A Night Alone With 'Klever Kaff'

My Monday night with Kathleen!

I have always been surprised and intrigued at how small, often at the time meaningless, events can become etched on our memory. Years later one can remember them and picture, smell or hear what you were part of twenty, thirty or forty years before. As I have become older and begun to look back on my life I am even more  intrigued with this  - especially as, with hindsight,  I have realised that these small events  can not only be remembered with absolute clarity but,  in the great scheme of things,  can often  have had a huge impact upon one’s life, interests and beliefs which were never envisaged at the time.

I often think of this each Monday night! You see my wife Pat goes to her choir rehearsal each Monday, and I'm left alone to enjoy the solitude – no television and few, if any, phone calls. Just me, my Guardian, a book, a crossword and, usually, Kathleen! My wife is quite aware that I often spend each Monday  evening with Kathleen but being the liberated woman that she is she is quite understanding. She  isn’t too keen about Kathleen herself so I can only enjoy Kathleen's charms when  Pat is out! I should explain before  you get the wrong idea that Kathleen is not my secret lover, nor is she my mistress, my floozy or (as my mother would have said) my fancy woman - she isn't  even a blow up doll! She is a singer – the great Kathleen Ferrier; and as I listen, in the quietness of the empty house, to her wonderful contralto voice I muse on how my love affair with her began over sixty years ago.

My great love is the music of JS Bach – from a teenager I began my love affair with him – he is the subject of many of my blogs. Sufficient to say at this point  that I have absolutely no hesitation in agreeing with the many Bach worshippers who suggest that his work, and in particular  compositions such as the B Minor Mass, the Goldberg Variations or the St Matthew Passion, represent  some of the greatest achievements of mankind. But more widely I love music - and especially Baroque music from the earliest to the latest. I did not grow up in a musical household; we had an old piano which my mother could play a simple tune on and I was sent to piano lessons for a few years to learn to play the thing. I hated every minute of it and, to my eternal shame and later deep regret, gave up at the first opportunity. A number of incidents from my childhood, however, stand out head and shoulders above the rest in relation to music and these were the undoubted sparks to my later love of classical music in general and Bach in  particular. These are those events that I mentioned at the top of this blog. Events which at the time were just things that happened to me – no different  or more important than a million others - but still remembered exactly and, I believe, fundamental in  making me what I am.

Nenny and me - at about the same
 time we went on our day out!

One of these events  happened when I was about ten or eleven. I was born and grew up Preston, Lancashire and I loved my 'Auntie Edna', or 'Nenny', as I called her and still did until the day she died a few years ago. She always had time, her love was unconditional.  She  married late in life and was a second mother until the day she died. She had spent her life working in the cotton mills of Preston as a weaver, working mostly at the Emerson Road Mill but later at Horrockses. I spent a lot of time at her house as a child and there was always a little treat, or a bit of shopping for me to do which always brought me a few coppers. Nenny was not well read, I don’t think she ever had any great expectations in life, she would have never described herself as bright or clever or intelligent or cultured  – indeed she wasn’t. She was just an honest, hard working Lancashire lass – a weaver, no more no less. A salt of the earth person. What you saw was what you got with Nenny - she wore her heart on her sleeve and would give you her last penny if she thought it would help you.

One day in the mid fifities (it would have been a Saturday when she wasn’t at work) Nenny announced that she would take me out for half a day.  It didn’t seem very exciting to my young eyes, we were going to catch the bus to Higher Walton, a small village just outside Preston.  The reason was that we were going, she told me, was to see the house of Kathleen Ferrier who had been born in Higher Walton – between Preston and Blackburn - in 1912. Ferrier had died a year or two previously in 1953 and the house of her birth  had recently had a plaque erected outside commemorating this event and some years later a memorial garden was opened in Higher Walton. I had no idea who Kathleen Ferrier was and I don’t  think that Nenny had much more. Nenny certainly wasn’t an opera buff – Doris Day,  Vera Lynn, Frankie Lane,  and Ann Shelton and the like were the old scratchy 78 records Nenny used to buy for her wind up gramophone. But I can remember her telling me that Kathleen Ferrier was a Lancashire lass  – just like her – and  that she was something for "us Lancashire folk" to be proud of. Nenny didn’t know anything about opera but at the same time, like so many working class folk in those days, she respected these "cultured things" and saw them as something for lesser mortals such as her to aspire to and value. And, in Nenny's eyes,  Ferrier, the working class girl who became a star was someone to look up to and value. There was also, I think, something else that appealed;  Ferrier had had such a short but brilliant life, ending in the sort of tragedy that might easily form the plot of grand opera - it was just the sort of stuff that Nenny loved, like a magazine story! It was the stuff of fairy tales – humble girl wins fame and acclaim, never forgets her roots but is then struck down by tragedy. Nenny would often hum popular songs or hymn tunes and many years later, as I listened to the old scratchy recordings of Ferrier, I recognised some of the tunes I used to hear  as my auntie cooked dinner or  played  her wind up  gramophone. Now, if I listen to Ferrier singing 'O rest in the  Lord' from Mendelssohn’s 'Elijah' or Handel's 'Art Thou Troubled'  I can still hear Nenny humming them away to herself as she dusted, made a sandwich or cooked tea - and as I listen and remember it is not at all unusual for me to find tears running down my cheek - partly because of the beauty of the music and Ferrier's wonderful voice, but mostly, I suspect, because I am subconsciously remembering my much loved aunty. She didn’t know many of the words or the opera/oratorio from which they came – it was just a tune that she liked - and which, unknowingly, she imprinted on my young mind.  

The house of her birth at Higher Walton

So,  we went for our trip and  that half day became etched in my consciousness. I  still clearly remember standing outside the house. Other people also stood, in silent homage, paying their respect to this very ordinary local woman who became an international superstar. A "Lancashire lass" who tragically died so young but who, in her short career,  had  a such huge impact upon the classical music world – and ultimately upon my own.

Kathleen Ferrier was (and still is) one of the world’s very greatest singers. She was born in 1912 on 22 April (the same day as me!).  She died in London on 8 October 1953. During her short career she went from one triumph to another, received the adulation of her peers, of critics and of audiences all over the world and still retained her 'Lancashire lass' background and outlook.

She  did not begin her career as a singer. She was a member of the school choir where she was usually asked just to stand at the back and sing quietly! Her mother  arranged piano lessons for her and, as a talented young pianist of only 14 she passed the final grade of the Associated Board of the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music. A local newspaper of the time called this ‘an unprecedented success for so youthful a student.’ Kathleen left school at 14 and went to work for the GPO in Blackburn, first in the telegrams department and then as a switchboard operator.  In July 1930, at the age of 18, she took part in her first concert as a pianist, which was broadcast from Manchester and began to accompany many local singers in the  musical scene.

The memorial garden

By the time she was 23 she was married  and giving piano lessons to local children. Then in 1937 came her big moment.  She entered the Carlisle Festival as a pianist and her husband bet her a shilling that she dare not enter for the singing contest as well. She did -  entering the contralto solo class - and  carried off the  trophies for singing and piano. And to crown it, she  won the first prize for the best singer at the Festival.  She was suddenly  in great demand. In 1939 she made her first radio broadcast as a singer.

It was  wartime and her first years were spent bringing music to people as part of the war effort. She sang in church halls, cinemas, schools and factories – in fact anywhere an audience could be got together.  But then, in 1942 she sang for Sir Malcolm Sargent  and from then on  became something akin to a modern day superstar,  well known on the concert platform and in all the great oratorio works, particularly the "Messiah".  Benjamin Britten wrote his second opera, "The Rape of Lucretia", with her in mind for the title role. In 1948 Kathleen sang for the first time in New York, to great acclaim, and then began tours of  America, Canada and Europe. Such was the impact of her voice on the operatic world  that even the stern and allegedly heartless Herbert von Karajan, the world's greatest conductor at the time, was seen to weep as he conducted her in Bach's "St Matthew Passion".

Kathleen as a young woman

In 1951, however,  breast  cancer was diagnosed and she had an operation. Initially, it seemed successful  but  throughout 1952 she was dogged by problems  and it was found that further treatment was necessary. She fulfilled as many of her commitments as she could but eventually was unable to meet the travel demands.  Her final role was in Gluck's 'Orfeo ed Euridice' at Covent Garden in February 1953.  Already seriously ill, the cancer had spread to her bones, she got through the opening night  successfully, but at the second performance the femur in her left leg snapped. She vomited in the wings,  but despite this carried on and with the aid of morphine she took several curtain calls.  The audience did not realise that anything unusual had happened. She left the theatre on a stretcher. It was her final performance.  Kathleen  was forty-one years old when she died in October 1953. In the ten years or so of fame which were granted her she achieved more than most singers achieve in a lifetime. In tribute at her funeral the great German conductor Bruno Walter said that the two greatest privileges in his life were "to have known and worked with Kathleen Ferrier and Gustav Mahler – in that order!"

When she died, her death  quite literally shattered the euphoria of the recent  Coronation.  Many newspapers had black edges to their headline.  Editorials referred to her  as 'the most celebrated woman in Britain after the newly crowned Queen'.  The way that Kathleen fought her illness became the stuff of legends. Soon after her death the story soon emerged that in July 1952 the new Queen was staying with her uncle, David Bowes-Lyon, and she heard that Kathleen  was spending the weekend nearby. The Queen  invited Ferrier to sing for her.  After the recital, the Queen sat next to her on a sofa and  asked her how she was. 'Just the odd ache, Ma'am', was the reply. 'You have to expect these things.' Her English rose beauty was as familiar as that of any film star of the day, and her record sales were phenomenal - her version of 'What is life?' from 'Orfeo ed Euridice' outsold Frank Sinatra and Vera Lynn. Most famous of all was the haunting, plaintive sound of 'Blow the Wind Southerly' - which quickly became an anthem for a post-war generation for whom the song's theme, of patient waiting for a beloved's return from over the water, was an all too poignant and immediate reminder in the post war years of the late 40s and early 50s.

  

But despite her stardom she never forgot her roots – and perhaps in a way this was part of her appeal to the ordinary men and women like Nenny. She was one of them and not a far removed opera  diva. She was a Lancashire lass who made good in the great world of music and opera. As the Daily Telegraph commented at the time of her death  'without a hint of vulgarity, she had the common touch. Or, at least, she was the perfect lady, never deemed snooty or stuck-up'. She often mockingly called herself 'Klever Kaff' and was hugely sociable, she could down 'a dirty big pint' and enjoyed untipped cigarettes, too. Visiting New York, she was 'thrilled to bits every minute of the day', 'Ain't I a lucky ole twerp?' she would comment - unable to believe her good fortune - that someone like her should achieve all this. She had a tremendous earthy sense of humour. Anything but prim and proper and a taste for the slightly risqué . The letters to her father and sister are full of 'going to the lav' and the marvels of 'nylon knickers' -  a novelty of the era!

And what of her voice? Today, styles have changed. She was blessed with a wide open throat (her singing teacher claimed that he could 'have lobbed an apple down it without meeting obstruction')  but today she wouldn't really do. Low-lying voices – contraltos - now sound rather 'old hat' and 'headmistressy'.  Kathleen was a singer of her time - a time of grief and weariness in the war and just after. To the ordinary man and woman, like my auntie,  she represented  respect and a belief in the national identity – something to aspire to upright, austere, unfussy, honest  and sincere  in the dark days of war and post war rationing. In short, someone to look up to. 

Kathleen Ferrier OBE - a singer of international fame

As I think today of Ferrier and what she represented I cannot but conclude that somewhere we have lost the plot as a society;  when triviality fills our TV and cinema screens, when cheap talent shows make stars out of the completely talentless and when the public seem to thrive upon the mediocre and the coarse we have lost the ability to recognise what is of worth and to discriminate the good from the bad, the worthy from the unworthy, the tat from the quality. In short we have become a  society unable to distinguish what is of lasting value.  Kathleen Ferrier, was a hugely talented musician - today she would be a true superstar of the classical music world - but she was much more; her story was one of local girl next door makes good, and that was what appealed to my aunt. My aunt recognised Ferrier for what she was a talented singer but also a good and likeable human being, who acted at all times with great dignity and decency, someone to respect and look up to. And that, in my view is what separates her from so much of what we applaud and laud today as "talent" - where the seedy, the dubious, and the downright unpleasant is somehow given celebrity status - and sadly, as a society we have lost the ability to recognise this. Words like dignity, respect and decency have become, rather like Ferrier's low contralto voice, rather old fashioned and out of date in our crass and coarse world. Kathleen Ferrier and my aunt Edna - Nenny - had decency, respect and dignity in bucket loads; we have, I fear, lost the plot since those far off days.

The picture that hung in
Nenny's house

One of my treasured possessions is a CD of Ferrier. It is music to listen to quietly - her beautifully, distinctive  contralto  voice with its  wonderful diction is of a different age, but at the same time timeless. Although she sings pieces from many composers and traditions  – Bach, Handel, Mahler, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms -   there is, it seems to me, something  gentle quintessentially English about her voice and  her phrasing.  And listening to it, as I do, often on Monday evenings, when the house is quiet and I am alone, I am transported back to that day in the mid fifties when I went with my aunt to pay respects to the woman and her music. A woman, who, at that point I did not know, but who has since become such an important part of my life. Every single time I listen to Ferrier sing Mendolssohn's "O Rest in the Lord" I can hear Nenny humming along and joining in with the odd few words that she knew and I picture in my mind's eye a cheap little picture that hung in Nenny's dining room wall. It was a picture of Jesus knocking on a door - not a great work of art but the sort of sentimental thing that appealed to my auntie and which, like her humming along to a great piece of music from Elijah (a work that she would never see or hear) spoke of Nenny's simple humility and acceptance of her life as a Lancashire lass, a weaver, who spent most of her working life weaving at Emerson Road Mill. She didn't understand opera or great music, she wasn't overly religious but had a simple Christianity, a simple joy of life and a simple love of her fellow human beings. She was never happier than when she was having  her weekly bottle of Dutton's "OBJ" ('Oh Be Joyful') ale in the New Hall Lane Tavern and singing a popular song, but at the same time she knew that what Ferrier and others like her sang about was good and worthwhile and something for lesser mortals like her to value. This combined with her simple faith she passed on to me - and it is something for which I will be forever grateful. Listening to these old recordings, when Pat is at choir practice on Monday night is an occasion to actually touch the past  to hear exactly the same things that people over half a century ago heard. When I listen to Ferrier singing the great baroque arias such as 'Ombra mai fu' from Handel’s ‘Serse’ or  the achingly sad 'What is life? from 'Orfeo ed Euridice' – her final role - I am reminded of  how this woman unknowingly, with my auntie, opened a door for me to a lifetime love of music. I often reflect, too, that Nenny, who never had children of her own would, I think, be quietly pleased that our little trip out on that Saturday morning opened up a world that changed me forever and allowed me, her nephew, to develop a love of something that she enjoyed, valued and saw as worthy and good.