The evening before last turned out to be a ‘musical’ evening in a way I could not predict. Last Sunday, when went to Church, the priest mentioned at the end of the service and not contained in the weekly parish newsletter was going to be a little song performance, put on by the pupils of our local Catholic schools who were touring all of the Catholic churches in the area and putting on this impromptu performance. This was only to be about 30 minutes in duration and was scheduled to start at 6.00 pm in the evening. Knowing that my American friend both sings in her local choir and is always keen to advance the cause of young people, it was not a difficult task to persuade her to accompany me. In my imagination, given the short notice thought this event would be very poorly attended but when we arrived at the church well before time, the car park was already full. The choir consisted of over 30 young adolescents aged from about 13-18 and comprised equally of boys and girls who would sing both the soprano and the alto voices. The little programme consisted of some ten items ranging over a whole mixture of musical genres including the Coventry carol, some gospel music and a difficult piece by John Taverner, I thought the choir performed remarkably well and straight after our performance were racing off to another performance at Mount Carmel in nearby Redditch. The choir master explained that the choir was shortly to go on a school trip where they would perform in Austria and I was left to contemplate what a wonderful experience this must be for these young people. So as we were quite near to my house, my American friend accompanied me home where we had a light supper of melon slices and some cheese and biscuits together. Whilst we were I our kitchen, I showed my friend some of the collections of CDs that I had assembled to make a musical experience for both Meg and myself in her declining years. So we put on a little concert of our own, ranging over some of the CDs that I had in stock but also deploying the facility of ‘Alexa’, our smart sound system, to play whatever we suggested. So for own little musical entertainment, we played for each other, we played a variety of genres starting off with Allegre’s ‘Miserere’ performed by ‘The Sixeen’ followed by some of the introductory cantatas and arias from Handel’s’Messiah’. Then I played some Joan Baez (Mexican-American folk singer, very popular in the 1960s whilst we were at University). Then I sang the only folk song knew I in its entirety, (‘Foggy, foggy Dew’) to my friend followed by a proper rendition by the well known folk singer, Burl Ives. We then concluded with the final cantata from Matthew Passion (‘In tears of grief’) which I heard for the first time when about 14 years old. To indicate how the ‘folk singing’ part of my musical tastes came about, I explained how Meg had a very good friend at school who not only had a fine singing voice but could accompany herself on the guitar. Hence, she was very popular at the little partes that adolescents organised for themselves in the 1960’s in each other’s houses. So it was natural that Meg would gravitate along to what was the folk singing night each Sunday in the each in a huge old Victorian building in which the University authorities had devoted the whole floor of the building (‘J’ floor) to the students union. The one-time president of the Students’ Union was Anna Ford to receive much prominence in later years as an ITV news reader and later presenter. So Meg and I used to attend these events although neither of felt we had the inclination (or the skills) to perform ourselves. Afterwards Meg and I would treat ourselves to a meal in a nearby Chinese restaurant and that was our recreation for the week until the next weekend. Nightclubs did not really exist in Manchester in the mid 1960’s and even though the Manchester scene was shortly to explode with popular music, we could not have afforded to go to them anyway. Our first inclination was always to provide our own entertainment or to play Beatle/Stones/Joan Baez records on a Dansette record player when we partied in each other’s flats. These parties were great affairs and were always consisted of three stages the first being the singing and some dancing, then the inevitable pairings off to be followed by deep philosophical meanings on the meanings of life through an alcoholic haze, generally having collapsed to the floor at this point and breaking up at about six or seven in the morning. Then it was a had week’s work before the next round of partying the following weekend.
The morning turned out to be an interesting one. As the rose tree in our back garden has certainly produced an abundance of scented, deep red roses I decided to cut about eight af them, stripping off the lower leaves and then making a wrapping of tinfoil around the stems. I took these down to the Methodist Centre and whilst having my normal cup of coffee distributed the roses around the serving staff and those sitting round the chatty table (which was naturally, well received) One of the ladies on the chatty table is a volunteer with AgeUK so she gave me some indication of the ways in which Occupational Therapy can make an assessment of one’s needs for small adaptations around the home to make life generally safer. I am going to pass this information onto my American friend so that she can lo at the feasibility of having a shower rail installed in her shower room. After she had left, I spoke with my bank manager friend who had just experienced his mother-in-law’s funeral and was now busy making multiple visits to charity ships to dispose of unwanted personal effects. I shall have another coffee with him tomorrow as it is my Tai Chi day, cancelled last week as the weather was so hot. Then I went an did a routine weekly shop in what seems to be a quiet time in the supermarket and, upon returning home, prepared a lunch comprised of some quiche with salad accompaniments. Late on this afternoon, England will meet the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the English management has already expressed some nervousness about the progress and outcome of the match as the Congo play a similar style of football to Ghana with all-defence from which there are lightning breakaways to score winning goals.