Today
My garden at Spencer House is full of trees. Some are specimens, planted by the Victorian designers of the Manor, others are self-seeded and now grown to massive proportions. The oak tree threatens the stability of the garage and the beech once again is touching the roof of the house and brushing against the windows. My poor ash has die-back, with new growth failing to put out leaves. So, they all need a prune and some have just got to go, something I'm a little sorry about.
In My Day
4BH was also a Victorian house with a large garden bordered with trees, as I have before blogged. There were all beautiful, especially the copper beech. But most had been there for about a hundred years and it's only oaks and yews that grow for three hundred years +; most reach the end of their life in seventy to a hundred years. And some were huge - the limes at the front were almost as tall as the house which was a four-storey dwelling.
So there was always the possibility that a tree would come crashing down without warning. I remember two instances of this.
The first was when the laburnum in the front garden came down under the weight of snow on December 30th 1962. This was early in the great winter of 62/63. The tree simply subsided and fell right across the main road. Traffic (including buses) was backed up in both directions. It was a Sunday, so no chance of getting help. Instead a huge family effort was initiated, with Daddy and the boys slicing up branches and the trunk and the rest of us wheeling away logs in wheelbarrows in the still falling snow. I had just come home from a massively extended (on account of the snow) paper round and was pretty tired, but had to knuckle down and help.
On another occasion a large maple at the back just silently collapsed across the lawn. There was a pram in the back garden (was it Beatrice's?), although empty. Daddy shoved it a bit closer to the tree, took a dramatic picture and sent it to the local paper with an equally dramatic fictional news item all about close shaves and lucky near misses. I learnt a lot about journalism that day.
I shall be most sorry to lose both oak and ash at the same time as I always enjoyed watching to see which one would come into leaf first and prove or disprove the old saying.
Today
Last Saturday we were discussing the way that modern day parents talk to and share conversations with their children compared with our own experience. "Well", was Paul's contribution "my stepfather would say 'when I want your opinion, I'll ask you'". One of our guests said, "Well my upbringing was pretty much of its time, I guess - seen and not heard."
"Oh!", I replied "we had a family council."
In My Day
We did, indeed have a family council. We met approximately every three weeks after Sunday lunch. No topics of family interest were excluded and we discussed holidays, Christmas, budgets, domestic chores, garden management, events and dates etc. Mamma and Daddy had right of veto over matters financial, which was fair enough.
We were all given an opportunity of making our case. On occasions, children were united and parents had to cave in. It was extremely good training for the future and certainly we three oldest became quite good at cogently defending a position. I'm not entirely sure that Beatrice was quite old enough for this, at least at the start, and she soon became pretty bored.
It was also a concentrated example of the way my parents ran the family. "I'm not a Victorian Father!" Daddy would proclaim. By this he meant that he didn't just make edicts which we were all, including Mamma, expected to obey without question. He generally explained his reasons and methods, and, while I'm certain that we were as often disobedient as not, we did have a sense of family involvement. This is something that I so often find out was lacking in other families, where father was a forbidding distant figure and where mothers still said "you wait till your father gets home....." making father even more terrifying.
While I've never been afraid to insist on proper behaviour and a degree of obedience, I much prefer to involve children with family life in all its aspects. That way they naturally become your friends in adulthood, a privilege that I'm now enjoying.
Today
Becky sent me a most delightful picture of Carmen dancing. They'd been to a festival in the local town and Carmen had quickly made friends with another girl. Soon they were whirling around the square, to the great amusement of the locals ("they were more entertaining than the band", Becky told me).
In My Day
I have before blogged that Becky has always loved to dance. I remember one occasion, back in about 1982, when Becky was four. We had decided to go, along with a group of friends, to a "Last Night of the Proms" event that was being held at Leeds Castle in Kent. It was a beautiful Summer day and we convoyed off.
The event was out of doors and we found a spot among the crowd where we could spread out our picnic and also have a good (if distant) view of the event.
I think the Philharmonia Orchestra was playing so the playing was of a high standard and the sound quality was good. we all had fun listening to all the pot boilers, drinking wine and relaxing in the evening sunshine. Inevitably "Blue Danube" was played and Tchaikovsky's "Waltz of the Flowers" from The Nutcracker.
Becky stood up, alone among the crowd. "I want to Dance!" she proclaimed. And dance she did, twirling and swaying gracefully in time to the music. Gradually, couples stood up and danced together, following Becky's example.
I think that her response to the music was highly appropriate and added a dimension of involvement that was otherwise lacking, although that changed somewhat when we all launched into "Jerusalem".
As they say on Strictly, Carmen, keep dancing!
Today
On Radio Three's building a record library today they were comparing recordings of Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld, including the celebrated Sadler's Wells production of 1961 which was revived several times during the decade.
In My Day
During the years 1966-1969 I was a student of theatre design at the West Sussex College of Design in Worthing.
We were offered classes in set design and making, props and costume. The department head was a plump woman called Sheila O'Connor. She was rather a slap-dash teacher in many areas (I remember a lecture on interiors where she talked about "Indigo Jones". When a student asked "Isn't it "Inigo"? her reply was "You say it your way, I'll say it mine".) So the respect we gave her was minimal. She did get in some good teachers: a expert costumier named Sonya who had teeth to rival JS-P's, and a very good carpenter with much stage experience, from whom I learnt how to make mortise and tenon joints and to stretch a canvas.
Predictably, it was costume that really attracted me and under Sheila's tuition I made corsets, a "Shakespeare" shirt, designs for Brecht's "The Good Woman of Szechuan" and a handsome 18th century caped coat.
One day she came in with an exciting project. The local operatic society was putting "Orpheus" and she had designed all the costumes. This was more like it! What lovely designs! So funky and stylish. With a renewed respect for Sheila I got to work, cutting and stitching. I stayed late, attaching black sequins on can-can dresses and carefully sewing lace skirts. We got it all done in time and felt very pleased with this creative effort.
Some time later I actually saw the Sadler's Wells production and it was clear that Sheila had simply copied the costume designs. So much for creative genius. Although that doesn't take aways the creative skill with which I constructed those can-can dresses!
Today
Driving into Wells today I listened with pleasure to a recording of Stanford's "Justorum Animae". I've sung it many times but one occasion was the most memorable.
In My Day
I think it must have been 1993. My neighbour decided that she wanted to have a fancy dress New Year's party. One day in November she trotted over to discuss it with us. "What should the theme be?". We tried a number of ideas without coming up with a solution. Eventually I had a brainwave. "Why don't you have a pre-party party to decide this? Invite people who live in walking distance down to yours one night and we'll soon sort it out!"
Carolyn agreed and a couple of weeks later about a dozen or so of us gathered at her house one Saturday night.
Very quickly we decided on the theme: comic strip characters. Now what? the night was young! I regret to have to report that the rest of the evening degenerated into drinking games, at which I had rather less experience than some of my younger neighbours
At some point in the early hours I left amid tearful farewells and found my way home next door.
Now, normally, all that would have happened is that I would have passed out and woken up with a corker the next day and spent Sunday getting over it. However, some weeks earlier, I'd agreed to help out the choir at St John's Church, Glastonbury in the morning service. Rehearsal was at 8.30, the service at 10.00.
How I got out of bed is now lost to my memory, but I did and drove (I'm pretty sure I was still well over the limit) the fifteen miles to Glastonbury. Among other things we were singing Justorum Animae in which the top soprano has a very lovely sustained top G.
I did my best, I really did, but I was trembling from lack of sleep and excess alcohol and gave the only performance of my life with a vibrato. A wobbling, uncertain vibrato, when what I had been hired for was my pure top notes.
They haven't asked me back since...
Today
Someone posted one of those little sayings on Facebook today: "No matter how old you are, the first person you want to talk to when you're upset is your Mum".
"Not me", I said to Paul.
In My Day
Mamma was not an overtly emotional person. I don't remember cuddles and kisses being part of my childhood landscape. But she wasn't forbidding, either. She was pretty laissez-faire about many things and I don't think she ever shouted at me or smacked me.
But I also don't remember confiding in her, either. What I'm not sure about is whether this is saying things about me or about her. Maybe my siblings can shed some light.
I had a few things to contend with in my childhood, some abuse that is now common knowledge, bullying at primary school, over and above the normal things that upset children. so why didn't I talk to my mother about these things?
I was a very chatty person (still am!) and contrived to appear very open, whilst concealing everything. I have mentioned before in these blogs that Mamma realised that I was "secretive"; should she have probed more? She herself was keeping many of the details of her experiences in Nazi Germany close to her chest, so she might have seen that this is sometimes necessary and respected my privacy.
On the other hand, I was a child; and maybe could have used some help. Who knows, perhaps she was wise enough to see that I was developing the strength to deal with challenges without needing support. While this has proved true in my case, it was a chancy strategy and resulted in a sense of childhood isolation, despite being in a big family.
What I do know is, that I reached my 60th year without really confiding my problems or anxieties to anyone. These days my daughters do, indeed, talk to me when they're upset and I now do the same to them. And I hope that Becky and Carmen will be able to share their hopes and fears as time goes on.
My garden at Spencer House is full of trees. Some are specimens, planted by the Victorian designers of the Manor, others are self-seeded and now grown to massive proportions. The oak tree threatens the stability of the garage and the beech once again is touching the roof of the house and brushing against the windows. My poor ash has die-back, with new growth failing to put out leaves. So, they all need a prune and some have just got to go, something I'm a little sorry about.
