge was made with water and a pinch of salt. It was essential to stir it or the starch grains didn't break and turn the porridge thick. Instead the result would be something the Daddy called "skillie" - a milky liquid with oatmeal floating around and quite uneatable. Mamma was quite adept at this version.
We always ate the porridge with milk and golden syrup. I liked to watch the syrup make golden curls and swirls on the top of the porridge. I never added much milk and used to mix it up thoroughly as the combination of hot & cold always seemed a bit strange. Mamma, on the other hand, used to pour the milk carefully around the sides and take a spoonful of milk and porridge with them still quite separate.
Daddy insisted that the only oats to buy were Scotts Porage Oats. All others were inferior, apparently. The packets showed a caber throwing, kilted Scotsman, to prove to you just how strong and tough the consumption of this cereal would make you. The porridge (why did we spell it that way, when the packet said something different?) was very different from gruel, a food item only encountered in story books and clearly very nasty.
I've been told that proper porridge should be thick enough to walk on, sprinkled with salt and cut into slices when needed. I expect it's a Scottish urban myth and reinforces the idea that Scottish cuisine is vile.
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