Serendipity!

I love the word “serendipity”. I don’t think I’ve ever actually used it in my life but just love the sound of it and its meaning. According to the OED serendipity means “finding interesting or valuable things by chance” and this week I did, I think, experience “serendipity” and have thoroughly enjoyed the experience! Let me explain.

Mr Bolton as I remember him

When I was 11 I, like most of the boys in my junior school class, failed my 11+ exam and so was destined for Fishwick Secondary Modern in Preston Lancashire. It had a reputation of being a tough place but in those far off days – and especially for kids like me from a working class background - you just accepted your lot. In the end places like Fishwick had largely one purpose – producing “factory fodder” for the cotton mills and heavy industry of northern England. It was what they did and did very successfully.

I was there between 1956 and 1961 and it was undeniably a school of its time subject to the legal requirements and the social/historical context in which it had to operate. It is true that there were many short comings which we can recognise with the benefit of hindsight from 2020 but despite this my time there was a happy and productive 5 years . The hard working staff and excellent leadership of Dr McEwan provided us rough and ready kids with opportunities that in those days many secondary moderns did not offer. Dr McEwan (we called him Batman because he wore his doctoral gown as he moved around school!) was a quiet and gentle man who arrived shortly after I began my life at Fishwick and reversed many of the "discipline policies" that had ruled under the previous head, the tyrannical Dr Pickard, who ruled with, if not a rod of iron, certainly a fearsome cane. Under Dr McEwan the school began to change rapidly for the better. For me the most important change was that he introduced the opportunity for kids like me to sit O levels – something quite new in most secondary moderns. In the end I came out with my "O" levels and a positive view of education that gave me not only a good start in my career but a desire to "learn for life".

But there was another thing that Dr McEwan did. He appointed a new English teacher and deputy head – a man named Gavin Bolton (see photographs). I was lucky enough to be taught by Mr Bolton and for that I will be forever thankful; he lit a flame which has given me a life-long love of the spoken and written word which now, in my eighth decade, burns even brighter. He exposed us to great literature and wonderful writing opportunities; I can remember sitting enthralled as we read long extracts from Great Expectations by Dickens - the fearsome Magwich and the mysterious Miss Havisham and the rest of the great Dickensian characters of that novel leaping off the page at me. I was thrilled, inspired and the seeds of social awareness and justice were planted within me when Mr Bolton indulged us with Hardy's Jude the Obscure - still today, in my view, the greatest English language novel. Brilliant images and high excitement flashed through my young mind as we ploughed through Buchan's Prester John and John Meade Falkner's tale of smuggling and derring do Moonfleet; later when I had my own class I often relived those classroom hours with Gavin Bolton by using Falkner's great work in my own classroom. A year or two ago I reread, for the first time since leaving Fishwick, Herman Melville's Moby Dick – regarded by many as the greatest novel ever written – and as I turned its 600 pages I could still hear Mr Bolton’s voice from that long ago Fishwick classroom; my pulse again raced - as it had all those years ago - as I pictured the mighty struggles with the great white whale, the maniacal Captain Ahab, the drama of the chase across the high seas and the strange friendship between the story's narrator Ishmael and his friend the tattooed cannibal harpooner Queequeg. I already knew from my own career as a teacher that Mr Bolton's real love was the teaching of drama in schools and I also knew that he became internationally known for his work in drama education; he wrote the biography of probably the most famous drama teacher of all, the late Dorothy Heathcote a lady who I came across on a number of occasions in my own teaching career. And as a young teacher, Mr Bolton's and my own path crossed again in later years. As I climbed the career ladder I attended summer holiday residential courses run by Her Majesty's Inspectorate where eminent inspectors and educationalists lectured and on two of those a guest speaker was Gavin Bolton. The times that I spent during those courses sipping a cup of coffee or a pre-dinner glass of sherry chatting to this charismatic and brilliant man about our time at Fishwick are still treasured memories; he did not know it but not only did he influence my teaching through his lectures during these in-service courses but the visions that he planted, the doors and interests that he opened for me as scruffy 15 year old at a tough secondary school in a northern industrial town have stayed with me and made me what I am to this very day.

All this, of course was just “stuff” in the far reaches of my mind until earlier this week when a bit of serendipity leapt into my life. I was surfing the net carrying out some completely unrelated research when I suddenly came across Mr Bolton's name - and to my delight and surprise – or rather shock - saw the word "Fishwick" leap off my lap top screen! A few more clicks of the mouse and I was reading a Ph.D thesis completed in 1995 by a Canadian student named Laurie Jardine at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. By 1995, I discovered from the thesis, Mr Bolton was a senior lecturer and visiting Professor at that university - and a world renowned figure in the teaching of drama and Ms Jardine was undertaking research on Gavin Bolton, his life and his teaching. Fishwick Secondary Modern was never one of the great schools of the world so to see it mentioned in Ph.D thesis written on the other side of the world was to me quite wonderful. It brought back so many memories, events and names.

Fishwick Prefects 1961: Mr Bolton sits 4th from the left on the front row, Dr McEwan the HT sits at the side of him and next is Miss Bisbrowne the lady DHT. I'm on the third row, third from the right

This is what Ms Jardine wrote:

"An offer came and Gavin became Deputy Headmaster of Fishwick Secondary School, Preston, Lancashire. The move to the Northwest had its problems. The school itself was tough, with a student population quite accustomed to being in the hands of the police - not exactly a fertile ground for the kind of teaching with which Gavin had become comfortable. Pre-war notions of education which called for rigid discipline and non-interactive teaching styles would not ease for some time; for young Bolton, bursting in with respect for students and for learning, the progress seemed very slow. The customary discipline for misbehaviour was caning. The staff had adopted a stiff disciplinarian policy, viewing their role defensively. When Gavin arrived as Deputy Head, he was told, "the only way to deal with these kids is to clip them over the ear", which presented difficult administrative choices for Gavin. Many of the staff were sceptical and outwardly unsympathetic to the idea of introducing drama into the school. Of course, Gavin was convinced that the only way to attack the problems would be through drama and plenty of it. So, in addition to his administrative responsibilities, which included the school timetabling, Gavin made sure that every class in the school had drama, which he taught. Gradually, everyone was won over, and the school developed a positive bias toward drama. Teachers, administration and students began to value the place of drama in their community. The same unmanageable tough kids became drama festival winners, showing up at Drama Club even if they’d been truants for the rest of the day."

Mr Bolton in 1995 at the
University of British Columbia in
Canada - a long way from Preston!

I'm not sure if I agree totally with all Ms Jardine says (I know Fishwick was not Eton but I don't remember it being quite so "tough" as implied here, although we did have some tough kids and at least one stabbing incident that I remember well!) and I would add that Mr Bolton arrived at a time of change for the school in general following Dr McEwan’s appointment as head teacher a couple of years previously. But overall Ms Jardine is correct; it was a tough place and Gavin Bolton made a huge impact.

The seeds that he and Dr McEwan planted in my young mind stayed with me giving me not only a love of the spoken and written word but of learning in general prompting me to first gain my Master’s Degree (M.Ed) in my mid-thirties and then an M.Phil a year or two afterwards and to continue studying throughout my career and still now in my mid 70s. There is rarely a day goes by without me thinking fondly of the Fishwick teachers who taught and inspired me: Gavin Bolton, Harry Helm (maths), Mr Seed (Art), Mr Calderbank (Technical Drawing), Mr Davies (English), Mr Edmundson (Geography), Mr Bamber (PE), Mr Addison (Science), Mr Wolstenholme (Geography) and many many more. These wonderful teachers and my time at Fishwick and the arrival of Dr McEwan and Gavin Bolton not only opened up career doors that a few years before would have been unthinkable for a kid from the narrow terraced streets of Preston who had failed his 11+ but also opened up life doors and gave me a love of learning which I have absolutely no doubts fuelled my desire to become a teacher myself.

My little brush with serendipity has kept me busy all week trying to track down Ms Jardine (no luck so far) to perhaps see if she has any more bits of information about Mr Bolton but beyond that it has done so much more. It has brought many happy memories of another time and another life and the opportunity to reflect upon the people, places and events that have made me what I am. It has also confirmed my long held belief that it is only by looking back at where you have come from that one can understand who and what you are and what you believe in - and from that what your ultimate goal in life should be.

"A House Divided Cannot Stand"

As the virus spikes again I am reminded of two ancient verses that we would all do well to remember in these times. The first is believed to have emerged during the Great Plague in London of 1665 and is known to all children – "Ring a ring a roses":

“Ring-a-ring-a-roses

A pocket full of posies

Atishoo, Atishoo

We all fall down”

The second, written about 40 years before the Great Plague is by the, poet, cleric, politician, scholar and philosopher John Donne one of the greatest minds not only of his generation but of any generation in British history – we ignore the words of Donne at our peril. In 1623 in his “Meditation XV11” Donne famously wrote:

“No man is an island entire of itself; every man

is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;

if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe

is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as

well as any manner of thy friends or of thine

own were; any man's death diminishes me,

for I am involved in mankind.

And therefore send to know for whom

the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

As we – and the rest of the world - fumble in the dark against Covid 19 we would do well to remember these two verses, for they have message of particular relevance for we British.

Their message is simple and unarguably correct. It is a message that if we, as individuals or as a nation, are to survive the next few years we have no alternative but to take on board a simple truth: we are all interconnected, we are all part of the same thing; what happens to one, can befall another. In the children’s verse “We all fall down” an illness, such as bubonic plague or modern day Covid, is not only a symptom but by a sneeze we receive or pass on that illness to others. And this happens because we are all part of the whole, closely involved with one another; people in Stuart England didn’t understand the exact causes of the plague but they did know it was allied to people living closely together and that those who lived in the poorest conditions, where they were squashed close together and in the poorer areas - most notably in the east end of the capital - were most at risk. If our experience with Covid 19 has taught us anything surely it is that the virus is the same and it passes amongst us because we are so interconnected and interdependent. To deny our oneness – as, for example, many anti-maskers do - with the rest of humanity is to deny reality. If we are to survive as a species we need to recognise this – stand united as a society, understanding the need to protect ourselves in order that we can protect others; put simply, “Atishoo, Atishoo, We all fall down”. And, John Donne puts the same message across in a different way. We cannot distance ourselves or remove ourselves from the wholeness of humanity – we are all part of the same great spectrum of life – “every man a piece of the continent” and as such each of us has a responsibility to not only ourselves but to others because we are all “involved in mankind”; the Bible put it another way we are “our brother’s keeper” – responsible for all and to all. It is what is called “the common good”.

This “oneness” or “common good” is, I believe, important and it is an idea that has been increasingly lost in recent years. As we have increasingly struggled through the last few months as the virus has taken hold its impact has, in my view exposed our society's weakness; we have been found wanting.

In 1858 on the run up to the Presidential election Abraham Lincoln made one of his most famous speeches in his bid for the presidency. He was talking of his country’s great divisions on the matter of slavery and famously quoted Gospel of St Mark (3:25): "And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand”. Lincoln and St Mark were not wrong and if we in the UK are to come through the existential threats of Covid and Brexit we must remember those words and the words of John Donne and “Ring a ring a roses” – we are all part of the whole and once we lose sight of the common good and become divided our “house” will surely fall.

We in the UK, however, do not in recent years have a good track record so far as working and standing together for the greater good. Our Prime Minister likes to extol the virtues of a time when perhaps we did stand together – the Dunkirk spirit, the Blitz generation and so on – but I wonder if that is still true today?

Sadly, it is my view that, as a nation we have in recent years consistently failed to understand the message of these verses. From the time of Thatcher we have increasingly opted – through the ballot box and as a society – for division and inequality. The Thatcher era and the years following promoted the “I society”, the individual and his wants rather than the “We society” and “the common good”. The get rich quick society based upon individual acquisition and status rather than industry and cooperation has increasingly been the defining feature of our national life. The result has been increasing economic, educational and social inequality so that today we have one of the most unequal societies in the world and also one of the most divided. We have a society in which although we are all at risk some, as in London’s Great Plague, are more at risk than others because of their relative poverty or place in society. This lunch time I read that one of the major charities providing for the homeless and especially rough sleepers has criticised the government for suggesting that night shelters should be reopened as winter approaches. At first glance this seems bizarre but the charity, “Crisis”, has a point – they know that the homeless and rough sleepers are very vulnerable to Covid and putting them together in a night shelter is a highly dangerous policy. The charity, not unreasonably, want vastly increased government spending to address the problems and ensure safe accommodation for these people. The government, of course, are reluctant to go down that costly avenue. For as long as I can remember, as we and our politicians have chosen cheapness and popular policies such as low taxation as vote winners we have seen hospitals in crisis over each winter, we have seen ambulance call out times lengthen, police and fire brigades being put under enormous pressure as resources have been cut back. And now as Covid sweeps the world, we are reaping what we have sown; we have been found out. To coin that well known aphorism or cliché (choose your descriptor) the virus has caught us unprepared, with our proverbial “trousers down”. As a society we should be ashamed to have our faults shortcomings exposed in such a way – showing to the world that for the past 40 plus years we have chosen the quick buck, the easy fix, the cash in our pockets, the “I want” rather than the “We need” society and all can now see the consequences. Our basic services were already running on empty through years of underfunding and crisis management; and the consequence now is that we do not have enough PPE, or ICU beds, or safe accommodation for the homeless, parts of our nation are more heavily subject to the ravages of Covid than others because of relative poverty, and our key workers are being subjected to trials and expectations that are quite out of order in the sixth richest country in the world.

There is, too, a paradox in all this. Since the time of Margaret Thatcher and as the individual wealth of the few has grown so the need for the very institutions that the many - our fathers, mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers - dreamed of and fought for: a decent welfare system, health care, close ties with other nations in order that peace as well as prosperity would reign have been increasingly marginalised. We have forgotten, and many (especially in the Tory party) often actively disparage, those policies and institutions – high quality local government, taxation to fund high quality health care and social welfare, well funded local and national provision for good infrastructure etc. – in favour of lower taxes, profit, everything on the cheap, and the nebulous and vacuous buzz word “choice” as if this was the most important virtue or ideal in the world. In the post Thatcher years as the square mile of the City of London became the richest place on earth, young Oxford students David Cameron and Boris Johnson, who would both become our Prime Ministers, burnt £50 notes in the front of Oxford street beggars as part of their student "fun", and "the family silver" - our great institutions and companies - were sold off to private investors and hedge fund managers while the money rolled in........ and unforgivably, rolled out. But our profligacy left a tainted legacy - we didn't put aside anything for a rainy day; we spent and borrowed but didn't invest, rebuild, restock and prepare; we wasted the years of the good harvests and when the virus struck the metaphorical granaries have been found empty. All was well for both us as individuals and for the whole nation while the money kept rolling in and palms were greased but then the financial crisis of 2008 came, austerity bit, a virus cut through society and in three months Brexit will be upon us - and we have and will be found out. The virus has shown Thatcher's economics and the post Thatcher financial world to be a failed policy and a failed idea; buzz words like “choice” or “outsourcing” are scant consolation when there is no place in an ICU for your Covid suffering grandparent or your own critical cancer treatment is put on hold because resources have to be devoted elsewhere or your children cannot be in school or you are unable to pay respects at the funeral of a loved one.

In short, what we are witnessing is exactly what Abraham Lincoln and St Mark suggested - the falling apart of the “divided house” and it is not a pretty sight. Since the time of Margaret Thatcher we have lost the notion of the common good and preferred instead the individualistic, get rich quick, vacuous and celebrity driven society and Covid 19 has found us out. In 3 months time Brexit will be upon us and that too, will, I have absolutely no doubts, find us out still further. We will discover in the harshest of ways two things of which John Donne reminded us. Firstly that we cannot cut ourselves off from the “continent”, the oneness of society, be it politically, socially, economically or metaphorically and secondly the dread awful implications of Donne's final sentence will, with absolute certainty, come to fruition: "send not to know for whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee" - because we are part of the whole, indivisible with the rest of mankind as individuals we cannot escape the consequences of our individual and communal actions. As the impact of Brexit and Covid 19 combine, quite frankly, those consequences do not bear thinking about. I have often mused over the past few months that some good might come out of our current woes - that as a society we might be brought to our individual and communal senses and that we can reimagine a better way of doing things where the common good is the sole justification for action. But in truth I am pessimistic; I am swayed more by the words of 18th century poet and social campaigner Oliver Goldsmith whose poem “The Deserted Village” was a devastating critique of the attitudes, excesses and inequalities of his day when he prophesied ”...ill fares the land the land To hastening ills a prey When wealth accumulates, But men decay.”

"Arrant Knavery"

 In Shakespeare's Henry V, at the height of the Battle of Agincourt, the King, on learning that the French had attacked and killed the boys and women attached to his army to carry baggage, cook and so on, loses his temper and famously says: "I was not angry since I came to France......" he then threatens to overwhelm and destroy the French army for their "arrant knavery" which was "expressly against the law of arms" (the Mediaeval rules of war). Well, that's how I feel this morning having read Boris Johnson's latest dreadful piece of theatre and "arrant knavery" in his speech to the Tory Party Conference yesterday.

I have learned to live with and expect no less from Johnson that he will hitch his wagon to any crackpot idea or to any individual who will, knowingly or unknowingly, assist him to rise up the ladder. I am well versed in Johnson's casual lying, his unreliability, his penchant for making promises that he has no intention whatsoever of keeping, and his total lack of any moral scruple; in short, he is a man with no moral compass, unfit for any office, let alone high office. It is a sign of what contemporary Britain has become that we have allowed this man to rise to the top of our political life. But yesterday, even by Johnson's low standards he excelled himself.

In suggesting that he and his rag bag, ethically challenged party and its supporters will bring about "a new Jerusalem" in the aftermath of Covid - a disaster much of which is attributable to his own inadequate handling of the situation - he has gone too far. Having tried hitching his wagon to the Churchill mantra and suggesting that, to use Churchill's words (as Johnson so often does), we Brits would easily overcome Covid by our "Dunkirk Spirit" where, to again quote Churchill, we will "fight [it] on the beaches, on the landing grounds, on the streets......" he has now moved onto Clement Attlee for some new inspiration. Fighting Covid on the beaches with our Churchillian Dunkirk Spirit appears to have been a signal failure so in true Johnson fashion he now moves the goalposts and find a new "hero" - Clement Attlee, who truly did build the "new Jerusalem" for this country - to emulate, quote and to fraudulently model himself and his party upon. Johnson will do anything, quote anyone and adopt and idea to further and ingratiate himself; he is a charlatan, a man who thieves ideas and policies, a man who will always sink one step lower than it can ever be thought possible. But in trying to take on the garb of Attlee Johnson has overstepped common decency by some considerable degree.

Attlee: Unassuming, humble,
unimpeachable integrity - and 
Britain's greatest Prime Minister

Clement Attlee was everything that Johnson is not: quiet, unassuming, a master of detail, from a privileged background but with true humility, of unimpeachable integrity and moral conviction, a man to respect and honour (there's an oft forgotten or ill used idea in contemporary GB), a man who did not seek fame, fortune or leadership but who became our nation's greatest leader - to use Kipling's words a man who could "walk with Kings, nor lose the common touch".

Attlee was, unarguably, this country's greatest Prime Minister and left a legacy from which we all benefit today and which Johnson and his party have, over recent years, made every effort to run down, defund and destroy as privatisation, austerity, a free market culture and cynical criticism from Tories like Johnson, Gove or Duncan Smith have eaten in to our NHS, education service, welfare arrangements, emergency services and the like - all the things that were part of Attlee's "new Jerusalem" and his great legacy to us. It is beyond contempt that Johnson should quote Attlee by using the phrase "new Jerusalem"- when his party have spent so much time and effort destroying the very real "new Jerusalem" that Attlee gave us. When Attlee used those words in the late 1940s and quoted from William Blake's great poem he did so from a spirit of making the world a better place; today when Johnson uses them he does so from a position of his own self aggrandisement; as I said above he is a charlatan.

Kipling's great poem "If", for me, sums up all that Attlee was and all that Johnson isn't; perhaps it is worth all of us reflecting, in these dark times, which may well get a lot darker yet, on the sort of leadership - and indeed the sort of GB, we want:

"If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Has Johnson not a shred of decency in his body? I believe not. For him to try to steal the cloak of Attlee is, for me, unforgivable; to paraphrase Henry V, it is "arrant knavery" and like King Henry "I was not angry until this day".

Sixty Six Minutes & Forty Eight Seconds.......

Sixty six minutes and forty eight seconds! My stop watch recorded the exact time, as around me standing audience members cheered and applauded. Sixty six minutes and forty eight seconds. In half a life time of attending concerts at Nottingham’s Royal Centre I can only ever recall one other concert when there was a full throated standing ovation for a performance – and that was for the same work many years ago. The usually reserved Nottingham concert going public are a pretty staid and sober lot; where in other venues a performance of Mahler’s 1^st, Brahms’ 1^st, Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No 2 or Tchaikovsky’s 4^th are always likely to bring the audience to its feet, here in Nottingham a more restrained atmosphere pervades our concerts.

From the back at Nottingham's Royal Centre

But not so last night when under the wonderful direction of Mark Elder, The Halle gave a glorious performance of unarguably one of the world’s greatest works (if not the greatest symphonic work), Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony, more usually referred to as the Ninth or the Choral. Beethoven’s final symphony is one of the defining works of all music and indeed, it can be argued with much justification that it is one of the defining works of history and society. From the date of its first performance almost 200 years ago it has been accepted as not only Beethoven’s greatest achievement but to rank equally with the other crowning musical achievements of our culture and history: Bach’s St Matthew Passion, Bach’s B Minor Mass, Mahler’s 5^th Symphony, or Beethoven’s Late String Quartets. The Ninth, however, has another dimension – it speaks of mankind and our very humanity. Where Bach’s great works are in essence spiritual in nature the Choral is about mankind and our capacity to love each other and unite as fellow travellers in time and space. And as such, in recent months it has assumed an even greater prominence and place in the hearts and minds of men and women. As the anthem of the European Community the words of the Ninth have, in the past half century as the EU  has grown, developed and been the agent for friendship and cooperation between the countries of Europe, epitomised the ideal to which all Europe has aspired. In the past three years since the UK, unwisely, ungraciously, ungratefully and unforgivably, decided to reject the friendship and cooperation of our European compatriots by leaving the EU, Beethoven’s 9^th has become the anthem of all those who reject Brexit and its crude, unthinking, nationalistic populism. As the reaction of last night’s audience showed the ideals and beliefs of the EU are still very much alive here in Nottingham.

Mark Elder as we saw him last night

From the first muted reflective notes of the opening movement and through the movement’s driving rhythms  the power of the work was tangible. Mark Elder dragged every bit of passion, power and joy from Beethoven’s score. The opening movement gave way to the much loved and lyrical second movement and thence to the achingly beautiful and almost spiritual third movement  - surely one of the world’s very great movements. And then......and then.....the fourth movement was upon us, heralding in the majestic and glorious choral sections of the Ninth . The four soloists declaimed the opening words of Schiller’s great poem and the choir, sitting high above the Halle answered them; powerful, ethereal, spiritual, joyous, overwhelming, Beethoven’s music and Schiller’s  mighty words united everyone sitting in  Nottingham’s Royal Centre. Was I the only one – I think not, judging by the expressions and body language of those sitting around us – to feel humbled and overcome but at the same time excited and exhilarated at what I was seeing and hearing? Was I the only one to wipe a tear from my eye as I heard once again the glorious words of Schiller’s poem and heard again the majestic music of Beethoven. I know this work as well as I know the lines on my own face and hands and yet it still has the power to overcome and to make even the greatest, most confident and most brash amongst us feel small and insignificant.

And that was why, after sixty six minutes and forty eight seconds the sell out audience erupted as they did. They knew that they had heard a wonderful performance of a work that spoke to them both as humans and as spiritual beings – it was, in short the very essence of their humanity.

And, sixty six minutes and forty eight seconds – why on earth did I set my stop watch as the first wistful notes echoed through the Royal Centre and stopped it as the final notes died away and the ringing cheers rang out around the Royal Centre!  To find out read the piece below. Almost exactly a year ago the Writers’ Group which I lead were tasked with writing a piece on the theme of “The Life of ..........” I chose to write about the life of Beethoven’s Ninth and the answer to my question is there! You can read what I wrote 12 months ago below:

“You millions I embrace you......”                     

                        
Like all children I was born out of love, but my genesis was not from physical love but mankind’s desire for brotherhood, love and peace. My father had many offspring and some who were still born or died before entering the world – their beauty and sound never witnessed by mankind. Those however, like me, who survived their creation came into the world strong and complete and were received well by the world, many becoming household names. But I, it is said by many, am the greatest of his offspring. I know not if this is true – who am I to judge? – but I cannot escape the fact that since the very day of my first appearance I have been lauded and praised. Even today – though two centuries have passed since my birth, people flock to me, often moved to tears in my presence. And now, though I am old and my father long dead, I, like my brothers and sisters, go on, perhaps for as long as there is mankind.

A page from Beethoven's original manuscript

Before I was conceived I was but isolated fragments, thoughts in my father’s mind; unconnected, swirling, as he laboured in his silent Viennese world. But these unformed ideas slowly took shape and, I can still well remember the day, when came my conception; my form set for all time, even though I was yet still no more than ideas. My father sat by candlelight reading the works of the great Schiller and reading those mighty words from Schiller’s pen transformed my father. He was inspired, overcome, ecstatic; and his ideas, my very essence, was that day in 1822 created; I was conceived into what I would become:

“O friends, no more of these sounds! Let us sing more cheerful songs, More songs full of joy! Joy! Joy!

........Whoever has created an abiding friendship, Or has won a true and loving wife,

.........All who can call at least one soul theirs, then join our song of praise........

You millions, I embrace you, this kiss is for all the world!.........

Brothers, above the starry canopy there must dwell a loving father.

Do you fall in worship, you millions? World, do you know your creator?

.......Seek Him in the heavens above the stars must he dwell.”

Friedrich Schiller

My father had wrestled with his ideas of Schiller’s poem for several years but in 1817 he received a commission from the Philharmonic Society of London to write a new symphony celebrating the great peace after the wars of Napoleon and Schiller’s words spoke to him.  The commission had requested a symphony to celebrate “the love, friendship and brotherhood of all Europe’s mankind and the desire for the peace of all nations”; it was with this, and Schiller’s words, that I was conceived. But my father – the greatest musical name in Europe no longer taught, performed or conducted; his deafness had robbed him of all contact with the world, so on accepting this commission he was forced to request an advance payment which was agreed. He received £50 and later £100 from the Philharmonic Society of London. A century later, that great Englishman George Bernard Shaw described the payments as “the only honourable and creditable acts in the whole of English history”.

The First Edition of the Score - held by the  Philharmonic Society of London

For seven more years I germinated in my father’s mind, his pen scratching out my form on manuscript paper – I, however, was still unheard, unseen, not yet of this world. As he wrote his mind was filled, too, with other of his children, my exquisite and small brothers and sisters, the Late String Quartets thought by many to be the defining works of all string music.  But slowly, as the months passed I emerged until, at last, excited whispers spread through Vienna’s Kaffeehauses and salons, Master Beethoven has a new work, one that will use voices as well as instruments; what manner of music is this, the people asked in wonder?

And the word spread. So thrilled and expectant was the whole city that the greatest players and singers of the age and from all of Europe flocked to be given a part in the first performance. And as excitement gripped Vienna, my father was reluctantly persuaded that he must be the musical director for the occasion, his first time at the podium for more than twelve years. So new and complex was I that my father re-wrote and amended me until hours before the performance; leaving no time for rehearsal or for the players and singers of the largest orchestra and choir ever to be assembled to come together – and all for a work that no-one had heard, not even my father who knew me only in his mind and not in his ears.

The Halle in their home concert hall - The Bridgwater in Manchester

The great night arrived. The Corinthian Theatre had not an seat empty and the aisles and even the corridors were crushed with excited guests who had travelled from all over Europe. All fell hushed and silent, as my father, now an ailing man, was helped onto the stage and the baton placed in his hand. And at last was I born, brought into the world, a fully formed child. The Wiener Zeitung newspaper was correct, for I witnessed it, that my father “threw himself back and forth like a madman. At one moment he stretched to his full height, at the next he crouched down to the floor, he flailed about with his hands and feet as though he himself wanted to play all the instruments and sing all the chorus parts”.

For seventy long minutes the audience sat transfixed, overwhelmed at what they heard; but my father conducting knew nought but silence, hearing me, his child only in his mind. As the final movement opened there were gasps and cries of surprise and wonder from the audience as the soloists and choir declaimed Schiller’s mighty words: The Ode to Joy. Such music had never before been heard; the words they knew, for they knew and loved Schiller, but never like this, speaking of a new world of love of life and mankind, of friendship, and of God’s great plan for all men and all nations. My birth had “brought a new world” proclaimed the news sheets and the table gossip of the Kaffeehauses and salons of Vienna and of all Europe.

Beethoven conducting the Ninth from a 

contemporary sketch

As my last triumphal notes rang out the audience burst into feverish applause; the reporter from The Times of London ran, wild eyed from his seat, pushed through the crowded aisles and out onto Vienna’s dark streets shouting “I have heard the voice of God, the world is renewed, never has such music been heard.”   The Theater-Zeitung newsheet, told the whole of Vienna that "The public broke out in jubilant applause acclaiming Master  Beethoven through five standing ovations and many ladies were overcome; there was crying out and handkerchiefs and scarves thrown into the air, hats raised, gentlemen cheered so that Master Beethoven, who could not hear the applause, could at least see the ovations.”  It was true, my father heard not the applause and the love of the crowd; as my final note died he rested his baton and stood, still facing the orchestra and choir. All was silent and unknown to him until the kindly young solo contralto Caroline Unger stepped forward and gently turned him around to witness Vienna and all Europe’s mighty cheers and approval.

It has always been thus and I am now two centuries old - I make mankind both weep and cheer in equal measure as I remind them of the love of their fellow men. Mankind turns to me when he is lost or is joyous, feels threatened or he wishes to celebrate peace; I was performed in joyous celebration following the fall of the Berlin Wall, and to bring hope following the dreadful attacks on New York’s twin towers. I was performed too, to remember the centenary of the end of the Great War. In Germany, Austria and Japan I am performed every year in the last hour of the old year as the clock ticks to midnight to remind those nations of mankind’s love of his brothers and the peace of nations in the coming New Year.

I am played often each year as the anthem of the United Nations and of the European Union – an honour that I know my father, Schiller and indeed the good members of the Philharmonic Society of London would have greatly approved since the love and friendship of mankind and the peace of Europe was why I was first commissioned. It is a sadness to me that many in England, the country that first commissioned me, now reject me as they reject the European Union, the organisation whose anthem I am and whose quest is the peaceful brotherhood of Europe. It is a sadness too, that as all men must, my father died only a few years after I was born. I was his last major work so he did not live to see my fame spread but he would have been proud to know that many call me one of mankind’s supreme achievements.

Von Karajan conducting the Ninth

I live on, immortal; and just as mankind grows from infant to adult I too, have grown and changed. Since that balmy May 1824 Vienna night I have become the most performed symphonic work in the world’s concert halls. For the world’s greatest musicians, conductors and singers to perform me is often the pinnacle of their careers. But I have spread beyond the concert platform and now exist in the homes of man. I travel the radio waves to the furthest corners of the world and was, in my past, grooves on plastic vinyl records, my father’s music and Schiller’s words being scraped out by a needle and pushed through gramophone horns. In 1982, when the Sony and Philips corporations developed the compact disc I was crucial. These mighty companies wished that the new CD would be exactly 60 minutes long but they also knew that the first discs to go on sale would be expensive – only the wealthy would be able to afford to buy them. The only artist who would be able, because of his popularity amongst wealthier purchasers of music, to sell enough of the new discs and the necessary equipment to play them and thus make the whole venture commercially worthwhile was the legendary conductor Herbert von Karajan; he would be vital to the success of the first disc. When he was approached however, the Maestro had one unalterable stipulation: that the first CD produced for sale, must be of me, my father’s Ninth Symphony, and I must be heard in my entirety without interruption. “Only the 9^th“ said Maestro von Karajan “has the range and dynamics to show off the new technology and the great qualities of the Berlin Philharmonic and the singers that I will use; and only the 9^th is the only work worthy of such a venture”. And so it was; Von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic performed me and the event was timed – it lasted 66.9 minutes. My longest ever performance had been that of the greatest of conductors Wilhelm Furtwängler who had stretched me to 74.6 minutes – thus, from that day it was agreed that all CDs produced must have a standard recording time available of at least 74 and 33 seconds so that I amongst all of mankind’s music, might always be heard without interruption.

The Ninth still today dictates

the industry standard for CD 

manufacture

Of course, since then I have changed and changed again, now I am streamed in digital code via computers and have even become ring tones on telephones – my father would be truly overcome. He wrote in one of his conversation books, kept so that he might converse with visitors to his silent world:“You can resist an invading army but you cannot resist an idea whose time has come”. I was that idea whose time had come and was first set out in the commission from the Philharmonic Society of London to “speak of the love, friendship and brotherhood of all Europe.”  Let it be so: “You millions, I embrace you, this kiss is for all the world!”

Sixty six minutes and forty eight seconds of the world's most sublime music which speaks of what it is to be human; sixty six minutes and forty eight seconds...…"You millions, I embrace you, this kiss is for all the world"!

“Think on these things”: A night of mystery, profundity and exquisite music in Ruddington

Picture courtesy of Michael Overbury

The audience that filled St Peter's Church in Ruddington for the Ruddington and District Choral Society's Christmas concert last night had arrived on a bitterly cold December evening, the rain increasingly beating down. As they came through the door to buy their tickets they shook the rain from their coats, wiped their faces with handkerchiefs, and some anxiously looked back into the night and grimly forecast "This lot could well turn to sleet or snow by the time we go home!" In the event, this was all rather prophetic since one of the wonderful readings we were to hear later in the evening was TS Elliott's The Journey of the Magi the opening lines of which are " A cold coming we had of it, Just the worse time of the year...." ! There were warm greetings and smiles aplenty but it was not the most auspicious start to the concert advertised as "A Celebration of Christmas". All, however, were glad to be in the warmth of the church on such a night and so clutching their programmes, they scurried away to find their seats.  Little did we know, however, that we were in for an evening, the music, words and the atmosphere of which would warm not only our fingers and toes but would refresh and warm our souls, make us feel human again and dispel all thoughts of the inclement weather outside! 

The concert began with a reading from the Gospel of St. John (Ch1 v 1-14). It beautifully set the scene for the evening, speaking of the great mystery,  awe and wonder of the Christmas story:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God.

All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.

He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.

That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

And as I listened to these ancient, great, so well known and powerful words my mind was taken over by some other words - the last three verses of John Betjeman’s great poem “Christmas” which seems to echo St.John’s words from the Bible and asks a profound question about the nature, mystery and relevance of Christmas. Although Betjeman’s great work did not appear in last night’s Christmas Concert I am absolutely sure that everyone who performed or sat entranced in the audience thought on these things, so profound (yes, that is the right word) was the event. Betjeman wrote:

And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me ?

And is it true ? For if it is,

No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,

No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.

And so the concert begins!

Betjeman wrote his great work in 1954; it speaks of the very essence of Christmas. In these 21^st century days when our annual commercialised Christmas “binge” threatens the true meaning of the religious festival and great nativity story and where cheap “tat” goes hand in hand with greed and excess it is a salutary reminder of better, more worthy things. Just over a decade before (1942) Betjeman put pen to paper, however, his great friend the composer Benjamin Britten had composed his equally profound, mysterious and exquisite Christmas work A Ceremony of Carols. Britten’s work was the centrepiece of last night’s wonderful Concert. Its origins are strange and worthy of repeating.

In the winter of 1941- 42 Britten and his partner and musical associate Peter Pears were returning home from the USA to the war torn UK. The only passage they could get was on a small Swedish tramp steamer that would take almost a month to cross the Atlantic. The weather was bad and there was the constant danger of attack from German U-boats. Before leaving Halifax, Nova Scotia, Britten visited a second-hand book store and there bought a copy of The English Galaxy of Shorter Poems. Britten later confessed this was pass the time and take his mind off the worry of the potential dangers of the crossing. On reading the poems, however, the germ of a musical idea formed in his mind and resulted in the composer spending much of his time on board composing – in, according to Peter Pears, “...a tiny, ill lit and foul smelling cabin next door to the boat’s refrigeration unit...”. The result of Britten’s labours on that trans-Atlantic trip were two exceptionally fine choral pieces – amongst the greatest in English music: The Hymn to St. Cecilia (based on a text by poet W. H. Auden), and what we heard from the Ruddington Choral Society last night, A Ceremony of Carols  based upon the works Britten found in that second hand book of verse. The “carols” are largely the product of 15th and 16th century writers, most of whom are anonymous.  Wonderfully, they retain their unique flavour as a result of Britten's sensitive and extensive use of old English language.

Musically, Britten had been studying the harp with view to perhaps writing a harp concerto and consequently he used some of his ideas and scored A Ceremony of Carols for treble voices & harp. Last night the audience sat spellbound as young harpist Kathryn Mason delicately and beautifully accompanied the choir - and later in the programme earned a huge round of applause for her delightful rendering of Sleigh Ride. The sheer beauty of Britten’s composition was in evidence, too, in the solo movements sung by Soprano Georgina Podd – her clarity, the pure sound and her nuanced voice exactly right for both the work and the occasion. Later in the programme her solo singing of the first verse of Once In Royal David’s City  would, in other circumstances, be described as a “show stopper” – but in the atmosphere and programme of last night, it’s simple beauty was almost overpowering – certainly, it brought a lump to my throat.

Britten’s work is not easy; it will tax the best of choirs but under musical director Paul Hayward the R&DCS were again on top form, not only getting it musically “right” but bringing out the delicate, rich and yet haunting and mysterious nature of the work and of the Christmas story itself. As the work unfolded we were taken back to an ancient age – far from Santa’s grotto, Rudolf’s red nose or Bing Crosby’s White Christmas.  On a bitter night of wind and driving rain in Ruddington it was easy, as we listened to the choir, to Georgina Podd and to Kathryn Mason, to be taken back to some distant past and to imagine a weary and homeless couple on their long and hard journey; a poor carpenter and his wife, “great with child”, the ancient equivalents of our modern day refugees; it was a small step to picture a cold and bleak stable and thence to ponder the  great and awesome mysteries of the shepherds, the kings and the angels imagined by Betjeman in his poem and to ask the question that Betjeman asked "And is it true, this most tremendous tale of all....For if it is...… No carolling in frosty air, Nor all the steeple-shaking bells, Can with this single Truth compare...." 

The whole programme for the evening was wonderfully constructed. The audience carols were full of warmth and Christmas cheer but especially when the choir’s voices soared in the descants of O Come, All Ye Faithful and Hark! the Herald Angels Sing  they became great celebrations, rousing reaffirmations of the Christmas message to balance the profundity of Britten’s work. Throughout the night the accompaniment of Michael Overbury on the organ was, as always, both a joy and a wonderment. His own exquisite composition Of one that is so Fair and Bright gave the choir not only the opportunity to demonstrate their (and Michael Overbury’s) musical talents but also got the second half of the concert off to a delightful start whilst at the same time continuing the night’s theme of the mystery and (to use a much over used – and today misused word) the awesome  magic of the Christmas story. I sat delighted as the choir showed their joyous musicality and rich textured, layered sound when they performed In Dulci Jubilo and We wish you a Merry Christmas but I also sat mesmerised, overcome and pondering the ills of humanity in our current world as the haunting and poignant Coventry Carol filled St Peter’s. Can there be a more timeless expression of the Nativity than in the Coventry Carol – conjuring up the bleak stable, the new born child, Herod’s rage and the Slaughter of the Innocents but at the same time telling of Mary’s lullaby of love for her new born son and the dangers of the world that he was born into. As I listened I could not but help think of its relevance in today’s world as we witness the tragedy of Syrian children caught up in that terrible never ending conflict, or the “lost” faces that I saw the other night on TV as I watched the news and saw film of the conditions in the refugee camps in Bangladesh which are filled with thousands of Rohingya people fleeing from the horrors of Myanmar. The story of the Nativity may well be two millennia old but its theme has a dreadful reality and resonance in today’s world.

Musical maestro Michael Overbury at the organ

And in between all this we enjoyed some wonderfully thoughtful readings. From St John’s Gospel  we ranged through William Blake’s Cradle Song, T.P. Garrison’s The Annuciation, T.S. Elliott’s (another friend of Britten and Betjeman) wonderfully evocative The Journey of the Magi and to round things off Paul Hayward put down his conductor’s baton for a few minutes and gave a splendid reading of the gently humorous (and one of the many highlights of the night) Twelve Days of Christmas by John Julius Norwich. The readings were all an absolute joy to listen to,  each beautifully read and completely at one with the musical contributions.

This was not, however, just a Christmas entertainment. It was an evening to enjoy it is true, but, like Betjeman’s poem and Britten’s Ceremony of Carols,  it was an evening to stop us all in our tracks. It was a programme to make us take a step back from the mad scramble that has come to be our modern Christmas where drunken parties abound, cheap instantly forgettable Christmas drivel is piped through our shopping malls, greed and excess fill our ambitions, television channels pump out the latest Hollywood blockbuster horror film or mindlessly banal animated cartoon box office hit and too often fill this great Christian festival with loud, garish and often innuendo trash, calling it "family entertainment". Yet, in today's world even the BBC  can find little or no place for piety or at least a nodding acquaintance with the Christian roots of the season. I often wonder what would the founder of the BBC, Lord Reith, think? And what, too, would  Betjeman think; in his poem Christmas he quaintly and delicately observed in 1954 that “Provincial Public Houses blaze” - what would that great and gentle poet laureate  write today? Yet in this mad 21st century Christmas season we have a world where homelessness is on the rise, food banks for the hungry thrive, man’s inhumanity to man too often knows no bounds, and words and ideas like decency, respect, kindness and truth are, it often seems, long forgotten often disparaged ideals. But, last night’s concert gently said "stop, pause for reflection, think on more important things". It made us all ponder other, more important but often over looked, or worse, forgotten human virtues. For me at least the programme reminded me of the words of St Paul in this Letter to the Philippians: “...... whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” Last night’s concert – to use a modern phrase – “ticked all these boxes”!

Paul Hayward captivates the audience with the reading of 
John Julius Norwich's "Twelve Days of Christmas"

In these troubled times for our nation and the world can there be a more important or powerful imperative than the need for mankind to reflect upon these virtues – to explore what it is to be human. Surely, if the Christmas story has a message it is not to spend Christmas in a drunken haze but to ponder the humanity and all that it implies of the birth in bleak stable of a small child. Thankfully I, and I suspect many more who walked out of St Peter’s at half past nine last night and into the cold December Ruddington air, reflected upon what they had heard and what it had all meant; and in these troubled times that can be no bad thing.

In previous reviews I have praised the leadership of Paul Hayward and accompanist Michael Overbury at Ruddington – the effect of these two wonderful musicians has, in my view, galvanised the choir making R&DCS a real force to be reckoned within the musical world and life of Nottinghamshire. Under Hayward and Overbury’s guidance  the choir have ranged from Rutter to Rheinberger, Britten to Bach, Shearing to Schubert, Haydn to Handel and from Mendelssohn to Mozart – and all points in between – and have dealt with all these composers and works with aplomb. The choir has both widened its repertoire and at the same time improved musically and chorally in leaps and bounds. They, their leader and their accompanist have much to be proud of. Long may it continue.

Take a well deserved bow Paul Hayward

Thank you Ruddington & District Choral Society, thank you Paul Hayward, thank you Michael Overbury and all the other performers who did so much to not only provide an eloquent and haunting musical evening but to also reconnect me with the important things of Christmas and my basic humanity.