Peter Scott



MY LIFE AT THE OPERA: an Autobiography

PART ONE : 1925 - 1955

Chapter One: 1925 - 1939

To the best of my knowledge, I was the first member of my family ever to go to the opera, and even today, three generations later, there has been little sign of any such activity among my many relatives, or even those of my wife. Which must, I feel sure, amount to quite long odds against my exhibiting this sort of behaviour, since, in addition to the usual four grandparents, I had a father with three sisters, two of them married, one with two daughters; and a mother with three sisters, one of them married with a son and a daughter. I myself had a brother and a sister, and five of these seven cousins eventually married, producing ten offspring between us. My wife had three brothers and a sister, all but one of whom got married, producing six children in all. That's forty other family members and in-laws (not counting eleven spouses, or my wife's parents and grandparents) who have not, to date, displayed observable opera-going tendencies. Yet, I attended my first opera at the age of fifteen, in 1941, and have been going back, whenever circumstances permit, ever since.

How has this odd behaviour come about? If not from either nature or nurture, what? The distinctly underprivileged circumstances of my formative years would argue strongly against any attempt to explain it away as being merely the random result of 10% inclination and 90% opportunity - the statistic often pleaded in mitigation of adultery (another of life's optional extras for those who can afford it). Which leaves only the likelihood that, in my case, there has been a great deal of chance involved, at least in the early stages, and it occurs to me that the story of my otherwise very ordinary life and how it has come, in the end, to embrace so much of this extraordinary thing called opera may be worth telling for the benefit of any reader labouring under similar initial disadvantages to mine who may wish to benefit from my experience in this one particular respect. Abbreviating, therefore, the very ordinary, as much as possible, in favour of the extraordinary....

I was born into a solidly working class family in Bradford, Yorkshire, England, in 1925, when that city stood at the centre of the world's woollen industry, so it was no coincidence that both my parents worked in the wool trade, although neither of them operated machinery up at'mill. This was because my father was a woolsorter and my mother a burler and mender, skills which placed them among the elite of the workforce, but at opposite ends of the process involved in taking coats   off sheep and putting them on humans.

The woolsorter (invariably male) worked within chatting distance of his fellows in the cloistered calm of a well-lit gallery, or shed, standing at his board wearing his brat - a garment which covered him from neck to ankle and was tied round the back like a surgeon's gown – surrounded by skips (wheeled baskets) waiting to receive the fruits of his labours. His job was to take the raw fleece as it came out of a bale which may have originated in Australia or the Argentine, and sort it, manually, into the various grades required by the industry for the washing, spinning, dyeing and weaving that were to follow. The brat was to protect him from whatever came out of the wool, mainly the lanolin with which his board was always thickly coated. Obviously, much depended on his expert perceptions about the quality of the clip and it was not unusual for a woolsorter's skills, if coupled with ambition and intelligence, to take him on to higher things in the industry.

Not in my father's case, however, although he certainly had the innate abilities to go further. He was a Scot from the little riverside town of Langholm in Dumfrieshire where he had learned his trade (after being educated at the local academy, as he frequently reminding us) before surviving active service in Palestine and France with the King's Own Scottish Borderers during World War One and moving down to Bradford for the work. He was quite a handsome fellow, just over six feet tall, with a good enough physique to play rugby football as a semi-pro into his twenties - which was before my time, of course. Unfortunately, like so many of his fellow countrymen, my dad was far too fond of booze, and, by the time I got to know him, he was fully conditioned to working hard from Monday morning to Friday evening and drinking hard from Friday evening to Sunday evening with unfortunate results for his own well-being and that of his family.

The burler & mender (invariably female) also worked within chatting distance of her fellows in the relative peace and quiet of a well-lit gallery or workshop, but seated, in her case, in front of a near-vertical board, and wearing only an ordinary pinafore for protection, much as she would at home. Her job was to repair any minute imperfections in the finished cloth, which was drawn down off the roll over her board at eye-level for that purpose, before it was finally sold to the clothing manufacturers or the wholesalers. The tools of her trade were tweezers and scissors, for removing any burls (or knots) in the weave, and a variety of small sewing needles for mending, with carefully matched up threads, the tiny holes left by this or any other glitch in the manufacturing process. Her handiwork could only be appreciated by not being seen.

My mother was ideally suited to this work, and to the relatively relaxed social milieu in which it took place, much preferring it to being a full-time housewife, which was fortunate, in a number of ways, in view of my father's propensities. She was a warm, loving, gregarious and quite unassuming Yorkshirewoman, whose cheerful spirit survived years of regular weekend brutalisation by my father to bring her out eventually on top. Her only fault, in my young eyes, was that she was not conventionally fair of face, and I simply could not understand why this was so. All the fathers and mothers pictured in every story book or magazine I looked at, or film I ever saw, had handsome, regular features, and when I looked around me at the other members of the family the conclusion was inescapable - my mother's looks were sub-standard. She was what I later learned was called, in cultured circles, a jolie laide, but I didn't know that then, and, to my eternal shame, I once made my opinion on the subject known to her. I was about eight years old at the time, so it was an interesting early example of the power of the media to influence young minds. My mother took it on the chin, as she had so many of life's blows (I don't suppose it came as news to her), but she never forgot it, and got her own back by reminding me of the incident from time to time in later years when I had grown more mature in judgement...and more sensitive to the torments of acute embarrassment. She had already got her own back, as they say in Yorkshire, by bequeathing me a number of her facial features.

In spite of the cyclical ups and downs of the wool trade in the 1930s and the depressed level of even skilled workers' wages at the time, the combined earning power of my parents would have ensured us a more comfortable existence than we actually enjoyed, had it not been for my father's refusal to take his family responsibilities seriously. When in work, he would give my mother, from his Friday pay packet, as little housekeeping money as he could cajole, or bully her into accepting, and keep the rest to fund his own lavish weekend lifestyle in a wide variety of pubs. When out of work, he would hang on to as much of his dole money as he needed to buy his way up to those same bars in the hope of benefiting, once there, from his past generosity to other boozers. My mother was left to manage the entire household finances for two adults and three children as best she could on the little he gave her, augmented by whatever she could earn herself. Unsurprisingly, there were frequent rows about money from which my mother inevitably came off second best. For us children, these often violent confrontations were the worst part of it, because, although aware of being marginally worse off for food and clothing than we might have been, the hand to mouth existence we were leading was tolerably enjoyable most of the time.

Like many another working class family in Bradford, the five of us occupied a small back-to-back terrace house, in which my parents continued to dwell for the rest of their lives. It consisted of one living room (about 20'x20') and a scullery kitchen (8"x12'), with steps down from the kitchen to a small coal cellar, and steps up from the living room to a small landing and three bedrooms (20'x20',8'x10' and 8'x20'). The last of these bedrooms was over a passageway which gave access from the street to the two houses (out of four) which were at the rear of the row (one of them being ours), and to a back yard with its two outbuildings, both housing one W.C. at each end and two dustbins in between, set into a rear wall over which a row of identical houses in the next street could be seen. The two front houses had side doors into the passage for easy access to the back yard, and two of the four houses had, of course, only two bedrooms. It was all very neat and functional, fitting four houses and a passageway into a space about 64 feet wide by 40 feet deep, and very solidly built, like the rest of Bradford, of Yorkshire stone. This meant that between forty and fifty families could be housed on each side of a street which was only a couple of hundred yards long, making the one street into a veritable village. To increase the resemblance, there was a corner shop, of course, and extended families, with grandparents living a few doors away from grandchildren, aunts and uncles juxtaposed with nieces and nephews, and childhood friends now grown up and married but still staying close to each other, as in any other village community.

Although the houses were crammed together back-to-back and side by side in terraces, the space between the rows was comparatively generous, and all the houses had small gardens. Those at the front were the width of the house and about 10 feet deep, bounded by a low wall surmounted by short iron railings in which was a gate giving on to a wide pavement of stone slabs (or flags as we called them), then the street itself, about 18 feet wide from kerb to kerb, and constructed entirely of stone blocks, or sets, but always referred to as cobbles. The gardens at the back were only half the width of each house but about 25 feet long, enclosed by substantial stone walls, chest high, to the side and back (incorporating the two outbuildings, known to us as "t'middins"), leaving a stone-flagged back yard 30 feet wide by 15 feet deep in between. Over the wall at the bottom of the garden there was the identical back garden of an identical house in the next street.

The houses were designed to be fuelled entirely by coal and gas - I was 11 years old before we 'got the electric in' - which meant that half one wall of the living room was occupied by a full cast-iron cooking range with all the trimmings - oven one side, water boiler the other, high fire grate in between with chimney hook above, and hearth with fire-guard, fender and coal-bucket in front, all surmounted by a useful mantelpiece shelf. The room was lit by a gas mantle hanging down from the centre of the ceiling. In the kitchen, there was a zinc water boiler, with a gas burner underneath and a single free-standing gas ring on a flexible pipe perched on the lid. There was also a stone sink with a cold water tap which had to serve for all personal and domestic ablutions. The coal was delivered in sacks, emptied (with a sound like thunder) through a small grate in the passage into the coal cellar beneath, from whence it was carried up the cellar steps and through the kitchen, a bucketload at a time, usually by me, as required. There were gas-jet wall fittings in the cellar, the kitchen, and all three bedrooms, but these were seldom used, neither was the small fireplace in the large bedroom. During the long, cold, dark Pennine winters, the five of us spent much of our time, when not in bed or out of doors, as close to the coal fire in the living room as we could get.

Amazingly, my mother managed to feed and launder for a family of five with these facilities, as well as going out to work to support us. She could only achieve this by relying heavily, weekdays, on the gas ring in the kitchen and what are nowadays called take-away foods of various kinds. The corner shop, barely 25 yards away, up the passage and across the street from our door, held all the usual groceries plus cheese, carving ham and corned beef sold by weight, and even boasted two beer pumps drawing from barrels in the cellar, so those 25 yards were traversed by one or other member of our family at very frequent intervals. Beyond that, within easy walking distance (250 yards) there were no less than three fish and chip shops, a tripe shop also selling hot pies and peas, and a pork butcher (under the inevitable German name) purveying an enormous range of instant foods made from "everything in the pig but its squeek". Monday to Friday, when both parents were working, we children were given a hot midday meal (always called dinner - just as the evening meal, whatever it consisted of, was "tea") by a neighbour who had no doubt been contracted to do so by my mother, but on the Sabbath Day, the oven was stoked up, and we had the traditional Sunday dinner. This was followed, a few hours later, by Sunday tea for which we routinely went (without my father, of course) to the home of our two maiden aunties, my mother's sisters, about a mile away. So, we didn't go hungry, but we ate an awful lot of jam and bread at breakfast and teatime during the week.

Those two maiden aunties played almost as big a part in our young lives as our parents. They took it upon themselves to do what they could, within the limited means available to them as single working women, to fill the gap in our lifestyle left by my father's inadequacies, not least by making their house a second home to us. Although it was even narrower than ours and had no front garden, theirs was a full through terrace house, boasting what was always referred to as a 'front room' (there were no parlours in working class Bradford) and a living kitchen at the back. Upstairs, two bedrooms and a real bathroom with hot running water from a fireback boiler in the kitchen, and, above that, a large attic. So, the traffic between our house and theirs was pretty constant, and they gave my mother, their younger sister, unstinting moral and material support in raising her children for as long as she needed it, most memorably, by taking us all away to the seaside at Bridlington for a week each year, leaving my father, of whom they very strongly disapproved (although nothing much was ever said about their relationship with him in my young presence), to fend for himself. Now I come to think of it, I can't remember ever seeing my aunties in the same room as my father.

Their opinion of him was shared by, among others, his own three sisters, one of whom actually lived in our street for a time after returning from a five year stint in Canada. She and her husband (a precision toolmaker) occupied a house at the front, about ten doors away from us, and next but one to the family of a girlhood friend of hers whose own mother-in-law lived only a few doors away on the other side. They were both Scots, but their sojourn in Canada had given them a faintly exotic cosmopolitan gloss and a rather distinctive manner of speaking which gradually wore off with the passage of time, although my aunt (she was never an auntie) remained the most articulate and well-spoken person in my family circle, with the possible exception of my father. She was also the most socially ambitious, and soon moved out of the street to take possession of a newly built, brick and pebble-dashed semi-detached house about a mile farther out of town, which, with its indoor WC, well-equipped kitchen and private garden, provided us children with our first experience of modern living. There they remained for the rest of their lives.

Although they were childless, and a close and constant presence in our neighbourhood during all that time, this aunt and uncle did not involve themselves in our upbringing to anything like the extent of my mother's sisters, probably because they were too wrapped up in themselves. They were a well-matched pair, my uncle a quiet man in the face of my aunt's volubility, and where she was merely fastidious, he was a perfectionist, deeply committed to what is nowadays called DIY, and condemned, therefore, to lavish all his care and attention on keeping his house and garden in immaculate condition, even without her encouragement. But they were kind-hearted people, and as well-disposed towards my brother, sister and me as their self-centricity would allow. We called on them regularly, usually on a Sunday morning in our best clothes, but were always required to leave our shoes on the doormat, and only allowed to use the spotless indoor toilet in extreme emergency, so we never felt at home there. On these occasions, after subjecting us to a brief but thorough scrutiny, my aunt would often give us a carefully worded lecture on personal hygiene and good manners before asking after our mother and her sisters (never our father), before going on to cross-question us about a number of matters, principally our achievements in and out of school. It was some years before I realised that, with regard to these last, I was engaged in a lifetime competition with the offspring of my aunt's girlhood friend (a boy of my age, and a girl of my sister's), who continued to live in our street for some time before eventually achieving a semi of her own.

2

There were up to fifty children of all ages living in the street, and most of them went to different parts of the same school as me, which was conveniently situated only yards away in the very next street. This remarkable institution, the massive stone outline of which dominated my childhood, was really a complex arrangement of four different schools – a kindergarten (or "baby class" as it was called), infants, juniors and seniors - which, together, catered for the educational needs of boys and girls aged from three to eighteen years. What? Eighteen years in the 1930s when the minimum school-leaving age was fourteen? Yes, the senior, or high school was, in effect, a sort of utilitarian grammar school, one of three such in Bradford (in addition to the pukka Bradford Grammar School), which between them ensured that no less than one in three youngsters in the city could qualify for a grammar school place by passing an objective aptitude test at the age of 11. So, my first piece of luck was to be brought up in Bradford. Had I lived outside the city's boundaries in the West Riding of Yorkshire, where there were grammar school places for only about one in twenty, my parents could certainly not have afforded the expense of sending me to a county grammar school, even if I had won a scholarship.

But that was in the future. Of more immediate benefit was the baby class at the age of three. The compulsory school age was five, but those two years I spent in the baby class were not only thoroughly enjoyable, giving me my first coherent set of early memories, but also got my education off to a flying start by giving me, I later realised, an academic advantage over those of my contemporaries whose parents chose not to part with them until the age of five. And, since the physical constraints of a home environment into which my sister arrived before I was three and my brother two and a half years later, gave me little incentive to spend more time than was absolutely necessary around the house. When I wasn't at school, I was playing outside (or "laking out" was the term we used, little realising it's derivation from the Viking occupation of Yorkshire a millennium earlier), in our backyard, at first, but, soon, in the street. There, I joined forces with other boys of roughly my own age to form what became, over the years, a moderately delinquent street gang.

Mustering between six and a dozen members at any one time, this gang roamed around together in the evenings after tea (even during the cold, dark winter), and from breakfast until bedtime when school had "broken up" for the holidays, particularly the long summer holidays, going farther and farther afield in search of adventure. Over the years our territory became quite extensive. First, there was a badly battered, grassy half acre at the top end of our street known as "t'rec", then, the very large open field behind the school, partly laid out as the school's playing fields, which boasted a stream running through it and, in the far corner, the eroded but still substantial bulk of a slag heap, left behind by some long defunct coal mine and known, therefore, as "t'pit 'ill". This open space was called Myra Shay, and, when I first knew it, the remains of the original 18th century manor house from which it took its name were still there, but falling further into decay with each passing year. Unsurprisingly, this ruin was reputed to be haunted, and there was also a widely held belief that a secret underground passage connected it to Bradford Cathedral less than a mile away in the city centre. Some anecdotal confusion there, perhaps, with the mine workings which must have existed in the immediate vicinity at some time in the past to have created t'pit 'ill?.

Juxtaposing these amenities, and partially surrounding them, there was a fully-flagged 18-hole municipal golf course, easily accessible from the ancient, unpaved footpath, always referred to as Boldshay (pronounced Boldsha') Fields), which ran between the golf course and Myra Shay, to emerge finally into the busy Ring Road. Given the size and position of these two open spaces, this footpath provided a very significant short cut for any pedestrian from our neighbourhood wishing to get to the ring road without detouring round them, so it saw plenty of pedestrian traffic in all weathers, and, since my aunt and uncle's semi was only a few yards away from the top end of Boldsha' Fields, this probably accounted for the shoes left on the doormat during our Sunday morning visits to them.

Next, across the ring road, there was a small municipal park complete with boating lake, tennis courts, bowling and putting greens, promenade and bandstand, shrubberies, flower beds, greenhouses and, more importantly to us, a childrens' playground containing a selection of swings and roundabouts. These last presented us with the usual challenge of discovering, by experiment, how many exciting things they were capable of doing, above and beyond what they had been designed to do. Another, less dangerous, form of entertainment lay in angling for the small freshwater crayfish which had somehow populated the boating lake; the only equipment needed for this was a pebble on the end of a long enough piece of white string to reach the bottom. Once a crayfish had been persuaded to grab hold of the string, it wouldn't let go, even when being lifted bodily out of the water. Crayfish races on dry land were not a big success, however, and even if we'd known at the time that they could be cooked and eaten, the prospect would certainly not have appealed to us.

Farther out from the park, beyond another half mile of streets and houses, there were open fields, and farms (offering the possibility of orchard to raid), accessed by unpaved footpaths. One of these led down to a wooded valley called Fagley Woods, which had a disused municipal reservoir in the middle of it, containing roach and perch, and, at the far end, a textile mill, with it's usual mill dam, containing frogs and newts; another track led to a wasteland of disused quarries conveniently flooded with water. So, there was plenty of scope for informal group activity of an adventurous nature within a mile or so of our street, and, if our parents would favour us with the necessary copper coins and sandwiches, we could voyage even further afield with remarkable ease, thanks to a form of transport which was so much a part of our lives that we simply took its convenient availability for granted.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, tramlines had been extending outwards from the centre of Bradford to its farthest extremities, undeterred by the fact that all the roads out of the city centre, with one exception (Canal Road), ascended Pennine slopes which were, in places, quite steep. But the Bradford trams must have been designed to overcome these gradients, because, by the time I came along, most Bradfordians were living only a few minutes walk away from a tram stop. In my case, it was only one street away, with trams arriving every few minutes in both directions, carrying passengers 'down into town', or 'up to t'(Bradford) Moor', or even to the terminus at distant Stanningley, which was nearly on the outskirts of Leeds. But destination of the expedition our gang would invariably undertake whenever we had the means to do so, was much further afield. It was Hirst Woods in faraway Saltaire on the other side of the city, but getting there was not a problem, because we could catch a tram down into town, to Forster Square - where all the city's tramlines seemed to meet - and change quickly onto a tram going out to Saltaire, there to disembark and walk the short distance to the entrance to Hirst Woods, the whole journey taking less than an hour.

And the tram ride would be an adventure in itself, because, in addition to their ability to climb (and descend) the Pennine hills, the Bradford trams, although of conventional design in other respects, were unusual in having open tops at the front and back of the upper deck. This meant that sitting 'out at' front upstairs' could be a very invigorating experience, invariably to be avoided by all adult travellers, but not, of course, by our gang, who couldn't understand why anyone would want to be sitting in a cabin, cut off from the outside world, when you could be out on deck at the very prow of the vessel, sailing through the traffic with the wind in your face, exchanging impromptu bandinage with pedestrians in the street below – an experience well worth the penny or two it cost us.

Hirst Woods, although not much bigger than our own Fagley Woods, had been spared the depredations of the denizens of any nearby council estates (and, of course, gangs like ours), and was, therefore, much more attractive as a picnic spot. Its biggest attraction was the River Aire running through it in a wide sweep which created a sort of pebbly beach on its outer rim from which we could fish for tiddlers. But not with rod and line – that was to come later – and not with the childish nets-on-sticks we had dipped so hopefully into the local park pond. No, the apparatus we used was more effective than either of these, and must have been a local tradition, because I can't remember how we learned about it. It consisted of a jam jar with a piece of linen tied across its mouth, attached to a very long piece of string. The method was to shove a piece of bread into the jar through a small hole pierced in the linen cap, hurl the jar out into the river as far as the string would extend, and leave it there for about five minutes before hauling it back in. Very rarely would the jar come back empty, and it would often have more than one tiddler trapped in it.

Nothing could be easier. But it left us with the problem of what to do with the fish, once we'd caught them. Since they were too small to eat, and the thought of putting them back in the river never occurred to us, our only option was to take them home as trophies to be exhibited in fish bowls as pets, and, in anticipation of this, we had usually come equipped with a large receptacle of some kind, complete with a makeshift carrying handle, into which, after filling it with river water, our captives could be decanted. As teatime approached we would set off back home, carrying our load of tiddlers, first, to the tramstop, and then, up the tram's back stairs and through to our favourite vantage point out front, there to indulge in our usual antics. Our journey would hardly be under way, however, before the weaker brethren among our tiddlers would begin to die, and float, belly-up, to the surface, leaving us with little alternative but to fish them out, and find some amusing way of disposing of their corpses, and we didn't need to look far. The tram was running down the middle of the road, of course, and some of the motorcars passing it on the left had their sun roofs open, so it was a simple enough matter for us to lean over the rail and drop a dead tiddler through the sunroof of a car as it passed. The only snag with this otherwise quite entertaining piece of mischief was that the cars were travelling so much quicker than the tram that we were unable to observe the reactions of the passengers within them to the sudden arrival in their midst of a dead tiddler. Needless to say, the small numbers of fish we succeeded in getting back home to be transferred into goldfish bowls, didn't survive for long.

Such expeditions were rare, and most of our activities were confined to our own street and the surrounding territory. We played the usual games, of course, like football, cricket and even golf, if and when the necessary equipment could be assembled, on t'rec and Myra Shay, and a few unusual ones, such as "taws", "piggy and stick" and "tin can squat" in the street, but we were most in character as a gang when out marauding for suitable opportunities to indulge in one or both of our two favourite pastimes.

The first of these was called "duffs" and offered harm to no-one but ourselves. The rules were simple and could be invoked by any one of our number, at any time or place, with the words "I duff anyone to [climb that tree] [jump that gap] [walk along the top of that wall without falling off]" - the permutations were endless. To which, after a short pause to assess the difficulty and danger posed by the challenge, the response had to be "Duffer does it first!", whereupon it became incumbent upon the individual who had issued the dare to "do the duff". If he failed in this he became the object of group derision for having duffed himself, but, if (as was usually the case) he accomplished the specified feat without injury, all the other gang members present were obliged to follow suit. And this, depending on the difficulty of the duff and the numbers present, could take some time, with the weaker brethren wavering on the brink, screwing up their courage, or failing three times (as was permitted) to do the duff, while the rest hung around emitting cries of encouragement, disparagement, or exasperation in the light of a number of variables, such as the proximity of the next mealtime.

Of course, any member of the gang who couldn't rise to the occasion, was seen to have been publicly "duffed", and became, for the rest of the day (or until the next duff), the recipient of any ritual humiliation which the rest cared to heap upon him. Thus did we test ourselves against each other and our environment, establishing, as we did so, a pecking order within the gang. Needless to say, over the years, as both we and our territory grew, the duffs got progressively harder until they became downright dangerous, but the only significant injury sustained by any of us was one broken collarbone, and this occurred when a routine somersault round a tram stop barrier only a few feet from the ground ended in a genuinely accidental fall. Otherwise, our parents knew nothing of these activities, except insofar as they impinged upon matters of more immediate concern to them, such as our clothing and footwear, which was, alas, all too often the case. It was to be some years before I encountered an army assault course, but, when I did, I was gratified to discover that the skills and knowledge acquired while doing duffs with the gang were still mine to command.

The second pastime favoured by the gang differed from the first by being seasonal and potentially delinquent. It was called "chumpin'" and consisted of nothing more remarkable, on the surface, than the gathering of fuel for a bonfire to be lit on November 5th, or Plot Night, as it was known. This was the single most important communal event to take place in our street (the only one, in fact), and must have been a genuine tradition, because it seemed to occur every year without any prior organisation other than the advance collection of combustible material by the interested parties, of which our gang was by far the most committed, if only because it offered us such an excellent excuse to go out marauding, armed with sharp implements and ropes. In our determination to exploit this situation, and to make our bonfire bigger and better each year, we began chumping earlier and earlier until we were starting in late August, towards the end of the long summer holiday. And once out chumpin', we acquired a whole new set of values, best summed up as "If it'll burn and it's detachable, it's ours". I still look back in amazement at the extent to which we were able to persuade ourselves that any item of a combustible nature left temporarily unattended had been totally abandoned by its owner.

In attempting to give effect to this belief, we were not infrequently disabused of it by the appearance on the scene of someone who not only knew better, but might even, depending on the amount of displeasure they felt, feel obliged to give chase. To us, this would come as something of a bonus, because "getting chased" was just about the most exciting thing that could happen to us. It galvanised us into purposeful activity of an extreme kind without placing us in too much real danger, given our general level of fitness, fleetness of foot, and the gymnastic abilities we had acquired by the constant doing of duffs. If, however, due to the intervention of some mischance, the unthinkable happened and one or more of us was caught, then the punishment, which usually consisted of a good hiding, would be administered on the spot for as long the unlucky recipient could be held on to. Such an outcome had to be accepted with as much fortitude as could be mustered, since any complaint by the victim to his parents about being physically assaulted by another adult while out chumpin' would, in those days, have been greeted with little sympathy and possibly a further blow to reinforce the message of the punishment.

But that was the risk we ran. From most of our forays we would return triumphant, dragging our spoils behind us (often for miles), to be added to the stores we were accumulating in as many of the street's back yards as we could commandeer for the purpose. And things didn't end there, because, once acquired, these trophies would present us with the further, not unwelcome, challenge of guarding them from the depredations of others. As the nights grew longer and the piles of chumps grew bigger, it became a more inviting prospect, and a much more exciting one, to raid the hoards amassed by gangs in neighbouring streets than to carry on chumpin' abroad in the dark. Since the gangs in these other streets were similarly motivated, there would develop, in the final weeks before Plot Night, a form of urban jungle warfare, across the garden walls, over the middins and up and down the passages, which could absorb so much of our energy and interest that it stretched our resources to the limit. At the height of this struggle, surprising as it may seem, my own father was not beyond spending time on sentry duty in the lavatory at the bottom of our garden, which was always, due to its uncultivated nature, one of the street's principal chump dumps, from whence he would emerge to ambush awestruck would-be plunderers and chase them off the premises.

During this time, gang members would also be taking full advantage of the temporary availability of that most exciting of adjuncts to Plot - the fireworks. And to us, fireworks meant "bangers". The idea of spending the very few pence at our disposal on such fancy, (and expensive) displays as Golden Fountains, Catherine Wheels or Roman Candles, simply never occurred to us. Nothing but bangers would do, and, in those days, what bangers they were! Of two basic kinds, the ha'penny (pronounced 'aip'ny) one and the penny one, the difference was that you got a really big bang with the former and an even bigger bang with the latter. The penny Cannon was built to look like a miniature stick of dynamite and, suitably deployed, could blow an empty tin can about fifteen feet into the air, or, dropped down a street drain with the fuse well alight, could go off like a depth charge, showering bystanders with dirty water. And there was none of this "light the blue touchpaper and retire to a safe distance" with us, because playing with bangers meant learning to handle them, and this meant holding an 'aip'ny Little Demon in the hand for as long as possible while the fuse spurted flame before throwing it at the selected target. An essential piece of equipment for lighting the touchpaper in the first place was a piece of oily rope called 'millband', which must have served some useful purpose in the local mill before being discarded and brought home by a sympathetic parent, and which, once lit, would continue to burn slowly, glowing red, until extinguished. It could also be cupped in the hands to warm them on cold November nights.

It was inevitable, I suppose, that our lawmakers' efforts to achieve a risk-free society would result in fireworks becoming as strictly controlled as they are nowadays, dooming the simple banger to disappear completely from the scene, but I can't help feeling that something has been taken from today's children by turning them into spectators of adult firework displays rather than firework handlers in their own right. It may be, of course, that their lives are so much richer and fuller than ours were, that playing with bangers is not so badly missed, but I'm certain that my own boyhood would have been a much less colourful place without the seasonal excitement of Plot, with its chumpin', and its Little Demons and Cannons... with the best of it still to come. Penultimately, there was Mischief Night, which, given the name and what has gone before, can surely be left to the reader's imagination as a totally uninhibited Halloween consisting entirely of tricks - the soliciting of treats being hardly a viable option under the prevailing circumstances. And, finally, as a grand climax, the bonfire, itself!

As dusk fell on the fifth of November (gunpowder, treason and plot!), and the elders arrived home from work, the gang would proudly disgorge the fruits of its past labours, adding them to whatever else had been contributed, such as redundant domestic furniture and defunct skips from the nearby mills, for assembly into a mighty pile right in the middle of the street. Although this was made feasible by the virtual indestructibility of its stone block surface, it must have been in contravention of several municipal bye-laws, because the resulting conflagration not only closed the street to through traffic, but also presented a significant fire risk to any properties immediately adjacent to it. Certainly, one year, the heat at the height of the blaze was so intense that it cracked the window glass of the nearest houses. But the fire soon fell back to manageable proportions, to be kept alive by judicious feeding while most of the street's inhabitants stood around, smiling into its red hot depths and exchanging gossip with neighbours, some of whom, if living more than a few doors away, may not have been seen "to talk to" since the previous year.

Meanwhile, the gang, having quickly exhausted their meagre supply of bangers and grudgingly admired the more conventional firework displays of others, were waiting impatiently for the adults to leave them alone with the remains of the fire so that they could start duffing each other to jump over it before being called in to bed. Once that finally occurred, it would all be over for another year, except for the ritual inspection of the remains of the bonfire on the way to school the following morning, for any residual signs of life to be marvelled at, enlarged upon, and boasted about to classmates as evidence of our superior chumpin' prowess. Since the events of the previous evening in our street had been duplicated in dozens of locations throughout the city (giving it, at the height of the proceedings, the temporary appearance of an urban Inferno, with clumps of flames flowering on the darkened hillsides in every direction), the basin in which Bradford was built would be filled with an even denser pall of smoke than usual, which could hang around for days and curdle into an impenetrable, soot-laden smog if the atmospheric conditions were so inclined. As this was long before the Clean Air Act banished coal from the domestic grates, we were quite used to it, and there is probably as much Bradford muck in the deeper recesses of my lungs today as can still to be seen under the scars on my knees.

After Plot, as the winter wore on, the gang was left with little alternative but to pray for snow - for the right sort of snow, that is. Situated as it was on the eastern slopes of the Pennines, Bradford got plenty of snow in the depths of winter, but a lot of it was of the wrong kind. If it didn't come as stinging sleet in the wind, it might fall steadily and silently during the night, raising our hopes only to dash them by degenerating into dirty slush by noon the following day. Also, snow a foot deep wasn't much good, except for snowball fights, making snowmen, and rolling giant snowballs - kid's stuff! It had to be just a couple of inches deep, accompanied by a few days of sub-zero temperatures. When that happened, conditions would be right for a wide variety of mostly home-made sledges to be fetched up from t'cellars t'ave t'rust rubbed off t'runners.

Our own street was too flat for sledging, but the streets crossing it at either end were ideal, one of them boasting a 1 in 6 gradient (not uncommon in Bradford) before levelling out, the other a useful 1 in 10 of greater length. And the stone block surface of the streets lent itself surprisingly well to being honed into a solid sheet of ice by the passage across the snow cover of a sufficient number of sledges. Once this had been achieved, some quite respectable speeds could be attained with a short run and a flying start in the prone position. There have been few greater thrills, in my experience, than racing each other down those slightly corrugated glassy slopes, face first, at speeds unachievable by any other means available to us at the time, with only moon, stars, and an occasional street lamp to light the way.

Not all the gang's joint activities, however, were of a purely physical and extrovert nature. We had a common interest in feeding our collective imagination on any material that would fuel our constant quest for fresh worlds to explore, or new roles to play, and, in matters of the mind, we had two main sources of shared inspiration. Obviously, one was the cinema, or "t'pitchers" as we always called it, and were we not living through what many now see as its Golden Age? By the mid-1930s, there were eight full-sized, full-time cinemas in the Bradford city centre (three of them converted from pre-war theatres, one of which has since been reconverted back into a fine concert hall), and at least thirty locals of varying sizes scattered around the suburbs. Two of these latter were within easy walking distance of our street, two more, only half a mile away, and, in any case, it was less than a mile "into town", so cinema-going was as much a part of everyday existence then as television is nowadays.

We were initiated into the habit at the earliest possible age by being sent to the "tup'ny rush" on a Saturday afternoon at the nearest establishment, only a couple of hundred yards away. This was said to be a converted roller-skating rink, built like an aeroplane hanger, difficult to heat in winter, and pervaded by a distinctive musty odour which, my dad claimed, was given off by a fungus growing under the floor. It was run by a noteworthy individual who was always present in the foyer to greet the customers, even at the tup'ny rush, clad in full formal morning dress, complete with high winged collar, cravat and gloves, sporting a large pearl tie-pin, carefully coiffured remaining hair, and a small square moustache. He was well-known in the area for appearing as a Charlie Chaplin lookalike at local functions of various kinds, and there were signed photographs from the great Charlot himself on the walls, attesting to his talents in this direction. Another memorable aspect of these occasions was the ear-splitting volume of noise produced by the couple of hundred kids packed into the front ten rows of the house, working themselves up into a state of high excitement for at least half an hour before the start of the show.

When the house lights finally went down and the curtains parted, even this level of sound would increase perceptibly, before changing pitch and dying down to an expectant babble, only to burst out again if the screen lit up with the credits of a recognisable favourite. Comedies and cowboys were, of course, the staple fare, and, apart from bewitching us in the dark, both genres would cast their spell beyond the immediate occasion to influence the gang's collective behaviour in different ways. The almost entirely visual humour of the comedies would be copied and even elaborated upon whenever we were triggered off into one of those spontaneous mass mummeries of which young boys, in particular, are so inordinately fond. The Westerns would have a more sustained, systemic effect, inspiring us to gallop around the streets on imaginary steeds, shooting at each other with a variety of imitation weapons, acquired as birthday or Christmas presents.

As we graduated, with the passing years, from the tupp'ny rush, to the regular evening shows, we were beamed into realms of the imagination even more exotic than the Wild West. After "The Three Musketeers", for example, we would be galloping around on imaginary steeds again, but now with hastily improvised cloaks, fastened at the neck, streaming romantically behind us, and fencing at close quarters with real home-made rapiers instead of shooting imaginary bullets from toy guns. But the film that influenced our gang more than any other was "Sanders of the River", starring the great negro singer Paul Robeson. Based on an Edgar Wallace yarn, it transported us into the jungles of darkest Africa where an isolated white District Commissioner kept order, by sheer nerve and the superiority of his breeding, among the warring tribes of savage blacks. Not only riveting stuff to watch, but packed full of characters, incidents and activities readily assimilable into our own daily doings. We were, after all, a small tribe; and spears, blow-pipes, drums and war dances were easily improvised. There were even tribal songs in the film which we could adopt, and "Yig-a-yo, Yig-a-da" became a kind of theme song for us. Best of all, we could tie one of our weaker brethren to a lamp post and dance around him, flicking a dirty hanky in his face, like the witch doctor did to a captive white man in the film before killing him.

This personal experience of the imitative faculties of the young, and the power of those early films to influence our behaviour, has made me rather sceptical about the claim that there is no hard evidence to connect the amount of violence so graphically depicted on cinema and television screens today, with the incidence of violent crime in the real world. What is there to prove? That children learn by imitation? Is it credible that our gang would have invented its own excuses far assaulting each other with swords, spears, arrows and blowpipes, even binding and torture, without having seen it done at t'pitchers? And those early monochrome movies, in which very little blood was ever seen to flow, and the dead either disappeared instantly from view, or made short speeches before expiring gracefully (depending on whose side they were on), now look unbelievably restrained when set against the products of a modern industry which devotes its immense technical resources to depicting, as realistically as possible, the most unpleasant things that can be devised to be done to the human body if the imagination is given totally free rein? With all that immense ingenuity invested in maximising the impact of such scenes on the viewer, how can it be argued that they don't affect us, if only by showing the psychopaths among us how to become criminal psychopaths?

[The most violent group activity I can recall from my street gang days, occurred quite spontaneously on a day like any other, probably during the long summer school holidays, when we were heading 'down Fagley Woods' as usual, in search of adventure. We had left the built up area behind, and were on our way down through the fields to the woods proper, when we passed a field of rhubarb, as we had done many times before. There was nothing unusual about a field full of rhubarb in that vicinity, since we were on the edge of 'the Rhubarb Triangle', stretching between Bradford, Morley and Leeds, and famous for its shed-forced rhubarb, grown for the table, but also for its outdoor rhubarb, grown for commercial purposes (the locals believing that most of this went to Hartley's jam factory in Leeds). This outdoor rhubarb was a very robust growth, some of the sticks nearly 2” thick, and we often helped ourselves to it, in passing, by way of refreshment, but, in spite of being stolen, it was very sour. On this occasion, however, one of our number, having picked a very thick stick, conceived the novel idea of striking another of our number over the head with it. Observing that this blow had produced a very satisfying thwack without causing its recipient any real harm, within seconds the whole gang of us were uprooting sticks of rhubarb and hitting each other over the head with them.

Pausing for breath after a while, and looking for ways of utilising this newly acquired skill, we realised that, standing in the corner of the rhubarb field, there was, and had been for as long as we could remember, a derelict, old-fashioned horse-drawn wooden caravan. How it had got there, and what it was doing there, we had no idea, but the realisation dawned on us that we had finally found a use for it. We quickly 'picked sides', and one team went inside the caravan, carrying a pile of sticks of rhubarb, and the other side, wielding sticks of rhubarb, set about trying to invade the caravan and dislodge them. It was a very satisfactory encounter, but, as we finally called it a draw, and withdrew from the battlefield, we could not but observe that there was barely half as much rhubarb left standing in the field as when we arrived, and, needless to say, I found it very difficult to explain to my mother, when I got home, why my hair and clothes were drenched in rhubarb juice.

By coincidence, my most frightening adventure with the gang began quite close to the rhubarb field. I can't remember whether it was earlier or later than the rhubarb fight, but it must have been late in the long summer break from school, because we were going 'down Fagley Woods' again, but, this time, we were 'going equipped' for chumpin', and I was burdened, at my mother's insistence, (much to my disgust, and that of my fellow chumpers), with my young brother, Donald, who couldn't have been much older than five at the time, because I was still having to hold his hand to keep him from dropping back.

The purpose of our expedition was to ransack Fagley Woods for 'chumps' for our Plot bonfire, and we were armed with ropes and at least one hatchet for the purpose. But, while making our meandering way down through the fields to the woods, we noticed that a small field close to the rhubarb field had been laid out with an array of jumps of the equestrian variety, which had undoubtedly been put there for use by the pupils of the small riding school a short distance away. The jumps were constructed of the usual horizontal poles and supports, and had a rather home-made look about them, but what caught our collective eye was the large amounts of brushwood stuffed underneath the poles to give the obstacles a more substantial appearance, and it took us only a few seconds to decide that this material fell to be dealt with under the First Rule of Chumpin' which was “If it's loose and it'll burn, it's ours”.

Pausing only to satisfy ourselves that we were unobserved, we swarmed into the field and began attaching ropes to the brushwood, and, even more feloniously, to a couple of the poles, and had already succeeded in dragging our spoils some way along the footpath in a homeward direction before we were interrupted by the sudden appearance, over a stile in the middle distance, of a male figure, clad in full riding fig, waving a riding stock and shouting words we could not hear, but the purport of which we could all too easily guess at. Although heading menacingly towards us, he was far enough away to allow us to abandon our loot, retrieve our ropes and head off in the opposite direction, two of us dragging my little brother along by the hands. It was an easy escape to make, even burdened with 'our kid', since we could easily outrun an adult in riding boots, breeches and jacket. But we didn't stop running until we reached the safety of the built-up area, where, avoiding the main road, we were walking along the back lane behind the first row of terrace houses, rehearsing among ourselves the details of our success in both 'getting chased' and eluding pursuit, when one of our number chanced to look over his shoulder, and shout “Hey up! He's 'ere on a horse.”

Disbelievingly, we looked back, to find that this was only too true. The irate individual we had left behind us, tottering along in his riding boots, was now bearing down on us at high speed on horseback. After a frozen split-second, we reacted to this horrifying sight by turning, as one, and running like hell, scattering in all directions as soon as we reached the open road at the end of the lane, every man for himself. This tactic was a sensible one to adopt under the circumstances, but, handicapped as I was by the immature legs of an attached infant, it placed me at a serious disadvantage by enabling our pursuer to single me out as the most likely candidate for capture, which he did. In a blind panic, dragging Donald behind me by one hand, I dashed across the road into the council housing estate opposite. I hadn't the faintest idea of where I was going, but, with the sound of horses hooves ringing in my ears, I ran along the first available street, and, in desperation, as he came clattering round the corner behind me, I opened the garden gate of the nearest house, and ran up its front garden path, past the house itself, down through the back garden, over the fence into the back garden of the house opposite. and on past that house, into the next street.

It was an inspired move, because the horseman, unable to follow us through the gardens, was obliged to turn back and gallop round into the next street, by which time, we had crossed that street into the gardens of the house opposite and were charging through them to the next street, and so on, until, emerging from the housing estate, we finally placed ourselves beyond reach of pursuit by crossing the Ring Road into the safety of Boldsha' Fields, where, on the top of t'Pit'ill, the rest of the gang were re-assembling to exchange accounts of their escape stories, none of which could compare with the one I had to tell them. As to how much damage we had done to the flower beds and vegetable patches in the gardens we trampled through I neither knew nor cared, and how we'd managed to surmount the fences between the back to back gardens, I could hardly remember – it was all a blur – but, fortunately, none of them had been high enough to prevent me throwing Donald over and and scrambling after him. It was a narrow escape, and, since. miraculously, it had left no marks on our clothing or our persons, we decided to spare my dear mother the knowledge of it.

Although I shared most of my real life adventures with my fellow gang members, there was one that came my way so unexpectedly, and was over so quickly, that I was unable to share it with anyone. One sunny afternoon in May 1936, I had left our house, and made my way, as usual, up the passageway and into the street, bound I know not where, when, looking up, I beheld, hovering above me, an enormous, silver, cigar-shaped object. It was so big, that it seemed to fill the sky and, for a moment, I was as awestruck as a native of a South Sea Island must have been by his first sight of a European galleon under full sail. And then I realised it was an airship, and it wasn't filling the sky, but it was so low that I could hear the hum of its engines, and see passengers looking down from the gondolas. And it wasn't hovering overhead, but just beyond the school buildings in the next street, so I rushed round them and up Boldsha'Fields to get an even better view, and there it was, hanging, gleaming, over t'Pit 'ill, a sight I shall never forget. It was, of course, the most famous airship in the world, the Hindenberg, and it was taking the liberty of crossing Britain without permission, on its way back from the USA to Germany, photographing in passing, so it was alleged, anything that might be of strategic interest in a future war. But, before I could run back home to tell my pals about it, it turned to the east and sped away, leaving me doubly fortunate in having seen it, because it was to be only one year later when this magnificent monster would fall in flames from the sky, bringing the age of transcontinental airship travel to an end.]

In addition to those we got from t'pitchers, there was a second stream of images flowing into the collective psyche of our gang which had a less immediate influence on our group activities at the time, but was probably just as potent as in shaping our behaviour in the long run. They have since disappeared, alas, completely from the scene, but the 1930s was the heyday of the weekly boys' adventure story magazine, and, although "The Gem" and "The Magnet" are seen by social historians as generically more important, working class boys in the West Riding of Yorkshire found these southern middle class effusions less appealing than "The Rover", "The Wizard", "The Hotspur" and "The Skipper", all of which were produced, I believe, in Scotland. The most remarkable feature of these concoctions was that they consisted almost entirely of the written word, with only one illustration behind the title of each of the six or more stories making up each issue. Imagine ten-year old boys rushing round to the newsagent on the day of issue to buy twenty pages of solid print, and, having devoured those, swapping them, by previous arrangement, for three similar helpings before the week was out!

The stories were pretty formulaic, of course, but some of the characters whose adventures were recounted each week were quite imaginatively drawn (in words, of course) and still inhabit the memory. There was, for example, the Wolf of Kabul, a British secret agent operating in the Khyber Pass against the troublesome tribesmen who proliferate there. He was, naturally, a master of disguise, invariably wearing native dress when on a mission, and always accompanied by his faithful native servant Chang, a squat but immensely powerful heathen, who wielded a fearsome weapon in the shape of an old, brass-bound cricket bat, referred to by him as Clicky-ba, and stained black with the blood of the many skulls he had cracked with it. Given that these four magazines were running at least six stories a week, the range of characters, each with his own distinctive operational characteristics and background, had to be extremely wide, even though, once established they could be kept going with weekly adventures for years.

With a new issue of The Rover in my possession, I was able to absent myself completely from the crowded family home by immersing myself in its pages. What a talent it is, to be rendered totally oblivious of whatever is going on around one by simply staring at a printed page! Was I born with it, or was it acquired by devouring all those adventure stories as a boy? Would my powers of concentration and imagination have been equally well nourished by the comic book adventures that were to supersede them? Who cares? Reading has been such a constant source of pleasure to me ever since then, that I am happy to accept it as a gift without further question.

In cultivating solitary pastimes like cinemagoing and reading, even though our experience of them could be shared, aired and compared, our gang was growing older, and the bonds holding us together were loosening in favour of closer pairings between more like-minded members (one of which, in my own case, has lasted until the present day), but what finally broke us up was The Scholarship, or, as it would be called today, the eleven plus exam. Even though Bradford boasted one grammar school place for every three of its eleven-year-olds, the alternative, for those who failed the aptitude test, was to go to the neighbourhood Secondary Modern and leave school at fourteen. And not every child who passed the exam was able to take up the award, since this was conditional upon parents agreeing to a minimum leaving age of sixteen with its not inconsiderable financial implications for a working class family. Hence, my undying gratitude to my parents, who, by allowing me to enter the High School, took what was possibly the most important decision ever to affect my life. But the gang was split in two, and although we continued to live in the same street and see each other regularly, there was an ever-widening gulf between the two groups which was finally grew into mutual disaffection.

In later years, my recollection of this sudden division of our gang into first and second class citizens, was to make me a firm believer in comprehensive secondary education delivered at a community school where all the local children could be grouped according to their individual abilities in any of the subjects embraced by the curriculum. This is not to say that I supported the concept of the mixed ability class, which has always struck me as deriving more from ideology than objectivity, and has had the unfortunate effect of giving comprehensive schooling a bad name. But I could see little wrong with the kind of streaming that was practised so successfully at the high school I attended. Admittedly, by labelling the streams A, B and C, a qualitative distinction was implied, but, to us, a purely academic one, there being no way in which the boys in Forms 2B and 2C, for example, would regard themselves as being the social inferiors of those swots in 2A. Quite the reverse, in fact. And there was always the possibility of changing streams in the light of the annual exam results, although I have to admit that, when I myself was given the option of switching from B to A at the end of my first year, I turned the offer down. I had already bonded with the boys in B to an extent which made the boys in A look a pretty uninviting lot. My excuse was that the move would have meant dropping German and catching up on a year's Latin, but, obviously, the problem would not have arisen at a comprehensive school.

There was a final twist in the story of our gang. Another kind of split was developing in its ranks which only became fully apparent after the eleven plus exam had done its work, although the signs had been there for quite some time. This was an internal split over fundamental ethical questions, about which we were only dimly aware at the time. Such as, for example, when does pinching become stealing? Obviously, from the very start, our gang had been pushing against the limits of legality, particularly when out chumpin', or raiding distant orchards. We even, once, broke into a house in the next street, but it had been standing empty for some time, and we wanted only the use of its back cellar in fulfilment of a long held ambition to have a Gang Hut of our own. Once we were in, with candles in bottles, etc., we were at something of a loss about what to do next, so we left, and our crime never came to light.

But there were some members of the gang who, out of bravado or in search of thrills, began to go further and take things from shops. Little things, at first. It wasn't too difficult to walk quickly into the corner sweet shop opposite the school while it was empty of other customers, and pocket a handful of sweets (always "spice" to us) from the open boxes on the counter before the owner had time to respond to the doorbell by emerging from the living quarters at the back to deal with an innocent request for a ha'porth of humbugs. There were others members who, lacking the temperament for daredevilry of this kind, were able to acquire unusually large bags of sweets for themselves by taking coins from their mothers' purses. But there were some of us who simply could not bring ourselves to do such things. We were envious of the fruits of the deeds, but a little bit more aware, perhaps, of the balance of benefit and risk involved. Or was it that we didn't need the excitement, or felt no need to prove ourselves, or laboured under a greater sensitivity of conscience? Whatever the reason, there was a line we could not cross.

I was joined in this minority by a lad called Cliff with whom I had begun to pair off as the gang's bonds loosened. He was an almost exact contemporary of mine who had lived in our street even longer, and been in the same class as me right through the infant and junior schools, having missed out on the baby class, but, apart from that, we had little in common at first. We were not exactly opposites, but we later agreed that our friendship grew out of a gradual appreciation of those qualities in each of us which were not possessed by the other. As we progressed through the high school, growing closer together, other members of the gang who had not been relegated to the secondary modern school were carrying forward similar relationships around us, but the ingredients already present in this mixture eventually combined to produce delinquency of a more serious nature. When they discovered that the techniques developed in the local sweet shop could be applied, with little modification, to the open counters of the big Woolworths store in the city centre, this faction started shoplifting in earnest.

They began tentatively, of course, just for the thrill of it, by taking little things they didn't really want in quantities they could boast about, but could only dispose of by giving away. Gaining experience and confidence, however, they soon graduated to bigger things, although never anything too big to be secreted in sleeve or pocket, but more valuable. They became quite good at it, and they never got caught on the job. Their undoing came about when they began disposing of the loot for cash, and truanting from school to spend their ill-gotten gains on cinema matinees in the city centre followed by feasting on cream buns at posh cafes. All it took was one parent to find her offspring with a brand new fountain pen, bought, he said, from a classmate for a fraction of the shop price, and report her suspicions to the school, where enquiries soon revealed the culprits and linked them with the truanting. At which point, the headmaster took it upon himself to deal with the matter.

One of the worst experiences of my young life was being summoned, together with Cliff, to the headmaster's study, neither of us knowing what for, to be confronted by this awesome figure of authority, with whom I had never had any direct dealings before, who greeted us with the demand that, as members of a now notorious street gang, we should confess to our involvement in its nefarious activities. Fortunately for us, there was no difficulty, once we had summoned up enough spit to even stammer, in establishing our innocence, since all the evidence, apart from gang membership, was in our favour, but this did not prevent the hand of fear from groping around in our entrails as we did so. What the real culprits suffered at the hands of the head, I shudder to think, and, strangely, the the subject was never discussed, although once, later, through the glass partition which separated the classroom I happened to be in, from the school's assembly hall, I had a clear view of the headmaster cuffing a boy repeatedly all the way round it, knocking him off his feet several times.

I do know that the parents of the accused were summoned to appear before the head, and that justice was dispensed by him without the involvement of any outside agency. Interestingly, one of the offenders was the son of my aunt's girlhood friend, an easygoing lad, undoubtedly led astray by others more venal than himself, who was from thenceforward forbidden to associate with any of the other boys in the street - including Cliff and me! It was the end of the gang, of course, but, as far as I know, all its members went on to become law-abiding citizens, even hard-working husbands and fathers. These remembered experiences, together with the careful observation, later, of my own son's behaviour, have led me to believe that all boys go through a delinquent phase during which they are driven to test the limitations imposed on them by the adult world, mainly for the thrill of it, and that transgressions, even crimes, committed during this period, are better dealt with by authorities outside the criminal justice system, wielding sanctions which may include corporal punishment, provided that it is administered in anger. But so many agencies (and so many jobs) are involved in dealing with this kind of behaviour nowadays that there will be no turning back from the criminalisation process which seems to have been the result.

3.

But where was my musical education in all this? Where my preconditioning to fall instantly in love with opera when eventually exposed to it? Strangely enough, it had been going on since my earliest days. My father's way of life may have denied his family many of the simple luxuries enjoyed by our neighbours - I was nine years old, for example, before we got a radio, which must have made us the last household in the street to gain access to the airwaves - but, at sometime in the past, he had somehow acquired the one redeeming exception to this general rule. Standing against the back wall of our overcrowded living room there was an unusual piece of furniture, a beautiful example of the cabinet-maker's art, veneered, varnished and gleaming warmly in the firelight. About 30" high on four shapely legs, 26" wide and 20" inches deep, its purpose in repose was not immediately apparent, although a small round hole in the middle of its right side for a winding handle was a clue to the fact that its highly polished top was, in fact, a lid which could be lifted to reveal the turntable and retractable sound box of a state-of-the-art acoustic gramophone. On closer inspection, there were also two doors in the front opening onto the fretwork covered outlet of a large horn which, after winding down behind the inner workings of the clockwork motor, would funnel the sound up and out with ever increasing amplitude.

Since this cabinet of wonders had been a part of my life for as long as I could remember, I took it for granted, never asking how it came to be there, but it was the finest example of the manual acoustic gramophone I ever came across in all the twenty years I subsequently spent winding numerous other versions of the genre up. One thing my parents did tell me was that, from a very early age, I was fascinated by the sounds emitted by this magic box, astonishing them with my ability to pick out any gramophone record I wanted to hear long before I could read. After trying unsuccessfully to fool me with repeated substitutions, they came to the conclusion that I had learned to recognise the distinctive arrangement of words and colours at the centre of each disc, particularly the patterns created by the little tax stamps borne by every gramophone record in those days, making this an early example of a non-verbal intelligence test!

Like the gramophone, my father's record collection must have been acquired before I became conscious of my surroundings, since I have no recollection of his adding to it later. Mostly vocal music, it was a mixture of popular songs and ballads in various styles, plus one comic monologue - "The Lost Policeman" by the comedian, Sandy Powell - and a few purely instrumental pieces, but only by military bands. The songs ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous, and, needless to say there are lyrics from each end of this spectrum etched for ever in my memory. In addition to a number of yodelling records which I would rather forget, there were several songs by the immortal Frank Crummit, including "Riding down from Bangor" and "Abdul Abulbul Amir", both of which I can still sing right through (accompanying myself, if necessary, as did he, on the guitar), and a much less cheerful piece called "Hobo Bill's Last Ride". My dad was inordinately fond of this last, but it inspired my mother to pull funny faces behind his back, particularly at such lines as "The sadness in his eyes revealed the torture in his soul/ He raised a weak and weary hand to brush away the cold.". Rather more amusing was Jack Hulbert singing "The Flies Crawl Up The Window" and, on the other side, a long-forgotten (except by me) Arabian skit running to several verses, for example: "Once there was a traveller who went to see the Shah / (They) took him to the palace gates and said 'Well here you are / (Walk) slowly backwards to the throne, be sure your face to hide'/ (He) did as he was told, poor chap, and found himself outside." [More verses on request!].

Many of the serious songs were sung by the Australian baritone, Peter Dawson, who was amazingly popular in the 20s and 30s. In addition to the better known ones, such as "Trees" and "The Floral Dance", there were several now consigned, not unfairly, to the dustbin of history. One of these, "The Sailor's Grave" was even more lugubrious than "Hobo Bill" and received the same disrespectful treatment from my mother, particularly when it came to "...the wild waves washing-go'er him". Fortunately, there were several negro spirituals by the great Paul Robeson, and, unsurprisingly, given my father's origins, a few ethnic pieces, such as "The Road to the Isles", by Harry Lauder. There were two rather jolly pieces sung by the ubiquitous Peter Dawson, one called "Sirs your Toast" and the other "Room for the Factotum" (why not 'Toreador' and 'Figaro' I wondered?) which I was later in life to realise were famous operatic arias, the first I had ever heard. Handel's "Messiah", the most frequently performed and widely appreciated work of "serious" music in those days, as I was later to learn, was represented by two records which included the "Hallelujah Chorus" and "Comfort Ye, my people". Of more immediate appeal to me at the time, however, there was, thank God, operetta, and at its very best, too, in the shape of works by that blessed pair, Gilbert and Sullivan. Three 12” records were entitled "Vocal Gems from The Pirates of Penzance/ The Gondoliers/ The Mikado" respectively, and it was by these, if anything, that the seed was planted which was eventually to flourish and bear fruit. But, not for some time yet. When we finally got a radio, I took a much greater interest in the popular songs performed by the famous dance bands of the day than in anything of an operatic nature that might have been available on the airwaves.

4

One further influence on my childhood remains to be mentioned, particularly since there was a musical dimension to it. My mother's family, like so many in Yorkshire were staunchly non-conformist in their Christian faith, being members of the Methodist Church, or Chapel, as it was always called, which meant that, every Sunday, as soon as I could walk the distance involved, I was dressed in my Sunday clothes and sent to Sunday school. And not just once, but morning and afternoon, together with my sister and brother when they too were old enough. Off we went to the Bethesda Chapel, conveniently situated about a hundred yards away in the opposite direction to the weekday school, next to the nearest fish and chip shop. My every attendance there was recorded by the printing of a star in the appropriate space on a card I carried with me in a ritual known as "having your star card marked", so that book prizes could be awarded, with all due ceremony, during the chapel's Anniversary celebrations, on the basis of the number of stars earned during the year. Since few other demands were made on my time on Sundays, I invariably got a First Prize.

Sunday school was another of those things, like saying grace before and after meals, and prayers before getting into bed, however perfunctorily, which were accepted without question as part of my young life, but Sunday school was no hardship, in fact, I quite enjoyed it. Being a Methodist involved plenty of hymn singing of the jollier sort, and no ritual, all serious praying being done from the pulpit, ad lib, by experienced practitioners. Even the sermons at the morning service, which we children were trooped up from the Sunday school to hear, were carefully crafted to hold our interest by ministers who regarded an ability to do this as the most important part of their job. There was little talk of sin, and none of fire and brimstone, but fulminations were directed, from time to time, at the Demon Drink, and these, of course, fell on quite receptive ears in my case. The fact that teetotalitarianism was a basic tenet of Methodism made my father's habits all the more blameworthy in the eyes of his family. As soon as I was old enough to do so, I "signed the pledge" to abstain from alcohol for the rest of my life. Needless to to say, I am now forsworn.

But there was more to Bethesda than Sunday school, much more. During the other six days of the week, the chapel became a multi-purpose social centre. The main building was a single storey industrial shell with a tie on roof, tacked on the gable end of a row of terraced back-to-back houses identical to those in our street, which was in the next street but one. When it was furnished for worship on Sundays, the elevated platform at one end of the hall supported a central pulpit flanked by choir stalls, all in highly varnished dark wood, with a small pipe organ against the rear wall, and doors on either side of it below leading to vestries. The other end of the building, apart from a small entrance vestibule, was partitioned off to conceal a space which housed, among other things, a fully functional kitchen, leaving the main body of the hall to be filled with wooden benches with reversible backs. When required, the benches could be stacked to the sides to create a large open floorspace available for any activity not forbidden by the tenets of the sect, and, similarly, everything on the raised platform, except the organ, could be dismantled and stowed under it, to be replaced, from the same source, by the makings of a proscenium arch, which could be suspended, together with the necessary curtaining, by an ingenious system of hooks and pulleys, from the rafters over what was now a stage, thus converting the hall, with its rows of benches in place, into a theatre, the vestries becoming backstage dressing rooms.

It was here that I witnessed my first staged performances by amateur dramatic societies and concert parties. It was here that I first trod the boards myself, but, before that could happen, it was here, every Monday evening, between 6 and 8pm, that I came to be a Lifeboy. Are there still Lifeboys around? There are still Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts, but, in those days, these otherwise admirable organisations tended to draw their recruits from the more affluent classes and favour the Church of England. Ministering as they did to the industrial working class, the non-conformist churches found it expedient to encourage the formation of the Boys' Brigade and its junior offshoot, the Lifeboys, the relative cost of whose uniforms was indicative of this difference in social circumstances. The Boys' Brigade wore only a jaunty little black and white pillbox hat and a white webbing belt with brass buckle and shoulder strap over an ordinary Sunday suit, the Lifeboys sported a navy blue sailor hat and a large brass and enamel badge in the shape of a lifebuoy worn pinned to any available upper garment. I recall that my use of the phrase "..in full uniform - cap and badge" when referring to our activities, caused my aunties a great deal of mirth.

These activities were of a mildly militaristic nature. We were "on parade" on Monday evenings, on the cleared floor of the chapel, we "fell in" at the word of command, forming a three sided square of three teams, we stood to attention and saluted while the Union Jack was raised, we were inspected and did a certain amount of marching drill. But most of the time was spent doing synchronised physical exercises (PT) to a piano accompaniment, or playing competitive team games involving a minimum of equipment and a maximum of running about. Also, for half of the year, we were preparing for our annual Demonstration, at which, as the name implies, we were to exhibit the full range of our abilities to an audience of family, friends and relations...on the stage! At this event, the spaces between the counter-marching, the PT, and the games, all of which had to be demonstrated, were traditionally filled with lighter entertainment of various kinds, mainly comedy sketches and singsongs, most of which involved "dressing up", and it was for this that we had to rehearse most assiduously. Thus it was that I made my solo stage debut at the age of ten, dressed as a cowboy and singing a song called "Cowboy" which was popular at the time and the words of which are still engraved on my memory, alongside those accumulated from my father's gramophone records.

The Bethesda Lifeboys were run by a Mr. and Mrs. Craig with the assistance of a succession of young ladies whose principal accomplishment was that they could provide a piano accompaniment to our marching, PT and singsongs. They seemed an ill-assorted couple, him being lean, sharp, and disciplined, and her, plump, floppy and disorganised, but they made a good team - he provided the control and direction, and she, the tender loving care. I realise now that their dedication may have had something to do with the fact that they were childless themselves, but, at the time, I accepted their unfailingly benign ministrations over several of my most formative years as no more than my due, and without questioning their motives. And the Demonstration, important as it was, did not mark the high water mark of their endeavours, nor of the benefits I enjoyed from them, because their crowning achievement was to give me what must count as the single most thoroughly enjoyable experience of my young life by taking the Lifeboys away to summer camp for one week each year.

It was always referred to as "camp", but, fortunately, there were few of the usual camping activities to distract us from the many pleasures available at that earthly paradise for boys called Hawthorn Towers in the county of Durham. I learned nothing of the place's history, but remember it as a large country house, built, judging by its architecture (a mixture of styles surmounted by crenelated battlements) in late Victorian times, possibly by some newly wealthy mineowner since it was situated just to the south of the small coalmining town and port of Seaham Harbour, but, by my time, it had passed to the King George V Memorial Trust and was run as a holiday hostel for the benefit of, among others, the children of the urban poor, like us. The domestic arrangements were suitably spartan, but perfectly adequate; we slept in small dormitories in the main building on straw filled palliasses on the floor, we ate in a large marquee pitched in the paddock behind a cookhouse in what had probably been the stable block at the back, leaving us free, for the rest of our waking hours, to participate in novel activities of various kinds, few of which involved bushcraft. About a hundred Lifeboys were taken in at a time, all from the Bradford troops, so the holiday began with a long and exciting train journey, by the end of which I had abused my vocal chords so much that I lost the use of my voice for the first two days.

Hawthorn Towers stood (and may still stand), facing south, in its own very extensive grounds. In front of the house there was a large playing field for ball games and other athletic activities. Up the eastern side of this field, passing quite close to the house, ran the main railway line from London to Edinbrough, so our first big treat was the spectacle of the most famous steam engines of the day, including the legendary streamlined (a newly coined word at time) "Flying Scotsman", roaring past at top speed throughout the day. Beyond the railway was the clifftop, then the North Sea. The other two sides of the field were bounded by the densest, most extensive forest I had ever encountered. This dark wood was virtually impenetrable beyond the few pathways beaten by the feet of previous campers to places of particular interest. The main track wound down to a valley floor, before passing under an impressive viaduct carrying the railway lines across this breach in the cliffs, to the beach.

But this was no ordinary beach. It was nothing like the beaches at Bridlington - no sand, no people, just miles of rocks, boulders, pebbles and shingle, with towering cliffs on one side and the wild sea on the other. And, in the cliffs, caves! Of all shapes and sizes, some as big as a house, some nearly too small to squeeze into. Often interconnecting, they fired the imagination with visions of smugglers, and cried out to be explored. On the beach, apart from the rock pools alive with all manner of strange marine life, there was an accumulation of debris, endlessly fascinating in its variety, left behind by the receding tides. There was even the rusting wreck of a sizeable cargo ship resting virtually upright against the cliffs on the rocky shore where it had somehow come to grief. But, the most curious feature of the beach was to be found on the stretch closer to Seaham Harbour where a number of roughly dressed men and women were to be seen picking up the curious black pebbles on the foreshore there, and loading them into sacks, to be carried away, when full, often on rickety old bikes. This was the coal for which the area had been famous for centuries, detached in pieces from the seams emerging on the sea bed a few miles off the coast, and washed in slowly enough to be smoothly pebbled on the way. But I didn't know that then. I could guess that it was coal they were gathering, but assumed in my ignorance that its origin lay in the black spoil which I could see being neverendingly dumped in the sea off Seaham Harbour from a continuous chain of buckets running from the pit head to a few hundred yards out to sea on an elevated railway. By what mysterious process the sea was converting this dust and debris into pebbles of coal, I could not imagine, but all things seemed possible in that magical place.

So, thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Craig, long gone from this life, for those wonderful days at Hawthorn Towers, the expeditions on the beach and in the forest, the bonfires and the singsongs, the water-pistol battles in the dormitories after bedtime, and for all those other, more routine excitements I experienced with the Bethesda Lifeboys. I never graduated to the Boys' Brigade for a number of reasons: the nearest Company's HQ was some distance away, and the amount of homework I was given, once I ascended into the High School, left me with little time in the evenings for other commitments. Also, from the age of twelve I was working on Friday evenings and all day Saturdays in a local greengrocery for the sum of two shillings a week, most of which I saved to spend on my annual week in Bridlington, since the pocket money disbursed by my father, consisting for years of a "Friday penny" and never exceeding sixpence, did not go very far.

5

Apart from my dad's gramophone records, the chapel hymns, the Lifeboys' singsongs, and, eventually, the radio, the only other music I heard regularly during this period of my life, was made at school, and it didn't amount to much. In the infants' school we sang nursery rhymes, of course, but in the junior school, I encountered that curious educational fad of the time, the percussion band. At irregular intervals, a large hamper containing quantities of triangles, castanets, tambourines, and a single snare drum, would be wheeled into the classroom and its contents distributed to us in our orderly rows, the snare drum going to the Best Boy, or monitor (teacher's pet, to us). After rudimentary instruction in the time values of crochets, quavers, minims and semibreves, we were taken through a sequence of exercises in banging or shaking our allotted instruments to the rhythms dictated by a single monotonous line of these entities displayed before us. The noise we made had no listener-appeal at all, but, being a class of boys, we enjoyed making it for the short while we were allowed to. The girls, by the way, had been segregated from us after infant school into separate classes with their own playground; the High School would go further, housing us in different and quite self-sufficient institutions in two halves of the same building (an huge academic semi), each with its own school yard divided from the other by walls surmounted by high railings through which those of the two sexes who wished to do so could make very little contact during school hours.

Fortunately, in the junior school, our teacher for the final two years was a formidable lady whose armamentarium included an ability to play the piano and a robust contralto singing voice. Miss Dickinson was the very model of a 1930s school mistress, no longer young, not fair of face, but superbly postured, perfectly dictioned, and immaculately turned out in a series of calf-length, figure hugging frocks, always with long sleeves and high necks, she had a mass of piled up auburn hair from which the pins would occasionally drop, wore gold rimmed pince-nez specs with a safety chain, and extracted unquestioning obedience from a class of forty congenitally unruly boys without any apparent effort. In the small amount of time which could be spared from the all-important three Rs, she patiently cajoled us into singing quite complicated part songs after first teaching us to use the Tonic Sol-fa. What is the Tonic Sol-fa? Is it still in use today, other than in the words of a popular song from the Rogers and Hammerstein musical "Sound of Music"? It's a system of ear-training and sight reading which uses the syllables doh-ray-me-fah-soh-lah-tee-doh to represent the notes of the diatonic scale, taking doh as the tonic of whatever key a song is written in. Miss Dickenson introduced us to it, and I, for one, still use it, mentally, whenever I need to run up a scale to pitch a particular note in relation to the tonic.

So, thank you, too, Miss Dickenson. The only thing that could ruffle your feathers, in my experience, was the arrival in the classroom of the school's headmaster, the egregious "Pop" Denby. It is obvious to me now that this large man, with his thinning ginger hair, his bushy ginger eyebrows, and his even bushier ginger moustache, was a sadistic bully, but, at the time, I accepted him without question as typical of the adult figures set in authority over me outside the home. Enveloped in an air of ill-suppressed violence, he would burst through the classroom door unexpectedly at irregular intervals and take over the lesson from a flustered Miss Dickenson with hardly a by-your-leave and begin shooting questions around the classroom like bullets, pointing an accusing finger at each selected target. "Six nines?", " Forty-two minus twenty-seven?", "Three into a hundred and two?" or "Spell the word 'receive'!" "What's an adjective?" depending on the subject being taught. If the unfortunate recipient of one of these volleys failed to lob the correct answer back in good time, he would often receive a sharp rap on the head from a set of enormous knuckles to the accompaniment of some such admonition as "Come on, lad, wake up. Is that a brain or a pea rattling round in there?". I once heard him say, with pitying contempt, to one poor wretch, reduced to speechless paralysis by this technique, "What use are you to anyone, lad? Here, take this indiarubber and go rub yourself off the face of the earth". Fortunately, his visits were of short duration, and, thanks to our training, few of his questions went unanswered. We were, after all, a class in which only four boys out of forty failed the scholarship exam.

Once in the High School, little time was left for music, just one lesson period a week, the same as for religious knowledge (always called Scripture), with both subjects dropping right out of the curriculum as the School Certificate Examinations approached. There was, however, a Music Room to which we would gratefully repair at the appointed time for this short spell of relaxation from the rigours of the rest of the relentless timetable imposed upon us. Here we would be issued with copies of "The Songs of the British Isles" and coerced into chanting our unsteady way through such gems as "The Lass of Richmond Hill", "Early one morning" and "Drink to me only with thine eyes", until the bell rang. And that was it - apart from one memorable extracurricular musical event. How this came about, under the auspices of which enlightened authority, I do not know, but at the age of thirteen I was taken from the school one afternoon to attend a special children's concert given by a fully formed symphony orchestra.

Of course, I knew what a symphony orchestra looked and sounded like, having recently seen the young and beautiful singing star Deanna Durbin (with whom I was currently deeply in love) in a film called "One Hundred Men and a Girl" in which Leopold Stokowski and his Philadelphia Orchestra were also present, but this was the first time I had been in the same room as one. It was the Halle Orchestra from Manchester, and the room was the only viable concert venue in Bradford (since the purpose-built St.George's Hall was still in bondage to cinema at the time) the Eastbrook Hall, which, although merely a Methodist chapel, was a very large one, more of a Methodist cathedral. A few years later I was to become a regular attender at the monthly subscription concerts given by the Halle in the Eastbrook Hall, but I can remember little of this first encounter, other than the excitement of the occasion, most of which was due to being let out of school with my classmates during school hours. Although we were given a pamphlet showing the different instruments of the orchestra, and these were demonstrated to us during the course of the proceedings, I have no recollection of what great works were performed, only that it was a special treat for which I was duly grateful. It left less of an impression on me, than did the traditional Christmas pantomime at the Alhambra theatre to which I was taken by my mother and aunties at about the same time, and it was never to be repeated.

These, then, were the main features of my existence at the age of thirteen. It is difficult to see how they could have led to my attendance at the opera only two years later without some divine, or diabolic intervention. In my case, it was the latter, of course, in the shape of one Adolf Hitler, thanks to whose territorial ambitions World War Two broke out just before my fourteenth birthday, and, together with thousands of other children, plucked me from these all-too-familiar surroundings to become an evacuee.

MY LIFE AT THE OPERA: PART I

Chapter Two. 1939 - 1941

As social upheavals go, the mass evacuation of schoolchildren from our major cities, prior to the outbreak of World War Two, must rank high among any seen in Britain since the Industrial Revolution, or even perhaps the Civil War, and much has been written about it in both fact and fiction. In Bradford, however, it was a phenomenon more noteworthy for its ephemerality than for anything else. The exercise had been mounted in the expectation that bombs might rain from the skies on our industrial centres in the days immediately following the outbreak of hostilities, but, in the event, nothing like that happened for nearly a year (Hitler being otherwise engaged), and when the air raids eventually began they were targeted mainly on the South East and the Midlands, which was perhaps just as well, because, by then, all the evacuees in my own contingent had gone back home - except for my sister, my brother and myself.

This homeward drift owed something, no doubt, to the fact that our destination, as we stood, carefully labelled, on a Bradford railway station platform, was not some remote country village in North Yorkshire, but the quite sizeable town of Keighley (pronounced Keethly), only eighteen miles away and connected to Bradford (via Shipley, Saltaire, Cottingley, Bingley and Crossflats) by a regular half-hourly bus service. Even the Bradford City tramlines extended as far as Crossflats. To those parents who questioned whether positioning their offspring so conveniently close at hand would suffice to protect them from harm, it was explained that calculations based on sound scientific principles had indicated that enough of the Pennines lay between Bradford and Keighley to dilute any likely risk - a hypothesis which was, indeed, validated by events, in that Bradford suffered one major air raid on the night of August 31st 1940 (10.30pm to 3am) during which 120 bombs fell, killing 2 people and injuring 127, but, throughout the war, no bombs ever fell on Keighley. As luck would have it, although still an evacuee at the time of that one raid on Bradford, I had been sent home to recover from a severe case of cellulitis in my left arm, and I have to confess that I would have been very sorry to have missed such an exciting experience.

The evacuation scheme was organised and funded by the government, but it was a purely voluntary affair in which many parents either declined to participate (those of my pal Cliff, for instance), or did so in the expectation that the bombing would start immediately. Similarly, at the receiving end, many good people agreed to accept evacuees in the belief that war would probably be avoided, or that, if not, it either wouldn't last long, or they would be offering shelter to some dream child from a similar social background to their own. When the first flush of patriotic fervour engendered by the outbreak of war subsided and the reality of the situation dawned upon them, many of these putative foster parents found they had pressing domestic, medical, or business reasons for withdrawing their services. Even the weekly accommodation and subsistence allowance from the government which accompanied each evacuee, and was, in my estimation, a not unimportant consideration in four of the six households I was billeted on during the first seven months of my exile, proved insufficient to give me security of tenure until I reached the last of these, which was, amazingly, a farm!

Yes, having been evacuated from one industrial town to another, I ended up on a real farm, and lived there, with my brother, for the next eighteen months. But this was not one of those Yorkshire farms to be found clinging, like Wuthering Heights, to the edge of the moors at the end of some rough track, ankle deep in mud and cow dung, and frequently rendered impassable by snow. This farm was conveniently situated in the suburb village of Utley, at the end of the last row of houses on the right on the Skipton road out of Keighley. From the front, in fact, the farmhouse looked like any other detached, double fronted, two storey, stone built, Victorian dwelling, even down to the front garden surrounded by iron railings with a gate letting out on to a broad pavement which could safely be walked in all weathers back to Keighley's town centre about a mile away. This aspect of the house, however, was merely the upper storeys of a substantial building extending behind and below it (since it was built on a steep slope), embracing a barn, stables, cowshed, dairy and commodious basement kitchen where all the human inhabitants actually lived when not in bed.

A high, wooden double gate to the right of the front garden opened to reveal a cobbled driveway sweeping down the side and round the back of these premises, and ending in a proper farmyard complete with midden, pigsty, chickens, barking dogs, a back door into the kitchen, and even a small kitchen garden, all invisible from the road except to anyone looking over the wall, or sitting on the top deck of a passing bus. The view from this backyard was to become a treasured memory of mine, since it embraced the wonders of Airedale, looking out across the famously fortuitous Aire Gap in the Pennines through which the road, railway, river, and canal run intertwining with each other all the way from Leeds to Lancashire. The farm stood at the precise point where the dale, finally freed from industrialisation and urbanisation, could be seen in something like its original splendour, the deep green of the watermeadows giving way, through the rising sweep of the hillside woods and pastures to the bleaker tints of the Rivock Edge of Ilkley Moor. What a piece of luck to end up here!

It was a small dairy farm, milking a herd of about twenty Friesians, raising a few pigs and a flock of free-ranging hens. Anything grown in the fields was for fodder. Farmer Wrathall was a tall, leathery individual, a rural patriarch who dominated our small household with a stern presence and very few words, seldom strung together into a coherent sentence in my hearing. He harboured, we were given to understand, an intense admiration for the late, great Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson whose tragic death at the Battle of Trafalgar was the subject of a large, framed print hanging on the back wall of the kitchen. That he was a staunch patriot was quite evident, since he insisted on all present standing to attention whenever the National Anthem was played on the radio, which it frequently was in those days. Mrs. Wrathall was in complete contrast, but still the very model of a farmer's wife - short, round, and jolly, with rosy cheeks and long black hair coiled up round a winsome face - and an accomplished cook. Their one offspring, a son, Jim, about the same age as my brother, was a rather weedy, lugubrious youth - having inherited his father's long head, stringy frame, and humourless outlook - who seemed to accept our presence in what had hitherto been his exclusive domain without exhibiting either enthusiasm or resentment.

The only other member of the household was a resident farmhand called Alan who, as a young, unmarried man at such close quarters, was a novelty of some interest, and the fact that he was of military age but not in uniform made him a rare bird indeed. Unfortunately, like Farmer Wrathall, Alan had little to say for himself and I was not of an age that entitled me to question him about his antecedents or the present workings of his mind and body, so I saw him as a closed book to be left unread, gazing in silent wonder at his metamorphosis, on Saturday evenings, from the taciturn, unkempt, workaday yokel I knew into an impeccably besuited and behatted man-about-town who sallied forth to enjoy I knew not what adventures. Although an employee, Alan was treated as virtually a member of the family, as were my brother and I, and we soon settled into the businesslike routine of the farm, grateful to find a comfortable billet which fed us well and demanded nothing of us but co-operative behaviour and regular habits.

It was, however, a household without music, and here was I, barely a year away from my first visit to the opera. From which it must follow that, although there was plenty about life on the farm to interest and entertain me (and I thoroughly enjoyed the routine tasks I inevitably became involved in, particularly the haymaking which was still a group activity with festive overtones in those days), the more significant developments in my life during this period were taking place elsewhere. But, before looking into these, one lasting result of my sojourn on the farm is worth recording - my confirmation into the Church of England. This came about almost casually, but somehow inevitably, following a process of gradual conditioning which was initiated when, as a matter of simple convenience, my brother and I began attending the local parish church as part of the family.

I found the experience intriguing at first and then quite congenial. The more colourful ceremonial and elaborate rituals of the Church of England seemed better suited to my adolescent religious yearnings (which happened at the time to be receiving a stimulus from another quarter), than the bare bones of Methodism I was leaving behind. Also, the social life of the parish church promised more satisfaction to other developing needs of a less spiritual nature (arising mainly from a burgeoning interest in the opposite sex), than did the more sober and celibate activities permitted in the precincts of a chapel. There was, for example, the monthly Whist Drive and Dance in the church hall, which I attended initially to partner Mrs. Wrathall at the whist, but where I was allowed to remain, after the supper interval when the whist had finished, to listen to the dance band. This, given the venue, was usually a pretty basic combination - saxophone, piano and drums, augmented by the occasional trumpet on a good night - but recognisably of the same species, and playing the same tunes, as the famous dance bands I had taken to listening to, whenever I could, on the radio.

Although the pursuit of this initial interest was to find me playing in a dance band myself within three years, its immediate result was to awaken me to the possibilities of what was happening on the dance floor. There, members of both sexes, many not much older than me, were gliding and gyrating around the hall in pairs, locked in the kind of close embrace which would only be permitted elsewhere between married couples in private. I was looking, of course, at what was, for the best part of half a century, the principal mating ritual of western civilisation, and there were sound, practical reasons, therefore, why my awareness of its possibilities should outgrow, for a time, my interest in the band. Unfortunately, the dance steps looked far too difficult for me to master on my own and I could see no prospect of my learning them from anyone at the farm. My only hope, in this, as in matters operatic, lay, therefore, in the new acquaintanceships I had been cultivating elsewhere in Keighley, and these, not surprisingly under the circumstances, were centred entirely around my new school.

2.

Keighley Boys' Grammar was, given its county catchment area, a cut above Hanson High in social status (playing rugger instead of soccer, for example), but the two were sufficiently alike in every observable respect to be virtually indistinguishable to me. Of course, the teachers were different, and the text books were different, and there was some initial confusion arising from idiosyncrasies in the labelling of the classes at Hanson, but, once in my correct slot - Form 4B - I soon felt quite at home with the curriculum, the regimen, and the routine. One noteworthy feature, however, was the school's location. It formed part of a massive Victorian pile which also contained the Municipal Hall and its attendant offices, plus a College of Art and a Technical College complete with textile and engineering workshops, all surmounted by an imposing clock tower, standing in the very centre of the town, within easy reach of trains, buses, cafes, cinemas, shops, and such amenities as the central public library and municipal swimming baths, but some distance from its playing fields, which, like the Girls' Grammar School (newly built, alas, on a greenfield site), were on the outskirts of town. The general effect was to facilitate social intercourse outside school hours with classmates living in other parts of the town, and even, if fortune smiled, with any girls from the grammar school who happened to be passing through.

Initially, of course, I tended to hang out with those few of my classmates who were fellow evacuees, but as these departed, one by one, for their own homes during the so-called Phoney War, I was left to look elsewhere for companionship. By a stroke of great good fortune, I did not have to look very far as there was a boy sitting right behind me in Form 4B whose proximity proved to be the key to what was to become a close and enduring friendship. His name was Joseph, but he has always been known to me as Brad because his surname was Bradwell and the use of Christian names between classmates, even the closest of chums, was simply not an option under the unwritten conventions of the school. So I was Scott to him - and even to his family, with whom I was soon on visiting terms.

Brad was an attractive and popular boy, charming, cheerful, well-mannered and well-behaved, but with an unexpectedly subversive streak and a wry sense of humour. He was not quite as brainy as me, but easily outshone me in other respects. He had a fine physique which equipped him to excel at all the school's sporting activities without taking them too seriously. For example, he carried off the Intermediate Championship at the school sports with minimal prior training by simply entering for all the events in the competition. His performances with the discus and javelin were an embarrassment, but his natural running and jumping abilities enabled him to pile on the points in most other events. He was extremely successful with girls, for which I envied him greatly, but the thing I most admired about him was his piano playing, which, although not in the virtuoso class, was, for his age, very, very accomplished. When we first met, he was already the school's regular accompanist at morning prayers and hall assemblies, and had been official organist at his local Methodist chapel for over a year. He even went on eventually to perform briefly on the organ at the local Ritz cinema, rising up through the floor in the traditional manner for the purpose.

I became a frequent visitor at his home where I was fortunate enough to be accepted as a semi-permanent resident by his mother, father and three older sisters, the youngest of whom was about four years older than me and very fair of face and figure, although when I first met her she was pale and woebegone, in mourning for a fiancee who had just been lost at sea, an early casualty of the war. There were ten and fifteen year gaps between Brad and his other two sisters who were both married and lived nearby, which meant that Brad's mother and father (a ticket inspector at the railway station) were quite elderly by my standards. They lived in a roomy through-terrace house out on the Bradford Road, about a mile from the farm, a distance easily traversed by bike and well worth the effort as there was much more fun to be had at the Bradwells in more congenial surroundings than at the Wrathalls, since, apart from doing homework together and listening to our favourite programmes on the radio, Brad and I spent a lot of time at the piano, mainly in the company of Messrs Gilbert and Sullivan.

Although unable to play an instrument or read music at that time, I was good with words, and, (thanks, possibly, to the gramophone lessons of my childhood) had a keen enough ear to master any of the popular songs of the day after only a few hearings on the radio. I was not, therefore, inadequately equipped to pull my weight vocally on these music-making occasions. Brad had the piano scores of most of the Savoy Operas, all of which were well within his capabilities, but we must have spent more time on the "The Mikado" and "The Gondoliers" than any of the rest, since many of the songs from these two works are still engraved on my memory. As luck would have it, Hollywood chose to make a film of "The Mikado" in glorious technicolour (a very adventurous thing to do in those days), which arrived at our local cinema at just about this time. And a very good film it was, too. I can vouch for this because I have recently seen it shown on television and was pleasantly surprised to find how well it had worn. Fortunately, I was able to videotape it and send the copy to Brad, who had recently celebrated his 60th year as a Church organist, to remind him of the pleasure we got from seeing it together at the Regent Cinema in Keighley.

Our duets were purely recreational, of course, but they nourished my interest in music generally and left me with a deep respect for the achievements of W.S.Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan whose words and music seem to me to be as fresh and fruity today as they were when I first came across them, and it seems more than likely that my affectionate familiarity with these witty musical comedies prepared the ground for my appreciation of the weightier music dramas I was soon to experience. Frivolous they may be, but never shallow, and, when judged against their design objectives, they must surely rank as masterpieces of the musical theatre. They may even, in performance, teach a valuable lesson to their more serious operatic relatives about the importance of articulating both the words and the music if the fullest impact of the whole on the listener is to be achieved.

The next development in my musical education came about in the strangest possible way. There was another boy in Class 4b who was not a bit like Brad...or me, for that matter. His name was Parkinson, and, since his initials were R.C., his unaffectionate nickname was Arsey, but his politer classmates called him Parkie. [As an interesting aside on school culture, when his younger brother arrived at the school with a different set of initials, his markedly sunnier disposition, did not prevent him from being nicknamed Little Arsey.] Parkie himself was slight of build, but physically well proportioned with something rather feline about his movements. His facial features were arranged, for most of the time, in a shrouded, sardonic expression but this could suddenly be replaced with a puckish mask of manic glee when his infantile sense of humour was tickled - usually by some outrageous piece of rudery, because Parkie was a very rude boy.

He first came to my startled attention by suddenly taking out his tumescent penis in the classroom in order to brag about its size before running around between the desks to give us all a better look. Since the teacher for the next lesson period was expected through the door at any moment, the degree of risk involved in this enterprise only added to my sense of shock, but I gathered from the reactions of his classmates that, having witnessed the performance on a number of previous occasions, they could hardly wait for Arsey to stop showing off and revert to being his usual boring self. When I got to know him better I found that he came from a broken home, in that his mother was missing, gone I never found out where, probably divorced (an unusual circumstance in those days), leaving her two sons in the care of their father. He certainly laboured under some sense of inferiority, to which the fact that he was bottom of the class academically must have made a contribution, and I soon realised that much of his behaviour in public was attempting to compensate for this. In private, he was sly and ingratiating, but could be entertaining in a sarcastic kind of way.

I can't remember quite how Brad and I came to team up with Parkie. By the end of the first year at my new school, I was top of the class, a position I managed to occupy until I left, Brad was a little lower down the exam results table, but undoubtedly the most popular boy in the class, and Parkie was at the bottom and probably the least popular boy in the class. But team up we did, if only in school hours, even to the extent of forming a silly secret society called We Three (or oui3, in the curious frangleutsch that Brad favoured, eg "go away" became either "geh un chemin" or "allez ein Weg") which devoted itself to acts of meaningless minor mischief in the classroom, leaving cryptic and vaguely threatening messages behind. Given its unlikely nature, the membership of this organisation was never suspected, and it would soon have fizzled out for want of any new and different indignities to visit on our classmates if an unusual turn of events had not led the three of us to begin associating out of school.

3

Although bottom of the class in all other respects, Parkie was top of the class in one subject - Art. In those days, at schools like ours, Art simply meant one double-period a week in an Art Room, purpose-built to have a huge north-facing window, where the major activity was the pencil-drawing of an assortment of objects, selected and arranged for the purpose by an Art Master, who might pass amongst us from time to time giving help and encouragement as appropriate. There were occasional bouts of excitement when we were initiated into more esoteric techniques, such as lino-cutting, scraper board, and poster paints, but, for the most part, Art was seen as a pleasant, relaxing interlude between other, more demanding, scholastic pursuits. The seriousness with which the school took Art can be inferred from the fact that it was dropped from our curriculum in the fifth form, together with Geography, to enable a greater concentration of energies on the eight really important subjects to be taken in the School Certificate exams. But, in our year, a special dispensation was granted to Parkie, who was considered to be so good at Art, and so committed to the subject, that he was allowed to continue with lessons in order to matriculate in it.

Under these circumstances, it was hardly surprising that Parkie developed a special relationship with the Art Master. Rather less predictable was that Brad and I, his inartistic classmates, should eventually have become involved in this to the extent that we did. It was a fairly gradual process which began with us joining, at Parkie's urging, an outdoor sketching group run by the Art Master, out of school hours during the summer months. Our sketching activities on these occasions tended to be rather desultory. interspersed with more detailed explorations of any woodlands adjacent to the chosen sites (e.g Bolton Abbey and East Riddlesden Hall) for blackberries and birds nests, but Mr. Harpin (as we called him then) was very indulgent of these inattentions, and seemed quite unconcerned by our our lack of enthusiasm for the actual sketching. From the very beginning, without being in any way eccentric in manner and appearance, there was something about him that set him apart from the rest of the teaching staff. At first, I put this down to his being the Art Master - not a proper teacher at all, as it were - but, as our relationship developed, I found that what made him different was that he was, in certain respects, a truly exceptional being, not least in having dedicated his life totally to God.

In his early thirties, unmarried, of medium height and very spare build, the only remarkable thing about Mr. Harpin at first sight was his face. In repose and in public, it was the face of an aesthete - long jaw, long upper lip, expressive mouth, sensitive nose, large, lidded eyes, high forehead - but, in private, given the right stimulus, it could light up like a cinema screen, revealing a variety of hidden characteristics, and even glow, on occasions, with the inspirational fervour of a self-flagellating monk. He had arrived in his present position by a rather circuitous route, having been born in nearby Huddersfield and won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art in London, where his talents earned him a travelling scholarship and the Prix de Rome, after which he had travelled extensively in Europe and the Middle East before returning to England and a career as a professional artist specialising in church mural paintings.

More significantly, while at the RCA he had abandoned the non-conformist faith of his upbringing to be received, after instruction at nearby Brompton Oratory, into the Roman Catholic Church, thus beginning a lifelong quest for sainthood which led him, in his mid-twenties, to take the extreme step of joining the Salvatorian Fathers in Hertfordshire. Unfortunately, the austerities of the monastic regime proved to be such that, before he could be ordained, his health broke down and he was invalided out of the order back to the parental home in Huddersfield to recover and convalesce. Subsequent medical advice was that his internal organs would benefit more from regular employment than the uncertain life of a professional artist and it was this that brought him to teach art in Keighley. But none of this was known to us (and some of it emerged only much, much later), on the day when Mr. Harpin invited Parkie, Brad and me to afternoon tea at his home.

He was living, at the time, in furnished rooms (or digs, as they were called) quite close to the school, so the occasion was a rather formal one, overseen by his landlady with all due ceremony, but during the course of these polite proceedings he informed us that he had just taken possession of a small cottage out in the country, across the valley on the edge of the moor, to which he would be moving as soon as it could be made ready. The three of us would be invited to inspect his new home at the first available opportunity. This was not long in coming, and, since much of my life was to centre on this place during the next couple of years, it can be described in some detail. It was an end cottage in a terrace of three standing starkly alone, about half way up a narrow, winding lane climbing out of the small town of Silsden towards the towering Nab at the watershed corner of Rombalds Moor (better known as Ilkley Moor) between Wharfedale and Airedale. Together with three nearby farms and a few houses lower down the road, these dwellings comprise the hamlet of Swartha - a fine old English name.

Like the nearby farms buildings and the walls in the surrounding fields, Number 3, Swartha Cottages was made of local stone. It had two rooms, one up, one down, each about 18 feet square, and, tacked on the side, a scullery kitchen with a walk-in pantry, but no electricity, gas or running water. There was a pump for wellwater in the kitchen and a paraffin oil cooking stove, but the lavatory, or jakes as we learned to call it, was across the road in a shed in the small kitchen garden that came with the property, and it had to be emptied by hand when full. There was no front garden and very little verge between the cottages and the road, but passing traffic was virtually non-existent in those days, so the road could be used as a front terrace when the weather was suitable. Amazingly, this small and primitive dwelling was able to accommodate more than a dozen bods overnight on several occasions at the height of its popularity, but that was some way in the future when Brad, Parkie and I paid our first visit, having taken the Ilkley bus from Keighley and alighted from it half way up The Cringles (as the steep Ilkley road out of Silsden is called) at the bottom of a field path which led up to Swartha and was soon to become very familiar to us.

We were still on our best behaviour, of course, but Mr. Harpin gave us a very good afternoon tea and set about making us feel at home, which wasn't difficult in these novel surroundings. The furniture and floor coverings were basic, but sturdy and comfortable, there was a full bookcase, a portable gramophone with a collection of records, all waiting to be explored, an upright piano with a pile of sheet music, and a small shrine to the Virgin Mary, but no radio. After showing us round the property, and talking about his plans for it, our host seated himself at the piano and astonished us by stepping completely out of character to play and sing one of the best known popular songs of the time in a very extrovert and accomplished manner. He told us later that he had developed this impressive bar- room technique while at college where the students were wont to mount sing-song battles from adjoining rooms during which competing teams would strive to silence the opposition by any means available (including buckets of water) while barracading their own performers against such attacks. Defeat was only conceded when the pianist stopped playing.

The singsong round the piano that followed this stunning curtainraiser was the first of many to come, and marked the beginning of a change in our relationship with Mr. Harpin. Within a few months he had ceased to be a schoolteacher and become, if not exactly a friend (the difference in our ages was too great for that), or a father figure (he was too young for that), then an ever-welcoming host, an entertaining companion, and, above all, a very knowledgeable guide and mentor in a world with wider horizons than our own. We soon learned to address him, outside school, by his Christian name of Hildred.

We began visiting the cottage regularly, by bike or bus, and soon the three of us were invited to spend a weekend there, staying overnight, sleeping on the floor on roll-up matresses. This, too, became a regular thing, particularly during school holidays, culminating, in my own case, in a stay of several weeks during the summer of 1941, recuperating from the all-important School Certificate Exams and awaiting the outcome. We didn't always go together, although Brad and I usually did. Parkie spent more time there than anyone else, and other boys from school began to arrive, invited by Hildred, or attracted by the easygoing hospitality known to be available there inside an ever open door. Even Cliff came over from Bradford, at my suggestion, to join what became in the end a circle of about two dozen regular visitors, all of them, with two exceptions, young males, although there came a time when a lady teacher colleague of Hildred's from the Keighley School of Art took on the other end cottage with the ostensible purpose of emulating Hildred's informal boys' club with young females similarly inclined to ourselves. We were dimly aware, however, of the possibility that she might really be after the apparently eminently eligible Hildred, in which case she would certainly be wasting her time.

The two exceptions were Hildred's sister Kathleen who came over occasionally from Huddersfield to try and sort out our chaotic domestic arrangements and invariably found herself joining in the fun, and a hairy, tweedy, pipe-smoking individual called Maurice from Leeds, about the same age as Hildred and equally well educated and well-informed, but much more one of the boys. I'm not sure how he came to be there, or what his occupation was, but I do know that he had literary pretensions and ended up marrying Kathleen. I owe him a particular debt because, in addition to treating me as a fellow adult in our discussions about reading and writing, he introduced me to his recorder, an instrument enjoying a revivalist vogue at the time, which he always brought with him and encouraged me to practice on until I acquired one of my own.

But what really went on at Swartha? What, as they say, was it all about? Other than what it appeared to be, that is - a sort of impromptu, anonymous holiday camp or clubhouse for boys set in healthy surroundings? There can be little doubt that Hildred was interested in boys, even attracted to boys in ways that would nowadays be labelled as homosexual, but any predilection he may have had for our bodies had been sublimated, by the time we knew him (at who knows what cost to himself?), into a passionate concern for our immortal souls. So, what went on at Swartha was a deliberate attempt by Hildred, first, to persuade us that the cultivation of the immortal soul was the primary objective of human existence, and, then, to equip us with the armamentarium of Christian beliefs and observances required for success in such a venture. He did it quite gently, with no force-feeding, or lecturing, simply by practising his own religion routinely around the place, talking about it in a matter-of-fact way, answering our questions, and giving us books to read.

Bright lads that we were, it wasn't long before I, for one, had acquired from Hildred a complete picture of the elaborate, ingenious, and, one has to admit, satisfyingly complete system evolved over the centuries by the Roman Catholic Church for use by any adherent wishing to strive after spiritual perfection. I now saw that there was more to being a Christian than worshipping God, praying to Jesus, and obeying the Commandments, that there was a spiritual life to be lived as continuously and as vigorously, on a day to day basis, as the physical life which was merely its temporal vessel. I learned about the power of prayer, the redemptive value of self-sacrifice, and the eternal significance of those rare human beings who attain sainthood.

We were soon joining Hildred in his devotions, saying "Hail Marys" and "Our Fathers" where appropriate (Parkie with more enthusiasm than me, and I with more than Brad), and we all learned to sing the Lourdes Hymn during our singsongs round the piano. Within a few months, with the arrival of several other regular acolytes from the school, the Swartha cottage had taken on many of the attributes of an established religious retreat, even to the extent of having a shrine in the kitchen garden (well away from the jakes) to which we could process, singing the Lourdes Hymn, on appropriate Feast Days. Calling upon his professional skills, Hildred covered the plain plaster walls of the cottage with beautifully executed murals depicting not only scenes from local history, such as the Boy Egramont jumping The Strid, and the picturesque ruins of Bolton Abbey, but also incidents in the life of St. Francis of Assisi, his own patron saint, and, in pride of place, on the chimney breast over the fireplace, glowing and radiant, Our Lady of Swartha, although I have to confess that I never felt as comfortable with Hildred's Mariolatry, as I did with the rest of his doctrine.

But it was all good stuff, and spiritually uplifting at a time when World War Two was raging around us, and going very badly indeed for Britain throughout the whole of 1940 and 1941. Also, there was more to Swartha than religious instruction, because Hildred was not only a monk manque and a professional painter, but also a man of broad culture, well-travelled, widely read, an accomplished musician and even, in his youth, an acclaimed amateur actor. Thus, of more lasting importance to my own future development, perhaps, than Our Lady of Swartha was Hildred's gramophone record collection which I can still recall in some detail, bearing in mind that, during the long lamplit evenings at the cottage, there was no television or radio, and singsongs round the piano, being dependant on the mood of the moment and the numbers present, were a limited option, which left Brad and me to spend a great deal of time winding up that little portable gramophone, playing the same records over and over again, engraving them (like my father's collection) forever on my memory, and moving my musical education forward apace.

In pride of place, there was Beethoven's 5th Piano Concerto, "The Emperor", closely followed by Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusic, both of which, in those 78rpm days, ran to several records each and could, therefore, only be enjoyed at the cost of much re-winding. To this day, however, I cannot hear the opening bars of either of these pieces without being transported back, if only for a second, to the lamplit interior of that cottage. Other favourites were Chopin"s Ballade No.2 for solo piano, two records of the Italian tenor Beniamano Gigli singing, among other things, Bizet's Agnus Dei, one of the Russian bass Chaliapin singing excerpts from the Russian Orthodox Mass with a full choir, and one of the English soprano, Joan Cross, whom I was soon to see performing in the flesh, singing two of Mozart's operatic arias - "I remember" (the Countess's aria) from "The Marriage of Figaro" and "Ah,'tis gone" (Pamina's aria) from "The Magic Flute".

One frequently played record was intriguingly labelled "Wotan's Farewell and the Fire music". This, Hildred explained, was an orchestral version of the closing moments of Wagner's opera "The Valkyrie", and I can clearly remember him describing how, in the production he had seen, Wotan's summoning up of the flames round Brunhilde's rock had been greeted by the other Valkyries, seated on surrounding mountain peaks which appeared to recede into the distance, by the simultaneous raising of clenched fists at appropriate points in the music. It was to be forty years before I was able to watch this great scene being played out for myself, only to find, to my great disappointment, that the presence of the other Valkyries was not a requirement of the script. Incidentally, I can also remember Hildred describing (with actions) how a famous ballet dancer called Anton Dolin performed his solo version of Ravell's popular "Bolero" - beginning by standing motionless with arms outstretched, then moving only his fingers in time to the music, then his hands, then his arms, and so on, as the crescendo developed, until, at the climax, his entire body was one enormous twitch. We realised that these and other wonders had come Hildred's way while studying in faraway London, but, little did we know that, even as he spoke, events were conspiring to bring some of London's distant attractions to us.

The Germans, although clearly winning the war, had failed to win the Battle of Britain in August, 1940, so the Luftwaffe started blitzing London in earnest that September. Among the many institutions subsequently "bombed out" by this onslaught were the Sadler's Wells Opera and Ballet Companies, who lost the theatre that was their London home together with most of their scenery and costumes. This was bad news for some but good news for others, in that, for the rest of the war, two of the brightest jewels in Britain's cultural crown had little alternative but to go on more or less permanent tour in the provinces. And so it came to pass that, on Monday, August 25th, 1941, the Sadler's Wells Opera and Orchestra came to The Hippodrome Theatre, Keighley, for a whole week, and, taking advantage of this truly unusual, if not unique event, occurring as it did towards the end of the long summer vacation, so much of which I had spent at Swartha, Hildred offered to take Brad and me to the opera. Not surprisingly, we accepted.

4.

Although I couldn't know it at the time, I saw and heard my first opera under virtually ideal conditions. Given the circumstances, of course, the stage scenery was vestigial, consisting of little more than two or three folding screens with doors in them, but the props and costumes were more than adequate, and the Keighley Hippodrome was a little gem of a theatre, traditionally oval in shape with boxes, stalls, circle, upper circle, and an orchestra pit of sufficient size to accommadate the Sadler's Wells Orchestra, which, according to the programme (a single folded sheet, priced at twopence) consisted of three 1st and two 2nd violins, one viola, one violoncello, one double bass, a flute, an oboe, a clarionet (sic), a bassoon, two horns and a pianoforte, but it seemed bigger than that to me, so perhaps it was augmented by a few local musicians. The opera was Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro", sung in English - the perfect choice. God bless you, Hildred.

Seated somewhere in the stalls, I could hear everything - every note, every word - and see every gesture, and although I cannot speak for the quality of the singing or the acting, of course, I can say that, from the moment the curtain rose, following the famous overture, to reveal John Hargreaves as Figaro and Joan Collier as Susanna making a duet out of measuring up for a bed and trying on a hat, nothing came between me and the complete suspension of my disbelief until the final curtain fell. It all seemed so perfectly natural - the characters, the story, the short bits of sung dialogue linking those wonderful songs - with everything moving the outrageous plot along at a spanking pace with never a dull moment. And very funny at times! I came out into the night in a pleasurable daze, knowing that I could sit through the whole thing again with undiminished pleasure.

Hardly had I recovered from this ravishment of the senses, when, only two nights later, I was taken to another opera! This time it was Verdi's "La Traviata" - a completely different musical and dramatic experience, but with the same underlying fundamentals - characters, story (tragic this time, of course), a string of memorable songs, following each other in quick succession as the plot unfolded - all in place. Again, I found myself totally involved in the fate of Violetta (Janet Hamilton-Smith), and pretty disgusted with the behaviour of Alfred (Ben Williams), and his father (Tom Williams), hardly noticing any inadequacies in the production with regard to either the premises on which the action was supposed to be taking place, or the crowds of glamorous partygoers alleged to be present in two of the scenes. The programme gives the names of eleven members of the Sadler's Wells Chorus, but five of these appear against minor characters in the cast list opposite. Obviously, what I was seeing was a rather anorectic version of the real thing, but I didn't know any better, and it certainly worked for me, even without the ballet!, so Hildred had done it again. By the end of that week, I knew without a doubt that I liked opera enough to take any future opportunity of witnessing it that came my way.

Things might have turned out differently, of course, if the first operas I had been taken to see had not been so wisely chosen. There were other operas in the repertoire that week which I would certainly have found less immediately captivating at the time. Almost exactly one year later, for example, I watched the same company perform Puccini's "Madame Butterfly" with a sense of growing bewilderment as it emerged that there were only two good songs in the whole work, one of those with no words, even, and neither of them in the first act. Amazing, isn't it? But there it is - I wasn't ready for the idiom. My musical education had not yet reached the level at which my ear could perceive the patterns in the continuous musical tapestry woven by the composer in Act One, the beauties of which I was later to greet with increasing rapture.

There would have been a less favourable outcome, also, if, under some different dispensation, I had been taken to hear the same two operas sung in Italian. I can assert with some confidence, on the basis of subsequent experience, that I could never have entered so completely into the worlds of Figaro and Violetta if such a language barrier had been erected between us. Any pleasure I might have derived from the singing would have been diminished by the growing irritation I would certainly have felt at not being able to understand what was being sung. There will be more on this topic later, no doubt, but suffice it to say here, that my first experience of opera would have been much less unequivocally favourable if I had not had equal access to both the words and the music.

Worthy of note in this context, too, is the fact that Hildred bought us seats in the stalls on both occasions. I cannot recall what contribution, if any, I made to the cost of these from my meagre schoolboy's pocket money, but I do know that it was to be many, many years before I felt able to afford any but the cheapest of seats for the opera (always upgraded, of course, by careful forward booking or, where unavoidable, queueing), and I cannot say by how much the impact on me of those first operas would have been diminished by occupying upper circle seats, but, obviously, the experience might not have been quite so decisive. Years later - on Saturday, 30th June, 1951, to be precise - I bought tickets for a performance of Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde" at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, with Set Svanholm and Kirsten Flagstad in the title roles, and found myself perched so far up in the roof that I was unable to see all the stage, or understand much of what was going on - in German, of course The principals appeared to be singing well, and at great length, but I left the building at the first interval with a very poor first impression of Wagner's operas, of which "Tristan and Isolde" is still my least favourite for reasons which I will be happy to give at a more appropriate juncture.

Meanwhile, for the benefit of anyone fortunate enough to be presented with an opportunity to follow in my early footsteps, I will nominate those other operas for which, if sung in English, it would be safe to accept the best seats affordable in as small a theatre as possible:

From the popular repertoire:

Mozart's "Don Giovanni", "The Magic Flute", "Cosi fan Tutte" and "Il Seraglio".

Beethoven's "Fidelio"

Rossini's "The Barber of Seville", "La Cenerentola, and "The Italian Girl in Algiers"

Gounod's "Faust"

Verdi's "Rigoletto" "Il Travatore" and "Aida"

Bizet's "Carmen"

Mascagni's “Cavalleria Rusticana”

Leoncavello's “Pagliacci”

And less frequently performed:

Weber"s "Der Freischutz" and "Oberon"

Offenbach's "The Tales of Hoffman"

Donizetti's "L'Elisir D'Amore" and "Don Pasquale"

Delibes's "Lakme"

Smetena's "The Bartered Bride"

Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess"

Obviously, this list is compiled with the benefit of my subsequent operagoing, but it seems appropriate to include it here, on the grounds that, since all these works tell interesting stories in ways which allow the characters involved to sing attractive and memorable songs at frequent intervals, witnessing a performance of any of them could do a budding propensity to explore the world of opera no positive harm.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the time was now approaching when I would be obliged to put my school days (and Keighley with them) behind me, but because my sixteenth birthday fell in October my departure was delayed until the end of the first term of the new school year. In spite of the quality of my School Certificate results, there was never any question of my going on to what is nowadays called Further Education, although it would have been available free up to Higher School Certificate level, with scholarships and bursaries to be competed for after that. But there was none of the guaranteed government support of the post-war years, and my parents, having done well, by the standards of the time, to keep me at school for two years longer than the statutory school leaving age, took it for granted that I would start to earn my living as soon as I was free to do so - as, indeed, did I myself. A pity, really, because I thoroughly enjoyed my one term in the Sixth Form.

I can still recall the pleasurable shock I got from the change in teachers' attitudes and methods I experienced on entering the Lower Sixth Arts. I could hardly believe I was in the same building, or that these were the same teachers as before. Less than a dozen of us in the class, of course, and much more emphasis on individual reading and research. I remember thinking "This is what school should really be like" and throwing myself into the work I was given with the desperate enthusiasm of a condemned man eating his last meal. Brad, on the other hand (whose birthday fell just after mine), found this new environment so confusing, even disturbing, that he applied for and was given permission to go back down into the Fifth until the time came for us both to leave. Needless to say, Parkie's schooldays had ended with the School Certificate exams, and, although I continued to see him at Swartha for the rest of the year, I was soon to lose touch with him afterwards.

Only two things of note occurred outside the limbo of that last term at school. On October 26th, I attended a performance of Handel's "Messiah" at the Temple Street Methodist Church, Keighley, featuring Miss Isobel Baillie, Soprano, Miss Eileen Pilcher, Contralto, Mr. Ronald Murgatroyd, Tenor, Mr. Henry Gill, Bass, and Mr. John Paley, Trumpeter, all of them, in their day, names to conjure with, since none of the many Messiahs performed throughout the county of Yorkshire each year would have been considered complete without some contribution from at least one of their number. Although familiar with many of its airs and choruses from gramophone records and the radio, this was the first time I had heard the work, live, in its entirety, but it was not, by any means, to be the last. In those dark wartime days in England, Handel's Messiah was a treasured national asset to be breathed into frequent life during the winter months in chapels and concert halls throughout the land. Had it not been for a fortuitous combination of Adolf Hitler and Hildred Harpin, this great oratorio, together with the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan, would have constituted the full extent of my musical-dramatical experience, outside the cinema, at the age of sixteen.

And the second thing? After a determined effort involving much practice with like-minded classmates in the garage of one of the more affluent of them, I succeeded in mastering the basic steps of a number of ballroom dances sufficiently well to feel suitably equipped to invite some young lady to trust herself onto the dance floor with me at the next available opportunity. By doing so, I had crossed a very important watershed in my young life - some of those steps were quite complicated and the dance hall was, in those days, the only open forum where matters of mutual interest could be tentatively explored with a succession of strangers of the opposite sex. But I hardly had time to practice these hard won skills at those Saturday night dances in the parish church hall before midnight struck in the shape of the end of term and I was returned to my home in Bradford almost as abruptly as I had been sent to Keighley in the first place. Suddenly, my boyhood was over and the adult world lay before me like a foreign country.

MY LIFE AT THE OPERA : PART ONE

Chapter Three: 1941-43

My return to the family home was greeted by my parents with the same pragmatism which had sped my departure from it two years previously and kept my sister, my brother and me in Keighley while our fellow evacuees drifted back to Bradford. And who could blame them? The arrangement enjoyed the full approval of the authorities, it placed no greater burden on the family finances than keeping us at home, and was, on balance, of some benefit to all concerned. Thanks to the war effort, both my parents were in continuous full-time employment, earning better money than they had ever done before, and not only were their domestic circumstances, after years of coping with three youngsters and a dysfunctional relationship in cramped quarters, much more tolerable, but they were free to lead their separate lives without impediment - an opportunity exploited more by my mother than my father who simply carried on as before.

Nor could it be said that there was hardship to be endured on our part. Quite the reverse. After the initial period of adjustment to the change in circumstances experienced by all evacuees, we had settled quite comfortably into surroundings which could hardly fail to be more orderly and commodious than those we had left behind. Our education certainly hadn't suffered, and we could be back at home in an hour by public transport whenever we felt like it, or needed special care. Also, the German air raids, after a slow start, were not to be underestimated as a constant threat. Leeds and Sheffield, unprotected by the sooty fog which frequently filled the Pennine basin in which Bradford nestled, were regularly targeted. And there was never any doubt in our minds that we would have been taken back home, whatever the inconvenience, at the first signs of any genuine discomfort with our lot. I, myself, had come home only because there was no alternative, which is not to say that I resented having to do so. Leaving my comfortable life in Keighley behind was a bit of a wrench, of course, but the break was neither unanticipated, nor complete, thanks to its proximity to Bradford, now working in reverse. Any qualms I felt were of a different order and arose from quite another source, because I was now face to face with the unavoidable necessity of earning a living.

Not surprisingly, I had given a certain amount of thought to this looming problem during the preceding months, years even, if only because people kept asking me what I planned to be when I left school. But, I found it a very difficult question to get my mind around, there being so few pointers in my personal experience or immediate background. Obviously, with my superior academic qualifications, I wasn't going to be a woolsorter like my dad, or, indeed, go inta t'mill in any other capacity if I could help it. On the other hand, lacking the necessary higher education, I couldn't become a schoolteacher - the only other role model held up before me. Inspired, no doubt, by the praise I had always received for the English essays I had produced over the years, and the pleasure derived from composing them, the only thing I really wanted to be was a writer, and the only interpretation I could put on this, in career terms, was to aspire to become a journalist, although I had no clear idea of the practicalities involved in achieving this.

Enquiries revealed, however, that the route to my objective probably lay through employment by a newspaper in some capacity or other, so I wrote, early in my final term at school, to the editor of the only daily newspaper within practical striking distance - the Bradford "Telegraph and Argus" - to ask for employment. This initiative was rewarded with my first ever job interview at which I sat, completely overawed by my surroundings and virtually tongue-tied, while the great man explained to me why, with vacancies on his reporting staff occurring at such infrequent intervals and competition for them being so fierce, I would be unwise to hope for too much too soon. But if, in spite of the odds against me, I wished to persist in my folly, perhaps I would be good enough to go home and produce a sample of my written work for his consideration. This I hastened to do, having racked my brains for a suitable subject and finally settled on the only, in any way unusual topic I could report on with real authority, "Experiences of an Evacuee", and sent him the result without delay.

Nothing happened for some time, but, in response to my persistent enquiries, I was finally granted another interview at which the editor, to give the busy man his due, was able to lay his hands on my manuscript without too protracted a search, and refresh his memory as to its content while I waited expectantly for his verdict. Finally, he read the first sentence out aloud. Not surprisingly, it referred, in suitably dramatic terms, to the summer of 1939 and the sudden domestic disruption to which thousands like myself had been subjected. He looked across his desk at me and said, rather sadly, "Not very newsy, is it?" I could neither disagree, nor fail to get the message that, although the editor went on to praise other aspects of the work and assure me of his continued interest while repeating his warnings about the infrequency of vacancies and the intensity of the competition for them, that I was not going to step straight out of school into a career in journalism.

It never occurred to me at the time that, if and when such a rare vacancy occurred, it might be filled by an applicant whose family enjoyed a higher social status and wielded more clout in the community than my own, which wouldn't be difficult. Even when, many moons later, I found that the very well-spoken and self-assured boy who had been the teacher's pet in Miss Dickenson's class and whose father was a respected local headmaster, was now employed as a junior reporter on the "Telegraph and Argus", I assumed that he had simply interviewed better than me. I knew that I was as clever as him, and far more street-wise and hungry-nosed, but I had, and always have had, a defective appreciation of the weight to be attached to the old boy network and its analogues, possibly because I myself have never been in a position to benefit from any such extrinsic factor. All I knew for certain, when I finally left school, was that the start of my career as a journalist would have to be deferred for an indefinite period due to circumstances beyond my control, and, in the meantime, I would have to make do with some other job which I would be obliged to find for myself.

The problem was, I had no particular ambition in any other direction, but, with the idealism of youth, I knew that I didn't want what was referred to scathingly in the Lower Sixth Arts as an "office job", of which there were plenty on offer for school-leavers like me. What I wanted was an "interesting job", but where were these to be found, and how were they to be identified? For some reason the word "laboratory" had quite exciting connotations in those days, and, yes, I could see myself doing interesting things in a laboratory, so I combed the Situations Vacant in the "Telegraph and Argus" for suitable opportunities in that direction. Two very dispiriting encounters resulted from this strategy, one in a sauce factory in Shipley, the other in an enamelling plant in Keighley, but before I could lose heart, my mother, deeply involved in my predicament in her own quiet way, drew my attention to a very small ad which read something like "X Ray Department, Bradford Royal Infirmary, trainee wanted, School Certificates essential". X Rays, I thought, how mysterious! Could be interesting. So I applied.

And thus, called quickly to an interview, I passed for the first time through the portals of the establishment which was to be the centre of my universe for the next four eventful years, not realising then, of course, that the BRI, as we always called it, was no ordinary hospital, having been so recently built, by voluntary contribution in those pre-NHS days, that one final block had to be left unfinished at the outbreak of war, which made it probably the most modern hospital in the country, state-of-the-art in every detail. Standing three storeys high on one of the more salubrious outskirts of Bradford, above the smog line, and faced throughout in honey coloured stone, it was an impressive sight, but the inside was even more impressive, having been built on the "key" principle, with a long central corridor block from which the functional blocks protruded at intervals, commodious lifts at every junction, the four ward blocks at the front, their twelve balconies looking out over the city, and the operating theatre block, laboratories, and other service blocks at the rear. Thanks to the spacious design, large windows, bright tiles and marbled floors (all the corners hygienically curved) the whole place was as light and airy as a seaside hotel. From the Duke of York's Home (for private patients) at one end, to the X Ray Department tacked on as a single storey building, because of its radiation risk presumably, at the other, the BRI was nearly a quarter of a mile long. But I must have been singularly unimpressed by all this at the time because I nearly talked myself out of the job.

Since the title then given to the administrative head of a voluntary hospital was Secretary to the Board of Governors, I was interviewed by the Deputy Secretary, who was, in effect, the Chief Clerk. He explained to me that the job consisted of a four-year working student-apprenticeship in the X Ray Department starting with a year in the darkroom and ending with a qualifying examination, after which, if successful, I would be free to practice anywhere in the country for the rest of my life. It was a job, therefore, to be given only to an applicant willing to stay with it for the required period of time. Even I could see that what I was being offered, in the end, was "a steady job", something which only someone who had lived through the 20s and 30s could truly appreciate. A steady job was what school teachers and other public servants had. A steady job paying 5 pounds a week, unaffected by the vagaries of the economic cycle, was regarded in those days as the primary objective of any right-thinking school-leaver, since it would enable him to get married, set up house, start a family, and live happily ever after.

I explained to the nice gentleman that I was very attracted by the prospect held out before me. It sounded like a very interesting job indeed, but, unfortunately, my ambition was to be a journalist, and I was looking for something merely to keep me going until a suitable opening occurred on the local newspaper. If the Deputy Secretary was taken aback by this confession, he concealed it well, and proceeded to ignore it completely. Whether he was a better judge than me of my chances of getting into journalism, or was simply desperate to fill a rather minor vacancy on the hospital staff for which there were no other suitable applicants, I never found out, but he offered me the job at a starting wage of 17s/6d a week, and I agreed to accept it, whereupon he handed me over, no doubt thankfully, to an X Ray Department which seemed to have taken little interest in the selection process up to that point.

And so began, in this casual, almost accidental manner, my education in the University of Life. Given my circumstances at the time, I cannot see it as anything other than a tremendous stroke of luck to have been taken on board by this eminent institution in however lowly a capacity at first, because it was soon to become evident to me that the big hospital was really a small world supporting a complex social organisation rich in colourful characters, class distinctions and interlocking hierarchies. Dominating all, of course, were the surgical and medical staffs, the godlike consultants, their often cleverer registrars, and their overworked housemen (housewomen being few and far between). Most in evidence, because of their numbers, were the nursing staff, The Matron and her henchwoman the Sister Tutor, the Ward Sisters, the Staff Nurses, the Trainee Nurses and the Probationers, each with their distinctive uniform and accessories (male nurses being virtually unknown). Less immediately visible, just behind the front line as it were, the technical support teams, diagnostic and therapeutic, X Ray Department, Pathological Laboratory, Pharmacy, Physiotherapy. Behind the scenes, the administrative staff (surprisingly small in numbers when compared with later developments), the kitchens, the laundry, and the cleaners And, finally, supporting the whole mighty edifice, a small army of hospital porters, doing their cunning best, with some success, to mould the organisation above them to their own convenience.

To fall back on a hackneyed phrase, this world was to be my oyster for the next four years, and I have always looked back with some amazement, almost disbelief, at both the quantity and diversity of the activities I somehow managed to cram into my life during that period, using my home for only bed and breakfast, and not always that, and my loving mother for basic life support. There was opera, of course, and there was ballet, there was even Barbarolli, but there was much, much more, and, as it all seemed to revolve around my full-time employment in the X Ray Department of the BRI, my account has to start there, where the facilities, in those pre-NHS days, consisted originally of only two X Ray equipment rooms with a dark room in between, plus the usual offices. It was staffed by two qualified radiographers, three trainees, three nurse-attendants and a secretariat of two, all of whom I would get to know well as colleagues and even friends, but it was the other two trainees, Leonard and Jack, who would figure significantly in my all-important private life.

And the least of these, in the long run, would be Leonard, but, as my immediate predecessor in the hierarchy, he was the appointed mentor whose own emergence from the brown-coated obscurity of the darkroom into the white-coated eminence of the X-Ray examination rooms was totally dependent upon his ability to teach me the job he had been doing for the last year. Naturally, he didn't waste any time, and, me being a quick learner, it wasn't long before I was in sole charge of the whole darkroom process which began with the exposed films in their protective aluminium cassettes of various sizes being dumped into one of the two-way hatches connecting the X Ray rooms to the darkroom. The sequence of events was then as follows: take cassette from hatch to workbench; open cassette and extract film; select metal hanger of appropriate size from racks above workbench; mount film into hanger (one clip at each corner); suspend hanger in deep developing tank taking care to replace lid; set timer; reload cassette with unexposed film from swingout drawer below workbench and return to appropriate slot in wall hatch for re-use.

All this had to be done in a darkness alleviated only by the faint greenish glow from safelights overhead, while continuing to process what could be, during the busy morning sessions, a continuous flow of earlier films from both hatches through the developing tank, the fixer tank, the washing tank, the electric fan drying cabinet, and, finally, corners neatly trimmed, across into the office for sorting and filing, ready for inspection and interpretation by the consultant radiologist who visited the department twice a week. Physically, therefore, the job presented quite a challenge, which, thanks to a six foot frame of near-skeletal proportions, endowed with the stamina and muscular co-ordination of a long-distance running hunter-gatherer, inherited from my father, and honed on the 'duffs' of the Wingfield Street gang, I was well able to meet. Intellectually and socially, however, the job seemed, on the surface, unpromising, but, fortunately, it had compensatory aspects in both these directions.

The radiographers, having taken their pictures, needed to ensure that they were adequate for the prescribed purpose before releasing the patient, and could only achieve this by direct visual inspection of the films immediately after the initial processing, a requirement which ensured a constant flow of traffic in and out of the darkroom via the two doorless, walk-through light locks connecting it to each of the examination rooms. This meant that I was rarely alone in my gloomy domain for long. It also meant that, whenever a radiographer came groping round the corner, I was required, as soon as it was safe to do so, to illuminate the large viewing box which stood above the tanks and hold up the requested films for inspection, and also, if time allowed, for comment, there being an obligation on the radiographers, all of whom had laboured in the darkroom before me, to do what they could to initiate me into the mysteries of their craft by talking about the pictures and answering my questions about them.

It was in this way that I began to familiarise myself with human anatomy and physiology and all the ills the flesh is heir to. My vocabulary expanded rapidly to embrace not only these terminologies but also that of the business we were in - the intravenous pyelograms, cholecystograms, gastro-intestinal barium meals and enemas, etc., that would eventually become my own stock-in-trade. And the radiographers were not my only visitors, since there were frequent requests from various parts of the hospital for films, still in their hangers, wet from the washer, to be fetched from the darkroom, usually by the most junior nurse available, for urgent viewing, and, although Leonard, always on watch outside, did his best to interpose himself between any fair messenger and the object of her errand, he didn't always succeed, particularly when the films were being returned, and, on these occasions, assisted by the darkness turning on and off at my behest, I strove, without much initial success, to make contact with contemporaries of the opposite sex.

My special relationship with Jack, however, blossomed quickly during those brief, darkroom tutorials in front of the viewing box, where he proved, despite first impressions, to be the most intelligent and well-informed of my new associates. When first we met, he was the senior trainee, soon to sit his qualifying exam with the Society of Radiographers at the age of twenty, which made him three years older than me and two years older than Leonard, the gap between the two of them being accounted for by the untimely departure of its former occupant, a handsome and gifted young man by all accounts, who had cast aside the protection of a reserved occupation to volunteer for the RAF, where he was soon, alas, to achieve hero status among his ex-collegues by being killed in a flying accident. Jack, on the other hand, was of singularly unprepossessing appearance and sadly uncharismatic. Of medium height with round shoulders and a rather sluggish physique, his beaky nose, receding chin and large Adam's apple gave him a turkeycock appearance which was not improved by his thin gingery hair, straggling moustache, and the thick spectacles he always wore. But never was there so excellent a book inside such unprepossessing covers.

Having penetrated his disguise and overcome the reticence that went with it, I soon established an appreciative rapport with the sharp wit and laconic wisdom I found within. I also found, more importantly, that Jack was an accomplished violinist, playing regularly in an amateur concert orchestra, and the possessor of an extensive and detailed knowledge of the world of serious music which he was only too willing to share with me' if and when an opportunity to do so arose. Such opportunities cannot have been long in coming, because it was barely six months after I started work at the BRI that Jack and I went to our first opera together, inaugurating a companionship lasting four years and laying the foundations of a musical education on which I would build for the rest of my life. But, before enlarging on this theme, there is another character waiting in the wings who was to influence my musical tastes almost as decisively as Jack did, but in a rather different direction, and whose lasting friendship was to have a much greater effect on the future course of my life than anyone introduced so far. He also worked at the BRI but not in the X Ray Department.

Whereas Leonard could now claim the whole hospital as his stage, frequently wheeling a mobile apparatus out to the wards, and even on occasion to the operating theatre, to X Ray patients unable to come to the department, my own responsibilities were such as to confine me almost entirely to the darkroom. But I had one excuse to sally forth at regular intervals, which, needless to say, I exploited to the fullest. Whereas the chemical solution used for developing the films could be mixed in the darkroom, as required, from a commercially available kit, the fixing solution, for obscure economic reasons, was made up in the pharmacy, or dispensary as we always called it, and had to be fetched from there in large bottles on a trolley at least once a week, and that is how I encountered Frank, who was serving his pharmaceutical apprenticeship there.

Strangely, although we had never knowingly met before, we recognised each other immediately, and soon worked out that this was because we had lived only a couple of streets apart for many years and must have seen one another around the neighbourhood quite frequently - Frank belonging, of course, to a different gang. The reason I hadn't come across him at school was that he was a Roman Catholic, and compelled thereby to follow a different scholastic path which took him finally to the Catholic grammar school, St. Bede's, on the other side of town. We soon found that we had much in common and in no time at all were travelling to and from the BRI together daily and had been accepted as honorary members of each others' families. Frank, about eighteen months older than me, was both opinionated and facetious, with a strong outgoing personality and bags of self-confidence fostered no doubt by his being the eldest and cleverest of three brothers, and having two sisters, one older then him, who were just as sharp as he was. In spite of his keen intelligence, however, he was not a budding intellectual in the sense that I was, having little time for serious literature, drama, and music, and none at all for opera, and was, indeed, rather dismissive of such interests, as he was of anything else that didn't appeal to him. But he was passionately fond of jazz, and had a well-developed taste for it.

My first contact with small band jazz, as opposed to the big band variety played by the livelier dance bands which Brad and I were listening to on the radio at the time, had been made at Swartha when one of the least conformist and worst mannered of the boys on the fringe of our group brought a few of his records up to the cottage one weekend, and, after expounding at length on their merits, very kindly left them there long enough for us to get to know them better. It was from his lips that I first heard such strange names as Jelly Roll Moreton, and Jack Teagarden. I knew about Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, of course, who were probably the best known black men in the world, after Paul Robeson, and I doted on Nat Gonella, the English band leader who was doing his best to play and sing like Louis on the radio, but the wilder shores of jazz were still in a foreign country, accessible only through the gramophone records I could not yet afford, even if I'd known which ones to buy. It took a weekly pay packet, however small, and the meeting with Frank to change all that.

He already had a large collection of jazz records, most of which, I later discovered, belonged to his remarkable older sister Kathleen, whose discriminating taste in jazz had developed ahead of his own and no doubt influenced it. Better still, however, was the fact that Frank's house had a front room, or parlour, to which we could retire with the gramophone in order to give the records the undivided attention they deserved. We couldn't know, of course, that we were living through a golden age of recorded jazz and that these ten inch 78s and those which Frank and I subsequently bought after agonising over them in the sampling booths of J.Wood's record shop on many a Saturday afternoon, would become classics of their genre, to be reissued repeatedly in later, more technically advanced, formats - LPs, audiotapes, and CDs - enabling me, together with generations then unborn, to enjoy them still today.

In addition to contributions from the famous names already mentioned, we had, for example, a number of records by such all time greats as Fats Waller and Sidney Bechet [we even had George Chisholm and his Jive Five], but there were two bands whose every recording we treasured above all. Muggsy Spanier and his Ragtimers, and Bob Crosby"s Bobcats seemed to us to be producing small band jazz in its most perfect form - eight different instruments improvising collectively around a given theme without colliding at any point into discord in what became known, rather misleadingly, as the Dixieland style - and this admiration of ours was to have a significant effect on future events. In the meantime, my taste in jazz, under Frank's influence, progressed in parallel with my exploration of the larger world of concert music under Jack's tutelage and although the two began to overlap at the edges when Jack took an interest in jazz for reasons yet to emerge, Frank found himself totally unable to make any move in the opposite direction.

But, even as I set out to pursue these adventures in music with them, quite a different common interest was bringing Leonard, Jack, Frank and me together in a shared activity on a regular basis outside working hours. Since there was, after all, a war on, in which our armed forces were continuing to fare rather badly, all able-bodied male civilians not called to the colours had been invited to bear arms in defence of the nation against enemy attack, and due, no doubt, to the size of its male staff, its dominating location, and the excellence of its facilities, I had arrived at the BRI to find that it boasted a Home Guard Company of its very own, of which my new colleges were already serving members. Naturally, I joined up as soon as I could, and can safely say that the total amount of my precious spare time I contributed, through this commitment, to the war effort over the next three years far exceeded that absorbed by any one of my many other activities.

We were expected to be on parade on at least one of two evenings a week for indoor weapons training, and every Sunday morning for outdoor activities of various kinds, but the main duty of the unit was to man an Observation Post standing on the flat roof of that one wing of the hospital left uncompleted at the outbreak of war. For this purpose, the Company was divided into a sufficient number of squads to serve one night in every eight sleeping in a crudely furnished, ill-lit, and badly ventilated guardroom at the very top of this unfinished shell, each member of the squad taking it in turns, throughout the night, to go out onto the roof and sit for an hour in the OP with his back, in winter, pressed against the flue pipe of the temperamental stove supposedly generating heat below. From this eyrie virtually the whole of Bradford was visible, when not shrouded in the smoke from its thousands of coal-burning chimneys, and it was equipped with a simple apparatus to enable any source of light, whether a fire during an air-raid or a breach in the blackout, to be pinpointed and its references transmitted by telephone to the appropriate authority.

In spite of the many discomforts attendant upon these duties, each squad strove, with varying degrees of success, to turn its guard night into as much of a party as wartime restrictions on food and drink permitted, but the taste in one's mouth when awakening in the foetid air of that overcrowded room in the morning was an experience not to be treasured. As the tide of war turned and our armament improved, our Company was given its own "defended locality" in the shape of a key crossroads close by, around which we manoeuvred frequently, even at night, often with hilarious results, because, although we took our Home Guard training seriously enough for it to stand me in very good stead when I eventually went into the real army, there was, about our activities, a distinct element of that deservedly popular BBC TV series which was to appear long after the war, "Dad's Army". This arose partly from the fact that, being the BRI platoon, its command structure was obliged to reflect the professional hierarchies of the the hospital, regardless of the soldierly competence of the individuals concerned.

Thus, the company commanding officer was the Chairman of the Board of Governors. Short, round, bouncy, and bossy, a successful local businessman (not unlike Captain Mainwaring in appearance) who had served in the last war and had the medal ribbons to prove it, he was, therefore, not unsuited to the role, unlike his unfortunate second-in-command, who was none other than the Hospital Secretary, a large, fat, pallid, individual whose menacing silent stare could effectively intimidate his subordinates as the hospital's chief executive, but was of little use in steering squads of armed men through even the least elaborate of manoeuvres. Having no previous experience of military matters, and being badly designed physically for any participation in them, his performance as 2 i/c of the company, from the inaudibility of his words of command and his inability to do an about face without losing his balance, to the large V of extra material inserted into the seat of his uniform trousers to accommodate his outsize bum, was a source of much discreetly suppressed merriment to those members of the hospital staff whom he had previously overawed with his superior status.

Similarly, the rank of Company Sergeant Major had been bestowed on the hospital's Head Porter, who, with his now rather flabby form still clad in the full dress uniform of his old regiment (complete, of course, with medal ribbons), was a respected wielder of despotic power over his daytime army, largely by telephone, from a cubicle which was strategically placed just inside the main entrance to the hospital to enable him also to serve as sentry or commissionaire, depending on the antecedents of any person coming through the doors. In his Home Guard khaki, however, he cut a sadly unimposing figure, looking so much more comfortable with a clipboard in his hand than a weapon of any kind that there were serious doubts as to whether he had ever fired a shot in anger during his previous army service, or, if called upon to do so, would be any less wobbly than his own somewhat pendulous jowls.

And so on down the rankings of the other NCOs. The chief radiographer, for example, was a sergeant, as was the chief engineer, and when Jack qualified as a radiographer, he was promoted from lance corporal to corporal. Even Frank, on becoming senior apprentice, was made a lance corporal. But an exception had to be made to this cosy arrangement when filling the all-important post of musketry sergeant, since the necessary expertise was found to reside exclusively in the person of one of the porters who had acquired it on active service in the last war. Fortunately, however, he was no ordinary porter, being, in fact, the mortuary porter, an appropriately cadaverous individual whose responsibility it was to remove any corpses from the wards, convey them as discreetly as possible to the mortuary, and, after assisting with any necessary post mortem examination, display them on demand, suitably arranged, to the grieving relatives in the small chapel attached to the mortuary for the purpose. This was quite a highly skilled job, in fact, and Reggie was good at it. We knew this because Frank, Leonard and I were allowed to attend post mortems as part of our training, and, since we never missed an opportunity to scive off from our normal duties to experience something new and different, we often saw him in action. He was a good musketry instructor, too, and it was convenient to have his mortuary to return to, after a day out on the shooting range at Oxenhope, to clean out our rifles.

With these Home Guard duties making such regular demands, we were constantly in and out of uniform, and spending so much of our time at the BRI that, rather than go home and come back in the morning, we often found it convenient to sleep there, Frank in the dispensary where a camp bed was maintained for firewatching purposes, Jack, Leonard and I in the X Ray Department, where only the bare X Ray couches and hospital trolleys were available, but could be made quite comfortable by the use of the blankets and pillows which were in generous supply. This practice was made possible only by the fact that, in those pre-NHS days, hard as it may now be to believe, the X Ray Department's hours of business were 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday, and 9am to 12 noon on Saturday. In the unlikely event of X Rays being urgently required outside these hours, the chief radiographer, who lived close by, would be sent a special request to make himself available, but, this being a voluntary hospital, operating on a tight budget, the definition of urgency was an extremely narrow one - an acutely life-threatening diagnostic dilemma which only an X Ray examination could resolve, no less. Anything else could wait until opening time.

Our slumbers in the deserted department were, therefore, rarely disturbed, and, after a wake-up call from the hospital switchboard, it was a simple enough matter to don a white coat and go foraging for breakfast on the wards, where there was always food to be had, if only bread, butter and jam. Little wonder, then, that by the end of my first year, an institution, which was, in effect, a large, patient-processing factory, had become, for me, a congenial home from home, where, in addition to bed and board, I had the use of a study and a bathroom, both missing from my real home, and could enjoy either privacy, or good company, depending on my need for the former and the extent to which I chose to take advantage of opportunities for the latter, since there was more going on at the BRI after hours than the Home Guard and firewatching.

The trainee nurses were accommodated in a large Nurse's Home behind the hospital, where dances were regularly held with excellent bands, to which Frank and I were invariably invited because we always gave such very good value, dancing every dance, of course, with indefatigable elan, with as many different partners as possible to ensure our future welcome at breakfast-time (and tea time) on all twelve wards. We were also very active in the BRISC, a social circle for the non-resident staff, organising gramophone dances, and amateur nights in a spacious basement conference room during the winter, and hikes and other healthy outings in the summer. But this is to anticipate future involvements, when my intention has been merely to sketch in the background against which these and other, more extramural, activities such as operagoing were to be pursued, with, it almost seems, the primary objective of avoiding going home except to sleep and change my linen.

2

Before looking further into my life at the opera, however, one other musical thread has to be followed for a while. Due possibly to my experience with the recorder, on which I still continued to tootle whenever the spirit moved me (and time allowed), my interest in dance music and jazz had led me to fantasise, in a way not uncommon among sixteen year old youths, about performing to great acclaim on the instrument that seemed to resemble it most - the clarinet. Since I had never actually held one in my hand, when a specimen appeared in a local pawnbroker's window, I took a keen interest in it, pausing to examine its gleaming complexities through the glass each morning on my way to work, and to make sure that it was still there. It was priced at thirty shillings, a considerable enough sum (at a time when ten cigarettes cost sixpence) to inspire caution, but matters came to a head when I went to see a film called "Second Chorus" in which the ostensible stars were Fred Astaire and John Garfield, but the real attraction was Artie Shaw and his Orchestra.

After watching entranced as Artie fingered his flashy way through his "Concerto for Clarinet" (soon to be acquired as a 12" record and its every note learned by heart), I left the cinema with my mind made up. The following Saturday I arranged with the pawnbroker to pay five shillings deposit and five shillings a week until the clarinet was mine. Never have five weeks passed more slowly, but eventually I was allowed to carry my trophy triumphantly home to be examined in loving detail for the first time. I had already spent a shilling on a tutor book called "First Steps in the Clarinet" and studied its diagrams closely, making comparisons with the fingering on my recorder, but I was totally unprepared for my initial inability to make any sound at all by blowing into the mouthpiece. This was my first encounter, of course, with a clarinet's cane reed, which, unlike the recorder's whistle, has to be coaxed by the lips and teeth into vibrating against the mouthpiece to create its distinctive sound, and it was a very disconcerting experience. How on earth was I going to follow in the footsteps of Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman if I couldn't even get a peep out of the thing?

Perseverance brought a modicum of success, of course, but in a form that was a far cry from the liquid tones I had imagined myself producing. Fortunately, my mother's cousin Harry, an amiable giant who had taught me to swim some years earlier, had a friend, universally known as Little Joe for the unsurprising reason that he was of unusually diminutive stature, who, enquiries now revealed, had, at some time in the past, played the clarinet in a military band and was prepared to give me lessons - at two bob a time, of course, since it was a firm tenet of Yorkshire faith that anything that wasn't paid for wasn't properly appreciated. As a result of this financial incentive to extract as much benefit as possible from Little Joe's lessons, very few of them were needed to put me in possession of the essential skills and knowledge I required to carry on teaching myself, free of charge, by diligent practice - an activity which was not of an entirely solitary nature due to the fact that my old pal Cliff, who still lived just up the street, had meanwhile acquired, in similar fashion, a trumpet.

We were soon fumbling our way through simple duets, making much more progress practising together than we would ever have done alone and apart, spurred on by the prospect of playing the popular music of the day in a manner that would evoke the admiration of our contemporaries, if ever they could be persuaded to grant us an audience. That such an opportunity was not long in presenting itself owed less to our burgeoning skills than to the apparently unrelated fact that, having left Bradford a Methodist and returned as a confirmed member of the Church of England, I had now joined Cliff in attending the local parish church, conveniently situated in the next street, just across the main road from our old school. This church, like the one in Utley, had a church hall equipped to accommodate the usual Whist Drives and Dances as well as plays and concerts of various kinds, and it also had a thriving Young People's Fellowship which, due possibly to the fact that it was presided over by a young, handsome, and quite virile curate, boasted several pretty girls as members.

The chemistry of this group was such that it wasn't very long before we decided to put on our own show in the church hall, and write all the material ourselves. The star attraction was, of course, the curate, who turned out to have had relevant experience of an unexpectedly ribald nature in his college days, but Cliff and I, in addition to figuring comically in certain sketches, were invited to provide some kind of instrumental interlude, and, after a careful assessment of our own inadequacies, decided to team up for the purpose with an attractive girl called Audrey who we knew to be taking lessons in jazz singing. The result was that, after much rehearsal, Cliff and I played the bare minimum necessary to introduce and accompany her in a couple of solo vocals before joining in a quite creditable imitation of Bing Crosby, Jack Teagarden and Mary Martin singing "The Waiter and the Porter, and the Upstairs Maid" in a film called "Birth of the Blues" which we had seen several times because it was mainly about jazz, and, although Crosby's miming on the clarinet was a bit of a turn off, featured several well-known jazz musicians.

Having made our stage debut to such good effect, and learned much in the process, we were reluctant to return entirely to "woodshedding" (as solitary practice is known among the jazz fraternity) without exploring every possibility, however remote, for further public performances, and, against all the odds, our efforts struck oil in a most unlikely quarter. My colleague Leonard at the BRI, although not noted for either his wit and wisdom, or his social graces, turned out to have two quite valuable but hitherto unsuspected virtues. The first of these was an ability to play the piano - not as well as Brad, of course, but, given the two-fisted determination with which Leonard approached all life's challenges, good enough to cope with a popular song if he had practised the piece and had the music in front of him. The value of his second claim on my interest was not so immediately obvious since it resided in the fact that his father was employed by the Co-op, or The Co-operative Wholesale Society to give it it's full name, as a butcher.

The Co-operative Movement was quite a power in the land in those days, particularly in the North, because there was more to it than shopping at the Co-op in order to claim a dividend, or "divi", on the accumulated value of purchases recorded by a cumbersome process involving the sticking of small strips of paper in a little book. Membership of the Co-op carried with it an entitlement to participate, on a democratic basis, in all the other activities of the organisation, both political and social, a privilege taken more advantage of by its employees than its customers, as a result of which Leonard's father, being a very active "co-operator", was a greater power in the Bradford Co-op than his role behind the butcher's counter at the suburban branch in Dudley Hill might imply. He held a position of some authority, for example, at the Co-op Institute, a substantial building in the city centre, nestling discreetly in the shadow of the multi-story department store which boasted the first moving staircase ever to be installed in Bradford and was the jewel in the CWS's crown - the Co-op Emporium.

The Co-op Institute, as it's name implies, was given over to various kinds of group activities, mostly of an improving nature, but, like a secular church, it housed a small assembly hall, complete with stage, which could be used for, among other things, dances. Private dances, of course, for the benefit only of members and their families, held regularly on Saturday nights, hitherto using gramophone records on a radiogram, but they were desperate for a live band, provided that it cost little or nothing. Thanks to Leonard's dad, we were invited to attempt to satisfy this felt want, "we" being Leonard on piano, Jack on violin, me on clarinet, and Cliff on trumpet, so, all we lacked was a drummer, a gap not too difficult to fill as there was a surfeit of youths in the population who aspired to being such, some of whom, usually the only children of indulgent parents, had acquired more than a pair of drumsticks and a collection of pots and pans to play with. The grapevine soon led us to one such, Vic, who lived in the next street to Leonard, and possessed a full drum kit which he seemed to know how to use.

Having recruited Vic, we had the makings of a band, but what music were we going to play? Obviously, the popular songs of the day, but all of us, except for Vic of course, needed some form of musical score to read from if we were to perform for the extended period required of us - two hours, at least. Where was this to come from? Since none of us, apart from Jack, was up to reading proper orchestrations, even if they were available, the only solution was to beg, borrow, or, if totally unavoidable, buy the piano sheet-music of as many currently popular songs as we could muster (and Leonard could master), and copy out the melody line of the choruses for Jack, Cliff and me separately, transposing up a tone, of course, for the two Bflat instruments. The end result was a performance in which each number followed the same pattern - an opening chorus with all the "front line" instruments playing together in unison, followed by a solo chorus from each of them (sticking strictly to the melody) and a final chorus, full ensemble, still in unison - no variations, no modulations, no harmonisations.

It must have sounded totally dire. To make matters worse, our repertoire was at first so limited that we had to keep playing the same few numbers over and over again, and even we felt embarrassed about that. But, amazingly, none of these shortcomings seemed to bother the young people who we found to be dancing round the floor whenever we dared to look shyly up from our labours. Round and round they went, completely wrapped up in each other and the rhythms of the dance, quite oblivious, it seemed, to the boringly repetitious monotony emanating from the bandstand, and happy, even, to applaud after each set. At the end of the evening, against all the odds and somewhat to our surprise, the success of our first "gig" at the Co-op Institute turned out to have been such that we were given five shillings each, and booked to perform there at regular intervals throughout the rest of the winter. A dance band, however misshapen and underweight, had been born!

From such inept beginnings, and given those frequent opportunities to play together in public, we could not but improve, and we did, with quite gratifying speed - or most of us did! In due course I acquired, from another pawnbroker, an Eflat alto saxophone, and Jack bought a Bflat tenor sax, thus equipping us to play carefully selected portions of any bona fide dance band orchestrations we could get hold of. Such arrangements, we had learned, were the staple fare of the numerous dance bands, pro. and semi-pro., servicing the many dance halls, public and private, functioning in Bradford at the time (as well as all those Saturday night hops in church halls outside the city centre), but their existence had come as a total revelation to us. Often based on arrangements made famous by well-known big bands in their recordings or radio broadcasts, they invariably consisted of separate band parts for four or five saxophones (two altos, two tenors and a baritone - all presumed to be doubling on clarinets), two or three trumpets, one or two trombones, piano, bass, guitar and drums, all woven together, often quite elaborately, with ad lib solos for selected instruments and modulations, at times, into fairly remote keys.

Central to these daunting complexities, however, there was always a full chorus of the basic tune complete with vocal, which could be separated out if necessary. In addition to this, the principal parts (often four pages long, but formatted sideways to open out flat for convenience, occasionally with a second number printed on the reverse side) were cued in to allow for key portions of the whole to be played by whatever limited resources were available, all the way down to a basic alto sax, piano and drums. Surprisingly, these compendious publications cost only a few shillings each, which was still enough to put them out of our reach at first, bearing in mind that a substantial number of them was needed for a working library, but they pointed the way forward for us, and the problem of cost was eventually overcome by the purchase of a second-hand library from a retired local dance-band leader.

But before that could happen, there were other problems which were not so easily solved. The first, unfortunately, was Leonard, who, it soon became clear, had been at the limit of his capabilities from the onset and entertained no discernible ambition to transcend either his own limitations or those of the Co-op Institute. To make matters worse, he was totally besotted with a girlfriend called Joyce, as was she with him, to the extent that they insisted on her sitting by his side on the bandstand, regardless of the embarrassment this caused the rest of us. The same affliction was eventually to strike down our drummer, Vic, but, in the meantime, it seemed inevitable that Leonard would have to go, even if it meant losing our gigs at the Co-op. Our second problem was that Cliff was rapidly approaching the age of eighteen, and, unlike the rest of us, was not in a reserved occupation and would soon be conscripted into the armed forces.

Throughout the summer of 1943, with the tide of war finally turning in favour of the Allies, I wrestled with the question of where to take the band from here. Since the field we were in was new to him, Jack's ability to assist with practical solutions was limited, but we could always rely on getting advice and help from Frank, whose relationship with the band had been of an intimate but rather equivocal nature from the very start. As a friend of Jack, Leonard, and me, and, through me, inevitably, Cliff, he couldn't help getting involved in the formation of the group, nor could he avoid feeling left out of things when the band began to play at the Co-op. On the other hand, as a connoisseur of jazz music and its derivatives, he had found himself distinctly unimpressed by the sounds we produced initially, and there was also the undeniable fact that he did not possess a suitable instrument upon which to perform, however badly, himself.

Frank's problem was that he had a keen musical ear feeding a discerning taste for the kind of music we were aspiring to, and a powerful yearning to play it himself superlatively well, but he simply could not find an instrument which would allow him to achieve this end without subjecting him to an intervening period of humiliating inadequacy. By the end of the summer, however, all these difficulties, including Frank's, had been overcome and a bigger and better band had been formed. Through Frank we found Les, a fellow pharmacy student at the Bradford Technical College who played trombone in a local brass band, and Les led us to Ken, a mechanical engineer who played trumpet in the same band. Frank also recruited Bert, an old school pal, who played acoustic guitar and worked as a draughtsman for the engineering firm which also employed Ken. But the big discovery was Jim, who, at the age of barely seventeen, had already made a reputation for himself in Bradford as a jazz pianist.

He was a big, slow-moving lad with enormous hands (spanning an octave and a fourth) who simply lived for the piano, even working among pianos in the backroom of J. Wood & Sons, Bradford's biggest music shop, as a technician and tuner. He was a master of all the famous jazz piano styles, Count Basie's being his particular favourite, but he could play like Earl Hines, Teddy Wilson, Fats Waller and Jimmy Yancey on demand, and was already giving lessons in these techniques to other pianists, but none of this talent could be inferred from a demeanour which was modest in the extreme. He seemed flattered that we had sought him out, and happy to join us when he realised what it was we were hoping to achieve with such a significantly bigger band than was needed for the simple task of propelling the dancing couples round the sorts of hall in which we could expect to perform, because it had now become our declared ambition to play, not simply dance music, but the kind of jazz that Frank and I so much admired, and, for this, nothing less than an eight piece band would do.

It was an article of faith with us that such a band needed a four-piece "rhythm section" - piano, string bass, guitar and drums - to give it the necessary drive and "lift", and that the rest should be built on this firm foundation. With alto sax, tenor sax, trumpet and trombone it would then be possible to give a good account of any dance band arrangements we could acquire, but, more to the point, by substituting a clarinet for the alto sax, we would have transformed ourselves into a group with exactly the same instrumentation as those current wonders of the jazz world, Muggsy Spanier's Ragtimers and The Bobcats, in whose ineffable, improvisatory style it was our ultimate aim to play. It was a novel idea, long before the Trad Jazz Revival of the mid-fifties, to form an eight-piece dance band with the object of playing some of the quick-steps and slow foxtrots as a jazz band rather than a swing band, but it gave us the best of both worlds, and we were quite prepared to accept less money per head for our gigs for the pleasure of playing our stuff in public to an appreciative audience.

With Jim's recruitment and the acquisition of that second-hand library of orchestrations, we were able to start rehearsing in earnest in whoever's front room was available, and parents amenable. The next step was to write to the vicar of my local church, to inform him of the existence in his very own parish of a young and enthusiastic dance band, etc., etc., and invite him to make use of our services at one of the monthly dances in his church hall. As an active member of the Young People's Fellowship and a regular communicant (Cliff and I competing with each other for bigger swigs of the wine from the chalice) I was quite well known to the vicar, of course, but he was a rather indistinct figure to me. Short, balding, bespectacled, and softly spoken, he was, unlike his curate, ill-equipped for evangelical histrionics, but he turned out to be a pleasure to deal with.

His letter back to me, poking gentle fun at the rather overblown style in which my own had been composed, invited me to call on him at the manse where he gave me tea and biscuits and took great delight in showing me the filing system he had installed to minimise the effort involved in discharging his parochial duties, the most onerous of which, according to him, was the production of two twenty minute sermons each week for the Sunday morning and evening services without resorting to the prefabricated tracts which were readily available to all clergymen, apparently, at a price. To this end, the files in one drawer of his cabinet bore labels such as "Compassion", "Humility", "Salvation" and "Redemption" and into these it was his habit to drop any relevant material he came across during his daily reading in order to fish these bits and pieces out at the appropriate time and make his burden less with a simple scissors and paste job. Thus I watched our vicar metamorphose into a small businessman, who, after asking a few intelligent questions about the band, awarded us a trial engagement.

With the great day approaching, we were now practising in deadly earnest, since what lay ahead of us was quite an ordeal - a full three hours of hard pounding, during which we would be expected to play about forty different numbers, not only the quicksteps and foxtrots which were our meat and drink, but waltzes, rhumbas, tangos, an Olde Thyme Medley (valeeta, St. Bernard's waltz, military two-step) and something called the Palais Glide. A major distraction was that, until the very last moment, we still stood in need of a bassist to make our dream come true, since, not surprisingly, there were very few youths around who were sufficiently attracted by the unwieldy contours and limited soloing scope of the double bass (the electric bass guitar having not yet been invented) to take it up in earnest. But, fortunately, help was at hand from an unexpected quarter, because it was at this point that Frank suddenly saw the light, and, after a complicated series of manoeuvres, finally succeeded in joining us on the big night after a bare minimum of familiarisation with a recently borrowed instrument.

Although the double bass wasn't quite the instrument Frank had imagined himself playing jazz on, it turned out to be ideally suited to his temperament and abilities. By no means easy to play well, even when limited to the perpetual pizzicato of jazz, it was not too difficult to play adequately, given a good ear, a proper understanding of its role in the rhythm section of a jazz band, and the intelligence to keep within one's current limitations when performing in public, all of which Frank possessed in abundance. Other essentials, like digital strength, physical stamina, and the ability to read and understand chords, he would develop as he went along to make him, in the end, one of the best jazz bassists in the West Riding. Initially, of course, just to have him inside the band looking out rather than outside looking in, was a great asset, because, at that stage, half the band, three-quarters of the front line in fact, had little previous experience of the jazz idiom and would need coaching by those of us who had, if our objective of playing fully improvised jazz was to be achieved.

Even with Frank's presence in the rhythm section, however, it cannot be said that our debut as The Semitones (a name finally chosen after a great deal of debate) was an unqualified success, although everything went according to plan for about 90% of the time. As we worked our way through the programme, our initial state of extreme nervous tension gradually dissipated in the face of the evident pleasure the dancers were taking in our performance, to such an extent that, during our interval break we were feeling decidedly pleased with ourselves. But the second half of any gig is always more physically taxing than the first, and, given our inexperience, there could be no relaxation in our intense concentration on the dots for fear of making mistakes. Even so, the end was clearly in sight and we were half way through "When Day is Done", which was to be the last slow foxtrot of the evening, before disaster struck in the shape, initially, of a completely unscripted roll on the drums from Vic followed by a distinct degeneration in the ensemble of the brass section.

With the band grinding to a halt around me, I tore my attention away from my own part and looked up in some irritation to find that Jim had fainted completely away and was sprawled insensate over the piano keyboard. There was a moment of shocked silence, broken only by Bert the Introvert's guitar still ching-chinging doggedly along behind me, during which I remembered that, for all his big, shambling frame, Jim had what was called a "weak chest" (possibly the result of childhood asthma developing, as it so often did in Bradford's soot-laden fogs, into chronic bronchitis), which had probably made him more vulnerable than the rest of us to the unprecedented strain of the occasion. There was nothing for it but to invite the bemused dancers to take a break, while we carried him into the wings where he quickly recovered from his blackout but not from the acute embarrassment that immediately overwhelmed him. Fortunately, a pianist friend of his was on hand to take us through to the last waltz, after playing which we were assured by the ovation we got from the dance floor and the words of praise from individual customers afterwards, that, in spite of this hiatus, the Semitones were on their way.

In the two years that followed, as the band went from strength to strength, Jim never passed out again, although, as a welcome bonus, his chest remaining weak enough to prevent his call-up into the armed forces when he reached the age of eighteen. Superstitiously, however, by unspoken agreement, we never played "When Day is Done" again. Vic soon forsook us to concentrate on courting Rita and was replaced by John, a trainee architect with much superior skills, whose ability to read music, rare in a drummer, brought about an immediate improvement in the sound of the band, and we were soon playing virtually every Saturday night throughout the winter months to enthusiastic crowds of dancers many of whom were keen enough to follow us from hall to hall until we finally achieved the ultimate success of becoming resident band at Frank's (and Bert's) old school, which, being Roman Catholic, had no qualms about holding regular fundraising dances in its fine main hall.

Obviously, the Semitones were more than just a dance band. Being all of an age, and committed to playing swing and jazz for pleasure more than profit, brought us together in frequent happy association between gigs, particularly on Sunday afternoons when we would forgather in Frank's front room, initially to familiarise the brass section with the jazz idiom by exposing them to the recorded sound of the bands we wished to emulate, but, later, to listen to, and criticise, each other's newly acquired records. Or we might wander round Bradford city centre on Sunday evenings in a self-absorbed, garrulous group before bestowing our patronage on some film or other. Buying new arrangements for the band entailed a half-day's outing en masse to a specialist music shop in Leeds, where we would stand around carefully scrutinising our individual parts before voting on which numbers to buy. Strange as it may seem today, we never went out boozing together because none of us had yet developed a taste for alcoholic beverages, although most of us smoked a great deal, as was not uncommon at that time.

It may also be worth recording that none of us had the use of a motor car, or only one of us was on the telephone. Our normal fee for a gig was 10 pounds, made up of 1 pound each, plus 1 for the taxi and 1 for the Band Fund. As individuals, we were able to travel to and from most of our gigs by public transport but a taxi was needed for John's drum kit, our six music stands (specially built to our own design), and, soon, a treasured four-valve 15 watt amplifier with its single microphone for instrumental solos, vocals and announcements. Wartime restrictions made taxis a rather uncertain quantity, but we struck up an early association with a very tall, very thin, extremely haggard operator called Sid, whose taciturnity prevented us from ever discovering whether his baggy-eyed emaciation was due to the pressures of his lifestyle or whatever disease it was that had kept him out of the armed forces, but he soon became known to us as "Bloody Sid" because of the uncertainty which often seemed to surround his movements, particularly when he was booked to pick us up in some out of the way spot after a gig.

Sid's redeeming feature was his large saloon car, big enough to accommodate six passengers, thanks to the two drop-down seats facing the back seat, but into which, on one memorable occasion, we managed to cram all eight of us with our entire paraphernalia - the double bass strapped, as usual, on the nearside running board, the drum kit on the top luggage rack, the music stands and tenor sax on the rear rack (there being no boot, as such, in those cars), and the rest of the instruments and our precious amp inside on our laps, but only after an extra passenger had been piled on the one already in the front seat, and another (which happened to be me) balanced, precariously and painfully, between the two drop-down seats in the back. These extreme measures were required for a very special gig at the Armley Baths Hall in distant Leeds, and never has a half-hour journey seemed so long. On arrival, I fell out onto the pavement, unable to stand up until normal circulation had returned to my legs.

Fortunately, such impositions were rare, and, by way of compensation, there were frequent occasions when, after a gig, our gear could be sent off in the taxi together with the more distantly dwelling of our number, allowing the rest of us to walk home together across Bradford, dropping off, one by one, as each of our destinations was reached, until only Frank and me were left. The warm glow of shared achievement and companionship which enveloped us, as we talked our way through the lamplit streets under the moon and stars towards a final mug of tea in front of a dying fire in one of the homes of we last two before reluctantly going our separate ways to bed, made such moments memorable indeed. I find myself looking back on the Semitones with unalloyed pleasure, not because we never had a dud gig, or a painful experience - we had several of both - nor because we achieved great heights of excellence in our performances, which were never more than a sketchy caricature of what we were aiming at, but because, whatever befell us, there was never any significant friction within the band.

In spite of our diverse personalities, occupations, and other interests, we continued to enjoy playing together (for less money than many of us could have earned with other bands), accepting each other's peculiarities of taste and behaviour with tolerant good humour, until the band finally broke up for reasons quite beyond our control. Perhaps if we had stayed together longer and been more ambitious for commercial success, cracks would have appeared in the cement which bound us together. As it was, none of us had any wish to "turn professional" and none of the others exhibited the slightest interest in the larger world of music which Jack and I were continuing to explore, in parallel, as it were, with our commitment to the band, occasionally going directly to a Saturday night gig from an afternoon concert which we had been obliged to attend wearing our evening dress suits, the regular working uniform of the dance band musician, discreetly shrouded under gaberdine raincoats.

3.

In those days, the City of Bradford was a County Borough, ruled over by something called "t'Corporation" which meant that it was virtually a self-governing island, so complete unto itself that there was little need for the inhabitants to venture outside its boundaries, other than to visit the countryside, the seaside, or London, where, admittedly, certain things were to be found which were not available in Bradford. The larger city of Leeds was only a few miles away, but there was little in Leeds that could not be more conveniently obtained in Bradford, and, until I went there with the Semitones for those band parts, I had only ever been to Leeds to board a "sharrer" (short for charabanc) to Bridlington for the annual family holidays of my childhood, which were always taken during Bowling Tide Week (a Tide being a Fair, and this one being traditionally held in the suburban village of Bowling), when all the mills and factories in Bradford closed down simultaneously.

Bradford's superior educational system has already been referred to, as has its extensive public transport network, access to which never seemed to be more than a short walk away. In addition to nurturing a Yorkshire County Cricket ground and a thriving weekend cricket league, each village suburb fielding its own team, Bradford had two soccer teams in the Football League - Bradford (Park Avenue) and Bradford City - and one team, Bradford Northern, in the Rugby League. There were two main line railway stations in the city centre - the London, North Eastern's Bradford (Exchange), and the London, Midland and Scottish's Bradford (Forster Square) - both of which, given the height of the Pennine Hills to the west, were termini facing in opposite directions, north and south, only a few hundred yards apart, but with the commercial heart of the city in between. There was a Bradford Cathedral, the size of a large parish church, and a massive Town Hall, the most impressive building in the city centre, with a clock tower, modelled on that of a famous Florentine building [check this out], which was audible and even visible, on a clear day, from virtually everywhere in the city.

Other large municipal buildings were the Bradford Technical College, a well-stocked Central Library, the Central Swimming Baths which doubled ingeniously as a ballroom, and, out at Manningham Park, on the way to Keighley, below the enormous bulk of Lister's Mill with it's towering mill chimney round the top of which it was said to be possible to drive a horse and cart, there was a City Museum housed in an imposingly Grecian be-columned edifice called Cartwright Hall. This being Yorkshire, however, the motivation behind the provision of these admirable civic amenities was of a distinctly practical nature, aimed at improving the minds and bodies of the ratepaying population in measurable ways. Consequently, although there was a branch public lending library and even a public bath house (always referred to as the "slipper baths") within a short walk of my own home, and no less than three public swimming baths within a radius of a mile of it, there was no municipal concert hall in Bradford's city centre.

Fortunately, there was that mega Methodist chapel, the Eastbrook Hall, easily converted, like the Bethesda chapel of my childhood, if on a much grander scale, into a quite serviceable concert hall (for the audience at least), to which I had been taken by my old school to first hear the Halle Orchestra play. It was there that my school held its annual Speech Day and it was there that the Saturday afternoon concerts were given which Jack and I attended before sometimes going on to play in the Semitones. But this was some time after we had first gone to the opera together, in August, 1942, barely six months after I had started work at the BRI and almost exactly one year to the day after experiencing my first opera in Keighley. And, once again, it was the Sadler's Wells Opera Company, still on permanent tour.

There were two commercial theatres in Bradford at the time, both of them in the hands of that great Northern impresario, Francis Laidler, as was, indeed, the Keighley Hippodrome. One, the imposing, free-standing Alhambra, dominated one corner of Town Hall Square with its twin towers and large, ornamental dome, the other, the smaller, less conspicuous Prince's Theatre facing one side of it from beyond the cenotaph. The Alhambra was renowned throughout Yorkshire for its magnificent Christmas Pantomimes featuring national, and even international, celebrities of stage, screen and radio, and for the equally star-studded variety shows it mounted during the rest of the year. The Prince's was occupied, for most of the time, by a repertory theatre company known locally as "'Arry 'Anson's Players" who performed there twice nightly, with matinees on Wednesday and Saturday, mostly drawingroom dramas. Not surprisingly, it was to the Prince's Theatre that the Sadler's Wells Opera Company came when they visited Bradford, which they continued to do, I'm happy to say, at irregular intervals until the end of the war.

Although slightly larger than the Keighley Hippodrome, the Prince's was cast in the same Victorian mould, with stalls, circle, and an upper circle, where my friend and I were invariably to be found on these occasions because, at a time when I was earning only seventeen shillings and sixpence a week, the cheapness of the seats made it possible for us to afford all the four operas usually included in the week's repertoire, each given twice (there being six evening performances and matinees on Thursday and Saturday). But sitting in "t'Gods", at the Prince's Theatre, was a unique experience in its own right, since there were no separate seats up there, only mounting rows of thinly-padded, continuous benches, curving round from one end of the balcony to the other. One consequence of this was that seats could not be reserved in advance, and only secured by queueing in the street outside the side door of the theatre until the box office opened before the performance.

With the war now in its third year, there was no shortage of supplicants for a glimpse of other, more colourful worlds through any crack in the ambient austerity surrounding them, so the queues for balcony seats for those opera performance at the Prince's began to form early, and, by the time the doors opened, had grown to seemingly over-optimistic lengths. But Jack and I were always well to the fore, and, having bought our tickets, would race up the spiral staircase to bag the best possible positions on the front benches, spreading our limbs out, once there, to occupy as comfortable an amount of space as possible. All around us, other patrons, mainly the impecunious young, would be similarly engaged in staking their claims until all the benches seemed to be completely full, at which point, a uniformed attendant of burly build, who soon became known to us as "The Bumshifter", would appear, and proceed, by a series of increasingly expressive gestures, to persuade, cajole or bully those already in situ to squeeze up closer together along the benches and make it possible for another quantum of ticket holders to be admitted.

To this day, I cannot encounter the expression "a packed house" without recalling that solid wall of humanity, stacked up into the roof of the Prince's Theatre, Bradford. It was a far cry from the stalls at the Hippodrome, Keighley, from which I had viewed my first operas in such ideal conditions, but I soon learned that, when the lights went down and the curtain went up, silence would descend, all fidgeting cease, and any sense of discomfort go into suspension (together, usually, with my disbelief) as the music drama took hold. But, unfortunately, the work performed on that first Monday evening in August, 1942, was Puccini's "Madame Butterfly" and the magic didn't work quite as well as I had led myself to expect.

For a start, there was no overture, as such, just a few dozen bars of incidental music allowing time for the audience to inspect the quaint oriental interior revealed by the rising curtain before an American naval lieutenant in uniform and a Japanese native in a curious mixture of traditional and western attire entered and began discussing the idiosyncrasies of the local domestic architecture and the country's property laws before moving on to inspect the servants. This was followed by the arrival of an older Yank in civvies and a conversation between the two compatriots about a forthcoming marriage, punctuated by exchanges on the subject of liquid refreshment such as "Another whisky?" "Yes, but not much soda", all of which I found rather uninvolving.

Obviously, I knew who these characters were and what they were up to, thanks to information gleaned from the programme, and, as the first act unfolded, snatches of melody were sung from time to time which sounded quite promising, but none of them ever seemed to really got going. Early in the second act the tragic heroine sang the only identifiably complete song in the opera, "One Fine Day", and at the end of the act there was the charming Humming Chorus, but the last act, absorbing though the drama had now become, yielded nothing I could take away with me except a resolve to find out what there was about the opera that I had missed. It never occurred to me to doubt that the fault was in myself, since I took it entirely for granted that Sadler's Wells would not have brought any but their most deservedly popular operas to wartime Bradford. Perhaps I should add that, this deferential attitude to any acclaimed artistic masterpiece which I personally found unrewarding on first acquaintance, was to stand me in pretty good stead until my own critical faculties were sufficiently well-developed for me to trust my own judgement. I can recommend it.

What I did not appreciate at the time was that Puccini's "Madame Butterfly" was a twentieth century opera (1904), whereas Verdi's "La Traviata" had been written in the nineteenth (1853), and Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro" in the eighteenth centuries (1786), and that, during the hundred and twenty years between the first and the last of these, there had been a continuous evolution in the complexity and scope of European orchestral music which had not only been reflected in the operas conceived while it was taking place, but had owed a great deal to innovations made by the composers of those very same operas, who, striving always after increasingly dramatic effect, were freer to experiment with orchestral colour and even musical form in the opera house than in the concert hall. As a result of these pressures, the operatic conventions inherited from the seventeenth century had been fashioned into new and quite different shapes.

I was eventually to learn that opera, as a distinct art form, had been literally invented, from scratch, in Florence in 1597, long before Mozart, by a group of artists, musicians and poets in imitation of what they imagined to be the characteristics of classic Greek drama, a combination of all the arts - poetry, drama, music, singing, dancing, and scene painting - in one vehicle. The idea caught on, particularly in Venice, and the earliest surviving operas still performed today are those of Monteverdi - "Orpheus" (1607), "The Return of Ulysses" (1641), and "The Coronation of Poppea"(1642). These are by no means museum pieces, and the last two in particular can, in sympathetic hands, be more engaging than many of the operas produced in later years when opera had become a popular form of entertainment throughout the whole of Europe. By which time three different kinds of opera had developed.

The two most prominent forms were Italian in origin - serious opera (opera seria) and comic opera (opera buffa) - each with its own set of conventions, although both relied on the unfolding of a story line upon which separate songs (arias) were strung like beads, and such dialogue as was required to move the plot along between the arias was sung, to sketchy instrumental accompaniment, in a sort of declamatory freestyle chant called recitative. Opera seria concerned itself with stories and legends, usually of a tragic nature, about the gods, heroes, kings, and queens of antiquity, who expressed themselves, because of their exalted status, entirely in elaborately ornamented solo arias of an introspective nature, which were delivered by singers of such highly acclaimed virtuosity that credibility of plot was progressively sacrificed on the alter of vocal display. Opera buffa was developed in reaction to the unremitting nobility of the sentiments aired by one statuesque protagonist after another in opera seria, drawing on earlier forms of popular musical entertainment, such as the traditional comedia del arte, to portray more recognisable, less morally elevated characters, usually involved in amorous intrigues of a sufficiently convoluted nature to give rise to duets, trios, quartets, and other ensembles of an exhilarating complexity. This is the style in which Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro" was composed.

Meanwhile, in countries outside Italy, other forms of light opera were being developed using the local vernacular, with spoken dialogue between the songs instead of recitative. This was known as ballad opera in England, opera comique in France, singspiel in Germany, and zarzuella in Spain. Mozart wrote two fine examples of singspiel, "The Escape from the Seraglio" and "The Magic Flute" which still feature in the popular repertoire. Mozart, in fact, played a pivotal role in the development of opera, moving freely between opera seria, opera buffa and singspiel, allowing his genius to disregard the conventions whenever it suited him to introduce elements of opera seria into both opera buffa and singspiel. His masterpiece, "Don Giovanni", is ostensibly a free-flowing opera buffa, but it starts with an indecent assault followed quickly by a murder, and ends with the unrepentant culprit being dragged down to hell by an animated stone statue. Lots of fun and games in between, of course, but dark deeds and detective work dominate the plot and colour the music to such an extent that what is arguably the greatest opera ever written is quite impossible to categorise.

By Verdi's time, commercial pressures (particularly from the bourgeois Parisian audiences whose tastes now dominated the European operatic scene), had continued the erosion of these earlier distinctions until opera seria had become grand opera, which, as the name implies, was as lavishly mounted as the size of the theatre and the ingenuity of its stage machinery would allow. Like opera seria, it was sung throughout, but now told romantic tales with tragic endings about members of the upper classes who had figured in momentous events in the not too distant past, or in contemporary plays or novels on similar themes. It differed from opera seria, also, in featuring on-stage choruses and ballets as well as ensembles ranging from duets to sextets between the various protagonists whenever a suitable opportunity to do so arose from the plot, all of them borrowings, originally, from opera buffa, which, itself, continued to thrive in a "grander" form. As did opera comique, which, in spite of its name, was not necessarily funny in intention. and differed from grand opera, in the end, only by involving more characters from the lower orders and using spoken dialogue between the arias.

More importantly for the future, however, was the tendency in the mainstream grand opera for the demarcation between recitative and aria to disappear as the dialogue between the arias, and the orchestral accompaniment to it, became more aria-like (or arioso) in conception, and the arias became less decorative and introspective. Because it dared to be a contemporary moral tale rather than a romantic period drama, Verdi's "La Traviata" was a commercial failure when it was first performed, but, in other respects, it is not untypical of the grand opera of its period. The luxurious salon-ballroom-casino scenes allow plenty of scope for extravagant display and even for the introduction of the ballet dancers, with whom the Parisian male audiences were so besotted that no opera was thought to be complete without them. More remarkable, however, is the continuous, sinewy flow of the music, carrying the action along and supporting the vocal line between the arias, particularly in the all-important first act which gets the story off to flying start. There are several recognisably distinct arias in this act but they seem to emerge quite naturally from the sung dialogue, and, although they contain a certain amount of decoration and even some repetition, their gist is to move the story forward instead of holding up the action in the interests of vocal display, as had the arias in the opera seria of the past. Clearly, the dramatic is taking over from the decorative.

But it was a contemporary of Verdi's, the German composer Richard Wagner (whose works I had yet to encounter), who took the ultimate step of integrating all the contributory elements of traditional opera into one continuously unfolding tapestry of interwoven words and music, and ensure that, by the time Puccini came to write "Madame Butterfly" the transformation, in Italian opera, was complete, and the boundaries between dialogue and aria had all but disappeared in the interests of realism, or verismo, as it was called when it was adopted as a deliberate style of opera composition in the 1890s. Decoration and repetition had also gone from the vocal line and even from the orchestral accompaniment which now took on a significantly expanded role in the narration of the story, in fact, the orchestra had become, not only a major player in the drama, but a reliable source of information about what was happening on the stage. Thus, the musical structure of opera had grown to resemble that of a symphonic poem, or, better still, a concerto for voices and orchestra, in which significant patterns emerge in either the vocal line or the orchestral accompaniment, and are developed, intertwined, distorted, and deconstructed to any extent that might serve to increase the emotional impact of the drama.

Little wonder, then, that, after "The Marriage of Figaro", and "La Traviata", I found "Madame Butterfly" rather unrewarding on first acquaintance. I was sixteen, I was looking at the surface and listening for the songs. By the time Sadler's Wells brought the opera to Bradford again (with no less a person than Joan Cross in the title role) I was learning to listen to the music three-dimensionally, as it were, and Puccini's magic had begun to cast the spell which continues to bind me to his operas today. How, I ask myself now, could I ever have found that first act of "Madame Butterfly" with its heavenly choir announcing the arrival of the bride and her retinue, its brutal execration of the apostate Butterfly by her uncle the Bonze, and its final love duet, probably the most erotic piece of musical intercourse ever performed on an operatic stage, all this thematic material woven throughout the act into one organic whole, how could I ever have found it so uninvolving? But I did then. Fortunately. however, the following evening my friend and I went to the opera again, this time it was Verdi's "Rigoletto". What a comeback!

If anything was needed to restore my belief in opera as value for money, it was this masterpiece of Verdi's middle period. "Rigoletto" has everything - a convincing storyline, lifelike characters interacting with each other in ways which inspired Verdi to produce a wider variety of vocal and orchestral effects than he had ever done before. It was a milestone in a career which still had more than forty successful years to go, and he himself was known to refer to it later as his best opera, describing it once as "...the best subject as regards theatrical effect that I've ever set to music." It certainly went down well with me. I sat through it completely entranced by the story and the music, unfolding in a seemingly continuous succession of arias, many of which I recognised - choruses, solos, duets, trios, culminating, of course, in the famous quartet in the last act. [For the record, Rigoletto was sung that night by Tom Williams, the Duke by Ben Williams (there was even a Rhys Williams singing Borsa!), Gilda by Rose Hill, the murderous Sparafucile, one of my favourite opera characters, by Roderick Lloyd (the Welsh were out in force, it seems, with Myfanwy Edwards singing Giovanna), and Maddalena by Rose Morris].

After "Rigoletto", only the wildest of horses could have prevented me from going to any opera that came Bradford's way during the next four years, and I soon found that such visitations did not depend only on the wartime wanderings of Sadler's Wells. Surprising as it may seem today, there was another opera company in existence at the time which had been touring the provinces since long before Sadler's Wells had been blitzed into doing so. Now called the Royal Carl Rosa Opera Company, it had been founded as long ago as 1873 by a German violinist of that name, allegedly as a showcase for the talents of his wife, Euphrosene Parepa, an English-born soprano of Greek/Italian parentage, but with the overt aim of presenting opera in English, and had not only given the first performances in English of such famous works as "The Flying Dutchman", "Rienzi", "Lohengrin", "Carmen", and "Aida" but had also commissioned a number of British composers to write operas for the company.

[I later learned that, in its heyday the Carl Rosa had three ensembles touring simultaneously and even had its own train, with its principals up front, gentlemen's chorus behind and a separate carriage for the ladies chorus. The company began to flounder after WWII and finally folded in 1960. Its reserves were used to support a trust charged with maintaining its historic costume collection and music archive and funding scholarships for young singers. Amazingly resuscitated in 1998 for a three week tour of the North of England to celebrate the 125th anniversary of its foundation which was so successful that a three month season followed in 1999 and by 2000, an ensemble of 60+ singers and musicians was performing for 47 weeks a year and embarked on a tour of ANZ in 2001, Japan on 2002.]

Originally given to mounting long London seasons followed by star-studded stints in Manchester and other major provincial cities, plus tours of America, by the time it came to my grateful attention the Carl Rosa had undoubtedly seen better days, but I didn't know that then, although it was obvious, even to me, that the company's singers did not quite measure up to the vocal talents of the Sadler's Wells team. What the Carl Rosa did have, however, was the scenery and props available to mount more ambitious productions, and, being an established touring company, to do this at the more prestigious Alhambra whenever it visited Bradford. For my friend and me, this meant the relative luxury of separate Upper Circle seats, bookable in advance, and relief from the attentions of the Prince's Theatre's "Bumshifter", although it has to be said that the Alhambra had the steepest rake of an Upper Circle I have ever encountered. Taking one's seat up there for the first time could be a rather unnerving experience (and probably still is), a bit like looking over the edge of a cliff. I can remember on one occasion, meeting, as I was going in, two soldiers coming out, one of whom, obviously distressed and pale, was trying to explain to the other that he couldn't possibly occupy the seat he had just purchased without being taken ill. The poor devil must have been acrophobic.

Unfortunately, my only Carl Rosa programmes to have survived the vicissitudes of my seventy plus years on earth since then, are for Johann Strauss's "Die Fledermaus" and Puccini's "La Boheme", but I know that I also saw them do Verdi's "Il Trovatore" and that ever popular double bill of short operas, Mascagni's "Cavalleria Rusticana" and Leoncavello's "I Pagliacci" (commonly known as "Cav and Pag"). I know this because I can clearly remember two things about these performances which might serve to convey the flavour of those wartime Carl Rosa productions. The first occurred in the second act of "Il Trovatore" when the curtain rose on the famous Anvil Chorus to reveal that, in the hope of lending an air of verisimilitude to the proceedings, a fully functioning electrical carbon arc had been incorporated into the hammer and anvil of one of the labouring blacksmiths. The result was that three of the gypsies were hammering away mightily to no visible effect while a fourth was lightly touching hammer to anvil with extreme caution to produce an almighty blinding flash which was not only rather distracting to the cast, but gave rise to much rib-nudging in the upper circle.

The other incident arose from the exigencies of the plot and the casting of a particular performance of "Cavalleria Rusticana", in the second half of which, Alfio, the wronged husband, challenges Turiddu, the adulterer, to a duel. In accepting the challenge, Turiddu is obliged by Sicilian custom (this being a verismo opera) to grab hold of Alfio and bite his ear, an action which, difficult enough as it was to interpret when first beheld, was rendered even more ambiguous, in the Carl Rosa production, by the fact that the role of Alfio was filled by Kingsley Lark, well-known at the time for being "the tallest man in opera", standing well over six feet, while the tenor playing Turiddu was barely five feet tall and rather on the plump side. This meant that we were treated to the spectacle of an impassioned Turiddu rushing across the stage to leap up and wrap his arms around the neck of an Alfio who had obligingly bent himself forward to receive what looked very like a fond embrace sealed with a loving kiss. It took some sorting out, as they say in Yorkshire.

Verdi wrote "Il Trovatore" between "Rigoletto" and "La Traviata" and it contains some of his finest music, but, unlike the other two, it tells a story which is dramatically unconvincing. The opera is notorious for the alleged incomprehensibility of its plot, but this is not entirely fair, since, compared with, say, Verdi's own "Simon Boccanegra", the plot of "Il Trovatore" is a model of clarity, although it does rely rather heavily on a lot of early exposition of the "let-me-remind-all-of-you-that-the-boss-is-madly-in-love-with-the-heroine-and-very-jealous-of-an-elusive-rival" variety, and even has to resort to the "tell-us-that-story-again-old-man-about-how-the-boss's-brother-mysteriously-disappeared-about-twenty-years-ago" ploy in order to prepare the audience for future developments. And it has to be conceded that, even when sung in English, this important information can be difficult to grasp, but the real problem is the unbelievability of the plot which harks back to the days when the libretto of an opera was expected to provide excuses, rather than reasons, for the arias to be sung, and characters were motivated and behaved in ways which served this purpose with little regard for the realities of life as it was actually lived.

None of which prevented "Il Trovatore" from being a big success from the beginning, nor its music from becoming immensely popular in the world outside the opera house, but the fact that it could be enjoyed for the music alone did not blind me to its shortcomings, even at that first encounter, because I was already beginning to learn from my own reactions to it that opera, as music drama, can be more powerfully affecting than either music or drama experienced separately. For this magic to work, however, there has to be something like a chemical reaction between the constituent elements to produce an effect which is more than the sum of its parts and makes the whole work superior in quality to the music, or the drama, or even the singing that goes into it. For me, the catalyst for this transmutation seems to lie in the credibility of the characters and the extent to which I can be persuaded to care about them.

The importance of this extra dimension was made apparent to me by the juxtaposition of "Cav and Pag". Mascagni's "Cavalleria Rusticana" was sensationally successful when it first appeared in 1890 and is credited with initiating the verismo movement in opera by exploring rough peasant life in a remote Sicilian village "according to concepts which are absolutely modern (in that) its music springs and spreads solely from the situation and not according to the old pattern of construction (based) on the aria." as one eminent contemporary critic wrote. There is no doubt that Mascagni's music is arresting, although it features both arias and choruses which would not have seemed out of place in more conventional operas of the time, and there are passages where the emotional weight of the music overloads the banality of the words being sung.

The plot, however, is easy to follow, since it verges on the vestigial and is entirely set in the village square on Easter Sunday, but it doesn't get going until a good deal of local colour has been evoked, first, by a chorus of villagers singing about the joys of being villagers, then, by Alfio, a waggoner, singing about the joys of being a waggoner. After the villagers have gone into church, what eventually emerges, as told by a young woman, Santuzza, to an older one, Lucia, who keeps the corner wineshop, is that the latter's son, the eponymous hero, Turridu, an unemployed ex-soldier, is a man with few redeeming features. Having previously seduced Santuzza with promises of marriage, he has now cast her aside to pursue an adulterous affair with the lovely Lola, whenever her husband, Alfio, is waggoning away from home. This exposition is followed by a static choral number, an Easter Hymn, after which everyone goes into church except Santuzza, who waits to confront Turridu, when he finally makes his appearance, with her knowledge of his affair with Lola, and begs him to make an honest doormat of her, a request which Turridu contemptuously refuses after abusing her for spying on him. Their conversation is interrupted at one point by Lola herself flouncing across the stage on her belated way to church, giving the guilty pair an opportunity to humiliate Santuzza still further by flaunting their illicit relationship at her.

After Turridu has followed Lola into church, along comes Alfio, also late for church, to be told by the now vengeful Santuzza about what has been going on in his bed behind his back. Not surprisingly, Alfio reacts to this news with threats of violence against his wife's lover, whereupon Santuzza is moved to indulge in remorse for her indiscretion before they both go off, leaving the stage empty for the famously lyrical orchestral Intermezzo, after which events take their inevitable course. The villagers emerge from the church and head for the wineshop where Turridu sings an ingratiating drinking song, but Alfio insults the offered wine in words which leave Turridu with no alternative but to bite his ear. Alfio exits to await their confrontation in the orchard, while Turridu, rather confusingly, voices concern about what will become of Santuzza if he loses the knife fight, and, after asking his bemused mother for her blessing and urging her to take care of Santuzza if anything should happen to him, rushes off to meet his doom, which is announced by an off-stage scream and suitably portentious music barely sixty seconds after his departure.

Apart from the ear-biting incident, itself just another piece of local colour added on for effect, there is so little on-stage action in "Cavalleria Rusticana" that the piece could be performed in the concert hall as an oratorio with little loss of dramatic impact, thus failing what was to become, in my view, the acid test of opera-worthiness. But no such criticism can be levelled at Leoncavello's "Pagliacci", which appeared only two years later with a libretto by the composer, allegedly based on an actual incident. This opera also takes place in an Italian village square, where a temporary stage has been erected for a performance later that Easter Monday evening by a troupe of travelling comedia del arte players, of which the opera's principal protagonists, Canio, the middle-aged actor-manager, Nedda, his lovely young wife, and Tonio, an ugly hunchback, are members. Before the opening scene can be revealed, however, the overture is dramatically interrupted by Tonio bursting through the curtains, in full clown's fig, to sing a prologue at the startled audience which sets out the underlying theme of what is to follow.

The gist of this well-known aria is that, under their fancy costumes and make-up, actors are ordinary human beings, subject to the same feelings, faults and failings as the audience, a fact which the drama they are about to witness will demonstrate. The curtain then rises on a scene of great excitement among the villagers as the troupe arrives on site with drums beating and much comic hoop-la. During the course of these celebrations, however, Canio is provoked into revealing a jealous nature when the crowd pokes fun at him over a piece of impromptu character-acting between Tonio and Nedda. He declares that he may be made a fool of by Columbine's flirtations with Harlequin on stage but anyone trying it on with his wife in real life would elicit quite a different response. After announcing the time of the evening's performance, Canio and the other member of the troup, Peppe (the Harlequin), go off with some of the village men to the local pub, but Tonio elects to stay behind.

Alone with Nedda, the shambling hunchback clumsily reveals that he is harbouring a genuine passion for her, and although Nedda treats this declaration as a joke at first, when Tonio tries to demonstrate his ardour, she cannot conceal her revulsion and beats him off with a whip, after which he slinks away, vowing to take his revenge. An opportunity to do so quickly presents itself when a young man called Silvio enters to reveal himself as Nedda's secret lover, and tries to persuade her to give up her wandering life and come away with him, little knowing that their preliminary embraces have been observed by the still lurking Tonio who has gone off to fetch Canio from the tavern. The two of them arrive back just as Nedda has agreed to elope with Silvio after the evening's performance and the couple are again demonstrating their affection for each other, at the sight of which Canio explodes with rage and pursues the fleeing Silvio into the woods, leaving Tonio to gloat over Nedda's predicament.

When the distraught Canio returns, having failed to catch up with his quarry, he threatens to kill Nedda unless she tells him the name of her lover, something which she steadfastly refuses to do, but before he can carry out his threat, Tonio takes him aside and advises him to hold his hand, pointing out that Nedda's lover will certainly be in the audience for the evening's performance and might somehow reveal himself. This calms Canio down sufficiently for him to declare that, as the show must go on, he will deal with Nedda later, but, left alone to prepare himself for the performance, he gives vent to his true feelings about this tactic in one of the most famous (and self-pitying) arias ever written.

The dramatic impact of the second part of "Pagliacci" owes much to the fact that the action takes place on a stage on the stage. The audience assembles, the curtain rises and the players begin to perform their well-worn routines to the accompaniment of suitably light-hearted music. Pagliacco is enticed away by Taddeo so that Columbine can entertain Harlequin to supper in his absence, much to the delight of the audience, but a sombre note soon intrudes as Canio, unable to control his feelings when returning to the stage, steps out of character to reproach Nedda for her infidelity, something which the audience greets at first as a new and entertaining twist to the old plot. The tension heightens as Nedda tries desperately to return to the spirit of the original comedy, but Canio is too far gone in rage and demands to know the name of her lover. When she replies inconsequentially with the forced lightness of a Columbine, he snaps completely and, picking up a table knife, stabs her in the heart. Realising, too late, that Nedda needs help, Silvio rushes to her assistance from his place in the now horrified audience only to be stabbed to death himself by Canio, who then lowers the curtain and tells us that the comedy is ended.

Now, that is an opera! It may be second rate drama set to second rate music, but, in my book at least, it is undoubtedly first rate opera. All the action takes place on stage, the characters are well enough drawn for us to empathise with them, they interact with each other in credible ways, and sing passionate words set to music which adds to their emotional weight without overloading them. Little wonder, then, that "Pagliacci" was as big a hit as "Cavalleria Rusticana" had been, nor that the two operas became so indissolubly linked together in the operatic repertoire. On the strength of this achievement, both Mascagni and Leoncavello went on to write further operas, but none of these has stood the test of time, although Leoncavello did enjoy some success with his "La Boheme", but, unfortunately, it wasn't as good as Puccini's version which had appeared the year before.

"La Boheme" was Puccini's first really verismo opera, but I was unaware of this distinction when I saw it done by the Carl Rosa, who, incidentally, had been responsible for its first performance in England back in 1897. Fortunately, I found it less uninvolving on first acquaintance than "Madame Butterfly", having been bounced by Puccini, once again, sans overture, straight into the opera buffa behaviour of an impecunious and irreverent bunch of male bohemians (poet, painter, scholar and musician) making mock high drama out of trying to keep themselves warm and fed (and avoid paying the rent) in their Parisian garret. This opening sequence of male voice duet, trio, quartet, and, finally (with the arrival of the landlord), quintet could hardly fail to be entertaining, but, cleverly written as it is, it depends, for its full effect, on a better understanding of the genuinely witty words than can usually be obtained from a live performance, even when sung in English. It was to be many years before I came to appreciate this fact while watching the opera sung in Italian, but subtitled in English, on video.

There is no difficulty, however, in following what transpires when a young lady from upstairs drops in on the now solitary poet before he can follow his boisterous friends to the pub. It's a simple case of boy meets girl, and, after chatting each other up in the moonlight, they fall in love, but it would be no exaggeration to say that, in the sequence of arias Puccini wrote for this lovely long exchange between Mimi and Rudolfo, he was presenting the world with the credentials of an opera composer standing head and shoulders above his contemporaries. It was only spoiled for me, on that first occasion, by the failure of either of the Carl Rosa principals quite to reach the excruciatingly high final notes they are required to sing off stage as they depart, arm in arm, to join the gang at the Cafe Momus where the second act is to take place. A second act, happily, no less accessible than the first, and, given the number of characters on stage and the amount of activity they engage in during the course of it, one of Puccini's greatest pieces of operatic architecture.

The bohemians' rendezvous is a pavement cafe in a bright and busy square in the Latin Quarter where a lot of last minute Christmas Eve shopping is taking place, but the principal theme of the action is the stormy relationship between the painter, Marcello, and his estranged girl friend, Musetta, who quite ruins his evening by making a flamboyant entrance on the arm of an elderly admirer and deliberately seating herself at an adjoining table. Provoked by Marcello's attempts to ignore her, she embarks on an increasingly outrageous counter-offensive to attract his attention, culminating in an aria which entertains everyone within earshot to a catalogue of her own physical charms. This is, of course, the so-called Waltz Song I had first encountered on a gramophone record in that cottage on the edge of the moors, but, seductive as it is, it fails to achieve her desired effect until the now desperate Musetta tricks her consort into leaving the scene, whereupon Marcello finally succumbs. Rising from his seat, to a swirling orchestral arpeggio, he sings of his admiration for her to the melody of her own song, a vocal tribute in which he is quickly joined by Colline and Schaunard, the other two bohemians, who have been deriving a great deal of amusement from the "stupendous comedy" being played out before them.

For me, this is one of those really great moments in opera when music and drama combine to deliver something I like to think of as "the authentic operatic experience" - a genuinely physical effect, a sort of tingling sensation running pleasurably down the spine, more intense than any such thrill produced by music or drama separately, although the hairs at the back of my neck have never been immune to being disturbed by either. There are none of these moments, however, in the third act of "La Boheme" which is, to my mind, more "Cavalleria Rusticana" than "Pagliacci". There is plenty of good music, of course, and the setting is picturesque, but the action is confined to a series of rather contrived exchanges between the four principals conveying the information that, in the two months which have elapsed since the end of the second act, the rosy glow has faded and the relationship between Rudolfo and Mimi has proved even more unworkable, if for different reasons, than that between Marcello and Musetta. Although Mimi goes off with Rudolfo in the end, this is not before she has overheard him telling Marcello that she is dying of tuberculosis and needs someone wealthier than him to look after her.

The purpose of this third act is merely to set things up for the last act which takes place in the Monmatre garret where it all began, and where generous helpings of top quality opera remain to be served, ranging from the pinings of Rudolfo and Marcello for their lost loves, through the escapist horseplay they indulge in when joined by their fellow bohemians, dramatically interrupted by the entrance of Musetta with the news that the dying Mimi is outside, to the final death bed scene itself. Needless to say, Puccini does not allow any of these opportunities to slip through his fingers when weaving his musical web around them, and while it would be wrong to say that everyone in the audience weeps over the death of little Mimi, it is difficult to see how any operagoer could remain unmoved by it. Puccini wrings more pathos out of Mimi than he does out of either Butterfly or Tosca, both of whom die heroic, and poignant deaths by their own hand to the accompaniment of orchestral fortissimos which leave the audience stunned with horror and pity, rather than shedding a silent tear. Like his Manon before her, Mimi simply fades away, but more affectingly.

With "La Boheme", Puccini joined Mozart and Verdi in my personal Holy Trinity of opera, but I had to wait a long time for his "Tosca" and much longer for "Turandot", because the only other opera staged in wartime Bradford, apart from "Die Fledermaus", impossible not to enjoy at first acquaintance, was a work of even greater appeal. This was Rossini's "The Barber of Seville", surely the most successful opera buffa ever written after "The Marriage of Figaro", with which, remarkably, it is has no less than five characters in common, since it purports to show how the Count Almaviva of the latter work met and married his Countess, snatching her from the clutches of her guardian, Doctor Bartolo, with the help of the eponymous barber, Figaro, and the venal music-master, Don Basilio, all of whom had appeared in the earlier work. There are marked differences in characterisation, however, because "The Barber" is much more overtly farcical than "The Marriage", and was cobbled together by Rossini in about three weeks to fill a gap in an opera season already in progress by utilising a specific range of vocal talents available to him at the time.

Even Rossini, hardened pro that he was, might have been surprised to learn that, of the 40 operas he wrote in 15 years before retiring from the stage, a wealthy man, in his mid-thirties, this early pot boiler would be the one he was to be most remembered by, but repeated viewings never seem to detract from its appeal. The plot is virtually traditional commedia del arte - the plans of an elderly guardian to marry his nubile ward are frustrated by a young nobleman, who, posing as a poor student and ably assisted by the harliquinesque local barber, penetrates the heavily guarded household in disguise, twice, before succeeding in marrying the girl himself after a failed elopement - but, as it rattles along behind the almost too famous overture, it throws up some of the most memorable arias in the operatic repertoire (including, of course, that "Room for the Factotum" I had encountered on my father's gramophone in my childhood), interspersed with episodes of highly inventive musical comedy, and a first act finale which involves the entire cast and chorus in a masterly crescendo of confusion that leaves everyone, audience included, quite breathless.

"The Barber of Seville" was the last of the five operas in the repertoire of the itinerant Sadler's Wells. Added to those being toured by the Carl Rosa at the time, this brought the number of different operas I had seen performed by the end of the war to ten, but the value of this investment only became apparent to me later. At the time, my appetite for opera was no greater than that for the other cultural delights on offer in Bradford during those years. One of the most memorable of which I owed to the same bombs that had rendered the Sadler's Wells Opera temporarily homeless, since, in doing so, it had simultaneously evicted the Sadler's Wells Ballet. Needless to say, my friend and I stood ready to take the fullest possible advantage of their misfortune when they came to the same Prince's Theatre as had their sibling company.

At the age of seventeen, my first encounter with ballet was at least as affecting as my introduction to opera had been at fifteen, possibly more so, there being fewer conventions in the way of full comprehension, and virtually no barriers to my appreciation of either the music or the dancing. The mild initial shock I experienced at the sight of men in tights dancing in a manner I had hitherto regarded as normal only in women, quickly gave way to my admiration for their artistry, and the muscular athleticism underpinning it - and it goes without saying that women in tights presented no problem at all. Compared to opera, which was to give me much the greater satisfaction in later years, ballet can seem rather two-dimensional, particularly if taken in excess, but there is little to dislike about it and much to enjoy, and I have to admit that I have never spent a boring evening at the ballet, whereas I have, alas, sat through several such at the opera.

It may be that the disciplines of the dance virtually guarantee that its performers will excel in beauty of form and grace of movement, unaffected by the sorts of visual incongruity which can dilute one's concentration during even the best opera productions, when, for example, the possessor of the ideal voice does not find it possible to look the part, let alone act it. But it may also be that ballet has been better positioned than opera to cope with the profound changes which have taken place, during the twentieth century, in the melodies, harmonies and rhythms favoured by the composers of serious music, some of whom have even used ballet as their chosen medium for experiment. It certainly seems to be the case that, where a modern composer has written for both ballet and opera, his ballets have found their way into the popular repertoire more easily than his operas, and also that, audiences nurtured on the operas of past centuries have experienced more difficulty in relating to the works of the 20th century than have audiences for ballets of such different vintages.

Or is it simply that opera, being more complex, is more difficult to bring off, dispensing greater pleasure when it succeeds but more acute discomfort when it fails? Happily, questions of this kind were very far from my mind when I first saw a young Margot Fonteyn dance Swanhilda to Robert Helpman's Doctor Coppelius on a cold January evening in wartime Bradford. Of course, the names meant little to me then, and I knew nothing about the finer points of ballet dancing, but I can clearly remember how Fonteyn seemed to light up the stage whenever she appeared on it, and Helpman's performances were simply riveting. My programme for Delibes "Coppelia" is the only one to survive from those Sadler's Wells Ballet Company visits, but I'm pretty certain that I also saw them do "Swan Lake" and "Giselle", although my memories of those occasions have been overwritten by later performances, and there must have been evenings devoted to shorter works, such as "Les (perennial) Sylphides", because I can vividly recall the impact made on me by Helpman in one such piece.

This was a ballet version of Shakespeare's "Hamlet", choreographed, if I remember rightly, by Helpman himself (but ? Bronislava Nijinska) to the music of Tchaikovsky's Fantasy-Overture, Opus 67, of the same name, thus requiring the entire plot of Hamlet to be encompassed within the space of just under twenty minutes, so lots of hard miming was involved, but the ballet opened with a remarkable coup de theatre. It was achieved by raising the curtain on a completely darkened stage, and then, to the accompaniment of the opening drum roll crescendo, beaming a single narrow spotlight down onto the pallid, inverted face of Helpman/Hamlet, suspended, apparently, in mid-air. There was barely time to realise that this effect had been achieved by laying Helpman flat on his back on the shoulders of four black-clad pall-bears with his head hung down backwards towards the audience, before the apparition moved rapidly away, in step with the eight descending bass clef chords with which Tchaikovsky opens the proceedings proper. This startling preview of the aftermath to Hamlet's death was repeated, once the events leading up to it had been portrayed, in its rightful place at the end of the ballet.

What a pity my programme for that performance hasn't survived. The programme for "Coppelia" shows, incidentally, that Franz was danced by Alexis Rassine, the orchestra was conducted by Constant Lambert, and, buried in the ranks of the corps de ballet, there is the name of Moira Shearer. The programme also states that "OXO will be served during the Interval. Kindly place your order with the attendant" and displays the obligatory AIR RAID WARNING NOTICE which reads "In the event of an Air Raid Warning being received during the performance, the audience will be informed at once from the stage. It should be remembered that the warning does not necessarily mean that a raid will take place and that in any case it is not likely to occur for at least five minutes. Anyone who desires to leave the theatre may do so but the performance will continue, and patrons are advised in their own interests to remain in the building".

Just as the temporary displacement of the Sadler's Wells Opera Company from its London home had led me to welcome the Royal Carl Rosa Opera Company when it too came along, so this visit by the Sadler's Wells Ballet prepared the way for the later arrival, at the Alhambra, of another touring company called the International Ballet, about whom I know nothing more than what my recollections of their performances can add to such information as can be gleaned from the three programmes of their performances which have somehow survived. The prima ballerina was a rather plump little lady called Mona Inglesby, whose sad-faced but very correct performances contrasted well with those of the other female star, the more elegent and fiery Nina Tarakanova. The leading male, Harold Turner, possessed a striking masculine physique and impressed me greatly with his use of it, while the male character parts were played by Leslie French, who was quite well-known as a Shakespearean actor at the time.

These programmes were made up of four short pieces, such as "Les Sylphides", "Carnaval", "Swan Lake (Act II), and "The Dances from Prince Igor", with one exception, when, after "Les Sylphides", they put on a two act ballet version of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night", music by Grieg, choreography by Andree Howard, with Leslie French in the part of Feste. There were two other curiosities, both of a comic nature. One was a "Humourous Ballet in Two Acts" entitled "Planetomania", music Norman Demuth, choreography Mona Inglesby, in which she cast herself as "Charlotte, an observant maid of plain countenance" opposite Leslie French's "Adam (a scientist)", and Tarakanova as the goddess Venus, with Turner playing Adonis. The second comic ballet was called "Adam and Eve and Ferdinand", music by Ernest Irvine, no choreographer mentioned, with a cast featuring Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel, Ferdinand (a snake), and a bevy of Cave Girls. It was even more far-fetched and farcical than the first, and totally unmemorable, but these pieces opened my eyes to the hitherto unsuspected comedic possibilities of ballet and gave the dancers a chance to show us a different side to their artistic personalities. As both these pieces were sandwiched together between "Swan Lake (Act II)" and the "Dances from Prince Igor" which brought the evening to a rousing conclusion, there was little to complain about.

[More than 60 years later, on October 14, 2006 to be precise, I was astonished to discover, from a lengthy obituary in the Sydney Morning Herald, reprinted from The Daily Telegraph, London, that there was much, much more to Mona Inglesby, who had died at the age of 88, than had been apparent to me at the time. Born Mona Vrendenberg, the daughter of a Dutch entrepreneur who had settled in England, she danced under her mother's maiden name after studying under Marie Rambert in London and exiled members of the Imperial Russian Ballet in Paris. At the age of 21, while working as a volunteer ambulance driver in the early days of World War Two, she decided that she could do more for the war effort by forming a ballet company to tour the country, and, borrowing enough money from her father to do so, she launched the International Ballet in spring 1940 with 40 dancers, including several from the Ballet Rambert and Sadlers Wells. She soon paid back the loan, and for the next 13 years took classical ballet to theatres and cinemas all over Britain, even to Butlin's Holiday Camps, giving the inaugural performance at the new Royal Festival Hall in 1951. The company prided itself on being “the only unit of its size in the world to present ballet consistently without adding to the taxpayers' burden”. Her other claim to fame was that she played a pivotal role in acquiring and preserving the notations of the entire repertoire of Russian Imperial Ballet, most of it created by by the great Marius Petipa, which had been smuggled out of the country following the Revolution. Of little apparent interest to anyone else at the time, these records were subsequently to enable the post-communist Kirov Ballet to reconstruct and perform “The Sleeping Beauty” in its original form to worldwide acclaim, and, “during a London tour in 2000, the reconstructors (sic) visited Inglesby...in a care home in Bexhill-on-Sea to thank her for saving these crucial texts of ballet history, though she was too frail to attend a performance”.]

As for me, by now a committed hedonist, determined to cultivate my aesthetic sensibilities to the fullest possible extent, I strove to supplement the insights gained from my visits to both the opera and ballet by devouring any printed matter I could lay my hands on that might improve my appreciation of these and any future such experiences. Fortunately, in spite of wartime restrictions, Penguin Books had recently begun publishing their admirably cheap Pelican Specials and these included "Opera" by Edward Dent, and "Ballet" by Arnold Haskell, both of which I acquired in 1943. Amazingly, considering the wartime quality of the paper, the latter is still in my possession, its tattered cover proudly proclaiming "The first COMPLETE GUIDE to BALLET and for the price of a theatre programme; its history, its theory, notes on the leading personalities and creators of modern Ballet, studies of individual ballets and of some contemporary dancers..."

Among these last I found Margot Fonteyn "...the first ballerina to be produced by the National Ballet at Sadler's Wells...ideally built, an essentially intelligent dancer with rare musicality. She has progressed from a slow, dreamy, eternal Sylphide mood into an intensity of attack that has opened to her every role in the classical repertoire."; Robert Helpman "...would be an outstanding artist at any period...incapable of making an ungraceful movement. Perfectly musical, he is a perfect partner, for partnering is a question of ear as well as of strength and good manners. His range is enormous: classical, romantic, broad farce, or subtle comedy. He shares with Massine alone the ultimate secret of true art in dancing, the ability to give positive value to a static pose."; and Harold Turner "...a magnificent technician and a truly virile personality, an example to the majority of young dancers...a classical dancer of the old type...the true premier danseur, brilliant rather than lyrical, but he has a wide enough range to be excellent in character and broad comedy. Such an artist illustrates better than anyone my remarks (elsewhere) on male dancing, and should do much to remove the national prejudice against male dancers."

That final sentence is a telling reflection on contemporary mores. Of the other dancers I had seen, Nina Tarakanova is credited with "charm and personality, which she is inclined to substitute for technique", but no reference is made, alas, to either Mona Inglesby, or the International Ballet Company. These ancient comments by Arnold Haskell are reproduced here because they tended to confirm the impressions these dancers had made upon my own untutored eye, and encourage my critical interest in ballet, although this never amounted to the passion I was later to develop for opera.

But it was upon the concert hall that my serious interest was focussed at that time, and I saw these intermittent incursions into opera and ballet, however welcome, as merely icing on a musical cake made up of two main layers. The most important of these was my regular attendance at the Bradford Subscription Concerts mounted monthly on Saturday afternoons from October to March at the Eastbrook Hall. The 1942-43 season (the seventy-eighth, this admirable institution having originated in 1866) consisted of six concerts by the Manchester-based Halle Orchestra. For some reason, the Halle had been without a resident conductor for quite a while, and relied entirely on a stable of guest conductors, who, that season, included a most illustrious pair, Sir Henry Wood, and Sir Adrian Boult. Since the soloists were pianists Solomon, Moiseiwitsch and Clifford Curzon, and violinists Ida Haendel, Eda Kersey and Henry Holst, all of them names to conjure with at the time, these concerts were very substantial affairs with hardly an empty seat in the house.

One of their most notable features, particularly in retrospect, was the availability at each concert of the Analytical Programme Notes, price sixpence. At a time when wartime restrictions had reduced the programmes at the Prince's and the Alhambra to a single flimsy folded sheet, these publications must have represented a very considerable achievement on somebody's part. My surviving programme for the fifth concert of that season (February 27th) runs to fourteen internal pages of text (numbered 66 to 79 to enable them to be bound in sequence with the notes for the other concerts in the season), lavishly interspersed with musical illustrations. Even the Overture (Schubert's "Rosamunde") merits five musical quotes, while the Brahms Violin Concerto gets fourteen, and the first piece after the interval, the Symphony No.1, Op.10, by one Dmitri Shostakovitch, a composer I had never heard of until then, has nine quotes, some of them running to several lines of stave. Although, at this point in the war, the music of our Russian allies was being extensively featured in concert programmes at the expense of that of our German foes, it says something for the artistic standards of those subscription concerts that they should feature a work by a living foreign composer only fifteen years after its first performance.

The conductor, on this occasion, was Leslie Heward, by permission of the City of Birmingham Orchestra whose musical director he had been since 1930. A local boy, born in nearby Liversedge, he was now only forty-six years old but this was to be his last Bradford concert before he died three months later. He must have been quite ill when he gave it because I can still remember the great difficulty he obviously experienced in climbing the narrow curving stairs which were the only way up to the podium after emerging from the ground-floor vestry underneath. For all its size and importance to the cultural life of Bradford, the Eastbrook Hall was still the giant Methodist Chapel it had been designed to be. The podium, replacing the pulpit, and elevated about ten feet above ground floor level, was surrounded by the stepped up stages where the choir stalls had been, and on which were now precariously perched the various sections of the orchestra, overshadowed by the massive pipes of the biggest organ in Bradford. It may have been a bit of an ordeal for the instrumentalists but I have no reason to believe that the acoustics of this intimate but light, spacious and airy hall were in any way deficient.

Although he didn't conduct any of its concerts that season, it was during 1942 that John Barbirolli, who was to conduct the Halle at all the future Subscription Concerts I attended, appeared on the scene. I know this because the programme has survived of a concert he gave with the London Symphony Orchestra sometime in May-June somewhere in Bradford, probably the Eastbrook Hall. Being the usual wartime single folded sheet produced to serve on what might be a number of different occasions, this document is short on specific information. It gives no date other than May-June 1942 and names no venue, but states on the front that the concert is "...given under the auspices of the Carnegie Trust" and on the back that "The Directors of the London Symphony Orchestra are deeply indebted to Mr. John Barbirolli for his magnificent gesture in conducting this series of concerts without remuneration." One can only speculate about the sequence of events which had led to this sudden reappearance in our midst of a conductor who, a few years earlier, had leapt from obscurity in Glasgow to world fame by taking over the baton of New York Philharmonic Orchestra when Arturo Toscanini finally relinquished it.

It seems possible that Barbirolli's New York appointment, though well deserved on merit (as his subsequent career was to prove), was an outcome of the internal power politics of the American music establishment, which left the noses of certain influential members of it out of joint, and that a loose conspiracy of these disaffected individuals made life sufficiently uncomfortable for Barbirolli, in spite of his undoubted success with the public, for him to see a return to wartime England as both a patriotic duty and a happier option. Whatever the reason, New York's loss was the North of England's gain because his effect upon Halle Orchestra at those Subscription Concerts which he conducted and I attended for the next three seasons, was quite electric. His diminutive body and big, birdlike head with its curtain of hair round those lustrous eyes, gave him a Napoleonic presence which simply dominated the Eastbrook Hall.

And how he loved to play up to the audience, if only by having a good look round them after making his entrance, and watching ostentatiously while any unfortunate stragglers found their seats, as they were allowed to do after the National Anthem had invariably been played. At the first concert of his first season, after seeing off Weber's "Oberon" Overture and taking a bow, he fiddled around with the scores on his desk for a while, then turned round and leaned over the podium rail to ask the front row of the audience below what he was supposed to be conducting next. After recovering from their surprise, they somehow managed to tell him that it was the Five Variants of "Dives and Lazarus" by Vaughan Williams, followed by the Symphonic Fragments from "Daphnis and Chloe" by Ravel, rather than the other way round. What a showman!

Even that earlier, unremunerated, concert with the London Symphony Orchestra bore the stamp of his individuality. Not only was it an All German programme at a time when we were still losing the war, but, after the respectable Beethoven's "Egmont" Overture and Seventh Symphony, the second half was devoted entirely to the music of Richard Wagner, who I had recently seen described in a book by Stefan Zweig as "The Founder of the Germany of Adolf Hitler", comprising the Prelude and Liebestod from "Tristan and Isolde", (a gramophone record of which I immediately went out and bought), the so-called "Forest Murmers" from "Siegfried". and the Overture to "Tannhauser". Quite a statement to make about our common ownership of the music of a nation with whom we were currently engaged in a fight to the death. My seven surviving Programme Notes from his three subsequent seasons of Subscription Concerts show some quite adventurous inclusions, such as the Delius Violin and Cello Concerto, Stravinsky's "Firebird" (another record purchase), and Martinu's First Symphony, but the programme for the piece I remember best from those concerts has not, alas, survived. Barbirolli's performance of Gustav Mahler's "Song of Earth" left me stunned with admiration, although it would be many years before concert programming (and long play gramophone records) allowed me to follow this up by exploring Mahler's other works.

But these were not the only orchestral concerts which it was given to me to attend in Bradford during those wartime years, nor, as it turned out, was the Eastbrook Hall the only venue capable of hosting such events, although it was not without a certain amount of surprise that Jack and I found ourselves embedded, once again, in the human wall in t'Gods at the Princess Theatre, gazing down, this time, on a stage which supported the tiered ranks of a full symphony orchestra. This was during "Bradford's International Music Week, presented by Harold Fielding" in December 1942, when, against all the odds, the fortunes of war (assisted by considerable entrepreneurial ingenuity and, possibly, a government grant) had brought the Bournemouth Philharmonic Orchestra from the depths of winter in a seaside town on the south coast of England, which was now, of course, the front line in the war with Germany, to the hospitable bosom of a crowded Prince's Theatre, where, with true wartime spirit, they gave eight concerts in six days, starting 6.15pm every night from Monday to Saturday, and 2.30pm on Thursday and Saturday.

My one surviving programme from this bonanza relates to the Wednesday evening, devoted entirely to Tschaikovsky and conducted by Dr. Malcolm Sargent. This was my first encounter with "Flash Harry" (as he later came to be called by the groundlings at the Albert Hall Promenade Concerts) of whom I became a lasting admirer (and never saw any conductor of his generation handle a choir better). The programme consisted of the March Slav, the B flat minor Piano Concerto, with the ubiquitous Solomon as soloist, and the Fourth Symphony. Information on the back of the programme reveals that the following night was all Beethoven, with Anatole Fistoulari conducting, and Solomon again soloing in my beloved "Emperor" Concerto - what power and stamina the man had!. Three other concerts featured piano duetists Rawicz and Landauer, who were famously popular at the time, but of more interest now is that two of these were conducted by one Reginald Goodall, who must surely be the he, who, thirty years later, was significantly to improve the quality of my life by his conducting of, first, Wagner's "Mastersingers" and then, his complete Ring cycle for the English National Opera at the Coliseum - a far cry from the concerts he gave on that occasion, one of which featured Rawicz and Landauer "in a special arrangement of the music from Walt Disney's greatest triumph SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS", and somebody called Piccaver in "well-known songs and arias".

Given my age and relative inexperience, I cannot vouch for the quality of the performances I witnessed during that extraordinary week at the Prince's Theatre, but I do know that, of all the many concerts I have attended since, there have been few I enjoyed more. After the cool, clear, sacramental spaces of the Eastbrook Hall, the sheer physical immediacy of the orchestra, piled up on the stage below us in the darkened little theatre, fully focussed the attention and made for concentration of a truly transcendental order. Seeing every move the musicians made, hearing every note they played, I could feel my comprehension of the inner workings of that great musical machine growing exponentially as I watched. But my deepening appreciation of the music I heard at these performances was due largely to the enlightenment I was gaining, in the spaces between concert-going, from the steady diet of classical music on gramophone records being fed to me by my friend and colleague, Jack. This was the second layer in my musical cake.

Although Jack's record collection, unlike Frank's, consisted of mainly 12" records which could accommodate nearly twice as much music as the 10" ones more common in jazz, this still amounted to little more than 5 minutes on each side at 78rpm, with the result that any substantial opus required a multi-record set and a great deal of work on the winding handle. But this was an inconvenience to which we were inured. A bigger problem was that, whereas Frank lived within easy walking distance of my home, Jack lived at the other side of the city, making it difficult to arrange the more settled conditions required for listening to the longer lengths of classical music. Fortunately, however, Jack and I had a second home in common at the BRI where, in the Dermatology Department right next door to the X Ray Department, there happened to be a large acoustic gramophone. This venerable instrument was used by the Skin Department (as it was always called) for a purpose which casts an interesting light on the therapeutic practices of the period.

Before the discovery of antibiotics and cortisone, the treatment of those debilitating skin conditions which were to respond so miraculously to these wonder drugs relied on remedies bordering at times on witchcraft. In desperation, the dermatologists of the day were driven to experiment with any combination of substances, whether approved by the British Pharmacopoeia or not, which might bring relief from suffering when applied to the affected part, and Frank spent a great deal of his time in the dispensary preparing these often foul smelling unguents. There was, however, one 20th century therapy, Ultraviolet Radiation, which promised some benefit, however small, in these cases, and the Skin Department was generously supplied with the means for delivering it. The main treatment room had four tall, powerful UVR lamps standing equidistantly apart outside a large white circle painted on the floor, around which, with all four lamps full on, numbers of patients were required to process in the semi-nude for carefully calculated periods of time, first in one direction and then the other.

Since they were all wearing very dark goggles to protect their eyes from the rays, this activity was more easily accomplished without mishap at a measured pace to the sound of suitable marching music, and this, of course, was where the gramophone came in. "The Teddy bears' Picnic" was a great favourite, I remember. Needless to say, the staff of the X Ray Department were not slow to avail themselves of this artificial sunshine, after hours, in the depths of winter, although Leonard, as usual, tended to overdo it, and appear before us next morning incongruously red in the face, with sharply contrasting white eye sockets. And there was nothing to prevent Jack and I from commandeering the gramophone for our own use whenever we stayed overnight at the BRI, which we often did, after those Saturday evening gigs at the Co-op Instutute, finding it more convenient to sleep at the BRI than to go home and cross Bradford again for the Home Guard parade there on Sunday morning. On these occasions, Jack having brought a selection of records to the BRI beforehand, we were able to spend many a happy hour together in the staff room of the darkened and isolated X Ray Department listening to them in rapt concentration.

Since Jack's record collection reflected his remarkable mind rather than his unremarkable appearance, there was little in it of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms, whose works, he pointed out, were well enough represented in the concerts broadcast by the BBC to leave him free to invest in composers held in lower regard by the musical establishment of the time, such as Berlioz, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, and Richard Strauss. In those days, classical music was still seen, to a great extent, as the province of an elite who had been brought up with access to it, and could afford to attend concerts regularly, and there was a distinct bias among this class of person in favour of the symphonic form as the most elevated state to which music could aspire, and any composer whose works were judged to be deficient in this respect, or insufficiently rigorous in pursuit of it, was regarded as second rate. An additional anathema was reserved for those whose compositions were sufficiently tuneful to be dismissed as "popular", so Tchaikovsky, with his three symphonies, two concertos, three full-length ballets, two operas (one of them a true masterwork), and sundry chamber pieces still regularly performed, was excluded from the top table on both counts.

But not from my friend's collection, which was strongly inclined towards the more colourful orchestral outpourings of the so-called Romantic movement. In addition to Tchaikowsky's 5th and 6th, and Sibelius's 1st and 2nd Symphonies, however, a particular favourite of those late night sessions in the X Ray Department was Berlioz's "Fantastic Symphony". This revolutionary work, written in 1828, only a year after the death of Beethoven, and five years before Brahms was born, when Wagner was a mere 25 years old, pointed a way ahead for the symphony which took, via Liszt, more than half a century to come to fruition in Tchaikovsky, and, after him, Mahler. Bruckner and Sibelius. The "Symphonie Fantastique" occupies a special place in my affections because I got to know it better than any piece of classical music I had previously heard. This was due to the fact that my companion introduced me to a version of it, the like of which I had never previously encountered - the full orchestral score.

Naturally, I was overwhelmed by the prospect at first, because, although I had, since returning to Bradford, learned to play the clarinet and saxophone well enough to form a dance band, my ability to read even a single line of music was still underdeveloped, but, to my own amazement, under Jack's careful tutelage, and with regular practice, I soon found myself able to follow, initially, the first violins - who usually have the most to do - without getting lost, and then the other parts in more and more detail. It was a remarkable experience to undergo barely two years after going out into the world as a musical ignoramus, and it marked a sort of watershed in my development. It was as if I had been initiated into a secret society from which I could never be expelled, and although I never achieved the kind of mastery enjoyed by those gifted few who can sight read a full score in the same way that the rest of us can read a play and reconstitute it in the theatre of the mind, I became perceptive enough, eventually, to be able to "see" things buried in the undergrowth of a musical landscape unrolling before me which I had failed to "hear" before.

From this point onward, my musical horizons never ceased to expand, nor my tastes to develop and my confidence in them to grow, but in this, as in so many other things in life, opportunity continued to be more important than the ability to take advantage of it. Fortunately for me, in spite of the war (or because of it, perhaps) opportunities continued to present themselves from the most unlikely sources on a broad cultural front.

MY LIFE AT THE OPERA: PART ONE

Chapter Four: 1943-46

Hitherto, while the unfolding tapestry of my own young life was being so richly embroidered in Bradford, my less fortunate country had elsewhere been losing the war, but a turning point came in the winter of 1942-3 when the Germans, after finally giving ground at El Alamain and Stalingrad, began their long walk backwards to Berlin, and, by the end of 1943, the Allies were slowly moving into the ascendant. As a possible consequence of this, when my eighteenth birthday came around in October (shortly after Italy had surrendered), the Government decided that I would be of more use to the country taking X-Rays at the BRI until I could qualify as a Member of the Society of Radiographers at the age of twenty, than serving in some minor capacity in the armed forces. Consequently, the winter of 1943-4 found me left behind on the Home Front with Frank and Jack and the other Semitones while my old classmates, Cliff and Brad, were "called up", both, coincidentally, into the Navy, Brad into the admin branch to wear an ill-fitting dark blue suit over a white shirt with collar and tie, Cliff into the real Navy as a rating clad in the traditional uniform with its huge collar and bell-bottomed trousers.

Any gap in my busy life created by their departure was quickly filled by a new friend I was making at the time whose name was Mike. Like Frank, he had lived for years quite close at hand, barely a quarter of a mile away, up a short steep hill in what was virtually an extension of my own street into a better class area of detached and semi-detached stone houses bordering on the upper edge of the municipal golf course. He had even attended my old school, and was still in the Upper Sixth there taking his Higher School Certificate when our closer acquaintanceship began, but his being a year younger than me and my two year's absence in Keighley had prevented our paths from crossing before. I was aware of his existence, of course, and those of his brother Keith (who had also attended the school, but a year ahead of me), and his two sisters, Barbara and Josephine, having seen them around the neighbourhood. They were a remarkable family in a number of ways, not the least of which being that they were Southerners who did not seek to disguise a manner of speech which set them clearly apart from the local tribe.

Having been brought up to "mind your own business" and "take people as you find them" without asking "nosey" questions about their background and antecedents (and being, in any case, far too pre-occupied with the fascinating here and now of my own expanding horizons to care deeply about such things at the time), I never got the full picture, nor was I ever volunteered a detailed explanation of why it was that they had a mother but no father living with them, although it was never clearly stated that their father was dead. Or how they came to have an older step-brother who visited them occasionally and was a regular NCO in the RAF, a fact that was to have a significant bearing on Mike's future. Or even which part of "The South" they had come from, when, and why. I simply took them at face value without wondering what it was about them, other than their posh accents, that made them so different from me and mine, because I was only too pleased to find, in Mike, someone with whom I could share most of my burgeoning cultural interests in a hugely convivial manner.

I was to realise later that, in spite of the modest material circumstances in which they were currently living, they were, in fact, the first middle class family I had ever penetrated, but, at the time, I was relatively insensitive to class distinctions, and even after becoming fully alive to their significance, have never felt unduly constrained by them in my daily dealings with the world. I knew, of course, that I myself was working class, but felt no discomfort with the knowledge, and I could see that Mike was different, but I put this down to his being 'affected', which he undoubtedly seemed to be. Now, in mid-twentieth century Yorkshire, affectation in any shape or form was just about the worst sin in the book, and anyone "putting on airs" was seen as crying out to be "taken down a peg or two". But my two years at the BRI had brought me into contact with many strange intruders from the outside world, particularly among the junior housemen, so the impact on me of Mike's distinguishing mannerisms was less than it might previously have been.

Being the strong character he was, it is possible that the unfavourable reception which his strange southern speech would undoubtedly have received from his Yorkshire classmates when he was first dropped in among them, had produced in him a stubborn reaction against conforming to their rude northern ways - pushing him, rather, into emphasising his difference from them, flaunting it, even? Or it may have been an inherent fondness for theatricality. Whatever the reason, he came across, at seventeen, in speech and manner, as a fully formed sophisticate, wittily wise in the ways of a world that was on no account to be taken seriously. And he certainly looked the part, being tall and handsome, with a large, patrician head surmounted by a generous amount of blond hair. I soon found that underneath this rather insouciant exterior there was a hard-nosed realist, ambitious for the good things in life, and determined to obtain them by any legal means. He was hungry, therefore, like me, for new adventures, whether social or cultural, and ready to sally forth in search of them whenever an opportunity to do so presented itself. All of which made him extremely good company, and the rapport we established was soon to come to full fruition in what I can only describe as a week-long cultural debauch in the last place I would have expected to find myself at that time - the distant metropolis of London.

Not surprisingly, it took an unlikely sequence of events to bring this about, and the first step was taken by Messrs Kodak Ltd., the world-famous manufacturers of, among other things, X Ray films, who, as part of their long-term marketing strategy, suddenly began offering free courses for student radiographers at their London headquarters in Kingsway. Next, our friendly Chief Radiographer, ever alive to his tutorial responsibilities, succeeded, against the odds, in persuading the BRI to take advantage of this opportunity and send Leonard and me off, with a modest but adequate travel and subsistence allowance, for a whole working week in London. We could scarcely believe our luck. The course turned out to be a pretty undemanding affair, hastily cobbled together under wartime conditions, which left us completely free from 5pm til bedtime to find out how much of the affordable nightlife of London we could reach from our bed and breakfast accommodation.

This turned out to be quite a lot, because we had been booked in at the Central YMCA in Great Russell Street, a remarkably cheap and ideally situated base of operations with the whole of the West End within walking distance, and easy access to the entire Tube network (and what a revelation that was!) virtually on the doorstep. Amazingly, it also boasted a full-sized swimming pool in the basement, an unusual feature of which, was that use could only be made of it by not wearing a bathing costume. The purpose of this rule, we were given to understand, was to make it possible for visitors like ourselves who had understandably failed to pack such an item, to avail themselves of the facility without embarrassment. I could not help noticing, however, that our indulgence in what was, for us provincials, the unique experience of nude bathing among strangers was covertly observed on each occasion by several well-hung older men who, having apparently bathed, were slowly towelling themselves dry while appearing to be deep in conversation among themselves.

Our victualling arrangements were completed by the discovery that, strategically placed around the West End there were establishments called Lyons' Corner Houses, the best of them only a few yards away at the corner of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road, which could provide us with any other meals we needed at very reasonable prices. What a great institution they were! What a congenial and reliable introduction to dining out in London they offered to the inexperienced and impecunious young provincials of the day! And not just because they were cheap. They had many attractive, even exotic, features. The one nearest the Central YMCA housed several very different establishments. On the ground floor, open for breakfast, there was the "Old Vienna", - an imitation Viennese coffee house, all mahogany, red plush and brass, with high-backed chairs, marble-topped tables and newspapers available in one-handed reading frames, the like of which we had never seen before. Upstairs, there was a lunchtime restaurant called "The Salad Bowl" where, for a few shillings, you could add as much salad as you could eat to the basic amount of protein you were issued with, and, having eaten that, go back for more. This kind of self service was something we had never encountered before in a public restaurant and Leonard, for one, couldn't get enough of it.

My own favourite place, however, was "The Brasserie" in the basement, where, again for a few shillings, a perfectly adequate evening meal could be had in the most agreeable of surroundings. It was a sort of light and airy underground cave, cheerfully decorated and warmly lit in the vaguely continental manner of a bierkeller boasting an open serving bar at one end and waiters uniformed in waistcoat and apron toing and froing with trays of food and (un)foaming tankards of English beer. Best of all, it had Faulkner and his Apache Band playing gypsy music in an alternatingly lively and sentimental manner, during the course of which (wonder of wonders!) Faulkner himself would occasionally wander among the tables wringing passionate melodies from his violin. Of course, given the price and the wartime conditions, the food was pretty basic, but the ambience more than made up for any shortcomings in that direction since gourmets were we not. And, wherever in Central London we were at supper time, we could rely on our young legs and the Underground to get us back in a matter of minutes to the unfailing delights available on passing from the wartime blackout into the warm and welcoming Brasserie.

As for the nightlife, Leonard being my companion on this occasion, there would have been little of a more elevated nature than the likes of Tommy Trinder at the London Palladium and Lou Praeger and his Band at the Hammersmith Palais (not that I didn't enjoy both tremendously) had it not been for the fact that I had recently acquired, against all the odds, a London girlfriend! How had I managed to do this? By that most cliched of means, meeting her on holiday. But not, of course, in quite the usual way, since holidays of the traditional sort were not easy to come by during the war, the usual resorts having been closed for the duration, their beaches festooned with barbed wire, and their accommodation taken over by one or other of the armed forces as training and administration centres. But the vacuum thus created had been partially filled when the Government, always on the lookout for ways of mobilising any spare civilian resources into its all-out war effort, a major objective of which was to "Grow More Food", began establishing Agricultural Holiday Camps at strategic points in the countryside.

The idea was to assist the farming community with its vital task, and, at the same time, offer healthy, outdoor activity holidays to young (and impecunious) city dwellers, by inviting them to provide cheap labour at harvest time in return for bed, board, and a modest amount of remuneration, in some sort of communal accommodation where, it was hinted, there would be plenty of scope for social intercourse with members of the opposite sex, both during and after working hours. Being young, impecunious, badly in need of a holiday, and not uninterested in the opposite sex, I had volunteered for a fortnight in one of these institutions during the previous summer, and found myself housed in a converted country house near the village of Alne deep in the countryside to the north of York. The hostel provided all the basic amenities, as promised, plus a large common room, a library, and a sports field.

The work I was given to do was very boring and quite arduous - it consisted of picking, not food, but flax (a crop I had never previously encountered and certainly never want to meet again) by hand. Since flax is grown for the toughness of its fibres, which are used to make linen, it is not an easy plant to harvest, but, fortunately, it rained quite a lot. This meant that, although I didn't get paid as much as I'd hoped, my aching back and raw fingers were given frequent rest periods during which I was free to socialise with my fellow campers who turned out to be a reasonably friendly and lively lot. Among those present were two young ladies from "The South", who had seized this opportunity of getting away from the attentions of the Luftwaffe in an affordable way. Since one of them, Joan, was undoubtedly the prettiest girl in the place, I began manoeuvring myself into their company without delay, and when I found that they were both students at the Royal College of Music I redoubled my efforts (as a fellow musician, you understand) to amuse and entertain them with stories about The Semitones, while exchanging views about any classical music with which we were jointly familiar.

Rather to my surprise, Joan seemed to find me as interesting as I found her (for different reasons, no doubt), and, by the end of the "holiday" we were affectionate friends, parting with the expressed intent of keeping in touch in spite of the obvious difficulties in the way of our doing so. Fortunately, Joan, who lived in faraway Chingford, Essex, was not only lovely, shapely, intelligent and a gifted musician, but turned out to be a first class correspondent, writing me long and chatty letters of a kind that I had never received before. How I delighted in those letters! And how assiduous I was in replying to them, striving always to maintain a high entertainment level in what turned out to be the first of several such exchanges I was to involve myself in during the next few years with other girls. What pages and pages we wrote to each other in those days in order to keep treasured relationships alive during periods of enforced separation, since the only way to be sure of receiving letters was to write letters. Also, it was very good practice for someone like myself who still had ambitions to be a writer of some sort.

Unfortunately, my holiday romance with Joan did not long survive my attempts to renew its ardours in the bleak realities of wartime London, where, in spite of our fortuitous proximity, assignations proved surprisingly difficult to make and keep. We were both tied up during the day, of course, I at Kodak and she at the RCM (commuting in from Chingford), and my dependence on the Tube, given my unfamiliarity with the surface geography of Central London, left me strangely vulnerable to the first of Hitler's secret weapons, the V1 Flying Bombs, "buzz bombs" or "doodlebugs", which happened, at the time, to be falling indiscriminatingly on London at irregular intervals. Although the odds against being hit by one of these things were pretty high, I was unfortunate in twice having my journey to a rendezvous with Joan disrupted by their rude attentions to the extent of being decanted from some intermediate tube station into unfamiliar streets from which it took me far too long to find the way to my destination. Joan was not amused at being kept waiting, nor were the purlieus of, for example, Liverpool Street Station, as conducive as the leafy lanes of Yorkshire had been to intimate exchanges of any kind.

I did, however, contrive to be punctual enough to join her for the very first of the many, many concerts I was to attend during the next sixty years at the Royal Albert Hall, but so besotted was I with my fair companion, and so dazzled by the size and splendour of that vast interior that I can remember nothing at all about the occasion except that Joan spoke very disparagingly of the place as a concert hall on account of its acoustics which were held in such contempt by the musical cognoscenti of the day that they afforded Sir Thomas Beecham frequent opportunities to exercise his well-known wit at their expense during orchestral rehearsals. This, of course, was long before those inverted mushrooms were suspended from the ceiling in what proved to be a pretty successful attempt to get rid of the notorious echo. Interesting, also, were Joan's comments about that massive Albert Memorial across the road from the Hall. The collective view of the local student body, it seemed, was that the destruction of this ugly monstrosity by Hitler's bombs was to be prayed for every night by all persons of taste and discernment. As a provincial, I was suitably impressed by such daring iconoclasm and was to recall it with some amusement when, on a recent visit to London, I made a point of detouring to South Kensington to admire the Albert Memorial in all its magnificently refurbished splendour. O Fortuna!

I returned to Bradford with my loving relationship with Joan terminally impaired (although I didn't fully realise it at the time), but wildly enthusiastic about the pleasures available in London and, more importantly, fully conversant with the ways and means of enjoying them at minimal cost. On the strength of my report, Mike took no persuading at all to accompany me on a return visit the following year. And that is how it came to pass that we spent that wonderful week in London (B&Bing at the Central YMCA, where else?) during which we contrived to take in no less than fourteen different shows of one kind or another. How did we do this? By very careful planning and lots of leg work after finding that there was at least one matinee performance per week of everything we wished to see, and that one of these could be found on every afternoon, Monday to Saturday, with orchestral concerts on Sundays. The legwork was not simply to get us from theatre to theatre and back to base in between, but to buy the tickets in the first place, since these were invariably for cheap seats up in the gods, and often available only at the theatre on the day of the performance.

To my eternal regret, I kept none of the programmes (which were probably commandeered by Mike, as we could only afford one between two of us) nor any other record of the shows we saw that week, and my memory of them is blurred by the recollection of others I attended on subsequent visits during the next few years. There was no opera, of course, and only a limited amount of ballet which seemed to consist of scratch companies performing extracts from the major works as divertissements. But there were orchestral concerts and plenty of theatre, enough to keep us both fully engaged. Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson were performing to great acclaim in a sort of super rep at the New Theatre, the former in that justly famous double bill of one-acters, Sophocles' "Oedipus Rex" and Sheriden's "The Critic", the latter in Cyrano de Bergerac, both of which I know we saw. There is one feature of that remarkable week, however, that I can clearly remember. It is that, although Hitler's V1 flying bombs were no longer around to disrupt our tight schedule, his second secret weapon, the V2 rockets, had begun to arrive at not infrequent intervals.

Unlike the doodlebugs, there was absolutely no warning that one of these missiles was on its way. Mike and I, for example, were eating breakfast in the cloistered calm of the YMCA at about 8am on a Sunday morning, when a sudden, very loud explosion close at hand caused the crockery and cutlery on the tables to rattle and shake. It was as if the whole building had leapt several inches into the air, but, after looking around in wide-eyed alarm for a few moments, we could see no alternative but to continue with our meal as if nothing had happened. Afterwards, we walked down Oxford Street to find that the rocket had fallen, fairly harmlessly, just inside the Marble Arch corner of Hyde Park - well clear of the Albert Memorial which is in the opposite corner! But, as we looked down into the huge crater, I realised that this was, in fact, the famous Speakers' Corner, where, if the explosion had occurred a couple of hours later, large numbers of people would have been gathered together to listen to, and heckle, the many soap-box orators who were allowed by tradition to expound their often outrageous views there on a Sunday morning. What a shambles that would have been!

Mike and I returned to Bradford physically and financially exhausted but spiritually uplifted by our cultural marathon, and secure in the knowledge that our new-found familiarity with the theatres, concert halls, restaurants, place names, tube trains and buses of Central London (the pubs, strange as it may seem, held little appeal to us at that time) had set us forever apart from our previously provincial selves. We knew also that we would return there in the future whenever an opportunity to do so presented itself, and, although I cannot recall the circumstances, and Mike is no longer available to consult about them (and hasn't been, alas, for sixty years), I know that I myself must have gone back there quite soon because three programmes from that later visit have somehow survived.

The first is for a Sunday afternoon concert at the Albert Hall on the 11th of March, 1945 given by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Boult with Iso Elinson as the soloist in Brahms' Piano Concerto No.2., other items being Mozart's Haffner Symphony and Elgar's Enigma Variations. The programme is the usual wartime four-pages on a single folded sheet but the analytical notes by Edwin Evans are quite thorough, if a little compressed. One curiosity is that the bottom of the front page, below the soloist's name and above "Programme and Notes 6d" appears the legend SMOKING - CIGARETTES ONLY, a reminder that, in those days, everybody smoked everywhere unless expressly forbidden to do so, and you could smoke a cigarette in the Albert Hall while actually listening to a concert in much the same way as you can nowadays sip a glass of wine in your box there. The third programme is for another concert at the Albert Hall on the evening of Tuesday the 13th, this time it is the less distinguished National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sidney Beer with soloists (i) Arthur Cleghorn in Bach's Suite No. 2 for flute and strings, and Gluck's Ballet Scene for flute and strings from "Orfeo", (ii) Clifford Curzon in Grieg's Piano Concerto, and (iii) Geraldine MacCartie narrating Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf". The only other item was Three Excerpts from Act III of Wagner's "The Mastersingers".

The second programme, however, is a little more interesting. It is for a performance of "The Tragedy of HAMLET Prince of Denmark" by William Shakespeare, given at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, on Monday, March 12th with John Gielgud in the title role. Other famous names are Peggy Ashcroft as Ophelia, Miles Malleson as Polonius and Max Adrian playing both Osric and Rosencrantz. Who could ask for anything more? And, according to the back page of the programme, Gielgud and Co. were really piling it on at the Theatre Royal, doing "Hamlet" Mondays and Tuesdays, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" Wednesdays and Thursdays (matinee and evening both days), and "The Circle" (?Somerset Maughan) Fridays and Saturdays (matinee and evening), for weeks on end. There was no shortage of audiences, of course. The war in Europe was nearing its end and London was crowded with uniforms of every possible hue, and everyone, troops and civilians alike, was hungry for entertainment of any kind after surviving the dark days. And it was all going cheap.

2.

These visits to London were stimulating interludes in a life in Bradford that was far from dull, but had settled into a pattern, seemingly and probably, designed to ensure that my every waking moment was occupied by some activity which took me outside the crowded family home. At the BRI, I was now, in effect, a fully functioning radiographer, routinely entrusted with all but the most esoteric of examinations, and, although this was to be the least rewarding of my three careers, I always enjoyed the work. It called for a happy combination of hand, eye and brain - the technical, the physical and the social - which suited me very well without being too demanding. I was good at it, and did well at it, but always saw it mainly as a means of earning enough money to exploit my spare time to the maximum possible extent, a purpose for which its strictly limited working hours, due to the dangers of overexposure to radiation, made it ideally suited. It was the quintessential nine to five job.

In order to prepare myself to pass the qualifying exam, however, there was a certain amount of additional knowledge I needed to acquire, and, since there was no School of Radiography at the the BRI in those days, I was obliged to seek it elsewhere, outside working hours. But I didn't have to look very far, since, waiting there around me, every weekday evening, autumn, winter and spring, there was the wonderful world of "Nightschool" with its centres of population, large and small, in virtually every day school in the county borough. In these classrooms, the seats still warm from the bums of the daytime pupils, all the skills and knowledge under the sun appeared to be freely available, thanks to the enlightened generosity of t'Corporation, and I soon found what I needed at the greatest institution of them all, the Bradford Technical College, or "t'Tec", as it was always called, where I duly enrolled for "Physics II" and "Zoology I".

Of course, Zoo One, was a real eye-opener, because, in those days, biology was a subject taught only in girls' schools, instead of physics and chemistry, which were taught only in boys' schools. So, this was my first encounter with the amoeba and the parameceum, those single-celled organisms, observable only through a microscope, from which we have all evolved, and, naturally, I was absolutely fascinated. I have since come to the conclusion that nobody's education can be regarded as complete unless it has included a basic understanding of the anatomy and physiology underlying the human cerebration that we value so highly. I still find it amazing that so many of my fellow men seem to have a better understanding of the workings of the internal combustion engine than they have of their own bodies. Which is not to say that everyone should be required to mount the mouth parts of a cockroach on a slide, as I did in Zoo One, or fully dissect a frog, as I did in Zoo Two, but somewhere in the syllabus of every school there should be a space marked Evolutionary Biology.

So great was my hunger for further education, and so apparently limitless the capacity of my teenage mind to absorb it, that my forays into nightschool ranged well outside the territory defined by the practical requirements of my chosen career. I enrolled for anything that took my fancy. The language of our Russian allies, for example, was very fashionable at the time, so I enrolled for that, and such must have been my fascination with language, that I even, at one point, enrolled for Spanish, little knowing how useful this would turn out to be later. But I can remember nothing about these classes now. Much more memorable, were the courses I took in English Literature and Music Appreciation, the first of which took the form of a series of lectures given by one Reverend Alan (?) Bullock MA whose name was to be seen prominently displayed outside the Unitarian Church in Town Hall Square as its minister. Much as I would have liked to, I never went to hear him preach there, but if his classroom performance was anything to go by, he must have been well worth listening to.

He was a short, square man with a large head rising necklessly out of massive shoulders to present the world with a rugged red face sloping backwards from a jutting chin to a full crown of bristling white hair. His manner was very professorial and his erudition seemed unbounded, he neither talked down to us nor sought to ingratiate himself with us, but delivered his uncompromising assessment of a chosen book or author each week as if we were a bunch of undergraduates, before politely inviting and answering our questions. I particularly recall his view that D.H.Lawrence's novels were inadequately realised as regards character and plot with the possible exception of "Sons and Lovers" which, being largely autobiographical, was more successful than the rest. The best of Lawrence, he said, was to be found in his often neglected shorter fiction which constituted, collectively, one of the truly great works of 20th century English literature. I still have the rather battered secondhand copy of "The Tales of D.H.Lawrence" published by Martin Secker in 1934 which I went out and bought after hearing him speak. That's one five shillings I have never regretted spending.

The Mr.Mumby who took the Music Appreciation classes was a complete contrast to the Reverend Bullock in appearance and manner, but fully his match in the mastery of his subject. He was younger, thinner and lame in one leg, with a small, pale face, large specs with thick lenses, and lank, black hair. A rather non-descript little man to look at, in fact, but, in his case, appearances were deceptive. He had been appointed music master at my old school while I was away in Keighley and had quite revolutionised the school's approach to the subject. I remembered Cliff reporting on his achievements with some awe, because, not only had he succeeded in injecting small doses of musical entertainment into the dull routine of the morning assembly, but had even introduced a gramophone into the music room where, instead of simply singing the same old songs, as in my day, the classes were now taught about the history and development of Western music and compelled to listen to appropriate excerpts from major works on gramophone records. I had, myself, seen him in action when I attended a final school Speech Day to receive my School Certificates. I found that he had virtually taken the occasion over, turning it into a mini-concert featuring a revitalised school orchestra and a number of pupil soloists, introducing all the items himself from the piano while the Head sat staring moodily into space.

As an accomplished performer who quite enjoyed showing off, he never strayed far from the piano during our encounters on those winter evenings in that ill-lit classroom, using it with great fluency to illustrate any point he wished to make about the music we had been listening to on gramophone records. It was obvious that he lived for music and loved to communicate his enthusiasm to anyone who would listen. I remember him drawing our attention to what he called the "brown notes" which occur on the downbeat, with curiously pungent effect, in the "promenade" theme from Moussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" - the original solo piano version, of course - he was a bit sniffy about Ravel's orchestration of the piece and quite scathing about "a second rate composer like Rimsky Korsakov tampering with the work of a genius like Moussorgsky".

He was by no means a purist, however, and cast a pretty wide net in selecting music for us to appreciate, but he may have had a predilection for purely instrumental music. His disparagement of Rimsky Korsakov's orchestration of Moussorgsky's work was about the nearest he came to opera since he was probably referring to "Boris Godonov" not "A Night on the Bare Mountain" as I thought at the time. The latter piece was very popular just then, being not only an exciting example of the music of our gallant Russian allies, but of a length that could conveniently be accommodated on a 12"x78rpm gramophone record. Also, it was to feature in what was for me the most memorable musical event of the last year of the war - the screening in Bradford of Walt Disney's film "Fantasia". It may sound childish, but I can remember very few experiences in theatre or concert hall which have made such a vivid impression on me as that sequence of animated cartoons, and, after repeated viewings, I still see it as one of the great artworks of the 20th century.

Much of the pictorialisation is pretty conventional, of course, even cloying, and some of the musical pieces fairly lightweight, but there is none in which the artistic invention of the film's creators is less than inspired, and most are simply spellbinding. In the opening segment, for example, where the instruments of the orchestra playing Stokowski's orchestration of Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D" are gradually replaced by abstract symbols gyrating around the screen in patterns reflecting the architecture of the score, the combination of sound, shape and colour is quite stunning. The realisation of Dukas' "Sorcerer's Apprentice" with Mickey Mouse in the title role is a cartoon classic, Ponchielli's "Dance of the Hours" wickedly witty, Moussorgsky's "Night on a Bare Mountain" a tour de force of imaginative terror, contrasting well with the beautifully drawn Schubert's "Ave Maria", and Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite" the quintessence of ballet. Even the long, very Hollywoodesque representation of Beethoven's "Pastoral Symphony" as a collage of Greek mythographies, suitably sterilised to include a teenage petting party of nude centaurs with no nipples, and a Bacchanalia of monumental but totally unlicentious proportions, is endlessly inventive and does no real harm to the music.

But Fantasia's greatest achievement was to take Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring", such a notoriously "difficult" piece of music that it was rarely performed in the concert hall at the time, and present it in a manner which made it perfectly acceptable to the ears of a mass audience. Even though much of its dissonant idiom had already been assimilated into film music without the public realising it, usually to reinforce images of violence, great courage must have been required on somebody's part to include this seminal masterpiece as a finale to a film which was already so innovative that its making represented a considerable commercial risk. And what a masterstroke to use the piece as incidental music to no less a story than the evolution of life on earth, taking us from the emergence of the amoeba to the extinction of the dinosaurs in only half an hour, with earthquakes, volcanoes and species competing graphically for survival in between. Who could fault it? Certainly not I, who can still watch it with pleasure on video, even though it contains so little singing!

"Fantasia" was made by the same Walt Disney who had given us, to great acclaim, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", but the film was so little to the popular taste of the time that its first screening in Bradford took place, not in one of those great emporia of film which dominated the city centre, such as the Ritz, the Odeon and the New Victoria, nor even in one of the smaller suburban cinemas, but in what would nowadays be called an art-house cinema, except that this one was not even a real cinema, it was the Bradford Civic Theatre, invariably referred to as t'Civic. Yes, there was indeed another theatre in Bradford besides the Alhambra, the Prince's, and the Mechanics Institute, but it was easily overlooked, because, although professionally managed on behalf of the Corporation, it was home to a company of mere amateurs and tucked away up a side-street by the Eastbrook Hall - a rather shabby little place with a slightly unsavoury reputation among respectable Bradfordians, probably because, given its nature, it generated a certain amount of sinful affection in its habituees.

Although not exactly a beacon of enlightenment in a sea of total indifference to serious drama (Bradford's most famous son at the time was, after all, none other than J.B.Priestley, the playwright), the Civic was the city's only permanent cultural hot spot, committed as it was to staging the sort of play unlikely ever to be found in the repertoire of 'Arry 'Anson's Players at the Prince's - I saw, for example, my first Ibsen play there, "The Masterbuilder", which didn't, I should add, impress me much at the time. But, with it's limited resources, the Civic could not afford to mount a continuous succession of stageplays, so it filled the gaps between productions by converting itself into a cinema, and I have to confess that I was initially enticed into its cosy little interior by the films being shown there. As with the plays, these were films unlikely to appear on the screens of Bradford's many other cinemas, if only because most of them were foreign language films which could only be fully understood by a British audience if the spoken dialogue in them had been translated into English and printed at the bottom of the screen.

Which is how I made my first acquaintance with the device that was to play such a large part in my enjoyment of opera in these, my declining years. Thanks to subtitles, and the Civic, I was able to experience virtually all the classics of the pre-war French cinema, and even a few German ones. "Le Jour se Leve", "Un Carnet de Bal", the Pagnol trilogy, "Marius", "Fanny" and "Cesar", "La Femme du Boulanger", "The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari", "The Blue Angel" - how those titles conjure up the excitement I felt at discovering a world of film outside the Anglo-American cinema, a more realistic world in many ways, and certainly a less sexually inhibited world. Compared with the explicit sex and violence which are such a feature of the cinema today, those pre-war continental films would now seem pretty tame, but to a generation raised on the carefully sanitised products of Hollywood they were the first adult movies we had seen. The subtitles, after the first few minutes of adjustment, presented no significant barrier to enjoyment and, with their assistance, my schoolboy French and German have much improved over the years. I have even picked up a little operatic Italian, but not enough to appreciate Rossini, Verdi and Puccini without the subtitles - unless sung in English translation, of course..

Surprising as it may seem, given my full-time employment, my three or four nights a week at nightschool, my gigs with the Semitones, my duties with the Home Guard, the swotting I had to do in my own time for the impending MSR exams, and my theatre, film and concert going, I still managed somehow to find the time for my preferred career as a writer by pursuing the only option open to me under the circumstances - writing short stories. I even had the nerve to submit a couple of them to a publication which was gamely carrying the flag of encouragement to authorship by appearing at irregular intervals during the darkest days of the war - Penguin's "New Writing" [edited by John Lehmann]. My rejected manuscripts were returned with a brief but not unkindly note of criticism from the editor, describing one of the stories, I remember, as "formulaic" and another as "orgiastic", words I had never encountered before. Yes, I seriously wanted to write, and really enjoyed writing, but writing about what? In spite of the wide range of my interests I had great difficulty in conceiving of intriguing human situations about which to make profound observations, or to manipulate in significant ways. Nothing unusual about that, I told myself, in one too young to have digested what little experience of life he has already had.

But my real problem was that I was more in the thick of things than on the periphery taking notes, enjoying my own life too much to devote the attention to my fellow beings and their concerns that the authorship of successful fiction requires. There was also the unpalatable fact that solitary activity which resulted in unpublishable short stories was much less effective than my other pursuits in bringing me into the company of girls - that being the other thing I somehow managed to find time for. Not with too serious an intent, of course, but not for purely platonic reasons, either, except in one case. Given my other commitments, and with the dreadful examples of Leonard and Vic before me, there was no question of a single, exclusive relationship, but nor was there, in those days, in the circles in which I moved, any question of casual sexual intercourse before marriage, not, at the very least, before the engagement ring was firmly on the finger. Fortunately, however, almost anything short of that was allowed, but could only be arrived at progressively by amorous persuasion on successive occasions in complete privacy, the last of these being by far the most difficult to achieve.

Meeting girls one would like to undress in private was not a problem, however, because suitable arrangements were in place for experimental encounters with complete strangers of the opposite sex at all the public dance halls in Bradford. Here, boys and girls (most of whom would have arrived there with friends of the same sex), could congregate on opposite sides of the dance floor, eyeing each other up with the object of identifying desirable partners for the ritual to be followed once the signal had been given. This usually took the form of an announcement from the bandstand, eg., "Take your partners for a quickstep" whereupon any boy was permitted by convention to approach any girl not obviously partnered already for this particular dance (even one who had arrived in the company of a boyfriend), and ask her to dance this dance with him. The girl in question had two options open to her - she could decline the invitation with a simple "No, thank you" adding any emphasis or addendum she chose in order to aggravate or ameliorate the verdict, or she could accept.

In which case, the couple would normally have a set of three dances, each lasting about four minutes, to size each other up from a number of aspects, the most immediately important of which would be those revealed during the close embrace permitted by the need to move as smoothly as possible round the dance floor in time to the music. Without in any way overstepping the bounds of outward propriety, a great deal of information could be gathered in a very short time about the physical characteristics and erotic disposition of one's partner in this way, given a modicum of cooperation on both sides. There was the closer visual inspection, of course, and the smell, and the touch of the hand, but it was the contours and consistency of the bodies under the clothing, as revealed by the closeness of the contact between them and the way they moved together to the rhythm of the dance, that counted for most. If the chemistry was right, the couple could spend as much of the dance as they chose in full frontal conjunction from neck to thigh without attracting unfavourable attention from anyone looking on. Little wonder that an old admiral's definition of ballroom dancing was "A navel engagement with no loss of semen"?

Time and opportunity would also be available during the dance for the pair to establish more than just a basic physical compatibility. In those days, before the invention of over-amplification by microchip, it was perfectly feasible for an intimate conversation to be conducted at normal voice levels while gyrating round the dance floor in each other's arms. However banal this chat may be, it provided an additional source of useful information about the partner which, like that gleaned from the close embrace, is not nowadays available to young disco dancers, separated as they are by both distance and decibels. By the end of the set, then, a couple who had never met before could have learned quite a lot about each other, enough, at least, to know whether they wished to learn more. After returning the girl to her place and himself to his, it would then be up to the boy to decide whether and when to ask the girl for another dance, an invitation which the girl would again be at liberty to accept or decline.

This basic algorithm made it possible for young people not only to sort through a variety of potential partners fairly quickly, but also to advance, step by step, towards closer involvement with any one of them without irrevocable commitment on either side at any stage. And procedures of an equally well-established nature existed for taking the acquaintanceship beyond the dance floor. At the end of a set, for example, the couple could linger, chatting long enough for the the next number to be announced and, by mutual agreement, danced together, after which it would be up to the boy to decide which option to pursue next. "Can I buy you a drink?", however, would not be one of them, because the draconian licensing laws of the day ensured that no alcoholic beverages were available for consumption in public dance halls, most of which, in addition, enforced a strict NO PASSOUTS policy to prevent any recourse to a nearby pub without paying for re-entry.

Also, this being wartime England, even tea was in short supply, coffee virtually unobtainable, fruit juice non-existent, and soft drinks still at the "Dandelion and Burdock" stage of their development (remember "Oxo will be served in the interval..." even at the opera?). In any case, even youths in full employment did not have the money at their disposal to make the lavish gestures they can indulge in today. Fortunately, Bradford girls were fully aware of this and had so little expectation of having money spent on them until a more intimate relationship had been established that they viewed the motives of anyone offering to do so with a healthy suspicion. No, the next move, if there was to be one, would take them out of the dance hall and depend on such information as the boy had been able to extract from the girl during the course of the evening about her social habits and, in particular, her habitat, because, before taking the most obvious step of asking if he could see her home after the last waltz, it was important to know what this would entail. Very important!

Although, at that time, nobody of their years and means would have had the use of a private car, transport to the girl's front door would not be a problem, since the dance would be timed to end before the last tram, bus, or even train departed from the vicinity of the dance hall at, usually, the early wartime hour of about 10pm. It was the difficulty of getting back home from this destination that had to be weighed in the balance against the likely rewards of the venture. Two or three miles across Bradford was no deterrent - a distance I often covered walking home from the BRI after missing the last trolleybus - provided, of course, that the weather was not too inclement, but a girl met at the New Victoria Ballroom in the city centre might have come from as far away as Bingley, Buttershaw, or even Pudsey. I remember one occasion when Mike allowed gallantry to prevail over caution to the extent of offering to see home a girl who had taken his fancy (which, admittedly, was not easily done) before finding out that she lived in distant Bramhope, and was too much of a gent to back down when he did. His reward was a short conversation with the girl's father who was waiting at the front gate, and a twelve mile hike before breakfast.

A less risky investment than escorting the girl to her door in return for whatever could be achieved so close to her means of escape would be to arrange to meet again in surroundings more conducive to greater intimacy than that permitted on the dance floor. But the only other opportunities for taking matters further in that direction with a girlfriend who was not yet a fiancee would occurr in circumstances which were too exposed to prying eyes to be of any real use. There were occasional parties, of course, at which games might be played involving pairing off and putting the lights out, during which a certain amount of what we called snogging could take place, but there would be too many couples in too small a space for any further exploration of the female anatomy to be successfully attempted. Also, the partygiver's parents, in those days, were never far away. More readily available was the back row of the cinema, but that was only good for the aforementioned snogging, anything further soon attracting the attentions of the usherette's torch, even though several of Bradford's suburban cinemas still had double seats in the back row for the convenience of courting couples.

Forays into the surrounding countryside with amorous intent were feasible only during the summer months when, if the conditions were right for a little horizontal outdoor love-making, they would also be suitable for other, more innocent activities on the part of upright citizens in search of exercise, fresh air and, possibly, wild blackberries (or 'blegs' as we called them). There was also a troublesome species of elderly male equipped with binoculars and sporting the sort of flat cap, which was often called a "hogger", because that was the name given to its wearers in this context, whose pastime it was to spy on couples who had become sufficiently carried away with each other to ignore the discomforts of the underlying flora and fauna and expose themselves indecently to the elements. This may, today, seem like a hard way for a scopophile to get his kicks, but this was long before the advent of the X rated film and the later pornographic video had rendered such strenuous outdoor activities, which were not without the risk of physical assault if apprehended, redundant. There was simply nothing else of the sort available to watch at the time.

So, privacy was a very real problem for any young man wishing to persuade a young lady to allow herself to be disrobed. But not for one, who, as already noted, had the whole of the X Ray Department at his disposal after 5pm, and the unquestioned right to remain on the deserted premises, ostensibly to study for his pending exams in the kind of solitude not available to him at home. It was here that I wrote my short stories, of course, little expecting, as I did so, that the facility would prove useful for a more successful enterprise. But, unbelievably lax as the hospital's security was at the time, it would not have been easy for me to introduce any of my regular girl friends into this secluded spot (in the unlikely event of their having agreed to come), nor would it even have occurred to me to try, since my expectations of finding a partner willing to cooperate in the realisation of my erotic fantasies were virtually nil until experience taught me otherwise.

This experience was with a girl, who, when she joined the staff of the Department as an office worker, hardly registered with me as an object of desire at all. She was not unattractive in a rather furtive way, but everything about her was so very unremarkable that I would never have singled her out for attention in a public dancehall, and what little she had to say for herself was quite uninteresting. But, she was young and female, and, more importantly, she was there every day, familiar and friendly, as part of a working routine which frequently threw us together. One of her duties was to file away redundant X Ray films in a large windowless wooden hut which stood outside the Department's back door emergency exit, and it was there that I discovered her one day, standing on the upper rungs of a stepladder in order to reach a top shelf. Whatever else she may have lacked, she had very good legs and, on this occasion, a skirt that was short enough to afford me a generous eyeful of white thighs and suspenders above her stocking tops and arouse my open admiration - which she pretended not to notice.

Driven by hormonal impulse, I put my hand where my eye had already been, and, since this produced no other reaction than a faint blush mounting her cheeks, contrived to fondle her silky thighs while we conversed, a trifle breathlessly, about the business which had brought me to the foot of her ladder. I returned to my duties in such a glow of self-satisfaction that I was sure my colleagues would notice, but they were all as preoccupied with their work as they assumed I was with mine, and, thanks to the exigencies of the filing system and her willing cooperation, I was soon able to repeat the experience. Thus began a relationship which, by tacit agreement, was never publicly acknowledged by either of us, but had all too soon, alas, explored the outer limits of what could be achieved, without risk of discovery, in the nooks and crannies of a busy X Ray Department. But further developments suddenly became possible when, one memorable evening, to my surprise and delight, my private studies in the deserted department were disturbed by the sound of the outer doors opening and the unmistakable clicking of her heels approaching along the corridor.

I cannot recall what pretext had brought her back from her nearby home at such a late hour on that first occasion, but it provided me with a sufficient excuse to accompany her into the ladies' staff room in the remotest corner of the darkened department, where I could safely pursue the objective of removing her clothing without fear of being disturbed. It took patient persuasion over several visits to achieve this but achieve it I did, and very exciting the experience was while it lasted. But, strange as it may seem, once I had this completely naked girl at my disposal, I found myself at a loss about what to do next. This was not because I didn't know how to proceed and she didn't know how to show me, which was all too true, but rather that I had never had any desire to do anything other than undress her, gloat over her nakedness, and fondle her now defenceless body.

In the light of my later proclivities, I can only look back with amazement at the vague distaste I felt, then, for what little I knew about the act of sexual intercourse, an uneasiness which extended to the thought of having anything to do with the bit between the girl's legs. It all seemed so messily bodily functional compared to the pure, aesthetic pleasures of strip, stroke and see, which I had already enjoyed. Not only that, but I was extremely shy about uncovering my own private parts in the presence of a member of the opposite sex, which is probably why I took such pleasure in exposing theirs. I was, in fact, a typical product of an upbringing which had encouraged my admiration of the female form and titillated my curiosity about its secondary sexual characteristics while discouraging me from contemplating the act of procreation with anything but disgust.

Not surprisingly, given the unlikelihood of my enrolling for a reconditioning course with a qualified therapist, it took me some time to overcome these romantic inhibitions and gain access to the greater satisfaction which lies beyond foreplay. I was still technically a virgin, in fact, when I got married several years later - but only just, and not, towards the end, through lack of trying not to be, although the constraints on the amount of privacy available in which to achieve this objective with my future wife became, if anything, more severe. Looking back at my earlier condition as described above, however, I must emphasise that I did not suffer from any sense of deprivation at the time. Far from it. My life was getting progressively richer and fuller, driven, quite possibly, by the sublimation of those energies which might otherwise have been expended in pursuit of coitus, and I was no stranger to orgasm, having discovered at an early age that a quantity of relief could be obtained from it in private which far outweighed the amount of time and energy required to bring it about.

Strange as it may seem by today's standards, therefore, I regarded my sex-life, in spite of its minor frustrations, as quite satisfactory. I can still recall the warmth of the glow I felt when it dawned on me, shortly after starting work at the BRI, that one didn't need to be as good-looking as Brad to attract the interest of girls - that, in fact, an intelligent and articulate youth with no frankly repellent characteristics and a modest armamentarium of social skills would find few insurmountable obstacles in the way of his making friends with any young lady he felt attracted to, however unapproachable her beauty may have appeared to him to render her, initially. Equally pleasurable was the realisation that Nature had arranged for girls to like having done to them what boys liked doing to them - as long as it didn't involve sexual intercourse before marriage, of course, which, like the state of matrimony itself, held little appeal for me until later in life.

All of which left me free to strike up as intimate a friendship as I could contrive with any girl I was attracted to, provided that it didn't "get serious", and the clandestine affair with my junior colleague, before losing its sense of adventure and petering out, had given me useful practice in exploiting any opportunities that were to come my way with girl friends of my own choosing in the future. These arrangements worked very well, I might add, for both sexes since they allowed for a great deal of experimentation with relationships without too much commitment. There were those, of course, like Leonard and Vic, who couldn't wait to 'get serious', but, for those of us who were still expanding our horizons, there was no barrier to exploring as many relationships with members of the opposite sex as we could find the time and energy for.

Thirty years were to pass before I began to appreciate the true value of these conventions when observing the restrictions imposed on my own daughter's generation by the permissive society of 70's. Once sexual intercourse before marriage had become the acceptable norm, the freedom to enjoy intimate friendships with a number of different partners seemed to disappear. Eighteen-year-olds who, in my day, would have been "playing the field", now found themselves "shacked up" with their lovers in relationships which made it difficult for them to develop close friendships with new acquaintances of the opposite sex without being accused of infidelity and even promiscuity. The result was a great deal of heartache for any couple whose personalities and predilections continued to develop and diverge, as they can so easily do, between their late teens and mid-twenties. Without wishing to draw any profound inferences from a single case, I can report that, between leaving school and getting married, I was fortunate enough to enjoy at least half a dozen very rewarding friendships with lovely, lively girls, only one of which could be described as platonic, and none of which ended in tears.

It may also be worth mentioning, while on the subject, that, whatever else it did for me, my upbringing in what is now seen as a male-dominated society did not condition me to think of women as fundamentally inferior to men in anything but basic muscle power. Nor, however, as innately, in some way, superior. Simply as different, thank God! But with the same intellectual potential, at least, and to be valued as individuals, sexual attractions aside, for much the same qualities that I admired in my male friends. As for the value to be attached to the difference, well, since millions of years of evolution have ordained that the survival of our species is best ensured by some form of co-operation, in the production and rearing of its young, between two separate sexes, it would be foolish to assume that the contribution made by one of them to this undertaking does not complement that of the other in some vitally essential way.

Clearly, the human race did not become the dominant species on this planet by favouring same-sex relationships and one-parent families, or defaulting on its parental responsibilities before they had been fully discharged, however attractive these options may appear to be, now that we are free to choose them. On the other hand, there is no evidence that this eminence has been achieved by accepting certain practices as absolutely right or absolutely wrong, now and forever, on the authority of some man-made institution, spiritual or temporal, which claims to know what is best for us - particularly when, thanks to that one inequality in brute strength, these doctrines have tended always to devalue the role of the "weaker vessel". This doesn't mean that the two sexes are equal (how can they be equal and different?) only that their indispensability to each other would make them of equal worth in the eyes of any outside observer who, for whatever reason, took an interest in us.

Needless to say, I didn't articulate thoughts like these at the time. Thanks to Hildred's legacy, I was still a practising Christian making Holy Communion once a month, saying my prayers every night, and cultivating my immortal soul whenever an opportunity to do so presented itself. I was an Anglo-Catholic, I suppose, having given some consideration to becoming a Roman Catholic shortly after leaving school, while Hildred's influence was at its strongest, but my appetite for such a course of action had waned as my immersion in the world of work and play had increased. There was also the fact that it would have deeply distressed my mother, who, as a member of the respectable Methodist working class, viewed the Roman Catholics of Bradford, many of whom were of Irish descent and lived in certain notoriously slummy areas closer to the city centre, with a distaste and distrust which was too tribally ingrained ever to change. Were they not, after all, the agents of a foreign power?

There is an old Yorkshire joke about the staunchly Methodist Halifax patriarch, who, after being told by his doctor that his illness had left him with only a few months to live, announced to his horrified family that he had decided to become a Catholic. When asked by his younger brother, summoned from Huddersfield for the purpose, why he had decided to take this unthinkable step, he replied "Nay, lad, Ah'd raither one'a them dee than one uv us". Fortunately, my mother's prejudice against Roman Catholics did not extend to my friend Frank who she made as welcome in our house as I was in his, but a Catholic girlfriend would have received quite a different reception. I have often mused upon the benefits bestowed by the colour of their skin upon the Irish Catholics in Bradford. They worshipped at different churches and attended different schools, but, in a crowd, they simply could not be told apart from the rest of us. Nowadays they are 'us', of course, and the Pakistani Muslims are 'them', but they will never be able to lose themselves in a crowd of us, will they?

3

The realities of war finally intruded on my privileged existence in June 1944 when, little more than 48 hours after the D Day landings began, a convoy of wounded soldiers arrived at the BRI. Since all were serious bone injuries, shipped as far north as Bradford by previous arrangement because of the reputation of our consultant orthopaedic surgeon, they required a great deal of X Raying. Most were hips and femurs, some of them badly shattered and impregnated with shrapnel, and still encased, when they arrived late at night, in the massive plaster of paris sarcophagi applied in the field hospitals to enable them to be shipped out safely. A few of these plasters were inscribed with the magic words "Penicillin 10,000 units" - my first encounter with the miracle drug which was to revolutionise the treatment of infections throughout the world. Another unusual feature was the maggots we found infesting the wounds revealed by the removal of the casings. Shocking at first, until we realised that the little scavengers were cleaning up the wounds by feeding only on pus and dead tissue.

Two whole wards had been cleared in anticipation of these arrivals, most of whom were soon lying with at least one leg in the air, suspended by weights dangling at the end of rope threaded through a pulley in an overhead beam - so many of them that the ward was a veritable forest of wooden frames, and Leonard and I were kept busy, manoeuvring our mobile X Ray set around them virtually every day for weeks on end. Not surprisingly, since some of the patients were the same age as us, we felt a little self-conscious about our civilian status, but they seemed to take our presence there for granted and accept our ministrations without demur. Although badly injured, most of them seemed happy to be alive and out of the conflict, and their high spirits turned those two wards into noisy enclaves in the surrounding sober hush of the BRI. There was nothing that even Matron or medical staff between them could do to damp things down, even when they invented a game of bed-ridden hockey which was played with walking sticks and ball of rug wool, using each other's frames as goalposts. They were simply not ill enough or old enough to be overawed by the authorities. The nurses loved them, of course.

Soon, the war was going so well that, in November 1944, the Home Guard was stood down, by which time our weapons and training had made us much more of a force to be reckoned with than we had been after Dunkirk. Then, with only half a dozen WWI Lee-Enfield .303 rifles between us (and one elderly Thomson sub-machine gun for demonstration purposes only), we would sacrifice an entire Sunday for the privilege of bussing out to the butts at Oxenhope to shoot a mere three rounds apiece with them. Now, we had all the rifles and ammunition we could use plus several highly prized Sten guns. We also had something called a Blacker Bombard with which I was able to earn for myself a brief moment of local fame. This contraption was the primitive ancestor of the better known and much more effective PIAT projector - those initials standing, I think, for Portable Infantry Anti Tank. There was nothing portable about the Blacker once it was assembled from its constituent parts by the team of four strong men required to do so.

Four pieces of 3 inch steel piping about 4 feet in length had to be fitted horizontally, at right angles to each other, into a central mount and their outer ends anchored to the ground by 18 inch metal stakes (using the sledgehammer provided for the purpose!) before the massive business end of the contraption could be lowered into place on a vertical swivelling peg. This part consisted of a 5 inch wide 18inch deep mortar barrel protruding from a 3 foot wide, 2 foot high protective shield behind which the operator was intended to lie prone on the ground, manipulating the weapon by means of two vertical handlebars - an activity which put considerable strain on the arms and shoulders in that position. The missile to be projected was, in effect, a flying bomb nearly 6 inches in diameter mounted on a hollow shaft about 2 inches thick and 18 inches long with fins on the back end. When loaded, this hollow shaft fitted precisely on to a polished metal spigot occupying the central axis of the mortar barrel. The end of the spigot housed a firing pin and, at the top of the hollow shaft, behind the bomb, there was a cartridge powerful enough to hurl the aerial torpedo about two hundred yards when triggered off.

I doubt if this unwieldy apparatus ever saw active service, or, if it had done, whether any of its crew would have lived to tell the tale. As an anti-tank weapon, it was an obvious sitting duck to any approaching tank, but it was our sitting duck and we drilled with it religiously, assembling it repeatedly in the field behind the pub at the crossroads which was our "defended locality", and pointing it threateningly at imaginary German tanks approaching down Allerton Road, having, presumably, crossed the Pennines via Wuthering Heights. I became the chosen marksman of the team solely because the length of my forearms made it possible for me to manipulate the monster with my elbows on the ground, but I was only ever allowed to shoot with it once.

The Bradford Home Guard Battalion's inter-Company Blacker Bombard Shooting Competition was held somewhere in West Bowling, on a large piece of waste ground containing one of those "pit 'ills" - residual slag heaps from long defunct coal mines - which featured in the urban landscape of so many Yorkshire towns, and on the side of which, on this occasion, three sheets of newspaper were laid out a few feet apart to be shot at from about 150 yards away. It has to be said that, when launched, the Blacker's bomb floated most impressively through the air - almost, it seemed, in slow motion - towards its target, and I'm sure a direct hit would have made a pretty large dent in any tank. We were not, of course, using live warheads to blow up sheets of newspaper, but the firing cartridges were real, allowing the marksmanship to be quite adequately tested, and I can report that, thanks to my long forearms and reasonably good eye, ours was the only team to puncture three sheets of newspaper.

As our final missile reached its target and a cheer went up from the BRI platoon, our CO bounced forward, salivating copiously in and around his pipe stem as was his wont, to congratulate us, me in particular, on our achievement, which had, we soon learned, won him several pounds in bets from the COs of our rival teams, thus enabling him to buy us drinks all round in a local pub afterwards.

The Blacker Bombard was not the only unwieldy weapon to pass into history with the Home Guard. There was another anti-tank device called the "Sticky Bomb", which came to hand, initially, as a metal sphere, about the size of a lavatory ballcock, with a protruding handle. When prepared for action, however, by the removal of this outer casing (held in place by adhesive tape), it was revealed to be a glass ball covered in a gauze impregnated with a thick brown glue which gave it the appearance of a very large toffee apple. We were assured that, if bashed against the armour of a tank with sufficient force to break the glass, the Sticky Bomb would stay in position long enough for the full force of the explosive it contained to be directed through the point of impact. Suitable techniques for getting close enough to a tank to stick the bomb on it (and for getting away intact having done so) were left to our individual initiatives.

But the honour of being the weapon in the Home Guard's armamentarium with the highest lethal potential for its user went to a hand thrown grenade whose correct name escapes me (it was something like "the ED20"), probably because, due to its size and shape, I always thought of it as the "Thermos Flask Bomb". Given its dimensions and weight, the delivery of this device to its intended target called for a unique two-handed underarm action, as follows: with the throwing arm hanging straight down, the cylinder was balanced upright in the cupped hand along the length of the inside forearm and held in place by the other hand while the arm was swung backwards and forwards to generate maximum momentum on release. To complicate matters, the grenade was triggered by an impact fuse protruding from its base which had to be primed by the withdrawal of a safety pin after it had been thrown but before it struck the ground. This difficult feat was made possible, in theory, by attaching a length of tape to the pin which had a ring at the other end of it for placing over the middle finger of the throwing hand, thus enabling the pin to be pulled out in mid-air once the tape (which was coiled around the impact fuse) had unrolled to its full length.

In addition to the problems inherent in this rather complex procedure, the weapon had two main disadvantages. The first was that it could only be thrown while standing fully erect and facing the enemy, the second that, given its size and weight, the best throw achievable was between 15 and 20 yards whereas the amount of explosive it contained could be lethal up to 50 yards. It was extremely important, therefore, for the thrower, having pulled out the pin by jerking on the tape, to fall flat on his face before the missile hit the ground.

I was privileged to witness two of these grenades being thrown, live, for demonstration purposes, on the bombing range one day. The sequence of actions outlined above was correctly followed in each case (particularly the last!), but both bombs failed to explode on impact. It turned out that success depended on the trigger in the base striking the ground with the vertical weight of the bomb above it, a outcome which the jerky withdrawal of the safety pin in mid-air rendered virtually impossible to achieve. One after another their unexploded contents had to be dealt with by the bomb disposal squad, whose activities I was observing with keen interest from what I thought to be a safe distance until they succeeded in blowing up the first container and the blast nearly knocked me off my feet. I still find it hard to believe that the Thermos Flask Bomb ever got off the drawing board. Fortunately, we of the BRI platoon were on the bombing range that day to throw the tried and trusty Mills Bomb which presented no problems at all and even afforded some of us a certain amount of amusement at the expense of the supervising Bombing Officer.

The grenades were being hurled from a shallow trench towards a piece of moorland where they could explode harmlessly, throwing up nothing more dangerous than clods of earth. Overlooking the rear of the throwing trench, there was a corrugated iron watchtower from which the Bombing Officer could observe and control the proceedings. As each pair of bombardiers stepped forward ,in turn, with their grenades held at the ready, he would give the orders "Prepare to throw!" at which the pins would be extracted, then, "Throw!", followed by "Down!". Frank and I, while loafing about in the sheltered area at the foot of the watchtower before and after our throws, noticed that when the Bombing Officer had satisfied himself that the grenades had been correctly hurled, he would duck down out of sight behind his protective shield before they detonated and not reappear until sufficient time had elapsed for any flying debris to have cleared.

When we also noticed that, in spite of this precaution, small pieces of moorland turf, propelled by the force of the explosions, would occasionally come flying through the air and land inside his shelter, it didn't take us long to arrive at the idea of reproducing this phenomenon manually whenever we could do so unobserved by anyone in authority. The poor fellow must have felt that the god of fortune had suddenly turned against him when he found himself assailed by this inexplicable increase in the number of stray turves invading his sanctuary. By the end of the day they had accumulated underfoot to a volume sufficient to raise him up on a mound of sods over a foot deep, but, needless to say, whenever his head reappeared above the parapet of his protective enclosure, we were always looking the other way.

In spite of this and the many other amusements that Frank and I were able to extract from its warlike activities, I was not sorry, on balance, to see the Home Guard disbanded at a time when the demands being made on my waking hours by my other activities, both inside and outside the BRI, seemed to be mounting exponentially. Its demise left me free, during what turned out to be the last winter of the war, to make the most of the opportunities coming my way from the other directions I have already signposted. I must confess that it was a wonderful thing to be me, at that time. I seemed to have tapped into a bottomless well of creative energy fuelling a personal quest for enlightenment and experience on all available fronts, and, fortunately for me, the County Borough of Bradford, even in wartime, was a big enough world to accommodate my interests and reward my endeavours - with a little help from my visits to the distant metropolis.

VE Day, when it arrived on the 8th of May 1945, took me, like many others, rather by surprise. In London, spontaneous mass eruptions of public joy were made possible by the presence of the large numbers of Allied servicemen and women who were already milling around there, and the focus provided by the balcony of Buckingham Palace. Out in the provinces, on hearing the news, we experienced a certain amount of relief but didn't quite know what to do about it on the day. We had to wait the three months until VJ day, before we could celebrate the end of the war in a properly organised manner. In the meantime, I, for one, carried on my fun-filled existence as usual. Obviously, I had had a very good war. Only thirteen years old when it started, I had been too young to appreciate the full seriousness of the country's situation during the dark days from 1940 to 42. I could see we were losing, but my youthful optimism was such that I never doubted we would win in the end. By the time I was old enough to realise that, if Hitler hadn't been stupid enough to invade Russia and the Japanese to bomb Pearl Harbour, things would have turned out very differently, we were manifestly winning the war.

4

The interregnum between VE Day and VJ Day was not without incident. The relaxation in wartime restrictions had made it possible for holidays to be taken in parts of the country which had been virtually inaccessible to civilians "for the duration", but I would never have embarked on so ambitious a venture as a cycling tour of Devon, Cornwall and Somerset had I not been talked into it by Bert the Introvert, our guitarist in the Semitones. For one thing, I was a hiker not a biker. Naturally, I had always possessed a roadworthy bike, no boy could be without one in those days, and, while living in Keighley, I had relied on it extensively for getting about the town and making forays into the countryside, such as my visits to Hildred's cottage at Swartha. I had even spent a week "barn-owling" round the Lake District on it in the company of Brad during the school holidays. But Bradford was too hilly, and far too well provided with public transport to make the daily use of a bike an attractive proposition to anyone other than a dedicated weekend cyclist - which Bert was, of course.

Hiking, on the other hand, I have always enjoyed, and it was a very popular form of group activity during the war - cheap and cheerful, equally accessible to both sexes, and, in Bradford at least, with all those Yorkshire moors and dales so close at hand, very easy to indulge in. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the BRI Social Circle had a thriving hiking offshoot of which I was an active member, spending many a happy hour in the liveliest of company, rambling over hill and dale, usually on Sundays in summer. But our most memorable ventures were of a more unusual order. I cannot remember where the idea of the "moonlight hike" came from, but, given our appetite for novel activities involving members of both sexes, the concept cast an immediate spell over our collective imagination. Which is how it came to pass that, one Saturday night in June, chosen for the fullness of its moon, after all the cinemas and dance halls had emptied, a good three dozen of us met at Forster Square Station to catch the last train to Skipton.

From Skipton, under a blazing moon, we walked to Bolton Abbey, passing through slumbering hamlets many of whose inhabitants must have woken in wonder at the sound of our tramping feet and ceaseless chatter. It was a perfect night for a picnic among the picturesque ruins by the shining river, and, after that, for a stroll along the Wharfe to Ilkley and, finally, a strenuous last leg over Ilkley Moor into Airedale with dawn breaking in quite spectacular fashion over Baildon Moor to our left. Coming down the path off the moor to meet the road above Eldwick, we arrived at a pub known to all Bradfordians then and now as "Dick Hudson's", even though, at the time, it's correct name was "The Fleece Inn", this being long before it bowed to the force of the local custom and officially adopted it's famous nickname. Here, by a stroke of genius, we had arranged to be served with what is nowadays called a Full English Breakfast, not an easy thing to organise under wartime constraints and only achieved on this occasion on condition that we all brought our weekly bacon rations with us.

After gaining admission to the pub by rousing the still sleeping occupants, there followed a rather subdued interval during which we sat around in the cold comfort of a hostelry still redolent with the stale odours of the night before, while the landlord and his wife set about preparing the promised meal from scratch. But our spirits rose as the ineffable aroma of frying bacon emanated from the kitchen, driving all other considerations from our minds, and when the fried egg, bacon, sausage, mushrooms, and tomatoes arrived, together with gallons of hot tea, a party atmosphere quickly developed and the meal became a truly memorable occasion. To participate in a festive breakfast with over thirty companions at the end of an all-night hike of nearly twenty miles must be counted unusual in itself, even unique, but it was also the first time I had encountered what was to become the staple of so many of my subsequent breakfasts, marmalade on toast. Nothing reflects quite so poignantly upon the circumstances of my early years as the fact that I had to reach the age of eighteen before experiencing marmalade on toast.

Two years later, my bike ride round the West Country was to be an equally memorable experience, if not one of quite such unalloyed pleasure as the moonlight hike. Unusually for me at the time, I had nothing whatever to do with the planning of the tour. This was undertaken by Bert and our two other fellow-travellers-to-be, Fred and Brian, who were workmates of his at the local engineering factory, then fully engaged in war work, of course, which accounted for the fact that, although a couple of years older than us, they were not in uniform. Both lived in Leeds, but were reasonably compatible, Fred the more outgoing and jocular, Brian the more reserved and judgemental. Considering that I had hardly known these two beforehand and that the quality of my bike and bikemanship fell some way short of those of my three companions, the four of us managed to rub along together pretty well through fair and foul weather for a fortnight, during which, fortunately for me, my intrinsic physical stamina backed by grim determination enabled me to keep up with them, no matter how adverse the conditions or gruelling the pace.

Apart from revealing the many attractions of the West Country to me for the first time, the expedition proved to be of value in two other respects. The first arose from the simple fact that the itinerary my companions had planned for us created a requirement for me to join an organisation called the Youth Hostels Association. Given the extent to which the growth in our personal affluence has been reflected in the holiday industry in the second half of the twentieth century, it may be difficult, today, for anyone under the age of seventy to appreciate what a godsend the YHA was to the impecunious youth of that first post-war decade. With its basic hostel accommodation housed in a motley collection of buildings dotted throughout the land but more densely in North Wales, the Lake District, and the Peak, the YHA made it possible for us to have walking, biking, and climbing holidays in all the best places for only a few shillings a night. The only baggage requirement was a personal cotton sleeping bag and any food to be cooked on such facilities as were provided, although some of the hostels served basic meals at rock bottom prices.

An overnight journey by train as far as Bridgewater, our bikes in the luggage van, brought us within striking distance of the first of a chain of youth hostels stretching round Somerset, Devon and Cornwall, each within reach of another by bike or public transport (unlike those I was later to visit in North Wales which were within hiking distance) – the use of motorcars and motorbikes being against YHA rules. Since we lodged at a different hostel every night, covering a lot of ground (most of it very hilly), I was introduced to a pretty representative cross-section of the YHA's hostels, but the only two that stick in my mind after all this time were those at Bigbury Bay and Dunsford. This may be because I was to revisit both places at intervals in future years, particularly the latter since my old pal Cliff has lived near it for fifty years, but is more likely to be due to their distinctive features at the time.

Anyone who has been to Bigbury Bay will vouch, I am sure, for its scenic charms. Apart from the wide sweep of sand and sea, its most attractive feature was the causeway to Burgh Island across which it was possible to walk, at low tide, to visit a little pub called The Pilchard, constructed, seemingly, out of flotsam and jetsam, where beer was served in china pots. Gosh! After Bridlington and Morecambe, Bigbury Bay was the equivalent of a Mediterranean experience for me at the time. The youth hostel was unusual in being a modern, purpose-built, timber bungalow overlooking the beach and boasting all-electric cooking facilities.

The hostel at Dunsford was also of timber construction and purpose-built, but, otherwise, in complete contrast. Standing in a small clearing in the dense woods which adorn the Teign Valley at that point, it was a simple structure with its sleeping quarters in an upper storey reached by external steps leading up to a balcony. There was no mains electricity, and the water supply came from a large hand-operated pump which stood in front of the entrance to the ground floor cooking and eating facilities, within easy reach of the enamel bowls on a trestle table which served for outdoor ablutions. After eating whatever meal we were able to prepare on the primus stoves provided, the four of us, the evening being fine and warm, strolled along to the village pub where, given the novelty of it all, we needed little encouragement to sample the deceptively drinkable local draught cider.

Fred and Brian, older and more experienced, stood up to this encounter well, but, unaccustomed to alcohol as I then was, I became more inebriated than I had ever been before in my life after only two half pints, and Bert, who was very ascetic in his habits, but subscribed to the view so mistakenly held by many at the time that cider (being made from healthy apples) didn't really count as booze, was almost legless by the time we wended our merry way back the hostel. There, Bert took himself quickly off to bed, while the rest of us joined a number of other overnight residents who were chatting pleasantly in the twilight round the pump. Before many minutes had passed, however, this light-hearted conclave was brought to an abrupt end by the sudden appearance of Bert on the balcony above, helplessly vomiting over the handrail. O, how we scattered! The following morning poor Bert, whose congenital shyness made him a martyr to embarrassment at the best of times, neither spoke nor lifted his chin from his chest until the scene of his mortification was well behind us.

Unlike my discovery of the wonders of the YHA, the second revelation granted me on this holiday brought no immediate benefit, but it opened my mind to an aspect of human affairs I had hitherto hardly noticed but which would continue to absorb my interest long after my youth hostelling years were over. It occurred towards the end of the tour, when, coming back along the North Devon coast, we spent the night in a hostel near the top of the infamous Porlock Hill, so steep that, in the earlier days of motoring, the villagers of Porlock would amuse themselves on Sundays by sitting on a wall opposite the crippling bend half way up it, in order to watch the climbing vehicles, their radiators boiling over, stall and run back. After carefully wheeling our bikes down most of the hill we arrived in the village of Porlock where Fred, after a brief word with Brian, disappeared inside the newsagent's shop, to emerge a few moments later in a state of high excitement waving a newspaper which carried the banner headline "LABOUR LANDSLIDE". I then watched with some bewilderment as Fred and Brian literally danced with joy at receiving this news.

So wrapped up had I been in my own affairs that I had hardly noticed the general election going on around me, in addition to which, I must confess to having previously taken virtually no interest in politics at all, while in my own defence pointing out that the war had broken out just before my fourteenth birthday and overt party political activity had been in a state of suspended animation ever since. Before the war, political discussion of any rational kind within the family circle, had been a luxury for which time could not be afforded from the arguments arising from the daily struggle to make ends meet. My father was an avid reader of Beaverbrook's "Daily Express" but, if the subject ever came up, professed to being a Liberal, while my mother, if she voted at all, probably voted Conservative, one of her favourite sayings being "the British working man is his own worst enemy" Certainly, neither of them supported Labour.

This backwater of political apathy had, however, been given an occasional stir from outside, usually on a Sunday morning, by my 'Uncle' Eddie. He wasn't a real uncle, of course, but he and his wife Minnie were the only couple my mother and father had been friends with before their marriage who had not since been alienated by my father's anti-social habits and irresponsible behaviour. This may have been due, in part, to the fact that they lived just up the street and could drop in on us in a neighbourly fashion without being invited or giving formal notice of their intention to do so. They had a daughter, Edwina, who was my sister's age and two younger girl twins of about my brother's age. Auntie Minnie was a rather flabby, sad and bewildered lady who suffered, as I recall, from a succession of ailments associated with her nerves. Uncle Eddie, on the other hand, had a wiry frame, a birdlike head, a lively manner, and smoked a pipe. As a model husband and father, he was, in many ways, the very antithesis of my dad, but they were both intelligent, articulate and argumentative enough to make their relationship worth sustaining in spite of the many differences in their respective lifestyles.

Two things set Uncle Eddie apart from everyone else in our acquaintance. First, he was a civil servant, something which, I was given to understand, it was a very good thing to be, since it immunised him, in some way, against the diseases then afflicting the economy, and meant that he was never out of work. Living in our street, he must have been, I later realised, a fairly low grade civil servant, probably a Clerical Officer, and I never knew which great department of state his Bradford office represented locally, but he always dressed the part, going to work in pin-stripe trousers, dark jacket and a Homberg hat, the bowler hat of later tradition being considered quite 'common' at the time - even my father had one!

The second unusual thing about Uncle Eddie was that he was a devout communist who made no secret of the fact at a time when the Bolshevic Terror of the 1920s was still fresh in most adult minds, and the jury was still out on whether Stalin's communism or Hitler's fascism would supersede the entrepreneurial capitalism which is still with us today, but had, at that time, been brought into such disrepute by, first, the Great War, and then the Great Depression. He was, of course, an armchair communist who would never have united with his fellow workers under the scarlet banner, let alone manned the barricades, and, even at the time, I was never quite sure whether he was a true believer or had simply adopted a creed which gave him a certain intellectual distinction and was easier to defend in theory than its alternatives, not having been tested in practice for any length of time. Or perhaps he had recognised, however dimly, that, under communism, everyone who worked for a living, at whatever level, would be a government servant, thus giving him a significant advantage.

Whatever his motivation, his Sunday morning visits, during which he would almost invariably produce and read from a copy of the Daily Worker, were quite lively affairs, thanks to my father's customary reaction of scoffing scepticism. But, these arguments bore little relation to the party politics of the real world which, at the time, seemed mainly concerned with foreign affairs, and continued to excite little interest in me until that moment in Porlock. Nor, I would guess, was I alone in being rudely awakened. No event in British politics since that day has produced anything like the shock effect of Labour's landslide defeat of the Tories under a Winston Churchill who had just led the nation to victory in a war which, at one point, we looked like losing. It seemed to come from nowhere, that Labour Government, with its outrageous commitment to the state ownership of just about everything, including my own dear BRI. Suddenly, as a result, politics became interesting, and it wouldn't be long before I realised that I myself was a democratic socialist and began to subscribe to the "New Statesman".

But all that was somewhere in the future when I returned from the West Country to celebrate the end of World War ll on VJ Day and address myself to life in post-war Bradford where my teenage years were drawing to a close and, with them, the sheltered existence which had enabled me to exploit my waking hours to such good effect in the University of Life. By the spring of 1946, after one last winter of more of the same, but with peacetime bells on, my world had changed. Having sat and passed the prescribed exams as soon as possible after my twentieth birthday, I was now a qualified radiographer in search, theoretically, of a job, but eligible, now, for military service. My friend Frank, about six months older than me, had qualified as a pharmacist earlier and already been called up, as had his fellow-student Les, the trombonist in the band. With their departure and the threat of conscription hanging over many of the rest of us, we had decided to disband the Semitones while we were still going strong rather than disintegrate by degrees. It was the end of an era.

My other close friend, Mike, having passed his Higher School Certificate, had also departed, not to a University, but to pursue a career in the armed forces, but not, amazingly, as a conscript. He had enlisted in the RAF, having applied for and been granted a place in the RAF's apprentice training scheme from which he would emerge, after two years of full-time instruction, bed and board included, at no cost to himself or his family, as a qualified aircraft engineer. Knowing Mike's capabilities as I did, however, not to mention his proclivities, I found this course of action difficult to understand. I simply could not see him being satisfied with a life in uniform as an NCO engineer, however well qualified. But I soon learned that it was all part of a cunning plan. What Mike knew, thanks to inside information supplied, no doubt, by his older step-brother, was that the apprentice who passed out at the end of each course with the highest marks, could, subject to the usual provisos, be funded by the RAF through a science degree at Cambridge University and given a long-service commission, and he was gambling on his own ability to win this prize, knowing that the odds were not too long, since he was a very clever lad and the competition was unlikely to be all that fierce.

Quite suddenly, then, I was in a kind of limbo, waiting for my call-up papers. But my life wasn't entirely empty. Jack and I had continued to explore the world of music together by attending one last season of the Halle Orchestra's monthly Subscription Concerts at the Eastbrook Hall, but gone were the heady days when the Bournemouth Symphony or the Sadler's Wells Opera were happy to come and perform for us night after night at the Prince's Theatre. As of old, most of our adventures into music had to rely on gramophone records, of which I had now acquired a few of my own, although they suffered from the same disadvantage as the symphony concerts frequently broadcast on the radio - I could only listen to them when I had the house to myself, which was hardly ever. But I was happy to share them with anyone who had a radiogram and the time and space available to make use of it. Not only that, but, with the enthusiasm of the recently converted, I was also keen to share with anyone who could be persuaded to listen, everything I had learned from my diligent researches into the music they contained.

A feature of the age was the existence of certain groups called gramophone record societies, often attached to some church or chapel, whose members would meet at regular intervals to listen to each other's classical music records, or those of some visiting speaker, in the kind of serious silence not easily achieved, as in my own case, at home. There was, in consequence, one new venture to be embarked upon before this chapter of my life was closed. I persuaded Jack to join me in exploiting what was obviously a godsent opportunity to both play our records and air our views to a captive audience by offering our services in some such capacity to any of these groups whose members seemed likely to know less about classical music than we did. And, in a trice, as they say, this target having turned out to be not too difficult to hit, there I was, a few short years after learning to explore the riches of our musical heritage for my own gratification, sharing my new-found knowledge with groups of people who seemed quite grateful to receive it. What a nerve!

Quite so, although the thought never occurred to me at the time. But neither did I appreciate that, from a standing start only four years earlier, I had succeeded in laying the foundations of a taste in music, and, indeed, in all the performing arts, on which I would be able to build for the rest of my life, whenever the opportunity to do so presented itself. It was an investment I can recommend to any young person who has the inclination, and, of course, the time available, to make. Had I been fortunate enough to continue in full time education into my early twenties instead of leaving school at sixteen, I doubt whether I would ever have been able to pursue my musical education as assiduously as I did. I came to this conclusion in later years, having met and made friends with individuals whose late teens, unlike mine, had been spent in full time further education, studying hard to acquire skills and knowledge that would qualify them for a significantly higher professional status (and earning power) than me, but who regretted never having found the time to "understand music" as they often put it. It seems to me now that, if the love of good music has not been an enveloping presence in the family home, or, failing that, the ability to "understand" it has not been somehow acquired by the age of twenty, it may be too late to start.

My final fling, however, took me, in early June, 1946, far from concert hall, dance hall and gramophone to the mountains of North Wales, where, having benefited from my initiation into the YHA the previous year, I had identified a chain of hostels within a day's walk of each other, starting from Chester, reaching south to Dolgellau, then north through Snowdonia to Bangor before heading for home. It was the first serious walking I had ever done but my legs were in such good condition that I found I could pound along for up to eight hours a day without unbearable fatigue. Also, I was alone - a novel experience for me. After a life lived, hitherto, largely in the company of others, whether at home, work, or play, it was a significant departure from past practice for me to choose to spend nearly a fortnight in my own company. Rather to my own surprise, I developed a taste for it, and, while never denying myself the company of others whenever it has been offered, most of the serious walking I have done since then has been solo.

Admittedly, one reason for this may have been that, as with opera, none of my family and friends has shared my passion for it, the difference being that I have always found opera marginally less enjoyable when attended without a companion, while solitary walking has never left me feeling similarly deprived, provided that the prospect around me was fair. After walking alone all day, however, I do like to spend my evenings convivially, if possible. Fortunately, during my peregrinations in North Wales, the weather was kind, the scenery left nothing to be desired, and the company of my fellow hostellers turned out to be most enjoyable. It may have been the result of the demobilisation which had started soon after the end of the war or the pervading sense of profound relief at having survived it, or it may have been simply because I was travelling alone, but the hostellers I met on this occasion seemed more mature and sociable than those I encountered a few years later when I covered much the same ground with my wife-to-be. They were certainly high-spirited, and several of our paths crossed at different hostels (Snowdonia being quite a small world, really), whereupon we renewed our bantering exchanges with gusto, and even succeeded, on occasion, in generating quite a party atmosphere in rather unpromising surroundings - with sing-songs, even!

The scenery, of course, enjoys a fame which needs no endorsement from me, but my most memorable encounter with it occurred when I set out to cross "over the top" from Ffestiniog to Bedgellert starting from the village of Tan y Griseau. After walking up a narrow gauge railway track, I found myself in the most inhospitable landscape I had ever encountered. A couple of centuries of quarrying slate out the mountain had left behind a huge, dark, cratered valley surrounded by menacing grey cliffs, not a sign of vegetation, not a blade of grass, anywhere, all of it mirrored in the dull, metallic lake in its floor. Talk about eerie, it was like being on another planet, and it seemed to go on for ever, nothing but sharp, slatey spoil underfoot and piled everywhere in mounds. It was the deadest place I've ever been in. And there, in the middle of the lake, a solitary individual was rowing about slowly, silently, and with apparent aimlessness in a small boat. I wonder what was he up to.

At the end of it all, I arrived back home delighted with what I had accomplished, and fighting fit, which was just as well because, in my absence, my call-up papers had arrived, instructing me to report to a distant army training depot in less than a fortnight.

MY LIFE AT THE OPERA: PART ONE

Chapter Five: 1946 - 1948

Even when meeting as strangers, most of us who were of pensionable age by the end of the twentieth century could feel confident that, unlike later generations, we were connected to each other by an invisible thread of shared experience stretching back to the time we had spent in the armed forces during World War Two, or afterwards, until conscription was abolished in 1960. But the fact that all those with whom I have exchanged reminiscences on the subject have testified to the broadening effect of this interlude on their minds, should not be taken as an endorsement of the view that either war, or compulsory National Service, is a good thing. Few may have come out of it as the person they were when they went in, but most emerged from the experience with relief.

Cliff, Brad, Frank, Mike and I were all in uniform together for an overlapping period of about a year, and all of us, while serving king and country, made overseas journeys we could not have made, and saw sights that we would not have seen, without being paid to do so by His Majesty's Government. Living as we now do in an age of international tourism when millions of ordinary individuals can afford to travel thousands of miles each year to ever more remote destinations in search of excitement or relaxation, or both, it is difficult to appreciate the wide-eyed wonder with which, back then, those of us who had not been born into the ranks of a privileged minority in pre-war Britain viewed the prospect of any sort of foreign travel.

If Cliff and Brad had joined the navy to see the world, they were not disappointed. Their initial training was hardly complete before D-Day came along and the conflict in Europe became a land war requiring little active support from the Navy, and, in the end, most of their seafaring was undertaken at minimal risk to life and limb, after hostilities had ended. Cliff, serving as an Able Seaman on the frigate "White Sand Bay", got as far as Hiroshima, visiting The Pyramids and various other exotic places en route, before succumbing to a serious dose of dengue fever which prevented him, much to his annoyance, from sailing on with his shipmates to the antipodes.

Brad, meanwhile, was pushing a pen aboard the battle cruiser "Liverpool" as it meandered around the Mediterranean calling at such colourful ports as Naples, Algiers, Tangier, and Casablanca. From Naples he was taken by army lorry, at no cost to himself (other than the pain in his backside after the 150 miles journey) to Rome for several days shore leave, then, from Casablanca, for more of the same, to Marrakesch. All these distant landfalls were being made during my last frustrating months in Civvy Street, and were described to me in letters written with the expressed purpose of turning me green with envy. Which they did.

Frank and I, going later into the more earthbound Army, could have little expectation of emulating these exploits, and no grounds whatsoever for daring to hope that a roll of fortune's dice would soon enable me to do so, or that Frank, after many frustrations, would succeed in manipulating the system to the same end. It came as no surprise, therefore, to find that my first six months in the Army did little to broaden my geographical horizons, although my very first journey on an army travel warrant took me about as far away from home as it was possible to get without actually leaving the country. At 96 PTC, Bodmin, Cornwall, I found myself sharing the customary barrack room with the traditional bunch of complete strangers assembled from around the country to undergo the mandatory six-weeks basic infantry training in each others' company - an experience which many of them found both unsettling and exhausting. But not I. With my Bradford backstreet background, and my years in the Home Guard, I was well equipped to cope with anything either the Army or my new acquaintances could confront me with. Also, having recently walked my way round the rugged landscape of Snowdonia, I was so physically fit that, while all around me seemed to be either losing weight or gaining it, mine never varied by an ounce.

I quite enjoyed my spell in Bodmin. It was the height of the Cornish summer, the weather was kind, the sun seemed to shine interminably down on us, lolling about on the grass, smoking between military exertions of various kinds, or tramping around Bodmin Moor on the inevitable route marches, singing the traditional rude songs. But, when allowed out of barracks to the grudging extent to which our lowly status entitled us, we found that there was little of interest in the town, and that the natives, conditioned, no doubt, by years of experience, were less than friendly. The only function at which we were made really welcome was an amateur talent competition held every Sunday evening in the local cinema. Entertainmentwise, therefore, this was the high spot of the week, and fortunately, after carefully weighing possible benefits against likely risks, I had decided to take my precious clarinet along with me into the Army - a good move, as it turned out, since, in addition to the comfort of its companionship, it provided the means of supplementing my meagre army pay, sometimes in the most unlikely circumstances, throughout my entire military career.

As on this occasion, for example, where the prizes were in cash - one pound, first, ten shillings, second, and five bob, third, quite good money in those days - and the resident piano accompanist was competent enough to back me up in a sufficient number of jazz standards to enable me to win one first prize, two seconds and a third during my stay there. Judgements were made entirely on the basis of the volume of audience applause following each act, and the fact that most of the other competitors were solo singers of popular songs and ballads (pop groups not having been invented yet), gave me and my clarinet a novel edge, which tended, of course, to wear off as the weeks passed. But two pounds five shillings for a total of about one hour's playing was not a bad haul, enough to fund a couple of excursions into the surrounding countryside to get me away from the barracks for a while (an outing to the picturesque little fishing port of Mevagissy being particularly memorable) and my success in the talent contests conferred a certain celebrity on me in the barrack room which was not entirely unwelcome, since it ensured that nobody complained when I practised.

My next move after Bodmin was to what was then a very obscure little railway station in Hampshire called Fleet. Twenty five years later, following a most unlikely sequence of events, I would become, for twenty years, a daily commuter to London's Waterloo (and a regular patron of, among other institutions, the English National Opera Company) from this very same station - much upgraded by then, of course, in keeping with the burgeoning affluence of its legions of regular users - but my reason for de-training there on that first occasion, together with dozens of other khaki clad arrivals, was that it was the nearest railway station to Boyce Barracks, Church Crookham, which was, at that time, the home of the Royal Army Medical Corps.

As a qualified radiographer, I was not surprised to be assigned to the RAMC, but I was quite unprepared for the amount of discomfort I was made to suffer during my first two months in its ranks. This being the Army, and me being a conscript, the regulations would not allow me to be sent to the X-Ray Department of some military hospital, which was clearly my ultimate destination, until I had wasted eight weeks training to be a Nursing Orderly Class III. This, I did not enjoy. In fact, until the age of 45, when worse things befell me, I thought of those eight weeks I spent at Boyce Barracks as the worst time of my life - which must mean that I've been pretty lucky, really, because it wasn't all that bad. No physical pain or punishment was experienced, no mental torture undergone, but it was all so bloody boring. The place had a collective IQ of significantly less than 100 and the amount of bullshit was unbelievable.

Whether it was an overreaction to the low regard in which our soldierly qualities were traditionally held by the rest of the British Army, or the knowledge that, once we had escaped from its clutches, we would enter a working environment from which the more extreme manifestations of military discipline would be conspicuously absent, or whether they simply didn't know what else to do with us during the eight weeks allotted for a course which could easily have been accomplished in four, one can only speculate. But some combination of motives had inspired the RAMC's Training Command to impose a regime on us that was far more oppressive than the one I had left behind at Bodmin. Although we no longer had rifles, we spent more time on the parade ground, drilling, than we did in the classroom. We spent more time blancoing our webbing, and polishing our boots and brasses than we did bandaging each other up and stretchering each other about.

We were paraded for inspection, we had barrack room inspections, kit inspections, interminably, with punishments in the way of fatigue duties ("jankers") dished out for the smallest of shortcomings by an instructional staff who had obviously been chosen for their parade ground rather than classroom skills. The constraints on our freedom to leave the barracks, when off duty, were severe, and, even when allowed outside, the nearest town of any size, Fleet and Crookham being tiny villages then, was ugly old Aldershot, "The Home of the British Army", four miles away by bus, with little to offer except thousands of other "squaddies" wandering aimlessly about, a few cinemas, and more pubs per square mile than anywhere else in Britain (with the possible exception of Pontefract in Yorkshire). The more attractive, ancient town of Farnham was actually closer, just over the ridge, but, being across the border in Surrey, it was not connected by bus to Church Crookham, nor is it to this day.

Only three bright spots were to shine for me through this sub-human spit and polish gloom. During the very first hour of my arrival there, while I was still queueing up with all my kit to report in, I was approached by a small, rather furtive individual, obviously a camp resident, who asked me, almost out of the corner of his mouth, what was in the instrument case I was carrying, and what my name and number were? Having received my answers, he hurried away without further comment. About ten days later, I received a visit from another stranger who was obviously a regular soldier from some other part of the barracks. After a brief chat about my previous dance band experience, he asked me if I would be interested in doing a gig for him the following Saturday, 8pm til midnight, three quid. Three quid! Where? In Hartley Wintney, 3 miles away. How could I possibly do a thing like that? A person in my lowly station had to be back in barracks by 10pm, on pain of death, and "lights out" was at 10.30pm, after which a thorough bed-check was conducted by the orderly NCO. No problem, he said, just be at the main gate, opposite the guardroom, clarinet in hand, next Saturday at 7pm.

And so it came to pass that, having followed these instructions, I was picked up outside that dreaded guardroom in an army vehicle and driven past the gate guard, no questions asked, to a small hall in Hartley Row where I spent a very pleasant evening with four other musicians playing for dancing at a jolly private party and being plied with food and drink - at one point by the host and hostess themselves, Lord and Lady Allenbrooke, no less. After the last waltz and Auld Lang Syne, I was given three pounds and driven, in the same army vehicle, back to barracks, past the guardhouse, well after midnight, nobody interested, and dropped off outside my slumbering barrack room, from which my absence had not, apparently, been officially noticed. Three weeks later, another gig of a similar nature. Same arrangements. How could this possibly be happening to me?

The explanation was as follows: Boyce Barracks, being the RAMC's Regimental HQ, was the home of the regimental band. I knew this because I had listened to them with pleasure when they occasionally practised on the square, since I love the sound of a military band. I was also aware that there would certainly be a regimental dance band, formed from among their number, the instrumentation being much the same in those days, and this being standard practice throughout the armed forces at the time. What I didn't know was that certain members of this band were 'moonlighting, outside the barracks, in small dance bands formed jointly with local civilians. The problem with this arrangement was that, from time to time, the regimental dance band could be called upon, at relatively short notice, to play for dancing in some officers' mess or other on the same evening as one of these illicit extramural gigs. Hence the scrutiny of every new intake of trainees for possible last minute substitutes, and hence my trips out on the magic carpet. The fact that the military machinery of the camp could so easily be subverted in favour of an underprivileged nonentity such as myself says a lot about who was operating it for who's benefit at the time.

The second bright spot, unlikely as it may seem, was the large dental surgery with which the barracks, as befitted the RAMC's own HQ, was equipped. It was here, following a compulsory dental inspection, that I made the important discovery that teeth could be drilled and cavities filled under a local anaesthetic at the cost of a relatively small amount of quite bearable pain, thus obviating the need to have them extracted under a general anaesthetic at a later date. Having been born into a working class home in the 1920s, my childhood experience of dentistry had been restricted to irregular encounters with a series of "School Dentists" who had done everything they could to put me off dentists for life. In their hands, tooth extractions, seemingly the only option available in my early years, were made to resemble some form of medieval torture, beginning with the insertion into the mouth of a metal implement designed to hold it open while "the gas" was administered.

This fiendish gadget was a spring-loaded reverse clamp with a rachet which prevented it from closing but not, of course, from opening, with the appalling result that the victim's last sensation before sinking into unconsciousness was of the lower jaw being inexorably torn from the upper. Even the nitrous-oxide-induced euphoria enjoyed when awakening to spit blood and find that the offending tooth had been painlessly removed, could not prevent me from developing such an aversion to this chamber of horrors that, later, when I was old enough for a filling to be attempted, the peremptory plunge of the needle into the gum and the noisy grinding of the drill against the tooth seemed more excruciatingly painful than they probably were, and a totally unacceptable price to pay for the end result. The long term effect of this kind of experience, coupled with the high cost of private dentistry, was to encourage the almost universally held view among low wage earners and their families that the only sensible attitude to adopt towards one's teeth was that of benign neglect, punctuated by extractions made unavoidable by toothache, until it became expedient to have all the remaining teeth pulled out, at one go, and replaced with a full set of cheap dentures.

During the four years I had spent at the BRI, I had used my privileged position on the staff to gain backstairs access to the Dental Surgery (conveniently situated next door to Frank's Dispensary), there to have any tooth that was so far gone that it was starting to keep me awake at night, expertly removed, under gas, between patient appointments. Consequently, by the time I arrived at Boyce Barracks, I had already lost several molars and premolars but, fortunately, none of my incisors or canines. I am happy to relate that, thanks to the conversion I underwent at the sympathetic hands of the young army dentists there and my assiduous patronage of their colleagues during subsequent postings, and, later, under the yet-to-be created National Health Service, I emerged from the army with pretty much the same teeth as I still have today. They may be nothing to swank about, but they are mine own - except for the part replacement of a dwarfish upper left second incisor, broken off while I was attacking a grilled pork chop at my favourite taverna in Georgioupolis, Crete, nearly fifty years later. So, thank you, Boyce Barracks, for this legacy, at least.

The final bright spot was a surprise visit from Frank. On being called up, we had promised each other that, wherever we were, whatever the obstacles, we would somehow contrive to meet somewhere, sometime. This pact was to achieve its ultimate apotheosis over a year later in a spectacular fashion, but in the meantime, here he was (surprise, surprise), lying on my bed when I got back from the cookhouse one Saturday dinnertime. After completing his preliminary infantry training, Frank, never one to undervalue his own potential, or to miss out on an opportunity for realising it, had talked the army into accepting him for officer training in the Royal Army Ordinance Corps, and was stationed, at the time, only about fifty miles away, but too far for us to meet half-way, given the restrictions imposed upon our movements. Today, however, he was on a 48 hour pass, and, Bradford being so far away, and there being nobody there, anyway, except family, of course, who didn't really count, he had decided to come and spend it with me.

There followed a short conference with my barrack room mates, after which, one, who's home was within easy enough reach, agreed to grab the opportunity afforded by Frank's presence to pay his family a surprise overnight visit, leaving Frank to occupy his bed for the 10.30pm body count which was the only check made on our presence in the barracks over the weekend, we being officially off-duty and the instructional staff as keen to have their weekends free of us, as we were to be free of them. Once these arrangements had been made, Frank and I were at liberty to enjoy each other's company and such facilities as were available, on or off the premises, without let or hindrance - provided we were back in barracks by 10pm, of course, and in bed by 10.30. Nobody remarked on Frank's presence at mealtimes in the canteen, or in the Naafi, or going in and out of the main gate. His army uniform, even with its RAOC shoulder flashes, rendered him quite unworthy of note as we roamed about, hither and thither, talking each other's heads off.

At that point, obviously, he was enjoying a much more interesting and rewarding army career than I was, and feeling very pleased with himself for having made it into the OCTU, from which he was justifiably confident in his ability to pass out with a pip. But it was not, alas, to be. A short while after our weekend together, somewhere in Whitehall the dice rolled against him. The Director of Army Medical Services suddenly found himself dangerously short of pharmacists and the order went out that any suitably qualified conscripts who was under training anywhere in the Army should immediately be transferred into the RAMC. Overnight, Frank was unceremoniously plucked out of the RAOC's OCTU and dropped into the RAMC's Dispensing Services Depot, where he was promoted to sergeant, and sent out to some remote army sick bay where his skills were desperately needed. There followed an almost unbelievable series of short postings up and down the country, far too many to keep track of, which involved him (the way he told it to me afterwards) in arriving, usually late at night, in some godforsaken spot to find a dispensary in complete and utter disarray which he was required to remedy, working night and day for as long as it took, before being moved along to the next shambles. It was months before he managed to escape from this pharmaceutical treadmill.

But all that lay ahead, when (on my 21st birthday, as it happened), having served my sentence, I shook the blanco of Bloody Boyce Barracks forever out of my hair (or so I thought), and, after a few days home leave, was sent to something more like civilisation as I knew it, in the shape of a large Military Hospital at Horley, Surrey where I soon settled into a comfortable, if relatively unexciting, routine. The sergeant i/c the X Ray Department was a seasoned regular, an army-trained radiographer, who had recently been repatriated from somewhere in the Far East. When he realised that I was a qualified radiographer, he welcomed me with open arms, and insisted on the CO promoting me to Lance Corporal on the grounds that, as an MSR, I knew more about the job than he did and should really be a sergeant. He then put in for the very large amount of leave that was owing to him and disappeared, leaving me in complete charge of the department for weeks on end, which was no hardship to me at all, since I was only too glad to be back in harness.

An army hospital, I found, was very like a civilian one, the main difference being that most of the nursing staff were male, an important exception being the nursing sisters, who, as members of Queen Alexandria's Imperial Medical Nursing Service were ladies of officer rank and, as such, out of bounds to other ranks. This proved to be no great hardship at Horley where none of them was attractive enough, even if young enough, to be of interest. Fortunately, there was a small group of younger ladies present, clad in dark blue uniforms with charming little hats, who were referred to as VAD's because they were members of a body of auxiliary nurses called Voluntary Aid Detachment which was, somehow, not part of the regular RAMC. All I can remember, now, is that one of them, Audrey, was outstandingly pretty and soon became the object of my friendly attentions. But the most unusual feature of the establishment was the large contingent of German prisoners-of-war who were living and working there as general duty orderlies, eighteen months after the end of hostilities in Europe, one of their number having been assigned to the X Ray Department.

And so it came about that my first face-to-face encounter with the enemy whose all-enveloping military might had cast such a pall of menace over my adolescent years occurred while I was being shown around the X Ray Department by the sergeant on my first day there. Coming out of the darkroom we were confronted by a blond-haired, blue-eyed young man whose truly handsome and genuinely Teutonic head was set on a smaller-than-average body terminating in larger-than-average hands and feet. He was wearing a nursing orderly's smock, baggy fatigues and big boots, and carrying a mop and bucket which he immediately dropped while springing noisily to attention at the sight of us, the manifest harmlessness of his appearance quickly dissipating any shock I felt at meeting my first real German soldier. His name turned out to be Gerhardt, and we soon became as friendly as my schoolboy German, his smattering of English, and the constraints of the circumstances in which we found ourselves would allow.

Why the Germans were still there, so long after VE Day, was a question I never bothered to ask myself at the time. I knew that much of Germany was in ruins and assumed that their repatriation had been delayed by logistical problems. I now realise that it may have been because their homes were in the Russian Zone and a more complicated explanation was possible, although this was before the onset of the Cold War while the Russians were still our gallant allies. Whatever the reasons, here they were, in their own separate compound to which they were ostensibly confined, when off-duty, by the prevailing policy of "no fraternisation", but the military regime of the establishment was so relaxed that the only real constraints on their freedom were the perimeter fence (easily breached, but why bother?) and a chronic shortage of cash, which they sought to remedy in a number of ways - a barber's shop and a tailor's shop, for example - to which, because of their usefulness, a blind eye was turned by the authorities.

Objectively, their lot was a not too unhappy one, but they had lost the war, and their equivocal status in the hospital community, coupled with the emotional stress of waiting to go home and dreading what they were likely to find there, seemed enough to keep them, as a group, rather subdued and withdrawn most of the time. The one exception was their contribution to the Christmas Concert, when they overcame the language barrier by producing a highly original and quite hilarious slapstick comedy sketch and a couple of memorable musical numbers, one of which was a visual realisation of their famous wartime song "Lili Marlene" with my new associate, Gerhardt, appropriately dressed, playing, quite convincingly (except for the size of the feet), the part of Lili waiting underneath the lamplight by the barrack gate, while the male voice choir sang off-stage. A choral rendition of "Stille Nacht" was the other musical treat they gave us. But the high spot of the concert was a stunning Can-can performed in full traditional costume with tremendous panache by a chorus line of VAD's, among whose lovely thighs, those of my Audrey were the most refulgent.

The amount of talent and enthusiasm on display at the Christmas Concert served to underline the fact that another thing this military hospital had in common with the BRI was a well-developed internal social life, into which, needless to say, I quickly strove to insert myself by, among other things, floating the possibility of forming a unit dance band. The CO, a youngish major with a Clark Gable moustache, was quite taken with the idea and promptly instituted a trawl of all the personnel under his command for potential instrumentalists. Without even awaiting the outcome, he also dispatched a requisition to "Army Welfare" for a selection of suitable instruments, which, to my surprise, were not long in arriving and were in excellent condition when they did. It was my first experience of the cornucopia of largesse which seemed to be available to those commanding officers willing to tap into it for the promotion of any activity which could broadly be classed as welfare. This resource was probably a legacy of the recent war when everything possible had been done by a grateful country to bring comfort to our fighting men and women, but it must have been a godsend to those whose command of the huge numbers still in uniform included a pressing need to keep them entertained in peacetime.

My active participation in the hospital's social life did not, however, prevent me from exploiting its other major asset, which was the proximity of Horley to London and the frequent train service between the two. As a radiographer, my hours of exposure to X Rays could be no more than they had been in civvy street and there were no restrictions on my movements in and out of "the camp" (as we always called it) provided I didn't absent myself overnight without permission, which was easily obtained. The only constraint on my extra-mural activities was the paucity of my army pay, and the only remedy I found for that was to become an inveterate fare dodger on the railway. Since this was something of a national sport at the time, it was nothing to be too ashamed about - Mike, for example, made it a point of honour never to travel with a valid ticket, regarding the battle of wits with the authorities as a useful test of his survival skills. Having perfected my own technique, I began visiting London at the weekends, together, it seemed, with thousands of others in uniform, for whom, fortunately, cheap overnight accommodation was available in a number of makeshift hostels run by various charities.

The YMCA, for one, had taken over a large building on that acutely angled corner between Victoria Street and Tothill Street, from the generously proportioned windows of which, it was possible to consult Big Ben's clock face across Parliament Square without getting out of bed. But the most memorable bed I occupied during this period was deep inside a disused London Underground Station somewhere east of the West End - its exact location now escapes me, since I used it only once, late at night, as a last resort. Here, after purchasing a ticket from the box office at ground level, one descended a seemingly interminable spiral staircase to find that the familiar network of tube-shaped corridors, when finally reached, housed a sequence of triple bunks, set at right angles to one wall about six feet apart, and stretching away interminably into the distance. The instructions were to walk along a designated corridor until the bunks already occupied were reached and then claim the next vacant one.

I awoke next morning to find that all the bunks in the corridor behind me had filled up while I slept, and that, as far as the eye could see in either direction, there were male bodies in various stages of undress, disposed in postures ranging from recumbent to vertical, overlapping each other into ultimate impenetrability. Most were smoking, of course, but the steady breeze created by the Tube Network's ventilation system was more than a match for this man-made atmospheric pollution. What a place! How surrealistic! If I hadn't seen it for myself I would never have believed it. A relic of the blitz, no doubt, when thousands of Londoners were obliged to descend into the Underground every night, carrying their bedding, to escape the German bombs, but probably installed by the government after the worst was over, just in case the Luftwaffe paid a return visit, and not put to use until now.

It must have been during one of those weekend visits to London from Horley that I found myself dancing on the stage at the Royal Opera House, Convent Garden, and even singing, if only sotto voce into the ear of my fair dancing partner. Yes, it's the truth. Although Sadlers Wells Opera had returned to its London home shortly after VE Day with a stunning production of Benjamin Britten"s "Peter Grimes", "grand opera" was still in hibernation and that hallowed hall had been converted into a palais de dance by planking the auditorium over at the same level as the stage to create a dance floor stretching from the back of the stalls to the back of the stage with a bandstand in the middle and the couples circulating round it. This ingenious arrangement was marred only by the small but rather disconcerting change in the level of the floor which was perceptible when dancing from the ex-stage to the ex-auditorium via the proscenium arch, and back again. Sacrilegious as it may now seem, this radical transformation was somehow symbolic of the crucial importance of the public dance hall to the social life of Britain at the time, and, even today, nothing quite recalls the unique flavour of that distant age to those of us who lived through it, as does the sight of swirling couples on a crowded dance floor, glimpsed in some documentary film about the period on today's television.

But I had hardly begun to explore the range of opportunities offered by my Horley posting, when, one morning in January, barely three months after my arrival there, the hand of providence reached out and took hold of my strings, with the result that I was summoned urgently to appear before an uncharacteristically peevish CO who informed me that, in spite of all his efforts to prevent it, I had been posted out from under him. "What am I going to do with this lot now?" he said accusingly, pointing to the pile of recently arrived instrument cases in the corner, before going on to reveal that my presence was required so urgently overseas that I was to be allowed only the bare minimum of embarkation leave, starting now, so I could pack up and go home for 10 days. The mental blur that followed this confrontation has left me with no clear impression of when it was that I found out my posting was to be to the Rock of Gibraltar, but I can clearly remember feeling disappointed when I did. From what little I knew about it then, Gib seemed a pretty unpromising prospect, virtually uninhabitable, not really "abroad" at all, and certainly not "foreign" enough to hold out the hope of novel experiences of a pleasurably exotic kind. How wrong I was!

The next couple of weeks were a cross between a shambles and a circus. I was leaving Horley at the onset of what was to become the worst winter in living memory, and, wherever I went, there was snow, ice and sub-zero temperatures, aggravated by fuel shortages and power cuts. There was nobody to share my leave with in Bradford except my family, and I had hardly arrived home before a policeman came to the door with a message for me to report to an office in the Town Hall as a matter of urgency. There, I was informed that, since I would be flying to Gibraltar over foreign countries, regulations required me to be inoculated against yellow fever(?) and, for this to be done, it would be necessary for me to report to an army hospital in York at 2pm the following day, travel warrant provided. York! Nearly 50 miles away by rail, change at Leeds, and, thanks to the adverse travelling conditions and the hospital being a long bus ride from the railway station, by the time I got there it was nearly 3pm. I was greeted with the news that I had arrived too late to receive the inoculation that day, and would have to come back tomorrow. What?

In response to my protestations, it was explained that, although the stuff was scarce, it came in a multidose vial to be opened at a pre-arranged time for administration to those who were present to receive it, after which any remaining doses quickly "went off" and had to be discarded. The next vial would not be made available until 2pm the following day. How much of this unlikely-sounding tale was true, I have never bothered to find out, but this was the army, and I had no option but to undertake the long journey again the following day, after which, as a result of either the jab, or the double dose of icy draughts to which I had been subjected on York station while waiting for trains, or both, I quickly developed a severe enough fever to keep me in bed for two days and leave me feeling decidedly wobbly for the remainder of my leave. But I struggled gamely on, determined to bid a suitable farewell to my pals, who, since they could not come to me, I would be compelled to seek out for myself.

This meant that the last few days of my leave were spent in trains, buses and strange beds, all equally cold and uncomfortable. The carriages of the train out of Bradford, for example, had been standing in a siding all night and were coated inside with ice, and most of the passengers were running on the spot to keep their blood from coagulating. Mike, my first call, was deep in snow-covered Lincolnshire, but I managed to get to him for just one night, most of which we spent in a Nisson hut trying to keep warm. Cliff, now back in England, was at Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey where he was engaged in sweeping the Thames estuary for stray mines left over from the recent conflict, and a combination of these duties and the virtual inaccessibility of his location frustrated our efforts to meet, bearing in mind that our communications with each other in those days had to rely almost entirely on the Royal Mail. Brad was somewhere at sea, and Frank was somewhere in Buckinghamshire, ministering to the sick, but he, at least, was able to get up to London for a few hours one evening, while I was passing through, to give me some sort of a send off.

It was a rather subdued affair. Like me, Frank knew little that was encouraging about Gibraltar, except that, situated where it was, it was unlikely to be experiencing the kind of winter presently afflicting us. Our meeting was made memorable, however, by being the occasion on which Frank made his promise that, in keeping with established tradition, he would somehow contrive to come and visit me in my exile. Rash as it sounded, this pledge was not entirely based on wishful thinking, because Frank had spotted a means of escape from his present predicament which carried with it the promise of foreign travel, and had already applied for a posting to "trooping" i.e. as a resident pharmacist in the sick bay of one of the great troopships still voyaging to distant parts of the Empire, bringing time-expired men home and taking their replacements out. Obviously, the garrison on Gibraltar would be a candidate for this service, making it possible for a troopship with Frank on board, if his application was successful, to pay it a call, but it seemed like a pretty long shot at the time.

My embarkation leave had been riddled with discomfort, but worse was to follow, when, at the end of it, I was obliged to report back to the RAMC's Holding and Drafting Depot which was situated in the last place I ever wanted to see again - Boyce Barracks, Church Crookham, Hants. I arrived to find the surrounding countryside under about a foot of snow, and conditions at the depot resembling in some respects the frozen inner circle of Dante's Hell, and in others a Peter Breughel winter scene. The place was crawling with troops, some recently arrived from far away places with strange sounding names, some waiting to be sent overseas, all unemployed, all in a limbo of uncertainty, and all trying to get warm. The heating arrangements were, to say the least, primitive, even in the communal buildings, and the wooden barrack room/dormitories were each entirely dependant on a single pot-bellied stove, for which little fuel was officially available.

The result was an obsessive mass-scavenging for combustible materials which was far more comprehensive in its scope than that portrayed in the first act of "La Boheme", but had much in common with the pre-Plot-night "chumping" of my boyhood. Anything that would burn, and was loose, or could be loosened, was eligible for breaking up into small enough pieces to be fed into the stove. Chairs, tables, doors, fencing, the lot. Not surprisingly, the troops who had returned from tropical climes were suffering the most, some of them even experienced a sudden recrudescence of the malaria contracted out there, brought on by the intense cold, or so I was told when one of them collapsed during the parade ground muster which was held each morning to harangue us about our collective shortcomings and allocate us duties which, it was hoped, would keep us out of mischief for a while.

My own status in this morning assembly was invidious in two respects. Firstly, whereas 99% of those present on the parade ground were in contingents of between twenty and a hundred, depending on their common destination, and were arranged for inspection with the smallest group in front and the largest at the back, I was one of only a handful of individual postings, or "Indivs" as we were called, who were consequently obliged to line up separately at the very front. This proved unfortunate for me, because my second singularity was that I was still sporting my lance-corporal's stripe, something which, as everybody, including myself, knew, was a glaring anomaly, because the rank of lance corporal was a local promotion, not transferable to a new posting, and my first action, on leaving Horley, should have been to remove the single stripe from my uniform. For some reason, however, possibly to do with the exceptional nature of my posting, the powers-that-be had decreed that I should travel with it on display, but the fact that this distinction had been duly noted in whatever documentation had accompanied me to Boyce Barracks did not prevent every NCO on the staff whose eye fell upon the offending item, whether on the parade ground or off, from turning red in the face and bawling at me to get it off.

The inconvenience of that one 'dog leg' did not end there. My first full day at the depot had been taken up with the formalities attendant upon my imminent departure from the country, but on the second morning I was on parade in the freezing cold, and available, like the rest, for whatever duties could be dreamed up for us under the prevailing circumstances. The staff sergeant responsible for this unrewarding task began by assigning the largest contingent first, to snow-shovelling, then the next largest, to cookhouse fatigues, and so on, in reverse size order, each group marching off under the command of its own senior NCO on receiving its instructions, until only our sorry little band of "indivs" was left, by which time he had run out of both ideas and patience. Fixing my single stripe, the only one among us, with a bloodshot eye, he said, "Right, corporal, you can march this lot over to the - er - um - oh - cookhouse for cleaning fatigues". It was to be the only time in my army career that I was given command of a body of men.

I brought them to attention, turned them right, and marched them off in single file to the cookhouse, only to be told, in quite colourful terms, by the Duty Warrant Officer i/c that they were not wanted there. He already had more little helpers, all of whom were on the look out for any edible substances left temporarily unattended, than he could possibly keep an eye on. Take the buggers somewhere else. But where? There was obviously nowhere in that frozen sink of misery that I could usefully take them, and the NAAFI wouldn't be open for hours. There was nothing for it but to show some initiative. After a brief consultation with my temporary subordinates, I marched them boldly out of the depot through a gap in the perimeter fence, across a snow-covered field, to a large detached house, still standing, when I last looked, on the Aldershot Road, close to Crookham Crossroads, which was, in those days, a transport cafe. There, I fell them out and relinquished my authority. How cosy and warm it was inside! What an oasis of peace and comfort! But after spending the whole morning there, drinking tea and smoking, I returned to the depot for lunch to find myself a wanted man.

I entered my refrigerated billet to be told that "they" had been scouring the depot for me with a message to report immediately to the company office. What had I done? Could it be that my unorthodox disposal of the unwanted indivs had been observed and reported? Surely not? But I was confronted by the very staff sergeant who had given me command of them, fixing me with the same bloodshot eye. Fortunately, he wasn't interested in my lost patrol. "Where the bloody hell have you been? You've been off the camp, haven't you? And I haven't even got time to give you a proper bollocking. Get back here in half an hour with all your kit. You have to report to the War Office in London by 5 o'clock this afternoon." O blessed release! The next 48 hours had an almost dreamlike quality. I was given army transport to Fleet station, but from there I was completely on my own. It was a curious sensation after six months of always being under someone else's orders. I felt quite light-headed.

But I managed to find my way to the War Office building in Whitehall before 5pm, where I was directed through echoing corridors to a room containing a very pleasant young lady in civilian clothes, who, after informing me that I would be flying out to Gibraltar next day by the civilian airline, British Imperial Airways, handed me the ticket together with instructions to report to the Victoria Air Terminal at 9am the following morning. Trying to act as if this kind of thing happened to me all the time, I signed for the ticket and gave her a questioning look, which she kindly returned. "And what now?" I said. "What now?" she said, confused. "Where do I go from here?" I said. "Where am I supposed to spend the night?" Enlightenment dawned. "Oh," she said, reaching for the phone,"do you want me to find you a billet." "Not unless you have to," I said. "As far as we're concerned," she said, "you're free to do whatever you like until 9am tomorrow,". So, off I went, down Whitehall, round Parliament Square to that YMCA at the bottom of Victoria Street with the close-up view of the clock face of Big Ben from its bedroom windows, where I booked in and dumped my gear before going out on the town.

Although I had nobody to share it with, the evening went very well, mainly, I think, because I felt so pleased with myself. 'I may look like an ordinary lance-corporal in the RAMC to you,' I mentally informed the London crowds as I passed nonchalantly among them, 'but I am, in fact, an individual of some importance who is spending his last night in England before being flown out by British Imperial Airways to no less a place than the Rock of Gibraltar.' My first stop was the kiosk in Leicester Square where unsold same-day tickets for West End shows were dispensed to members of the armed forces at giveaway prices. There, I managed to secure a ticket for "Anthony and Cleopatra" at the Piccadilly Theatre starring Edith Evans and Godfrey Tearle, a show I really wanted to see because Mike had told me that, in addition to its considerable intrinsic merits, an ex-pupil from our old school called Leslie Sands, who went on later to become quite famous on British television, was making his professional acting debut in it, in the small part of Silius.

He was four years older than me, so I never knew him personally, but I remembered him well, both from school, where he cut a considerable dash, even at the age of sixteen, and from seeing him around the neighbourhood, since he lived only a few streets away from me and our paths crossed occasionally. That night, he spoke his dozen or so lines of blank verse quite impeccably, and his brief appearance on the stage added yet another touch of distinction to the evening, which I rounded off, of course, with a visit to my favourite Lyons Corner House. The following morning, I made my way, under a grey sky through the grey slush that was still lying about on London's pavements, to the marble halls of the air terminal building behind Victoria station, from there to be bussed out to Northholt Airport where I boarded a shiny twin-engined plane for my first ever flight. I was told that the aircraft was a Dakota and was rather surprised to find that, once we had taken off, it was not unlike being in a rather noisy single-decker bus, right down to the twin seats on either side of a central aisle, all of them occupied by important-looking people in mufti, me being the only passenger in uniform.

Except for the last few minutes of it, the journey passed in a pleasant daze of low-level excitement. We touched down at Bordeaux for re-fuelling, but missed out on Madrid, for some reason, probably adverse weather conditions - the Dakota was flying nearer the ground than the planes do nowadays, and I was too busy looking out of the window at the passing scene below to pay much attention to anything else. Eventually, however, the well-dressed young man of Mediterranean appearance in the next seat engaged me in polite conversation, asking the usual questions. When I told him that I hadn't been to Gibralter before and was wondering what the "wogs" were like, he nearly burst a blood vessel - not at my casual use of a term which, in the British army parlance of the period, embraced all the non-whites in the earth's population who were not "nignogs", but at my application of it to the natives of Gibraltar, of which, I suddenly realised, he was one. After recovering his equilibrium with a considerable effort, he advised me, very civilly under the circumstances I thought, against nurturing a line of thinking that might lead me ever to use the expression in the same context again.

Finally, we were circling the Rock, preparing to land, and I was surprised to see that a large part of the back side of it was sheeted from top to bottom with concrete - the water catchment area, my neighbour informed me. Almost equally surprising was the extent of the built-up area clinging to its skirts down towards sea level round the harbour. Then we were coming in, over the water, to the narrow runway, built out to sea on both sides of the isthmus, across the road connecting Gib to Spain, which ran between swing gates and traffic lights. We were almost down, with the sheer rock face, towering above us, flashing past on our right, when the plane was suddenly hurled off course, as if by a giant hand. After lurching sickeningly sideways, it jerked upwards, engines roaring, at a very steep angle to become fully airbourne again, all so quickly that I hardly had time to feel scared by the experience, which was due, apparently, to the idiosyncratic sidewind for which Gibraltar's one-way runway was, and still is, notorious among airline pilots. I have flown all over the world since then, on business and pleasure, but never yet had a worse fright in an aeroplane than the one I had on my very first flight ever. Touch wood!

Unable to land at Gibraltar, there was nothing for it, we were told, but to fly on to the US airforce base at Port Lyauty, near Casablanca, for the night. After what we had been through, the journey there seemed interminable. We were never told how little fuel remained in the tanks when, long after dark, hungry and tired, we finally arrived at our destination - a huddled mass yearning to be on terra ferma. The Yanks had done what they could, at short notice, to make arrangements to receive such a large party of civilians, and we were given a decent supper in an officers' mess during which the glaring anomaly of my uniform and rank was dealt with by everyone pretending I wasn't there, except for the Morrocan waiters, fortunately, whose presence, together with the ambient temperature and the ceiling fans, was the only indication that we were in Africa. But, after that, we were led to the sort of spartan dormitory accommodation in a Nisson hut to which I, of course, was not unaccustomed, but many of my fellow travellers, to judge by their reactions, were.

Since our luggage was still in the plane's hold, and none of us had anticipated an overnight stay without it, we were obliged, when turning in, to expose ourselves to each other in our underwear, than which there can be few more levelling experiences. Ironically, in these reduced circumstances I became the object of some envy, when it emerged that, having taken my side-pack on board the plane with me out of habit, I was alone in possessing the essential toiletries with which to clean my teeth and shave. But, since I was still following my father's example and using a 'cut-throat' razor at the time, there were no requests to borrow it.

The following morning, we were given breakfast and flown back to Gibraltar, where we landed, this time, without mishap. As I walked across the sun-drenched tarmac, with the Rock towering above, the Mediterranean Sea on either side, and the coast of Spain at my back, I could hardly believe that, barely 48 hours after leaving the frostbitten hell of Boyce Barracks, I was entering some sort of lukewarm heaven about which I knew little except that it was, indisputably, 'abroad'.

2.

But, apart from the welcome mildness in the air, it didn't seem much like being abroad at first. I was driven up from the airfield through massive fortress gates into the bustling main street of a sizeable small town displaying many distinctly British characteristics. The street lamps, pillar boxes, telephone booths, and policemen all looked familiar, the signs on display were in English, and even the names on some of the shop fronts were known to me. But, as the road continued upwards, out of the town, clinging to the steep hillside, the prospect of sea and sky opening up to my right was as reassuringly unfamiliar as it was spectacular, and I was soon to learn that the place where I was to live and work for the next eighteen months, situated as it was at the highest point reached by the road before it dropped down to continue on its way round the unpopulated backside of the Rock, enjoyed the very best view of it. Not for nothing was the promontory above which it stood called Buena Vista.

It was a good thing, too, that the road at that point was not, in those days, a busy one, because it ran right through the middle of 28 Company RAMC's domain, separating the living quarters, which were squeezed up against the Rock on one side, from the hospital on the seaward side, giving rise to a constant stream of pedestrian traffic across it. There were other unusual features deriving from the precipitate nature of the terrain and the scarcity of building land. The most noticable difference between these premises and those I had left behind at 18 Company, Horley, and, indeed, Boyce Barracks and Bodmin Barracks was that they were (a) built to last, and (b) built upward. There were very few single storey structures on Gibraltar.

The military hospital itself was a substantial building, four storeys high in places, solidly built in an attractive colonial style with shady balconies at the end of each ward and cloistered walkways in between. My X Ray Department was on the top floor at the back, next to the operating theatre and joined to it by a short glassed-in corridor looking out upon what must be one of the most wonderful views in the world, all 180 degrees of it, from the distant port of Ceuta in Morocco to the left, round to the nearby port of Algecieras, across the bay in Spain on the right, and, in between, just visible on a clear day in the distance, the white buildings of Tangier - all of them places I would eventually visit. The scene was dominated by a great mountain, Mount Hacho, looming up out of the sea across the Straits, the other Pillar of Hercules, which seemed to change its colours and even its proximity from day to day, depending on the weather. Looking down afforded a bird's eye view of the parade ground and buildings of Buena Vista Barracks, almost vertically below, jutting out to sea, home to the Cameron Highland Regiment at the time, and, further over to the right, the beginnings of Gibraltar's great harbour. It was a vantage point from which there would never be a shortage of things to observe and wonder at.

Even so, it was some time before I began to appreciate how fortunate I had been to be posted to the Rock. There was no formal briefing about the amusements available outside working hours, or the extent to which I might be able to afford them. No mentor was appointed to initiate me into any local customs and practices of a potentially pleasurable nature, and, having been parachuted in, as it were, solo, I had no travelling companions with whom to compare notes during the first few days, which passed, therefore, in a whirl of self-briefing. I learned, for example, that, as the only qualified radiographer, either military or civilian, on the Rock, I would be "on call" 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and was replacing a predecessor, one WO2 O'Hara, who had succumbed to "the DT's" and been shipped out in a sorry state several weeks earlier. An unpromising start! No handover, no trained assistance, and a backlog of work waiting to be done. But first, a complete inventory had to be made, in my presence, of every single item in the X Ray Department, including apparatus worth many thousands of pounds, which I was then obliged to sign, on the understanding that, when the time came for me to leave, the cost of making good any defects or deficiencies would be deducted from my pay.

From initial conversations with my new comrades in the barrack block across the road, I learned that army life in Gibraltar was just about as boring as it could possibly get, offering none of the excitements available in such places as, say, West Hartlepool, reminiscences about which were popular topics for conversation, along with "demob numbers" and the tally of months, days, and even hours, to be endured before these "came up" and the troopship home could be boarded. On the face of it, there was some justification for this attitude, since Gib was very small, less than 2.5 miles square, and populated almost entirely by male members of the British armed forces. Barely eighteen months after the war had ended, the total garrison was still huge, completely dwarfing the small civilian population, many of whom had been evacuated to places of greater safety during the war and had only recently returned. More desperate, therefore, even than the shortage of fresh water and building land on Gib was the shortage of female company.

But things, I was assured, were not as bad as they had been during "the dark days" of wartime, when the garrison had been even bigger, the number of women smaller, recreational outlets fewer, and the isolation from the rest of the world more complete. This environment had given frequent rise, in susceptible individuals, to a derangement of the mind so distinctive that sufferers from it were said to be "Rock happy", and the fact that cases were still occurring was cited as evidence that things had not improved all that much since then. The condition was marked by periods of deep depression followed by outbursts of incoherent babbling and irrational behaviour, and was probably what is nowadays known as bipolar disorder and is quite treatable, but there was nothing for it then but to sedate the patients heavily and ship them home...but not until some of them, I was to find, had been sent, in the desperate search for some underlying physical source of their distress, for X Rays of "chest, sinuses and all teeth ? septic focus", which wasn't much fun for me.

There was one big difference, however, between now and then. Following the defeat of the Axis powers, the border with Spain had been opened, under strict controls, of course, a this move significantly extended the horizons of anyone prepared to take advantage of it. The principal beneficiaries had been the inhabitants of La Linea de la Conceptione, the small town immediately across the border, many of whom were now permitted to cross the short stretch of "no man's land" to the Gibraltar customs post, after the gates on the Spanish side had opened in the morning, and walk back before they closed at midnight. They came to work in various capacities, mostly menial, but among them were a number of lovely young ladies who were allowed to sing and dance in some of the many bars which alternated with the shops in Main Street. And, while on British soil, that was all they were allowed to do, apart from chatting up the customers in return for expensive drinks, since any hint of other services being offered this side of the border would result in instant dismissal and loss of work permit. Because their singing and dancing was invariably accompanied by the sound of castanets, these exotic creatures were known collectively to the troops as "the clapper girls", hence the little known fact that the colloquialism "going like the clappers" originated in Gib.

On our side, anyone who had been resident for 48 hours could apply for a visa allowing daily access, in civilian clothes, to as much of Spain as could be reached without an overnight stay, mainly La Linea, of course, but Algeceras, San Roque, and even Malaga, could be visited by bus in a day. According to my early informants, however, the prospect was not a particularly inviting one, Spain being a very backward country where I would encounter dirt, disease, beggars, many of them barefoot children, and bars less attractive than those in Gib. The only entertainments on offer in La Linea which were not available in Gib were in the brothel quarter and the bullring, both disproportionately large for the size of the town due to its proximity to Gib, and both offering wares of a soiled and sordid nature, particularly the latter. The principal attraction over there, it seemed, was the abundance and cheapness of things like food and drink, but considerations of sanitation and hygiene meant the food was risky, and in any case it was oily and stank of garlic, which left only the booze, and unfortunately, the Spanish beer was a very unBritish (at that time) lager, served chilled, would you believe. It was, however, available on draught and, although relatively tasteless, actually stronger than ours, making it cheaper to get pissed over there than over here.

That was about all the advance information to be gleaned about Spain while waiting for my pass to come through. Oh, except for something called "the peseta rate" which was quite complicated. The Spanish Government's official rate for the peseta was fixed at about 40 to the pound with a concessionary tourist rate of about 60 to the pound. But there were shops in Gibraltar Main Street where a rate of 90 to the pound was on discreet offer, and, across in Tangier, apparently, there was an open money market where rates as high as 120 to the pound could be obtained. Of course, it was illegal to import pesetas into Spain, which meant that a token amount of pesetas had to be purchased at the official rate when passing through the Spanish customs, but that was seen by all concerned, including the Spanish customs officials, as the price to be paid for admission to the country, and could often be waived, I was to learn, with impunity. But, before I could begin to find out how far my minuscule army pay would take me in sampling the delights of "going abroad", it received a considerable and very welcome boost, when, after only a few days in my new posting, I was suddenly promoted to sergeant.

And the transformation in my lifestyle resulting from this dizzying rise through the ranks was not confined to the increase in my disposable income. I was moved immediately out of the communal barrack block into my own private sleeping quarters and became a member of the sergeants' mess, the premises of which, although small (there being only a dozen of us) and of utilitarian aspect, seemed positively palatial to me, occupying as they did a whole floor above the messing and recreational facilities available to all the lower ranks. It boasted a light and airy dining room, a table tennis alcove, and a common room big enough to accommodate a full sized billiard table, a dartboard, card tables and an attractive corner bar complete with bar stools - plus two full time orderlies to serve us with food and drink. What could be better?

I found that my new messmates, who accepted my sudden elevation into their midst without undue emotional display, fell into two distinct groups - the conscripts and the 'regulars'. The conscripts were there, like me, because of their professional qualifications, and consisted of (i) the pharmacist, Stan, with whom I was able to establish an instant rapport, because he hailed from Pudsey, near Bradford, and had been a near contemporary of Frank's at the Bradford Tech, (ii) the path lab technician, Kenneth, very shy, from Middlesex, difficult to get to know but friendly enough in his quiet way, and (iii) a good natured dental mechanic who was never called anything in my presence but Lofty, because he was a gangling 6 feet 8 inches tall with a large prognathous head, towering over Stan, who was barely 5 feet. I was to find that Lofty attracted a considerable amount of attention whenever he ventured across into La Linea where the average height of the population was not much over 5 feet. Small crowds of children would gather and people could be seen emerging from doorways to watch him pass by. If he chanced to walk down "Gib Street", as the brothel quarter was called, many of the girls, none of whom (as far as I am aware) he knew professionally, would emerge to greet him with shouts of "Hola, Losti!" followed by the usual invitations, all of which he would ignore, marching on with huge strides, staring straight ahead, a faint flush mounting his cheeks.

The 'regulars' in the mess, having got there the hard way, and being responsible for various important aspects of the organisation and management of 28 Company and the military hospital which was its raison d'etre, were mostly older men of solid character and, this being the RAMC, relatively unmilitary disposition, with sociable natures and moderate habits, more wary of each other than they were of me. The next sixteen months would see a substantial turnover in the membership of the mess, leaving me virtually the longest serving member by the time I left, but the only friction I ever experienced personally was with the first of the two Regimental Sergeant Majors I served under, a very unpopular character of whom everyone was glad to see the back, who complained about my failure to "support the mess" by gracing it with my off-duty presence, particularly on mess nights when those few members who, like himself, lived out in married quarters were present with their wives.

There were two reasons for this shortcoming on my part. The first was that, although I enjoyed our meals together and had good working relationships with them during the day, the evening company of my colleagues in the mess held little appeal for me. I had not yet developed a taste for beer in any quantity, nor the ability to exchange either jocular banter or polite chitchat over an extended period with people whose interests I didn't share and with most of whom I had already eaten breakfast, dinner and tea that day. Failing any reasonable alternative, I would, no doubt, have made the best of the boozing and bandinage round the billiard table, but the main reason for my absence was that, by the time I had been there a couple of months, I was so deeply involved in extramural activities of various kinds that I simply could not spare the time. Outside working hours, my life had become fuller, even, than it had been during those action-packed years at the BRI. But, before leaving the sergeants' mess to enlarge upon these matters, two of the regulars who were in situ when I first arrived are deserving of further mention.

One, Harry, was unusual in being a 'regular' sergeant of my own age. He had decided, when faced with the inevitability of conscription, that he might do better for himself in the army by enlisting in the RAMC on a short service contract. His elevation to sergeant at such a tender age had proved him right, but of more interest to me was that he hailed from Leeds where he had been an apprentice tailor before joining up, and would continue to pursue this trade after his discharge. Fair-haired and friendly, the similarity in our backgrounds made it almost inevitable that we should feel comfortable in each other's company in the mess, and even, on occasion, outside it, with the result that Harry became the only individual I encountered in my entire army career with whom I am still in touch. After contacting each other sporadically, post-demob, our paths began to cross more frequently a few years later when we were both married and he was in business for himself. By that time, being no longer a radiographer, I needed to be better dressed and was happy to have him make every suit I ever wore until I retired from gainful employment. Which meant that I saw Harry, his wife Margaret and even their daughter Rebecca, at regular intervals down through the years, and we still exchange Christmas cards across the world.

The other, Sid, I never saw again, nor heard anything of, once he had sailed away from Gib, but I would love to know what became of him, because he was a man who seemed capable of being much more than a Staff Sergeant in the the RAMC. As Company Clerk, he held a key position in the administrative hierarchy of the hospital, and was reputed to be a financial wizard. He was also Jewish, but not typically so, being squarish of build, sharpish of feature and quite hard of eye, keeping himself to himself in the mess, and leading an active, but closely guarded private life outside it. His relationships with his fellow regulars were cool, bordering on the contemptuous in some cases, but he was quite well-disposed towards us conscripts and was able to demonstrate this in a practical way, as we shall later see, because, unlike his fellows, he had taken the trouble to learn Spanish and investigate the Spain outside La Linea. His interest may not have been entirely academic, however, because there were hints that he was exploring the possibility of buying property over there.

Today, looking at that stretch of coastline between Gibralter and Malaga, the self-styled Costa del Sol, one of the great, glittering, overdeveloped holiday playgrounds of the world, it is difficult to imagine what it was like in 1947 when there was nothing there but a few fishing villages separated by empty beaches punctuated by rocky outcrops. Not long after my arrival, for example, the sergeants' mess decided to organise a day out for ourselves, for which purpose a large army lorry was acquired, fitted out with benches, loaded up with crates of beer and a picnic lunch, and driven across the border, along the coast road for about twenty miles to a large, deserted beach in front of a small fishing village where there was just one small bar. After driving unhindered onto the beach, we unloaded the bottles of beer and stuck them in the sand along the water's edge to keep them as cool as possible while we kicked a ball about and cavorted noisily up and down the beach, but not, curiously, in and out of the sea, as we would almost certainly have done in later years. Before departing, a few of us wandered up to the bar in the sleepy little village for a final drink, during the course of which I asked the barman where we were. If my memory serves me correctly, the answer was "Estapona".

Sid's interest in buying into this barren wasteland may look like inspired entreprenurial foresight now, but it seemed decidedly odd at the time. With so much that was new for me to do and see on land, I was slow to appreciate the simple pleasures on offer from the Mediterranean itself. Sea bathing, for example, was not the addiction it later became for me. I was a reasonably strong swimmer, having spent hours of my youth socialising in the Municipal Baths in Bradford and Keighley, but my childhood holidays in Bridlington had not endeared me to the experience of total immersion in an element which, given its murky depths and tidal swell in the North Sea, seemed less than friendly. And, even though I had unhesitatingly plunged into the cold, clear waters of a mountain tarn outside one of the youth hostels during my recent hike round North Wales, my earlier cycling tour of the West Country with its golden beaches had been unmarked by any swimming at all. Added to which, such beaches as there were below the hospital in Gibralter were not particularly inviting, being covered in pebbles which were invariably thick with oil from the shipping in the bay, and I was not alone in undervaluing these amenities.

As spring turned to summer, however, and the temperatures rose, the attraction of the water overcame the misgivings of an adventurous few of us, but the pebbles and the oil were a high price to pay for a cooling swim. Fortunately, round the otherwise inhospitable back side of the Rock, an easy walk from the hospital, there was an inlet which boasted a short stretch of sandy beach, fringed, surprisingly, by a small fishing village inhabited by a people who, I was told, were not truly Gibraltarian, having arrived there sometime in the past from Catalonia (under circumstances never explained to me) and kept themselves apart from the main community ever since. I was later to be assured by a Gibraltarian friend of mine that the only occasions on which the inhabitants of Catalan Bay, as it was called, had visited Gibraltar town, en masse, in the past, had been to attend the opera house when Bizet's "Pearl Fishers" was being performed there, but, at the time, my interest lay in the beach rather than the fishing boats drawn up on it. And it was there that I learned to value the unique pleasures of that long and leisurely swim in the silken waters of the Mediterranean Sea, many more opportunities for which, off many other beaches, I was to arrange for myself, in the next fifty years.

Another memorable experience to come my way with the onset of the Mediterranean summer was my active participation in the sudden, simultaneous unveiling of the entire garrison's knees. I had arrived in February to find everyone in the uniforms I had left behind in the UK, but, on a given day in early May, as decreed in Garrison Standing Orders, all members of the armed forces on the Rock were obliged, without exception, to replace their long worsted trousers with cotton shorts. This early morning refulgence of such a wide variety of pallid knees, particularly those underpinning figures of authority, was startling in its effect, giving rise to much innocent merriment among the lower orders, and the fact that the shorts were of such amply flared proportions, and that, in Gib, the normal battledress blouse was retained for a hybrid month before being replaced by the short sleeved cotton shirt, did nothing to detract from the risibility of the spectacle. Of course, we soon got used to seeing each other in shorts, and we were grateful for them as the summer warmed up and we could shout "Get yer knees brown!" to new arrivals, but, strange as it may seem today, whenever we changed into civvies to pursue any off-duty non-sporting activity, we never, ever wore shorts, no matter how hot it got.

By the time we went into "half KD", as it was called, my off-duty activities were shaping up nicely, and I was well settled into my new post, where I found myself occupying an unexpectedly strong position in the hospital hierarchy, since, not only was I the only radiographer available, but the absence of a diagnostic radiologist (to interpret the X Rays) left me unencumbered by any superior officer qualified to give me technical directions, and rendered my own unofficial radiological expertise, which was quite considerable, virtually indispensable to those calling on my services. Added to which, I was the only member of the staff, below officer rank, with enough prior experience in a large civilian hospital to be able to judge the quality of the skills being practised around me. In recognition of all this, most of the medicos were happy to treat me on equal terms - as a valued colleague, in fact - inside my X Ray Department, while maintaining their correct distance, of course, outside it. This applied also, I was happy to find, to the ward and theatre sisters, all of whom were, naturally, officers in the QAIMNS.

These ladies enjoyed an even more privileged status than their colleagues back in Horley. Such was the shortage of single young women in Gibraltar, and such was the isolation of the British community there, that it would be no exaggeration to say that this tiny band of nursing sisters had the entire male garrison of the Rock at their feet, and several of them took advantage of this, during my time there, to secure very good marriages for themselves. The demand for their favours was such that, given the inclination and the stamina, each and every one of them could have been out partying til dawn, every night - all of which made it highly unlikely that any of them would wish to commit the offence of consorting in public with a member of the armed forces of below commissioned rank, even if it had been possible to do so without being observed in such a closed community. This was unfortunate for me because I soon found myself quite fixated on the one of them who was, by common consent, the fairest of them all.

I simply couldn't help myself. I seemed to have developed a compulsive need to arouse reciprocal feelings in any member of the opposite sex who had become, through daily contact, the prime object of my admiration and desire, and there was no other candidate in sight. To make my case even more hopeless, the lovely Frances was a few years older than me, and very cool and controlled in her outward demeanour, giving no detectable encouragement by word or gesture, even to those who were entitled by their rank to lay legitimate siege to her virtue. I was to discover later that she had encased herself in this glacial armour as a defence against the heat of the emotions she found herself arousing in practically every eligible male she encountered, and also that, like many beautiful women (as I was later to find), she was less happy with her lot than she should have been, given the superior quality of her assets.

Whether this shadow of discontent was due to lack of confidence in her own judgement in the face of such a wide choice between potential suitors, or to doubts about her own intrinsic worth arising from the unfailing appeal of her extrinsic charms, I never discovered, but, in setting out to melt the ice and persuade her to at least take a friendly interest in me, I found that I was not as handicapped as had, at first sight, seemed likely. For one thing, I had easier access to her presence than most of my many competitors, since our paths could, if so desired, be made to cross at intervals during the course of every working day, and, for another, the very fact that my inferior rank ruled me out as a contestant for her companionship off-duty, made it easier for me to develop a relaxed and uncomplicated relationship with her during working hours. We were, after all, of equal status, professionally. Even so, it was slow going at first, but, finally, as the weeks went by, my gentle persistence succeeded in both gaining her affections and tapping into the springs of an underlying romantic nature which saw the artificial barrier between us as not too dissimilar from that which had confronted Cathy and her Heathcliffe in the recent film of "Wuthering Heights" starring Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier. Truly!

But the obstacles in the way of proceeding towards a more physical intimacy were formidable, and, in the end, alas, the watchful eyes around us and the topography of the Rock, proved to be an unbeatable combination. The frustrations I suffered at my repeated failure to rendezvous with Frances at some accessible spot which sufficiently resembled those remote, secluded and grassy Haworth moors to make even the most tentative lovemaking acceptable to her, came finally to outweigh any satisfaction I got from my success in persuading her to join me in each fresh attempt. Not only that, but the construction of the elaborate deceptions involved in the planning and execution of these clandestine manoeuvres, and the unrealisable fantasies they aroused in my fervid imagination, were distractions I could well have done without as the Mediterranean summer progressed and other claims on my attention multiplied. For I had found that, contrary to the discouraging reports I had received on my arrival, Gibraltar was alive with all manner of potentially absorbing off-duty interests.

There were a number of reasons for this. The sheer size of the garrison, its isolation, and the fact that the cessation of hostilities had left most of its members with few tasks of a meaningful nature to perform while on duty, added up to a great deal of youthful energy clamouring to be disposed of during off-duty hours where the absence of single girls, already noted, simply added to the pressure for its release. Since most of these young men were conscripts drawn from every walk of life, a fair proportion of them were sufficiently intelligent and well-educated to seek outlets other than overindulgence in the usual competitive sports, or idling away the time until their demob numbers came up. The result was a proliferation of indoor recreational activities of any type that was not dependent on, either the expenditure of hard cash, or the active participation of members of the opposite sex - chess clubs, bridge clubs, debating societies, play reading, poetry reading, gramophone societies, and every kind of instrumental combination from a full orchestra to string quartets, to name but a few.

The military authorities, of course, had a vested interest in encouraging these pursuits, and, judging by the resources they made available, and their responsiveness to any identifiable opportunity to provide new benefits, the off-duty welfare of the troops must have been a major preoccupation of garrison HQ. But the existence of this proliferating subculture was not immediately apparent from the military hospital out at Buena Vista, where the work of 28 Company RAMC, given its nature, had been less affected by the coming of the peace than had that of the more combative elements of the armed forces. It was left to me to find my way into it for myself, and, once again, it was my clarinet that showed me how.

My initial exploration of Gibraltar's night life had led me to patronise one particular Main Street bar which featured, instead of the ubiquitous "clapper girls", a small band of Spanish musicians who were doing their best to play, in addition to the usual pasa dobles, tunes of a more familiar nature in the jazz idiom, and succeeding well enough to make them worth listening to. After a couple of visits to show my appreciation and make their acquaintance, I took my clarinet along with me one evening and found that they were only too happy to let me "sit in" with them for a few of my favourite numbers. Afterwards, a small group, obviously young servicemen in civvies, who had applauded my performance enthusiastically, engaged me in a conversation about musical matters of mutual interest. They turned out to be RAF types, and the quite astonishing outcome of our meeting was an invitation to join a recently-formed RAF (Gibraltar) Dance Orchestra, which, needless to say, I unhesitatingly accepted.

A few days later, after wending my way down to the distant RAF Station beside the airfield for the first of the many such visits I was to make in the months to come, I found myself a member of nothing less than a twelve piece dance band - four saxes, two trumpets, two trombones, piano, bass, guitar and drums. I could hardly believe my luck, even though it wasn't quite the transcendental experience it sounds, since the band was, in spite of its name, entirely unofficial and amateur, being the brainchild of the station welfare officer who had fulfilled an ambition of his own to play the drums in such a band by first creating the band and then appointing himself drummer, and he wasn't the only member who was learning by doing, but his personal commitment ensured that the band lacked for nothing. In addition to the piles of instruments, we had a dedicated rehearsal room, hand-made music stands displaying the band's logo, stacks of orchestrations, and a guaranteed gig in the officers' mess once a month. It emerged that the reason for my recruitment as the only non-RAF member of the ensemble was the extent of my previous experience with the Semitones which ensured that I was immediately elected lead alto and put in charge of rehearsals.

That my newfound associates were a mixture of officers, nco's and erks, only became apparent with the passage of time since we usually met in civvies, performing in a simple uniform of white shirt and dark trousers, and rank was irrelevant to our common purpose. Of more concern was the unevenness of the instrumental expertise, but this was mitigated, to a large extent, by the enthusiasm of the weaker vessels, most of whom were able and willing to practice their parts daily for hours between the weekly rehearsals, with the result that we were soon producing a reasonable approximation to the authentic big band sound of the era, although the drums, alas, were never much of a force to be reckoned with, but there was little we could do about that under the circumstances. For me, it was an exhilarating experience to be playing in such a big band, if only for the time allowed us by the inexorable onward march of the demob numbers which could, and eventually did, reduce the band literally overnight to a residual quintet, hopefully awaiting the arrival of any new recruits the next troopship might bring.

But, before that happened, I had contrived to put together, almost by accident, and quite independently of the RAF or any other official establishment, a small band of my own. The unlikely catalyst of this process was a self-styled "Korny Kockney Komic" called Ted, who had emerged from somewhere in the garrison through welfare channels to form a concert party called "The Rockapers" (geddit?), principally as a showcase for his own comedic talents, which, though quite substantial, left plenty of room for supporting acts to fill the bill. In the meantime, mainly through my occasional ad lib performances in the bar on Main Street (which continued until the Spanish band moved on to pastures new), I had made the acquaintance of a number of other amateur jazz musicians serving in various capacities somewhere on the Rock, and discussed with them, sporadically, the possibility of forming a small group to play for pleasure and, if possible, profit, but nothing had come of this until Ted started trawling around for talent to flesh out the show he was mounting at the Garrison Theatre, to be called (wait for it!) "Krazy Kapers".

When we were finally put in touch with each other by a series of intermediaries, Ted asked me whether I could get a band together to be featured in the show, using, as a vocalist, the daughter of a friend of his, a sixteen-year old who turned out, fortunately, to have a big, bluesy, adult voice. Can a duck swim? as my mother used to say. Once the word was out, the band seemed to come together as if by magic, a mixture of servicemen and civilians, British and Gibraltarian - me on clarinet, plus alto sax, tenor sax, piano, bass, guitar, and drums, all competent performers needing the minimum of rehearsal, with the added bonus that the tenor saxist turned out to be a talented budding arranger. We were given a fifteen minute spot as a curtain raiser for the second half of the show, which ran for three consecutive nights, and we filled it, judging by the applause, with considerable success.

Once up and running, and thus promoted, the band was free, of course, to accept gigs anywhere on the Rock from anyone who wanted us, but it turned out, alas, that not many did, and for a reason that was not far to seek, since the chronic shortage of female dancing partners ensured that any local "hop" of the kind for which our brand of music was best suited, would have been a rather one-sided affair. We were invited to perform in the canteen at the Military Hospital a couple of times, which was good for my image there, particularly with Frances, and we even played once at a private function at the famous Rock Hotel, but my clarinet, it seemed, had taken me as far as it could in my new milieu, and my greatest claim to local celebrity, when it later came to be mounted on the stage of that same Garrison Theatre, would owe nothing to it. The further complexities of my spare time activities on the Rock can best be appreciated, however, by tracing the parallel development of my flirtation with Spain, or, to be more precise, the province of Andalusia.

3

Spain, needless to say, was a far more "foreign" country to a lad from Bradford in 1947 than it would be to his counterpart today, and Andalusia was, as it still (behind the coastal holiday strip) is, the most exotic part of it. My first impressions, however, were of a brown and barren land interspersed by decrepit municipalities lacking many of the civic amenities taken for granted back home. The poverty and social inequalities were all too glaringly obvious, but there was nothing I could do about that, except become a tourist and spend money there, if, that is, I could find anything worth spending it on, but there seemed to be little within a day's bus ride that could be classed, in those days, as a tourist attraction. My first tentative forays across the border revealed that La Linea was an unattractive small town, that Algecieras was an unattractive small port, and that Malaga was an unattractive larger port. The only features of any interest were the lavishly decorated interiors of the massive churches which seemed to loom up round every corner, giving employment, apparently, to the numerous individuals of both sexes who could be seen perambulating around the nearby streets in a wider variety of ecclesiastical attire than I had ever previously encountered.

My most vivid memory of my day's excursion by bus to Malaga is of the size of the pork chop I was served, after I had plucked up enough courage to enter one of the local restaurants and order lunch. As I gazed down upon it, I realised that, due to the deprivations of my childhood and the vicissitudes of the intervening war, it was the biggest piece of meat I had ever had on my own plate. Back in Gibraltar, we were still living with wartime rationing - worse, in fact, because most of the garrison's food was imported in cans or reconstituted from powders of various kinds. There seemed to be no properly organised local traffic in fresh meat, fruit and vegetables, and, even the small cafe/restaurants in the town had little to offer but bacon, eggs, sausages and chips - admittedly, the sort of savoury fare which those of us who could afford it were inclined to favour as a filling for any corner left unfilled by "tea" (as it was then called, dinner being taken at lunchtime).

That pork chop and the sopa de mariscos that preceded it marked the dawning of a realisation that, gastronomically, at least, Spain had more to offer than had at first seemed likely. But my main constraint, when venturing abroad initially, was that I was unaccompanied by any kindred spirit. If one of my pals had been there, particularly Mike, I might have been more adventurous and quicker to appreciate a culture which was sufficiently rich and strange to repay exploring in depth. What I really needed was a local mentor, preferably a Spanish one, but I was half way through my tour before I found one, by which time I had succeeded in gaining some preliminary appreciation of the two uniquely Spanish attractions, apart from the food and drink, which were available close at hand - the bullfights and the music. I had also, rather to my own surprise, made two week-long expeditions further afield - to Granada and Seville, no less. But first, the bulls...

The position I took on the ethics of bullfighting, when I returned home to regale my friends and family with my experiences, was that, yes, it was a cruel sport and I would probably vote for its abolition if given the choice, but, in the meantime, I could see no objection to studying it at close quarters whenever I could. What a cop out! Today, although it is fifty years since I attended one, I would greet the abolition of the Spanish bullfight with the kind of regret I would feel at the final extinction of a rare species of wild animal. In my experience, in the whole wide world of entertainment, there is nothing to compare with a good bullfight, to which must be added the corollary that there are few things worse than a bad bullfight. It is not unlike opera in that respect. But when I went to my first corrida, I hardly knew what to expect, my previous acquaintance with the spectacle having been confined to glimpses on the cinema screen, of Tyrone Power's sketchy impersonation of a matador in "Blood and Sand", and, more memorably, of the comedian Eddie Cantor's performance in the bullring in "The Kid from Spain", one hilarious sequence from which I was eventually to see repeated in real life during the strangest bullfight I ever attended.

Fortunately, all my early bullfights were good ones, because the small town of La Linea, thanks, no doubt, to the proximity of the relatively prosperous population of Gibraltar, boasted one of the biggest bullrings in Spain and could attract the very best in bullfighting talent. Even the great Manolete fought there, but was gored to death in Linares before I could get to see him - demonstrating, yet again, that bullfighting is not the one-sided contest many claim it to be. But these wonders were still in store for me, when, in the late afternoon of the day of the first bullfight of the season, I joined the crowds converging, through the drab streets of La Linea with a markedly festive air, on the bullring. I was in the company of my messmate Harry, who was sufficiently well-informed on the subject (and well-disposed towards it) to instruct me in the basic essentials, beginning with the advice that it was significantly cheaper to buy a big straw hat and sit in the "sol" half of the arena, than in the expensive "sombra" side.

Once seated on a rented cushion in the midst of a fairly bibulous Spanish audience, however, I needed little help from Harry in following the rest of the plot, or understanding the roles of the protagonists, or even appreciating their performances, since the purpose of the ritual was easy to perceive and the steps by which it was achieved quite unambiguous in their execution. It added up to what would nowadays be called a mind-blowing experience, catalysed, for me, by the ambivalence of my own reactions to the welter of conflicting emotions - amazement, revulsion, apprehension and admiration – I felt, all struggling for supremacy. By the end of the day, however, admiration had won and I was hooked. I became an aficionado, attending every bullfight available until I left for home, even buying the occasional bullfighting magazine, but, with the exception of the one I attended in Barcelona a few years later, since leaving Gib, I have not, on any of the many visits I have subsequently paid to the beaches of Spain, been to another.

But I do not regret the pleasure I took from seeing so many brave bulls dispatched, nor do I feel the need to defend myself for having done so. Bullfighting was there. I was there. It would have been foolish of me to miss out on something that is more than just a sport to be compared favourably with shooting birds and animals with guns from a safe distance, or unfavourably with tennis or boxing, and more than just a colourful spectacle, to be compared with rodeos, circuses or the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, more, even, than an art form, although the colourful costumes, the presence of the music at crucial moments, and the studied grace of the toreros' movements, lends it a certain resemblance to ballet. It is a ritual celebration of the continuing existence among us of two atavistic entities, the lone warrior and the wild bull, and of the "moment of truth" between them. And everything depends on the bull being wild, since he is the most important character in the ring. Without his acting true to the form for which he has been so carefully bred, there would be nothing there for the toreros to confront, and nothing for the crowd to admire. So nothing incenses a Spanish audience more than a bull that does not run true to form.

Such a bull came on at Number Four in one of the corridas I attended later in my tour of duty. Generally, bullfights featured six bulls and three matadors, taking one bull each in turn. The matadors, on this occasion, were not of the first rank, but neither were they novilleros, and each of them had already dealt with one bull apiece to the general satisfaction of the crowd when Number Four was released into the arena. He was suitably impressive as to size and appearance, but gave an early indication of what was to follow when, having charged once around the empty arena, he returned to the exact spot where he had come in, even though it had now been rendered indistinguishable from the rest of the barrera by the replacement of the sections masking the gate, where he assumed the stance of one who was hoping to be let out again. Any impression that this was due to cowardice was quickly dispelled when members of the cuadrilla, coming forward to make the preliminary passes which are intended to reveal the bull's individual behavioural characteristics to the watching matador, were vigorously attacked.

It soon became evident that this bull was not only brave and clever, but also had a peculiar swerving charge. My own guess was that this was due to his being blind in one eye, but, whatever the reason, it made him very difficult to deal with. This didn't bother the picadores, high in the saddle of their horses, sticking their lances into the bull's neck, nor, any more than usual, their padded, blinkered horses; it didn't bother the banderilleros too much either, dancing over the horns to stick their beribboned darts in the bulls neck, but it certainly bothered the matador when he stepped forward to show what he could do. A few tentative passes later, the bull's idiosyncratic charge got the better of him, and he went flying through the air, having taken a horn in the groin. Following his horizontal departure from the field after his rescue by his cuadrillo, the matador next in line stepped forward, as he had previously contracted himself to do, with a view to finishing the bull off with all possible speed. Unfortunately the bull would not cooperate, and, after making several attempts to get him into position for the sword thrust, it was the matador himself who was dispatched, caught by one of those wickedly waving horns.

By this time the crowd was in an uproar, showering every kind of verbal abuse on the offending animal, which responded by exhibited even more aggression, and chasing quickly out of the ring any torero who ventured near enough to try a few passes. And then it happened! An event I had never expected to witness at a real bullfight. After trying in vain to reach his tormentors through the narrow gaps in the barrera provided for their escape, the burladeros, this bull from hell succeeded in leaping right over the barrera, out of the ring, into the callejon, the alleyway round it - the offstage area, in effect - whereupon, without a moment's hesitation, everyone in the callejon, about twenty assorted members of the cast, jumped simultaneously over the barrera into the ring - just as they had done in that old Eddie Cantor film under similar circumstances, and to equally hilarious effect - in my eyes, at least.

Most of the fugitives were just as quick to vacate the arena when the bull was channelled back into it to allow the third matador to make a trembling attempt to fulfil his contract by killing it, by which time, alas, given the state he was in, there could be little doubt as to how the confrontation would end. But, once the poor chap had been duly gored, rescued, and carried off, leaving the bull in undisputed mastery of the field, the interesting question arose as to how it would be removed, since he still looked lethally unapproachable to me. The answer was not long in coming. Heralded by the unexpected clanking of cow bells, the gates opened, and a small herd of cattle was driven into the ring, and began mooching aimlessly about. After a few minutes, the bull walked quietly over and joined them, whereupon they all wandered out again. What an anticlimax! But what a match! Matadors - nil : Bull - 3.

Not the least of bullfighting's attractions for me was the conspicuous presence, throughout the entire proceedings, of a small orchestra, making a big contribution to the unique flavour of the prevailing atmosphere from a dominating position next to the box of the presidente. A reed, brass and percussion ensemble, very like a military band, it played an integral part in the unfolding of the drama, heralding each stage with a traditional toque, or trumpet signal, sometimes accompanying the action, sometimes filling in the gaps between the "acts", always setting the mood of the moment and governing the tempo of the proceedings. Apart from the characteristic, and often quite elaborate trumpet calls, most of the incidental music was in pasa doble rhythm, swaggering along heroically, as befitted the occasion, but often in a minor key, hinting at the possibility of a tragic outcome. There is a substantial sub-genre of Spanish music for the bullring, which is so distinctive that, having experienced it in its proper setting, even so long ago, a few bars heard today can instantly transport me back through time to the living reality of the occasion.

But most of Spain's music is like that - instantly recognisable as Spanish (even when emanating from South America!), and very evocative of its country of origin. I soon realised, however, that there were several different strands to it, even though most, if not all, were song and dance music. Thanks to Radio Gibraltar, which re-defused a constant stream of high quality sound through landlines into every habitation on the Rock, my earliest acquaintance was with the commercially successful Cuban strain, the principal exponent of which was a very popular coloured singer called Antonio Machin, who I was eventually to see perform live in Tangiers. Singing in a light tenor voice, carefully enunciating every word, he churned out a continuous stream of hit records, mostly romantic love songs, in an ingratiating, crooning manner, over mainly South American rhythms, slow rhumbas and quick sambas, to hypnotic effect. Several of the songs he made famous were translated into English and did well in the Anglo-American market, one of them,"Quizas", being frequently heard, even today, as "Perhaps".

His biggest success in the Spanish speaking world was with a song called "Angelitos Negros", (Little Black Angels), a gentle but telling protest against racial discrimination, well ahead of its time. I was so taken with this song that I bought the sheet music to learn the Spanish lyrics by heart, and can still remember most of them. I also bought a couple of his records to bring home with me, which I still have somewhere in the attic. Like many of our own long-dead crooners, Antonio Machin continues to sell well today in his own linguistic domain where compilation tapes and even CDs of his old 78rpm recordings are readily available. Oddly, however, he does not figure in The Faber Companion to Twentieth Century Popular Music, although a search for his name on the Internet throws up more than six thousand site references. But, attractive and commercially successful as it was, his turned out to be pretty mild stuff when set against the uniquely Spanish song and dance music that was my next discovery.

Across the border lay Andalusia, whose best known export to the rest of the world (including the rest of Spain) is the flamenco music made increasingly popular by the exposure to it of the millions of sun-seeking tourists who have flocked to the Costas in the second half of the twentieth century, but little heard in the UK in only the second year after the end of the war. I was fortunate to come across flamenco while it was still genuinely a music of the people, before it had evolved into the elaborately stylised virtuoso vehicle it has since become. It struck me as having much in common with jazz, having been developed, around the turn of the century, from elements of local folk song and traditional gypsy music, by performers in the low-life cantinas of certain towns in Andalusia, improvising with simple materials - the guitar, the voice, the rhythmic hand-clapping and heel-rapping (the castanets being a later addition) - but, having experienced only the pre-digested cabaret version delivered by the "clapper girls", I didn't fully appreciate this until I went to see a visiting company of professionals perform at the Gibraltar opera house.

It was there that I realised that the heart of flamenco lay in the cante jondo, literally, "the deep song". After the show had opened with a series of traditional Andalusian dances performed to the accompaniment of guitars and castanets by a troupe of mostly women but with several men in evidence, the curtains rose to reveal a stage that was empty but for two ordinary kitchen chairs standing side by side in the centre, at which a rustle of expectation ran through the mainly Gibraltarian audience. A few seconds later, two soberly dressed men entered, one of quite mature years, the other carrying a guitar, and sat down on the chairs, looking rather unsmilingly at the audience, as if waiting for the complete silence which was very soon forthcoming, whereupon the guitarist began to play a typical sultry Spanish tune underpinned by a driving, full-fingered dance rhythm. After listening thoughtfully, nodding approval, for a short while, his companion suddenly began to sing, in a shouting, throaty voice which carried easily to every corner of the theatre.

I was immediately captivated by the idiom, with its archaic, quasi-oriental melody line, its uninhibited, uncompromising style of delivery, and its improvisational nature, which became increasingly evident as the singer, driven, apparently, by the emotion generated within him by the lyrics, sang with such mounting passion that, unable to remain seated any longer, he stood impulsively up, moving by degrees until the climax of his song found him standing behind his chair supporting himself its back with one hand while extending the other hand dramatically to the heavens. Obviously, this was a traditional sequence of gestures, repeated at each performance, but I always found it impressive and the improvisation was undoubtedly genuine. The audience loved it (emitting quiet "ole"s from time to time), and so did I, although I couldn't understand what he was singing about, except that the word "morena" cropped up from time to time, as it does, I was to find, in many of these songs. It means "dark-haired girl". Another, less conspicuous word, of course, is "rubia" which means "fair-haired girl". But not all the songs are about sexual attraction, some deal with other serious matters.

What I had witnessed, I later learned, was the cante jondo, the basic genetic material from which the flamenco style of song and dance has been elaborated over the years, absorbing much from the indigenous folk music of Andalusia, but retaining the spontaneous improvisational essence of the duende - a word used to describe the “possession” I had witnessed of the performers by the emotions aroused in them by the words or the music. Afterwards, as the evening progressed, the flamenco flavour of the dances became more pronounced, culminating in a frenzy of hand clapping and foot stamping to the accompaniment of several guitars and the full-throated singing (aimed, it seemed, at the dancers rather than the audience) of strategically placed vocalists. It was as if all the parties involved were hyping each other up into even more exalted levels of duende. Very like jazz, again, and very exciting, but, being a concert performance, not quite the real thing. To get closer to that, I had to take advantage of an unexpected opportunity to leave the Rock and journey deep into Andalusia.

One of the difficulties facing the garrison high command in peacetime was that every conscript serving on the Rock had an annual leave entitlement which it would have been impractical to meet by shipping them to the UK and back, or, given the topography of the Rock, by creating some sort of rest camp in the colony. Fortunately for me, they attempted to solve this problem by setting up a special unit, a sort of extemporised travel agency, with a remit to organise and promote cheap holidays locally for the troops - primitive package deals, in effect. Naturally, I put my name down for one of these as soon as I heard about them, and found myself, only a few weeks later, bouncing along through the night (to avoid the heat of the day) in the back of an army lorry with about twenty other bods in civvies, all seated uncomfortably on benches, over the mountains towards Granada. I was reminded of Brad's description of his journey from Naples to Rome under similar circumstances.

To add to our discomfort, we were obliged to share the lorry with two very large hessian sacks, filled, I was surprised to find, with loaves of army bread. The reason for their presence, it emerged, was that members of an exploratory expedition had found the Spanish bread, made as it was from unrefined, wholegrain flour, totally unacceptable to them, as a result of which, this 'best of British' white bread was travelling with us to be served at every meal. In the event, of course, after a couple of days in that climate, the stuff was too rock hard to be edible, but, fortunately, there was plenty of fresh, wholesome, flavoursome, if rather chewy, Spanish bread available, and I could find nothing to complain about in the rest of the amenities. We were booked into a small hotel near the city centre, probably third class, but it seemed like the lap of luxury to me at the time - it even had footbaths in every bedroom - my first encounter with the bidet. I can remember nothing at all about my companions, most of whom I met only at mealtimes, but I have quite vivid memories of those mealtimes.

Of course, the timing took some getting used to, Spanish eating habits being so different from our own, but concessions to our presence had been made by augmenting the "continental" breakfast with more substantial fare, and serving lunch and dinner early at 1pm and 8pm respectively. This delay in getting to the trough was amply compensated for by the five-course meals which were set before us twice a day. Spanish cuisine, of course, but of excellent quality and generous quantity, and I imagine that any Spaniard able to afford such an hotel would have been content to work through the courses selectively at a leisurely pace, eating such amounts of each as might appeal to him, leaving room for the next, but these lads were not of that ilk. Like me, they had spent the whole of their teens subsisting on the wartime rations which were still being served up to us back in Gib, and this experience had imbued them with an almost insatiable appetite for food, plus what was known in the forces as a "fill yer boots" approach to any legitimate opportunity to indulge it.

They ate everything put in front of them at every meal. Everything. Of soup, salad, fish, vegetables, meat, pudding, cheese, not a scrap remained. The Spanish waiters stood around and watched the performance with a mixture of awe and admiration, particularly when, at the end of each meal, with something of a flourish, a large basket of assorted fresh fruits was placed in the centre of each table. The intention was, I suppose, that, after all that had gone before, we should choose an item each - a peach, a pear, a few grapes - to toy with, but such a concept was quite foreign to our natures, and, inevitably, when we finally rose from the table, nothing was left but the basket. And having risen from the table to find that we could scarcely walk, most of us would be obliged to totter off to lie on our beds for a while before we could venture forth, thus discovering, after lunch at least, the benefits of that great Spanish institution, the siesta.

Outside, in Granada, there was plenty to do and see, as many millions of tourists have since discovered, but the big difference, then, was that we seemed to be the only foreign visitors around. I heard no English spoken anywhere, except among ourselves, and no French, German, or Italian at all. Imagine strolling round the Alhambra with only a handful of other sightseers about! I had the place virtually to myself, and I have the photographs to prove it. Imagine visiting the gypsies at Sacramonte while they still actually lived in the caves there, instead of commuting in from their homes elsewhere, as they do nowadays, to put on flamenco shows for the crowds of tourists. There, like earlier travellers such as Washington Irving, I was treated to a brief "spontaneous" outburst of genuine flamenco dancing by a group of attractive gypsy girls in traditional costume, all of whom undoubtedly lived there and were putting on a show for the benefit of myself and any of the other half dozen visitors present who could be persuaded to part with a few pesetas for the privilege of observing it. One of the girls was an absolute stunner (and didn't she know it?), flaunting herself quite outrageously. I have photographs of her, too.

But there was better flamenco available in Granada than that. It must have been fiesta time, because a feria was being held there, and there was a huge fairground within walking distance of the hotel, making it the obvious place to visit each evening after the excesses of dinner. In addition to all the colourful pavilions, bars and cafes, there were the usual fairground attractions, including numerous entertainment booths lining the central avenue - as there would be at any fair, of course, but the difference here was that many of the booths housed, not boxers, freaks, wild animals or magicians, but flamenco dance troupes. There were at least half a dozen of them, some even standing side by side, and all competing with each other for my custom. What a treat! I can report that the atmosphere inside those tents was much more conducive to the duende than any generated in the Gibraltar Opera House, because the members of the audience, seated on benches, were much closer to the action. By the end of the week I had heard more cante jondo and seen more flamenco dancing than I would probably have experienced in my entire lifetime if His Majesty's Government had not seen fit to transport me, first to Gibraltar, and then to Granada.

Apart from this cornucopia of song and dance and the bullfights, which were very good, there was one other noteworthy event in Granada that week. I emerged from the hotel one day to find that large numbers of the locals were lining the main thoroughfare as if in expectation of the imminent arrival of some spectacle. Naturally, I was interested, and, being at least a head taller than the Spanish throng, I had no difficulty in positioning myself to get a clear view of whatever it was that they were waiting to see. Soon, I heard distant cheering, getting closer, until a small motorcade, complete with motorcycle outriders, came into view, and I was engulfed by the applause around me, which was obviously aimed at the sole occupant of the back seat of a large open-topped limousine - a diminutive, elegantly slim lady with a flashing smile and shining blonde hair whose iconic features I would have recognised, even if the crowd had not been shouting her name. It was Eva Peron, currently on a triumphal goodwill tour of Franco Spain. Yes, mine eyes have seen the glory of Evita in the flesh, if only for a passing moment.

Although I returned from my week in Granada sufficiently enamoured of the experience to hope for more of the same at some future date, I could hardly have expected to be making a second expedition into Andalusia quite as soon as I did, but the opportunity to do so came from a most unlikely source. Inspired, possibly, by my excited account of the delights of Granada, and reluctant to subject himself to the rigours of an army lorry or the company of the travelling companions he might encounter on any of the garrison's "package deals", for which, as a regular NCO, he may not in any case have been eligible, my entrepreneurial messmate, Staff Sergeant Sid, suddenly came up with an offer to make all the necessary arrangements for Stan, Ken, and me, to enjoy a week's holiday in Seville, at quite a modest cost, if the three of us would care to accompany him there.

Needless to say, after recovering from our surprise, we unanimously accepted Sid's proposal, and he quickly set efficiently to work. Using his phone in the company office and his workmanlike command of the language he soon had our travel and accommodation organised, leaving nothing for the rest of us to do except fork out the cash and acquire British passports - something I had already done for my trip to Granada - whereupon, barely two months after returning thence, I was off again. If anyone reading this is wondering how the Military Hospital, Gibraltar, survived without the services normally provided by Stan, Ken, and me while we took our leave entitlement, the answer is, as best they could. There were, naturally, civilian pharmacists on the Rock, and there was also the British Colonial Hospital with its dispensary and path lab, to be called upon in emergencies, but not an X Ray Department. I know this, because, shortly after my arrival, I had been asked by the CO to go down there, one afternoon a week, to take such X Rays as could not be accomplished by a young nursing sister who had been taught to operate the machinery in a rudimentary fashion. There was nothing at all onerous about this duty, since the surroundings were pleasant, and my young associate was a comely lass - Home Counties and horsey, but friendly - and the time was to come when she would do me a very, very great favour. But, in the meantime, any X Ray examinations at either hospital which required my skills would have to await my return.

My week in Seville proved less rewarding than the one I had spent in Granada, but the journey there and back was much more enjoyable since we travelled by train during the daylight hours through scenery that was always interesting and, in places, spectacular. I was particularly impressed by our transit of the Tajo Gorge at Ronda, and, of course, by the precarious mountain top position of the town itself. Who wouldn't be? Almost as impressive was the abundance and variety of the food on display at an enormous cold buffet, filling the whole of one wall in the well-appointed restaurant on Ronda station where we spent an hour, conveniently, changing trains. What a contrast with the fare available at, say, Leeds Central, or Birmingham New Street under similar circumstances!

On the other hand, there were no buffet cars on the trains, which were also devoid of corridors, even in the first class. But the four of us had a compartment to ourselves, and the stops en route were sufficiently frequent and lengthy for us to relieve and refresh ourselves as necessary. And there was another compensating feature of a more unusual nature. Not long into our journey, we were startled by the sudden appearance at the open window of the head and shoulders of a teenage boy, who quickly allayed our fears for his safety by offering to sell us bottles of beer from the bucket he was carrying. Yes, he had been swinging along the outside of the moving train since our last stop with a large, heavily-laden bucket over one arm, exploiting a niche in the market, as they say nowadays, and would, we learned, dismount at the next station to replenish his stock and catch the next service back, whereupon another enterprising youth would take his place on our train, and so on, all the way to Seville, providing as good a service as any buffet car...and cheaper.

Our days in Seville passed pleasantly enough, but rather quietly, since it was September and there were no fiestas or ferias. Plenty to see, of course, but little to do in a city which was going about its normal business with an introspective air, and from which, as with Granada, foreign visitors were conspicuously absent. There may have been a throbbing night life going on somewhere, but we never went looking for it in earnest, possibly because the amount of heavy duty sightseeing we were doing during the day left our energies too depleted to investigate the nocturnal habits of the locals, who seemed disinclined to leave their dinner tables in search of other entertainment until after 10pm. Also, we were a rather ill-assorted quartet. We got on well enough together, but didn't really gel as a band of kindred spirits looking for a good time. Stan and Ken were very cautious in their approach to the whole Seville experience, reactive rather than proactive, and Sid and I were inhibited from sallying forth on reconnaissance together by the difference in our two ages and uncertainty about each other's tastes. There was also a dearth of published information, in those pre-tourist days, about local activities of a possibly diverting nature.

There must, however, have been a shared feeling among us that we were not making the most of this unique opportunity to explore the culture of Spain, because, when Sid expressed the tentative view, one evening after dinner, that we ought not to leave Seville without having visited a brothel, the rest of us found ourselves agreeing with him, albeit not very enthusiastically, since none of us wished to admit to being either too forward, or too backward, or, in my case at least, to never having been in a brothel before. But, where were the brothels? Was there, somewhere in Seville, an up-market version of La Linea's Gib Street? None of us knew, but Sid solved the problem by simply flagging down a taxi and asking the driver to take us to one, which he kindly agreed to do, dropping us off, after a short drive, in front of a large, anonymous building in a quiet suburban street, and assuring us that, in spite of its respectable appearance, this was the kind of place we were looking for.

And so it turned out to be. But I, for one, had expected something a little more inviting, and it was plain, as the taxi disappeared round the corner, leaving us standing in an empty street, that both Stan and Ken were already having doubts about the venture. But Sid, by walking up to the heavy front door of the establishment and quickly gaining entry, managed to maintain enough momentum to drag the rest of us along in his wake until the door had closed behind us and we were standing inside what was now revealed to be a typical example of the urban domestic architecture of Andalusia. It was a large dwelling house, built as a hollow square, presenting blank walls and grilled windows to the outside world, but, concealing within it a bright and airy inner courtyard, or atrium, overlooked by open balconies round the inside of the upper storeys, with rooms leading off in all directions. A design ideally suited to the climate. The only visible indication of the purpose of the place was the presence in this courtyard of a dozen or so young ladies, dressed as if for afternoon tea, who were sitting around in small groups chatting among themselves, a couple of them knitting.

There was one older lady of more statuesque proportions present, and she was seated behind the only incongruous item in sight - a cash register. Anything less conducive to the arousal of erotic feelings it would have been difficult to imagine, and I felt completely disorientated, as, I could clearly see, did Stan and Ken. But not Sid, who again led the way by exchanging a few words with the senora and pointing to one of the senoritas who rose quickly from her chair and led him, without a word, away into the wings, leaving me in no doubt about what was expected of me, but racked by indecision. Having come this far, however, I could not bring myself to flee the possibility of an encounter which, as an aspiring author, I knew I should be embracing, so I looked hopefully at the girls, seeking inspiration, and the girls looked back at me, but no spark of mutual attraction passed. Finally, in desperation, I pointed to the one who seemed from where I stood to have the most appealing features and was led by her into an adjacent bedroom, but not before I had observed that Stan and Ken were heading for the street door.

What followed was acutely embarrassing. The bedroom was spotlessly clean, but sparsely furnished in a style which bore no resemblance whatsoever to the seductive decor I had assumed would feature in such places. As for the girl: having got me started on the task of removing my own clothing, she stripped herself down, as if for a quick swim, and crossed to the bidet where she began to wash her private parts in an ostentatious manner, humming quietly to herself, leaving me to gaze upon the protruding backbone and ribs of the skinny little body now revealed to me, and feel not the slightest twinge of arousal. Even worse, as she came towards me, ready for action, the awful realisation dawned on me that I would be quite unable to bring myself to part with my underpants in her presence. Overcome by a mixture of shame, revulsion and guilt about the effect on the girl of this rejection of her professional attentions, I fended her off as best I could, dressed in record time, and fled the building, having paid whatever was demanded of me at the till, hardly raising my eyes off the ground until I was safely out in the street, where Ken and Stan were waiting for me and Sid joined us eventually. Needless to say, there was little conversation between us as we made our way back to the hotel.

A much happier experience was our visit to Seville's Royal Tobacco Factory, world-famous as the setting for Act One of Bizet's opera "Carmen", even though we arrived there to find the entrance guarded by two armed soldiers who informed us that it was not open to the public. On hearing this, the rest of us would have turned away, but the intrepid Sid, refusing to accept defeat, proceeded to engage the sentries in a solemn conversation during which he reached inside his wallet and took out the card which all of us serving in the RAMC carried on our person to certify that we were non-combatants. Although written in English, its principal feature was the large red cross it bore, and this emblem, together with Sid's confident misrepresentation of it as evidence of our official status, so impressed the young soldiers that, after conferring briefly with each other, they not only agreed to admit us to the building, but also arranged for us to be shown around inside. Never was there a better demonstration of the truth of the old army saying that "bullshit baffles brains".

Since the old Tobacco Factory was one of the largest buildings in Spain, we were able to see only a part of it, and my memories of our brief visit have become blurred with time. It was no longer fully in use for its original purpose, the manufacture of cigarettes and cheap cigars having been taken over by modern machinery elsewhere, and there were no young ladies sitting around in provocative dishabille, rolling the more expensive cigars on their thighs, as reported by earlier visitors. There was, however, one large room in which cigars were being rolled by hand on bench tops by female operatives clad in overalls and working at high speed in complete silence, and there were other rooms containing other female workers using sewing machines. Most of the overseers were nuns, and I was conscious of a curiously subdued air about the place, which became more understandable when we learned that the premises were currently part of a House for Convertites, a term I have never heard used before or since to describe what the Victorians would have called a Home for Fallen Women. I have since learned that the treatment meted out to the inmates of such institutions in Catholic countries under the guise of redeeming their sinful souls by hard work and harsh discipline, was, in fact, a form of slavery. Little wonder, then, that there were no smiling faces around during our visit.

As it turned out, Seville was to be the last of my forays into the Andalusian hinterland, largely because, by the time I was due for further leave, I had found a place with more to offer in the way of excitement and interest, not only during one or two weeks of fiesta time, but all the year round. This was Tangier, which the garrison travel agency began to exploit with its 'package deals' during the second half of my time in Gib. Also, however, I had made the acquaintance of someone who was able to lead me eventually to a closer familiarity with the culture and lifestyle of Spain without going any further afield than La Linea. This was Victor, who I met, by chance, at about the mid-point of my tour but whose closer companionship I only enjoyed after we had become involved together in a way which gave us both a brief moment of local fame following another roll of fortune's dice.

4

I first met Victor and his friend Roy in the small, backstreet restaurant I frequented, whenever I could afford to fill the empty corners left by "tea" in the mess with the generous platefuls of frying pan fare, served there at low prices by an unfailingly cheerful Spanish waiter - a combination which also appealed to a number of like-minded individuals whose company I grew to enjoy because the tables were so close together that regular customers could hardly avoid becoming well enough acquainted with each other to progress from an exchange of pleasantries to conversations of a more discursive nature. Most of the other habitues were members, like me, of the armed forces - Roy, for example, was in the Royal Artillery - but Victor was different, being not only a civilian, but also a Gibraltarian, and some years older than the rest of us.

They were an oddly assorted couple. Victor, medium height, well-proportioned, graceful in his movements, very expressive hands, beautifully mannered, quietly dressed, but always immaculately turned out, handkerchief in top pocket, collar and tie, thick black hair carefully groomed above his latin-lover-like features. His companion, Roy, in complete visual contrast, tall and slender, with a round, almost baby face, blue eyes, fair hair already thinning, but equally well-mannered and very well-spoken. They were both, in a word, charming, and I was always pleased to find them seated at a table within chatting distance of mine, and, had it not been for an improbable turn of events, this is about as far as our intimacy would have gone, since Vic and Roy were what is nowadays called "an item", and, although such a relationship had to be concealed at the time, I could not help becoming aware that they were wrapped up in each other to an extent which would normally have precluded any further development of our acquaintanceship.

Initially, I found Roy the more interesting of the two and Victor something of an enigma, clearly the odd man out in the present milieu, listening with obvious relish to our exchanges, but putting in only the occasional word or two. But when Roy laid claim to having been a professional actor in civvy street, I thought at first he was pulling my leg, since his appearance and manner did not conform to any preconceptions I had of the type. On reflection, of course, I realised that there were plenty of roles, not all of them subordinate, which did not call for the profile and physical presence of an Olivier or even a Leslie Sands - Oswald in Ibsen's "Ghosts", for example, was a part which Roy had already played, and for which I could see he would have been ideally suited. And, if any doubts remained, they were soon to be dispelled by my first hand experience of his professional skills.

Had it not been for Roy, the approach of the Annual Gibraltar Drama Festival would have been of little interest to me, except as a potential spectator, since it took the form of a friendly competition between drama groups already active in the garrison, and there was no such group at the Military Hospital. Unfortunately for Roy, who was keenly interested in this opportunity to practice his craft, there was, in spite of his efforts to create one, no such group in his small RA battery either, and his only chance of participating in the festival was to find some other group willing to take him on, something which, when he raised the subject with me one evening, he had so far failed to do. And when, in answer to his probing, I had to confess to having seen no sign of any enthusiasm for amateur dramatics in 28 Company RAMC, his disappointment was such, that I impulsively offered to see what I could do to remedy this - so inexhaustible was my energy at the time!

With the CO's permission, I put a notice on the Order Board calling together all those interested in mounting a Company entry into the Drama Festival. The few who turned up were all male, of course, the QAIMNS sisterhood having no incentive whatsoever to make a public spectacle of themselves, but this came as no surprise, nor was it seen as much of a handicap, since we could feel confident that most of our competitors would be in the same boat. Apart from Roy, Victor, and me, only my messmate and recent traveling companion, Kenneth (a most unlikely thespian), was in attendance, plus a couple of other bods whose identities I have forgotten, and the six of us sat around, feeling rather inadequate, considering the options open to us. The conditions of entry called for the performance of either a one act play, or a single act from a full length play of not more than one hour's duration, so our first task was to decide on a suitable vehicle for our collective talents. Naturally, we all looked to Roy for suggestions, but rack his brains as he might, he had nothing to offer which seemed remotely feasible.

The whole venture seemed about to founder, when somebody pointed out that there was a prize on offer for the best original script. "That", I heard myself saying, without pausing for thought, "is the answer. I'll write an original script for us." Needless to say, the surprise with which this offer was received was not untinged with scepticism, but, since no alternative solution to our problem was forthcoming, they had little choice but to accept what they obviously saw as a pretty forlorn hope and suspend final judgement until the promised work was available for inspection. For my part, I simply went away and wrote a one act play. Yes, I did. It speaks volumes for the creative energy at my disposal in those days, not to mention the amount of spare time I had available during working hours, that I was able to closet myself in the privacy of the X Ray department and pound away at the old typewriter there, until I had produced the play which was eventually to win first prize at the Gibraltar Drama Festival.

The February 1948 edition of the monthly magazine "Gibraltar" Illustrated (No.14. Vol.2.) contained a lengthy report on the Gibraltar Drama Festival by one Paul Ableman, a national serviceman at the time, from which I will quote, as follows:

' "The Three Wise Men" was awarded the single "A" Certificate. It was written locally by Sgt. P. M. Scott RAMC. As an original script it deserves a great deal of commendation. The play is set in Palestine today. It tells the story of a British Army Doctor, a Jewish Doctor, and a German Doctor, now a prisoner of war, who meet again in a small base hospital. These three are old friends and their meeting is both a source of pleasure at reunion and a source of deep regret at the folly in which they have all participated since their pre-war friendship.

The author has used this theme symbolically and has succeeded in conveying his views on the responsibility for warfare which, he feels, is shared by us all. When presented at the YMCA the play was sensitively acted by Sgt. Scott, Sgt. Roy Parker RA, and Victor Power.'

To which I need only add that armed hostilities between Jews and Arabs in Palestine were prominent in the news bulletins of the time (plus ca change...!), with the British Army doing its best to hold the ring prior to withdrawing from the scene in 1948, and that the play's action took place on Christmas Eve with gunfire crackling in the distance as two of the doctors await the arrival of the third, a German POW who has volunteered his services to help deal with the casualties from the conflict, and who turns out to be their pre-war friend. This reunion generates the main substance of the play and is finally interrupted by a sudden call to deal with the emergency admission of, not the expected casualties from the armed struggle, but a Jewish girl enduring a difficult labour, to whom they all rush off to minister aid. Hence the title. [Other entries I can recall were Acts I of Shaw's "Doctors' Dilemma", and Priestley's "Desert Highway". and Coward's one acter "Hands Across the Table(?)"]

It was a double triumph. Winning entry and best original script (the only one in competition, of course!), and it gave me great pleasure to hang the framed certificates on the wall of the Sergeant's Mess next to the trophies for billiards and darts. A lot of the credit for our success must be given to Roy, who directed the play, coaxing performances out of Victor and me which his own, as the German, did not put too far into the shade. And Kenneth performed admirably as the stage manager. All very neat. And, in addition to raising the value of my stock with my colleagues at the hospital, not excluding the lovely Frances (from whom, nevertheless, circumstances continued to deny me any tangible reward), my success had the effect of crystallising my authorial aspirations around a single literary form. My future was now clear. I would be a playright. Fortunately for me, in setting out to achieve an ambition to which I would devote countless happy hours of my spare time during the coming years, I was unaware that my theatrical career had already passed its peak.

Of more relevance here, is that, a few weeks after his performance in "The Three Wise Men", Roy's demob number came up, and, suddenly, he was gone, back to the real world, leaving a lovelorn Victor behind and placing me in the rather invidious position of a sympathetic friend who had no wish to substitute for Roy in any other respect. Fortunately, Victor was happy to settle for half a loaf, although he continued to woo me very discreetly for the other half during our ensuing encounters which soon settled down into a comfortable routine. Once a week, we would meet after working hours, and stroll across no-man's-land to La Linea, there to spend the evening drinking and chatting at one of the small backstreet bodegas patronised by the locals - well away from the brothels of Gib Street. Not very exciting, perhaps, but, for me, a quintessentially Spanish experience.

First, there was the wine bar itself with its stone floors, crude wooden furniture, and huge barrels piled up behind a plain bar counter on which the bartender kept the tally for each customer with a piece of chalk. Then there was the brandy, straight from the barrel into small glasses (none of your snifters here!), that lovely, nutty Spanish brandy for which I was developing a taste that was to last me for the rest of my life. Then the tapas, inspired Spanish custom of serving an appetising snack of some kind with the drink, ranging from a simple dish of olives to a selection from a wide variety of sea foods, depending on the kind of establishment being patronised. But the main attraction was Victor's conversation, which I found endlessly entertaining, since he was extremely well-informed about all things Spanish, particularly the songs and dances of Andalusia, having learned to perform them himself in his early youth at the classes to which it was customary, I learned, for most Gibraltarian children of both sexes to be sent by their parents.

I never saw Victor dance, the nearest he got to it was to demonstrate his remarkable ability to snap his thumbs across the four fingers of each hand at such a high speed that they rattled like castanets, but I did hear him sing on numerous occasions, usually sotto voce to demonstrate some piece of flamenco without attracting public attention. On one memorable evening, however, to celebrate his birthday, he surprised me by hiring the back room of one of our favourite bars, "El Hormiguero", together with two musicians (guitar and mandolin), to play and sing for us while we feasted on l'especialidad de la casa, a dish of deep fried, lightly battered whole baby sqid. As the evening progressed, Vic, with the enthusiastic encouragement of the accompanying musicians, began to demonstrate his cante jondo at something like full throttle, to stunning effect. Since, however, my Spanish was nowhere near good enough for me to understand the words he appeared to be addressing solely to me with such obvious passion, I was able to enjoy the performance without feeling obliged to respond to it.

From the first, Victor imposed a curious piece of ritual on these Spanish evenings by insisting that, when making our way back to Gib before the border closed at midnight, we should call at a large, brightly lit confectioner's shop (still open, this being Spain, at such a late hour), to buy a selection of the richest concoctions on display, and carry them to a nearby cafe for consumption, washing them down with quantities of coffee. These creations were like nothing I had ever seen in England, even before the war. Standing several inches high, with multiple alternating layers of cream, custard, or jam between pastry or cake, they were so elaborately constructed and fragile that they could only be handled by the toothpicks embedded in their topmost layer, and only eaten with a spoon or fork. It was Victor's belief that, after an evening's steady boozing, this emetic experience had a bracing effect on the stomach, "settling it down" by testing its powers of retention to the limit. It certainly achieved the latter in my case, the confections being of an unsurpassable richness, and many of the flavours used in them, such as aniseed, foreign to my palate, but, for whatever reason, I can report that they always had the desired effect of enabling me to make my way back across the causeway without being sick, even though my path was invariably beset by others of my fellow countrymen who were vomiting noisily.

Not that our drinking was ever excessive. The only time I came anywhere near to being drunk was when Vic and I arrived in La Linea on one of our evenings to find that the local cinema was showing the old Alexander Korda classic version of H.G.Wells's "Things to Come", a film I had long wished to see, having admired Arthur Bliss's incidental music to it. After some discussion, we decided to compromise by taking half a bottle of brandy each into the cinema with us, but my enjoyment of the film was marred by the fact that, instead of being subtitled in Spanish as I had expected, it was dubbed in Spanish (my first experience of the technique, subjecting me to the spectacle of the normally silver-tongued Ralph Richardson and Raymond Massey jabbering away incomprehensibly. Fortunately, I was able to alleviate my disappointment by sipping sparingly, as I thought, at the brandy, but when the lights went up at the end, and I stood up to leave, I surprised myself by nearly falling over.

5

Those "Nights in the Bodegas of Spain" with Victor were like beads on the one bright thread of friendship running through my final months in Gib. The ticking clockwork of demob had removed, not only Roy, but all my original chums from the sergeants' mess and most of my old mates from the RAF Dance Band and the concert party. But my life was far from uneventful, and my youthful energies continued to expend themselves with unabated prodigality. Hardly was the ink dry on "The Three Wise Men" when, in an attempt to infuse into the disparate elements of a military hospital something of the communal party spirit which had been such a feature of life at the BRI during the war, I not only volunteered to produce a monthly Company Magazine, but even succeeded in getting two issues published before it petered out, mainly through lack of support in the way of contributions from anyone else but me. Amazingly, copies of both issues have survived to remind me of, among other things, the primitive means and materials at our disposal in those distant days before word-processors and photocopiers were invented.

Each consists of twelve sheets of coarse wartime economy paper, 9" by 7", bound together by a ribbon threaded through two punch holes and knotted by hand, each sheet printed unevenly on both sides by means of the only office technology, other than a manual typewriter, available for the purpose at the time - something called a Gestetner machine, a laborious process involving a thin layer of jelly which was only good for a couple of dozen copies before deterioration into total illegibility ensued. Fortunately, a junior clerk in the company office had been appointed to assist me with the production process, but the content was entirely my concern and, although I managed to rustle up a few contributions from other hands for the first edition, I ended up writing the whole of the second edition myself under a variety of pseudonyms.

There are the usual jokes, limericks, anecdotes, and disrespectful innuendos about easily recognisable personalities on the hospital staff (mainly the officers and senior nco's), a couple of very short stories, accounts of the few recent in-house social events and DIY entertainments (in most of which, it seems, I had a hand myself). Unremarkable stuff. The only pieces I can view with any satisfaction at this distance are the two in which I attempted to direct attention to particular volumes in the well-stocked but chronically underused Unit library. The first of these was about a book I had actually bought for myself, at the age of seventeen, using a book token won, during my churchgoing phase, as first prize (there having been only two entries!) in an essay competition held by the Bradford diocese on the subject of "How can the Church help Youth?". Truly! And, in recalling, only as I write, that an additional reward was to have it printed in full in the Bradford "Telegraph & Argus", I have realised, belatedly, that this long-lost essay has become, in spite of all my intervening efforts, my only published work to date. Sad, isn't it?

More to the point, however, is that the award took place in 1943, just as I was embarking, with Jack, upon my explorations of the world of classical music, by which time "The Musical Companion", edited by A.L. Bacherach, had, since its publication in 1934, become sufficiently indispensable to anyone pursuing such a course to have run through eleven impressions, six of them in wartime. It's seven sections, each by a different expert (including Edward J. Dent, of course, on opera), told me virtually everything I needed to know about the origins and development of European music and the achievements of its main expositors, and I can still consult my copy, as I do from time to time, in the confident knowledge that it will almost certainly cast some light on any question arising from any aspect of the entire range of Western classical music produced before World War II. Naturally, I was surprised and delighted to discover a copy in the Unit library and only too happy to share my appreciation of it with anyone who might be interested, and, if nothing else, fill a couple of pages in the magazine!

The other book I chose to recommend was "Sons and Lovers" by D.H.Lawrence, drawing extensively for the purpose, on my recollection of the Reverend Alan Bullock's night-school lecture on Lawrence, and I reprint it here, more as a tribute to him than to my youthful self, as follows:

"Somebody once said to me of D.H. Lawrence that "he wrote from the pit of his stomach" and, much as I object to people saying such clever things, I must agree to his statement being partly true.

Lawrence was the enemy of modern civilisation, the opponent of dispassionate intellectualism: he believed that mankind was losing touch with Nature... not the idyllic and rather constipated Nature of the lyricist but that cruel, inscrutable natural force, the vital mainspring of life, which is the driving power behind all living things: and Lawrence thought that until men regained the consciousness of their fundamental "oneness" with the whole of Nature, they could never be full-bloodedly happy but would remain the dull, anaemic crowd they are at present.

Whether agreeing with his outlook or not, one has to admit that it gave Lawrence an uncanny insight into things: he seemed to possess the fresh untainted vision of a little child to whom everything in the world is new and significant. Notice his choice of adjectives, how simple they are: things are hard or soft, cold or warm. thick or thin... but in his hands these soiled, everyday words seem to be reborn and glow with fresh significance.

In "Sons and Lovers" there is much of Lawrence's vision and little of his philosophy.....that is probably why it is considered to be his best novel. The story is, I understand, a slightly disguised autobiography and this also helps towards its success because the author is able to give to his characters that additional touch of authenticity which sometime seems lacking in his other novels.

I said you will find little of Lawrence's philosophy, that is true, but you will find its artistic application: the natural setting of the story is never forgotten, or sacrificed . The characters, wherever they are and whatever they are doing, never take the reader away from the background against which they move.... they are part of it, they are influenced by it. Notice particularly the Seasons of the year and how they affect the behaviour of the people in the story, and the way in which the smell of bread, baking in the oven, appears repeatedly in some household scenes.... like a theme from some incidental music.

I can recommend this book: in it you will meet living people and you will see the world through D.H Lawrence's eyes... and that, I think, is a great privilege."

Following the early demise of the Company magazine, no new opportunity for creative writing was to present itself during the remainder of my stay in Gib, but my pen was never idle. I was still corresponding voluminously, as I had been from the moment I had arrived there, with as many of the friends I had left behind (girlfriends especially) as I could persuade to write back to me, and no account of my life out there would be complete without some mention of the amount of time and effort which, in spite of all my other commitments, I devoted to this activity, and of the importance I attached to the achievement of its primary objective. Separated as we were on the whim of the War Office from the mainstream of life as we had lived it before being called up, and isolated as we were from even voice contact with friends and family by the inadequacies of post-war communications, it would be difficult to exaggerate the hunger we conscripts felt for letters from home. And the only reliable way of getting letters was to write letters, a challenge I gladly accepted.

There was, I must confess, a less innocent aspect to this pursuit. The public nature of the eagerly awaited mail call encouraged an element of male machismo competitiveness in those hopefully assembled for it, to which I was not immune. The thrill of pleasure at being awarded a letter was enhanced, to no small extent, by the envy of those who remained empty handed, and the supreme accolade of winning more letters than anyone else was an achievement which could only be fully savoured at the expense of the less fortunate. It was difficult not to exult on these occasions, and I can only plead, in my defence, that all my letters were written to seduce, rather than cajole the recipients into writing back, and that, in them, I strove always to give better value than I received. I was, after all, a budding writer who thought nothing of dashing off twenty foolscap pages at a sitting, forty to a favoured correspondent, striving always to amuse and entertain. I did it willingly for my friends, and even, once a fortnight, to her great delight, for my dear mother, whether she had written back or not. It was the least I could do for her after all she'd done for me.

But, suddenly, a more tangible manifestation of the spirit of friendship was at hand. A letter arrived from Frank informing me that the troopship on which he was now serving, which had sailed to the Far East without calling at Gibraltar, was due to call there on its way back, thus allowing him finally to fulfil his rash promise to come and see me. Detailed arrangements for the actual meeting, however, would have to be made by me, a task which proved, alas, to be beyond my powers. The problem was that the troopships did not dock inside the harbour when they arrived. There was no need. They simply dropped anchor in the bay for a few hours at a convenient enough distance to allow the escapees to be ferried out to them by tender. Try as I might, there was no way, from my lowly position in the garrison, that I could wangle myself out to the ship for a rendezvous with Frank.

It so happened, however, that the day of Frank's arrival was the day of my weekly stint at the Colonial Hospital, during which I was moved to unburden myself, to my comely young colleague there, of the acute frustration I was feeling at being unable to get out to the trooper, now clearly visible from the X Ray Department window, to see the close friend who was passing through. Her reaction came as a complete surprise. "I think I may be able to help you, there" she said. "It just so happens that the embarkation officer is a boyfriend of mine. Hang on a minute." Whereupon she waltzed out of the room to use the phone, returning triumphantly a few minutes later to tell me that the necessary arrangements had been made and give me precise instructions as to how to find her inamorato down in the port. Within no time at all, it seemed, after a dash to the docks and a short sea trip in a crowded tender, I was standing on a swaying pontoon at the bottom of a gangway leading up into the bowels of the biggest ship I had ever seen at such close quarters.

It was a daunting prospect. I had strict instructions not to leave the pontoon until the tender came back with its last load to take me off. Looking up from sea level, I was confronted by a wall of faces, lining the rails, deck above deck, from end to end of the enormous structure towering above, faces which I scanned in vain for the one I could recognise. Thankfully, there was an area amidships, directly above me, where the rails were deserted - the admin block, presumably - and it was at one of these that Frank suddenly appeared, gazing down at me with wild surmise, and, after gesturing, quite unnecessarily, that I should stay where I was, then disappeared, to reappear a few minutes later at the head of the gangway talking animatedly to the duty officer who was finally persuaded to allow him to descend to my waiting arms. Not that we actually embraced, of course. Chaps didn't go in for that kind of thing in those days. But we did, exceptionally, shake hands.

After which, we stood and stared at each other for a moment, exulting in the magnitude of our achievement. Then Frank said "You're going bald", and I said "You're getting fat" and we broke out the cigarettes. For the next half-hour we continued to exchange readily forgettable banalities, while basking in the warm glow of our freedom to do so. I can, however, recall Frank telling me that, by a remarkable coincidence, the other pharmacist serving on the trooper was someone he already knew very well, and who I may also have met, because he had studied in the same year as Frank at the Bradford Tech, and had been a near contemporary of mine at my old school. His name was Bob, he lived about half a mile away from the two of us back in Bradford, and his father had a chemist's shop nearby. While I was searching my memory, Frank said "Look, that's him there" and pointed up at the drowsy and dishevelled features, beaming down upon us, like some hung-over Cheshire Cat, from the deck on which Frank had first appeared, of one of the most remarkable characters I have ever met, although I couldn't quite place him at the time, and would only get to know him well in the future.

And that was it. The tender took me off, and the troopship sailed away, leaving our brief meeting, achieved against all the odds, to stand as a noteworthy example of the power and influence wielded in the colony by the British nursing sisterhood. Nor was it the only occasion on which I benefited personally from my attachment to this magic circle. The magnificent St. Michael Cave complex, now such a feature of Gibraltar's tourist trade, had only recently been discovered by the sappers, as they tunneled away inside the Rock, always extending the fortifications, and it was not yet accessible to any but a privileged few by invitation only. It will come as no surprise to learn which members of the entire population of Gibraltar the officers of the Royal Engineers were most anxious to take on personally conducted tours of this subterranean wonderland. Frances, needless to say, was one of the favoured few, and was keen to go, but agreed to accept the invitation, bless her, only on condition that I was included in it.

It turned out to be quite a scramble, since the caves were still in a near pristine state with few added amenities, just guide-ropes to hang on to, and only the most primitive of lighting - a long series of inspection lamps strung out on wire, stretching ahead and behind. Frances and I were given overalls to wear, and we had a great time, helping each other over obstacles, etc. It was the only time I had been allowed to lay hands on her in public, so I made the most of it, much to the chagrin of the young officer who was our host for the occasion and who had no doubt been looking forward to handling her himself. The splendour of the caves, now readily available to all, needs no encomium here from me. I was very lucky to have so early a private viewing of them before commercialisation had set in, and very grateful to Frances for making it possible.

6

Only one more adventure remains to be recorded. Having acquired, early in 1948, a full-time assistant capable of holding the fort while I was away, I arranged, through our friendly garrison travel agency, to take a fortnight's leave in Tangier, which I had previously visited only on the day trips which allowed just a few hours ashore, although the crossing in the small ferryboat was a worthwhile experience in itself, but only for a good sailor, since the Straits could be very bumpy, even in fair weather. One of the attractions of the trip was the large numbers of dolphins which attached themselves to the little boat as soon as it left the harbour, frollicking around it all the way across, weaving and looping exuberantly in front of the bouncing prow, so close that I felt as if I could reach out and stick a finger down a blowhole. And there were flying fish, too.

Tangier, I found entirely captivating. In the sea of devastation and deprivation left by World War II, it seemed an island of colour, luxury and freedom, having reverted to the International Zone status it had enjoyed before the war, where the writ of no individual European power ran. It was the most enthralling place I had ever visited, on the one hand, extrovert and inviting, on the other, mysterious and exotic. Not as authentically picturesque as the walled Arab city of Tetuan, where I had spent a few hours after crossing to Ceuta for the day, but a bubbling melting pot in which Europe, Africa and Arabia were free to intermingle uninhibitedly, commercially and culturally. The original walled city was there, of course, the casbah, the souks, the mosques, the palaces, but all embedded now in a matrix of European boulevards and avenues where balconied apartment blocks of modern design, hinted at a life of pre-war affluence within.

Against all the odds, two picture postcards I sent to my mother from Tangier have survived, the one showing "Le Grand Socco vers la Mosque", crowded with authentic Arabs, the other, the Avenida de Espana stretching along the sea front, lined with palm trees, peopled by a few picturesquely attired pedestrians, with not a motor vehicle in sight. On the back of the first I have written, would you believe, "This is the town I want to live in", and on the second, "Resting myself to death under the African sun...I'm afraid Morecambe will seem pretty tame after this." Obviously, I was smitten. And who could not be, in those rationed, restricted and regulated times, by such things as the money market in the Socco Chico, where the wares on sale were currency notes and coins from all over the world which any customer was free to buy with whatever money he had available, having ascertained the most favourable rate of exchange on offer by a quick tour of the dealers sitting behind the stalls? The whole city seemed to be vibrating with energy and optimism in complete contrast to the mood prevailing across the straits in Franco's Spain.

My only regret was that none of my pals from home was there to share my enjoyment. Fortunately, however, some of the members of the leave party turned out to be a little more lively than the crowd I had shared that bumpy ride to Granada with. We were booked into a small hotel on the outskirts of town, run by a rather taciturn American with three pretty daughters, two of them twins, who were, however, a bit too young to be of interest, and, after a couple of days, about half a dozen of us began teaming up to go out on the town of an evening, looking for fun, but only two of these forays have stayed in my mind. The first was made, at my instigation, to see Antonio Machin, the excessively popular Cuban bolero singer, famous throughout the Spanish speaking world at the time, who, I had discovered, was performing at a theatre in town. He and his band put on an extremely lively show, performing all his greatest hits, singing and dancing round the stage, mainly to the irresistible rhythm of the samba, in a manner which inspired many in the audience to follow suit, up and down the aisles, where they were joined in a final grande melee by the performers.

Our second memorable group outing was, inevitably, to a brothel, although, given my experience in Seville, it was with some trepidation that I agreed to join the party. My fears turned out to be unwarranted, however, for this was to be a better class of brothel altogether, where there was fun to be had without risking sex. The Black Cat, alias Le Chat Noir, alias El Gato Negro, was famous, not just in Gibraltar, but throughout the Med., and there was nothing shuttered and surreptitious about its premises - a warmly lit foyer led into a sort of night club with soft lights, a bar, a dance floor surrounded by small tables, and a band! But when our party walked in, the first customers of the evening, there was little sign of life, just the members of the band playing cards and smoking and a barman reading a newspaper. Our arrival changed all that, of course. The band, galvanised into frantic activity, were suddenly playing loudly and the sound brought several young ladies hurrying into view whose animated behaviour towards us showed no sign of having been activated from scratch by our sudden appearance. It was a remarkable transformation. Quite convincing.

After buying one of the girls the obligatory drink in order to enjoy the pleasure of her company, I was whirling her round the dance floor with an exuberance, the kind of which I had not been given an opportunity to exhibit for quite some time, when I heard voices cheering me on from the bandstand - by name! How could that be? My bewilderment turned to amazement as I realised that the current resident band at the Black Cat was none other than the bunch I had regularly "sat in" with in that bar in Gibraltar's Main Street shortly after my arrival there. And I am gratified to report that, after making the usual ribald comments about my presence in the establishment, they invited me to join them again for a couple of numbers, even lending me an instrument for the purpose, with the undeniable result that, like many of its illustrious progenitors, I could afterwards lay genuine claim to having once played jazz in a brothel. Cap that, as they say in Yorkshire.

But the party was moving on. Not to the bedrooms, but to somewhere more interesting - to me, at least - because, during my absence on the bandstand, arrangements had been made for us to view something called "the blue films". After handing over an agreed sum to Madame at the cash register, we were ushered into an oblong, windowless room, comfortably furnished with divans and floor cushions on which to loll with the girls, if we so desired, while being titillated. At one end, a white wall - the screen - at the other, high up, an aperture through which Madame herself could be glimpsed, filling a tiny projection room with her ample proportions, and fiddling expertly with the controls of an ancient apparatus which eventually caused the lights to go down and the show to begin. I am not ashamed to admit that I found what followed to be a very enjoyable experience. Not an erotic one, however. Educational, certainly, astonishing, occasionally, but, mainly, very, very amusing.

The films themselves were well-worn and elderly. Single reel, black and white, and silent, they dated back, judging by the ladies' clothing (what there was of it), to the late twenties, early thirties. Consequently, although very explicit in places, with little time to waste in getting to the point, there was something rather quaint and other-worldly about them. But there was nothing quaint or other-worldly about the audience's reaction to them. Uninhibited by either good taste or the presence of members of polite society, free rein was given to every kind of barrack-room ribaldry, and some of the ad lib commentary was quite inspired. I certainly laughed a lot. Finally, one of our ringleaders, who had obviously been there before, jumped up and addressed Madame through the hole in the wall, saying "Hey Mama, show us that one where these two birds come into a bar and start playing with each other while the barman is tossing himself off behind the bar...". Madame looked puzzled for a moment, and then said, "Oh, that was last week", a reply which seemed to imply the existence of a North African brothel cinema circuit around which these venerable antiques were endlessly circulating.

[I am reminded by this episode of one of the most remarkable, but least publicised, facts about Gibraltar. It was the only port in the Mediterranean, possibly in the whole world, without brothels of its own. The garrison, of course, had no need of them. With La Linea de la Con(tra)cepcion just a short walk away, the authorities were able to enforce the strict local laws against prostitution and soliciting with little difficulty. The "clapper girls" were free, if they chose, to arrange assignations on the other side of the border with willing admirers, but would certainly lose their work permits if caught canoodling anywhere in Gib. There was, however, one small loophole in this regime, which was permitted to exist because there were a number of males resident in the colony who, for sound political reasons, were unable to cross the border into Spain. Their needs were catered for by a lady of mature years called, improbably, Mrs Wink, who lived at Number 11, Chicado's Passage. Everybody knew about this because Garrison Standing Orders, clearly stated that Number 11, Chicado's Passage was "out of bounds to all ranks", added to which, the proprieties were observed by hauling the good woman up in court from time to time to be fined for soliciting. It was all quite orderly.

Problems arose, however, when the US Navy paid us a visit, which it did from time to time, usually in the shape of an enormous aircraft carrier with an attendant fleet of smaller fighting ships. The Yanks, I recall, had perfected an ostentatious and probably highly irregular method of actually docking the carrier inside the harbour under its own power. This was achieved by lining up rows of its aircraft at angles to each other, anchored to the flight deck, and revving up their engines as appropriate to propel the huge ship gently in any required direction. Once ashore, however, no amount of ingenuity could direct the crewmen to the sexual amenities they were accustomed to finding in every other port they had ever visited. Without the crucial 48 hours residence, they were unable to qualify for crossing the border into La Linea where their custom would have been more than welcome, and a ring of US military policemen, the dreaded "snowdrops", stood round Number 11, Chicado's Passage, truncheons at the ready. They found their predicament quite bewildering.

On one occasion our mess invited some of our opposite numbers among the medics on the aircraft carrier to come and enjoy our hospitality, and a number of them accepted. After plying me with several drinks, one suspiciously friendly warrant officer put his arm round my shoulder and drew me to one side, very conspiratorially, and said "OK, Peter, be a pal and tell me where it is?" "Where what is?", I said. "Oh, come on, Peter, stop playing dumb," he said, "Where have you limeys hidden the broads?" It was the first time I had heard the words "limeys" and "broads" used outside the cinema. I carefully explained the situation to him, but he obviously didn't believe me. The limeys had hidden the broads away somewhere, probably round the backside of the Rock - in Catalan Bay, perhaps!]

I emerged from The Black Cat with my virginity still intact but in a much more cheerful frame of mind than when I had left that cold clinic in Seville. It was the last noteworthy experience of my army career - except for the short ocean cruise, still to come, of course. There were a few more bullfights, and a few more leisurely soirees in La Linea with Victor, but the demob numbers were mounting inexorably upwards until 73 was next, and the day of my departure was at hand. Before I could be released, however, a full inventory of the entire contents of the X Ray Department had to be made, as a result of which, by resorting to a number of shady but time-honoured practices (eg. writing off each piece of a broken item as a whole broken item), a kindly Quartermaster and his minions contrived to show that the equipment and accessories I was handing over to my successor were exactly those for which I had signed on arrival. The same sleight of hand was applied to my personal issue, of course.

Based on my own observations I would be willing to bet that every individual who was ever demobbed from the armed forces after World War II came away with something of HMGs in their possession to which they were not entitled. In Gib, the only limitation on the extent of this practice was that of portability. My own acquisitions were modest - two officer-quality KD jackets which were to serve me in very good stead during summer holidays for years to come - but then I had lots of other loot of my own to carry, including several dress lengths for my womenfolk, newly acquired additions to my own civilian wardrobe, and my clarinet, of course. Less encumbered by such luxuries, others of my shipmates would stagger under the weight of army blankets and bedsheets, crockery, cutlery, anything that would be of domestic utility back in post-war Britain where such things were virtually unobtainable. It was called "gash", and, multiplied by the numbers involved in this traffic, it must have amounted to larceny on a grand scale, but none of it showed up in the ledgers so carefully kept in the QM Stores, thanks to the opportunities presented by the inevitability of breakages, plus fair wear and tear.

And so it came to pass that, one fine day in June, the Cunard White Star SS "Samaria" sailed into the bay and, with clockwork precision, the mighty British war machine delivered me, one of several human parcels, f.o.b., although I was so encumbered with luggage that I could hardly climb the gangway. Almost as suddenly as it had begun, my life on the Rock was over, and, after bidding farewell to a tearful Victor, promising to keep in touch, and to a less affected and now for ever unattainable Frances, I turned my thoughts towards home. Although coming close, twenty years later, to being allowed ashore there when sailing with my wife and two children from Sydney to London, I would not set foot on Gibraltar again until my sixtieth birthday.

The sea voyage was uneventful. A four-day interlude of enforced idleness among a crush of strangers. Gibraltar being the last port of call before Liverpool, the ship was filled to overflowing with uniformed humanity, but the circumstances which had brought us so closely together also served to generate an air of good natured tolerance among my temporary messmates. We were all "demob happy", and, being sergeants, had a mess deck with a porthole through which the daylight could enter and we could take it in turns to look at the sea. I slept for the first and last time in a hammock and, between times, learned how to play bridge. The food was edible, the sea was calm and the sun shone. It was all quite painless.

Not so the early morning disembarkation at Liverpool where the more familiar organised chaos quickly reasserted itself. Thousands of homecoming servicemen, weighed down, like refugees, by more gear and gash than they could sensibly carry, milling around on the dockside railway platforms to which they had been directed and from which they would then be redirected by muffled commands issued over a crackling tannoy. Very like the opening scenes in Jacques Tatti's film "Monsieur Hulot's Holidays" some years later - but not as funny, of course. Fortunately, we were young and fit - and well rested - but by the time I boarded the train to York I was decidedly knackered - more so than after completing the infantry assault course, way back in Bodmin, oh so long ago. But, in spite of appearances, the machinery was working with practised efficiency. The train left on time, everyone had a seat, packed lunches were issued and buses were waiting at York station (no icy winds in evidence this time!) to take us out to the Demobilisation Centre.

What a place! A huge, echoing, factory for processing hundreds of bods at a time through the procedures involved, not only with regard to our honourable discharge from HM Forces, and the handing in of our kit, but in acquiring the various items of civilian clothing which would together make up the notorious "demob suit" - a gift from a grateful nation. Unaccustomed as we had been of late to exercising choice, we were suddenly called upon to select from the range on offer - fortunately not too extensive - shirt, tie, jacket, pants, socks, shoes, raincoat, each in the best approximation to our correct size, all at a brisk trot, assisted by a small army of civilian professionals, who looked as if they could have been on loan from Burtons of Leeds. I emerged from the other end of this production line a rather dazed but fully fledged civilian, obliged to find my own way home, assisted only by a final travel warrant. To my surprise, enough of the day remained for me to make the journey by train to Bradford before dusk.

As is not unusual on these occasions, there was a dreamlike quality about my immediate homecoming - an air of unreality. Everything looked the same but was somehow different. The house seemed smaller, of course, and overcrowded with family, even after the trooper, but it had always been small and overcrowded, and I was simply looking at my old world with new eyes. The feeling soon wore off, however, as the elements of my former existence crowded back in on me. Everyone was there - mother, father, sister, brother, Cliff, Frank, Brad, Mike, Jack - and they all seemed glad to see me. I was certainly glad to see them, and I had a lot to tell them.

MY LIFE AT THE OPERA: PART ONE

Chapter Six: 1948 - 1955

Although I had no intention of remaining there for long, I found it all too easy to pick up the threads of my former existence in Bradford after being demobbed from the army. I knew that, in order to have any hope of achieving my ambition of becoming a playwright, I needed to get away from the overcrowded family home to a place of my own, away from all distractions, preferably in some remote corner of the British Isles. But, in the meantime, while working out how to do this, there was a living to be earned and the company of my fellow men (and women) to be enjoyed. The living was not a problem. At the Bradford Royal Infirmary, as in every other hospital in the country, business was booming and jobs were on the increase. Why? Because, during my absence, a new era had dawned and a National Health Service had been born.

Ah, those heady, early days of that great socialist experiment, before it became apparent that the supply of health can never quite satisfy the demand for it without the intervention of a price mechanism, or a queueing system, or both, or that the Treasury Rules would not permit the expenditure of such vast quantities of public money without employing bureaucracies of commensurate size to account for it all, in the minutest detail, to Parliament. But, as the democratic socialist I had now become (and still, with modifications in the light of later experience, remain), I knew nothing, then, of the way things worked in the real world, and I could see only a rosy future for the NHS at the time. I couldn't help noticing, however, after my reinstatement at the BRI, that the admin staff of the hospital had already increased substantially, and was continuing to increase exponentially. During my previous stint there, the "hospital office", as it was called, had been manned, it seemed, by two men and a boy, and responsibility for the whole of the institution's commissariat rested on the shoulders of one official with the humble title of Steward. How was it done? Presumably, by giving the operational departments responsibility, in the old-fashioned way, for ordering up their own supplies, a practice which left lots of room, no doubt, for economies of scale under the new dispensation. Except in the staffing of the hospital office, of course.

Several familiar faces still remained in the X Ray Department. The Chief was the same, and Jack was still there, but Leonard was across the city, working at St. Luke's, the former municipal hospital. There were lots of new faces, however, and some of them were quite pretty, because, wonder of wonders, we were no longer simply an X Ray Department, but had become a School of Radiography, taking on several new students every year up to a total of about ten, most of whom were girls - the shape of things to come. When I was recruited, nearly all radiographers were men, but by the time I moved on, fifteen years later women were in the majority, although most of the chiefs were still men. Nowadays, there are very few male radiographers to be found. [Does this mean that women were as good at the job as men? My answer to this question has always been that, whilst I have known at least one female radiographer who was as capable as any man, my personal experience has led me to the view that the average female was not as good at the job as the average male. A politically unacceptable conclusion, perhaps, but there must be other spheres of work in which this distinction between the particular and the general could be made to the benefit of one sex or the other, if objectivity was not nowadays so often compelled to defer to doctrine].

A number of factors have made radiography less attractive to the male school leaver. One is that the equipment has been getting progressively cleverer, reducing the demand for the human skills of hand, eye, and judgement; another, the wider range of opportunities for higher education than were available in my day, leading to jobs with better long term prospects, because the main drawback to radiography as a career is its limited scope for personal advancement. No matter how clever and experienced he is, the radiographer is always subordinate to the medically qualified radiologist, and, unlike pharmacists and physiotherapists, has no scope for self-advancement outside the hospital service. But it was an ideal way of earning a living for a budding author - regular hours (limited by statute), interesting work with endless human contact, physically and mentally demanding, but only to a recreational extent, with no worries to take home afterwards, and, best of all, there were jobs available all over the country.

Nevertheless, it took me nearly a year to get away, and even then it was to somewhere not of my own choosing, but my recollections of this intermission in Bradford are blurred by flashbacks to my earlier existence there, the threads of which it was proving so very easy to take up. with, however, one notable exception. I had lost all appetite for playing in dance bands. Had my fill of it. Good while it lasted, wonderful with the Semitones, useful in the army, but of strictly limited appeal to a mature adult about to venture forth into the waiting world as a free creative spirit. But, although I sold my saxophone, I never parted with my beloved clarinet, which was to stay by my side, hardly ever seeing the light of day, for over thirty years, before emerging to take my hand again and lead me into fields of jazz which were greener and lusher than any I had ever known before.

My good friend Frank, on the other hand, whose army career and chosen instrument had not presented him with the intervening opportunities that mine had, took up his double bass again with great energy and ever-increasing skill in a band of contemporaries who were firmly committed to propagating the recently emergent "bebop" style of jazz, which Frank had embraced with an enthusiasm I was quite unable to share. I now realise that this disagreement between us probably resulted from my appreciation of the larger world of music outside jazz, most of which was terra incognita to Frank, a fact which did not prevent him from accusing me of having a mind that was closed to the wonders of bop. The truth was quite the opposite. Having made every effort to get to grips with the music of the more adventurous 20th century classical composers, I could fully understand that the pioneers of bebop were using their technical brilliance to explore the remoter harmonics of the chords underlying the tunes which provide the raw material for jazz improvisation, but I simply did not find the result worth listening to. Only later did I work out why.

[The term "jazz" came into use haphazardly to describe a type of music within which two separate, but interrelated elements, had developed together. The most familiar of these was the jazz idiom which sprang from obscure roots in the folksong and dance rhythms of the southern states of the USA, early in the twentieth century, to exert a dominant influence on the popular music of the Western world, and even enter the vocabulary of some composers of classical music. But the shaping of the jazz idiom owed a great deal, in its early days, to the jazz method, which can best be described as collective improvisation by a number of instrumentalists on a selected theme at an agreed tempo, and, as such, was a unique contribution to the performing arts. Of course, there was nothing new about improvisation. It had been practised since the dawn of time by gifted musicians such as, in our own era, Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt and Paganini, to name but a few, but only as solo instrumentalists, if often, as in folk music, with rhythm accompaniment. But, for as many as eight musicians, who may never have met before, to be capable of playing together completely ad lib, each on a different instrument, and, in so doing, produce, without a hint of discord, a coherently polyphonic and original arrangement of a well-known popular song which the listener may dance to, or even, if familiar with the words, sing along with - this was something new.

And the singing and dancing were not unimportant, because jazz originated as functional music (as distinct from concert music), a music for social occasions, outdoor and indoor - dances, fetes, weddings, parties of all kinds, where the generations could be expected to mingle and might wish to dance with each other or simply converse without undue difficulty while lending half an ear to the music. Another attraction of jazz was its accessibility to young musicians who had enjoyed a minimum of training, as in my own case, at a time when more conventional forms were becoming increasingly difficult for the amateur to master, certainly to the levels required for a public performance, without having started young. All it took, when attempting to improvise in the jazz idiom on a simple theme, was an ability to stay within one's own technical limitations, however severe. But although, in quantitative terms, the amateur musicians may have been the biggest beneficiaries of jazz, it was, of course, the professional musicians who developed jazz improvisation to the peaks of perfection it had reached by the time I came along, mainly by increasing their instrumental virtuosity and interspersing their collective improvisations with brilliantly conceived solo performances. And they managed to achieve all this using only the popular song and dance formats of the day, and, for the most part, within the constraints imposed by the 78rpm 10" gramophone record.

Three minutes! That's all they had available to them when creating those early recordings without which it is difficult to conceive of jazz being so widely disseminated as quickly as it was. But this technical straitjacket had the beneficial effect of concentrating the minds of the jazzmen and reducing the likelihood of their improvisation running out of inspiration and degenerating into hackneyed repetition. And three minutes was just about long enough for a dancing couple to exhaust themselves by cavorting round the room in close embrace - the very activity which the record had been marketed to facilitate in the first place. Later, with the advent of the long-playing record and the audiotape, it became evident that improvisational jazz was better delivered in small packages. It was, after all, a sort of urban folk music and, as such, condemned by the nature of the genre to embroider the same theme in the same key, over the same rhythm, at the same tempo, repeatedly, for the length of the entire piece. It made good artistic sense, therefore, to call a halt after four or five choruses, and start a new tune, chosen from the many attractive ones available, in a different key, at a different tempo.

Bebop turned its back on this tradition, but, in attempting to extend the frontiers of jazz by using an undoubted instrumental virtuosity to explore the outer reaches of the harmonies underlying the chosen theme, often at breakneck speed, the pioneers discarded much that was unique to jazz while retaining many of its limitations. The most profound consequence of their innovations was to turn jazz into an exclusively concert music, to be appreciated only by listening to it with rapt attention, thus putting it in direct competition with other forms of concert music whose complexities, having been carefully composed in advance, would more consistently, perhaps, repay such an investment of time and effort. Also discarded, along with any real possibility of singing or dancing to the music, was the jewel in the crown - collective improvisation - which simply was not feasible, given the dissonances and discontinuities inherent in the new style.

We were left with, typically, an opening statement of the chosen theme in unison, followed by one soloist after another in full chromatic flight with rhythm accompaniment - same chord sequence, same time signature, same tempo, repeated ad lib, until, eventually, a final chorus, usually a note for note reprise of the opening chorus, was tacked on the end. It would have taken an instrumental virtuoso of towering musical genius to fill the amount of space thus made available with a continuous stream of improvisation in the musical language of bebop without resorting to well-worn cliches and hackneyed repetition. The fact that few such talents were in evidence was taken as giving support to the contention that bop was too difficult for most traditional jazz musicians to play, or even understand, particularly if they were merely amateurs. Could it be that bebop was not progressive jazz, after all, but regressive jazz, even, in some respects, anti-jazz?

The jazz that conquered the Western World between the wars was an essentially good natured thing - even when blueing the blues. It was extrovert, cooperative, inclusive and sociable. Bop seemed, in many ways, the opposite: ill-natured, introvert, competitive, divisive, exclusive and unsociable - characteristics often exhibited by some of its most famous expositors. Worst of all, to my mind, was the encouragement it gave to pizzicato double bass solos of inordinate length. This was probably because, being suited only to the solo instrumentalist, bop was usually performed by small groups, consisting of one horn (usually trumpet or saxophone), plus a rhythm section comprising drums, bass, and guitar or keyboard. This meant that there was a great deal of "concert" space to be filled and one way of giving the recognised soloists a breather was to let the double bass take over for a while, even though it was an instrument manifestly unsuited to to the task, particularly when confined, as it almost invariably was, to the pizzicato mode. There are few stranger sights than that of a roomful of paying customers sitting in respectful silence, joining up the dots emerging from a frenzy of acrobatic string plucking lasting, possibly, as long as the time once available on the old 78s.

To be fair to Frank, the apotheosis of his chosen

instrument was some way off in the future when he and I disagreed about the merits of bebop. Knowing little of music but jazz, he was blind to its limitations, and genuinely excited about what he saw as its progression to a higher plane. I, on the other hand, reacting equally instinctively, but with the benefit of a wider musical education, found the stuff quite unrewarding, and irritating, even, after the first few minutes of it. Fifty years and a pop music revolution later, there are still a few professional musicians playing jazz for a living, some of them in the language of bebop, which has, it seems, made little further progress in the meantime, but there are many more amateurs playing what has become known as traditional jazz, for pleasure and even profit in pubs, clubs, processions, and open spaces, wherever a party atmosphere is called for and the generations mingle. “Trad” jazz may not appeal to everyone but it is a very difficult music actively to dislike - which is more than can be said for some other kinds of "popular" music.]

Fortunately, Frank's commitment to bebop did not prevent the resumption of our sessions round the old acoustic gramophone in his "front room", an indulgence in which we were now joined by Cliff and, whenever he could get home on leave, Mike. The only significant change in the pattern of these gatherings which our years of separation had wrought was to supplement the continuous smoking of cigarettes with the continuous drinking of draught beer, obtained from the local off-licence shop in the largest receptacle we could lay hands on. O, happy band of bachelor brothers! In spite of our widely differing personalities, we still had a great deal in common, having lived within a few hundred yards of each other for most of our lives, and for the next two years we continued to enjoy each others' company, whether in twos, threes or fours, as often as our circumstances allowed, before finally going our separate ways. It was an interlude thrice blessed by the sharing of a well-developed sense of humour.

Frank was now employed as a qualified pharmacist, in a large chemists' shop in the Bradford city centre. Like me, his future seemed secure. Cliff, on the other hand, due to circumstances beyond his control and far too complicated to go into here, had made a rather shaky start in the world of work after leaving school, ending up with a job which seemed, at the time, to offer little prospect of future advancement, in a wool merchant's warehouse in the still beating heart of the trade which had made Bradford world famous, the old part of the city lying between the two railway termini known as "Little Germany". Mike, however, was doing very well. After completing his RAF apprenticeship by coming top, as planned, in the final exams, he had duly been offered the prize of a fully funded science degree course at Cambridge University, but, in a totally unprecedented move, had somehow succeeded in persuading the top brass to allow him to exchange this honour for induction into their elite flying officer training college at Cranwell from which he would emerge, eventually, with a promising career ahead of him, starting as a fighter pilot. Clever bugger!

Outside that friendly foursome, I was still in touch with Brad, but only tenuously. This was partly due to the fifteen miles that separated Keighley from Bradford in those car-less and phone-less days, but there was another reason. At our first meeting after my demob, Brad had astounded me by declaring, a propos our plans for the future, "All I want, now, is to catch the same bus every day to the same place and do the same job for the rest of my life". I could hardly believe my ears. To harbour such an outlook at the age of 22 struck me as positively blasphemous. His experiences in the Navy seemed to have had the same effect on him as had those in the Lower Sixth when we were waiting to leave school at sixteen and he applied to go back down into the Fifth to serve out his time in comfort. He certainly knew his own mind, and, having resumed his post as a cashier at the local branch of what was then the Yorkshire Penny Bank, he retired as manager of the Selby branch of what had now become the Yorkshire Bank forty three years after this conversation took place. In retrospect, a very successful career and a happy working life, but, to me. in 1948, what a depressing prospect! From that point on, although we kept in touch with each other, and even lived, for a couple of years, as near neighbours, our friendship tended to stagnate.

It will come as no surprise to learn that my interlude in Bradford was enlivened by the pursuit of the most attractive student in our School of Radiography, but, to be fair to myself, I must point out that, on this occasion, it was she who made the first move by sending me a Valentine's Day card. There must have been a bit of a giggle going on in the women's staff room at the time, because one of the other girls was moved to send a Valentine to my friend and colleague Jack which was to have much farther reaching consequences than the one I got from my Shirley. Throughout our entire acquaintanceship I had never known Jack take a romantic interest in a member of the opposite sex, and had always assumed, if I thought about it at all, that this was due to lack of inclination rather than opportunity. He was, admittedly, of rather unprepossessing appearance, but in good shape physically, a talented musician with no vices, a good job, and personal qualities which made him one of the most admirable characters I have ever met. It had never occurred to me that he was as highly sexed as the rest of us, but too shy to do anything about it. Well it wouldn't, would it?

But receiving that Valentine card made it possible for even Jack to make tentative advances to Muriel, the young lady who had sent it. Although no oil painting, she was not unattractive, a small birdlike creature with lively eyes but a modest manner, a bit older than the other students and, seemingly, of more mature outlook. She gave Jack the kind of gentle encouragement he needed and a relationship developed between them which was eventually to culminate in marriage, an outcome which, since they seemed ideally suited to each other, left everyone happy for both of them. Unfortunately, however, the marriage turned out badly, but this was after I had left Bradford, and I only learned about it intermittently at second hand. The salient feature in the reports was that, after marrying Jack, Muriel either underwent a personality change or simply revealed her true nature, depending on who was telling it, to emerge as some sort of nymphomaniac. This metamorphosis was triggered off by the unlikely circumstance that Jack, after the dissolution of the Semitones, had gone his own quiet way and taken to performing regularly with other dance bands.

At the time of their marriage, he was a member of the resident band at one of several private dance clubs which still flourished in Bradford to fill the need of any adolescent, who did not wish to become a social misfit, to acquire a minimum of expertise in ballroom dancing by the earliest possible date, and, also, for any who took an inordinate delight in exercising these skills, to hone them up to competition standard. In those early post-war years, ballroom dancing was still the principal lubricant in the wheels of social intercourse, and immensely popular as an indoor sport with all age groups, although its days, as we know, were numbered. It was only natural, then, that Muriel should accompany Jack to the club whenever he played there to watch and listen and, with her husband otherwise engaged, find herself invited to dance with men who were in appearance everything Jack was not, some of whom, keen to give her instruction (both on and off the dance floor), encouraged her to take up dancing in earnest.

The experience unleashed some dormant devil in Muriel. Her make-up and hair style underwent what is nowadays referred to as a complete makeover. She began to dress provocatively and flaunt the relationships she was having with successive dancing partners quite shamelessly. Poor old Jack had to watch all this from the bandstand, and cope with the home life it engendered as best he could. Being Jack, of course, he neither complained about his lot, nor criticised Muriel in public. He just went on being Jack until Muriel finally decamped and he could revert to his natural state of enlightened self-sufficiency. What a waste of a good husband and father! I never heard Muriel's side of it, but, knowing Jack as I did, I can't believe that he had much of a case to answer.

My affair with Shirley was notable for the frustrations I experienced in attempting to gain more intimate access to her person - an intriguing item, the sum of which possessed greater attractiveness than its parts. Her facial features were delightful, of course, but they were arranged in an elvish ensemble falling some way short of conventional beauty; her lovely, long legs seemed not quite to belong to the boyish body with its budding breasts of which she was, I think, somewhat ashamed, since I was denied all access to them on the rare occasions when a fondle might have been possible. Coltish, in a word, but sparkling with allure, bubbling with fun, and radiating a good deal of sexual heat. But, once again, privacy was the problem. The X Ray Department was no longer shutting up shop at 5pm sharp, thanks more to the after-hours activities of the School of Radiography than to the provision of a properly manned emergency service, a development still somewhere in the future. So, no joy there. The woods and fields were never an option with Shirley, who was definitely not the outdoor type, leaving only the back row of the local cinema, where, although snogging, as we called it, was still facilitated by the provision of several quaint old double seats, little in the way of serious undressing was possible.

Things might have been better, because Shirley lived in a substantial Edwardian terrace house quite close to the BRI where a comfortable front lounge was available, but she was cared for by a mother who was a divorcee (still a rarity in those days) with watchful eyes and a calculating manner. Her attitude towards me, when Shirley took me home, made it clear that her only child had been carefully reared to marry a man with far better material prospects than I had, a message which, in itself, did not upset me, since nothing was further from my thoughts than marriage at the time, but my outright disqualification as even a potential suitor meant that I was never allowed to be alone with Shirley in the house for long enough to find out how far she could be persuaded to succumb to the passion that crackled between us whenever we were in each other's presence. How I suffered! But relief, of a sort, was at hand in the shape of my sudden departure from the BRI, which, although not a full and final escape from the family home, was enough to permit Shirley and me to part on friendly terms.

Our paths were to cross again, by chance, about ten years later, when I had returned to the West Riding but was no longer a radiographer. She was married by then to the kind of wealthy young businessman her mother had groomed her to catch, and living in an imposing detached house overlooking Peel Park, where, for a period of time, my itinerary enabled me to call on her occasionally for afternoon tea. I had heard from mutual acquaintances that the marriage was not a happy one, her husband spending a great deal of his time in the company of others, but a now rather subdued Shirley never raised the subject, and I, as a now happily married man, felt no inclination to do so. We chatted like old friends about unimportant matters with no coded messages passing between us. The last I heard was that she was divorced and living with her mother.

The manner of my departure from the BRI was unusual. I was, although the term had not yet been invented, head-hunted! The approach came through my own Chief, who, knowing that I had been combing the Situations Vacant in the monthly journal of the Society of Radiographers for a post in the kind of location which would suit my vocation and compel me to tear myself away from the fun I was having in Bradford, asked me to consider an urgent request from a Very Important Person who just happened to be visiting the Department that day. This was none other than Joe Blackburn, who was known to me, at the time, as the President of the Society of Radiographers, but was, I soon discovered, much more than that. From his relatively obscure position at a smallish hospital in Pontefract he had risen to dominate, not only the Society of Radiographers, but the town of Pontefract itself. A Justice of the Peace and a Town Councillor for years, he had now been elected Mayor and desperately needed someone he could rely on to look after his X Ray Department for him during absences which would now become even more frequent than ever.

Pontefract? Exactly not the kind of place I was hoping to honour next with my presence. A small town, somewhere on the other side of Leeds in the wastelands of the South Yorkshire coalfield, known to me only as the home of those little medallions of liquorice called Pontefract Cakes. I had not the slightest wish to go there, but Joe's powers of persuasion were formidable. He was a large man, although not as tall as he looked, running to fat, but light on his feet, with a remarkable head - big and balding, with a bulging forehead over eyes like searchlights, which were set in the face of an outsize baby - and a voice like thick velvet. His way of asking me for a favour implied that if I granted it, he would be my friend for life, but if I didn't, it would simply break his heart. How could I refuse? I managed to keep sufficient wits about me to agree to work for him on Senior Radiographer's pay for one year only, on the understanding that, at the end of it, he would use his influence to get me any post I chose to apply for. He accepted without hesitation, and quickly switched the spotlight of his attention onto any other business outstanding with my Chief, before dashing off to catch his train. He was a very busy man, but as good as his word.

2.

In the event, my year in Pontefract turned out to be quite enjoyable, if rather exhausting, since the town was a much livelier place than I had imagined. In addition to being a mining town, and a market town, it was also a horse-racing town, and, situated as it was, on the outer edge of the West Riding, near the Great North Road, with nothing much to the east until York and then Hull, there was something of a frontier town atmosphere about the place. It was certainly a law unto itself with regard to licensing hours. There were more pubs and clubs per head of population than in any other town I'd ever known, and the opening and closing times which were strictly enforced in places like Bradford and Leeds, were honoured, in Pontefract, more in the breach than the observance. My researches eventually led me to the conclusion that, if you knew how to go about it, you could buy a drink in one or other of the many licensed premises in the town at any hour of the day or night. The fact that Pontefract was a Labour stronghold, and had been for years, may have accounted for this dilution of the laws of the land by local magistrates and police, and also for the egalitarian attitudes which were undoubtedly rife among its inhabitants.

I soon found that the spirit of the place had not left the Pontefract General Infirmary unaffected. It was much smaller than the BRI, of course, and more intimate - in every possible way, it seemed, including the sexual. There were only three or four resident housemen, mostly local lads who had trained in Leeds and were quite uninhibited in their behaviour towards the nursing staff, mostly local lasses, who, I have to say, seemed to be equally uninhibited in their responses. The building itself was unusual in being built on the side of a steep escarpment at the lower end of the town centre. From the street it looked like a single storey building but there were three floors below that, all facing the other way. At the very bottom was the X Ray Department in a sort of garden basement, quite pleasant to work in, and separated from the rest of the hospital by a series of doors and anterooms which rendered it totally soundproof, and an ideal venue for wild parties! I had not been working there for long when we opened up the Department one Monday morning to find the place in a mess, with empty beer bottles rolling about the floor, and worse things in the toilets.

Joe was furious, not because the place had been used for a party, which was, I gathered, not uncommon, but because of the state it had been left in, which was a definite breach of hospital etiquette. After conveying his displeasure to the culprits through informal channels, he had the locks changed (also not uncommon), but only as a gesture, since it was impossible to deny the resident medical staff all access to the Department's keys after hours, and, as at the BRI, security was very lax in those days. [It was my firm belief at the time that, if ever I found myself in want of a bed for the night in a strange town, I need only walk into the local hospital with the confidence of one who had every right to be there, and wander officiously about until I found an empty bed, climb in, and go to sleep.] Parties, therefore, continued to be held in the X Ray Department at regular intervals but it was some time before I was able to participate in them because they invariably took place at weekends when I was back home in Bradford, having arranged to occupy my digs in Pontefract, where I knew nobody initially, from Monday to Friday only.

I was soon leading two quite hectic lives, only a couple of hours apart by public transport. In Bradford, I found myself exploring the recreational possibilities of a new and most unlikely activity to which I had been introduced by my pal Cliff, who had begun the process of transforming himself from the townsman he was, into the countryman he would eventually become, by taking up... horseriding! What? In Bradford? Yes, there was a small riding school, tucked away in the nearby outer suburb of Fagley, close enough to the very woods we had wandered through as boys to render its few remaining bridlepaths accessible on horseback after only a minimum of manoeuvering through an intervening built-up area. The school was housed in the stable block of a very large, imposing old mansion which had obviously seen better days, but was still home to the remnants of the mill-owning family who had built it, long before the surrounding suburban streets had crept up to its walls.

It was a one-man business, and barely viable, but Leslie, the owner, whose appearance and mannerisms were more like those of a ballet dancer than a foxhunter, had discovered, at an early age, that riding horses was the one masculine pursuit he could enjoy and do well, and this small venture was the nearest he could get to making a career of it, given his economic circumstances. Tall and slim, he cut quite a dash when in full equestrian fig, and, being unmarried, lavished all his love on the handful of hacks in his care. Although nothing like as committed to the activity as Cliff, I was soon feeling comfortable enough on the back of a horse to invest in a pair of secondhand jodhpurs and a riding hat, and to progress from a trot to a canter, but the bridle paths available were far too cramped for us to risk a gallop, even if Leslie had permitted it (and the horses had been up to it). So the riding was rather sedate, but, fortunately, the company was more stimulating.

There were, including Cliff and me, about ten regular riders of our own generation, half of them girls, two of whom I would get to know quite well because they were sisters, and Cliff eventually married one of them. That was Rosemary, tomboyish, but attractive with it, unaffected and very outspoken, with a great sense of humour; her younger sister Lissy was smaller and prettier, but less attractive, somehow, more withdrawn, and rather brittle. Their father owned a nearby market garden, among other things. Lissy's boyfriend and future husband, David, was a large, fair, solemn youth, who would never be able to emulate the business success of his father,who was the holder of the local agency for Jaguar cars. The other girls have not remained in my memory as well as the boys have, probably because they were less interesting.

I remember Malcolm, for example, tall, good looking, and charming, in a rather actorly way, because he was in active pursuit of Rosemary at the time, and thus became the object of Cliff's obsessive dislike. I remember Henry, because I had never come across anyone quite like him before, outside the theatre. He was the last of the line of the family occupying the big house, in the grounds of which the stables stood, and his upbringing had conspired with his lineage (and his limitations, perhaps) to endow him with many of the characteristics of those young Edwardian gentleman who perished in such large numbers in the trenches of World War I. His manners and appearance were impeccably old-fashioned - he was, for example, the last person of my own age I ever saw wearing a starched shirt collar during the day - but his most remarkable feature was his voice, which seemed to originate somewhere deep in his chest and reverberate round the inside of his skull before it emerged, full of fruit, to deliver some brief, unmemorable observation, in a diction that was perfectly correct.

And I remember John, because, in addition to being one of the most unforgettable characters I have ever met, he played a brief but very significant role in my life. He turned up at the riding school, as if from another world, in his own two-seater sports car (gosh!), every inch the wealthy playboy - tall, fair, blue-eyed, and, although less than handsome, quite distinguished of feature. I learned later that he was the scion of a noble house, but all I knew about him at the time was that his family owned a large blanket factory in Witney, Oxfordshire, and John had been sent to Bradford to learn t'wool trade, an experience which he was definitely not enjoying, but trying to make the best of in any way he could. Being a complete extravert, he was easily bored, but extremely inventive in finding ways, however disconcerting they may be to lesser mortals, of keeping boredom at bay. A couple of examples will suffice to demonstrate why it was that it was difficult to spend a dull half hour in his company.

By a happy chance, there was a large empty room above the riding school stables which was easily converted, with a few sticks of furniture and a portable gramophone, into an unofficial club room in which the kindred spirits among us began to hold informal gatherings. When a small shadow was cast upon these proceedings by the news that young David had received his call-up papers, it was made the excuse for a series of farewell parties for him, culminating in a sort of bachelors' night out on his last day of freedom. The evening began quietly enough with about six of us chaps forgathering in The Junction Inn, near the city centre, a pub favoured by Cliff and me, not because it was near the Civic Theatre and patronised by its devotees, but because it served our favourite beer, Melbourne Ale, now long since vanished from the scene, alas, as has the "The Jungle" itself, as we used to call it. But when orders were being taken for the first round of drinks, David spoke the fateful words "I'm a teetotaller, I'll just have a cider", whereupon John said "I'll get these", and went to the bar.

During the following rounds, John made it his business always to be present at the bar when the the drinks were being drawn, and it eventually became clear to the rest of us that he was paying the barman to put gin in David's cider, with the inevitable result that, when closing time was called and we older hands were pleasantly inebriated, David, much to his own complete bewilderment, was very drunk indeed. While we were helping him, in the customary boisterous fashion, out onto the pavement with a view to heading for home, John began to insist that it was far too early to call it a night. Always keep a good thing rolling, he said. How? said we, fully aware that, in those days, Bradford after 10pm (unlike Pontefract) had absolutely nothing to offer the serious reveller. "We'll all go back to the club room, said John, and I'll rustle up some booze on the way." And so he did! With Cliff and me crammed into his Sunbeam Talbot, he drove out to his digs, an exclusive residential hotel standing opposite the main gates of Manningham Park in complete darkness at this late(!) hour, and went quietly inside, to reappear a few minutes later carrying a large basket full of bottles of beer.

We arrived at the stables to find the lights ablaze, the gramophone playing, and the party in full swing, Henry having bridged the temporary gap in supplies by raiding his family's drinks cupboard. And of the increasingly uninhibited behaviour that followed, I can remember only two examples with any clarity. The first arose from the accidental discovery by one of us that a 10 inch acetate gramophone record, towards which he was unfavourably disposed, could be broken over the head of another of us who did not share his opinion, with a single, satisfying blow, which, however, did little actual harm to the recipient of it. In a trice, with this example before us, we all began breaking our least favourite gramophone records over each other's heads after only the briefest of prior discussion of their merits.

It was the only time I ever saw John disconcerted. As I was about to bash him with one of Victor Sylvester's Strict Tempo Dance Band records, he said something like, "For Christ's sake, keep clear of my nose, it's off my arse and on to my face", a statement which I could only take to mean that the feature in question had been subjected to plastic surgery on some previous occasion. This didn't greatly surprise me because it had a slightly odd appearance, and I was becoming aware of the strong probability that John's wild ways, particularly when behind the wheel of a motor car, were unlikely to have left him entirely unscathed in the past. But, an opportunity to explore this revelation further never presented itself, and John never spoke about it again, in fact, he never said much about himself at all.

The second piece of memorably daft behaviour occurred when, having found that David's semi-comatose condition was preventing us from pouring any more beer down his throat, we resorted to pouring it over his head, with the result that, when the time came for the poor lad to be taken home, his clothing was soaking wet, which turned out to be unfortunate, because the night was very cold, and David had a "weak chest". Finally, however, John was left with only Cliff and me, turning out lights and locking up, but still he could not bring himself to let us go. We must, he insisted, be as ravenously hungry as he was (which was true), and did we know that there was an all-night transport cafe behind Bradford Town Hall where we could get a beef dripping teacake and a big mug of tea for a few pence, even at this ungodly hour? We didn't know, and found it difficult to refuse his offer to take us there before running us home, whereupon, he drove us through what were, in those days, at that hour, totally empty streets at breakneck speed until we reached the main road into town and found ourselves being followed by a police car.

Driving along an otherwise deserted Manningham Lane with the police car behind us, John began to amuse himself by repeatedly accelerating to above the speed limit before quickly slowing down to below it. This manouevre produced no reaction from the police until, as we were heading down Darley Street towards Town Hall Square, with not a soul in sight, John sounded a loud blast on his horn, which immediately brought the police car round in front of us, flagging us down. Did John realise, the emergent officer politely enquired, that it was an offence to sound his warning instrument in a built-up area between the hours of 11pm and 7am? This was news to me, of course, because another seven years were to pass before I was finally compelled to learn to drive, having taken little interest in the activity until then. John responded by adopting an air of vaguely supercilious puzzlement until the police, having finished their business with him, allowed us to proceed to the all-night cafe, which was, indeed, secreted under the massive bulk of Bradford Town Hall.

To the welcoming warm fug inside, were duly added the promised beef dripping teacakes and half-pint mugs of tea, the latter enlivened by the contents of a small bottle of rum, produced, with an air of studied nonchalance, by the ever-resourceful John, and we sat around, eating, drinking, chatting and smoking until the conversation ran out of steam and eyelids were drooping sufficiently for John to finally agree to run us home. As we shot up Barkerend Road, turning left at my old parish church, past my old school, I was unaware of anything amiss until we stopped at the end of the passageway leading to my door, when, to my utter amazement, before I could get out, a police car materialised from nowhere in front of us, from which, once again, an officer emerged. Did John realise, he was asked, that he had broken the law by exceeding the statutory speed limit in Barkerend Road by a margin of x miles per hour for more than y hundred yards, et cetera...? This time John was quite indignant, muttering something about accelerating up a hill with a full load, but once again some ritual had to be enacted before we were allowed to go, by which time lights were appearing in bedroom windows all around. What's a police car doing in our street at this hour? What indeed? It must have been waiting for us outside the transport cafe.

What penalties John incurred for his traffic offences that night, I never discovered, but our treatment of David had rather more serious consequences. By the time he reported to the RAF Induction Depot the following day he was developing a chill which ended, a couple of days later, in double pneumonia. This was particularly bad news for Cliff, because Lissy, his future sister-in-law, held him entirely responsible for allowing the rest of us to treat her future husband as badly as we had, but, fortunately, all was well in the end. After a spell in hospital followed by a lengthy, and quite enjoyable convalescence at government expense, David was invalided out of the RAF, little the worse for wear, with, I believe, a small pension. So, we did him a favour, really. Without intending to, of course. And it will come as no surprise to learn that the favour John did me during our next escapade was also unintentional.

It began with him turning up one Bank Holiday Monday morning, uninvited and totally unexpected, on the doorstep of my humble back-to-back home. What a shock! As it happened, I was alone in the house, and my surprise overrode the embarrassment I felt at being discovered stripped to the waist for my cold water ablutions at the scullery sink. And John, very noblesse obligingly, stepped into our single shabby living room without appearing to notice its many deficiencies, or my state of undress. But why on earth was he here? It emerged that, like so many of the friends who had knocked on my door in the past, John was there to ask if I could come out to play! For reasons never fully explained, he was without his car, at a loose end, and desperate for the company of someone, anyone, to spark off against, so, having remembered where he had dropped me off after David's Farewell, here he was. Not very flattering, but I was intrigued, and having nothing better to do myself, I agreed to go out to play with him.

The venture got off to an unpromising start. It was a Bank Holiday, probably Whit Monday, a cold, grey day, and Bradford was dead. The only suggestion John could come up with was that we should take the train to Leeds, where we arrived to find that conditions there were pretty much the same. As we wandered across the deserted city centre towards Briggate, however, John finally came up with an idea. We would amuse ourselves, he said, by (i) seeking out the most disreputable pubs in the seedy streets between the bus station and the notorious Quarry Hill Flats, (ii) entering these premises posing as plain clothes police officers, and (iii) observing how many of the customers were sufficiently disturbed by our presence to get up and leave. Not surprisingly, having checked that he was serious, I was less than whelmed with this idea. How do I pose as a plain clothes policeman? Oh, it's easy, said John, I've done it before - just keep a really straight face and do as I do. Unable to think of a saner alternative, I acquiesced.

He was right. All I had to do was tag along, and admire the way John threw himself into the part. On entering the selected pub, he would pause just inside the door, and look slowly and thoughtfully round the clientele, before strolling confidently up to the bar and ordering "two halves of bitter, please, landlord" in a rather officious voice. After paying for the drinks, he would take a small notebook from his pocket and make a note in it, as if keeping tabs on his expenses. Then the two of us would stand at the bar, sipping our drinks, conversing in low tones, and looking searchingly round the room from time to time, until, sure enough, one after another, certain individuals of shifty demeanour would rise and head for the door. Before we ourselves departed John would give the pot a final stir by muttering something verisimilitudinous like "...obviously not in here...better find the sergeant..." loudly enough to be heard.

After playing this silly game in three different pubs with varying degrees of success, even John had to admit that we had exhausted whatever possibilities for amusement it ever had, but, as we started back across the city, as if heading for home, I found that he hadn't quite finished playing with me yet. "Why don't we pick up a couple of girls, and see how far we can get with them," he said. What? I was even less taken with this idea than the first one. Having always been reasonably successful in courting those I already knew, I had never resorted to "picking up" girls, except in dance halls, of course, where a variety of preliminaries of an exploratory nature were possible. But, before I could voice my misgivings, John said "Look! Those two girls up ahead! Let's try to pick them up. I'll start things off, if you'll back me up?" Caught completely off balance, and unable to even see their faces, I looked at the backs of the two female forms walking about fifteen yards ahead, making the best assessment I could of their contours, and stammered, "Only if I can have the one on the right".

"You can have whichever one you like", cried John, over his shoulder as he dashed forward to execute his dastardly scheme. Deeply embarrassed, I was hanging too far back to hear what his opening gambit was, but I later learned that it was something like, "Excuse me, ladies, my friend and I are strangers in Leeds and wondered if you could spare us the pleasure of your company to show us round..." When I saw that the girls had greeted his approach with polite bewilderment, rather than screaming for assistance from the passers by, I forced myself to take the plunge with the one on the right, babbling apologies for any inconvenience caused...please don't hesitate to turn us down...only if you have nothing better to do...etc. We must have made a reasonably favourable impression, because, following a moment's uncertainty and the exchange of a few words with each other, the girls consented, albeit without much evident enthusiasm, to walk and talk with us for an experimental period, volunteering the information, however, that only one of them lived in Leeds.

 

It quickly became apparent that I was to be the principal beneficiary of John's bold initiative, because, on closer inspection, the girl on the right turned out to be much fairer of face and figure than, not only the girl on the left, but, to my surprise and delight, any other girl of my immediate acquaintance at the time. In spite of which, John, true to his word, devoted all his attention to his own inferior prize, and never made a play for mine, even when fortune continued to favour me at his expense. As we sat in pairs on two separate park benches in front of Leeds Town Hall, chatting, and, in our case, eventually holding hands, my new found Venus, whose name was Anne, informed me that she lived in Bradford and had been on her way to the railway station when waylaid by us, whereas her friend, Rose, lived in the East End of Leeds and would be heading back there when they parted.

And so it came to pass that, during the train journey back to Bradford, while I was getting better acquainted with Anne in one cozy corner of the unlit passenger compartment we had contrived to secure for ourselves by removing the single light bulb, John was obliged to keep his own company in the farther corner, striving to appear detached and unconcerned, like the gentleman he was. By the end of the line, so taken was I with Anne that, before we parted, I asked if we could meet again and she agreed, thus embarking us on a relationship which was to endure for more than fifty years of marriage. It was a time, it seems, for meeting future wives, a time when Cliff met his Rosemary, Frank met his Joyce, and even Brad met his Ruth, a time from which only Mike was to emerge unattached. It was a time, also, for making new friendships, two of which were destined to endure.

I met Bob through Frank, who had first drawn my attention to him, beaming down on us like a dissolute Buddha from the upper deck of the troopship during our memorable meeting in Gibraltar Bay. Some time after my demob, Frank took me to make Bob's better acquaintance at his home, a large terrace house, quite close to my Scottish aunt's semi, but looking out over the Municipal Golf Course towards the back of our old school. One of the many unusual things about Bob was that he was already married to Margaret, having unintentionally impregnated her during the early days of what had yet to become an official engagement and unhesitatingly done the decent thing. He was the most unworldly person I have ever had as a friend, and fortunate in having the resources behind him of a family of High Church Anglicans, who, while profitably combining worldliness with godliness, had a tendency towards eccentricity which had reached its full flower in Bob.

Although well-mannered, good-natured, intelligent, and articulate, he seemed quite indifferent to both his health and his appearance, and always looked both unkempt and unwell, but he would bubble with high spirits when in congenial company, and was very fond of a drink, preferably beer in convivial surroundings. His passions were for classical music, philosophy, and debate, to all of which he brought a surprising originality of mind. Having been brought up in a family who were not only regular attenders at any local symphony concerts, but would journey to York each Christmas to hear Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" performed in the Minster, his tastes in music were well developed but idiosyncratic. He doted on Bach, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, but was quite unappreciative of the music of any later composer, finding even Brahms "too sugary", and the works of more modern composers simply ludicrous.

At the only concert I ever attended with him, he embarrassed me by reacting to a Rachmaninov Symphony as if it were a Charlie Chaplin comedy, giggling uncontrollably during its more portentous episodes, particularly when the trombones were "farting" as he called it, and his view of jazz was equally dismissive, "It's a bit like performing on your penis in public," he would say. But he would listen with total concentration, as if in a trance, to his gramophone records of Mozart's "Jupiter" Symphony, over and over again. His taste in music reflected, to some extent, his other interest in what he called "idle speculation". He had read his way through most of the great philosophers, starting with the Greeks, and was currently finding the works of one F.W.Nietzsche both intriguing and amusing. As did we, of course, when he began reading some of the naughty bits out of "Thus Spake Zarathustra", particularly those appertaining to the treatment of women, e.g. "Thou goest to women? Remember thy whip!" How we chortled over that one!

I went on to read Nietzsche's effusions for myself, of course, and found them entertaining and thought-provoking, if a little overwritten, but, in the end, unhelpful. Like Bob, I was a committed autodidact, but searching, in my case, for a personal philosophy that would make more sense of the world I lived in than did the Christianity I was still half-heartedly practising. I, too, had read Plato, and Descartes and even George Bernard Shaw, to name but a few, because, ever since Hildred had opened my eyes to the possibility of it, I had been searching for a framework of beliefs which did not depend for its coherence on the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient Creator of All Things, and an Afterlife where He would pass judgement on the extent to which I had obeyed His laws in this life and reward or punish me accordingly, since I had come to the conclusion that no convincing evidence had ever been uncovered for either.

At the time, I was hardly conscious of this quest and its purpose, and was certainly not pursuing it with any sense of urgency. In fact, I only fully realised that I had been engaged in it when it came to an end, having achieved its objective, and it was Bob who first pointed me in what proved to be the right direction by drawing my attention to the writings of the French philosopher, Henri Bergson (1859-1941), which, while not as titillatory and quotable as Nietzsche's, proved to be much, much more rewarding. When I finally found the time to read his masterwork, "Creative Evolution", I discovered, to my surprise and delight, that it contained the answers to all the big questions I had been asking myself about "life, the universe, and everything" (to quote from a more recent and less serious author), and gave me a personal creed which has stood me in unassailably good stead for the rest of my life. But who has heard of Bergson nowadays? Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927, his books are out of print, and even second hand copies are hard to find. Why is this? Perhaps because he didn't found a religion. Perhaps because he left subsequent philosophers with so little to add, and existing religions looking so inadequate that the world found it more convenient to forget him.

[Bergson was a scientist, a biologist, who began his speculations by examining the human condition in the light of the evolutionary process described by Charles Darwin in his epoch-making work "On the Origin of Species"(1859). He concluded that, as far back in time as human thought could reach, there must have been a minimum of two entities in existence - first, the inanimate, physical universe, and, second, on this planet at least, some living organism, however small and primitive. How these two things came into being he could not tell, but the only explanation he could think of for the process of evolution which, by imperceptibly small degrees, over billions of years, has produced our own species, was that some invisible force was at work, which, starting from that single point of entry, had powered evolution forward, branching out, by random mutation and natural selection, in every possible direction, whenever an opportunity presented itself. He called it the Life Force, and pointed to the evidence for its existence in the world around us, where it is so much a part of our everyday experience that it has simply been taken for granted, as was the force of gravity until Isaac Newton came along.

Every living creature, it seems, has the capacity not only to reproduce itself, but also to multiply, but whence comes the energy that fuels this process? In our own case, each of us begins life as a single fertilised ovum the size of a pinhead, which, properly housed, proceeds to take in nourishment, multiply and grow of its own accord until it has developed into a fully formed and independent being capable of passing on the vital spark of life to another fertilised ovum before itself degenerating into lifelessness. If we observed this process occurring in other than a living being, we would surely expect to find that it was being driven by some extrinsic power source. Knowing, as we do, that the countless species of insects, fish, reptiles, birds and mammals, not to mention the plants and trees, which populate the earth today must have evolved over aeons of time from a single protoplasmic source, is it not easier to believe that this effect has been caused by some potent, propulsive force, rather than by nothing at all?

Having postulated the existence of the Life Force, however, Bergson had to accept that, on the evidence available, it did not appear to be pursuing some preconceived plan, proceeding, rather, by a process of trial and error, infusing its vital energy indiscriminately into any and every form of life produced by the interaction between the Darwinian machinery of random mutation and changes in the physical environment, ruthlessly discarding any casualties of this process on the way. Prodigal, indiscriminate, and dispassionate, one infinitesimal step at a time, the Life Force populated Planet Earth with one species after another until, finally, our own species emerged, unremarkable in appearance, but superior to all the creatures hitherto produced in one particular respect.

Compared to those of many of its evolutionary forbears, the physical attributes of the human mammal were pretty unimpressive as regards strength, agility and armament, but they comprised a wide enough range of capabilities to ensure the survival of the species - if only as a scavanger at first - and included a degree of manual dexterity which would make possible the fashioning of specialised tools for use in reshaping the environment, once these objects had been invented by the remarkable organ that was to be the supreme achievement of the Life Force. By an almost miraculous evolutionary step, the human brain had acquired a capacity for abstract reasoning which is, as far as we know, unique in the universe. Bergson saw this faculty, the intellect, as being superimposed upon our inherited mammalian brain, with its already highly evolved apparatus for receiving, processing and reacting to sensory information, more like a new tool than an extension of its existing powers of perception and motivation. He described it, memorably, as "a tool for cutting round some chosen aspect of total reality in order to do something about it"

This remarkable instrument has empowered us, step by step, from the puniest of beginnings, not only to dominate all the other species on the planet, but to exercise an ever-increasing control over our environment, exploring the past and predicting the future. But Bergson, while extolling the virtues of the intellect, was at pains to point out the extent of its limitations, and this is where his speculations move from the metaphysical to the philosophical. The intellect has enabled us to extract information from the world around us, and to develop spoken and written languages of great precision with which to communicate this information to each other and bequeath it to future generations, but it is of little use in dealing with the internal workings of our own bodies and the vital sensual relationships we sustain, throughout our entire conscious life, with one another and with the seamless totality of the reality around us. For that we have to rely on whatever faculties reside in the primitive mammalian brain beneath the cerebral cortex and even in the reptilian brain beneath that.

These abilities are not inconsiderable. They have enabled the lower orders in the evolutionary tree to survive, reproduce, and multiply quite efficiently for countless generations, not only by managing their essential bodily functions with little conscious effort, but also by performing, spontaneously, tasks which appear, to human eyes, to require a high degree of acquired technical skill. Bergson quotes a number of these, the most obvious being the spider's web and the bee's honeycomb, but he was particularly impressed by a species of wasp which can totally paralyse its prey by injecting a toxin into exactly the right ganglion to achieve this effect "with the precision of trained surgeon", and he attributes all such inherited skills to the existence of a sub-intellectual cerebral entity, the instinct, operating by means of intuition. Bergson's main point is that the intellect can be imagined as having been somehow extruded by the evolutionary process from the underlying body of instinct like a single prehensile tentacle, capable of the abstract thought which has made us masters of our environment, but it is the underlying mass of instinct we rely on for our relationships with each other and the world around us.

Bergson was not, of course, the first philosopher to recognise the limitations of the intellect. The ancient Greeks had experienced difficulty in getting to grips with "becoming", as they called it, having observed that their maths could engage with the flight of an arrow, for example, only by reducing it to a series of still points, closer and closer together, but never actually joining up. And Zeno's famous paradox was a classic exposition of the problem. But Bergson was the first to draw attention to the indiscriminate nature of the evolutionary process which had produced this phenomenon, and the continuing importance, for our wellbeing as a species, of the intuitive capacities underpinning it. Since these faculties, by their very nature, resist definition and manipulation by the powerful tool which has been increasing its contribution to our material quality of life exponentially since our species first emerged, there is a danger that they might be either undervalued or even ignored, and, consequently, underutilised.

Bergson went on to use this model to explore some of the more problematic aspects of the human condition. Since language, for example, is a product of the intellect, the limitations of the intellect are reflected in the inability of language, alone and unaided, to transmit anything other than abstractions between one human being and another. In order to communicate with each other at the human level we are obliged to use other means. We can touch each other in different ways, we can exchange glances, we can load our spoken words with a sufficient variety of vocal tone and emphasis to give them emotional colour and weight, we can even sing to each other. Music, even without words, is a language which speaks "to the heart", conveying messages which cannot be put into words. The same can be said of the images we create for each other, in fact, the whole of what we call Art can be seen as a means of communicating personal insights into the natural world which are not susceptible of intellectual definition.

Those of the Arts which use language as a medium strive to arouse emotional responses by deploying words in "musical" patterns, or by telling stories which arrange characters and events in exciting or disturbing ways, but also, more interestingly to Bergson, by using symbols - words describing entities and events which, for historical or cultural reasons, carry a greater emotional charge than their apparent face value. For a symbol to "strike a chord", however, the artist and his audience must have past experiences in common, or share a knowledge of the past acquired through education, using the term in its broadest sense. The richer the culture, the higher the art, of course, but underlying all human cultures, no matter how sophisticated or primitive they may be, is a common humanity giving rise to shared experiences - such as birth, childhood, motherhood, fatherhood, eating, drinking, friendship, enmity, and death - which can transcend all cultural barriers, and point the way to what must be the simplest and most effective of all art forms - the symbolic gesture.

Looked at in this light, even the religions of the world, insofar as they seek to elucidate the origins and workings of the mysterious universe we inhabit, and the purpose of our existence in it, using purely anecdotal evidence, can be seen as an artform, manipulating symbols to convey profound truths about the human condition which cannot be put into mere words, and performing symbolic acts to communicate with and placate whichever manifestation of the Life Force they have chosen to worship. Obviously, mankind's subjugation of a once hostile environment, and our discovery of the true origins of our species, have rendered many of the tenets, and much of the organisational framework, of these religions obsolete, but this is not to deny the value of certain forms of communal activity in putting its practitioners in touch with each other - and with, perhaps, the Life Force - at a sub-intellectual level. One need only substitute the term "Holy Spirit" for "Life Force" to appreciate the truth of this.

Bergson's achievement was to reintegrate the Holy Spirit into what had seemed to be an apparently mindless evolutionary process taking place in a blankly indifferent physical universe, and, by so doing, make it possible for each of us to appreciate, as individuals, its many manifestations in our own lives, deriving such spiritual refreshment as we can from gathering with our fellow humans in churches, theatres, concert halls, art galleries, and even sports grounds, to bask in its life-enhancing radiance without subscribing to the redundant dogmas of an ancient religion.]

It was through Bob that I met my second new friend, Gerry, with whom he had the kind of relationship I had with Cliff - they were boyhood chums who had gone through our old school as classmates, only a couple of years ahead of us, but an unbridgeable gap at the time. And just as Bob had become a pharmacist like his father, so had Gerry become a schoolteacher like his, and, when I met them, their families were living only a few doors apart in those tall Victorian houses (one of which was the Waverley Nursing Home wherein I had been born) standing opposite Bradford Moor Park, and backing on to the Municipal Golf Course, over which they commanded an extensive view of the smoking chimneys of Bradford below. Otherwise, Gerry resembled Bob hardly at all. Carefully and conservatively dressed, clean and tidy, he was rather reserved, initially, but revealed, on closer acquaintance, a robust no-nonsense, down-to-earth, commonsensical outlook on life, which, although the perfect foil for Bob's eccentricities, struck me as rather dull and uninteresting at first.

But when we started arguing with each other, which we somehow found ourselves doing whenever we met, he turned out to be a formidable opponent, quite as capable as I was of passionate invective and even personal insults in support of his case - never conceding defeat, of course, but never carrying the slightest residue of rancour from the field. We ended up becoming lifelong friends, although the relationship did not begin to mature until my return to the West Riding some years later, by which time I had married Anne, and he had married Jessie, also a schoolteacher, to make us into a frequent friendly foursome. Not that I had the remotest intention of marrying anyone at that time. I saw myself as being, for the foreseeable future, a confirmed bachelor, wedded only to my art...which wasn't, I must confess, going as well as it might have been, just then. Admittedly, I was still weekending in the crowded family home, but my digs in Pontefract provided me with full board and the privacy of a room of my own on at least four nights a week, so I could have been playwriting for hours, had I chosen to do so.

I did put a certain amount of time and effort in, most evenings, during the early months of my year there, and I was fortunate in finding none of the young ladies within reach too distracting, but I couldn't help making the acquaintance of chaps of my own age, outside the hospital staff, with three of whom, against all expectations, I would eventually share a great adventure. I met Roy, Jerry, and Bernard in the lounge bar of a pub that was popular with the junior medical staff of the PGI because it was near enough to the hospital for them to be reached in an emergency when "on call", and where, in consequence, other kindred spirits had taken to congregating during the last hour before closing time. The three of them knew each other well, of course, and had all served in HM Forces, Roy in the Navy, Jerry and Bernard in the RAF, and it was during the customary exchange of our experiences as conscripts, that I gave them what was, by now, a well-rehearsed account of my still recent adventures in Spain, ending, inevitably, with expressions of regret at the apparent unlikelihood of my ever being able to afford to revisit the country and take advantage of the substantial amounts of food, drink, and exotic entertainment which, once there, my pound sterling would buy.

Subsisting as they were on the austerities of post-war Britain, the picture I painted stimulated their appetites to such an extent that they began to think the unthinkable, and consider whether, by adding their resources to my "expert" knowledge of the country, some way might not be found of paying it a visit. We recognised that practical considerations put Andalusia quite beyond our reach, but Catalonia was just the other side of France, and it suddenly became a possibility when Jerry found that he might be able to borrow an uncle's car for a fortnight if we agreed to comprehensively insure it against all contingencies - at which point we began to think seriously about mounting an expedition during the following summer. This would be no mean feat, of course, at the time, since it was too soon after the end of the war for any tourist facilities to be in place across the Channel. But, having inspired the ends, I was obliged to leave the means to the three of them, since my year in Pontefract was drawing to a close, and I was determined to move on.

I can't remember why I decided to go south instead of north to some more suitably remote spot, like the Hebrides, but the Royal Berkshire Hospital, Reading, was advertising for a Senior Radiographer, and I told Joe, who had by now relinquished the mayoral chain of office and knew my time was up, that I intended to apply for the job. Without demur, he picked up the phone and got through to the Chief Radiographer there, and after a brief conversation, informed me that the job was as good as mine. What a man! There were formalities to be observed, of course, but the outcome was a foregone conclusion, and a few weeks later I put my double life in Pontefract and Bradford behind me, never to live in the family home again.

3

I had broken the news of my imminent departure to my new girl friend, Anne, with a certain amount of trepidation. In the months following our first meeting, we had become increasingly intimate, and the frequency of our assignations had given us every appearance of "going steady", but, much as I enjoyed her company, I felt that this was the sort of entanglement which my commitment, at the time, to indefinite bachelorhood made it imperative for me to avoid, and I couldn't help seeing my move to Reading as a way of distancing myself from it. I was somewhat taken aback, therefore, when Anne reacted to my news with, not disappointment, but delight. This was just the trigger she had been waiting for, apparently, to precipitate her own long held intention of heading south herself - independently of me, of course, but, if we kept in touch, who knows, we might find ourselves within hailing distance of each other at some time in the not too distant future. What could be more reasonable? But why did I feel so uneasy?

Anne had never made any secret of the fact that she did not like Bradford and, until she met me, did not like Bradford men. The one big thing we had in common, other than our mutual attraction to each other, was our Bradford working class background, the difference between us being that she badly wanted to get away from hers. Not for any practical reason, but simply because she aspired to a more colourful and interesting life in more attractive surroundings. Nor was there anything dysfunctional about her family. Her father was a foundry worker of amiable disposition who had discharged his duties as a husband and father to the best of his abilities, her mother was an even more amiable ex-weaver, who was too self-centred and easy going to have performed as well as Anne would have liked as a wife and mother, but had, nevertheless, managed to produce and rear five children with reasonable success, providing Anne with two older brothers, one younger brother and a younger sister, with all of whom she had shared a highly interactive, but relatively good-natured childhood.

But the family home in the Sutton Estate on the outskirts of Bradford had been even more crowded than mine, if more luxuriously equipped with a bathroom and indoor lavatory, and she had already escaped from it once by serving in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force for a couple of years ending shortly before I met her. Unlike me, however, she had not, in spite of her intelligence and considerable artistic flair, acquired any marketable skills upon leaving school, flitting from job to job, looking for a suitable outlet for her talents, before going into the WAAF where she served as a wages clerk. Fortunately, she was a very quick learner, because her exceptionally good looks made it relatively easy for her to get jobs for which her other qualifications were inadequate. Shortly after I left for Reading she did in fact come south, taking a job for the summer at the Butlin's Holiday Camp at Clacton-on-Sea in Essex, which was too far from Reading to be a serious distraction, but near enough to keep the flame alive by fanning it on a weekend visit.

I arrived there to discover that Anne was working as a receptionist in the camp photo shop, surrounded by a group of admiring young male photographers, and leading the kind of social life to which these circumstances all too readily lent themselves. But who was I to complain, since, as an aspiring author, I could not have asked for better conditions than I was enjoying in Reading? I had secured excellent digs within walking distance of the hospital, where my workload, although substantial, was never overtaxing, and none of my new colleagues evinced any desire for my company after working hours, or aroused in me any desire for theirs, as a consequence of which, I found myself with more free time than I had ever had before, and very well cared for, into the bargain, by my new landlady.

An elderly widow called Mrs. Hutt, she was one of the most endearing characters I have ever met, but it took me some time to appreciate her qualities, because she was not given to ingratiating herself, and her appearance was decidedly odd, as was her mode of address. Less than five feet tall, and about three feet wide, with no neck to speak of, but a large head with remarkable features - ruddy complexion, a long hooked nose, a formidable chin, and a shrewd, questioning gaze - the face of an Italian peasant, which is what, in fact, she was. And, in spite of the length of time she had lived in England, her version of the language, delivered in a distinctive, crowing voice, was not always easy to understand. But she had managed a large boarding house in Oxford before her English husband died, and she was a real professional, delivering a service in exchange for payment to a standard which made the other landladies I lived with before I got married, look like the amateurs they were. She never intruded on my privacy, or sought my company, keeping herself to herself, outside our mealtimes together, at which she fed me better than I had ever been fed before.

She did this by being a good cook, of course, but also by circumventing, in various ways, the restrictions imposed on the exercise of her skills by the exigencies of the food rationing, still in force, five years after the end of the war. She had converted the little back garden of her terrace house into a smallholding, complete with a flock of hens, fruit canes, and vegetable plots, and the only favours she ever asked of my single fellow-lodger and me, were that we kept the ramshackle henhouse in reasonable repair and turned the garden soil over occasionally, in return for which we enjoyed many more fresh eggs than the one per week to which our ration books entitled us, and more fresh vegetables than were obtainable from the local shops, where she was held, I discovered, in considerable awe. At a time when, as a nation, we had become conditioned to accepting whatever our shopkeepers condescended to dish out to us, Mrs. Hutt continued to behave as if the war had never happened, insisting on choosing her own fruit and vegetables in the Italian manner, and carefully examining every piece of meat or fish that was offered to her, rejecting any that failed to meet her exacting standards.

And woe betide any retailer who succeeded, in spite of her vigilance, in selling her something that turned out, on investigation in her kitchen, to be substandard. Back she would go with the offending item, however full the shop of customers, to berate the miscreant in her crowing voice and broken English, totally impervious to any disapproval emanating from her more complaisant fellow shoppers. Small she was, but big inside, and I grew to be quite fond of her, as did Anne when she eventually came to visit, and we still recall some of her more memorable expressions on appropriate occasions with affection. In the meantime, her single minded devotion to the welfare of her gentlemen lodgers left me with my evenings and weekends totally free from any other commitment than the pursuit of my ambition to be a playwright.

And I was soon fully absorbed in the task, working regularly at it in my room overlooking the back garden where there was nothing to distract me but the hens - a routine which still left me, however, with plenty of time to devote to two of my favourite pastimes, walking and reading. All my life, I have found walking to be of inestimable benefit to both body and mind, and I am never more at peace with the world, than when striding rhythmically along, immersed in ruminations of that rare lucidity which this activity seems to promote. A child of the 1920s, I grew up walking to any destination within a half an hour's radius of home, even if it was on a tram route, since even trams cost money. Later, I was able to take advantage of the proximity of Yorkshire's moors and dales, and the popularity of rambling during the war, to tramp across them in the company of others. But it was hiking alone round the Youth Hostels of North Wales, prior to my call up, that revealed solitary walking to be one of life's great pleasures, henceforward to be indulged in whenever possible.

With this in mind, after settling into my comfortable routine in Reading, I bought an inch-to-the-mile map of the area, and identified several footpaths which appeared to lead up to the nearby Berkshire Downs and were within easy reach by bus. But, when I set out to explore these, I found, to my dismay, that rambling in Berkshire was not like rambling in Yorkshire where well-worn footpaths led invitingly up to open moors to be roamed at will. The footpaths in Berkshire were quite difficult to find, being timidly signposted, if at all, and hedged in by aggressively signposted private property. And even when found, they showed little sign of recent use, being so overgrown as to be almost impenetrable. So I never actually succeeded in gaining access to any open uplands where, as a member of the public, I would be free to stride out in any direction I chose. I could only conclude that the inhabitants of the Thames Valley took their exercise by strolling back and forth along the banks of the river.

I was more fortunate with my reading. I have earlier described how, undistracted by television, or even, in my case, radio, I had grown up looking to the printed word for my main in-house entertainment. In so doing, I acquired a reading habit which was to provide me with support and comfort for the rest of my life, coupled, as it was, with an apparently insatiable appetite for knowledge. Thus endowed, since leaving school, I had been pursuing, purely for pleasure and without realising it, the higher education I had been denied, and, in Reading, thanks to its excellent public lending library and Mrs Hutt's ministrations, I was able to immerse myself in serious reading with the very minimum of distractions. In the absence of any formal guidance, I was obliged to find my own way through the vast and varied landscapes of English literature, but I was assisted in this by, among other things, my regular subscription to a weekly publication called “The New Statesman and Nation”, but always referred to simply as “The New Statesman”.

Under the inspired, if somewhat idiosyncratic editorship of the irrepressible Kingsley Martin, this left-wing journal had become an indispensable element in the intellectual life of the country, attracting contributions from some of our most respected writers and critics, in addition to politicians and statesmen of all political persuasions. That was in the front half. But, in the back half, of equal interest to me, were the reviews of books, plays, concerts and exhibitions. If the review of a book caught my interest, I simply went along to the Reading public library and asked them to get it for me, which they almost invariably did. And, of course, one book led to another, since I was particularly drawn to literary criticism and soon became a worshipper at the shrine of T.S.Elliot. And it must say something about the extent of my commitment and the time at my disposal that, during that time, I also read and enjoyed reading) A.J.Toynbee's monumental and thought-provoking “Study of History” - all twelve volumes of it! But, highly regarded and controversial as it was at the time, where is that great work now?

On the other hand, and on a lighter note, there was one book about which the opposite could be said. So intrigued was I by the praises bestowed upon it in Naiomi Mitchison's memorable review in the “New Statesman” that I rushed to the library to be the first to put my name down for J.R.R.Tolkien's “The Fellowship of the Ring”, and immersed myself in its riches with almost orgiastic pleasure. Since I was at pains to repeat this performance when “The Two Towers” and the “The Return of the King” subsequently appeared, I think I can lay claim to being one of the first of the many millions who came after me, to read “The Lords of the Ring”. But my first year in Reading was not entirely monastic. It was interrupted by a great adventure.

4

Looking back on it, I am amazed, given the circumstances under which it was conceived, that our expedition to Spain ever came to pass. Communications between Reading and Pontefract were far from easy, and Roy, Jerry, and Bernard were little more than casual acquaintances at the time, but somehow we put the arrangements together, with me handling most of the detail through the Automobile Association's HQ in Leicester Square. Such information as was available about routes to the Mediterranean through France, in those days, was of a quite vestigial nature, as was that about the amenities available en route, but, of course, we could not envisage any better at a time when the conditions to be encountered, even when touring post-war Britain were less than encouraging. But, all preliminaries completed, on the appointed day, at the appointed time, in the appointed place on Westminster Bridge in in Central London, there they were, in a quite commodious vehicle (I think it was a pre-war Morris saloon) waiting to pick me up and proceed to Dover.

We were an odd mixture. Roy was an active sportsman (rugby union), and had, like me, “been around a bit”, as they used to say. He was the only one whose company I would have sought under normal circumstances. Jerry was a cheerful extrovert, mechanically minded and car-mad, and quite good company in small doses. Bernard, on the the other hand, was a complete enigma to me – dark and watchful, with very little to say for himself, his close friendship with Roy could only be explained, I assumed, by the fact that they were both trainees in the offices of a Pontefract architect called John Poulson, who was, incidentally, to become nationally notorious a few years later for his corrupt dealings with several town councils in the North East. But, ill-assorted as we were, we had all served in H.M.Forces, and there were to be no personality clashes during the adventures that befell us in the next fortnight, and our delight in the magnitude of our achievement and in the experiences resulting from it, ensured that our spirits were high for most of the time.

We drove down through France as quickly as possible, marvelling at the absence of traffic and the post-war impoverishment of the civic amenities. We discovered, and were thankful for, the existence of “Les Routiers”, then a basic, refectory-like version of the superior transport cafes they were to become, We were well received by the French who waved at us as we passed through their towns and villages, one of us often sitting on the open sun roof, and, whenever we came across another car with a GB plate, which was very, very seldom, we honked at each other exuberantly. Yes, we did!

But our holiday didn't really begin until we crossed into Spain and were driving along that spectacular coastal road down the Costa Brava. We were stunned by the views confronting us round every bend, and finally stopped on promontory overlooking a small fishing village, baking in the sun, white houses clustered round a small, deserted beach enclosed by rocky headlands, on one of which stood an ancient fortification of some kind. Unable to resist the attractions of the scene, we drove down a winding track, right onto the beach - parking next to the fishing boats - changed hastily into our swimming gear, and rushed noisily down into the clear, blue sea. For me, that plunge into the Med was a symbolic return to a shrine at which I was to worship, whenever the opportunity presented itself, for the rest of my life, although it was to be twelve years before I could afford the first of the many annual pilgrimages I was eventually to make to it in the company of my wife and children.

As it turned out, the beach was not entirely deserted. There was a small group of Spaniards, relaxing under a parasol by the water's edge to whom we paid little attention, until, somewhat to my surprise, one of them, an attractive young lady, swam out to us and said, with a big smile “'Allo, are you Ingleesh?” and indicated that we would be welcome to join them, which we were only too glad to do, since the other young lady in the party was even more attractive than the first and the two men were of a fairly avuncular appearance. Considering that their English was virtually non-existent and my Spanish vestigial, we managed to get on quite well together, and, amazingly, after all these years, I still have the photographs to prove it. Small, 3.5” by 2.25”, black and white, but still discernible, there I am, thin as a rake under my mop of black hair, with my arms round both girls, and there, too, is Roy, beefier and sleeker, in a similar pose on another. In spite of the communication gap, and their obvious respectability, it seems that our sudden arrival on their beach had introduced a welcome element of excitement into their day.

The first thing we asked them was “Where are we?”, to which they replied “This is Tossa del Mar. We come here from Barcelona for the peace and quiet”. True! And, as we got to know the girls better, we began to explore the possibility of staying the night, but there was only one small hotel and it seemed to be full, but the girls went away and negotiated for us to stay in an annex, a few streets back from the beach. What followed was a truly memorable evening which lasted, in the event, all night. It started quietly enough. After checking in at the hotel and smartening ourselves up, we went for a stroll round the village with our new friends, but we had run out of conversation, and were glad to separate from them for dinner at the hotel, which was served to us on an open patio overlooking the beach - my first experience of a lifestyle I would eventually pine for whenever deprived of it for long. My first experience, too, of the dish which our hostess bore steaming to our table and presented with a flourish. Paella! I stared at it in wonder before hastening to sample its mouth-watering delights, but, absorbed as I was, I couldn't help noticing that, although Roy seemed to be sharing my pleasure, Jerry and Bernard were distinctly underwhelmed by the combination of rice and seafood, and it became increasingly apparent over the next few days that the Spanish food was not to their liking, and what they pined for was roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and two veg. What a waste.

After dinner we repaired to the only bar in sight. It was attached to our hotel and had chairs and tables out on the beach around a small concrete slab set into the sand for dancing. My memory of what followed is rather hazy. I think the girls rejoined us and we danced under the stars to piped music for a while, but, at some point. I found myself in earnest conversation with a white-haired older gentleman who spoke pretty good English and claimed to have been a university professor before his lack of sympathy for the Franco regime saw him reduced to earning his living by other means. He was certainly intelligent and articulate enough for this to have been the case, and, as we continued drinking and talking through the night, our exchanges ranged far and wide, but I can remember only two things about them. I can recall thinking “This is one of the most profound conversations I have ever had, I must remember all of it tomorrow”. My only other recollection is of him turning to me at one point and saying with great conviction “If there is to be any progress in this country, we must first kill all the priests.”

By the time dawn broke, Roy and I were pretty drunk. Jerry and Bernard had long since gone to bed, but, instead of joining them, we decided that an early morning swim would be in order, and, since nobody was about, we could take it in the nude. It was a mistake. Booze has always made me into a good-natured drunk, but, Roy turned out, alas, to be an ill-natured drunk. All went well at first. Totally deserted beach. Lovely swim. Time to get out, which I did. But not Roy. There was an elegant ocean-going yacht anchored in the bay, about 50 yards out from the beach, and something about its expensive appearance got up Roy's nose. “I'm gonna board that boat”, he announced threateningly, and, before I could do anything to stop him, had swum out and was attempting to climb the rope ladder hanging over its side. Fortunately, his drunken condition prevented him from reaching the top, so he contented himself with swinging noisily from side to side against the hull, emitting shouts of abuse. Eventually, a sleepy-looking individual appeared on deck and began to remonstrate with him rather half-heartedly, while I stood helplessly on the shore, waiting for him to come to his senses.

Then something quite astonishing happened. From out of the apparently deserted village, in the early morning light, there emerged a large crowd of young women, moving slowly, like a herd of cattle, but chattering quietly among themselves, as they strolled along the beach. I could hardly believe my eyes. Where had they come from? Why were they here? We discovered later that this was one of those innumerable Spanish feast days, and the young ladies were making the most of their time off work with an early start. Why there were so many of them gathered together, I never discovered, but my immediate problem was how to get a naked Roy out of the water under their collectively bovine gaze. Fortunately, Roy, who was now treading water close to shore, much subdued by his situation (“Oh, bloody hell”), had brought his dressing gown with him, and we agreed that he would crawl into the shallows and I would wade out, holding up the dressing gown between him and the onlookers, and, at a word of command, he would stand up and I would wrap the dressing gown round him.

What a hope! I waded out, as arranged, holding up the dressing gown, but Roy's condition was such, and the beach floor so uneven, that, when standing up suddenly, he completely lost his balance and, after posing for an agonisingly long moment with his arms outstretched, and his masculine charms on open display for all to admire, fell over backwards into the water. It only remained for him to wrap his sodden gown around himself under water and make his ignominious way up the beach. After which, we made haste to put Tossa behind us and proceed on our way to Barcelona. Twelve years later, I returned to find a very different Tossa del Mar from the one we had left in 1950. Countless hotels, towering over busy streets full of bars, and a crowded beach, onto which, needless to say, it was no longer possible to drive a car, and lots of noise. Our original hotel was still recognisably there, however, but very much enlarged, and, when I poked about in the sand in front of its imposing facade, what did I find, but a small concrete slab!

Barcelona was throbbing with a vitality we had not yet encountered on our travels, and, as we drove through crowded streets, looking for somewhere cheap to stay, we were treated to the spectacle of uniformed police literally kicking any loitering pedestrians out of the way of our car, which had become, it seemed, a badge of our superior social status. The truth of this was confirmed when we finally walked into a third class hotel to have our booking accepted by a shirt-sleeved, cigarette-smoking proprietor with little apparent enthusiasm until we asked him where to put our car, at which his attitude towards us underwent a complete change. He discarded his cigarette and virtually sprang to attention – living proof that we were now in Franco's Spain.

We quickly spruced ourselves up and sallied forth to sample the delights that our first impressions of Barcelona had hinted at. And, once again, we struck it lucky. We headed, of course, for the Ramblas, the old port quarter, famous throughout the Med for the bars and brothels that lined its narrow, crowded streets, each bar offering its own distinctive version of tapas, the appetizer without which no aperitif in Spain would be complete, and the cooking of which filled the air with countless competing aromas. Spoilt for choice, we entered a bar at random and ordered drinks. Imagine our surprise when, after serving us, the handsome young man behind the bar addressed us, rather hesitatingly at first, in quite serviceable English. It turned out that his name was Mario, he was the son of the bar's proprietor, he was learning English at the British Institute – one of the few outposts of liberal enlightenment permitted by the regime – and was so glad to meet us that he offered to take us out on the town if we would wait until he came off duty.

What a stroke of luck! Without Mario we could have wandered around Barcelona for hours, getting nowhere. As it was, we returned at about 10pm to find him waiting for us in the company of a friend who, in contrast to Mario's slim good looks, was rather short, fat, and balding, but very affable, and, after a brief discussion, the two of them took us to a most attractive night club. There was nothing unusual about its layout - a central dance floor surrounded by tables and chairs, with a band and a bar in the background - but it was situated in a large, walled garden, open to the stars, and attractively lit by lights festooning the trees. And it was full of beautiful girls, several of whom were happy to join us at our table and dance with us, once we had bought them drinks. My pleasure in their company was only constrained by what had become a constant worry about the adequacy of the amount of money we had brought with us to cover the cost of the trip. It was certainly not enough to allow us to be anything but very careful about the rate at which we spent it, and there was no question, in those days, of replenishing it with a credit card from a hole in the wall.

It was not, in other words, the nightclub that was expensive (unless one wished to buy one of the girls, all of whom, we were assured, were available at a price) but our funds that were constrained. With the help of Mario and his friend, however, both of whom paid their corner, I, for one, felt free to revel in the pleasures of an evening, during which Mario's friend revealed himself to be, of all unlikely things, a plain clothes policeman – one of Spain's six different police forces, we learned, only two of which wore uniforms. As a badge of his office, he carried, tucked into the waistband of his trousers, a loaded revolver, which he removed with elaborate discretion and pushed under the tablecloth whenever getting up to dance with one of the girls.

My only other surviving memory of Barcelona is of attending a bullfight which served to confirm my belief that, like opera, a bullfight, done well, may be sublime, but done badly, can be repellent. The bullfights of Catalonia were second rate affairs, sadly lacking in the magic of those I had witnessed in Andalusia, which failed, understandably, to impress my travelling companions as being anything but barbarically unfair to the bulls. They had one feature, however, which was new to me. Before each bull was released into the ring, a character billed as Don Tanquero entered the arena, clad from head to foot in white and carrying a white plinth and a bugle. After positioning the plinth in front of the entry gate, he climbed up onto it, and, standing stiffly erect, blew a defiant call on his bugle, whereupon the gate was opened and the bull emerged. After taking its bearings, the bull, seeing Don Tanquero in front of him, made a charge at him, only to stop short, inches from the legs of the still motionless white figure and turn away in search of something of more yielding appearance. Very impressive! Unfortunately, however, on at least two occasions during the corrida, as the bull turned away, his horn accidentally hooked the legs of poor Don Tanquero from under him and precipitated him ignominiously onto the floor of the arena, requiring his rescue from the bull by the capes of the torreros who rushed to his aid.

But, all too soon, our time in Barcelona expired, and we were obliged to start back for home. All went well until we reached Carcassonne, where water began to leak from the the car's engine. We limped into the nearest garage to consult a mechanic, who, after shaking his head over the impossibility of obtaining a replacement water pump for so foreign a car, effected a repair which would, he said, with any luck, get us home. But our luck was out, and we had gone no further than Narbonne when the water pump began to leak again. This time the verdict was unequivocal - the car could go no further. There was no alternative but to garage it and proceed by other means. Fortunately, I had insured the car with the AA against such an eventuality, and we knew that it would be recovered eventually, but our own prospects were less reassuring. The cost of the abortive repair had made a hole in our finances which left us, we discovered, with just enough money to buy four one-way tickets by train as far as Paris where we arrived, early next morning, hungry, thirsty and broke.

No longer kings of the road, but four bedraggled pedestrians, staggering under the weight of luggage we had never expected to have to carry ourselves, we made our way to the British Consulate where the officials received us with a marked lack of enthusiasm, inured as they obviously were, to the arrival on their doorstep of fellow countrymen who, through either miscalculation or fecklessness, had run out of cash in those pre-credit card days. After making it clear that they were not a charitable institution, they lent a critical ear to our story, asking us, finally, to produce the bill for the Carcassonne repair, which, fortunately, I found tucked in the corner of one of my pockets. Only then did their attitude towards us thaw sufficiently to allow them to consider lending us enough money to get back to England, if we could give them some assurance of our ability to repay it [they were obviously playing by a set of rules which required the British taxpayers' money to be disbursed as grudgingly as possible]. The problem was that none of us was of a sufficiently exalted status to enjoy the privilege of possessing (in those days) a cheque book, and only I, it emerged, even had a bank account, and it was on this that they finally agreed to accept my “note of hand” for the required sum. More helpfully, they directed us to a pension where we would be well taken care of overnight at modest prices.

Once ensconced in our pension, refreshed and rested, the realisation dawned on us, that, if only through misfortune, and if only for one night, we were, actually in Paris, of all places, for the first time in our lives. But how, given our straitened circumstances, could we possibly take advantage of this fact? Hurried calculations revealed that, by going without a decent dinner and putting aside enough money to pay for the pension and our rail fares to the coast, we might be left with just enough francs for a couple of rounds of drinks in some possibly colourful venue situated far enough from the Champs Elysees to be affordable. So, we smartened ourselves up and sallied forth for a night on the town.

Montmatre would have been more to our taste, of course, but our limited resources compelled us to head for the Left Bank where we found, alas, that the watering holes, while relatively inexpensive, were culturally unrewarding, and that such Parisian gaiety as there was in evidence, was painfully low key. The bars were dimly lit, usually by candlelight, and peopled by carefully posed individuals who were either engaged in quiet conversation of a no doubt profound and elevating nature, or giving their polite attention to equally subdued, small scale musical entertainment, performed in an introspective vein, of which they expressed their appreciation, not by clapping their hands in a loud and vulgar manner, but by snapping their fingers repeatedly. It was all too, too refined - and affected. And, since nothing gets up a Yorkshireman's nose more than affectation, I had great difficulty, after a couple of drinks, in restraining Roy from turning his glass upside down (an old naval custom, apparently) to indicate his willingness to take on anyone in the room. Fortunately, our money ran out while he was one drink short of exploding into gratuitous violence, and we made our way back to the pension carrying with us only the satisfaction of having chalked up a night out in Paris against all the odds.

The following morning we took the train to the coast and suffered the ignominy of carting our luggage across acres of dockyard railway lines in order to reach the car ferry that would carry us back to our homeland. But, once in Dover, our troubles were by no means over. We were still short of cash for the rail fares needed to get home. Our enquiries at the ticket office revealed that, if we could persuade somebody, somewhere in England, to go to their nearest British Rail ticket office and hand over the requisite sum, the tickets could be issued to us in Dover. The only person I could think of who might be able and willing to do us this favour was my ex-chief, the ex-mayor of Pontefract, Joe Blackburn, who, when telephoned out of the blue, greeted my request with great good humour and hastened to comply with it. But, still our troubles were not over. By the time we had obtained our tickets and got as far as London, it was nearly midnight and, the last trains to our final destinations had already departed from Paddington and Kings Cross, leaving us stuck in London overnight.

Once again, it fell to me to rise to the occasion, and it is apparent to me, now, looking back, that, from the moment we lost the car, the other three had put their trust in me to get them home. Until then, unable to drive one, and totally clueless about cars, I had taken on the subsidiary roles of “Chancellor of the Exchequer” (holder of the kitty), interpreter, and tour guide, but from that point on I found myself assuming the lead without really thinking about it at the time – dealing with the French, negotiating with the Embassy officials, and eliciting assistance from Joe. Now, stranded, penniless, in London, there was only one person I knew who might be able to give us shelter for the night. I hadn't seen him since his demob from Gibraltar, and I was never to see him again, but he had given me his address and invited me to keep in touch, so I contacted my erstwhile fellow actor, Roy, and explained my predicament to him.

Recovering from the shock of being roused from his slumbers by a voice from the past, Roy's essential good nature, even discounting any obligation placed upon him by our fruitful association in Gibraltar, left him with little alternative but to accept the inconvenience we were imposing on him, and, after muffled exchanges with some other party at the other end of the line, he instructed us to take a taxi to his door at his expense. We arrived to find that he was sharing a house with three other handsome young men of well-groomed and actorly appearance, all clad in elegant dressing gowns, who accepted our alien presence in their midst with a mixture of bewilderment and apprehension. Few words were exchanged as we were fed and watered and bedded down for the night on whatever furniture was available, and even fewer in the morning as we gathered our belongings together and made a hasty departure. The whole episode had a slightly surreal, almost dreamlike quality, and provided a fitting conclusion to a journey during which, once across the Channel, the nearest we had come to conversing with any of our fellow countrymen was an encounter with two young New Zealand doctors in Barcelona.

As for my travelling companions, I never saw Jerry or Bernard again, and Roy only once , when, not long after our return from Spain, he moved down to London to take up a post in Poulson's London office, thus enabling us to meet for a drink, somewhere in the West End. What did we talk about? I can't remember. Whatever it was, it wasn't of sufficient interest to either of us to encourage keeping in touch afterwards. I, for one, was far too absorbed in other activities and relationships by then. I had returned from my big adventure to settle gratefully back into my cloistered routine in Reading c/o Mrs. Hutt, but it wasn't to last. Towards the end of the year, Anne shook the dust of Bradford finally from her pretty feet, determined to try her luck in London, come what may.

It was an act of desperation, taken, without any encouragement from me, on the basis of a promise of shared accommodation with a girl she had met at Butlins, which failed, at the last moment, to materialise. But still she came, arriving in London with only thirteen shillings and a penny in her purse to impose herself, for a time, on her mother's sister, Auntie Audrey, who lived in Hendon, and was the only member of her parents' families to have escaped from their working class background into middle class affluence by marrying an ambitious local boy who, after studying long and hard at the local Technical College had risen to become a successful consulting engineer. Anne's next step was to get herself accepted by the GPO as a trainee teleprinter operator on a ten-week course which she would be paid to attend – not very much, but enough to live on. All this happened rather quickly and, by the time I made contact she was living at a charitable institution of Dickensian aspect called the Ada Lewis Hostel which provided the basic necessities of life to single ladies at the lowest possible cost. Repelled by its Spartan amenities and strict rules about male visitors, however, Anne quickly made friends with another resident, a Welsh girl, with whom she could afford to rent a small furnished flat.

“Small”, as I found when I visited her, was a euphemism. “Minuscule” would have been closer to the truth. The entrepreneurial owner of a large Edwardian terrace house had created the “flat” by partitioning, with his very own hands, an admittedly quite spacious single first floor front room into a living room, kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom, none of which could accommodate more than two people at a time, even standing up. To add to the discomfort, it was on Battersea Bridge Road at its narrowest point, just south of the bridge, where double-decker London buses could be heard, smelt, and even felt, roaring past in both directions every few seconds, almost close enough to touch from the windows. It was the most uncomfortable dwelling I have ever been entertained in, and totally unsuited to intimacies of any kind. I couldn't wait to get out of it, and, fortunately, there were plenty of interesting things to do elsewhere, for this was 1951 and, outside, the Festival of Britain was in full swing.

5

Inevitably, the simultaneous presence, in London, of both Anne and the Festival of Britain completely transformed my lifestyle. Given that Reading's railway station, with its frequent fast trains to London, was within easy walking distance of my digs, I could be in Paddington within an hour of setting out, and day return tickets were very cheap, so it wasn't long before I was making the journey three times a week, catching the last train back, to be in bed not long after midnight.

It would be difficult to convey to anyone who had not lived through the war and its austere aftermath, the uplifting effect of the Festival of Britain on the spirits of those of us who were lucky enough to be able to take advantage of the many pleasures it had to offer, particularly in London, during that memorable year. Not only at the South Bank exhibition site, although the new Royal Festival Hall was a wonder to behold, as was the new National Film Theatre, but throughout the whole of London's West End, South Kensington, and even Battersea Park. I recall that, for months, my wallet was bulging with tickets, booked well in advance in order to get the best seats at the cheapest prices (front row of the balcony, usually). So far in advance, in fact, that, when Anne and I turned up for the very first concert at the Festival Hall for which tickets had been made available to the public, we found that, unbeknown to us, and to a small band of other ticket-holders grouped disconsolately around the box office, the concert had been cancelled shortly after we had booked, a different one substituted, and our seats sold to others. What cheek! The management, when summoned, was apologetic, of course, assuring us that the change had been widely publicised in the press, and, since the hall was, not surprisingly, completely full, there was nothing they could do but give us our money back. Not good enough, we said. Not good enough at all. We have valid tickets, we have travelled far, and we demand to be admitted. We shall not be moved, or words to that effect. In the end a compromise was reached which allowed me hear my first concert in the new Royal Festival Hall seated on an ordinary dining chair positioned in the middle of the broadest aisle available so as not to breach the Fire Regulations.

Regretfully, only two programmes have survived from that unforgettable year – I was still a single man, travelling light with nothing but suitcases in which to store any stuff I chose to accumulate - but several of the many productions Anne and I attended have stayed in my mind, although the cast details are hazy. We saw lots of plays, of course, but the one that impressed me most was Strindberg's “The Father” with Michael Redgrave in the lead – very involving plot, cleverly constructed, relentlessly unfolding to deliver maximum emotional impact, just the kind of play I would like to have written. But I also enjoyed Thornton Wilder's “The Skin of our Teeth” with Vivienne Leigh, gorgeous in black tights, and George Bernard Shaw's “Man and Superman”. Shaw being very popular after the war, we also saw, I think, Wendy Hiller in “Major Barbara”, Roger Livesey in “Captain Brassbound's Conversion”, and even “Widowers' Houses” around that time. I can also recall Ralph Richardson in Chekov's “Uncle Vanya, my problem being that, without the programmes, I can't be sure of the dates.

One of my two surviving programmes gives details of one of several concerts we attended that year. It was an impressive performance of Delius's rarely performed “A Mass of Life” at the Royal Albert Hall on June 7th given by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham, a remarkable feature of which was that the name of one of the four soloists was given as, simply, Fischer-Dieskow. Remarkable, not because I'd never heard of him, but because he was so obviously a German, and a young German at that. This was only a few years after the end of a war during which the Germans had been our hated enemies, and it came as a bit of a shock to see one of them standing there, as if to the manner born, in the purlieus of a city still littered with the bomb sites created by his compatriots. But he could certainly sing, as the world now knows well.

My other surviving programme is for an opera! Yes, finally, I was renewing my acquaintance with the future love of my life, if somewhat half-heartedly, given the strength of my affection for stage plays and orchestral concerts, both of which were more accessible and affordable at the time. It had taken a while for “grand opera” to resurface in London after the war ended, but the vacuum had been partly filled by the Sadlers Wells Opera Company returning to their old home in Rosebury Avenue,EC1, shortly after VE Day with the premiere of Benjamin Britten's stunning debut as an opera composer, “Peter Grimes” - a bombshell which, although it would change the face of opera in England for ever, was not received with universal acclaim at the time, and I have to admit that, on first acquaintance, I found its contemporary idiom rather difficult to get to grips with. Repeated exposure to it since, however, has led me to the conclusion that it is the most thoroughly satisfying tragic opera created since World War One. It has everything going for it - a credible plot with plenty of action unfolding at a confident pace, protagonists who are all too human, and an assortment of colourful minor characters embedded in a chorus which is itself a protagonist, all firmly wedded to music of unfailing invention, enormous range and fascinating detail to generate an emotional impact which could not be delivered by anything else but an opera.

“Peter Grimes” was an astonishing achievement for a first opera by a young composer, and one that Britten never quite equalled, in my opinion, with his subsequent operas, good as they were. In spite of its modern idiom and verismo libretto, it is old-fashioned enough to feature tunes which one can actually leave the theatre humming. It also has, in Grimes, the most ambiguous 'hero' since Don Giovanni. Fortunately for me, the original production was still in the repertoire (with some of the original cast) while I was in Reading and I made it the the object of my first visit to Sadlers Wells. My other surviving programme recalls, however, not that enjoyable occasion, but my ill-fated attempt to acquaint myself with Wagner's “Tristan and Isolde”, on the cheap, at Covent Garden on Saturday, 30th June, 1951, when finding myself, due to the cheapness of my seat, perched so high up under the ceiling, that I was unable to see half the stage, hardly able to hear Kirsten Flagstad and Set Svanholm singing interminably to each other in German, I left at the first interval with an aversion to Wagner's operas which was not to be remedied until, twenty years later, I attended a performance of the famous Sadlers Wells production of “The Mastersingers” at the London Coliseum under the inspired baton of Reginald Goodall – although I have to admit that “Tristan and Isolde” is still my least favourite Wagner opera for reasons which I will be happy to explain later.

Later in the year, I was persuaded to splash out on better seats at Covent Garden for a performance of “La Traviata”, the details of which have not survived, although my memory of the experience lives on. It was my first full frontal encounter with “grand opera” and the opulence of the production quite bowled me over – the sets, the costumes, the chorus and the orchestra were all of a quite different order from those I had enjoyed at the Keighley Hippodrome nine years earlier, and the playing and singing were beyond reproach. But the words were in Italian, and my inability to understand them prevented me from immersing myself in the Covent Garden Violetta's world to anything like the same extent as that of the Keighley Hippodrome Violetta, with the the result that a persistent feeling of frustration clouded my enjoyment of the performance as a whole, leaving behind the realisation that I would be wise, in future, to invest my meagre resources only in opera sung in English. Of which, of course, there was plenty available, fairly cheaply, at Sadlers Wells, but, the problem with that was the relative inconvenience of getting to and from the theatre. In those days, I was still, in effect, a provincial visitor to London, and my familiarity with its topography was restricted to the West End, South Kensington, and Hammersmith, relying entirely on the tube network for getting around. Sadlers Wells Theatre was in Islington, which, although in EC1, seemed a long way out to me, and the nearest tube station to it was a couple of streets away, making my journey back to Reading, via Paddington, after the final curtain, rather complicated, bearing in mind that there was a lot of competition for my custom, at the time, from theatres and concert halls within easier reach.

These obstacles notwithstanding, I journeyed out to Rosebury Avenue on no less than four occasions during my two years in Reading, although none of the programmes for these performances has survived. In addition to his “Peter Grimes”, already mentioned, I attended Britten's second opera “The Rape of Lucretia” which I found reasonably rewarding, but rather uninvolving, due less, I think, to its smaller scale (which worked well enough for me later in his “Turn of the Screw”) than to its predictable plot and sermonising libretto. Too formulaic, I thought, but I awarded it what was, and always has been, my personal seal of approval, by marking it down as worthy of closer acquaintance if ever the opportunity presented itself. Much better value for money, however, was Leos Janacek's amazing “Katya Kabanova” staged by Sadlers Wells for the first time in Britain. Like most of my fellow countrymen, I had never heard of the Czech composer until then, but I took him to my heart immediately, and have never missed an opportunity to attend any of his operas since, nor to buy recordings of his other works once I could afford them.

Janacek was a phenomenon – a genuine original whose musical idiom seems to have had neither antecedents nor progeny. The only comparison that springs to mind is with the Spanish architect, Gaudi, whose buildings in Barcelona cross innovation with tradition, and the alien with the familiar, to unique effect. The warmth of Janacek's personality radiates from everything he wrote, and his unconventional outlook on life is reflected in the subjects he chose for his operas, but it was to be a long time after meeting “Katya Kabanova” before I would enjoy live performances of “Jenufa”, “A Cunning Little Vixen”, “The Makroupolos Case”, “From the House of the Dead”, The Adventures of Mr. Broucek”, and “Osud” - a treasure trove waiting to be discovered.

My final expedition to Sadlers Wells was for a performance of Puccini's “Tosca”, eventually to become one of my very favourite operas, but marred for me, on that occasion, by finding the part of the desirable diva filled (to overflowing) by a large lady with ginger hair, and that of her ardent lover by a slender young man with a rather tentative stage presence, neither of whose names I can recall. What I do remember, however, is the impression left on me by the rendition of Scarpia's powerful aria, “Go, Tosca”, at the end of the first act, by a baritone who, if my memory serves me correctly, was the same John Hargreaves I had first encountered as Figaro nearly ten years earlier. This is one of Puccini's most accomplished pieces of musical architecture, superimposing Scarpia's malevolent soliloquy, to dramatic effect, on a Te Deum sung by the church choir, punctuated by tolling bells and the ominous booming of a base drum, and it certainly succeeded in giving me the physical thrill I have labelled “the authentic operatic experience” that evening.

Following the appearance of this impressive Scarpia, I found the rest of the opera sufficiently absorbing to resolve to make its closer acquaintance, with the other parts more suitably cast, at the earliest possible opportunity, little realising that I would have to wait 25 years to do so. And this was not entirely due to my being otherwise engaged elsewhere for most of that period, since “Tosca” was not such a fixture in the operatic repertoires as “La Boheme” and “Madame Butterfly” in those days, and it took the sensational Zefferelli production at Covent Garden in 1964 with Maria Callas as Tosca and Tito Gobbi as Scarpia to raise its popularity index. And that may have been seen as too hard an act to follow, because I don't think the opera was staged again in London until 1976. Fortunately, by that time, two careers later, I was living and working in the vicinity, and had become a regular patron of the English National Opera whose production of it, at the Coliseum, in February of that year, was quickly overshadowed by a revival of the Zefferelli spectacular at Covent Garden starring Luciano Pavarotti as Cavaradossi. By that time, after attending the ENO version twice, so taken was I with “Tosca”, that I broke with tradition and went to a performance of the Covent Garden production in April '77.

Since Callas had been replaced by Raina Kabaivanska, and Tito Gobbi by Peter Glossop, it wasn't quite the experience it might have been, but Pavarotti was in good form (and shape!), and, for much of the time, the performance succeeded in transcending the language barrier to a sufficient extent to nourish my growing conviction that “Tosca” can lay serious claim to being the nearest to perfection of all the tragic operas ever conceived. Unlike so many of its competitors, it features quite credible characters embedded in a genuine historical context, running true to their natures throughout. Its equally convincing plot is driven by their reaction to the sudden intrusion of the fugitive Angelotti into their lives and progresses, in less than 24 hours, from its golden beginnings to the darkest of conclusions, Puccini's music wringing every drop of emotion from it, each step of the way. But only, in my view, if one can follow the words – not just the gist of them, but the actual words – which isn't easy, even when they are sung in English.

Tosca's famous Act Two aria, for example, (Vissi d'arte - “Love and music”) is more than just a lament about the humiliation she is about to suffer. It's the moral turning point of the plot. As she contemplates the collapse of her world and the predicament that Scarpia has blackmailed her into, the devoutly religious Tosca wonders how this can possibly have happened to her. She has lived for love and music, never knowingly harmed anyone, given help where it is needed, prayed at all the right shrines, done everything she could to deserve heaven's blessing, and this is how God has rewarded her. Faced with this betrayal, she summons up enough resolve to bargain with Scarpia, then, taking matters into her own hands, uses the knife with which he has been eating his supper to stab him to death as he comes to force himself upon her. There are few more satisfying moments in opera.

Similarly, in Cavaradossi's equally famous Act Three aria (E lucivan le stelle - “The stars were brightly shining”), the words are even more affecting than the sad circumstances of their singing. Facing imminent execution, Cavaradossi has begged pen and paper from his jailer to write a last letter to his beloved Tosca, but finds himself overtaken instead by erotic memories of their lovers' meetings under the stars when she “unveiled her beauty”, and is seized with regret at having to leave the life he loves so much. No histrionics, no soul searching, nothing about the artworks left uncreated. It's a short aria in a short last act, which Puccini has resisted any temptation to pad out to a greater length. In fact, the whole opera, from the moment Cavaradossi encounters Angelotti in the Attavanti chapel, is driven along at a cracking pace without a single superfluous flourish.

Little of this was brought home to me, needless to say, by that first encounter at Sadlers Wells, but the promise of it was there, discernible enough to survive the multiple distractions of career and family during the intervening years. In the interests of which, however, the time had now come for me to move on from Reading, although my motives for doing so were mixed. On the surface, it was a good career move to become, as I did, a Deputy Superintendent Radiographer at the Nottingham General Hospital since it was a better job than Senior Radiographer at The Royal Berkshire Hospital, Reading, but the underlying truth was that, apart from the ministrations of Mrs. Hutt, and the easy access to the delights of the metropolis (and the lovely Anne), I had not enjoyed my working life in Reading. The X Ray Department was very cramped and inconveniently laid out, having been hacked out of the ground floor of the old building by partitioning bits of it off. I could have lived with that, however, given my adaptability, and previous experience, and, of course, my tireless energy, if the staff had been pleasanter to work with, but they were, with one outstanding exception, a pretty unappetising bunch.

By a curious coincidence, the one exception was not only a Yorkshireman, but a Bradfordian, a few years older than me, who had been working at St Luke's Municipal Hospital, while I was training at the BRI, but our paths had never crossed at the time. He was an excellent radiographer, even more knowledgeable than me, but, he was, alas, a frustrated radiologist, who found himself obliged, from time to time, to draw to the attention of the qualified radiologists under whom we served, their more egregious misreadings of the X Ray films he had taken. In order to do this without appearing to question their competence, he would resort to humbly begging them to enlighten him about the possible significance of the anomalies they had overlooked, without referring to their faulty reporting, which they would then go away and change. We had a lot in common, but, being a married man with a wife and young children living in rented rooms, he was struggling to survive financially, and totally focussed on work and family.

The rest of my colleagues were Southerners, and not merely Southerners, against whom, although a Northerner, I harbour little prejudice (truly!), but Thames Valley Southerners, a subgroup, towards whom experience has taught me to be less favourably disposed. They seem to suffer from an inbred class-consciousness, which compels them to affect a social superiority unfounded on fact, disguising their own shortcomings under a smokescreen of false modesty, while damning with faint praise the superior achievements of anyone they see as less socially favoured than themselves. The revered Superintendent Radiographer was a smooth-talking old phoney who had allowed himself to adopt a hands-off approach to the practice of radiography while retaining a hands-on approach to the supervision of those of us who actually did the work. This left him with nothing to do but fiddle around with the appointments system at his desk and make a nuisance of himself generally, but, in particular, by going into the darkroom when he had nothing better to do, and passing judgement on the efforts of his betters. I had never encountered such unprofessional behaviour before, and it irked me considerably.

Matters came to a head one day when I was asked to X Ray the skull of a baby who had been dropped on its head. Due to the child's struggling and screaming, it was a near impossible task, but, by gripping its head firmly (wearing protective lead-rubber gloves, of course) I managed to get a couple of quite passable shots with enough of the skull clear of the opacities of the lead gloves to reveal that there was no abnormality present. But, as I was inspecting the films in the darkroom, who should come up behind me but the Chief Inspector, to study them for a moment and say, “Mm, not very good, do them again, old man”, his routine use of term “old man” as a form of address being another his annoying habits. Something in me snapped, and I said, quite calmly “I'm sorry, old man, that's the best I can do, but I'm always willing to learn, so perhaps you will show me how to do better.” There followed a stunned silence, during which the darkroom technician held her breath, before he turned to me in disbelief and said “Are you refusing to do them again, old man?” To which I replied “What would be the point if that's the best I can do? But I'm only a Senior Radiographer, you are a Superintendent, you obviously think better shots are obtainable so I think I'm entitled to ask you to show me how to to do them” After changing colour several times, he turned on his heel and stalked out of the darkroom without another word. He never bothered me again, and I became persona even less grata with him and his mutual admiration society for the remainder of my stay. But I had stumbled upon a principle of management which was to stand me in good stead in my future careers. It was “Never tell a subordinate to do something you could not show them how to do yourself, if asked”.

5

After the discomforts of the Royal Berkshire Hospital, the Nottingham General Infirmary was a pleasure to work in. The X Ray Department was large, light, and well-equipped, the Chief Radiographer was a small, dark and very capable Welshman, with whom I struck up an excellent working relationship from the very start, and, best of all, the department boasted a School of Radiography, peopled exclusively by students of the female gender. None of them was as attractive as Anne (or even as Shirley), but they were, as a group, neither ill-favoured nor ill-natured and added a delightful sparkle to the working day. But I was much less fortunate with my digs. Nothing could compare with Mrs. Hutt's ministrations, of course, but I found myself in the clutches of a sad and sour widow who had a plain, unmarried daughter, and resented the fact that, instead of “keeping them company” of an evening, I took myself off to my room after dinner, in reality, to struggle with words, but, in their eyes, because “I thought myself too good for them”. Most unprofessional. But the food was good and plentiful, and the house was within easy walking distance of the city centre, where the Infirmary was situated, and there was nothing better on offer. But I had every incentive to escape, and, increasingly, an alternative beckoned.

It was becoming obvious, even to me, that I was approaching a fork in life's road. Frank had married his Joyce, Cliff his Rosemary, Gerry his Jessie, and Brad his Ruth. Only Mike and I remained single, and he was younger than the rest of us and inhabiting quite a different world. My relationship with Anne continued to flourish in spite of the distance between us – I spent weekends in London, and we visited our respective families in Bradford together, from time to time. We were still, it appeared, “going steady”, but we were still free agents, and Anne was never without other admirers, some of whom had quite honourable intentions. Eventually, the realisation dawned on me that, averse as I was to either option, I would have to choose between losing Anne or marrying her, and, although the outcome was never in any real doubt, it wasn't an easy decision to take.

In contrast to the insouciance with which so many of my contemporaries appeared to be embracing it, I could see that, once the honeymoon was over, marriage could create more problems than it solved, demanding more than ardent affection and mutual attraction to make it work. I had come to the conclusion that, once undying love had been declared, marriage was best approached as a business partnership aimed at creating a suitable environment for a comfortable domestic existence and the eventual production of children, a risky venture involving the acquisition of property and the exercise of practical skills which did not derive spontaneously from expertise in lovemaking. Not, therefore, to be undertaken lightly, and my subsequent advice, rarely sought, has always been “Marry only when no reasonable alternative presents itself”.

But in spite of these mature insights, my main concern at the time was not with Anne's suitability as a business partner, but as a 'soul mate', to revert to the jargon of the time. Night after night, in my lonely room,I wrestled with the knowledge that, in spite of the compatibility of our backgrounds, the pleasure we took in each others company, and her (apparent) enjoyment of activities I enjoyed, Anne was not interested in enlarging her cultural horizons to anything like the extent that I was. She could enjoy plays and concerts, but had no real interest in serious music, drama and literature. What she had, I was eventually to realise, were gifts of a quite different order, gifts I did not posses, and did not properly appreciate at the time. She had the extrovert sensibilities of an artist. Her visual acuity and colour sense were remarkable, as was her manual dexterity. Occasionally, when we were watching a film together, she would disrupt my absorption in the plot by murmuring “They've used that (piece of furniture) in a previous set”, and I had watched her make a dress for herself out of a yard and a half of bargain basement material by simply measuring it against herself, cutting it up, stitching it together, and putting it on. Many years later, with my encouragement, she taught herself to paint in oils, acrylics, and watercolours, producing pictures which rarely failed to find a buyer. But, there was I, in my ivory tower, worrying about the uncultivated nature of her mind. What a twerp!

In the event, of course, Anne would contribute more, initially, to our partnership than I did. Whereas I had been brought up by a father who had little interest in anything other than working from Monday to Friday, and boozing from Friday to Sunday, Anne's father was an accomplished handyman and an enthusiastic gardener (her mother, on the other hand, was lazy, where mine was anything but), and her brothers were all artisans. As a consequence, Anne could not only cook and sew, but lay lino, hang wallpaper, make chair covers, and grow vegetables. Fortunately, I was a willing pupil and had acquired the rudiments of tool use in the woodwork and metalwork classes of my school days, although I never took to gardening.

But, before renouncing my freedom (as I saw it), I decided to embark on one last holiday alone. As a radiographer, my annual leave allowance was quite generous, but my chronically constrained finances and the limited options available, in those still restricted post-war days, made holidays a problem, and I was always on the lookout for holidays that were attractive and recreational, but cheap. While in Reading, for example, apart from the Spanish expedition, I had taken a punt on, of all things, the recently revived Summer School of Music, then held at Bryanston School in Dorset, where, not being an even half-trained musician, I had spent two weeks, completely out of my depth, but revelling in the performances of others and furthering my musical education substantially. In addition to the recently formed Amadeus String Quartet, who played all six of Bartok's quartets, which blew my mind, and the famous cellist Pierre Fournier, who played all six of Bach's solo cello suites, which went in at one ear and out of the other, the well-known performers who dropped in on us included a remarkable individual called Alfred Deller. I recall him as a big chap with a moustache, who I first came across in the bar, drinking pints of beer, and put him down as an ex-RAF type. Imagine my astonishment, therefore, when, the following morning, he stood before us, and began to sing one of those highly decorated arias which Handel wrote for the castrati of his day, in a falsetto contralto voice with appropriate gestures. He was the first of a new breed of singer, the counter-tenors

In Nottingham, I tackled the holiday problem by joining that worthy organisation, the Ramblers' Association, and exploring their catalogue of organised walking holidays, all of which were graded according to the degree of exertion involved. After brooding regretfully over some of the more exotic (and expensive) offerings in far away places with strange sounding names, I settled for a fortnight at their very own hostel in a place called Ballachulish in the Scottish Highlands, just south of Fort William, north of Oban, close to the better known Glencoe, and accessible by the A82 from Glasgow, but, in my case, only by rail, which turned out to be an adventure in itself, since it was the first time I had ever travelled by overnight sleeper. I awoke in the morning to find that the enormously long train I had boarded at Crewe the night before had been reduced to a couple of sleeper carriages and a dining car chugging through spectacular Scottish Lowland scenery, having left the rest of itself behind in Glasgow.

These circumstances gave rise to an impromptu party atmosphere among those of the remaining passengers who repaired to the dining car to partake of the justly famous British Rail breakfast. Bearing in mind that the post-war austerity of our ration books entitled us to only one egg and a rasher of bacon per week, it was a rare treat to sit down to what is still today called The Full English Breakfast, particularly when it was served in such congenial surroundings with spectacular scenery unrolling outside the window. So immersed was I in the pleasures of the table and the talk around it that I hardly noticed when the train stopped at a small railway station and a distant voice began calling its name. Finally, it penetrated my consciousness that the name being called (in a broad Scottish accent) was Tyndrum and that this was where I was supposed to alight.

There followed a frantic scramble back to my sleeping compartment, where one of my overnight companions was obligingly throwing my luggage out onto the platform, on which, before I knew it, I found myself standing quite alone, a piece of marmalade toast still in my hand, watching the train disappear into the distance. It took me several minutes to adjust to the sudden contrast between the noisy crowded train and the early morning quiet of the Scottish countryside around the now deserted little station, the owner of the warning voice having disappeared without bothering to inspect my ticket. After gathering myself together, I wandered down into the little town to catch one of the buses which ran regularly between Tyndrum and Ballachulish, thirty miles away, in those far off pre-mass-car-ownership days, to embark upon what proved to be the most energetic fortnight of my life.

The hostel provided basic dormitory accommodation, breakfast, packed lunch and evening meal for about twenty ramblers of both sexes, who could, either do their own thing during the day, or take advantage of the activities organised and led by a resident team leader on six days of the week. Most of us chose to follow the latter course and we soon cohered into a cheerful band, except when it was raining, which was not infrequently. Under our super-fit leader we embarked on expeditions of ever-increasing duration and difficulty and, by the end of the fortnight I had conquered every peak in the immediate vicinity of Ballachulish (including, of course, Ben Nevis), completely wrecking the pair of army boots in which my feet accomplished this feat. But I could subsequently boast, to any acquaintance of mine who might be interested, “If you ever drive through Glen Coe , you may stop the car, get out, look around and say 'I know someone who's been up every one of those hills'”

An outcome of a more lastingly rewarding nature was the lifelong friendships I forged with two of my fellow ramblers. Ken and Mavis were a newly married couple of about my own age who I got to know better during the evenings spent in the common room of the hostel than the walks during the day, when they tended to fall to the rear of the long, straggling crocodile which resulted from the varying capabilities of its constituents. Hailing originally from somewhere in the Midlands, they were currently living in, of all places, Cleckheaton in the West Riding, where Ken was teaching history at the local grammar school, and, although I later found that they shared many of my interests in literature, music and drama, what first aroused my interest in Ken was that he was, like me, an aspiring playwright. More than aspiring, in fact, because he had already had one play accepted and performed by the BBC. Although this was to be his one and only such success, we couldn't know that at the time, and I was deeply impressed and not a little envious,and arranged to keep in touch with him after the holiday was over, which it all too soon was.

Once back in civilisation, it was time for me to face up to the responsibilities of being a husband-to-be, and my first step was to arrange for Anne to put her Bohemian existence in Chelsea's bed-sitterland behind her and join me in Nottingham. She alighted from the coach looking rather pale, carrying all her worldly possessions in a small suitcase, except for the clothes she was wearing, which including a smart new winter overcoat on which several monthly payments were still owing. True to form, however, after moving into the local YWCA, she quickly obtained a secretarial job at the Nottingham HQ of Boots the Chemist, more on the strength of her lovely legs, I suspect, then her typing speed, and we began making plans for our future together.

Wedding plans first. Our circumstances were unusual, in that both our families lived in Bradford, but Anne's parents were in no position to bear the cost, as convention dictated, of a 'proper' wedding, and neither were mine, and we certainly weren't, even if we wanted to have anything to do with that kind of thing, which we didn't. In our different ways, Anne and I were both escapees from uncongenial family homes, she having struggled for years to get away from hers, while the exigences of my career had released me from mine. Fortunately, the fact that the banns had to be called on three consecutive Sundays (was it?) from the pulpit of the church where the wedding was to take place, made it impractical for us to be married in Bradford, and Nottingham was too far from Bradford to make it feasible for our families to attend without requiring overnight accommodation which we were in no position to offer them, nor they to afford. Thus was it possible for me to realise the secret ambition I nourished, to actually enjoy my own wedding. I had attended the coventional nuptials of my friends Cliff and Frank, both in Bradford, and watched them being put through the hoops before the assembled multitudes with something approaching horror, convincing myself that, in spite of the glassy look of pleasure on their faces, they were not really enjoying the experience. Everybody else was, but not them. Definitely not for me, I thought.

So Anne and I were free to plan an inexpensive wedding with only friends present, and arrange for it to take place at our local church, late enough on a Saturday afternoon to allow all involved to proceed afterwards, on foot, at a leisurely pace, to a festive dinner in a private room at one of the best hotels in town, which happened to be within easy walking distance of the church. In order to give our sparsely attended wedding ceremony a more distinctive flavour, I broached with the vicar the possibility of holding it as an Anglican nuptial mass. Rather to my surprise, he was attracted to the idea, and readily agreed to familiarise himself with the details of the rite, making Anne and me the only couple we have ever met who have experienced this arcane ritual. In the event, Cliff and Rosemary came up from Devon, Frank and Joyce came down from Bradford, and Mike came across from his airfield in East Yorkshire. The only other person in attendance was my young brother, Donald, who was present, at my mother's insistence, to represent my family, and the uncomfortable fact that he was currently serving his National Service as a lowly Aircraftsman in the RAF whereas Mike was, by now, a Flying Officer was easily ignored since they were both in civvies.

Our guests were suitably impressed with the nuptial mass, and all of them were qualified to join us in receiving Holy Communion. There was none of the usual hoopla outside the church afterwards, but I had arranged for a photograph of the wedding party to be taken by a colleague of mine from the X Ray Department who turned out to be a worse photographer than he thought he was, but, fortunately, a few weeks later, a friend of Anne's from her Butlins days, a professional photographer, was to pay us a visit and, as a wedding present, take a series of excellent photographs of us in our wedding attire. After the festive dinner we repaired to a smaller (cheaper) hotel overlooking The Forest where we were all booked in for the night, there to enjoy a convivial and mildly boisterous couple of hours until bedtime. The following morning we went our separate ways, Anne and I to take possession of our new home, in which we were only too happy to spend a few days honeymooning together.

We had rented a furnished flat which occupied most of the upper floor of a large semi-detached house in the leafy suburb of Sherwood. Our landlords were a Mr.& Mrs. Wagstaffe, who lived downstairs, but shared the upstairs bathroom with us. They were an odd couple, but easy to get along with. He was a small man with a big voice who sounded on the phone like a retired army colonel but looked, in the flesh, more like a minor civil servant. His first wife had predeceased him, and the second Mrs. Wagstaffe was much younger than him, but no longer in the first flower of youth, and was fortunate, perhaps, to have found such a caring and competent husband when the likelihood of her doing so may fast have been ebbing away. Both were devout Catholics, and also, more apparently to us, practising musicians. She was an accomplished pianist with a local reputation as a concert performer, he, a sonorous baritone; she gave piano lessons and he conducted a local choir. They were active in local amateur music circles, but careful to ensure that their musical activities did not unduly inconvenience us by practising them during the hours when Anne and I were absent from the premises, although he would occasionally break off from tending his garden at the weekends to strike chords on the piano and sing up and down a scale or two.

Anne and I were very happy there. We had no friends in Nottingham, but we had each other, and it was a good city to be a friendless young couple of newlyweds in, as there was plenty for us to do with our spare time. There was the Theatre Royal, of course, with its spectacular Greek portico andF pre and post West End productions, but the main attraction for us was the Playhouse, where a talented repertory company were putting on a new production every fortnight, and these were not the “George and Margaret” offerings of 'Arry 'Anson's Players at the Bradford Prince's Theatre, these were works by the likes of Shakespeare, Shaw, Ibsen, Wilde, Fry and Co. produced by John Harrison, who already had a national reputation, and often featuring his talented wife, Daphne Slater. The rest of the company were of a similar high standard (eg. Hazel Hughes), and shortly after we arrived, they were joined by a personable young actor called Denis Quilley, in whose subsequent rise to fame we consequently allowed ourselves to take a proprietorial interest. Whether true or not, 1952 was, for us, a golden age at the Playhouse.

Another big attraction was a small arthouse cinema (The Palace?), showing foreign films on a regular basis, mainly French, of course. I'm pretty sure we first saw “Les Enfants du Paradis” there, and the stunning Cocteau films “La Belle et la Bete” and “Orphee” and Max Orphul's “La Ronde”, through all of which we sat enthralled. The only thing Nottingham lacked, in those days, was a proper concert hall. There was a small one out at the university, but nothing in the city centre. As for opera, all I can recall about the only one that came to the Theatre Royal during our time in Nottingham, was that it was “Der Freischutz”, and I enjoyed it very much. Oddly enough, it was the only live production ever to come my way, of what was, at one time, the most frequently performed opera in the world. For our in-house entertainment we had nothing but ourselves, library books and a small radio which regaled us with, among other things, “A Book at Bedtime”. Ah! The simple pleasures.

Thanks to our social isolation, it was a lovely, long honeymoon, but it was also a period of adjustment, especially for me. There was no getting away from the fact that my career as a budding playwright was ending in failure. Since leaving the army, I had completed, to my own satisfaction, two three-act plays, both of them, like “The Three Wise Men”, written in the blank verse which T.S.Eliot and Christopher Fry had made so fashionable at the time, but, having finished them, I found myself at a loss to know what to do with them next. I had no theatrical connections whatsoever, and no way of cultivating them. When Ken and Mavis came to spend a weekend with us, and Ken and I were able to compare notes, I realised that, regardless of whether or not his stuff was better than mine, the big difference between us was that he had been actively involved in amateur dramatics since his student days and this had given him access, not only to the practicalities of stagecraft, but also, more importantly, to the possibility of getting his plays considered for production by his fellow thespians. The success of “The Three Wise Men” had arisen entirely from the circumstances of its conception. A play was required at the Military Hospital, Gibraltar, for a specific occasion, and I was able to provide it, an eventuality unlikely to be repeated in any of the hospitals I had worked in since.

It's possible, I suppose, that, if I hadn't been seduced by the success of my play, I might have channelled my energies into more easily marketable forms of creative writing, with better success. But, the truth was that, by now, I had come to enjoy writing for its own sake, as virtually an end in itself, totally absorbing, particularly when wrestling with the complex simplicities of blank verse, and, although I failed as a playwright, I have no regrets about the happy hours I invested in my endeavours to succeed. The skills I developed while playing with words were to prove a major factor in ensuring my success in both my subsequent careers. But, of course, I was unaware of that at a time, as I faced up to the fact that my responsibilities as a husband and potential father would have to be met from the earnings of a career which I had hitherto seen as merely an agreeable way of supporting my spare time activities. These earnings, though not substantial, were respectable and reliable, and sufficient, when combined with Anne's contribution, to support the life style we were enjoying in Nottingham. But not sufficient, we found, to enable us to save the couple of hundred pounds we needed to put down a deposit on a house and convert the rent we were paying into mortgage repayments. Two hundred pounds was, at the time, about four months income.

In order to earn more, I would need to take the next step up my current career ladder and become a Chief Radiographer, a post for which I would normally be regarded as being rather too young, although there was no denying that I was equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge. Fortunately for me, a vacancy occurred at the Victoria Hospital in Keighley, my old second home, for which, I was assured by my former Chief at the BRI, there would be less competition than usual, since the Consultant Radiologist there had a reputation for being so difficult to work with that two previous incumbents of the post had vacated it in quick succession. And I found, when I met him, that there was little to like about Dr. Manford, as he called himself, having changed his name from Mannerheim. He was an Austrian Jew of distinctly porcine appearance, both facially and physically, with an overbearing manner, which arose, I was to find, from a profound basic insecurity compounded by an almost pathological obsession with unimportant detail.

All the radiologists I had previously encountered had been content, even when in full-time attendance and nominally in charge of the X Ray department, to leave the day to day management of its activities to the Chief Radiographer, since, apart from the procedures in which the radiologist was himself involved (such as the visual screening of parts of the alimentary canal filled with barium), all his diagnoses were made by studying X Ray films produced by the radiographers to a set of agreed specifications. Not so Dr. Manford. Compared to the Bradford Royal Infirmary, the Nottingham General, and the Royal Berkshire Hospitals, the Keighley Victoria was pretty small beer, about as big as the Pontefract General, where the radiologist used to drop in three days a week. Admittedly, the Keighley Victoria was the flagship of the the Bingley, Keighley, Skipton, and Settle Hospital Management Committee, and there were cottage hospitals with basic X Ray facilities at both Bingley and Skipton which were serviced from Keighley, but, even when put together, they didn't add up to much. But they did to Dr. Manford. They were his empire, and he liked to feel that he was its respected lord and master, even when he wasn't. It was the tradition he had been brought up in, and the inflexibility of his mind made it impossible for him to adapt to our less formal ways.

Having got the job, I experienced little difficulty in providing his ego with the support it so badly needed by meeting his exacting standards and affording him a degree of professional respect which he soon began to return, because he was a very good radiologist. My main problem was mediating between him and the rest of the hospital's medical staff with whom he was deeply unpopular, due to his arrogant manner and his insistence on a protocol of his own devising for the release of X Ray films for inspection by other medics before he had reported on them. I couldn't help feeling sorry for him, at times. I remember standing behind him once, and watching the blood rise up his neck and suffuse his face as he inspected a film on the viewing box in front of him, not because it was of poor diagnostic quality, but because its identifying number plate was in the “wrong” corner of the film and the wrong way round. He was a coronary thrombosis waiting to happen, but he was deeply upset when I eventually handed in my notice.

Apart from my dealings with Dr. Manford, the management of the X Ray Department presented few problems. I had three other radiographers, and one nurse attendant, but I also had three students, since we were affiliated to the School of Radiography at Bradford. My official title was Superintendent Radiographer and Tutor, and, as far as I am aware, I was the youngest holder of that rank in the country. But, away from my workplace things were much less rosy. Anne had no trouble finding employment in Keighley, but finding suitable accommodation proved to be much more difficult than we had anticipated when I applied for the job. In sharp contrast to Nottingham, furnished flats for rent were nowhere to be found in Keighley. The genus seemed quite foreign to an environment, in which accommodation of any kind was scarce. I suppose we might have been more successful in Bradford, but it was a long bus ride away, and I needed to be near enough to the hospital to be contacted in an emergency. In the end, we had to settle for full board in a nearby establishment.

It turned out to be a disaster. The owners were not professionals, and we were their first “guests”, so they were making it up as they went along. The landlady was a passable cook and a hard worker, but struggling with the distraction of a full time job elsewhere to support the “landlord”, a lecherous, idle slob with entrepreneurial delusions, whose latest “venture” the boarding house obviously was. We were very, very uncomfortable there, and when he found he could make more money and perv at more young women by taking in performers at the Keighley Hippodrome, where the shows were by now much raunchier than those of wartime days, he made it pretty clear that we were more trouble than we were worth. It was a desperate situation and Anne and I have always looked back on it as the unhappiest period in our married life. But, help, of a sort, was available.

My sister Jean had qualified as a dispensing optician, and, some years previously, married Reg, a motor mechanic, who would eventually own his own business, as also would Jean. During their courtship, living in their respective family homes in Bradford and Bingley, they had, unlike Anne and me, contrived to save enough money to put down a deposit on the two- bedroomed terrace house in nearby Silsden which they were to occupy for the next forty years. Situated about 200 yards up the Cringles, the famous hill leading out of Silsden (in Airedale) over to Ilkley (in Wharfedale) it was, by a strange coincidence, opposite the stile which gave access to the familiar footpath leading up through the fields to Swartha, where, twelve years earlier, so many of my happiest hours had been spent. In desperation, we offered to pay half their mortgage repayments and council rates if they would let us share their house with them until something better turned up, and, much to our relief, they agreed.

All things considered, the arrangement worked quite well. We had little in common with Jean and Reg except the family background, but my relations with Jean had always been quite good, in a condescending, big brotherly way, and Reg was not too difficult to get along with, but, could be a little prickly at times. He was a viscerotonic endomorph on a rather short fuse, and had actually come to blows with my father during his courtship of Jean, after being sorely provoked by him, as had the rest of us in the past, but there was no bad blood between Reg and me over that, and our relationship was good enough to survive a period of close proximity intact. But it was a short term solution to a long term problem. Anne and I needed a place of our own, and the only way we could get one was either by renting a house, or buying a house, but rented houses were virtually non-existent in those post-war years, thanks to the hangover of wartime rent controls, and we still hadn't scraped together the necessary deposit for a mortgage. In spite of which, having nothing better to do, we began looking at houses, and, of course, very soon found one. The house of our dreams was a semi-detached semi-bungalow. What is a semi-bungalow? It's a single story house, or bungalow, with upstairs rooms built into the roof, usually with dormer windows.

Our hoped for home was built of local stone, and had a lounge room, a dining/sitting room, a double bedroom, bathroom with toilet, and kitchen on the ground floor, with another bedroom (with dormer window) and a boxroom in the roof. The ground floor rooms had been recently, and tastefully re-decorated, but the house was standing empty. Rumour had it that it had been bought and furnished by a wealthy Bradford businessman as a love nest for a mistress, who had found it too remote from life as she preferred to lead it, to live in. But the most attractive feature of the house was, in fact, its position. High on the south facing slope of the superior suburb of Riddlesden, which straddles the Bradford Road out of Keighley, it commanded a panoramic view across the Airedale Gap to Druids Altar, on the edge of Howarth Moor, and beyond, as far as Wuthering Heights on a clear day. And the lounge had a French door opening out onto a porch, patio, and small lawn from which a be-rockeried garden fell away at an angle of 45 degrees to the front gate. And there was nothing but half a mile of empty space between the back gate and the edge of Ilkley Moor.

The estate agent informed us that this jewel could be ours for a mere 1800 pounds, and that he could arrange a mortgage for us of 1600 pounds. All we had to find, therefore, was the 200 pounds we didn't have, and hadn't the faintest idea about how we could get it. Then something strange happened. On one of my regular visits to my mother, while telling her my news, as usual, I told her about the house and the problem with the mortgage deposit, and, when I'd finished, she said “How much is the deposit?”. “It's 200 pounds”, I said, expecting her to raise her eyebrows at the amount. Instead, she said, quietly, “I can let you have that”. I simply stared at her in amazement. I had never dreamed of her as having that kind of money. Thanks to the fecklessness of my father, we had always lived on the edge of poverty as children, and, although I knew that life had changed for my mother once we were able to fend for ourselves, I hadn't realised how much it had changed.

With her chicks out of harms way, she had proceeded to turn the tables on my father, standing up to him mentally, and even, when necessary, physically, and, always in full time employment herself, created a social life outside the home that did not include him. She had taken up Olde Tyme Dancing, and acquired a circle of friends (of both sexes) of whom we knew little, except that they appreciated her sunny, fun-loving nature, blossoming now in her new found freedom. She had also, it seemed, been saving money, although some of it may have come, I now realised, as a legacy from her older sister who had died a few years previously, and I hastened to assure her that I would regard the 200 pounds as a loan, to be paid back as soon as possible. It never was, of course, but it would have been, if she'd asked for it, or needed it, but she never did. Instead, I expressed the gratitude I felt, and still feel, in every way I possibly could, down through the years, until she died suddenly while laughing at a comedy programme she was watching on the television set in the convenient presence of her one remaining sister. There never was a more loving son than me.

Taking possession of that little house, transformed our lives. By the time we'd furnished it, we were deep in hire purchase debt, but free from care. For the first time since our marriage we were investing all our money in ourselves. The house turned out to be everything we'd hoped for – comfortable and convenient, easily accessible from Keighley, where we both worked, and from Bradford where so many of our friends and relations lived, all of whom were attracted by its charms, its spectacular views, southern exposure, and al fresco amenities. On one sunny Bank Holiday Monday we had no less than 18 visitors, most of them unexpectedly “dropping in”. Anne was in her element, of course, making curtains and loose covers, and instructing me in the crafts of painting and decorating, which I was quick to master and have always since enjoyed. I became an apprentice in the skills of DIY joinery guided by Anne's father who lent me the necessary tools, some of which I still have, and learned how to lay 'crazy paving' and mix cement. We were happy householders, revelling in our independence, and capable, at last, of entertaining our friends in our own home.

Oddly enough, Brad and Ruth, who already had a very young son and daughter, were living within walking distance, at the bottom of the hill, across the Bradford Road, in a modern semi backing on to the famous 16th century East Riddlesden Hall. Brad was still a cashier at the bank he had joined when he left school, and seemed quite happy to pick up our relationship where we'd left off, but Ruth, while not unfriendly, had become curiously reclusive, and over-protective of her children, and seemed reluctant to socialise with anyone outside the family. After a couple of attempts to engage with them, we gave up.

Cliff and Rosemary, on the other hand, were now too far away to visit us and be visited regularly. This had come about because the wool firm, in whose Bradford warehouse Cliff had worked since leaving school, had persuaded him to become a sales representative, promoting their range of knitting wools and rug wools to retail outlets in distant Devon and Cornwall. Hand knitting, was still, at that time, as widely practised by most women and some men as it had been since the war, and “rugging”, in those austere postwar days, was a popular indoor sport. But it was a big territory, and, in the end, too far away to be conveniently worked from Bradford, so the newly-weds had 'emigrated' from the city of their birth and upbringing to the West Country where, having fallen under its spell, they were to remain for the rest of their lives.

The life of a knitting wool salesman, however, held little appeal for Cliff, but, travelling from town to town, and shop to shop, he saw a great deal of the Devonshire countryside and its activities, most of which did appeal to him. Ever since he had spent several months working on a farm while convalescing from a serious illness in his mid-teens, Cliff had been attracted to rural pursuits, hence his keen interest in horse riding, and he finally decided that, in spite of his urban past, his future lay in farming. With Rosemary's agreement, and, I suspect, the backing of her father, who was a market gardener of some substance, he set about learning to become a farmer, literally from scratch, by reading everything he could lay his hands on about the farming industry, and giving up his job as a commercial traveller and taking a job as a simple farm worker living in a tied cottage. When satisfied that he had acquired the necessary skills and knowledge, Rosemary and he would somehow contrive to buy a small dairy farm of their own in the Teign Valley outside Exeter, where Anne and I would be able to visit them and their two children throughout the years that lay ahead, but they would only rarely be able to visit us.

My friend Mike was living even further away, moving in circles that had little in common with those inhabited by the rest of us. After his stint as a fighter pilot in East Yorkshire, his career had taken a remarkable turn, with his appointment as an aide to the Commander-in-Chief Far East, Air Vice Marshall Cunningham(?), based in Singapore, and travelling widely throughout the region with his boss. How we all envied him. [I recall that he sent his mother a photograph of himself holding a koala bear in Australia, which was very similar to one I taken of myself many years later.] But his luck did not hold, alas, and his success was his undoing. I was called one morning to the X Ray Department phone to take a call from Joyce, who had come across a small paragraph in The Daily Express which reported that a Flying Officer of Mike's name had been killed in a driving accident in Singapore. What a shock! Further details were not easy to come by from his distraught family, and all we learned was that the crash took place in the early hours of the morning, that no other vehicle was involved and Mike was driving in a jeep alone. He was buried in Singapore.

A very bright star had fallen from my firmament, not with a bang but a whimper. Tall, blonde, handsome, clever, cultured, witty, and wickedly worldly, he was the ideal companion of my youth, but some of the shine seemed to go off him after his admission to Cranwell. We met for the last time briefly at Cliff's cottage in Devon, before he went overseas, and he seemed to me to have aged somehow in both mind and body, and I didn't feel quite as comfortable in his company as I had previously done. But I have always treasured the memory of that wonderful week we spent together in London during the war, and of the late night sessions at his home up the hill to which I would find a note, pressingly invited me, no matter how late the hour of my own arrival home, whenever he was suddenly home on leave. He has not grown old as we who are left have grown old.

Socialising with Frank and Joyce, who were now living in Bradford, and had started a family, presented us with none of these problems, and they were to play a major role in our future. Frank's restless ambition had led him to exchange the respectability of his secure life behind the counter of a chemist's shop for the apparent insecurities of life as the sales representative of a pharmaceutical company, and an American company at that. A giant step in those days. He had joined, initially, a well-established company, and been given a territory in Lancashire, but living in Blackpool didn't suit the two of them, and, after learning the ropes of his new job to his own satisfaction, he had resigned and returned to Bradford, to buy a house, and work for a spell as a locum pharmacist, while he planned his next move. When his researches revealed that an American pharmaceutical company of good repute was in the process of opening a subsidiary in the UK, he had approached them directly, and been rewarded with a territory embracing Bradford and Leeds.

The mass invasion of Britain by the American pharmaceutical companies in the post-war years had resulted, partly from the expanded market created by the National Health Service, but mainly from the development of new forms of treatment following the breakthrough with penicillin. Penicillin was a British discovery, of course, but, under wartime conditions, its mass production by fermentation could only be achieved by handing it over to some of the biggest brewers in the USA, and, once the Yanks had the technology there was no holding them. Their pharmaceutical companies scoured the world for moulds that would yield newer and better antibiotics than penicillin and, once found, spared no expense in developing, and marketing them. Other discoveries led to the introduction of whole new classes of drugs for the effective treatment of ailments which had been beyond the reach of existing therapies, and the financial rewards for successful innovation proved to be so great that investment in research, development, and marketing increased exponentially, and the modern pharmaceutical industry was born.

All this would have passed me by, if it hadn't been for Frank, who wasted no opportunity to extol the benefits he was enjoying from his new career, the most conspicuous of which was his 'company car' at a time when car ownership was still beyond the reach of the average family man. But, of more interest to me was his account of his working relationship with his American employer. This was still a time when, on this side of the Atlantic, a salesman of any kind was a not quite respectable thing to be. Plenty of British firms employed salesmen, of course, but tended to see them as a necessary evil, in the mistaken belief that 'if you build a better mousetrap the world will beat a pathway to your door'. Things were very different in the USA, where all aspects of marketing were taken very seriously, and even studied in its centres of learning, and 'salesman' was certainly not a term of abuse, even though the Americans differentiated quite clearly between merchandising salesmen, such as Cliff with his knitting wools, and technical salesmen, like Frank with his pharmaceuticals.

An important consideration, in Frank's case, was that most of his wares were classified as Dangerous Drugs which could not be advertised for direct sale to the general public, and were only available from a qualified pharmacist on production of a doctor's prescription. This meant that sales of these 'ethicals', as they were called, were totally dependent on individual doctors being persuaded to prescribe them, and so highly did Frank's firm value the skills and knowledge needed to achieve this end, that all its senior managers, right up to Board level, were required to join the firm as medical representatives and gain promotion on merit. Little wonder, then, that Frank was so enthusiastic about his prospects, but he was careful not to over-egg the pudding for my benefit. Everything he told me about his new employer would turn out to be true, and, as for the job itself, he assured me that it was no longer considered necessary to be a pharmacist to do it, and that my medical background, and the training I would get from the firm, would equip me to do it well. He also pointed out that the firm was still actively recruiting, and that there were territories available in the vicinity.

I was seriously tempted. Although my present circumstances seemed comfortable enough, the uncomfortable truth was that, as a radiographer, my future prospects were poor. I was near the top of my profession with most of my working life still ahead of me, in a career I had embarked upon for no other reason than to nourish my aspirations to be a writer, an ambition I had failed to realise, and had now abandoned. Taking all this into account, including the fact that Anne was newly pregnant, and propelled, no doubt, by my own frustrated creative urges, I finally decided to apply for a job as a medical representative with Frank's firm. Given his sponsorship and my credentials, I had little difficulty in being accepted by them and awarded a territory in the West Riding of Yorkshire which included Keighley, at a starting salary of little more than I had been earning as a Superintendent Radiographer, the difference being that I was now at the bottom of a career ladder instead of the top, and was the proud custodian of a Company Car. It was a risky decision to take, but it turned out to be a good one. I was leaving an old life behind and embarking on what was to be a much more interesting and rewarding new one.

END OF PART ONE Ballina NSW January NSW

Author's note: There will be much more about the opera in Part Two than there has been in Part One, but, on present form, it is unlikely to be published for some time. Any reader who is more interested in my operagoing than in my life should turn to my “Confessions of an Impecunious Opera Lover” which is freely available on my website .au and deals with that aspect of my later life separately from the rest.

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