Jean Collen's Blog, page 16

EXTRACTS FROM MY TEENAGE DIARIES – NOVEMBER 1962

1 November – Work hard and swot in reference library where all the poor tired students sit staring blankly at their notes. One chap actually falls asleep and wakes up looking dazed.

At night I go to SABC. Ruth doesn’t come. Johan takes us and Gill runs him down to me. I fear our Messiah will provoke some rotten eggs from the audience unless it improves greatly.

At
interval I chat to Iris, Gill, Hester and a middle-aged gent with a
leer. Hester tells me she’s in Form 1V at Roodepoort Afrikaans High
School and would like to make singing her career. She is rather a
nice girl and not ‘loud’ as Ruth described her last night.

2 November – Go to the dentist and miraculously get away with only two fillings but am told to call again in February for a check-up. Buy a lovely dress for tonight, have lunch with mum and have my hair set.

At night I go with Margaret and her mother to the concert. Margaret tends to be rather an erratic driver and Mrs M is most nervous. At Crown Mines hall I enquire about the choir competition in which Ruth conducted and Miss Cameron was the judge. Girls consider it a matter of great hilarity that Ruth’s choir came last and that she conducted in an odd fashion. They tell me that she beat time in wide, uneven strokes and nearly fell off the stage. I laugh at Suzanne’s and others’ description of the event but I still feel so sorry for Ruth. She has a great opinion of herself so perhaps it’s a good thing for her to be cut down to size occasionally.

Concert goes very well indeed and our singing is good. Ellen, my redhead ex SABC friend does a monologue and recitation. A pupil of Walter Mony’s plays one of the pieces WM played in Drawing Room, and at once I am back in Studio G30 reliving those glorious Drawing Room days once more. What fun they were.

Mrs
S is in a very jovial mood. Margaret gives me a lift home.

3 November – Go to SS studios. Mrs S says she’d like to see me on the South African Society of Music Teachers’ panel of performers! Have coffee and do ear tests and sing in the SS ensemble.

In the afternoon I go to a cocktail party with Mum and the Lisofskys – a farewell party for Mr Thomas of Shimwells at the house of Mr Immink in Montreux. It is a very nice house with a swimming pool. However my thoughts are with Pirates of Penzance in Bloemfontein. It’s the first night tonight. I shall probably see Webster on Monday after a long absence of three weeks.

4 November – Play in morning and afternoon at the Sunday School anniversary – I play well and the children sing far better than I expected.

Ruth phones at night – still with the crack-pot idea of auditioning tomorrow. She wants to have an extra lesson tomorrow but 3 is too early, so would I mind changing from 3.30 to 3. I don’t mind, so I agree. She says Anne refused to phone me because she thought I’d be cross if she changed my lesson again! I tell Ruth I’m not going to audition but she is persistent and determined. I still refuse. Says that Anne sends her love to me but she didn’t talk very long and didn’t say much about Webster’s play.

I
hear glorious recording of Webster singing The Bells of St Mary’s
and manage to record most of it.

5 November – Their twenty-fourth wedding anniversary. In the afternoon I go to singing. Anne and I have a long discussion about opera. I half-promise to audition. Webster arrives, wearing an old tattered raincoat and I am delighted to see him once more. He carries on as though my feelings are reciprocated. He doesn’t know what we’re talking about but tells me that whatever I’m going to do will be a cake-walk. I wonder.

I ask about Bloemfontein and The Pirates and he tells me a funny story. He decided to have a gimmick so they borrowed a chimp from the local zoo to come on stage with the pirates. Everyone was delighted with the chimp and she nearly stopped the show. When he was holding her and making a speech after the show she disgraced herself, so he said, “You naughty girl! I’ll never take you out again!” I have a good laugh.

I sing extremely well and tell them my master-plan for ATCL in August. He says that he is quite certain I can do it and I needn’t worry. Anne says she’ll look up an extra time for me and let me know about it tomorrow. She says she wishes all her pupils worked as hard as I did and mastered things as easily. Lucille has 4 lessons a week and is studying full time, trying to do the exam Ruth and I did, and she still can’t master the pieces for it.

Webster says I mustn’t drag too much in Zion. I feel quite nervous today. Webster comes down in the lift with me to see about his parking meter which is out of order and we talk in a friendly fashion. He comes out into Pritchard Street and stands with me for a few moments. He really looks well and more like his old self.

Go
to SABC at night and Ruth comes ready for the audition. When she sees
the large crowd she changes her mind. We fill in forms but I don’t
hand mine in either. She told Webster she thought he was looking very
handsome and evidently Anne’s face was a picture.

6 November – It rains again but I manage into town through it all. I go to singing and Webster answers the door still looking extremely healthy. He says, “Oh, hello dear,” in extremely friendly accents.

A little girl of about 12 is singing The Honeysuckle and the Bee in a rather sweet little voice. Anne seems rather lost teaching her, but he is sweet and understanding towards her.

When I go in, Webster calls me over to the window and points at the crowns on top of His Majesty’s which are lit up, and asks me, “Doesn’t that sight gladden your Scottish heart?” We both agree that it is lovely to see the good old crowns up on the theatre again. He asks if I’d like some tea and furnishes me with a rather lukewarm cup.

Anne says that if I come at 10 on Saturday during this month, she’ll arrange for me to come on Friday next month after The Merry Widow in Springs.

I tell them about the audition and how we didn’t take it in the end and how the people had to wait for ages. They sent one of their pupils to the audition. She has a great voice but sings everything quite seriously with burlesque actions like Anna Russel. As if this is not sufficient explanation, Webster insists on giving me a demonstration which makes me laugh.

We start on Zion and Anne makes him sing it along with me. He stands next to me so that he can see my manuscript and tells me that it’s an excellent copy. We sing it together and I try to breathe in exactly the same places that he does. He sings most beautifully but drowns my voice without any effort. I don’t mind being drowned out by such a lovely and great voice as his.

He
says that with persistent effort I shall easily master it. I also
sing Ein Schwan. When I leave Webster says, “Aren’t you
coming next Saturday?” and looks quite disappointed because I’m
not.

I listen to Anne on the radio. She plays her test record from Merrie England and tells us about their trip to Calgary for Merrie England, and then plays his recording of Where Haven Lies from A Princess of Kensington, and says, “My favourite tenor!” afterwards, and their two duets from King’s Rhapsody.

7 November – Go to SS studio and talk to Gill. We do some theory and then I have a nice lesson with Mrs S who wishes me luck for Saturday.

8 November – Work hard and then have lunch in Ansteys with mum. Jossie Boshoff, of all people, is having her lunch there also. I go to lunch hour concert where I see Dora Sowden looking her usual gypsy-like self. Soloist on piano, Yonti Solomon is excellent, and conductor, Edgar Cree, good as usual.

Go
to SABC at night. We work with Pieter de V and he wades into I.
Silansky, who is furious about it.

At
interval Ruth buys me a cold drink and tells me that she is beginning
to get bored with singing and wonders if a change of teacher would do
her any good. Then she says she knows she couldn’t possibly leave
them because they would be hurt. She’s so very fond of Webster, and
when he dies she’ll miss him more than she would miss Anne!

I
don’t get round to telling her about ATCL but I really must on Monday
for she’s going to have a lesson at 10.30 on Saturday after me, so
she shall have to know.

Gill gives me my share of the fee from the Indian Eisteddfod.

9 November – Listen to Webster when I get up. He continues Pirates and he is very much in possession of his senses and is very good.

Go
to guild at night and Mr R tells me he’d like to come and hear us
singing the Ninth symphony. This is flattering but perhaps he’d like
a comp for the show.

10 November – Go and write theory exam at Selbourne hall. I meet Svea and we go in together. Arnold F is there in all his glory and calls everyone darling and drags them to their places. Exam isn’t bad, but I think I made two mistakes. I see Bridget Anderson (Bruce Anderson’s daughter) from the SS ensemble and tall chap who sings in church choir.

Go to Mrs S’s afterwards and talk to Mrs du P. Belinda Bozzoli talks about Ruth and says she has quite a sweet voice. Belinda is applying for an American Field Scholarship. She had an American girl on AFS living with her family while she was over here.

In the SABC bulletin there is an article about Webster and his G and S programme. We have lunch and see The Lion which is very good.

Cecil Williams has been placed under house arrest. He lives all by himself in a flat in Anstey’s building.

11 November – Go to Sunday School which goes fairly well and then go with Doreen and Betty to Memorial service at Boys’ school. The boys’ band plays a lament and Mr R gives the address.

12 November – Go to SABC at night and meet Gill in animated conversation with Gerrit Bonn. She saw My Fair Lady and enjoyed it. I go to the café with her so that she can have a meal.

We work hard. Gideon Fagan, who is to conduct us, comes to listen to the Ninth Symphony and poor Johan gets very flustered.

At interval Ruth, Hester and I go for a walk and Ruth (when we pass the Drawing Room studio) takes it upon herself to relate the kissing episode we had with Webster there. Poor Hester thinks we are two naughty girls! Ruth has a speed domestic science test on Saturday morning so she’s going to singing next Tuesday instead. I tell her about my plans for the diploma and she says she’s sure I’ll get it.

In the second half we do Messiah with Johan. Ruth leaves her Latin book behind so Hester gives it to me so I will have to arrange to get it to her. I’m quite worried about the test she’s supposed to have using the book.
Iris
brings me home.

13 November – I phone Ruth about her Latin book but she says she’ll borrow a book from someone.

[image error]Geoffrey Parsons.

I go to singing in the afternoon. When I go up Anne answers and invites me in to listen to a friend of theirs on the radio – Geoffrey Parsons who used to be their accompanist and is now out here accompanying Erik Friedman, the violinist. Leslie Green has him to tea this afternoon. When I go in Webster is quite immersed in the broadcast but eventually sees me and says hello. The interference on the radio is rather bad and I hardly hear the chap at all – the only thing I gather is that he is an Australian and would like to go back. Webster keeps shouting to Geoffrey, “Speak up, Geoff!” When Leslie’s interview finishes they tell me that originally he had asked Webster to tea, but this was the only time Geoffrey could go. Anne shows me a picture of them with Geoffrey.

[image error]In the society page.

Webster
says in teasing tones, “I suppose you want tea?” I say, “Yes
please,” and he proceeds to make some. Anne has a look at my ATCL
syllabus and says I must make use of my Scottish accent and sing a
Scottish folk song. They pore over various books and Webster suggests
a song – I don’t catch the title but he finds it most amusing and
roars with cynical laughter.

I
do my studies and they say that I must keep pace up in the first one,
especially the demisemiquavers. He stands and counts while I sing and
it goes better. He says they are most complicated.

Do Ein Schwan. He plonks himself down in a chair opposite and stares at me during the whole song and then has the cheek to say that I look a bit nervous. I tell him in dignified tones that it is the lack of accompaniment that makes me nervous.

We go through Zion and he sings along with me and then accuses me of singing a G natural where there should be a G sharp! We succeed in going through the lot without any further interruption. I say it sounds worse every time. He says I’m talking nonsense. I’m getting on with it very well. He says that everything in the Christmas Oratorio is difficult. He sang it two years ago in Kimberley and had to battle with it. He gives me a long list of the oratorios in which he has sung recently. He is going over Elijah for some reason. I say goodbye to him and he says in his ‘folksy’ voice, “Ta, ta!”

Talk to Anne at the door for a while about the Ninth Symphony and tell her about Gideon Fagan coming last night and Johan’s forced resignation. She is disgusted with this and says that she’d believe anything despicable happening in the SABC. We part on most friendly terms. Says that we must start on Zion on Saturday.

Listening to Erik Friedman at the moment and it’s nice to have a vague association with him.

14 November – Have lunch in Ansteys wit Mum and see Arnold Fulton having lunch there.

I go tothe SS studio. Gill says she’s heard our commercial recording and thinks it is quite awful. She played it to her classes as an example of bad singing! She says she’ll be glad when Johan goes. She doesn’t seem to have a good word about anyone!

We do some ear tests. I have nice lesson and Mrs S says that if I work there’s no reason why I shouldn’t do Advanced Senior in March. We start working on harmony and I shall probably do the next theory exam in June. She says I may be excused for a while on Saturday morning seeing I’m having singing lessons this month.

15 November – Go to lunch hour concert. Anton Hartman conducts Bob Borowsky and Ethné Seftel. Work in the afternoon and listen to Leslie G. I expect he’ll have Webster to tea next Tuesday. He has John Silver today.

Go
to choir at night. Gill, Iris and Winkle? are there so I chat to
Winkle and she tells me about her singing teacher. Johan works us
hard and we don’t finish till after 10.

16 November – Listen to Webster who goes on with the Pirates. He sounds so benign and sweet – which he isn’t. He’s a big tease.

17 November – Go to a performance in the morning and play quite well. Have coffee and then go to singing.

Anne arrives, telling me that she is really exhausted producing Merry Widow in Springs. They work in Brakpan all day and then go to Spring for rehearsals and the cast turns up half an hour late. She says they’ll never go to Springs again to produce another show.

We start on scales and she’s pleased about the way I’ve managed to cover the break in my voice. I go from bottom G to top B without any effort. We do Zion and then Webster arrives. His face is bright red and he informs me he had a big night last night. I say I went out too so that’s why I’m so woolly today as well. Anne tells me that they went to two dos last night and didn’t get in till about 2.30 this morning.

He
says, “I’m going to make a good hot cup of black coffee. Would you
like one too?” I say I’m not quite as bad as all that but I’ll take
a white cup. He asks Anne what she wants and she says, “Well, I
don’t happen to be in a state where I require black coffee, thank
you, darling.”

We go through Zion once again and if the last two movements are hurried up I can get through the run with enough breath.

We do exercises and I get into a bit of a fandango as to where I must breathe in one of them. Into the bargain, the keys in the piano stick and I can’t help laughing at that too!

He
brings me a cup of scalding coffee and says, “I really need this or
else I shan’t be able to get through today.” Anne says, “I must
say, you look simply awful today. Perhaps it’s that yellow shirt you
have on.”

“No,
it’s the way I feel today after last night.”

“Well, the fact that you drank too much is nothing to be proud of!” says she.

I do Ein Schwan and it goes much better apart from the fact that I don’t cover the vowels sufficiently. In Zion he says I sound a bit hooty on the top notes and gives one of his amusing imitations. Do first study as well and it is not at all bad.

He
continues to emote about late nights and alcohol and says that he
can’t stand them any more.

He
sees me to the door and says goodbye in most affable fashion. The
funny thing about him is that he is at his nicest self when he has a
hangover.

I go back to Mrs S and sing in the ensemble. I walk down the road with Margaret who tells me she’s not very fond of the Parktown girls. She thinks they are a bunch of little snobs.

Have
lunch in Capinero and then we see Surprise Package with Noel
Coward.

18 November – Dad has a dreadful pain in his leg today so we have a worrying time. I fetch prescription at chemist and there is an improvement.

19 November -Dad better today.

Go to SABC and we work hard with Johan and Peggy Haddon (who played in Drawing Room) accompanies us. Gideon Fagan proves more cheerful this week and seems quite pleased with us.

I tell Ruth that Leslie G might have Webster to tea tomorrow. It would be fun to listen to that with Anne. She has a laugh about the bad hangover.

20 November – Go to singing and Ruth answers the door telling me that they are listening to Webster on Tea with Mr Green and that Anne is feeling sick.

[image error]Gary Allighan writes about the forthcoming oratorio season



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Webster talks to Leslie about Bloemfontein and the chimp, and says that the grenadilla vines in their garden are dripping with fruit at the moment, and how long he has been in South Africa.

Ruth goes after telling Anne that she’ll pay her for this month next month. Anne tells me she feels very sick and doesn’t know whether she has apricot sickness or gastric ‘flu. She has a running tummy and feels sick and miserable and can’t eat a thing. She should really be in bed but doesn’t like to leave him in the studio to cope with the piano playing as he isn’t very good at it.

We start on Zion and it goes fairly well but I feel miserable at inflicting my voice on her when she feels sick. He arrives, fresh from his Leslie Green interview and is pleased that we think it was nice. He asks in most concerned tones how she is feeling. She says she is feeling dreadful and will go to bed the minute she gets home. He asks if he should call the doctor. She says she’ll wait till tomorrow and see how she feels in the morning. He suggests a gin and tonic but she says she couldn’t look at one – he mustn’t talk nonsense.

We
do the studies and I lose bottom C. He says, “What did you do with
that one, dear? Swallow it?” They don’t go too badly but my feeling
of concern persists.

I tell her before he arrives about Dad and his cramp on Sunday with neuritis. She says she’s troubled with a slipped disc and has dreadful pain with it and always has to soak in a hot bath for 20 minutes every morning to relieve the stiffness.

Afterwards
I talk about Messiah. He says he is very friendly with Leo
Quayle and he’s good. Webster is going to PE to sing in Messiah
and Elijah soon and the excerpts are to be broadcast on the 16
December between 5.30 and 6.30 pm. We talk about Rudi Neitz and he
says that although he’s got a great voice his range is limited and
last year he sang Messiah up an octave on the low notes.

I
say goodbye eventually and tell Anne that I really hope she will feel
better soon. She is shivery and cold and in a very bad way. She has
only had a cup of black coffee and two boiled eggs all day and her
tummy feels swollen.

Anne’s
programme is lovely She plays recordings from Waltz Time and
Laughing Lady. The next programme is her last.

I saw a poster there advertising an Elijah in Britain – Gladys Ripley, Harold Williams and Webster.

21 November – Have lunch with Mum in Ansteys – this reminds me of Cecil Williams who has flown the country rather than endure house arrest. He’s going to the UK.

Go to SS studio. Gill is there, recovered from her misplaced vertebrae – it’s in its right place once again. She’s teaching Corrie and I look at a South African Stage Who’s Who? My two pals are featured most prominently in it with pictures – he’s wearing a white tie and evening suit. It says he was considered the greatest oratorio tenor of his generation, and talks about their appearances at the Palladium, the Royal Command performance of 1945 and their private visit to the Royal Lodge.

When
Gill finishes teaching I mention all this to her and she laughs
derisively, saying it’s all nonsense. She says, “He can’t sing any
more.”

I
inform her that he’s going to sing Messiah and Elijah
in PE. She says, “Oh, no! He should give up singing and stick to
teaching.” She does make me sick when she runs him down.

Have
a good lesson and try to phone Anne to see how she is but no one
answers. Either she is all right or else she is alone and sick.

22 November – Work hard and then go to lunch hour concert. Jill Tonkin (from Lace on Her Petticoat) is there. Anton Hartman conducts and Aubrey Rainier is the cello soloist. He plays beautifully.

Webster finishes Pirates and starts on HMS Pinafore. In this recording he is still under the influence of his hangover but he gets through without a mistake even though his speech is rather thick.

23 November – Go to SABC for an orchestral rehearsal. Gideon Fagan is a grand and sensitive conductor and everything goes really well.

At interval Ruth, Hester and I go to Campbells and have a cold drink. Ruth pays. Gé Korsten, who is singing solos in Messiah, is also there. He certainly is a good looking man.

Ruth
says that Anne told her she was very bad at Latin and scripture at
school and was so naughty that they asked her to leave. She learnt
singing with John Tobin and used to blush throughout her lessons.
Ruth says she thinks she was putting on a big act on Tuesday. I don’t
really think so.

We
go through the Ninth after interval. It really sounds grand. Gideon F
is a real gentleman.

24 November – Get a lift to town from Mr McKenzie in his Jaguar. Go to singing in the morning. Anne arrives and is quite well again. I tell her about the Ninth and say that I thought Gé K strained his voice a lot. She says that he isn’t really a tenor – merely a high baritone – and it must take a lot out of him to do the high solo part in the Ninth.

I say that I think Graham B has a glorious voice. She tells me a story about him. At one time he was a hopeless alcoholic but through some religious organisation, he was helped back to sobriety. He was very thankful and consequently became very religious.

A few years ago he went with Webster to sing Messiah in PE and when they were all gathered in the dressing room, Graham remarked, “This is such a beautiful work – a glorification of God – I think it would be very fitting if we all said a prayer before we sing. Shall we all kneel down?”

The
others, including Robert Selley, were horrified but they could do
nothing else but kneel down while he prayed. The next night, the
cynical performers decided not to go into the dressing room if Graham
Burns was going to be there so they spent their time waiting to go on
stage huddled in the cloakroom.

Robert Selley took about three years to ask Graham back. Anne thinks that Graham was stupid to force religion on to everyone. I laugh to please her, but it doesn’t seem so very silly. I admire him for giving up alcohol.

We
do some scales and she gives me a new exercise – a chord and a
third up to mee-ee-ray-ay-fa-a-a-a-a-. It is to cover the break. It
is very good.

During
the first study Webster comes in and he makes me do it again to
correct the timing. I tend to drag it.

We do Zion. She says I must make the sound richer. I sing the legato exercise for him. He says I’m putting ‘hs’ in and I must get rid of them.

Ruth
is waiting for her lesson when I go so we talk about the Ninth and he
says, “Oh, were you working last night?”

I
tell him that Gé K had a face like a beetroot and I thought he was
going to burst a blood vessel. He tells me derisively that he’s not
really a tenor anyway. “I used to be a very high tenor and I found
that work difficult to sing – it’ll ruin him. Why, he finds it
difficult to sing top G!”

I
get my certificate for the singing exam today.

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25 November – I hear Geoffrey Parsons accompanying Erick Friedman and he is excellent.

26 November – Don’t feel very well but manage to final rehearsal at City Hall. Gideon Fagan is excellent. I meet Ruth’s sister, Caroline and see her mother. Mr O is in bed with virus ‘flu.

27 November – Go to singing in the afternoon and I sit in the studio for about five minutes before Webster notices me. “Did you really come in with Anne?” he asks. Anne sorts out the various eccentricities connected with my lessons and he gives me a cup of tea. He tells me he has some ghastly things to cheer me up today – the pieces for my diploma.

We start on the studies for which he plays. He doesn’t play the first one too badly so I manage to sing it well and he admits this at the end of it. He plays the second one so badly that I start to laugh in the middle of it. I think he is slightly insulted and when he gets to the end, he says, “Well, it was almost right. If you can sing to that accompaniment you can sing to any accompaniment!”

Anne
returns from the office after telling someone coldly on the phone
that it is not enough notice to call an hour before a lesson to say
that they can’t come. She is not sitting in the studio waiting for
them to arrive.

I
go through the exercises and songs for the diploma – Purcell and
Fauré. She spent an hour in Kelly’s this morning trying to get them
for me. They are particularly stupid there, according to her. Next
time she’ll try Charles Manning. I recommend him for his son Howard
was jolly decent when I went in for the syllabus.

Webster
goes through all his oratorios to find a suitable recit and aria for
me. He asks if I’d like to do Father of Heav’n with a recit
following the aria. I have always thought it most beautiful since I
heard Kathleen singing it.

Anne is not fond of it but I persist and so does he. He says to her, “Ah, but you must listen to Kathleen’s recording.” He always says her name in hallowed tones – it gives me a shock every time I hear it. Anne looks very black about it.

For
no reason at all, she says, “For heaven’s sake, stop fidgeting and
fussing, Boo. You make me quite sick!” He looks very hurt but
continues to inform me that I simply must hear Kathleen’s singing of
it.

I
tell Webster that I hope he’ll do very well with his oratorios in PE.
He says in teasing tones, “And I certainly hope you’ll do well in
your concerts too, Jean!”

I
laugh at the way he says this. He says that he knows Gé K will never
do these solos properly tonight. “He’ll probably have to belt it
all out to sing at all!”

He gives me his own copy of Judas Maccabeus to look at Father of Heav’n. She says, “Won’t you need it at all, darling?” and he replies, “No! I’ll never sing that again in this world. The only time I shall probably sing it again is in the next world!” It is a very high role so I presume he means that he can’t reach the top notes any more. Poor Webster.

I depart cheerfully with enough work to keep me going for years. I go through his score – his name is signed on the cover and he has listed his appearances on the front cover – 1933 somewhere in Wales. Imagine it – over ten years before I was born.

Dad
takes me (in long white dress) to Symphony concert in City Hall. We
all stand around in the foyer looking particularly wraith-like. Ruth
and Hester have had their hair set. Ruth tells me that Caroline and
her mother adore me. We go up to stage door entrance and march onto
the stage where we see a full house before us.

Gideon
Fagan conducts beautifully and with great feeling. At interval we go
and sing scales in the mayoral chambers. I tell Ruth about the Graham
Burns incident. She doesn’t think it funny either. Her father is much
worse and has sinus trouble on top of everything else.

The
Ninth symphony goes very well and our singing is excellent. Gideon
has such a lovely feel of the music. The soloists are good although
Gé is a little off the beat and there is the usual great applause,
bouquets and everything. They bring Johan on stage and the applause
is thunderous. I always leave occasions like these with red hands.

Outside,
while waiting for Dad to arrive Pieter DeV comes up to me and tells
me it was grand and, “U het mooi gesing!” I say, “Dankie,
dankie!” and all is most convivial.

[image error]



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28 November – Crits of concert are faily decent. I work at ATCL pieces in morning in a slightly haphazard and gloat over Webster’s Judas.

Go
to music in afternoon. Gerrit Bon told Gill that the orchestra was
bad but we were fairly good. Have lesson with Mrs S and get my
certificate.

Go to hear Margaret sing at Teachers’ Training College. Meet Ann, Leona and the Spargos. Choral work isn’t bad, recorder group quite painful. Margaret is sweet but very nervous.

29 November – Have lunch in Ansteys with Mum. We meet Sue Johnson from the rink with her hair cut short. She is just the same but never has time to go to the rink now that she’s at ‘varsity.

I
go to lunch hour concert. Anton H conducts overture from Norma
and Cecilia Wessels, a soprano of at least sixty sings. Her top notes
are still good but bottom notes poor. It seems a pity she should have
to go on singing when she is so old. Pieter de V is sitting with
Yonti Solomon in a box.

Webster
goes on with HMS Pinafore at night.

30 November – Go to SABC. Leo Quayle comes and is a real honey – he’s about 50 – very gentle and sweet and certainly gets good results from the choir. He’s South African. He tells us about conducting God Save the Queen at Covent Garden. The Scotsman from PE tells me at interval that he’d love to be singing with Robert Selley’s Festival choir this year too.

Hester
tells me that Ruth came last night with her mother but they’re having
a cocktail party for her sister’s engagement tonight.

Daddy
fetches me. I must say that I think Leo is my favourite conductor so
far.

The Booths’ film Lord Oom Piet starring Bob Courtney, Madelaine Usher and Jamie Uys is on at the Capri so I must try to see it sometime next week.

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EXTRACTS FROM MY TEENAGE DIARIES – OCTOBER 1962

1 October – Go up to the studio for report cards and Webster answers looking quite well. He greets me with, “I don’t know what Ruth is going to say when she hears but you’ve beaten her.” I say, “But she sang nicely – much better than I did.” “The examiner didn’t seem to think so!” he says with a hollow laugh. Anne brings in the cards. I have 76% and Ruth has 72%. We have exactly the same for our exercises which I think is rather unfair considering how well Ruth sang them.

Go to SABC and when Ruth arrives I give her the report and she is thankful to have passed. Iris and Ila Silansky talk to us at interval and I get rather carried away defending Webster (whom Ila and Iris don’t like for some unknown reason).

There
is a rumour that Johan is leaving the SABC. I see the Ormonds’ new
black Rover.

2 October – I work hard in the morning and then Mum and I go to Ansteys for lunch. I’m at the studio first. Webster and Anne arrive, looking very smart. I tell them of my desire to do Higher Local and skip Senior. Webster says, “I see no reason why you shouldn’t.” I add that I want to do it in April and they are still quite complacent and pleased about the idea.

They
look out all the Bach and Handel arias and try to decide which one to
do. We swither over Father of Heav’n but they decide it is too
long. “When I played the record Kathleen made of it, I had to cut
it,” Webster tells me. We decide on an aria from the Christmas
Oratorio by Bach called Prepare Thyself Zion. It is very
nice and he sings it for me very softly and sweetly. There is another
aria in the work that is beautiful and I must look at it at home when
I’m copying out the Zion one – Slumber Beloved. The book
belonged to Mabel Fenney (who taught at our school. Webster says he’d
like me to do the same aria as she did for my final exam.

They tell me to get The Swan by Grieg. “I can tell you before we start that any song by Granville Bantock would be difficult, so we won’t do that one,” says he flatly.

They
tell me that another of their pupils has just started on the exam I
have finished and is doing Polly Oliver. He told her that he
had another pupil who would probably be delighted to throw the old
music at her!

We talk about Mrs Fenney and Anne tells me that she worked very hard indeed and used to come into the studio before they arrived and practised like mad. She adds that the tragedy of it was that she fell madly in love with Webster and showered him with so much attention that the poor darling was very embarrassed. I roar with laughter and look at him and he looks rather uncomfortable and says he must confess he felt rather flattered. Anne says that towards the end it was rather awful – not that she blamed her for she had such an awful husband! Everyone falls for Webster. “She was a bit mad,” says Anne. I think I’m a bit mad myself to be doing this exam. We have a good laugh and I depart feeling quite elated.

3 October – Work hard in the morning copying from the Christmas Oratorio. After lunch, I say goodbye to Mum and toddle into town to purchase The Swan and the new vocal studies.

Go up to studio and Gill is there in the midst of practising for a last minute accordion duet she is to play at the SA Championships. Miss Margaret Cameron comes up and takes a fancy to me and shows me her book of kitchen tea verses with illustrations by Heather McDonald-Rouse. Apparently she has known her for years. Shealso did the script for Mrs McD-R’s concert on Saturday night in Malvern.

Gill
departs to practise with her partner – a chap called Lynn from
Durban – “Who would just suit you,” she says. She tells me that
Johan has been given the sack. I am so sorry.

I
am left alone in the studio and Arnold Fulton phones to inquire about
speech exams – he seems to haunt me and I’m sure I’m haunting him.

I
come home and try over songs and studies – all most complicated and
heaven knows why I have decided to torture myself once more.

4 October – Go to SABC at night. Ruth doesn’t come. Johan works us hard and plays the organ beautifully – I’m so sorry he’s leaving. I really can’t understand that he would have been “given the sack”!

5 October – Work. Dad takes Mum and me for a run to Pretoria which is fun despite the rain.

I
listen to recorded version of G and S from last night. Patience
is very good. I think Dennis (the boy whose mother made apple tart
for Anne, Webster and me) sings Danny Boy on Stars of Tomorrow.

6 October – Go to town and music library. I get three very dry, highly scientific music books. I have to take one back on Monday as it is a work of reference.

Meet Gill who is delighted to have come second in the accordion duet competition. Lynn bought her a brooch to say thank you for playing with him.

Have lunch in Capinero with Mum and Dad and then we see Black Tights, a ballet affair with Cyd Charisse and Moira Shearer. Meet Iris there with her family.

8 October – Go into town with Mum. We have lunch in Ansteys and then go to hear organ recital given by Harry Stanton in the city hall. Very few attend but he plays wonderfully all the same and we enjoy it.

[image error]Webster, Petrina Fry and Anne at the wedding of Margaret Inglis and Robert Langford.

At night go to SABC – we work madly on Ninth Symphony and Messiah. Talk to Ruth who is feeling very miserable because she has broken up with Alan as he was getting a bit too serious. She had a lesson on Saturday and is going to do the next exam – Senior. We discuss picture of Anne and Webster which appeared in the Star and she says she thought Webster looked “mouldy”! Anne looks too gorgeous for words. It was taken at the wedding of Margaret Inglis and Robert Langford in Brian Brooke’s garden. We have a good laugh about Mabel Fenney’s fascination with Webster, although we understand her feelings about him!

9 October – I manage to get the diploma syllabus from Mannings. The contents frighten me to death but I’m determined to see it through.

Go
up to studio and Webster is there by himself. He tells me that Anne
has gone shopping and should have been back hours ago – he is quite
worried about her.

He
is in the middle of mending a plug which has lost its screw and he
seems to find this a most complicated procedure. He curses it in no
dignified terms. I ask him how he enjoyed Margaret Inglis’ wedding
and he says, “Oh, it was jolly! We had such a delightful time. It
was a very small affair.”

He makes me a cup of tea and we take it over to the piano. He starts to get very agitated about Anne and says, “I always worry about her when she doesn’t get back in time. She could easily have been run down by a car.” Knowing Anne, I doubt whether that would be at all likely.

We start on the HL studies and exercises with him playing the piano with sausage fingers. They go quite well, but he says I must learn to cut out the intrusive ‘h’ – it’s bad. Remember what the examiner said in the report.

The studies are fairly complicated and he says that he thinks I should turn the acciacatura into an appoggiatura seeing the note is dotted – I hope he’s right. He suddenly turns round to me and asks whether I read music better with my eyes or my fingers. I say, “My fingers!” He says “I can’t read music with my fingers – they’re too stiff now and I don’t practise much on the piano, but I don’t find it at all difficult to sing at sight!”

He goes to phone the garage because their car is there. Anne arrives in in the middle of the call and tells me she has had to spend forty minutes in Kelly’s – they’re so stupid.

We
go through studies and The Swan and he says I must sing it in
German. He asks about solo parts in Ninth Symphony. I say that I
think Gé Korsten and Graham Burns are going to sing the tenor and
bass roles – he looks quite crestfallen at this.

A woman they both detest arrives and Webster gives her a cup of tea. Anne talks to me about the heat and I say that there will probably be a storm later. There always seems to be a storm on the evening of her programme. I tell her that we all enjoy it very much. She is pleased and tells me that although it is a great success the SABC is taking it off at Christmas. I say that it’s about the most enjoyable programme on the radio and it’s a shame to have it taken off so quickly. Needless to say, we part on very friendly terms.

Listen to Anne at night and she is quite wonderful – conjures up London Palladium memories with Tommy Trinder, and them singing So Deep is the Night.

Plays Lock Up Your Daughters – a mistake – and My Fair Lady. She tells us about Rex Harrison almost becoming her brother-in-law. He worked in the Liverpool Repertory company, lived near them and took a fancy to her sister Phyllis. Perhaps it’s just as well that he didn’t marry her sister, judging by his amorous adventures.

I felt sorry for Webster today. He looked so old and tired and acted in a doddery manner, merely a skeleton of the former man. He has to go to Bloemfontein to direct The Pirates of Penzance soon so perhaps that will put some life into him.

11 October – Go to Mrs S in the afternoon. She had bad weather when she was away in Cape Town. We go through the piles of theory I have completed while she was away. I have to go on Saturday for ear tests.

Listen
to Webster on G and S at night – he repeats about half of last
week’s programme but still manages to get through the first act of
Patience after three weeks at it, after much twisting of the
tongue over “The Dragoon guards.”

13 October – Go to SS studio in morning. Margaret is there so I go through some of her ear tests with her.

We lunch in Capinero and Mum brings me a letter from Suzanne Pitchford my old Winchester Castle pal whom I haven’t heard from for almost three years. She’s working in Barclays Bank and seems very happy in Brighton and has a steady boyfriend with whom she intends to “rest her case”.

We
see Sergeants Three which I enjoy and hear Only a Rose
at night sung by my two pals.

14 October – Go to Sunday School and practise for anniversary.

We go to Diamonds in afternoon and pass Anne’s car outside the SABC. Webster is going to Bloemfontein soon so perhaps he is recording his G and S programme today.

15 October – Go to SABC at night and Ruth tells me that Webster went to Bloemfontein to produce Pirates of Penzance on Friday. He might have said goodbye! We pretend to mope about it and Gill asks why I’m sad. Ruth says, “Because her lover is away!” Have a laugh.

At interval, Ruth says she much prefers Webster to Anne. She has a laugh when I imitate him talking about Margaret Inglis’ wedding.

16 October – Go to the studio in the afternoon and Anne is there in a crimson dress looking hot and flustered. We have tea and moan about the heat. She says it is so hot and dry that she could cry at the slightest provocation.

We start on scales and I sing them to “mee” – I tell her I sound like a sheep. I manage to reach top C. I do exercises and studies and decide that they are quite nauseating. She tells me that Mabel Fenney got her diploma in Berlin and is now going to London to carry on studying either with Keith Faulkner or at the Royal Academy. Her husband is still here, stuck outside of PE managing a cheap hotel. She has been away for over two years and the only way he manages to support her is by gambling on the stock exchange. She flew over here last year and the first thing she did was to drive straight to their house and sat with Webster (who had ‘flu at the time) for practically the whole day. She says it was really very painful for everyone and the more Webster snubbed her, the more she made up to him. He practically ignored her in the end but nothing put her off.

She says that Ruth is having a swimming pool – have I seen it yet? That is the first I’ve heard of it. We discuss the Rover and she says that they’re being quite sensible with their money and not buying another house.

17 October – I work in the morning and then have lunch with Mum in Ansteys. We buy a gorgeous hat afterwards.

Go to SS studio where Gill tells me that Tufty is thinking of following Johan when he goes overseas. I have a good lesson and then have tea with Miss Cameron and Mrs S.

18 October Go to SABC at night and possibly due to the horrors of Latin or a compelling desire to listen to G and S, Ruth doesn’t come.

Roger O’Hogan (choirmaster at St Mary’s, Yeoville) takes us, and is excellent. He was one of the judges in the recent hymn competition. I talk to Tufty and Gill but they’re not as much fun as Ruth.

19 October – I listen to a recorded version of G and S. Webster finishes Patience at last and says that next week he has something interesting for the listeners but he imagines some eyebrows will be raised at it. If he’s going to start playing jazzed up G and S I shall die.

Have lunch with Mum and then go to Piccadilly to see Raising the Wind, a British comedy about music students with James R. Justice, Kenneth Williams and Liz Fraser. It is a wonderful film. How I’d adore to go to a London music college.

20 October – Go to SS studios and work with Margaret and then sing in ensemble. Margaret tells us corny jokes just as she used to do at school.

Go
to see Roman Holiday in the afternoon.

22 October – Go to SABC. Pieter de Vaal takes us. Ruth tells me that her singing is growing harsh owing to her mother forcing her to sing high notes. She was talking to Anne and saying how depressed she felt and Anne said, “Well, never mind. You’re not the only one. I get depressed with all these pupils. I can’t stand any of them. There’s only four I like and that’s you, Jean, Lucille and someone else.” (she couldn’t remember the name). Ruth told her that she was only including our names to be polite and Anne replied, “No, darling. I really mean it.” Well, that is something!

23 October – Go to the studio in the afternoon and Anne is there by herself in a shocking pink hat. She makes tea and phones about the car – they’ve bought a new Anglia and it’s giving them a lot of trouble. It has to be ready for next Wednesday because she’s driving down to Bloemfontein to fetch Webster.

We
have tea and she is very depressed. “I’ve never felt so unhappy in
all my life. I hate this city and the whole country. The people are
so inconsiderate and rude here and I loathe it. I’ve hated it from
the very first but now here, by myself, I hate it more than ever. If
I had a family it might be all right but for a woman all by herself,
it’s awful.” I feel very sorry for her.

We start on Ein Schwan and it goes fairly well. We go through it a few times and it improves. She says that Ruth’s voice is tending on the harsh side, probably owing to the Ninth symphony (Probably owing to her mother more likely!) She’s terribly depressed with the weather and Alan. I say – at Ruth’s bidding from last night – that she was much cheerier now. Anne says, “Oh, how sweet. I’m very fond of her indeed.”

She
tells me that a shop in Edinburgh sent her a parcel of white heather
and she had to pay 20 cents on it because the intimation from the
post office never arrived. She says heather tends to get very messy.

We work on the Bach aria and take down Mabel’s breath marks. She tells me that Mabel had wonderful breath control. They had a letter from her the other day and it was quite sensible. “Whether it’s because she’s found a new boyfriend or not, I don’t know, but it was a normal letter, like you or I would write!”

We
work at the aria and Anne says, “Mum’ll have to work at the
accompaniment of that soon!” We do study and she says that it is
really excellent and I have memorised it well for it is very
difficult indeed.

There
is a picture of Anne in the paper in connection with Music for
Romance, and Webster sings Love, Could I Only Tell Thee on
the radio. Her programme is wonderful. She plays Blossom Time
with recordings by Richard Tauber and says she went to see the film
with the “young man of the moment after a lovers’ quarrel”.

Plays
Annie, Get Your Gun and talks of attending the London first
night. Goes on to Merrie England and tells of the production
which took place in the grounds of Luton Hoo with a chorus of 600
including the Luton Girls’ Choir and a seating capacity for
thousands. She plays his recording of The English Rose, and
The Night Was Made for Love, which he made in 1935 with George
Melachrino in the orchestra playing the clarinet. He had a cold when
he made it.

I’ll
bet they will go back to England the moment he gets his post-war
credits, and good luck to them!

[image error]

24 October – In the morning Mum and I go to get registered as aliens which, as someone remarked, is rather like going to prison. We have lunch in Ansteys to cheer us up and this is nice.

Go
to SS studio and talk to Gill who runs down Mrs S and raves about
Gerrit Bonn, whom she calls by his Christian name now. She does some
ear tests with me. I have a good lesson but I have a cold coming on –
my third this year. I ask Gill to excuse me from choir tomorrow night
if I don’t manage to get there.

25 October – Stay in bed in the morning with ghastly cold – feel stiff, cold, achy and miserable. In the afternoon I phone Ruth to tell her that I can’t go tonight and we talk for half an hour.

She says Anne is going to Bloemfontein so she’s going to miss a lesson as there are 5 weeks in the month. We talk of her picture being in the paper and she tells me about the scrapbook she has full of press-cuttings. I relate a story of my own scrapbooks. She says that some girls at her school don’t like them and one said she heard them sing at the Wanderers and though they were dreadful. Ruth says she was so cross that she nearly slapped the girl in question. We decide that they are lucky to have at least two people who’ll stick up for them, come hell or high water. She tells me jokingly that with Webster being away my resistance is low and that explains my cold. Her mother met Diane Todd (who starred in My Fair Lady and thought she was common.

Listen to Webster at night and he does give us a surprise by playing a version of Mikado recorded for American TV and produced by Martyn Green, with Stan Holloway as Pooh-Bah and Groucho Marx as Ko-Ko. Next week he’s playing Pirates of Penzance as he is “having the pleasure of producing it in the charming new Bloemfontein Civic Theatre.”

27 October – Go to SS studio. Elaine and I spend time doing technical exercises and after tea, I play ear tests for everyone.

28 October – Go to Sunday school and we have our last practice before the anniversary. One little girl tells me that she knows I take singing lessons because they heard me singing when I played the piano and heard how beautifully I could sing!

David Cross tells me that I’ve been nominated to stand for literary CCD minute secretary. I don’t commit myself to anything.

In the paper, Gary A says that G and S is finishing at the end of the year and will be replaced with Webster presenting a programme called Great Voices. Gary A thinks it will run even longer than G and S.

[image error]Lord Oom Piet!



[image error]Lord Oom Piet

29 October Go to SABC. We rehearse with Pieter de V. At interval I am introduced by Ruth to Hester, the new girl who sits next to her. She informs us that she pays £1-10-0 a month for singing lessons with a Mrs du Preez in Roodepoort. Ruth remarks patronisingly that when she improves she can always go into town and learn with someone great!

30 October – Anne phones early in the morning and tells me that “something has come up” and she can’t possibly go into the studio at all today, but could I come next Monday at 3.30 to make up for it. I could. She says that Ruth told her I wasn’t keeping very well. I say, no, I’m not – next Monday will be better. She says she hopes I’ll be better. Degenerate into a state of illness and nausea. Mum has to come home. Spend day in sheer torture.

31 October – Ruth phones me at night to worry me further. The Performing Arts Council is holding auditions on Monday evening for singers. She’d like to audition – would I? I don’t commit myself. Evidently she had a grand lesson this afternoon and got in at 3.50. Anne had already phoned her mother to see what the matter was. Anyway she had a charming time having a little tea party with Anne and singing intermittently. Evidently Anne is missing Webster in the worst way and says she loathes teaching without him and if he goes away again she feels like refusing to teach. His first night is on Saturday and they are coming back on Sunday. She told Anne to send Webster all her love!

EXTRACTS FROM MY TEENAGE DIARIES – SEPTEMBER 1962

1 September – Beat all my other unearthly hours by going to SS studio at 7.30! Elaine (in a great state of nerves) is there already practising like mad. I work with Svea Ward for a bit. Eventually I go in for my exam with the reputedly terrifying Anderson Tyrer but he is rather sweet and says, “Jean McIntyre Campbell – that’s a fine Scots name.” I play quite well – only make a mistake in one study. Scales aren’t so hot and sight reading rather ghastly but ear tests and viva voce excellent. I think I pass – I hope so. He thanks me most effusively for coming.

Margaret gives me coffee and a bun after my ordeal and then I come home. We see A Pair of Briefs which is excellent – Mary Peach, Michael Craig and James Robertson Justice. We have supper in the Galaxy afterwards.

[image error]Sylvia Sullivan

2 September – Go to Sunday school and play the piano. In the afternoon I sing and listen to Leslie G. I phone Ruth to find out about her school exams – they’ve been fine so far apart from science and Afrikaans. She didn’t enjoy the Commerce Ball terribly and had a beer shandy when she was there. On Saturday she couldn’t sing at all and kept giggling at Webster. He said, “If I make you laugh I shan’t look at you next week!”

Her parents left yesterday for three weeks in Scotland with her grandparents in Glasgow. She succeeded in “getting rid of” Trevor, the unfortunate drippy youth!

We decide to have lunch and see a show after our singing exam to celebrate – or mourn! She says, “I hope you won’t mind going around town with me in my school uniform!” We rave about each other’s voices. She isn’t going for a lesson on Tuesday because of exams so I probably shan’t see her till the day of our singing exam.

I do get on well with her and I am so glad Anne told us about each other. I understand her quite perfectly and she’s a real honey.

3 September – Settlers Day. Spend a quiet day at home. Gill V phones to make arrangements for me to go to the Indian eisteddfod. I sing my ‘exam to my parents at night and they like it.

4 September – Go to studio in the afternoon. Anne is there by herself and tells me that Webster has had to do his two extra programmes before he goes today. She told him to go home and have a rest after them if he’s tired so I might not see him. She asks if I’d like to listen to Tea with Mr Green because her girlfriend, Babs is going to be on today.

We
do scales and exercises. The chemist phones and she arranges to have
a silver Wellaton (hair rinse) sent up! She says her hair is a dull
mousy grey and she has to do something to liven it up and stop her
from looking old!

We listen to Leslie G and she tells me that Babs Wilson-Hill is her very best friend in Britain. She and Babs were in panto together in 1934 and she is very fond of her. They write to one another every week and tell each other all their worries and troubles. She is very well off – she’s been married three times and her husbands left her a fortune every time so she has a lovely home and garden in Godalming. She shows me a picture of her on the wall. She says she misses her more than anyone else in Britain.

Leslie G introduces the programme and says that it was due to Anne Ziegler that he is there because she had told him about Babs. He talks about the lovely garden – laburnum, willows, larkspurs, snapdragons… Babs sounds very like Anne, only more so – same laugh, same intonation of words, very pleasant and slightly “county”. Anne says that Babs wrote to her and said she made a terrible botch of the whole thing but she sounds terribly self-possessed to me. After it is over, Anne says that one can only have a friend like that once in a lifetime and she thinks everyone needs someone like that to confide in and tell all one’s troubles to.

We go on with singing and it all goes fairly well. I’ll damn well do this exam properly. She advises me to hum before I sing the exercises. “You should see what some people do backstage before they sing. “Richard Tauber – God rest his soul – used to spit before he went on stage. Filthy old pig! Harold Lake, who could have been a grand singer if he hadn’t taken to the bottle, used to moo all over the place before he went on. I just sit back and have a laugh.”

She
says she feels as though she’s getting old – always losing her
glasses and getting absent-minded.

“But I’ll never admit to middle age!” says she. The chemist sends the hair rinse and the order reads, “Mrs Ziegler”! “The girl in the chemist is one of our biggest fans but she will never call me Miss Ziegler. I don’t think she thinks it’s decent to have two different names in one home and still be properly married!”

She
says she thinks I’ll do well in these exams – I mustn’t worry.
“We’ll have to take you and Ruth for a tranquilliser!” I say
goodbye – I was there for an hour today. What fun!

5 September – Have lunch in Ansteys with Mum and then go up to SS studio for Gill. We go out to Benoni following the two organisers of the eisteddfod – Mr Abdul and Mr Scott. We arrive at the school where there are literally hundreds of children waiting to sing for us. We sit at a table in a large classroom with teachers sitting behind us, and listen to numerous choirs ranging from Grade 1 to Standard 6. The singing is rather lovely. Some of the older girls, who do part-singing, sing very well indeed. I advise Gill on suitable marks and add them up. She gives a very good adjudication. Evidently Johan vd M adjudicated last year and was very cutting about the choirs.

We come home via Bedfordview and, on the journey home, Gill runs Webster down saying she has evidence that he is an alcoholic. I say that he may drink but I don’t think he is an alcoholic and he is a very nice and kind man. She says, “I wonder!” She is horrible about him. Poor Webster.

6 September – Go to Indian eisteddfod again. We have Mr Scott’s wife to help us and she is very sweet. Choral work isn’t too bad although the singers tend to be a bit breathy. The soloist section is not very good with only about two children with very good voices. Gill wades into them no end!

I hear Lucille singing on the radio with her Piet Retief neighbour’s Boere Orkes (Hendrik Susann).

Listen to Webster and he goes on with Iolanthe. I enjoy the music although he is certainly spinning it out. He sounds a bit muddled and breathy and makes a lot of false starts. He must have made this recording on Tuesday when I didn’t see him. I expect he was still feeling the effects of the opening night of the Civic Theatre!

7 September – Go for the last session of the Eisteddfod. Singing is of a much higher standard today and at the end of the event there are duets by some of the teachers and they are really very good.

8 September – Go for singing lesson. Anne arrives with Lemon and informs me that she and Webster have very heavy colds. We start on scales and Webster arrives with his cold very much in evidence. He asks about my music exam and I tell him about it and he says that seeing I liked it so much and Anderson T obviously liked me, I must make sure that he recognises me. “Wear the same dress,” says he.

I
sing fairly well – we go through everything and he says that I
mustn’t worry about anything. I shall do very well.

When
I sing My Mother I pull a face and he says, “Don’t pull
faces, Jean.” He makes me smile when he says this. Lemon sniffs
around my legs and he says, “Lemon, leave Jean’s legs alone!”
About his range he says, “I’ve got about two notes in my range
today!” I say that I was out late last night and he says, “I’d
like to have gone out late last night too but I wasn’t in a fit state
to go!”

He
wishes me all the best of luck for Tuesday. “I won’t be seeing you
on Tuesday because I’ll be at the SABC recording my programme.” I
thank him and wish him a happy holiday and we part on very good
terms.

He
looks awful today – red face, cold in the nose and throat –
shame!

I meet Tufty in John Orrs waiting to go for her singing lesson with Bruce Anderson so we both go to the café in Rand Central and have a cold drink and discuss the horrors and otherwise of singing.

I go up to Mrs S’s and copy out words for her (The Skye Boat Song) The choir arrives with Margaret Masterton and we practise all the pieces.

Afterwards
Margaret and I are talking when I hear Ruth’s name mentioned. I ask
what they’re saying about her and they tell me that she was singing
last night.

I
say, “How nice. Where?”

“In
Stars of Tomorrow.”

I am horrified to hear this – not the fact that she sang in the programme but the fact that she never breathed a word to me about it.

After
lunch we see Counterfeit Traitor with William Holden and Lilli
Palmer.

9 September – Go to Sunday school. David Dury draws beautifully. Doreen, who takes S School, wishes Peter Spargo all the best for his trip abroad. I’m quite sorry to see him go.

Ruth phones about 6.20 and tells me the Booths knew nothing of the recording which she had made six months ago. She didn’t tell a soul about it because it was really awful. They were quite angry about the whole matter. They just heard Howard Sacks announcing her name at the end. She had an awful lesson on Saturday and sang dreadfully and is terribly worried about sight-reading and ear tests. Because I feel quite relieved at her version of Stars of Tomorrow I give her a few tips about sight-singing. I tell her that Webster won’t be there on Tuesday but he wished me luck. She says, “He didn’t say a thing to me. He can’t love me any more!”

We decide to go to see Sweet Bird of Youth at the Metro on Tuesday and part affably. I’m so glad there was an explanation for Stars of Tomorrow and that Anne didn’t know about it.

10 September – Go into town today feeling nervous and grim. Go up to studio and Anne is practising My Mother. I go in and we discuss nervousness. We go through the works and I sing very well indeed and she is pleased.

Ruth comes and has her lesson. I wait in the kitchen feeling even worse! After this, we all have tea together. When Anne goes out, Ruth asks me to play the piano and I oblige. It is a lovely piano and I play nicely. We look at the pictures on the wall when Anne returns and giggle over the Webster ones. How I adore them! We help Anne to get the tea and have a nice little chat.

Ruth talks about her parents being in Glasgow at the moment and how they are going to stay at the Savoy in London. She says, “But I like Johannesburg. It has everything!” Anne and I burst out laughing and Anne asks, “Such as?” Poor Ruth is quite affronted by our laughter. We spend a jolly time running down the Civic Theatre and I tell them of the argument I had with Peter S about it. We all get on famously and feel a little less nervous.

We
walk down to Edinburgh Court and every second person stares at Anne
and when we arrive the others there all whisper about her to one
another. She tells me to take a deep breath and I do so.

Anderson
Tyrer goes out of the studio and Anne says, “I don’t need three
guesses to know where he’s going!”

Anderson T is in a less jovial mood today. Anne plays beautifully and my studies and songs are perfect, but my exercises! He can’t give me two marks for them. My nerves go to pieces and my voice trembles. My sight-singing isn’t too startling either but the ear tests and viva voce are fine. He says goodbye affably enough and I come out a nervous wreck.

Ruth sings very well but she cannot answer her questions so perhaps the results might balance. Anne and I talk to the woman in charge. Anne tells me that I sang beautifully but my exercises were a pity. She tells the woman in charge that it is a soul-destroying job, teaching, apart from a few pupils. I say, “I expect it must be most soul destroying to teach me.” She says, “Oh, darling, of course not. You’re one of my best pupils!”

We
come downstairs together and discuss the exam and wish her a happy
holiday. Ruth says, “I’m going to phone Webster tonight.” I say,
“Why, is he ill?” She says, “No! Just to say goodbye.” Anne
says, “Oh, he will appreciate that!”

We
part and wish her a glorious holiday then Ruth and I go to Ansteys
for lunch.

We decide that Anne is quite natural with us and very stiff with everyone else. We have a lovely lunch (for which Ruth pays). “Since my mother won £40,000!” says she, rather vulgarly. We look around John Orrs and then go to the Twentieth Century to see The Inspector because we are afraid that in school uniform she won’t be allowed in at the Metro. I enjoy it again and we decide that Dolores Hart resembles her.

On
the way home she suggests that she and I should do some duets
together when the Booths come home. That would be fun. I tell her to
give Webster my love when she phones him and we say that we’ll see
one another on Monday at the SABC. She tells me that Webster told her
to tart up her hair for the exam!

I
listen to Anne at night. She plays music from The Count of
Luxembourg, Show Boat and Sweet Yesterday. She
plays Life Begins Anew, her solo Sweet Yesterday and
Webster’s Morning Glory. A lovely end to the day. I remember
Webster playing them a year or so ago and I did adore them then. I
hope they have a wonderful holiday – they deserve it.

12 September – Go to SS studios and see Gill. She heard Ruth on the radio and thought her very feeble. I get my theory certificate from Mrs S. I only hope I do as well in the practical. We work on Advanced Junior theory and I give Corry Bakker a lesson. Rita Oosthuizen is doing her LTCL tomorrow.

13 September – Listen to Webster and he finishes Iolanthe and includes Nightmare Song by John Reid who has really excellent diction. Next week he is going to start Cox and Box. He plays the Captain Shaw song from Patience – the one they teased me about last Saturday.

15 September – Go to Mrs S’s studio in the morning. Elaine, Carol and I discuss exams in morose fashion and decide that we have all done badly. Margaret M has German Measles today.

Before lunch, I meet Patricia Webb who is going home for a month. We lunch in Capinero and then go to the Metro to see The Boys Night Out.

At
night, while reading Cry Havoc and immersed in the horrors of
the armament factories, I hear familiar voices on the radio singing
I’ll See You Again on Freddie Carlé’s programme. It is
lovely. I wonder how I shall survive two weeks without them.

16 September – Go to Sunday School – not too many there – possibly due to German Measles epidemic. Continue reading Cry Havoc by Beverley Nichols and find it excellent.

In
the guild service at night four of us sing the alto part in the
anthem.

17 September – Go to SABC at night. When Ruth arrives Gill tells her that she thought her rendering on Stars of Tomorrow nauseating. (Rather nasty comment, I feel.)

Johan
works us mercilessly on Messiah and there is an improvement.
Ruth tells me that last Tuesday she had fibrositis when she got home
and was in great pain. She phoned Webster despite it and he was sorry
to hear about it. He said, “I believe you and Jean sang very well
indeed today!”

We decide that we miss them terribly and that Jo’burg is a meaningless place without them.
We
discuss our exam with Gill and Tufty and Gill says we are sure to
pass. She’s heard our voices and our teachers know what they are
doing. Results will probably be waiting for us.

19 September – Work in the morning and have lunch in Ansteys with Mum. I go up to SS studio and Gill is going shopping so I go with her. We see a grumpy Anderson Tyrer entering Edinburgh Court. Exams finish this Friday so the results are imminent.

We see Cecil Williams, who has recently come out of jail owing to his communist tendencies. He gives me a half smile of vague recognition. Gill is horrified about his left-wing ideas.

We go up to the studio where Rita is practising for the LTCL exam tomorrow. We have coffee and then work. I have a good lesson with Mrs S who tells me to come early on Saturday morning to do theory.

20 September Take it into my head that I simply must see the Booths’ house. Weak-mindedness, I guess, but the urge is irresistible! I get a connection to Craighall and a rather good-looking boy directs me to Buckingham Avenue. The suburb is idyllic. There are hardly any people around and the only noise is the birds twittering in the trees. Have a long walk along Buckingham Avenue to find their house.

It
is much smaller than ours with a few steps leading up to the stoep.
The door is bright yellow and the walls are white. The roof is
corrugated iron, painted black. The garden is quite large. To think I
always imagined them living in a long, modern house. The house next
door looks rather awful and the garden is a shambles but the houses
across the street are very nice. It is a lovely spot and I think they
deserve such lovely scenery. It’s quite surprising that they should
have such a small house after all the money they’ve earned. I walk
back to Parkwood, have a cold drink in a café there and come home.

Go to bed and listen to G and S. Webster plays Cox and Box. It is very good and I enjoy it. Then he plays a record by Martyn Green in America – The Judge’s Song from Trial by Jury. He burlesques it a good deal. As Webster says, “D’Oyly Carte would have had something to say about it!” Next week he’s starting on a full-length recording (with dialogue) of Patience which we heard about five months ago. Ah, well. If he can get away with it, why worry!

After
this programme, the station announcer says, “That fascinating,
scintillating star of the musical stage and screen, Anne Ziegler will
present a programme on Tuesday at 8.15!”

22 September – Go into SS studio and meet Yvonne Compton (from the bank) on the bus, evidently recovered from her car crash and looking no worse than I remember her. She tells me that Mr Ford has had another heart attack and was off work for three months and the French lady who lives in Craighall Park is off work with a nervous breakdown. I tell her to give everyone my love.

When I arrive at Mrs S’s Elaine and I morosely discuss exams once more and then get a pleasant surprise. The results have arrived – Elaine has 71% and I have 78% ( a pass with merit). We are delighted.

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Have choir – Margaret is back, recovered from the German Measles. Have lunch in Capinero with parents and then see Lovers Must Learn.

I am quite happy with the result and hope singing is not too bad. If only I could find out the result before the Booths return from their holiday.

24 September – SABC at night. I talk to Ruth and we worry about our results. Evidently we can’t hear the results until they come home because Arnold Fulton has no record of the marks. We ruminate over what we will do if we fail. I know what I shall do – give up!

Pieter
de Villiers takes us because Johan is sick in bed. Maybe he has
German Measles as well?

At
interval, Ruth and I talk once more and she says if she fails she’ll
cry on Webster’s shoulder. Even that delight wouldn’t make failure
much fun. I say I shall give up singing and she is quite worried
about it. If I’ve done badly in this mouldy old singing exam, I shall
know I’m no good and I’ll have to give up.

25 September Work very hard and hear that Arnold F is going to give Mum my results tomorrow – oh, Lord!

Listen to Anne at night and envy her. She plays Die Fledermaus and somehow manages to talk about singing Marguerite in Faust in 1934 where she met her husband, and seeing Rachmaninoff and Tetrazzini in Liverpool. She plays an extract from The Platonic Nymph and excerpts from records made by friends of theirs who appeared with them at the Palladium – Max Miller, Vera Lynn, Rawicz and Landauer, and of course themselves singing Love’s Last Word is Spoken, Cherie.

It
is a lovely programme and she is a lovely person. However, the way I
feel at the moment is very amateurish and far removed from Anne.

26 September – Get singing result today – at least, I hope it’s my result and Arnold F hasn’t made a mistake. I get 76% (merit) and he tells mum that it is very good. I can’t wait to get the report and see what Anderson T has to say. I have lunch with Mum in Ansteys and feel much happier.

27 September – In bed waiting for Webster and G and S. Poor pet has his terrible cold and talks in very nasal accents which emphasises his brogue. He starts on Patience and when talking of aestheticism says that it is just the same as the Bright Young Things of the 1820s – “I mean 1920s,” says he. I enjoy it again and he is in a very good mood and makes me laugh.

Only
three or four days to go till I see him and Anne again.

30 September – Really sick today so I don’t go to Sunday School or Church.

I feel better at night so I phone Anne. How lovely it is to talk to her again. She answers the phone and recognises my voice before I tell her who is calling. She sounds delighted to hear from me and asks how I am. I ask about their holiday and she says it was a lovely rest but the weather was really terrible. She says that at least Lemon enjoyed the holiday.

I tell her about Mum phoning Arnold Fulton and my 76%. I ask if I can come up for Ruth’s and my card tomorrow night at 6.00. She tells Webster who is standing by the phone the whole time about my marks and he is also pleased. She says in hallowed tones, “Webster sends his congratulations.” She says she is very proud of me. “God bless you, darling,” she says. She is pleased with piano results as well. We say goodbye till tomorrow and I feel refreshed and exhilarated with our chat. They are such good fun, both of them.

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EXTRACTS FROM MY TEENAGE DIARIES – AUGUST 1962

1 August – Go to Mrs S and have coffee with Gill. We do ear tests with Elaine. Mrs S gives me my report for the theory exam and guess what? I get 100% honours for both exams. I’m quite delighted at this. It’s the first time I’ve had 100% for any exam. Lesson goes quite well. I have to perform again on Saturday.

We
rehearse at night. Betty is back from her holiday and Peter S brings
me home.

2 August – Go to town and have lunch with Mum. I meet Mrs Ormond. She looks no different than before – still in the same suede coat with hair hanging loosely. She is affable but in a hurry.

I
am now waiting for G and S substitute. Station announcer says, “All
Webster Booth’s admirers will be glad to know that he is now
recovering from his recent illness and will soon be back again.”

Paddy O’B goes on with The Gondoliers. I do hope Webster will be back next week.

3 August – I get a letter from Arnold Fulton giving details of our exam on the 11 September. I phone to tell Anne about this. She is not in but Webster is and answers the phone to me. I honestly cannot say how happy I am to hear his delightful, gruff voice again saying, “Helloo!”

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He tells me that she’s at the studio and I can give her a ring there. He feels much better now and it is his first day up. He says, “I feel fine but evidently this bug is still running around in me!” He sounds rather weak but is terribly sweet. He says, “Anne’ll either be having lunch or putting her head – I mean, her feet – up at the studio so you can give her a ring there.” I say that I’m crossing my fingers for him and say Cheerio. He sounds rather tired and weak but he still sounds a real pet and I adore him.

I
phone Anne and tell her about this and she says they might be going
away for a break so she hopes she’ll still be there to play for the
exam. Webster really needs a holiday for a few weeks after all that
lot. She says, “I got him home yesterday.” I say, “Yes, I
phoned your house and I was speaking to him.” This tends to give a
mistaken conception of the whole matter so I hope she realises that I
was phoning to speak to her.

It’s
grand to have spoken to him again after one and a half months without
him. Mad? I know I am.

4 August – Peter S takes me and tape recorder to rehearsal and all goes quite well. I know most of my lines now. I have to leave early to go into Mrs S’s for recital.

I go up to Mrs S’s and play scales and ear tests with Pam and Elaine. Mrs S makes me play to Mrs du P, Pam and Elaine and Mrs du P and Mrs S are pleased with my playing. When Pam and Elaine go I practise Higher Local sight-reading which I can, strangely enough, do quite well.

Leila, Mary and the rest of choir come and we practise. We sing (three altos and 7 sopranos) together today and it goes well.

Have lunch in Galaxy with Mum and Dad. Dad tells me that Anne phoned about changing my time because Ruth wants to have extra lessons, on a Monday at 3. I am rather furious about this.

We
see Mr Hobbs Takes a Vacation with Jimmy Stewart and it is
terrific. Jimmy S is a scream and cheers me up.

Come home and phone for fifth time this week to Anne, feeling furious. Poor, unsuspecting Webster answers the phone and I am afraid I vent my feelings on him by being extremely cold and haughty, asking for Anne in frigid tones. He is most affable and fetches her.

Anne is all oozy and sweet to me but I am neither oozy nor sweet to her. She tells me story about Ruth only being able to go for extra lessons before her exam on Tuesday at 4. I say coldly that I’m afraid Monday is quite unsuitable for me. I have a lot to do during the week and I have already been changed once and have had to rearrange all my plans accordingly. I’m not trying to be inconsiderate but it’s quite impossible. She says that she understands and she’ll arrange something. I say, “Perhaps you could change someone else?” She is terribly sweet and says, “We’ll see you on Tuesday at 4 then. I hope you don’t mind.” I say, “OK, goodbye,” in frigid tones and put down the receiver.

She sounded genuinely sorry and I have a feeling that Ruth suggested that she could change my time – probably at her mother’s instigation – but that isn’t fair. When I first knew that Ruth had won that money I was delighted but it appears she really is going to get big over it and, in the end, it will probably come between us.

5 August – Go to Sunday School and play piano well. Ian – my problem child is back. We do a word rehearsal after Church. Gary A praises Anne’s revision of her programme in the Sunday Times today.

6 August – Go to SABC in the evening fully prepared to have an argument with a proud, haughty Ruth throwing her £40,000 weight around. However, she is just the same – far sweeter than usual in fact – and tells me she went for a lesson today and Anne was in a nice mood.

She says that Anne spoke about me for ages and said she thought I was one of the sweetest, most sincere girls she had ever met and she is extremely fond of me and thinks a lot of me.

I say that perhaps she was probably being insincere but Ruth says, “No. She was terribly natural and sincere today and she likes you a lot. She thinks you are sweet and sincere, and so do I,” says Ruth.

She spoke to Webster on the phone on Saturday for a short while. He isn’t going into the studio till Friday but managed to make his G and S recording in the morning. I am glad he’s well and fit again.

Some nameless, but highly qualified, man takes us through Messiah.

7 August – Work hard in the morning and get a letter from Penny Berrington. She’s getting married on the thirteenth of this month!

Go to studio in the afternoon. Anne answers and is very affable. Piet Muller, the glorious tenor is singing and is having an audition with the SABC later this month.

Anne thanks me for getting the examination cards fixed up and tells me that the self-same thing happened to Mabel Fenney – maybe Arnold Fulton has a grudge against them.

She gives me a lukewarm cup of tea and tells me that Webster is fine now but the virus could flare up again at any moment. We do vocal studies which go well and exercises which don’t go so well, so we spend the rest of the lesson concentrating on them and they improve.

Her next pupil, John Fletcher, brings fudge and gives Anne some. She asks if she can have some for her girlfriend who is Scottish! We continue with exercises and I feel that I learn a lot.

I
tell her to tell Webster that he must keep well and she says, “My
God, I hope so!”

Go
to rehearsal at night with Peter and all goes well.

8 August – Work very hard in the morning. I just have to do well in these blooming exams.

Have
lovely lunch with Mum in Ansteys and see tall, dark viola player
(lady) there. Go up to SS studios and work with Elaine and Mrs S
works me hard during lesson. I get home quite exhausted after the
exertions of the day.

9 August – It is Webster himself tonight and he is, as usual, his own fabulous self. He sounds just a little weak and out of breath – doing a programme after he had only been up for a few days must have been rather strenuous for him. He thanks the listeners who sent him flowers, letters and phone messages when he was in hospital and says that he is truly thankful to be out of hospital and feeling better again. He also thanks Paddy O’B for reading his script in a very warm, gentlemanly way and then continues with The Gondoliers.

For the third time in this series he plays his own record of Sparkling Eyes and at the end of the programme they play his Wand’ring Minstrel almost all the way through. Next week he intends to finish the Gondoliers and start on a full-length recording of Iolanthe, complete with dialogue.

It is really wonderful to hear him back on the radio again and to know that he is better. I’m rather sorry now that I didn’t send him something when he was in hospital but, knowing Anne, I think she would have thought up the worst possible motive for my doing so. Nevertheless, I have worried about him and I was sympathetic when she needed sympathy most. I do thank God that he is well again.

10 August – Work and then go into town and buy a lovely coat. I meet Eileen in town and come home on bus with Rosemary Nixon. Go to guild at night – talk by Sister Constantine. I take the epilogue.

11 August – We have rehearsal at 8am and Peter S takes me there. All goes well.

Go up to SS studios and see Margaret Masterton who is back from Britain looking very well. I do ear tests with Elaine and Pam and then sing in choir.

At 4.30 go to church and meet Peter and Gail and go with Fred, Charles and Joan to guild rally in Krugersdorp. We have supper and hear a wonderful talk by Prof Charles Coulson from Oxford University.

12 August – Go to final rehearsal. We hear Mark, Mr Russell’s little boy, singing Ag, Pleez, Daddy on the tape recorder – cute! We have a pleasant time making up before the play while Peter C is conducting his last service before leaving for the UK. There is a huge turnout for the play and it goes fabulously. Afterwards everyone congratulates us heartily and all is lovely. They present some gifts to Peter. I hope he will do very well abroad.

13 August – Work very hard during the day. Go to SABC. Ruth comes with the joyful news of having seen Webster on Saturday and there is general exaltation.

Her version of meeting is as follows: She came up on the lift with him and kissed him, leaving lipstick on his face. When they go in there is a query from Anne as to whether he had scratched himself and a sheepish admission of guilt from Ruth. Anne is slightly flabbergasted. It certainly sounds as though Webster is well once more. She is going tomorrow at 4.30 after me.

14 August – In the afternoon go to studio feeling quite tense at seeing Webster again. However, it is Anne who answers the door. When Anne tells me about Webster, she says that he looks ninety and his face is haggard. I expect I looked very crestfallen, for she says, “I’m afraid you’ll have to suffer me for another week!” I feel quite awful about this. I must have shown terrible disappointment at not seeing him but that didn’t mean that I didn’t want her. What a thing to think!

I have tea with her as there is nobody there before me and she tells me that Webster came in on Saturday for three hours and it exhausted him utterly so he decided to stay at home for this week. She says there is too much sediment in his blood and he has got to be x-rayed for that tomorrow. She says he’s been terribly, terribly ill and has to be very careful indeed.

She tells me that they’re going on holiday in the last two weeks of September to a cottage in Hermanus because Webster really needs a holiday but they are waiting until after our exam because she has to play for us. I am going to have my lesson on the morning of the exam as a warm-up and Ruth can have her lesson after me and we can all go to the SS studio together.

We talk about Guy Magrath (the examiner who isn’t going to adjudicate our exam) and she tells me that last year she met him and he had played in an orchestra with Webster and herself as soloists. Harold Fielding, the impresario had been near bankruptcy and they had been right at the top of the entertainment tree. They did a tour for him which was highly successful and so saved him from failure. She says, “We were right at the top then.”

Studies are fabulous and she is delighted but exercises are grim as ever. She says Ruth has the same battle – I needn’t worry. Everything else goes well and she is happy. Ruth arrives at about 4.25 still in her school uniform. She says, “Tell Jean, I’m sorry to come so early.”

[image error]Ruth Ormond.

Afterwards we all talk and Ruth says that she thinks my voice very beautiful. She never imagined that I could sing like that. We discuss her uniform and decide that she looks like a 7-year-old in it! Actually she looks terribly sweet and young and is of course charming. I say goodbye to them both and feel happy.

Listen
to Anne at night and once more it is a fabulous programme. She plays
music from Bitter Sweet, And So to Bed, The
Threepenny Opera and The Dancing Years. She plays their
duet from Bitter Sweet – I’ll See You Again and it is
lovely. She talks of their friendship with Noel Coward, Ivor Novello
and Vivian Ellis. The last-named used to play rugger with her brother
who was ten years older than her. She also talks of Mark Lubbock, the
BBC conductor who accompanied them on a tour of And So to Bed.

15 August – Have lunch with Mum in Ansteys. Go up to SS studio and talk to Gill about the horrors of exams. We do sight-singing and ear tests and I have a successful lesson with Mrs S. She says she wants me to get honours in this exam.

Go to rehearsal at Rosettenville tonight with Peter S. Archie’s car breaks down on the way home so Peter tows him and it takes us ages to get home.

16 August – Work quite hard during the day but feel very sleepy and doddery.

Listen
to G and S and Webster is lovely. He finishes the Gondoliers
and plays A Highly Respectable Gondolier sung by Robert
Radford in 1921. The record was given to him when he was in hospital.
He mentions that George Baker sings on this record – he had a
letter from George the other day. He is 78 and intends to make a
recording of Ruddigore at the end of the year.

He
starts (for the second time this year) on a recording of Iolanthe
with Isadore Godfrey conducting. He plays the overture which he says
is his favourite of all the G and S overtures.

I haven’t seen him for such an age that I feel as though I hardly know him. On Tuesday when I thought I would see him again, I was as nervous as though I had never met him. If I don’t see him this following week, he shall be a complete stranger to me.

17 August – Work hard during the morning and have lunch with Mum. I go to the library and see my old boss from the bank, Mr Peddy, browsing through a file there.

At night I go with Peter S, Archie and Yvonne to Rosettenville for our performance. Gill Mc D comes along to do the make-up and we have a jolly evening. Play goes extremely well and adjudicator from the Bank Players says we acted excellently and show great promise, but as this is a religious festival we don’t win because our play lacked a biblical message! Mr R is angry and says (privately of course) that the man is 50 years out of touch with religion. However, all was delightful and fun. We go back to Tsessebe, the Jeppe Boys’ boarding house for tea and sit in Peter’s study. Denis Newton gives me a lift home at 12.30am.

18 August – At the unearthly hour of 8.30am I catch a bus into Mrs S’s studio. Work diligently with Elaine at scales and exercises, and after coffee, Margaret M, Pam, Elaine and I do ear tests. Margaret cheers me up by telling me that she went flat in her unaccompanied piece during her exam so perhaps this is not a problem unique to me.

The choir arrives and I talk to a girl called Maureen about Ruth. She tells me that Ruth was at the Engineers’ Dance last night with Trevor and was not very kind to him! We practise well.

Dad
is in bed with a cold so Mum and I have lunch and see The
Inspector with Stephen Boyd and Dolores Hart.

19 August – Go to Sunday school. I play well but singing is rather ghastly. Dudley Penn brings a white rat to Sunday School!.

20 August – Go to SABC. Gill practises clarinet in studio. It sounds quite good. Johan comes in and has a shot at it – first time and jolly good too. He is most affable.

When Ruth comes she tells me that Webster is quite, quite well again and looks wonderful and is most cheerful. She hasn’t started swotting for her exams yet so she isn’t coming to the choir for two weeks while they’re on. She doesn’t intend having any more extra lessons after the exam.

21 August – Work quite hard in the morning and once more develop a state of dreadful nervous tension.

I go up to the studio in a great state in the afternoon and today I am not disappointed. Webster answers the door! I say, “Hello,” and he says, “Hello, Jean” in pleased tones. I ask after his health and he tells me that he is simply fine. He looks just the same as usual in his striped suit but he is just a trifle more haggard and old-looking.

Piet M is singing Can I Forget You? very beautifully indeed and then Webster sings the same song to show Piet how it’s done. The voice is weaker, but, oh, how angel-like. He sings as though his life depends on it in his dear, sweet restrained tenor and I sit in the kitchen and cry! When he comes to the last three notes, he says, “You finish it! I can’t reach them now.” I dry my tears before they come out. I have never been so moved for a long, long time. Here is a man of 60 who has been at death’s door recently, singing so well that a man in his prime would be proud!

Piet
sings beautifully but Webster is the greater artist who can move his
audience to unashamed tears. I hear Anne telling Piet M and his wife
that show business is a real struggle. People make promises and don’t
keep them. A production house here promised them work if they came
over to settle, but they never kept their word.

Webster
says, “Nobody will give me a job as a singer here! I haven’t had an
engagement for months. Perhaps I’m just getting too old.”

I go in and Anne tells me to come at 10.30 on the eleventh and they are leaving on holiday the next day. She asks about the examiner and I tell her it is Anderson Tyrer. She is delighted and says they’ve met him and he’s nice. He told Mabel Fenney that he thought a lot of them. I say that everyone says he is very bad-tempered. Webster says, “Well, I’m damned sure that I’d be bad tempered if I had his job. I’m bad-tempered enough in this studio.” He says that AT is quite an age – he doesn’t know how he stands it.

I do vocal studies and sing very well. Webster comes in and says, “You were singing beautifully but I’ll bet you weren’t showing your teeth!” I laugh nervously. We do Polly Oliver and I am so strung up that I don’t do it exceptionally well. However, sing Hush My Dear perfectly in tune and he is pleased. He says that to ensure I don’t go off pitch I must support my breath. Do My Mother and he says I must make a bigger crescendo at the end of the verse. Exercises are – as usual – ghastly. I say indignantly that I can do them perfectly at home and Anne says, “Yes, Jean. I am terrifying you dreadfully, aren’t I?” I laugh in slightly shame-faced fashion. I should make a tape to prove it.

Ruth comes and acts in simpering tones with Webster. Webster comes with me to the door and I say that I hope he’ll keep well. He says, “Oh, yes. I think I’ll keep well now, dear.”

It
was lovely seeing him once more and hearing his lovely angel-like
voice again. I don’t care what anyone says; he is (or was) the finest
tenor in the world.

22 August Work in the morning and then have lunch with Mum in Ansteys, which is most delightful.

Go
up to SS studio and do ear tests with Gill and they go fairly well. I
play for her as well. Elaine comes and we do more ear exercises. Mrs
S is pleased with me and says I should do well in the exam.

As I’m terribly worried about the exercises I get mum to phone Anne to see about three extra lessons before the exam. Webster answers the phone and tells Mum that he feels much better now. He calls Anne and she says she can’t look up her book now – they’re making a film and dashing off to the set but she’ll phone after six.

She does, and after much deliberation, she finds three times to suit. I am going on Saturday at 9.00. She tells me they’ve been invited to the opening of the Civic Theatre on Monday night. They are obviously very busy.

23 August – Listen to G and S at night. He continues with Iolanthe for the second time and I do enjoy it. He says that in his day the peers were bald and their crowns would inevitably fall off into the foliage.

25 August – Go into town at the unearthly hour of 8.00 and meet Margaret M on the bus. Go up to studio and I am there first. Anne arrives with Lemon. Lemon disgraces himself in most vulgar fashion and Anne is terribly embarrassed. I disappear into the kitchen until the chaos subsides.

We start and she makes me do scales to ‘moo’ down and then up and they go very well. Webster comes in and Anne says, “I’m not speaking to you again! You will feed Lemon before we come out and he disgraced himself in front of Jean.” He finds this most amusing and says, “No wonder he’s licking his chops!” He is wearing a Wanderer’s blazer and his face is very red and flushed.

We
continue with exercises and she makes me do them in front of the
mirror and open my mouth wider on top notes. I sing them onto the
tape and he stands and holds the microphone for me (makes me feel
funny!) but I sing them very well and they are pleased. When he is
recording me Lemon starts barking at the next pupil and he shouts,
“Shut up!” loudly and when the tape is played back it sounds very
funny. When Lemon hears himself he starts barking all over again!

She says that I must be very careful with my breath and she feels it. Makes me feel hers. I shall never cease to be amazed at it. Her ribs are as hard as a barrel and she simply doesn’t let any breath escape. She says the tummy must go in and the ribs out. I must practise to see how long I can hold my breath. I should be able to hold it for 25 seconds. She can hold hers for 37!

I
am amazed at how well the exercises go today. She says my voice is
very pure and even and sweet and I must never think that I can’t do
the exercises because I can do them very well, “Isn’t that so,
Boo?” “Yes, that’s so!” I feel much happier about them today
and have far more confidence.

When
I leave, I say goodbye to Webster and then, “Goodbye, Lemon.”
Anne says she’s terribly sorry about Lemon’s disgraceful behaviour!

After that I toddle down to Mrs S’s just in time for coffee with Margaret and Elaine. Margaret and I are shoved off to do musicianship tests and when she goes, Mrs S makes me record my pieces which go quite well. This time next Saturday – ugh! Elaine and I work together for a while and then we are allowed home. Really glorious day.

I phone Gail Cain. We’re doing the play tomorrow night at Bedfordview.

26 August – Have quite Sunday. In the afternoon Ruth phones and we have a lovely conversation. She is busy swotting for exams and phones me for ‘relaxation’! She tells me that Anne and Webster told her yesterday that I sang really beautifully at my lesson and they were amazed and thrilled.

I
tell her about the film they are making and we talk of previous films
we have seen them in. I say, “Of course, I didn’t know them
then…” and she says, “But now, we’re real pals, aren’t we?”

She
says she is having new shoes and getting her hair done for the
commerce ball and she’s looking forward to it, but she is a bit
worried about the exams. She is also worried about going to singing
on Tuesday when she ought to be swotting. She loves going, but…

We chat for a good half hour and I promise to apologise for her to Johan. It does me good to talk to her. She is such fun and we understand each other’s nonsense. I tell her about the film advert with Webster leering over his boater on a Parisienne avenue and she squeals with delight.

We
go out to Bedfordview in the evening and do the play once more. There
are about 35 in the audience. We have to do it again on Tuesday night
in Orange Grove.

Afterwards we go to Mr and Mrs R’s for coffee. Mum and Dad will have to record Anne for me on Tuesday.

28 August – Today it snows and the world is white! After I recover from the shock I work.

I
go to singing in the afternoon and get a dull, shabby old man in the
lift with me. He speaks to Anne and reveals himself as Guy Magrath –
honestly, I nearly have a fit!

Anne tells me that they went to the opening of the Civic Theatre last night and it didn’t finish till 12.10. They had the opening itself which lasted three-quarters of an hour and then the opera. By the end of it she felt as though she had been in an alcoholic’s nightmare! Mimi was good in two of the roles but as the “dancing doll” she was rather large!

The
foyer is gaudy – dark red and blue with hanging lights. It reminded
her of the Winter Gardens, Blackpool. There’s a bar in the foyer and
all the whisky was finished by the second interval.

Webster
felt too awful to come into the studio today – presumably from all
that whisky. They sat in the second row and Verwoerd sat in the
gallery. “Somebody would have shot him if he had sat in the
stalls,” said Webster.

Anne says she found the people quite mad. South Africans are a race apart the more she sees of them. “I wouldn’t say this to anyone but someone from home because a South African couldn’t take it.”

We
have this long conversation while washing the dishes and making tea
till 4. Leslie G is back and had a wonderful holiday and is going to
dinner with them tonight. He says it’ll take him a month to finish
talking about his holiday.

We work at exercises and when Ruth comes I listen to her singing the exercises. Her voice is sweet but rather wobbly and a bit off key. She races through the exercises like billy-oh. We spend a bit more time talking about Tales of Hoffman and running down Anton Hartman (who conducted last night) and Jossie Boshoff (who is 44). Ruth’s mother had her birthday party at the Carlton Hotel last night, if you don’t mind!

We
all have a lovely time as Anne’s two teacher’s pets! I think our
voices are on a par.

We
do the play at Orange Grove at night and it goes very well. We go
back to Gail’s for coffee and cake and Peter takes me home.

29 August – Listen to Anne’s recorded programme. It is well done but she alludes to too many old friends such as Richard Tauber, Hermione Gingold and others I have never heard about. The shows are Land of Smiles, Gigi, The Boy Friend and Song of Norway. She tells several amusing stories with regards to The Boy Friend. She spent her teenage years in the twenties and remembers the fashions of the times, being kissed by awkward youths, wearing short shapeless dresses and bathing costumes with cloche bathing caps. She says they both roared at the first night which they had first seen in Hampstead and also at the first night here when they sat in front of Sandy Wilson who was convinced they were trying to ruin the show with their laughter. Lovely programme.

Go to town and have lunch with Mum in Ansteys. Put in hard afternoon’s work in SS studio with Gill, Elaine and Mrs du P. When examiner leaves we try out the piano in that studio and it goes reasonably well. Anderson Tyrer leaves at least 20 cigarette ends behind him as well as a stale, smoky smell. Come home on the bus with Betty and have an early night.

30 August – I work very hard today trying to polish up all my examination pieces.

Listen to G and S at night. He goes on with Iolanthe and plays the Lord Chancellor’s song by Martyn Green, a record he made in America. His voice is past its best. Very nice programme but I’m not sure whether people (apart from myself) want to listen to a repeat after only three or four months even if it is done by a different company.

31 August – My nineteenth birthday.

Go
to studio. Anne arrives after me and says she’s quite exhausted after
teaching in Brakpan yesterday – they didn’t get home till after 9.

We
start on scales and they go very well and then go onto studies.
Webster comes in in the middle of the second one. His face is still
terribly red. She makes me sing down 2 octaves for him and he says
that it is lovely and very even. I do exercises on the tape and they
go pretty well. Webster says I must take my time with them and hum
and sing an arpeggio or two if I feel like it! To hell with the
examiner. “It’s none of his business!”

Anne says that Leslie G came to dinner and brought slides to show them. He had a fabulous one of the Scots Memorial in Princes Street taken from a turret of Edinburgh Castle. He also made a recording with her girlfriend, Babs Wilson-Hill, in her garden which is to be broadcast soon.

I
sing studies on tape and they are pleased with them but Webster says
I must look at the hairpins again. When we do the second study he
sings with me and emphasises the hairpins. He stands far away from me
but it is mostly him we hear on the tape. I go red and feel a wee bit
embarrassed but it all goes well.

He
says I mustn’t worry at all. I shall be all right. I must go to the
exam thinking, “Well, I know everything there is to know about this
blooming exam!”

I
tell them that I am playing tomorrow and if I don’t play well the
examiner will probably be horrified to see me again! Webster has a
right hearty laugh at this and we part in an atmosphere of great
frivolity.

Lucille
is waiting for a lesson after me, looking most superior. I expect she
heard the tape with my endeavours to sing and Webster bawling!

For the first time in many months, I come down Eloff Street elated, gay and happy.

EXTRACTS FROM MY TEENAGE DIARIES – JULY 1962

1 July – Go to Sunday School in the morning. Play for them but little boys are too much for me to handle! I get the play script from Gail and stay to church. Mr R very good.

2 July – Go to choir in the evening. I go up to 2c with Anna Marie and we see Hugh Rouse reading newscast. He won’t be doing that for much longer, I’m afraid.

We rehearse quite hard. Ruth is away and Gill is not there so I talk to Scots couple and a girl who is doing the same TC exam as me in August. We have a pleasant time – it is nice to get to know others in the choir for Ruth and I have a tendency to live in a little world or our own. Iris gives me a lift home.

3 July – I work extremely hard today and enjoy it. I hear JB Priestley talking about Ryder Haggard. He has a lovely, soothing voice.

[image error]Adjudicating in Bulawayo

At night we all listen to Anne’s new programme – Music for Romance. I’m afraid the summing up of this would be tried and found wanting. She spoke nicely of course in a sophisticated and deep drawl but she didn’t play one of their records. When I first met her I thought her such a pet – unaffected, charming. She has changed.

4 July – I lunch with Mum in the Capinero and then I meet Gill who is going to collect her clarinet from Gerrit Bonn at the SABC. I go with her and say hello to Johan and Gerrit B. I wait in the foyer while she collects the clarinet and am fed peppermints by two girls who are waiting to go to the Radio Record Club.

I
go to Mrs S’s studio with Gill (complete with clarinet) and she
demonstrates it to me but not much sound comes out yet!

We do ear tests which go well and then I sight-sing – I do this far better than Gill. She is fairly impressed.

Rita, Mrs S and I have coffee and then I have a nice lesson with Mrs S in which she asks me to join her choir, the Sylvia Sullivan Choristers, which rehearses on Saturdays at noon. Should be fun. She is pleased with my work and I feel quite elated. She plays a record of the Chopin Mazurka I am working on.

There
is a picture of Webster in the Rhodesian paper just after his illness
and he looks really awful.

He is going to be in a film about a Boer who inherits an English title called Lord Oom Piet.

I
go to first play rehearsal at night and feel that I don’t do badly at
all. My North country accent is a fair treat. Fun!

5 July – Have lunch with mum again and then go to lunch hour concert which is crowded out. I see Roselle reclining in a box, Jill Harry, and the lady who sits next to Ruth at choir. Quite a few children are there and they make a lot of noise. Gideon Fagan conducts and Walter Mony is the soloist. He is very good but naturally is angry at the noise – I don’t blame him!

Listen to Webster at night. He continues The Yeomen and gives us Martyn Green. Unfortunately Webster’s voice is very croaky.

6 July – Go to studio and Anne answers the door looking really awful and I feel sorry for her. She tells me that Webster is very seriously ill indeed and is now in hospital.

On the fourth day of his trip to Bulawayo, he collapsed and the doctors thought he had pneumonia because he couldn’t breathe. He managed to return home and was examined by their doctor here who was so worried about him that he sent for a specialist. He took blood tests and decided that he had developed a fever. It was too expensive for him to be treated at home so they put him into the fever hospital with a temperature of 103 degrees. She isn’t allowed to see him and today someone from the municipality rang up and asked if she was the wife of the “suspected typhoid case.” She says he can’t have typhoid fever but they’ll have to wait a week before they have the results of the tests.

When I got home I look up typhoid fever in a medical book. Within seven days red spots develop so maybe he does have it. Also, the heart valves have been affected. Poor, poor Webster. I am so very sorry for him and I pray that he will be well.

She
makes us tea and I help and say (to cheer her up) that I liked her
programme. She says she thought she sounded rather dull and slow but
she’s rectified this in the second one. Let’s hope so!

My
exercises (due to shock maybe?) go out of tune and she says it may be
the result of my out-of-tune piano because I have a good ear. We go
through them again and they get a little better – but not much! She
says I must go through them bar by bar at home to get the tune firmly
imprinted in my mind.

Sweet Polly Oliver is quite good – a little dull perhaps – but good. Mayday Carol is also better and My Mother is technically perfect but needs a little more light and shade. The studies go very well and she says, “I see you’ve been doing what your Uncle Boo told you!” She asks to borrow the music to practise them if she’s going to be my accompanist at the exam. I’ve to collect them on Tuesday evening before choir. Also, I have to go a bit later at 4.30 for the next two weeks because the little boy is going on holiday.

I say I hope Webster will feel a bit better and that she’ll get good news of him. She puts on a face of studied tragedy. I’m so sorry for him and I do want him to get well. To think that only two months ago – almost to the day – he was so happy doing Drawing Room and kissing Ruth and me.

Go
to guild at night and we have the best evening for a long time. At
fellowship I pray in round of prayer – my first ever public prayer.
I pray for the sick but my heart was praying for Webster. We also
pray for the poor Sharpe girls whose father died of a heart attack on
Wednesday.

We
have a games evening and I play the piano. All very jolly and good
fun.

7 July – Go to rehearsal early – 8.30am and we work quite hard. Peter Spargo brings me home for tape recorder and we record hymn for communion which goes quite well.

[image error]Sylvia Sullivan with great-niece.

I go into Mrs S’s studio to sing in ensemble. Most of the girls are from Parktown Girls’ High. Mrs S makes me take the altos and then she comes in to helps us. She says she hopes to get a broadcast for us.

I
have lunch with parents in Galaxy and we see Susan Slade with
Connie Francis who is very good. All most enjoyable.

8 July – Go to Sunday School and play for them. Church is conducted by Mr Huth.

I
listen to Leslie Green, Die Goeie Ou Tyd, Time to Remember
and Life with the Lyons. Gary A is “bitterly disappointed
with Music for Romance”. Says that the public want to hear
her own recorded stage appearances. Good for Gary. I agree.

9 July – Develop another cold so as today is Family Day (alias The Queen’s Birthday) I nurse it – grue, ghastly etc!

10 July – Work and nurse cold in the morning. I phone Johan’s secretary to apologise for not attending choir tonight.

I
go into town to buy tissues and go up to the studio to collect music.
Anne answers and, lo and behold, she has left it on top of the piano
at home – she’s so sorry! What can she say? Will it be all right on
Friday. I expect so.

Webster has a normal temperature now and if he’s all right by Saturday they may let him out of hospital. As yet, they don’t know what’s the matter with him but I expect if his temperature is normal he must be quite well. I say, “I’m so glad,” – perhaps a little too fervently, but it is the truth.

She
is all apologies for not bringing the music but it doesn’t really
matter because I really wanted to know about Webster. Thank God he is
better.

11 July – Work in the morning and then go into town. I meet Eleanor – Ruth’s enemy – on the bus. She is affable and most la-de-da and talks about everything but Ruth. I rather think she used to be quite nauseated with Ruth and me drooling over Anne and Webster all the time!

I
have lunch in Ansteys with Mum and it is quite like old times. The
second trumpeter is still there drooling over his roast chicken and
green peas.

I go up to Mrs S’s and do ear tests with Elaine, Rita and Gill. Latter tells me that next week we are recording the commercial record unaccompanied. All goes well. We have coffee and then I have my lesson in which I do scales and a Czerny technical exercise which (I think) I sight-read well. Have to go and “perform” on Saturday immediately after play rehearsal – how ghastly!

Go to rehearsal at night – I don’t know my words very well – must really learn them. We practise with our recording. Peter S brings me home and also fetched me. He is a very easy chap to talk to but oh, so learned!

The record Net Maar ‘n Roos is on sale in Ansteys so evidently it couldn’t have been terribly popular.

12 July – Work very hard and listen to Leslie Green – recording in Trafalgar Square – talks of pigeons, rain, London bobbies and buses and makes me feel quite nostalgic about it all.

Am
now in bed waiting for G and S. It is a simply glorious programme. He
finishes The Yeomen and plays a record by “my dear old
friend, Winifred Lawson. Winnie made this in 1921.”

He then plays one of Sullivan’s part songs, The Long Day Closes – a record made after the funeral of Tommy Handley by eight of his singing friends – the most famous singers in Britain at that time – Norman Allin, Parry Jones, Trefor Jones and of course, “myself”. The proceeds went to the Tommy Handley Memorial fund. Good for them.

He
finishes with his own recording of Take a Pair of Sparkling Eyes
seeing he’s starting to play the Gondoliers next week. It is
very beautiful indeed and I enjoy it. Tonight was one of the
loveliest programmes he’s done for ages. I’m so happy he’s better.

13 July – I go up to studio and Anne is there listening to Leslie Green broadcasting from London. I say I listened yesterday and felt quite nostalgic hearing his broadcast from Trafalgar Square and him talking about the pigeons. She says they had a letter from him yesterday and he has absolutely fallen in love with London. He’s very pro-British – both his parents were from Yorkshire and had broad accents.

She
says that since Webster was taken ill she has felt more home-sick
than ever. She hates South Africa and simply can’t settle here.
“Maybe if I went back to Britain for a holiday that would settle me
but I just can’t settle here now!”

I say that my mother is just the same and she says that the people here are very ill-mannered. She has to put the car into the garage in Plein Street and people are ready to run her down and bump into her. She has reached the point where she stops her car and gives them a mouthful! She says, “Webster was always there to help me but now there’s no one.”

Webster
is getting out of hospital on Monday but the membranes of his heart
are severely damaged and next week he has to stay in bed and have a
cardiograph every day and then he’ll have to rest up for two or three
weeks. She went to see him through a glass and could only wave at him
but he was able to write her a letter on Tuesday.

My
singing goes quite well today – best for a long time. We do studies
and they are better for leaving them alone for a bit. Bedfordshire
Carol is still a bit out of tune but she says that if I “think
flat” on the D it should come right. I do this and it improves. My
Mother and Polly Oliver are better because of vast
practice. She says I must practise octaves and come down on all
vowels to achieve evenness. She praises (sincerely) the tone of my
voice and I feel elated.

She
says Ruth sent her a postcard and she feels so sorry for her still
being at school – I don’t! I envy her. We decide that after this
exam we’ll burn the music.

I have a nice long lesson today as Bill Perry doesn’t turn up. It is just like old times. I feel elated and light as air but a little sad for Anne being so homesick and poor Webster still being ill.

Anne has been under a terrible strain running the studio, worrying about Webster and feeling homesick. If I had such a darling husband as him I’d feel pretty awful too.

14 July – I go to Mrs S’s studio. I play my pieces to Elaine and she plays hers to me. We work a little and then have coffee and cake with Mrs S, and her sister, Mrs Du Plessis. We work a bit more. Elaine says my pieces are excellent and then we play to Mrs S’s friend, Miss Cameron. The choir arrives and I play the piano for the altos. They all know Ruth and are impressed that I sing in the SABC choir. Their names are Shelley, Linda and Leila.

Go
in the afternoon to see West Side Story which is, in my
opinion, rather ghastly and too modern and ugly for words. That’s not
music – that’s dis-chord!

15 July – Go to Sunday school and play the piano for them. I go with Joan to hear Peter C’s sermon – a great improvement from the last one. He speaks slower which aids matter considerably.

Listen
to the radio – Leslie Green, Time to Remember and Life
with the Lyons.

16 July – Have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to get the unaccompanied song in tune but have found another that I can sing perfectly in tune so I’m going to try and learn it beautifully for Friday and hope that Anne will allow me to sing it in the exam. It’s a bit late but I think it would be worth it.

In the evening I go to the SABC and the first person I come across is Gill V complete with her clarinet. I go and have supper with her.

We
go into 1a to make the recording as Guest Stars of the Kreel
Orphanage on the commercial record they have made and which is soon
to be released. We sing our two Volksliedjies, unaccompanied. We
manage to complete one song by the interval. Graham Green is the
controller – he also did the controlling for Drawing Room. A
photographer comes to take our picture.

At the interval, I try to play Gill’s clarinet and we all have a hilarious time. The noise I produce gets more squeaky as I proceed! After interval we record the first song Die Lied van Jong Suid Afrika. The sentiment of both songs is decidedly pro-Nat.

We
also get our wages tonight which is perhaps the best part of the
whole evening. I am quite surprised by the amount – far more than I
expected. My first fee for singing!

17 July – Work and then have lunch with Mum in Ansteys. I treat her with my fee!

Work
hard in the afternoon and listen to Leslie G in Kew Gardens.

Anne’s programme at night is still pretty awful as far as the music is concerned but her speaking is sweet and next fortnight she’s to play the Vagabond King so let’s hope it’s their beautiful recordings of it.

18 July – Work hard and then have lunch with mum and go up to the SS studio. Elaine and I sight-read duets together. We have coffee and then I have my lesson which goes quite well. I play on 1 September. I’m not looking forward to it.

We
go for a drive at night to Hillbrow.

19 July – Go to shops, library, and park today with Shandy and we have fun.

I listen to Leslie G. He goes to the Tower of London where there is an actual rehearsal of the D’Oyly Carte company for Yeomen of the Guard. Then he goes to Petticoat Lane and tells of having high tea for 3/-. Am now in bed waiting for You Know Who!

I get rather a shock because Webster does not do the programme this evening. They say that unfortunately he is indisposed, so Paddy O’Byrne reads from his script. I feel like howling, honestly I do! It sounds absolutely ridiculous but it would be futile if I could never hear or see him again. I’m shocked with myself for saying this but I’m afraid it’s true. I cannot help myself.

Paddy O’B is excellent and from Webster’s script he tells us, “A pupil of mine lent me a record because he thought I was one of the singers. I made it such a long while ago that I’d forgotten about it. It has George Baker, Alice Moxon and Dennis Noble on it, and of course, myself. “ It is lovely – a selection from Gondoliers and his voice is glorious.

“This
small company was called the Light Opera Company but we didn’t mind
not being in the full company because the pay was the same.”

He
starts with the overture to the Gondoliers and says, “I saw
The Gondoliers in Birmingham the night before my audition and
thought how bright and fresh everything looked. Imagine my dismay
when the next morning I walked on to the stage and saw such tatty and
dingy props! But who am I to disillusion the theatre-going public who
have been my bread and butter for so many years?”

Paddy
O’B goes on with the story. I feel so sorry that Webster wasn’t able
to do it himself. I hope to heaven he is a bit stronger now. It’s so
difficult to imagine such a strong, dependable, kindly man like that
very ill and weak but no doubt he is and he must get better.

20 July – Go to the library and then to the studio in the afternoon. Anne answers the door and once more is in the middle of listening to Leslie G. I go in and listen too. He is on the train on his way to Edinburgh and describes the carriage, the friendly ticket collectors, the punctual time-keeping and the fast train. He went to visit a friend of Anne’s (Babs) and thought her garden was the loveliest in England.

Anne says that hearing him talk about all that she remembers so well makes shivers go down her spine and she feels so homesick. Strangely enough, I do too. When I listen to these programmes I always want to cry.

Webster
is home now but he is still very weak and has to stay in bed. Last
night and today he had a most terrible pain in his chest at the back
of his breast bone so she called the doctor, and the specialist is
coming for a cardiograph tomorrow. The virus cannot be killed and
will only go in its own good time.

She tells me to come at a quarter to four next week and then, after my lesson, we can listen to Leslie Green and have tea together. That should be great fun.

I
moot Hush My Dear and Anne is delighted with it. She says I
must cover it more and all will be well. She spoke to Webster about
the other one and he said he thought it was a state of mind with me.
If he can say things like that he must be getting better.

All
my songs go really well today and she is delighted. She says I am now
singing quite beautifully and interpreting the songs well. Exercises
are good and she says that my attack must be bang in the middle of
the note. We finish with scale exercises. I think, with a bit of
luck, I should pass the flipping exam!

Anne
says that it is very tiring to sing properly because of the
concentration it requires. Someone told her that it was simply
pleasure, but brother, that is a fib!

I
tell her to give Webster my love and tell him that I hope he will
soon be well. She says, “God bless you, Jean,” and I depart.

I don’t know whether her awful gnawing homesickness makes her sweeter and more sincere but I do know that these last two lessons have been glorious and such fun, even though she’s worried about him. I think I cheer her up in some funny way – it must be that I’m British and love Britain as much as she does and she can confide how homesick she is to me when she can’t to a South African. She used to make a pretence of adoring this country but now she doesn’t have to because she knows that I understand how she feels.

Go
to guild at night and we have a talk on guide dogs by young, handsome
Mr Dawson and a demonstration by a lovely Alsatian. Very interesting.

21 July – Go to rehearsal for play and we mess around at the piano. Joan Rudman plays and I sing and they are greatly impressed and it gives me good practice at the same time.

Go to the studio and do ear tests with Pam and Olive. We have choir practice – only 3 altos and 4 sopranos are there. We combine with the sopranos today and it sounds very good.

Have
lunch with parents at Galaxy and we see Follow that Dream with
Elvis Presley who is quite decent for a change and very funny.

22 July. – Go to Sunday school. Playing and lesson go well.

In
the afternoon the Alexanders come with Inge. They have a nice new
Opel Rekord.

I
listen to Leslie G and he plays a lovely record by Anne and Webster
which I record. I turn over to Die Goei Ou Tyd and Francois
van Heyningen plays a section from Glamorous Night with
Webster singing Shine Through My Dreams and Fold Your Wings
with Muriel Barron. Sunday has some really good radio programmes.

23 July – Leslie G is in Scotland – Loch Lomond, Stirling and Edinburgh.

Go to SABC at night. We start on Messiah and I really enjoy it and sight- read it well. Ruth is due tonight but she doesn’t arrive. I suppose she’s too exhausted after flying back.

Gill,
Iris and I have coffee at interval and Gill says hello to Uncle Edgar
and he grins at me as well. We do the Ninth Symphony after
interval. Poor Iris might be having an operation soon.

24 July – Leslie G’s programme from the UK doesn’t arrive in time so we hear one he made in Jo’burg before he left. Quite disappointing not to hear from ‘home’ as Anne calls it.

25 July – Go to music in the afternoon and do ear tests wit Gill and Rita. Mrs S asks Gill to adjudicate at an Indian Eisteddfod at beginning of September so she asks me to go with her and be a second opinion. I agree to do this – will be a very good experience.

I
have lesson which goes well. Mrs S says I must come as soon as
rehearsal is over on Saturday and work with Elaine.

Go
to rehearsal at night and it goes reasonably well. Archie is quite
good but Shorty is hopeless. I cannot imagine play going on on 17
August.

Mummy listens to the radio in order to record Leslie G but instead of him, John Silver is on. He says that the programme hasn’t arrived yet but one wonders if his programmes were a little too pro-British for the SABC. They just have to put it on for Friday for we’ve such a lovely day planned and it must come off!

26 July – Have a rather grim day of feeling ill again. However, I manage to listen to Leslie G – he’s back, thank goodness. He’s still in Scotland and talks of Edinburgh, Stirling and Falkirk.

I am now in bed waiting for G and S and wondering who will broadcast it tonight. Paddy O’B does it again. The station announcer says once again that he is sorry that Webster is still indisposed. Paddy O’B goes on with the Gondoliers which is nice and also plays a quartet with Henry Lytton, Bertha Lewis and Leo Sheffield, lent to Webster by a friend – Norman Roberts. Henry Lytton is quite fabulous. Webster says in his script that he thinks they were far livelier than they are today. Paddy O’B sounds horrified at this!

27 July – Go up to studio. Peter (someone) a tenor with a glorious voice is singing the Serenade from Frasquita and Hear my song, Violetta. Anne says, “We’ll lend you our record of it. It’s a very good recording – we made it when we were young and sprightly and still had voices!” Hear her say that Webster is once again in the fever hospital!

Go in and in my excitement say, “What’s happened to Webster?” Anne says that he is terribly ill once again. Over the weekend he had terrible pains and the specialist decided that his heart was all right. It must be indigestion so he put him on a diet – no alcohol ( which he couldn’t tolerate for he must have at least one whisky and soda before dinner) and only ten cigarettes a day. The pains persisted and on Tuesday they were so bad that he had to have the doctor in again and his temperature was up. Doctor decided that he had better go to hospital again and have x-rays as the virus must have flared up again.

Wednesday and Thursday they were too busy to do x-rays but they thought it was either gallstones or something pressing against the heart.

Today Anne went along and sat with him while he was x-rayed and the radiographer was terribly rude and said he’d have to come back tomorrow (when there’ll be about 50 people there!). He said he had no intention of coming back again, so she said, “Do as you please. If you want to die, I don’t care!”

However, whether he likes it or not, he has to go back tomorrow. They’re allowing him to have a gin and tonic because he can’t go without it. He absolutely hated having to go back to hospital and is in a grim room. I’m so very sorry for him.

Anne says she thinks perhaps his gums could have affected his system but they won’t listen to her. She says she’d rather have all this happening to her because he’s in such agony.

We
decide that we’ve wasted so much time we can’t listen to Leslie G
today but I have tea anyway.

I sing – not too badly – considering. I haven’t been very well myself but I feel wretched about him. We go through everything and as tickets haven’t arrived Anne has to phone Arnold Fulton tonight. She says I can phone her at home on Sunday night to hear the outcome of the call. After all that work the tickets must come!

I say goodbye and send Webster my love. Poor, poor pet – he’s had one hang of a bad time and he must get better. How I pray he will get well.

When I get home Ruth has phoned. She phones again at 5.30 and tells me simply astounding unbelievable news – they (her family) have won £40,000 on the Ndola sweep! Can you imagine! I am utterly delighted and she tells me her parents are driving up from Natal today in a state of great excitement. I ask what they will do with all that money and she says they will probably go overseas and buy a new car. I am thrilled for her sake. She is a darling and deserves all the happiness she can get.

She
says she phoned Anne but I’m the only one she has told about the
money and she’s terribly sorry about him. It shows what a sweet
lovely child she is to be concerned with him after winning £40,000!
She’s coming to choir on Monday – I can’t wait to see her. I’m
surprised at myself for I don’t feel envious. I’m just delighted for
her.

28 July – Go early in the morning for rehearsal. Shorty, who is supposed to be my husband in the play, insists on giving me slobbery kisses and putting his arms around me at every opportunity. I survive, however.

Go
to town where I see Johan in a bottle-green t-shirt and sports jacket
looking far removed from being Anton Hartman’s Sorcerer’s
Apprentice!

I
arrive at SS studio in time for coffee and then practise Viva Voce
with Pam and Elaine. This proves rather grilling with Mrs S listening
to every word. Luckily I have to ask the questions rather than answer
them. The choral singing goes rather nicely. Shelly, Leila, Mary and
Belinda Bozzoli are the altos.

Have
lunch with parents in Galaxy and come across Sally Bowling there. She
looks older and more sophisticated than I remember her. She doesn’t
go skating much now.

We see The Silver Key by Edgar Wallace – very exciting, and an excellent short on Russian culture – singing, ballet etc.

29 July – Go to Sunday school and play the piano. David Dury shows me all the postcards from Ireland. I promise Mr Russell to train the soloists which should be fun. He gives an excellent sermon today.

In the afternoon we have another rehearsal which goes well. Play is shaping up very well indeed. Later I have to phone Anne. She has not phoned Arnold Fulton yet. “I just haven’t had a minute with the two programmes. Would you do it?” She is so insincerely charming that I can’t really refuse. I say I’ll phone tomorrow afternoon. I’ll phone her about it on Tuesday.

Webster is a bit better and had an x-ray for gallstones today and is to have a stomach x-ray on Wednesday. She doesn’t sound terribly upset about him either – she is in one of her more callous moods tonight!

30 July – Work hard and intermittently spend time phoning Arnold Fulton but he’s not there.

Go
to SABC tonight. Ruth arrives and is quite unchanged despite the
£40,000. They are going to buy a Rover and her parents are going to
Scotland and then around the world in September. They’re going to
have another two servants and each of the girls has £100 to spend on
clothes. She says she doesn’t intend to swank about it or get
big-headed but she’s quite thrilled at the minute.

She says that Anne is acting very strangely and she is disgusted that Anne is charging us a fee for accompaniment. We enlarge on this. Ruth is rather sweet and says, “Money is no object to me now but I still think it’s a bit much.”

She
says they sent Webster a whole lot of books to read in hospital. I’d
like to be able to do that too, but alas – impecunious me!

We sing Messiah and Gill is rather acid about Tufty’s successful audition with Bruce Anderson. “They have to take people whether they can sing or not!” Poor Tufty.

At interval, Ruth and I disappear and she tells me about her holiday, Alan and Anne and Webster. She doesn’t seem so gone on them any more.
She
goes and asks Johan for her wages and says, “The more I get, the
more I want! Life’s too short not to be happy!” Some philosophy
this!

We do the Ninth and then Johan tells us that next week, as the orchestra is going on tour, we shall probably have Edgar Cree to take us. Come home with Iris and feel quite elated.

31 July – I get through to Arnold Fulton today and discover that he is as Scottish as the day he was born. He says he sent the forms to them so they must have gone astray. He tells me to fill in a form with all the particulars and send them to him.

I phone Anne and tell her this news. She tends on the brittle side but it quite affable. Webster has no gallstones and just has to have his stomach x-rayed and he might be home on Thursday all going well. I say that it’s lovely about Ruth isn’t it? And she says, “It’s not true!” Presumably, this is an expression of pleasure.

Have
lunch in Ansteys with Mum and post letter to Arnold Fulton. Leslie G
is in the Midlands today.

Listen to Anne’s programme tonight and have to say that it is quite fabulous. The reason is that she plays their own records and talks about Webster a lot. She plays Wunderbar, Only a Rose and Love Me Tonight. She says, “You’ll have to excuse the surface of that record. It’s probably getting old, just as Webster and I are also!” There is a slight tremor in her voice at this – somehow, it touches my heart. Her programme is fabulous and if it goes on like that it will probably run for ages.

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EXTRACTS FROM MY TEENAGE DIARIES – JUNE 1962

1 June – Go to studio and Webster answers door wearing Wanderers Blazer. Christopher is having another unsuccessful lesson. He argues about opening throat and mouth and they argue back at him. Anne tells him that he will have to send his cheque and remember that there are 5 Fridays in the month.

Anne comes into the kitchen and talks to me. When Christopher leaves Anne goes to phone and Webster says in his possessive voice, “And how is Jean today?” I say, “Fine, and yourself?” He looks slightly pained and says, “Not too bad.”

We do exercises and he is impossible at trying to transpose on the piano, so I do it for him. He gets rather a shock. Must say that the piano is lovely. We carry on to his bad accompaniment.

Anne returns, complaining about the cold and all goes smoother. We do the unaccompanied piece and they say that it is good too and if I do go slightly sharp it is barely noticeable. He tells me to open my mouth wider and I say, “I can’t,” and he says “Oh, Jean, of course, you can!”

We
also do My Mother on tape and this goes very nicely. Anne says
that my tone and voice are lovely but, “Don’t be so stingy with
it.”

They are very affable to me but jump down each other’s throats at an awful rate. “Put that cigarette out!” snaps Anne. As for the woman who comes after me, Anne says, “Oh, hello Mrs.. I shan’t be a moment.” She comes back to the studio and pulls a tortured face!

2 June – Go into town with Dad to fetch score of Tales of Hoffman from the music library and then go to Thrupps to meet Mum. While I am waiting there, who should come and look in the window but Leslie Green. I see that he goes into Polliacks Building presumably to the studio for tea – lucky creature!

In the SABC Bulletin there is an article mentioning the fortnightly programme Anne is to do starting about 19 June.

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3 June – Play piano in Junior Sunday School today. Am given class of eight-year-olds including David Duly, a very sweet but ardent little boy.

In the G and S programme Webster plays his recording of The Lost Chord – about the third time he has played it but it is worth hearing more than once.

5 June – Listen to Leslie Green. He is going abroad soon and has had a yellow fever injection.

I
go to a rehearsal at the Duncan Hall. Hartman and Company don’t turn
up! I am livid as I had to drag poor Dad out for nothing.

6 June – Go to Doreen’s twenty-first birthday party at night and have good fun.
Betty
is there and also Mavis Knox. She has been learning singing for two
years. She sang in this year’s eisteddfod but wasn’t placed. Peter is
there and we dance and he tells me he’s leaving at the end of August
to go to Sheffield for a year and isn’t really looking forward to it.
Party finishes about midnight.

7 June – Go to town and have lunch with Mum. I go to the lunch hour concert in which Johan conducts, and Gert Potgieter is the soloist. I say hello to German cellist and meet a lady from the choir.

Outside of Ansteys I meet Mrs O in a skirt just like mine and a suede jacket. I tell her of the happenings of last night and she is disgusted. She says Johan might ask us to resign from the choir if we go into the opera, and the choir is better for us at this stage.

I
buy a skirt after much searching and see Peter Spargo on the bus
coming home.

Ruth phones to tell me that owing to the exams she is writing in August she feels it would be wiser to leave the opera. Says she had a very distressing lesson on Sunday and at the end of it she felt miserable. They told her that they criticise her because her voice is worth bothering about – there are only 6 or 7 pupils whose voices are worth worrying about and therefore they criticise them. They certainly criticise me. She says she’s sure I’m one of the chosen few!

Tells me that Alan (her boyfriend) had a car crash and is suffering from shock. The Parktown girls who were at the Stravinsky rehearsal put the event into the School magazine saying that she and Mrs S sang in the SABC choir!

I tell her about Anne making faces behind people’s backs and we agree that we ought to take what Anne says with a pinch of salt.

8 June  Have a last look at the theory for the exam and go to the studio. Webster answers the door and, as I have skates with me, he says, “Hello, what have we here? Been or going?” Anne tells me that she used to skate with some girlfriends until she nearly broke her neck.

I tell them about goings-on at the opera and they are quite disgusted. We see the crowns being removed from His Majesty’s buildings and I say perhaps they will replace them with heads of Dr Verwoerd. Anne says she really hates this country. She tells me they are also teaching in Boksburg now and she finds it rather tiring.

9 June – Go to write the theory exams at the Selbourne Hall. We sit in rows rather like the workhouse and Arnold Fulton regards us closely in case anyone cheats. All goes well.

In
Pritchard Street I bump into a dreamy-eyed Ruth who tells me she’s
been “with them” for an hour and ten minutes. They discussed
Wednesday’s happenings and are furious and want someone – maybe Mr
O – to write to the paper about it.

I
go to the Old Girls Reunion with Betty and Doreen and see a number of
old school friends and teachers there.

I
am developing laryngitis.

10 June – Remain in bed with laryngitis. Listen to G and S. Webster continues with Ruddigore and says that when they were in Ireland (just after the revolution) a small Union Jack was taken on stage. They had to crawl home to their lodgings to avoid the wrath of the irate Irish.

11 June – Still ill. Sir Malcolm “my old friend and colleague” is coming to South Africa next year.

12 June – Mum and I are both in bed with laryngitis! It is her birthday today.

13 June – Ruth phones. She talks of her sisters and tells me that they are both prettier than her. “My middle sister is a real classic beauty but she isn’t a very nice person!”
She
is busy with exams.

14 June – Go to lunch hour concert to allay boredom in the house. Norman Bailly, a baritone, sings and is really excellent. I see Andy Johnson, the drummer. Anton Hartman is the conductor.

15 June – Still a bit fluish but I go to my lesson anyway. Anne answers door dressed in “fly-away” coat and big orange hat! She is affable and I go into kitchenette and hear Christopher braying away having most unsuccessful lesson in which Anne asks him coldly, “Do you ever practise?”
They
are starting to paper the kitchen and are having the studio
redecorated.

When
I go in she goes to phone someone. Webster says to me, “Well, my
lady, d’ye know what we’re going to do today? We’re going to record
the exercises. Smile; make the adjudicator enjoy them and charm him
at the same time!”

We do exercises which go very well and he is pleased but tells me to do them a bit quicker so that they sound jollier!

We go on to the studies and he says I’m still putting a few ‘hs’ into them and I must constantly think about not doing that! He says that maybe if I accent the ahs I’ll be able to get out of the habit. The Germans stick in “h” but, being English, he cannot tolerate the habit. In oratorio, it sounds awful and he is distressed that Jennifer Vyvyan does it. We do it again and it goes better.

Anne
finishes phoning and comes out to tell him that as two people have
‘flu and can’t come, she’s put off the third one as well. He is
delighted and says to me sardonically, “We love our work!”

We
record the two exercises and although the tone is good, the tempo
drags and I don’t observe the hairpins. He says that Ruth has exactly
the same fault and we both have to learn the expression marks off by
heart. He says I must think of it as a gay dance – even though it
isn’t and must interpret the studies as I would songs. In the second
study I mustn’t lag on the run and must practise it – also there’s
a place where I must breathe where I don’t!

I certainly learn a lot today if it’s any consolation to me. Anne tells that their servant, Hilda has ‘flu too and is delirious and singing. He says he wishes he could have caught her singing.

He comes down with me on the lift to put 3d in the meter. We have to wait ages for it and spend time moaning about it. When it arrives he displays his excellent manners. The building worker comes on as well and he is most affable to him. He ushers me out, hand on my shoulder all the way, talks jovially to the worker about RCA, and tells me to have a look at the studies at home. He knows they aren’t particularly nice but I must have a good attitude of mind towards them. He smokes his famous Gold Flake and when he says goodbye to me he dashes up Pritchard street, still smoking.

16 June – Go into town in the morning and do various chores – library etc. Meet Dad in Galaxy and then we see Circle of Fire at the Empire – excellent.

Freddie
Carlé plays Hear My Song, Violetta by my friends and says, “I
hope Anne and Webster are listening up in Johannesburg. Greetings to
you.”

17 June – Sunday school. Play piano and have a fresh collection of little boys to teach.

Listen
to G and S at night and it is lovely. He starts playing the Yeomen
of the Guard and bursts into I have a Song to Sing-O
and plays a record made 40 years ago. “Listen to dear old Peter
Dawson as he was when a very young man of 40!” Lovely.

18 June – Work hard during the day and go to the SABC at night. First person I meet is Andy Johnson. Sit with Anna-Marie and Hester, and see John Walker, Douggie Laws, Ken Espen and Hugh Rouse, also Harry Stanton. Quite a collection.

Go
with Gill for dinner and when we come back Johan asks us to go to his
office to collect the Stravinsky score. He is most affable and has a
lovely comfortable office.

Ruth
comes and tells me of a great calamity in Domestic Science over a
misunderstanding about the “thrift article” she had to make this
afternoon. She spent the afternoon crying while she was making it –
poor Ruth.

We
work on Ninth Symphony and Die Lied van Jong Suid Afrika
– the latter for a commercial recording with an orphanage choir.

Ruth tells me at the interval that Anne has ‘flu so she had him on Saturday and had a wonderful time.
Poor
Anne. I was quite horrible about her on Friday and she was probably
feeling ghastly. Ruth says she prefers having him to teach her.
Anne’s fine as a friend but she doesn’t like having lessons with her.
I come home with Iris Williams who is nice.

19 June – Practise in morning and then go into town for a photograph for an audition. Have lunch with Mum. Come home on bus with Gill Mc D.

21 June – Go to lunch hour concerts and guess who I have sitting next to me? Mr Ormond. He says that he had a feeling his secretary had asked to leave early to go to the concert so he was there to check up on her. He is very affable – talks about music, the opera, the Booths, and tells me they’re going to have tea in the mayoral parlour with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra soon and is delighted about it. He’s rather a snob but quite sweet. I say that I see Walter Mony is going to play and he says he isn’t good enough. I’ll swear WM was sitting in front of us so I feel awful.

Concert conducted by Edgar Cree is excellent and soloist, Helena van Heerden plays well.
Go
to Mrs S and have a good lesson. She says I have improved vastly.
Listen to Leslie Green at home – he is going abroad tomorrow.

22 June Anne’s 52nd birthday. Go to studio and Anne answers door – still wearing a hat. Christopher is singing The Volga Boatman – very badly.

After
his lesson I go in and say I heard she has had ‘flu. She says that
she hasn’t had ‘flu but Webster has gone down with it and as he is
supposed to go to Bulawayo on Monday to adjudicate at the eisteddfod
there, she’s awfully worried. His temperature was 102 degrees. On
Sunday he felt awful and couldn’t breathe and she thought he was
having a coronary thrombosis. She tried to be calm and sent him to
lie down and called the doctor. Antibiotics don’t work with him so
the doctor said he was going to let him sweat it out. She says he
looks really haggard – about ninety – and has lost a lot of
weight.

“Poor
darling, I do feel sorry for him, but what can I do?” She stops and
then says, “Honestly, Jean, I’ve had more than I can stand with his
abscessed tooth and now this. If I have any more trouble, I don’t
know what I’ll do.” Her eyes fill with tears and I feel simply
dreadful and terribly sorry for her.

She
says that if he can’t go he wants her to go but she can’t leave the
studio to him because he isn’t in a fit state to deal with it.

Sing
all three songs and studies and they all go very well. I can sing
much better when Webster isn’t there, although I adore him!

She is pleased with singing but tells me to sing through the vowels of Polly Oliver. She promises to look up the JV record to see from which county it comes. We talk about the studio where we will do the exam – shall be glad when it is over – and all is reasonably cheerful although I feel quite miserable about Webster.

I
say goodbye and that I hope Webster will be all right and able to go
to Rhodesia. Poor Anne. It is her birthday today but as I learnt this
from the Stage Who’s Who I felt embarrassed about wishing her
a happy birthday because she’d know then that I know her age. I wish
I could have cheered her up today – she really is a darling no
matter how insincere she is at times, and she is having a horrible
time at the moment.

Go
to guild at night – we have a debate about eugenics which is
reasonably interesting if a bit depressing.

[image error]Webster arrives in Bulawayo to adjudicate the eisteddfod.

Anthony
Quail in Stoep Talk wishes Anne a happy birthday and quotes a
bit from the Stage Who’s Who!

Happy
birthday to: Anne Ziegler, well-known for musical and romantic roles
on stage and in films, was born in Liverpool, England.

Irené
Eastwood, her real name, married Webster Booth, the well-known tenor
in 1938 and two years later began their double act.

They
have made extensive tours of South Africa, Australia and New Zealand
and have appeared at many of the leading theatres and music halls in
London and the Provinces.

In
1956, due to the high rate of British taxation, the Booths settled in
South Africa. A year later, Anne Ziegler played her first straight
stage role in South Africa in Angels
in Love at the then Reps theatre, and has since appeared in
numerous plays, operas and SABC broadcasts.

23 June – Go into town with Mummy in the morning but I feel very ill and almost faint so am brought home again in a taxi! Feel absolutely ghastly for the rest of the day. However, we manage to get the SABC bulletin which tells of Anne’s new programmed called Music for Romance starting a week on Tuesday. There is an article about her in which she is very arch and talks about Boo! Imagine using that name in public!

24 June – Very weak today. I listen to Time to Remember at night presented by Leslie Bayley. Also listen to Life with the Lyons which I love.

Webster
– poor darling – is wonderful tonight and goes on with Yeomen
of the Guard – vamping, kissing and marrying with Martyn Green
– all glorious.

25 June – Go to choir at night. Gill comes first and then Ruth. I talk to her beforehand and hear a story about poor Webster. As Ruth had to return a record to them she went along after church last night still in her choir robes. She asked Anne if she could see him and Anne agreed reluctantly. She says she’s never seen anyone looking quite so ill in her life. There he was, lying with all the clothes pulled up over him and his hair hanging all over his face, his medicine bottles on one side, looking absolutely ghastly. Ruth says she felt like crying for him – he looked so ill. Poor, poor sweet old Webster – Bless him!

Apparently, it is quite definite that he went to Bulawayo today.

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We work hard and practise madly. Ruth is going on holiday and promises to write – I hope she will. No one could ever have a nicer friend than Ruth. We work hard again and then Gill, Iris and I go for coffee and Iris gives me a lift home.

I don’t honestly think I would have dared to ask Anne to see Webster when he was so sick. In fact, it was rather a cheek, but I can see Ruth’s point in a way. I know she adores and worships him and I’m afraid I do too.

27 June – Work in the morning and have lunch with Mum. Go up to Mrs S’s studio and Gill tells me she’s going to have clarinet lessons with delightful, handsome, bearded oboist, Gerrit Bon, who plays in the orchestra! We do ear exercises and sing and it is all rather fun. Svea and Elaine have very bad colds.

At night Anne phones and before I go to the phone I know it is her. She says she has an appointment on Friday afternoon. We both know this is a lie – and seeing there are 5 Fridays in the month, do I mind not having a lesson. She’ll make it up in July when the little boy before me goes on holiday. I say that’s all right and ask after Webster. She says he went to Bulawayo on Monday looking absolutely ghastly but perhaps the heat up there will cure him. I say that he probably needs to be taken out of himself and I hope he’ll be all right. As she is obviously phoning oodles of people we say goodbye – see you a week on Friday. She isn’t really a very good liar.

I’m
going to listen to Make Mine Music to cheer me up!

28 June – Work in the morning and then have lunch with Mum and feel – I must admit – grim and depressed.

I go to the lunch hour concert. Johan conducts well but looks rather miserable also. The Lyra Vocal Quartet are soloists – Doris Brasch, Sarie Lamprecht, Gert Potgieter and Graham Burns. Gert P is the best singer. Sarie L looks and sings grimly. Doris B opens her mouth a mile and Graham B sings well but looks morose. They are very good as a whole.

30 June – Sleep late today. Ruth will be gone on holiday by now. Mum and Dad go to a party in the afternoon and we are going to pictures at night. We see Pollyanna with Hayley Mills and Jane Wyman. It is a really lovely show and a great tear-jerker. We have supper out afterwards.

EXTRACTS FROM MY TEENAGE DIARIES – MAY 1962

1 May – I go to the Durban icerink in the morning. It is delightfully modern and I skate well.

2 May – We go to the beach in the morning and swim in the surf. We meet Lyndith Irvine and her parents there. They live in Salisbury now. Dad and I see Light on the Piazza in the afternoon and at night the Irvines visit us at the hotel and I play the piano.

3 May – Am listening to Drawing Room with Peggy Haddon and Anna Bender playing duets. Webster says, “I give you – the misses Haddon and Bender!” Signor Vitali plays the trumpet – he remarked on the wonderful playing when we met him on that memorable evening last month. He says, “Wonderful! You make it sound so easy.” After Sarie Lamprecht sings, he says, “Bravo, Miss Lamprecht! That was quite charming.” He sings three Irish songs – the Ballymure Ballad, Trottin’ to the Fair and Maira, My Girl. I wish I could have recorded them.

Dad and I have a swim in the afternoon.

4 May – We go to the beach in the morning and have fun in the surf. I am beginning to tan.

At night we go to the Irvines’ hotel and listen to a small band in stuffy “intimate” lounge. Lyndith has a Crème de Menthe. They went to the Oyster Box today. They also visited Anne Ahlers (friend of Penny Berrington)

5 May – Go to town and postcards to friends and then see The Quiet Man with John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara. Good in parts – like the curate’s egg!

The
Irvines phone to say the Webbs have arrived so we go to their hotel
to see them. Jackie Keenan is with them. I play the piano in the
lounge after walk.

6 May – Go to the beach in the morning and then it starts to rain. After lunch I have a rest and then play the “pianoforte” in the “drawing room”!

I listen to Webster at night. He continues with the Mikado.

7 May – Go to town and have lunch in Paynes department store and swim in the afternoon.

8 May – Swim in the surf. Dad and I see The Guns of Navaronne, with Gregory Peck and David Niven.

I
am now listening to the Norma Broadcast – the one we did in
Afrikaans at the Aula. Mimi is excellent but Jossie B sounds very
worried and a little flat.

9 May – Go to town and have tea in Paynes. In the afternoon go on a coach tour to Umhlanga Rocks . We stop at the Chevron Hotel for tea and go onto the beach which is lovely. We pass through Glen Ashley (where Miss Ursula Scott lives).

I listen to Drawing Room (the second programme with Anne singing duets)

10 May – We go to beach and I come back to listen to repeat of Drawing Room. Anne’s Smilin’ Thro’ is beautiful but the other things she sings are shadows of her former glory.

The Irvines call to say goodbye. They leave tomorrow night by train for a long journey to Rhodesia. I play the piano to a packed lounge at night and they applaud loudly.

11 May – In the afternoon we go to the Playhouse to see Lover Come Back, with Doris Day and Rock Hudson.

12 May – Last full day of holiday. We go to town and have tea in Paynes with pianist playing the piano. In the afternoon I go for a ride in a motor boat with Dad then come back to pack.

13 May – Last day. We take a taxi to the airport after delightful holiday. The Marsdens meet us at Jan Smuts and take us home. Shandy is very glad to see us again! I listen to G and S at night.

14 May – Go to SABC at night. Hester and company tell me that Stravinsky is progressing nicely and there are oodles of professional singers augmenting the choir. He will conduct us on Saturday night.

See Gill and Ruth. Latter is thrilled to see me again and tells me she has been busy with exams and was delighted with my card. Johan works us hard, and guess who is singing in the chorus? Jossie Boshoff! Anton H arrives and tells us how honoured we should feel to be singing with Stravinsky who is no conductor but a very great composer and musician.

Ruth
says she thinks Webster is being snobbish and big by refusing to sing
in the chorus as all the good singers are in it anyway. Anne, says
she, is finished and they should both stop singing publicly. “They’ve
had their day,” says she.

I suppose it wouldn’t have hurt Webster’s reputation to sing with us. It would have been very sporting of him but I can understand his point of view.

15 May – Listen to half of the English version of Norma in the evening. Mimi and Jossie B’s Afrikaans accents are very much in evidence in their singing. Choir sounds much better here than in the Afrikaans version. I am reminded that at this particular recording, Webster kissed us – just to think of it!

16 May –. Singing practice goes really well and I am quite thrilled with it.

Go to piano in the afternoon. Mrs S kisses me, and when I go in a party is in progress – it is her birthday! Svea gives me cake and coffee. My lesson goes reasonably well and after it I practise scales to put in the time.

We go to Gill’s studio which is in a rather austere, grim building where music teachers of every variety conduct their lessons – Castle Mansions. Polliacks building is a palace compared with it. We go to Hillbrow to visit a friend of Gill’s – Lynn – a rather alarming but fascinating girl with unusual pictures arranged throughout her flatlet on the eighth floor.

We have supper in the Lili Marlene restaurant. We return to SABC after depositing Svea at Blood Transfusion and hang around in the foyer. Ruth arrives looking very smart. The orchestra is there and we practise hard. The tubist (Englishman) does his best to amuse us and Andy Johnson (the drummer) is good fun too. After hearing the piece with orchestra I can only ask, is Stravinsky mad? It certainly looks like it.

Mrs S is there sitting next to Jossie B. She is most affable to Ruth and me.

Ruth says that Drawing Room was a great flop. She hasn’t a good word to say about them, it seems. Iris Williams gives me a lift home.

17 May – I listen to Drawing Room – the one with trumpeter, Signor Vitali, and Sarie Lamprecht. Webster sings Friend o’ Mine and a Tosti song, Beauty’s Eyes.

Go to choir at night. Talk to Andy Johnson and Iris beforehand. We work very hard with Johan. Ruth tells me that she had a big fight with Eleanor (another member of the choir) who kept Ruth and her father waiting for twenty minutes.

18 May – Go to the studio and am greeted by a tired-looking Anne who says, “Hello, stranger.” She thanks me for my postcard and tells me that Piet van Zyl (rugby Springbok who won a prize at the recent eisteddfod) has had a stroke and she is most upset about it. Lucille’s grandmother died last week and Webster is having a most awful time with toothache. “He had toothache a couple of days ago and thought that a few whiskies and soda would sort it out but when it persisted he had to have the tooth out. There was an abscess in the gum and last night he sat up in bed trembling violently and I had to go and fetch two hot-water bottles for him. Today he had a penicillin injection so he’s sleeping now.”

Poor
Webster, and poor her having to do all the work and worry about him.

Singing
doesn’t go too badly today except for lower register.

We talk of Stravinsky and I tell her about Jossie Boshoff etc. She says that it was a pure cheek to ask Webster and not even offer him a fee – after all, they make their living by singing.

He phones and says he feels a bit better now and has woken up. She talks to him like a mother to her little boy and calls him darling. She says he can stand a lot of pain but this was all too much for him.

Say
goodbye – it’s nice to be back but what a lot of bad things have
happened since I’ve been away.

[image error]Stravinsky by Hilda Wiener



[image error]Anton Hartman meets Stravinsky at Jan Smuts Airport – May 1962

19 May – I am up early and go for my piano lesson. My chromatic scales are shocking. Have ear tests wit Elaine Commons and a few others. I hear someone whisper that I have a lovely voice – cheering. Leave with Margaret who tells me that she could sing top C recently but now she’s singing badly.

I
go to Ansteys with mother and after lunch we see The Absent Minded
Professor which is amusing.

Go to SABC at night. Anna Bender is at one piano; Gordon Beasley at the other, Kathleen Allister on the harp and Andy Johnson on drums. Robert Craft, a thin, pale man with glasses and lovely hands appears and in a soft American accent starts working with us on Symphony of Psalms. Edgar Cree and Johan are seated on the side, and Dora Sowden in a purple turban, sits next to Ruth.

Suddenly
Anton H enters with small, stooped little man with large nose, a bald
head and high forehead, wearing two pairs of glasses – it is the
Maestro Stravinsky, the greatest living composer and musician in the
world today. We all stand up and clap violently. I feel quite
overwhelmed.

We continue our rehearsal and Robert Craft is very happy with us. Johan talks a lot to Stravinsky who has taken a great liking to him. S follows the score, and beats his music violently.

Ruth
tells me that Anne phoned her at 6.30 this morning to say that
Webster was sick. Could she go to the house. Ruth agrees. At 8.30
Anne phones once more to tell her that he is far worse than before,
very ill indeed in fact, and she is calling the Doctor immediately so
don’t come.

There
is a picture of Anne in the paper being presented with a bouquet at
the Varsity production of Vagabond King. Her dress is very low
cut and hair rather strange. She looks tired.

[image error]

The
second half goes well. We do the Bach and Stravinsky looks happy and
so does Robert Craft. He lets us depart. “I’ll give a booby prize
to the last one out!” says he.

20 May. Sunday school. Afterwards Mr Rainer asks if I would care to take over the post as pianist in junior Sunday School and take a class there. As it will be good experience for me, I accept although I will be sorry to leave the little boys.

When
I get home parents tell me that I ought to phone Anne to see how
Webster is and if I can do anything at the studio for her. I do so,
telling Anne that I heard Webster was not very well yesterday.

“Were
you phoning to ask about him – how sweet! He’s still in a lot of
pain and getting penicillin but he’s improving slowly.’

“I’m so glad. I wondered, seeing I’ve nothing much to do, if I could help you in the studio next week? I could answer the door and the phone and so on if he wasn’t able to manage in.”

“Oh,
Jean, that’s terribly sweet of you and if he isn’t up to it, I’ll
phone you by all means, but I think he’ll be able to record his G and
S tomorrow morning and he might be well enough to go to the studio.”

“Well,
I hope he feels much better soon. Do tell him that.”

“I
will, Jean. I appreciate your offer very much and I know he will too.
God bless you, Jean. Goodbye.”

Listen
to G and S. Webster plays full recording of A Wand’ring Minstrel,
“conducted by my old friend and fellow Birmingham citizen, Leslie
Heward.” He promises to play Take a Pair of Sparkling Eyes
which is on the flip side, shortly.

He
continues with Mikado and tells us that Ko Ko means Pickles so
if you have a friend called Wilfred Pickles, as I have, it’ll be
quite in keeping to call him Ko Ko!”

21 May – Work hard at music. Anne doesn’t phone so I presume Webster is better now or perhaps she thinks I might be more of a hindrance than a help to her!

Parents
and self go to final rehearsal for Stravinsky concert in the City
Hall. Quite a lot of visitors arrive and sit in the gallery. Robert
Craft goes through the whole Symphony of Psalms which takes 25
minutes. Stravinsky and his wife sit in front with Edgar Cree and
listen to it all. Stravinsky is very tired and puts his feet up.

At interval Mum and Dad leave and I collect Ruth. We go across to café and she asks about Webster so I’m able to tell her that he’s improving. The Ormonds arrive – he dressed in a duffle coat and cap. Mr O says I brighten up the front row of the choir. They buy us cold drinks and we discuss everything.

Ruth
and I return and are overwhelmed by a group of Parktown Girls who are
most impressed with Ruth and me. Ruth tells them, “Of course, we’re
not just singing in the Stravinsky concert. We’re in the SABC choir
all the time.” She tells them that the Bach is pretty dreich! I
have a good laugh at the word but she doesn’t even realise how
Scottish it is.

We practise walking in. The steps are frightfully steep and we do the Bach again. We get tickets for tomorrow – “With the compliments of the SABC,” and some of them get Robert Craft’s autograph. He is conducting us, and Stravinsky is conducting Petrouchka. Mum and Dad enjoyed the rehearsal but thought it sounds a little weird.

22 May – Practise and then rest in the afternoon ready for the big occasion. I go into the City Hall in my long white dress. I stand with Ila Silansky and Anna Marie and we survey the audience. We go into the mayoral reception rooms to leave our things.

Ruth arrives wearing her mother’s coat so, as I have my coat on as well, we look like peas in a pod together. We go onto the stage of the crammed City Hall prepared for the concert. Anna Bender and Kathleen Allister look quite delightful as does Annie Kossman. Braam Ver Hoef, the orchestra leader, comes on and finally Robert Craft in white tie and tails, still looking very pale. We sing Vom Himmel Hoch and then he conducts the orchestra. After that we sing the Symphony of Psalms, which goes very well. We are given a tremendous ovation and Robert Craft brings Johan on to take a bow as the choirmaster. We all applaud him.

At the interval, we hear from all sides how wonderful everyone in the choir was – so young and talented, and wasn’t the symphony delightful? In the second half we are kept at least 5 minutes waiting for Stravinsky. Anton H leads him on to the stage. He looks around at the audience as though he is frightened and bows and waves his hands to them.

He conducts Fireworks and Petrouchka without a baton. His whole attention is focused on his music and he forgets the huge audience in the City Hall. He licks his finger each time he turns a page.

During Petrouchka he loses his place in the score but manages to find it again. Then it is all over and we hear the greatest ovation, possibly in the history of music in South Africa. Anton H has to lead him on three times more to take bows. The last time he leaves he pats each of the members of the orchestra that he passes, like a father.

We
go outside and I wait with Iris for her husband. We see Percy Tucker
and Dame Flora Robson with his party. She wears no make-up at all but
looks a rather sweet woman.

23 May – Dora S praises Stravinsky to the heights but thinks Robert Craft and choir were bloodless and insignificant.

Oliver
Walker praises Stravinsky but says Robert Craft is no “sorcerer’s
apprentice”. He says that the third movement of the Psalms was good
although the diction was poor. We sounded – says he – more
harassed than exalted!

Go to Mrs S in the afternoon and do a lot of ear tests. I’m very good at them. Gill groans and moans about Johan, and Hartman not allowing her to see Robert Craft who has some of her music, and weren’t the write-ups awful?

I
listen to Drawing Room at night – the second last one, alas.
The soloists are Maisie Flink, Walter Mony, Graham Burns and Doris
Brasch. It’s the best programme yet – lovely songs and nice
instrumental pieces. Webster joins Graham Burns in a duet, Watchman,
what of the night?

There is a picture of the choir with Stravinsky in the Star. I can pick myself out from the crowd on the stage quite well.

[image error]I am sitting with choir altos behind the orchestra.

24
May Anne phones about 11. “Hello, is that Mrs Campbell?” “No,
this is Jean.” “Oh, Jean, this is Anne … Ziegler.”

She
tells me she’s phoning about the audition tonight. Did Ruth tell me
about it? Evidently they just want to see us if we’re in the SABC
choir and we don’t have to sing. Anne says if we get accepted we had
better “lie doggo” – an old British expression says she – from
Johan for a bit and then talk to him about it afterwards. I tell Anne
that we have decided to ask him if we may be excused for a few months
but if he refuses we’ll just stay in the choir.

We
discuss Stravinsky. She says she listened to the concert but it just
isn’t her kind of music. She prefers a little more melody.

We
discuss Webster’s sore teeth. She says he sweated it out on Monday
morning and was determined to go into the studio in the afternoon but
he just couldn’t make it and it was too late to phone me. He was in
the whole of Tuesday but had a bad time of it. Today he’s gone to
have the other tooth out and feels a little better.

She
says she really appreciated my kind offer but didn’t like to phone me
so late when I had Stravinsky to worry about. “Bless you,” says
she. We spoke for twenty minutes on the phone.

At
night Dad takes me to the Duncan Hall. I tell Ruth about Anne phoning
and she says she had a lovely lesson. Anne told her that if you are
unwell the first thing to go is the voice. She says that she’s unwell
at the moment so hopes we don’t have to sing.

She
says, “We’re the best-looking girls in the whole hall!” Anton
Hartman arrives and tells us they need 7 altos, 8 sopranos, 10 tenors
and 10 basses. Evidently we are in and are told to collect our music
from Solly Aronowsky, 406 Internation House, Loveday Street. Ask for
a Miss Basson. The first rehearsal is 6 June at Duncan Hall.

25 May – I receive £100-0-0 from Aunt Nellie! I nearly faint – my money worries are over for a while.

I
go to the studio in the afternoon. Webster answers the door looking
very smart in a black pinstripe suit. He says he still feels a bit
grim, “But I think I’ll live.”

Boy,
Chris, who cannot sing in tune is having a lesson. He is a bass and
having awful trouble. Webster sings his song but Chris still cannot
get it. Eventually he leaves after telling me I must have suffered
and I must remember that he is strictly an amateur!

Anne
is in no mood for giggling and tells me that the boy is hopeless and
whenever he comes she goes and sits in the office. I say he does sing
out of tune. Webster says that Chris is afraid he’ll ruin his piping
or his rowing – why does he sing then? Anne says it takes her an
hour to get over it every week.

They
ask about the opera and I tell them how they want 10 basses and 10
tenors. He says, “Where will they get 10 tenors? There aren’t 10
tenors in Johannesburg!” Bragger!

We
do scales and he keeps saying, “We must do set exercises and then
record My Mother Bids Me.” He imitates my faults. As far as
I can see, his teeth are all there!

Someone
phones and Anne answers. He goes to the office and says, “Tell her
you can’t talk now. You’re busy giving a lesson.”

She
shouts, “I can’t do that. It would be rude!”

He
comes out in an awful rage and tells me that it is such a cheek of
people to phone in the middle of a lesson for once one runs late it’s
quite fatal. He points out the few mistakes and I watch his hand
tremble slightly. He fetches tea and Anne returns and we try to
record second verse once more.

As
I go, he asks, “How did you enjoy yourself? It’s the first time
I’ve seen you since you got back from your holiday.” At least he
remembered that I did go on holiday in the first place. I say I had a
lovely time and he says, “Lucky girl. I wish I could get away!”
If only he knew it – his life is an eternal holiday.

David
Fletcher gives me a lift down Juno Street. At night I go to guild and
we have a braai which is fun. Peter is very much in evidence.

27 May – Go to Sunday School and have my little boys for the last time. Feel quite sad.

I
listen to G and S. He must have recorded this last Monday when he was
still under the weather. He starts on Ruddigore and says that
he never sang the tenor role in this because the tenor has to dance a
hornpipe and no one ever took the trouble to teach him the hornpipe!

Of the main character he says, “He has the manners of a Marquis and the morals of a Methodist!”

29 May – In the afternoon I phone Ruth to check on address in International House. Her sister, very nicely spoken, answers the phone. Ruth says she had an awful lesson on Saturday and couldn’t sing to save her life. She also thought that Webster looks far better than usual.

30 May – We see Taxi to Tobruk with Hardy Kruger and listen to the last Drawing Room which is excellent. He sings a duet with Graham Burns – The Battle Eve.

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EXTRACTS FROM MY TEENAGE DIARIES – APRIL 1962

1 April – Go to SABC in the afternoon. Johan takes men and Harry Stanton the ladies. We practise Norma and there is an improvement. Tufty has become very friendly with Gill. Talk to Ruth at interval. Says she’s very tired after dance last night. She is going on Wednesday and is shocked about the cruel cartoon.

I
was going to listen to Webster but tape breaks down three-quarters of
the way through. Station announcer apologises to listeners “and Mr
Webster Booth.” I am livid.

2 April – Go to SABC in evening. Gill comes early and I go with her to have supper. Ruth is there wearing blue jeans and a duffle coat. She says she also calls the Booths by their Christian names. “Stage people like that!” I hope she’s right!

4 April – Work quite hard in the morning and then go to music in afternoon.

At night I go to the SABC for Drawing Room recording. Anne and Webster greet us all – rather like the King and Queen greeting their loyal subjects – and we sit down in tense nervous state. Anne looks gorgeous in a low-cut black sheath dress and mink stole.

Programme begins and Anne sings two songs (one by Ivor Novello with his writing on it) – the Little Damozel, and He’ll Say That for My Love (Handel). She has expression and all else required of a singer. Bob Barowsky sings and a bassoonist plays. Anne and Webster sing The Second Minuet and Drink to Me Only. He puts his hand on her bare shoulder as they sing.

Ruth asks him for a lift home and he says, “Certainly, darling.” The second broadcast is fabulous. Anne sings If No One Ever Marries Me and Smilin’ Through. They sing two more duets – Love’s Old Sweet Song and another. Ruth and I wait afterwards and talk to Anne. I tell her that her singing made me cry and she is thrilled, “The highest compliment you can pay a singer!” she says. She was worried about what her voice might sound like with the cold. While we are talking a Lancashire woman comes and congratulates her and says she heard her twenty years ago in Sheffield – she’s English, you know. Says Anne, “Yes, I thought you were!” We all laugh and she says, “Oh, ‘ave I still got me accent?”

Come home after a really delightful evening. When you hear an artist like Anne you realise how far you have to go to be even half as good. It makes me feel utterly hopeless.

5 April – Listen to Webster’s programme of last week – Gé Korsten etc.

6 April – Public holiday and Ruth’s seventeenth birthday. Have a rest in the morning and then go into town for singing lesson. Webster answers door wearing white jersey with green, yellow and red stripes!

Go in. Anne is wearing tight black stovies and revealing jersey. I do scales and am in bad form – if I see them sing the next lesson is harrowing for I know how far I have to go!

Webster
makes tea for me. He forgets the sugar so goes to fetch some and Anne
tells me of Peter Broomfield’s remark on the radio. “Last night
Hennie Joubert accompanied Mi-mi-mi-mi – all the way!”

We
do Where E’er You Walk and somehow I just cannot sing well and
feel awful. She says I mustn’t sing too loudly in Norma.
“Everyone has their off days,” Webster says, “Today is one of
mine.” (Probably to cheer me up).

7 April –  Collect my long white SABC dress and go to see Breakfast at Tiffany’s at night.

8 April – Go to Sunday School in the morning I really like the new children now.

Go to SABC in the afternoon. Mr Miller, one of the second violins in the orchestra, is on my bus. The full orchestra, Anton Hartman, Mimi Coertse, Gé K and other soloists are there. Anton works us hard. Mimi is petulant and bossy but she sings beautifully.

At interval Ruth tells me she got a Maria Callas record for her birthday and a card from the Booths. Yesterday Anne wasn’t feeling well so she asked Ruth to go to the house for a lesson while Webster went to the studio. She’s coming home with Gill and me tomorrow in Gill’s car. We manage to record last quarter of Norma.

Listen
to Webster’s G and S programme at night. He says, “After my costume
was made for this part I had my photograph taken and this constitutes
one of my few claims to fame. They put the photo into a series of G
and S cigarette cards. That dates me, doesn’t it?” He plays
Princess Ida and I fall asleep halfway through.

9 April – Have sudden urge to have my hair cut and set so have this done at Marie Distler in the morning and feel a boost to my morale. I meet Diane Munro on the bus and she doesn’t recognise me, but when she realises who I am she likes the new look a lot.

I
go to the SABC and we get on the bus to Pretoria. Ruth says the
Booth’s house is small and not much to look at from the outside, but
charming but whimsical within.

When
we arrive in Pretoria we are fed with hamburgers at Tukkies’
cafeteria. We go into the Aula theatre – it seats 3000 people. We
work hard.

Anton lets us go home at 11.00 pm. Ruth and I go home with Gill. She and Ruth have an argument about the choir on the journey home. Ruth has a very nice house, white double-storey with undergrowth and trees in the garden.
Gill
stays quite near her (also in Parkwood) and has a flatlet to herself.
I go to sleep quickly.

10 April – Go to town with Gill and then go home. Go to SABC once more, armed with box containing white dress.

Ruth and Gill arrive and we sit at the very back of the bus. Ruth says Anne and Webster should have had children of their own. She whistles beautifully and we travel along in a state of semi-consciousness. We arrive and change into our dresses, parade around for a while and have a meat roll for supper in the cafeteria.

The
house is absolutely packed – men in evening dress, orchestra in
evening dress, and furs flying, Hartman in tails and Mimi in a black
dress with silver top showing her vast chest. She sings well and
there are shouts of “bravo!”. She takes bows and we take bows and
it is interval.

Gill has tea with Uncle Edgar and Johan, but Ruth and I don’t have anything to drink!

Second half is much better although Jossie Boshoff lets the side down. We finish at ten. Cheers, curtain calls, excitement, bouquets for soloists, an orchid for Mimi…

Return to Parkwood and Ruth is very rude about Edgar Cree, saying that he had a broad accent and puts on his good one. Gill says that he studied at Cambridge. I say I like him as a broadcaster. Gill and Ruth are probably enemies for life.

11 April – Go into town very early in the morning and get home in time for breakfast. Farewell to Parkwood.

Decide
to have a rest when there is a knock at the door – Roselle arrives
with music and a dog. She wasn’t placed in the eisteddfod and is most
disappointed. We sing for each other and record the results.

Go to music in the afternoon and go to SABC in the evening. We go into studio and Anton H begins his recording. At interval, Ruth and I go to have a cold drink at nearby café and return with the same object in view – the recording of The Drawing Room!

[image error]

We
listen at the door to Webster singing – glorious! When it is over
(with much debate) we decide to wait to see him. We go and look in at
the studio and Ruth calls to him to “Come here!” He obliges like
a lamb and comes out and, guess what?? He kisses us!! I mean it –
he gives Ruth and me a kiss each – quite calmly and unhurriedly. We
both go red.

He
tells us the programme is gorgeous, particularly the brilliant
trumpeter. Why don’t we come in and we tell him we’re recording with
Mimi. He says, “Oh yes. You’re working.”

He
tells us about the eisteddfod. The tenor got a first and quite a few
more were highly placed.

We
say we’ll have to be going and Ruth walks straight into the men’s
cloakroom! He says diplomatically, “The exit is there, and the
ladies is over there!” We depart – Ruth nearly hysterical and I
very red.

We
go back to recording and tell Gill and Tufty about the kiss and Gill
says, “Since I saw Webster Booth going into the ladies change rooms
with a bottle of brandy, I’ve had no time for him!”

I
leave before the recording ends and look out for my father. The first
person I meet is Webster, leaving with a retinue of seemingly
important men. He stops when he sees me and asks, “Has the
recording finished?” I say, “No. I’m looking for my father.” He
says, “D’ye think he’ll come?” I say, “Oh yes,” and he says
“Well cheery-bye, Jean,” and I say, “Cheerio.”

Father
appears and we come home. But honestly, what a night. Mimi gave us
some prima donna tactics. (“They do,” says Webster) and she
leaves the country tomorrow.

But
in Ruth’s night and mine, one thing stands out!

“Webster
kissed us when we met,

Jumping
from the chair he sat in,

Time,
you thief, who loves to get sweets into your list,

GET
THAT IN!!”

I
don’t care what anyone says about them – or him. Even if it’s all
true, I know one thing. He is a great man, a great singer and a
pleasure to know!

12 April  – Work and record the glorious Drawing Room programme with Oh, Dry Those Tears and the Kashmiri Song.

13 April – In the afternoon I go to the SABC to claim my lost purse. The receptionist tells me proudly that Johan handed it in so I tell her to thank him for me. Honest Hans.

I go to the studio. I see Webster in the CNA so I walk round the block and when I get back I go in almost immediately for the girl before me doesn’t come. Anne likes my hair. We fill in the form for the exam and she tells Webster not to interfere and he looks hurt. We have a glorious fifteen minutes running down Anton H, Jossie Boshoff etc. Anne says that Adalgisa should be a contralto, but of course, Jossie had to have a part.

We talk about Mabel Fenney and I say that she taught at our school for a term. Anne says she was batty but worked like mad.

We work at songs and vocal studies and they encourage me to smile (as always!) All great singers of previous generations sold their songs even if they didn’t have good voices such as John Coates, Anne tells me.

I wait for the lift and when it arrives I open it, thinking no one is
there. Get a shock to see Webster. He laughs and says, “Did I
startle you, Jean? I’m sorry!”

16 April – Go to choir at night and have supper with Gill and feel like a traitor. We do Stravinsky. Sit with Ruth at interval and we talk about drinking. Apparently her father is a connoisseur of wine. Her parents went to a première at Colosseum costing £5 a ticket!

I start telling her what Gill said about Webster but we have to go back before I can finish the tale. I get her to promise not to mention anything about this incident to Gill in the car. I think Gill overhears this. I feel very muddled about the whole matter. It’s all Gill’s fault for telling me this story and trying to disillusion me about him.

17 April – Go to studio and Webster answers the door. Girl with high but harsh voice is singing Waltz of My Heart and This is My Lovely Day. High notes are quite awful. Anne is wearing a brick red dress.
We
work hard at all the exam pieces.

I
tell them that I’m going to Durban on holiday. He asks if I’m going
to the Oyster Box in Umhlanga Rocks, and I say we’re going to the
city itself.

18 April – Oh, dear! A terrible thing happens in the broadcast of Drawing Room. It all goes nicely until the last announcement which goes like this, “Now, on behalf of Madame Jean Gluckman, Miss Kathleen – oh, I beg your pardon – Madame Kathleen Allister, Miss Jean er er – oh, yes – Miss Jean Gluckman – that’s right, Mr Gé Korsten and myself, Webster Booth, goodnight – Oh dear, I’d better do that all over again, hadn’t I? Now on…” (Cut short)

[image error]

Obviously the controller reproduced the wrong announcement and not the repeat, so he’ll get into trouble. It damns him in the eyes of the public and perhaps the SABC. He sounded old, doddery and drunk. He couldn’t have heard the broadcast tonight. If he wasn’t making a programme he’d be at the prize-winners concert. He’s going to get a nasty shock when he hears about it. I saw him that night and he wasn’t drunk but what will people think?

19 April – Programme is done correctly today. Work hard and go to choir at night. Ruth comes and we talk about the mess and she is most distressed. We work at Stravinsky. Ruth wishes father and me a happy Easter.

20 April – Good Friday. I talk to Peter Marsden who is back from the army for two days leave.

I
listen to our SABC choir recording of the Passion and Cantata. It is
lovely and I am proud of it.

21 April – Go skating in the morning after a long absence. Dawn Vivian is there. My skating is more or less the same but I’m a bit stiff. She tells me that Gwyn has joined the cast of Holiday on Ice and has gone touring all over the world and doesn’t intend returning to SA.

I buy theory questions in Kelly’s and wander around John Orrs. We see Swiss Family Robinson in the afternoon – John Mills, Cecil Parker etc.

22 April – Go to Sunday School and church. I still haven’t got my music from Peter who has given up his singing lessons after less than three months!

Mr
and Mrs Watts come from Vanderbijl for lunch. They like the Booths. I
sing for them and they are impressed – or are polite!

Listen
to Webster and he finishes Princess Ida and promises to start
Mikado next week when I’ll probably be on holiday.

27 April – Go to singing and Anne arrives looking very attractive. She says she’s exhausted because of the production of Vagabond King in Springs. They have to go there every night and are furious that some members of the cast haven’t even learnt their parts properly. She had to go by herself on Wednesday because Webster was doing the last recording of Drawing Room and there was an awful storm on the way there.

She
says I should practise singing octaves and chromatics when I’m on
holiday. He says, “I can’t sing a chromatic scale – I never
could!” We decide that the only way to do that is to count the
notes on our fingers!

I say that Johan has given me work for my holiday for forthcoming Stravinsky concert. Anne asks if tenors are weak in the choir and I say, “Rather!” He tells me, “They wrote me a letter asking if I’d sing in the chorus for the Stravinsky concert.” I say, “What!”

She says, “We don’t want to act big or anything but, I mean to say, the chorus!” I say I think it is a real insult and he agrees with me. I say, “Are you going to?” and he replies, “Not likely! I phoned them up and said I had no intention of rehearsing every Saturday night for Stravinsky!” Boy, what an insult!
She
says that people will only go to the Stravinsky concerts for snob
value anyway.

We do Where E’er You Walk and work at it. She says I can sing scales on the seashore. I laugh, and he says, “Don’t laugh! I’ve sung whole scores on the seashore. Vagabond King, Waltz Time. People think you’re mad but it’s a wonderful place to sing.”

He makes tea and asks if I’d like a cup. I say, “It doesn’t matter,” and Anne says, “Stay and have a cup. It’ll be ready in five minutes.”

There is a knock at the door – An English lady with little boy (soprano) and a gorgeous hot apple tart so Anne decides that we’ll all have tea and apple tart. “Can we eat it now?” she asks. Mrs Andrews and her son, Dennis are sweet and homely with delightful accents. Webster says, “Where’s the Devonshire cream?” and she says, “Oh, I forgot it at home.” Anne says, “Some of us are from the North Country and Jean comes from Scotland.” Anne takes a piece of cake with cloves, spice and apple and says, “To hell with my figure!”

She
notices that I eat left-handed as does she and she remarks on it, so
I say, “All great people are left-handed.” We all laugh.

We
talk about Drawing Room and Webster tells me that Doris Brasch
(he spelt her name BRASH and she was livid) and Graham Burns were the
soloists on Wednesday. Anne says, “What did you think of Wednesday
night’s programme? My singing was really awful, wasn’t it!” We
protest and she adds, “It wasn’t lovely. It was disgusting!”

When I say goodbye to Anne I promise to send them a postcard and she says, “You can tell me if you manage to sing any octaves on the seashore!”

I
talk to Dennis’s mother and we say how sweet they are. Dennis calls
them Auntie Anne and Uncle Webster. They are wonderful and I love
them!

29 April – Mr Marsden kindly gives us a lift to the airport and we eventually board the plane and have a delightful flight to Durban. It’s the first time I have ever flown – it was more like a bus than a plane. The land below looks like a map of physical geography.

We arrive at the Berkeley Hotel where I met Maisie Weldon and Carl Carlisle five years ago. We have a walk along the seafront but I can hardly see myself singing scales there. My room has a radio so I’ll be able to listen to Drawing Room and G and S. I listen to G and S. Webster bursts into song periodically during Mikado.

30 April – We go into town and to the lunch hour concert. Swim in the afternoon in the same pool where we swam five years ago, and I play the piano in the lounge at night.

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EXTRACTS FROM MY TEENAGE DIARIES – MARCH 1962

1 March – Work slackens off a fraction but Mr Allen still flaps. Have lunch with mum in Ansteys and meet Gwen Per from school.

Go
to singing at night and Webster isn’t there. I go straight in because
Nellie has ‘flu and isn’t there either. We start on vocalisation
studies which I have cunningly put on the top of my pile and they go
gloriously. Anne makes tea and I pay her and we return to the
exercises.

Anne says that my voice is really beautiful now and my production is vastly improved. I give her the look of a hardened cynic and she says, “What have I or you to gain by telling you that? I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true. Don’t you notice it?” I say, “Yes, I do, but nobody else does.” We do the exercises and she picks out the notes that tend on the hard side and we work on them. She says, “Have all your notes like a string of pearls as my old music mistress used to say.”

Over
tea she tells me that she went to see the mime of Marcel Marceau last
night and it was the most absorbing act she has ever seen. Speaking
nary a word he entertained the audience for two hours on a bare
stage.

I tell her at the end of the lesson how I intend to give up the bank at the end of March in order to study music full time and she is pleased. She is quite shocked about the high blood pressure diagnosis. I say it’s probably due to overwork and nerves. She says that I am the type of person who “bottles everything up” and I mustn’t.

3 March –  See the Scott Fitzgerald Tender is the Night in the afternoon. Rather depressing.

4 March – Listen to Webster at night. He sounds rather tired. He keeps on saying, “In my day,” which makes him sound rather decrepit. He’s right though – Patience is a bit corny.

5 March –  Go to SABC at night and see Gill who introduces me to her friend Doreen who works there. We go to Doreen’s office in Springbok Schedules and see exactly what is going to happen tomorrow on Springbok. Leslie Green actually has a written script for all the supposedly off-the-cuff things he says on his programme.

We go to a grill house for supper and then go back to choir and have Harry Stanton, the organist at St Columba’s Presbyterian Church in Parkview as our accompanist. We do the Bach, and Johan takes a lot out of himself conducting the choir.

At interval Ruth tells me that on Saturday morning she went to a wedding and got a little tipsy toasting the bride and when she got up to the studio she was rather happy. Leslie Green came and they all had tea together and he listened to her singing.

Her father says that the Booths are good social drinkers – they can take a lot at a party without much reaction but they’re not alcoholics. She says that Webster could have been the best operatic tenor in the world but because of his relationship with Anne he wasn’t. Anne had an offer to go to Hollywood but because of Webster, she refused.

After the rehearsal I meet her father – a small man but quite charming. Gill asks me to stay with her for two nights when we’re in the opera in Pretoria. She gives Harry Stanton a lift home – he lives a few streets away from her in Parkwood.

8 March – Go to studio and Anne tells me to help myself to tea. Nellie sings badly and leaves. When I go in Webster tells me, “I’ll be out of prison on Saturday night – that play has been a real prison for me – every moment of it.”

We
start on studies and Webster says the quality is beautiful but I must
keep it moving even when it’s soft. He says, “You must know these
things so well that ten professors can be there and it won’t worry
you.”

We
do My Mother and he says, “Why didn’t you smile?” I say
indignantly that I was smiling and he says, “You were not – you
were frowning all the way!”

They make me go and look in in the mirror and sing to myself. I do this and try to smile all the way. He says, “You see! An entirely different song.”

9 March – Lezya goes on holiday. Picture of Webster in paper. He’s one of the adjudicators in a hymn writing composition. I go to Betty’s twenty-first birthday party at night. There is a huge crowd there, including Mavis Knox.

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10 March –  Work in the morning. After work, walking along Pritchard Street, I meet Ruth looking red and flushed. She informs me in breathless tones that she has just been to her lesson and had a wonderful time. Webster was there and she is so happy.

Go to YWCA to meet Patricia Webb who is just the same but more sophisticated and just as cheeky. We see Back Street which is excellent although Patricia passes caustic comments throughout the film.

12 March – Go to SABC in the evening. Gill says Harry Stanton hinted for a lift in as well as from the SABC. He takes the girls for rehearsal and Johan takes the chaps. Harry takes us through Norma at record speed and sings very badly to demonstrate how it should be done.

Ruth says her father has a nice voice and coming in in the car he was imitating Webster and she was pretending she was Anne. She says they certainly don’t think I am bad-looking. When they were talking about people not smiling when they sing, Webster said, “Jean, there’s a sad one for you!” and Anne said, “She’s a very beautiful girl and if she smiled she could go so far with her singing.” Ruth says, “For goodness sake, don’t tell them I told you. They told me this in confidence.”

She
thinks they should have had at least one child and she’d like to meet
his son, and isn’t Harry Stanton a card?

She
says Edgar Cree looks as though he wears a corset. She went to hear
Tamas Vasary yesterday and cried at the Chopin. We go on with Norma
and I introduce Ruth to Dad afterwards – he likes her.

14 March –  Work. Have my piano lesson in the afternoon and meet Pat Eastwood who is now at college and Elna Hansen who is doing a modelling course and teaching ballet. Gill and Svea Ward (SS’s niece) are at SS studio. Mrs S is in good mood and I do loads of scales.

15 March – Work. Lunch in Ansteys with Mum. Go to Webster and Anne and Webster answers the door. Nellie is singing badly and he brings me a cup of tea – lukewarm and devoid of sugar and I have the good grace to tell him it’s “perfect”!

I ask Anne about a new earlier time for when I leave the bank. While she arranges this I sing to Webster’s awful accompaniment and go sharp on the last three notes.

We do the vocalisation study and he doesn’t get the beat right so it doesn’t go very well. Anne returns with time – 4 on Friday as from April – and she takes over on the piano. When Webster sits down he groans and clutches his back!

I make a second attempt at the studies and, with Anne playing, they go very well. I go on to Polly Oliver and get into a nice fandangle. Anne says, “Sweety, you really must smile when you sing.” “I can’t.” “But, darling, you must. It’s no good singing if you won’t. You’re not shy of us, are you?” I say nothing and gaze at the grain of the wood in the grand piano. Webster says, “Good God – no!” “I expect I must be!” “Oh, darling no – not after all this time. Does he worry you more than I do?”

Webster
stares at me and I want to crawl under the piano. Unconvincingly I
say, “No!”

I do it again with a will and it all turns out all right. I promise him I’ll spend all my waking hours gaping in mirror and smile at myself. He tells me I look very attractive when I smile and don’t look a clot.

16 March – Guild. Peter tells me he is giving up singing lessons with the Booths!

17 March – Go into town with mum to buy material for the choir. I also buy an SABC Bulletin which brings me glad tidings. Webster has another programme, starting a week on Wednesday at 8.30 pm It is called Drawing Room and will be a show with a small studio audience depicting the early 1900 entertainment. There is an article by him in the magazine.

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18 March – Sunday starts with gorgeous article and picture in the Sunday Times by Gary A. He hopes the new programme will bring them back as duettists.

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19 March – Go to SABC. At interval Ruth tells me that Webster asked if she’d like to go to recording on Wednesday and she said she’d phone on Tuesday night. She says she’ll ask him I can have three tickets as well. We continue with Norma.

20 March – Today at work I take heart and phone Webster myself. He is sweet and when I ask him about tickets for Drawing Room he says, “But I thought I asked you to come.” I say, “No, you didn’t.” So he says, “Well, we’d be delighted to have you. Meet Anne in the foyer at 8 o’clock, and don’t be late! If it goes swimmingly we’ll finish by 9.30.” I say I’m looking forward to it tremendously.

I
work very hard and phone Ruth to tell her what has happened. She says
that she and her parents will be going tomorrow. I will see her at a
quarter to eight in the foyer.

21 March –  I go for a music lesson and at night I work myself into a state of nerves about going to the SABC. We arrive and Lucille is there with a number of her relatives. I meet Joy Bodes who is going to a recording of Eye-gene Jackpot. Ruth arrives with her parents. She is also Scottish and comes from Kelvin Grove, only a mile away from where I was born.

Anne arrives, her hair in a bun. Ruth’s and my parents go into the studio and I am left to help Anne with the lists. She takes me into the studio from the stage side and everyone gapes at her. She tells me to save a seat for her. I sit with Ruth and keep a seat for her between us. She comes in eventually, and Webster – face very red, wearing evening suit with a red rose in his lapel. He sits down at a table in the front of the studio and tells us that he has picked a very select audience because of the nature of Drawing Room. He is charm itself and introduces the artists – Anna Bender (accompanist), Walter Mony (violinist), and Rita Roberts (soprano). His compering is terrific and he sings two songs which are beautiful – Parted and The Sweetest Flower that Blows. His hand shakes as he handles the music but his voice is as perfect as ever. Anne doesn’t look at him the whole time he is singing but looks very sad.

We
have an interval after the first recording. Anne says that RR should
open her mouth more. When we return Webster sings If You Had But
Known so beautifully I want to howl. We are told to talk in
between the items and Anne talks sweetly to me the whole time.

In the second programme he sings O, Dry Those Tears and the Kashmiri Song so utterly and completely beautifully in a voice that only God could have given him that tears come to my eyes. I am shocked to see Anne crying next to me. She looks utterly heartbroken.

At the end of the recording she powders her face and talks to us brightly. Ruth says that Webster was wonderful and Anne says fiercely, “Yes, of course he’s still got a voice.”

When
I leave with my parents I tell her that Webster was lovely and sang
terrifically. She says in joking tones, “Yes, we’re both
very proud of him, aren’t we, Jean?” I could have crawled under a
sofa if there was one around.

What
an evening. Anne says that most of the people in the audience are
hangers-on and pays very little attention to them. Ruth and I seem to
be teachers’ pets however, and she puts her arm around me and is the
sweetest, most adorable creature.

As for Webster – he’ll get to heaven before any of us with a voice that only God could have fashioned and the angels given to him.

22 March – Go in to the studio and learn that Nellie is leaving because she is moving to Bloemfontein. Anne kisses her goodbye and cries.

I
go in and rave to Webster about the programme and he says, “Well, I
hope it comes over as well on the radio.” Anne says rather
bitterly, “Yes, he sang very well, didn’t he?”

I
sing quite well too and she is pleased but she looks very strained.
We do My Mother which goes much better than usual and she
suggests that we leave it for a while and do something else.

Webster
answers the phone and tells one of their friends that Anne is having
a terrible time with her back. They say my voice is getting much
higher and she thinks I’m going be a ‘low” soprano or a “high”
mezzo. She tells me to find something a bit higher to sing for next
time.

23 March – I phone Ruth to tell her I can’t go to choir. Will she apologise for me? We talk about Wednesday and agree that it is terrific.

24 March – Work very hard and Mr Allen goes mad.

The
Halls, who have been living in LA for past two years, come to visit
us. She tells me that there was quite a scandal about his divorce in
the thirties. His wife divorced him because of Anne.

Scotts,
who are going to India, come in the evening and we have a pleasant
time. I sing for them and they appear to enjoy it.

25 March –  In the afternoon I go to SABC and feel quite nostalgic about Broadcast House after last Wednesday. We look in at Mervyn John and Esmé Euvrard broadcasting in their studio. He says over the air, “There’s a lot of very attractive people standing outside the studio. Welcome to Springbok Radio!” Esmé waves at us!

Gill
arrives with Harry Stanton and we go in and talk to Cora Leibowitz.
She thinks Anne is very emotional and that Webster has a better voice
than Anne.

Listen
to Webster at night. He says he will recap to let people who “might
have gone to parties or gone to bed early” to hear what happened in
Iolanthe.

26 March – Last day of work. I am wished well in my musical career by Messrs Buckley, Ford and Peddy.

Go
to SABC at night. We go on with Passion with Johan and Harry Stanton.
Ruth says the Booths gave her a lift home on Saturday as they were
going to a wedding.

She tells me that next Wednesday Anne and Webster are singing duets on Drawing Room at SABC. I’d love to go but I’m not sure if I can.

We
have Gert Potgieter to sing with us in the second half.

French lady from the bank tells me she is practically neighbours of the Booths and that their house was in a terrible mess when they bought it for only £2500 but they have made great improvements to it.

27 March – Go to dressmakers for a fitting for my concert dress.

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28 March – Go to music in the afternoon and Mr McKenzie gives me a lift to town in his Jaguar. Mrs S says I must come to the morning recital on 7 April.

Go to SABC and we make a recording with Gert Potgieter. At interval, Ruth and I are confronted by two old women wanting to know where Webster Booth’s programme was being held. Ruth and I take them along and decide to stay ourselves. Luckily the programme is just starting so we crawl into the last two back seats and are given a surprised look by Webster. Soloists are Gé Korsten, Jean Gluckman, Kathleen Allister (harp). Pieces are In a Persian Market, The Sunshine of Your Smile, Always, An Old-fashioned Town. We slip out at the end with another thunderous look from Webster and return (a bit late) to our own recording which we complete very successfully.

29 March – Listen to Webster and record him. It is gorgeous and glorious. His singing is wonderful.

I
go into town. Webster is teaching Lucille. When I go in he says he’s
expecting her ladyship at any minute and would like to record me. He
plays something at the wrong speed and says, “In case you don’t
know it, that’s Ruth singing Messiah!” We do the
Bedfordshire May Day Carol and when he plays it back to me he
points out one beautiful tone and tells me to match all my tones with
it and then I shall have a perfect voice.

At this point, Anne comes in looking thin, pale and ill. I say I was sorry to hear that she was ill. She looks resigned and says, “Yes, these things do happen.”

While
we have tea we listen to playback of recording. She tells me, “Smile,
don’t pull faces. You are pretty when you smile. Have
self-confidence. We’ll have to do something to boost your morale.”

After
recording do Where E’er You Walk. They say I can do this for a
change. It’s a man’s song but it suits my voice which (says Anne) has
a Jennifer Vyvyan quality.

I
ask Webster if we can come to the concert next week and he says he’d
be delighted to have me and I can bring as many as I like. How many
shall I bring? I say three. I say to Anne, “You are singing next
week, aren’t you?” and she says, “Yes, if I’ve got any voice by
then.” I tell her that we’d love to hear her singing and she looks
wistfully pleased.

I
tell him that we were there last night because we escorted two old
ladies there. He says, “Yes, I saw you. I tried to catch you at the
end to see how you were getting home but you disappeared very
quickly!”

He
asks what I thought of today’s broadcast and I emote about it and she
says the piano solo was too long. We all admit that he sang
beautifully. I’m going next Friday at 4pm. They couldn’t care about
the public holiday – Van Riebeek day is not important!

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30 March – Cartoon of Webster in Show Folk in the Star.

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EXTRACTS FROM MY TEENAGE DIARIES – FEBRUARY 1962

1 February – Lunch with Mum in Ansteys.

I go to singing at night. When I get out of the lift am confronted with an agitated Webster who tells me he can’t stop to let me in now but will be back in a second – I presume he has to put 6d in the meter. He comes back and complains about the heat. We go in and I pour myself tea and wash the cup. Nellie is singing for dear life.

Go in and pay Anne. She looks as gorgeous as she did in the recent photo. She is wearing her mauve dress. We talk of choir and she says I must try to sing in Tales of Hoffman as it is essential that I appear before a huge audience! She says, “I hear you are doing the Bach Passion and Cantata. Webster says, “Charming music, isn’t it?” in sarcastic tones, and he says, “They can keep the Passion – and the tenor role!”

We
start on vocalisation studies for Trinity College and they go
exceptionally well. Anne says I mustn’t let my chest sag when I sing.
She makes me feel above her chest and how she manages to control her
breath without her chest sagging! Fantastic – honestly!

I persevere with the exercises and they come right and feel right too! Webster comes in and listens and says that he can hear that I am smiling as tone is much lighter. We do them unaccompanied and all is well.

Do Bedfordshire Carol and she emphasises the diction and this improves. We end with the first vocalisation study. Goes well and they are thrilled and so am I. Webster says it’s glorious. Anne says I’ll go very far and I am elated. She and Webster are going to audition people in Springs for their production of The Vagabond King.

Have supper and then go to the SABC. See Anton Hartman and (presumably) Jossie Boshoff, his wife. See Annie Kossman and Hugh Rouse. The latter dashes in at 7 on the dot for the news and dashes out promptly at a quarter past.

We go to Studio 2c and copy in words of music and sing the Passion. Gill waits with me until Dad arrives and talks of Edgar Cree as “Uncle”.

3 February – Saturday off. Go into town with Dad. Have lunch in Century and then we see The Innocents with Deborah Kerr.

5 February – Work. Choir at night. Have an argument with a woman about Webster and Anne. We have the AGM and I talk to Ruth. She says she doesn’t blush in front of Anne alone but I mustn’t tell anyone – it isn’t that she doesn’t like Webster – she adores him – but she can’t imagine what the answer is to this strange phenomenon. I can imagine vaguely, but I don’t tell her.

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8 February – Work. Go to Ansteys for lunch and then go up to the studio in the afternoon. Anne answers door looking gorgeous in white skirt with hair grey-white – lovely. She tells Nellie that Lucille came for her lesson today and had a bad nose bleed.

Go
in and Anne makes tea. She washes cups and I dry them and she tells
me all about the tank being clogged up with tea leaves put there by
Madge Wallace. She says Webster’s play was super and LS gave it a
terrific crit. They saw Oliver but it was so amateurish it
nearly broke her heart. There wasn’t a good voice in the show and it
makes her cry to think of the West End productions she used to go to.

She says that Webster is so tired that he didn’t wake up till ten this morning and consequently didn’t come to the studio. All he seems to do now is sleep and, as I know, he’s no youngster now. She says that Nellie told her that she hardly ever talks to her husband and she thinks she’s getting to be the same now although she expects that after so many years it’s only natural that they don’t have much to talk about any more.

I
sing (believe it or not!)and she marks my vowels – all my “ah”
vowels (practically) should be “ers”! Singing goes quite well but
I too feel desperately tired. She sings to a very top G. Funny, but
her voice has returned as though it had never been absent!

When I depart, she says she adores my hair band. The colour is glorious. I say that my hair won’t stay in curls so she says, “Do it in a bun like Hilda, my maid from St Helena, does.”

Says
she’s dying for Oliver Walker’s crit.

I meet Joan Armstrong from Vanderbijlpark standing outside the Carlton Hotel in Eloff Street. She is doing a hairdressing course and she makes a note of Penny Berrington’s address in New Zealand.

OW crit is awful. He doesn’t even mention Webster at all. He says the play drags and some of the players took little trouble to disguise their own speech and mannerisms! To think that ten years ago he and Anne were right at the top of the tree and now he has to resort to playing bit parts! The Amorous Prawn was a small part too but he was wonderful in the play. Unfortunately, this part definitely falls into the bit category.

Nellie
said to Anne that she felt sorry for her having to teach people to
sing and it’s quite true. Had they saved six months’ wages when they
were at the top they could be living in luxury in Britain. Instead –
what? I know I’m secretly glad that they had to come out here but how
I wish they could lead distinguished and comfortable lives. Poor Anne
and Webster!

9 February – Go to guild at night and have interesting talk about the Red Cross.

10 February – Work hard in the morning. In the afternoon I go with Betty to the Old Girls’ Reunion at Quondam. All very pleasant. Misses Reid, Allen, Heller, Martin and Hanna turn up in full force as does Margaret Masterton, Yvonne Lautré, Sandra Heyman and Wendy Wayburne. We sit with Margaret, Yvonne, Eugenie Braun, Joyce Aitken and a few others. Margaret sings Nymphs and Shepherds and The Lass with the Delicate Air.

I talk to Margaret about Mrs Sullivan. Apparently, Margaret knows all about what I’m doing at the SABC. She says she’d like to join the choir when she can find the time to do so.

There
is a matinee of Webster’s play next Saturday so Betty promises to go
with me.

11 February – Sunday School in the morning. I have Betty to visit me in the afternoon and we decide to meet at 1.45pm at the corner of Rissik and Pritchard Streets for Webster’s play.

I listen to Webster at night and before him to Edgar Cree. Webster is excellent as usual and goes on with the Pirates of Penzance. It is really good and he helps the music along with an interesting discussion.

12 February – Work. Book for Webster’s play at Show Service. Have lunch with Mum and go to choir at night. All goes well. I talk to Ruth who tells me she is depressed. School went all wrong today and she had a puncture on her bike. She enjoys tennis and says she only goes to church (St Francis, Parkview) in order to sing in the choir. She would like to make singing her career if her voice develops fantastically and she thinks that when she leaves school, she’ll work for a while. She is going to Webster’s play on Friday first show “because the seats are cheap!” I suppose she isn’t as wealthy as I had imagined.

She is singing The Nightingale by Delius which she hates. “I’ve told the Booths,” says she, Where the Bee Sucks, which we both adore, and Hush My Dear, “It’s easy,” says she.

14 February – Very ill indeed and am incapacitated completely.

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15 February – Work. I have a nice lunch in Ansteys with my mother. Go up to the studio and Anne is there alone with Nellie. When I go in Anne remarks on the fact that (as per her suggestion) I am wearing my hair in a bun. She thinks it suits me. She says she feels good with longer hair and I say I like her hair longer. She had it set for a Ciro’s charity performance for David Beattie. This went well, with 400 at Ciros and 25 artistes. The cabaret finished at one but she got home at 4! She had a wonderful time and feels that all work and no play etc. She says, “Webster has got to the stage where he wants to go home, lock the front door and go to bed and doesn’t bother to talk to me but I believe in enjoying life. Theatrical life is the only life I know and I like to have fun.”

We
start on scales and she makes me sing to “moo” opening up to “ma”
in front of mirror. She puts her arm round my waist and sings with me
and I improve. We do vocal studies and I say I haven’t had much time
to practise owing to illness. She is charmingly sympathetic. We talk
about Ruth, and Anne says she’s quite a character.

We
do My Mother which improves today. She says “Did I ever tell
you the story of that Craven A advert?” I glance at the bewitching
picture of her and say, “No.” “When I was very young and in the
chorus of a show professionally for the first time, a photographer
discovered me and asked me to pose for this advert. When I went
along, he said, ‘Smile!’ I grinned, showing my teeth. He said,
‘That’s not smiling. I want a smile from the eyes.’ I’ve always
remembered that advice. You can wangle yourself into many places with
a smile and you have a lovely one if only you’d use it more often.”

That
picture is truly bewitching so I decide to try to smile!

We
do Sweet Polly Oliver and it goes well because of the smile.
It’s the first time I’ve been able to smile for her! She says she
hopes Bill Perry doesn’t come as she can’t stand him. He has a
wonderful, God-given voice but he’d rather go for a couple of beers
after work rather than work at it. “I am not a deeply religious
person but I do believe that when you have a God-given gift like that
you should work at it and make something of it.”

17 February –Work in the morning and have lunch with Mum and Dad.

I meet Betty and we go to the Alexander Theatre. Webster’s name is included in the supporting cast and there is a picture of him in very warm clothes in the foyer. We have terrific seats. Mrs Sullivan is sitting a few seats along from us.

Play begins and it is, to say the least of it, a fantastic experience. Webster as the prison doctor is on stage all the time and speaks hardly twenty words during the whole proceeding. However, as we are sitting practically at eye level to him, he stares at me and gives me a broad grin when he should be concentrating on the bleak trial. My heart jumps madly into my mouth and I blush. Thank heaven for the darkness of the theatre. I smile (a little!) at him and look at someone else when the experience gets too intense for me.

After the first act I think that perhaps this is all in my imagination but Betty – without any encouragement – says that she noticed him staring at me when his attention wandered from the stage. In the second act, all is confirmed and I spend a nice time looking affably at him and he at me! This is the first time I have had a tete a tete with a famous actor (singer) with eyes from stage to audience! His acting (when he remembers to act!) is good but as he sat there, looking rather weary with his eyes blinking in the strong stage light, I thought how he had sung with the famous and acted in all the international theatres. This part is hardly better than a walk-on. It’s shameful. He was so apathetic towards the part that instead of concentrating on the proceedings on stage he concentrated on me instead! Poor Webster. I think he would honestly prefer to be sitting at home in front of the fire at night rather than “sit on his behind” – as Ruth said – on the stage of the Alex. Nobody can know how sorry I am for him yet he – in spite of it all – remains, kind, friendly and understanding.

However,
although his part was small he certainly gave me “my money’s
worth!” If only Anne had seen him!!

18 February – Sunday school.

Listen to Webster at night and he is excellent. He finishes Pirates which is terrific. He says that when he was young and in the chorus of pirates they all used to bang their cutlasses on stage to make a noise! He plays a few things from The Sorcerer – someone has lent him the record.

19 February –  Work. Go to the choir at night. Ruth says she loved the play and I tell her about strange happenings when I went. Gill and I talk to Johan. We see John Silver, Esmé Euvrard, the drummer from the orchestra and Hugh Rouse.

21 February – Work hard and go to my piano lesson. Gill is there and we discuss the Bach. I do quite well at the piano. Mrs S says the play on Saturday was very depressing and Webster had an awful part to play for such a great man!

22 February – Work. Have lunch in Ansteys – gorgeous.

Go to singing at night and Webster is there! After Nellie goes I go in and we discuss the play (with no reference to his unusual behaviour!) Anne is not terribly enthusiastic about it but he says, “It’s well done, isn’t it?” I agree but say it depressed me. He says he nearly falls asleep every night and one chap opposite him actually did fall asleep the other night!

We start on My Mother and then he wades into me, pointing out various faults: diction is not clear. I have hardly any expression and no smile. He enlarges on these things. I should picture what I’m singing about – forget about the audience – OK, so I’m tired, singing should reinvigorate me, not make me think, “Don’t say I have to sing this bloody song again!”

He sings the whole song through and she accompanies him beautifully. Right, so it isn’t a song for a man to sing under any circumstances but he can and does, so beautifully that I am mesmerised and listen as though in a dream. That a man of 60 can produce such beautiful sounds and words is fantastic. Even when he criticises me he still remains my favourite tenor.

During tea he looks at the jasmine on my cardigan and says it looks like an amethyst. He used to have one on a tie-pin but Anne had it set in a ring with two diamonds.

He
sings Sweet Polly Oliver for me – again with the required
expression and once again it is brilliant. I can’t say I think he is
fantastic to him, but he is!

Anne
says I must look in the mirror and work everything out for every bar.
I depart, determined to bring mind over matter.

23 February – Work and go to guild at night. They have a mock wedding with Leona and David. Ann is the best man and Peter, in long plaits is a flower girl. The Strattons are moving to Brakpan and Ann says she is dreading the move.

24 February –  Go to the doctor in the morning. Evidently I have high blood pressure possibly due to nervous tension.

We
go to pictures in the afternoon – The Rebel with Tony
Hancock.

Anne
is the stage personality for this week in the Star. The interviewer
says it amazes him how such an attractive woman is not on the stage
more. He mentions the Palladium, Command performances, records etc.

[image error]Anne as the SA Showperson of the week.

While
I am writing this diary and listening to the radio I hear You,
Just You duet – it’s utterly glorious.

25 February – Don’t go to Sunday School today. Listen to Leslie Green in the afternoon. He plays the Booths’ Deep in Your Heart. He first met and interviewed them in 1948. He liked them and they have been friends ever since. I record Webster in the evening singing Sylvia – beautiful. I listen to the G and S programme at night. He plays Patience.

26 February – Work hard. Go to SABC at night. Ruth comes and we greet each other. While waiting for things to start Gill and I talk to a dark woman behind us. She says, “Do you learn with Anne Ziegler?” I agree that I do, and she says, “I thought I’d seen you there. I am Cora Leibowitz!” I remember Anne telling me that Cora Leibowitz sang Oh, Love From Thy Power at an Eisteddfod.

When Johan comes we start on the Stravinsky which grows on me as we go over it. At interval, Ruth and I sit in the foyer and talk gloomily about not being able to smile and we decide that this week we’re going to!” She says, “I look forward to my lesson all week and they are so sweet when I get there but I still can’t smile!”

Ila Silansky talks to us and we talk about eisteddfods and how we dislike them. Ruth won a medal at the Springs one. Ila Silansky says the children in the flat above her imitate her singing. Ruth says her two sisters tell her to shut up even when she knows her voice sounds beautiful. She can reach top G flat. At the Springs Eisteddfod Roselle sang on the same night and Roselle and her mother made Ruth nervous and consequently, Roselle came first. Ruth doesn’t have much of an opinion of her. Ruth will be 17 on sixth April so she’s only about one and a half years younger than me.

28 February – Work hard. Go to piano lesson and girl who learns singing with Mauryn Glenton (who has the studio next door to Mrs S) is singing loudly in the corridor! I see Gill, and Mrs S fills in forms for TC theory exams – two exams on 9 June.

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