Stuart Fifield's Blog, page 4

Quo vadis ?

… as any well educated Roman was wont to ask the nearest oracle. With the Band’s 40th anniversary approaching in 2014, I have been thinking about that self same question, particularly as I’ve been looking into the Band’s long history of incarnations and name changes.

The earliest photo. East Grinstead Band on a hay wagon, c.1870.

Presumably these happy band of players, to misquote Shakespeare, would get to their immediate destination whilst still on the cart. Ahead of them lay the Zulu War and several other colonial skirmishes in places that most of them had probably never even heard of. Where, I wonder, did they fancy they were going, riding the crest of the wave of an Empire on which the sun never set?

East Grinstead Town Band marching past the Workhouse towards the railway station, c1905.

After the turn of the century, the passing of the Old Queen and in the most powerful nation on earth, in 1905 a prosperous town like East Grinstead still had its own Workhouse. The thoughts of the bandsmen must have been very different from those still within the Workhouse; they, at least, thought they knew where they were going, even if it was soon to be just to the station to catch the 1914-1918 express.

East Grinstead Town Band, smartly turned out in c1933.

In the footsteps of the previous generation: the uniforms are still reminders of Imperial greatness, possibly, although cracks had already appeared in that immortal facade. Most of them would probably soon meet the impending onslaught from across the Channel. Somewhere in the middle of the tide of greater things, they must all have wondered where they were going, even if they had a good idea of where they would like that destination to have been.

East Grinstead Concert Band leading the Queen’s Jubilee Parade through the town, 2012.

Today, in our high-tech world of push-button instant gratification, changing climate, increasing ineptitude and seeming loss of concern for most things that were, in the 140-odd years covered by these photos, held to be essential constituents of society and of being a good citizen within that society, do we know where we are going ?

At least the Band knows where it’s going next October. We have been invited to play at the Menin Gate in Ypres on October 11, just a few days before HM The Queen attends a ceremony there to mark the First World War. We are planning a couple of other concerts in Belgium and will do all we can to promote East Grinstead in the process. The Menin Gate is inscribed with 60,000 names of those from the First World War who have no known grave. It straddles the road to Passchendale, where some of the worst fighting took place. Every night at 8 o’clock the traffic is halted and the local firemen blow Last Post and Reveille. We will be part of that ceremony.

The Menin Gate in Ypres, Belgium.

How sobering to stand under the Gate (the road goes straight through it) and ponder if any of 60,000 – from all parts of the Empire as was – had any idea where they were going.

The cover of the first in the saga of the Chamber Opera Group of Lucca, Tuscany.

On the writing front, book No.7, the third in the Rupert Winfield series, is very near completion. FATAL TEARS (Rupert Winfield No.1) has now gone electronic in all formats and has been listed with Barnes & Noble, the huge US distributor. The First in the AN ECCENTRIC IN LUCCA series is presently at the printers and will be out ahead of schedule towards the end of October. It’s all go this end…..

Let me leave you with a short video clip. We did know where we were going, because we had a very definite route to follow, mostly up the exhaust pipe of the leading police car !

The Passing…

… of all things is inevitable, be they empires, monuments of stone or ourselves.

This past week has been one of both excitement and of sadness tinged with the warm glow of fond reflection. Firstly came the sad news from my cousin Sally that Andre, her husband, had passed away after a very protracted illness. Sobering thought that now there are just the two of us left from the older generation.

My cousin Andre.

Rest peacefully.

…

A good friend of mine from my opera days in Cape Town, the tenor Anton Stolz, celebrated his 60th on the Sunday and joined the club of which many of us are already members. Then, on the following Thursday, he, too, passed away. I’m sure that Anton would have been chuffed at the many expressions of gratitude for his friendship and at the many warm memories that have appeared on Facebook. Still, the gaps are still there, despite the pleasant memories. The rest of us just have to carry on …

Anton in the centre with Henry on the left and myself. Cavalleria Rusticana, Cape Town in the early 1980s.

Last week’s excitement was a visit to the Book Guild in their new home in Hove. We had a very productive meeting and the exciting news is that FATAL TEARS is going to be an e-book; contractural negotiations are underway. The Book Guild have just signed up with a large distributor in this format, who cover all format of e-books as well as promoting same through Barnes and Noble in the USA. I also saw the finished dust jacket for ERRANT ANGELS, which is the first in the AN ECCENTRIC IN LUCCA series of music-based novels. It is due for publication on 27th November (hardback).

Unsolicited thumbs up from another happy reader !

We also have the sheep back in the farmer’s field that borders our postage stamp garden. Funny things – they bleat constantly (including through the night) and I wonder if they actually say anything or if it is some sort of communal security blanket. For those of you of a musical disposition, they also seem to bleat in minor seconds a lot – enough to set your teeth on edge !

Is it not written that it is better to lead than to be led… Who’d be a sheep ? Unless, of course, you’re an animatedly smart one like Shaun the Sheep !