8 May 2024

‘Be still my soul, the Lord is on thy side’ (Catharina Von Schlegel, 1752)

What a beautiful day! I’m sat in the garden under the pergola, bathed in the warmest sunshine and listening to the birds singing. It all reflects how I am feeling inside; calm and happy. What, in the no-man’s-land between scan and results? Surely a bit of tortuous mind-wrangling would be entirely in order? No. Not today. 

I went to the scan alone; there was no point in anyone else coming as there really isn’t much to it- it’s all over in about 10 minutes. Plus it’s easier to stay strong and matter-of-fact when you are by yourself… The worst thing about it was the drive through the lanes to Harpenden; bad enough at the best of times but I was stuck behind a bus with an average speed of 10 mph that couldn’t cope in the slightest when a car appeared from the other direction, coming to a complete stop and waiting for the car to inch its way past. When I finally reached Harpenden I was greeted with a road closure- the very road I needed to take to the hospital. Cue much sweating and an elevated heart rate as I attempted to negotiate a path through random residential streets without mowing down one of the hordes of school children making their way home. I arrived at the hospital with two minutes to spare before my scan, throwing the car into a disabled space and doing a lopsided half-run to the door. I was supposed to arrive 20 minutes earlier than that, and spewed frantic apologies in the direction of the receptionist: ‘…bus… stuck…road closed..’ She smiled serenely and assured me that all was fine. A minute later, another smiley person appeared to collect me: Lee the Radiographer who I recognised from my last scan and who would be better suited in a role as a children’s TV presenter, such is his rotund jolliness.

‘I didn’t realise who it was when I first got the request to fit you in today,’ he chuckled. ‘Then the name clicked- it’s you!’

Ummm… am I the only one he has seen this year with a complex case of cancer? I’m not really looking to achieve celebrity status for dubious reasons at a small provincial hospital…

Cannula to inject dye… arms above head, into the machine, dye flows into body, ‘Take a deep breath in now’, smile for the camera, repeat, all done.

I have to rest for 15 minutes before the cannula can be removed. It is Lee who does it today rather than a nurse. He’s the radiographer; he knows what the scan has shown but can’t divulge a thing. He asks me questions, including: ‘How many more treatments is your consultant planning?’ and said to me at the end: ‘Good luck’. What did that all mean? I’m just glad that I don’t believe in luck. 

Another race through tiny country lanes and even more of them this time as I have to travel across half the county to Isaac’s school. I arrive just a couple of minutes late for pick-up, and the medical world disappears as I am thrust into wonderful normality. ‘Can I play Fortnite with Toby later?’ Once home, Isaac and I suck ice lollies in the the garden, making a plan for the evening: music practice, dinner, exam revision. And then the gaming reward…

I was planning to cover a good number of years today in the next installment of the story: from the Crescendo days right up until musings of an Isaac began to form in my mind. But this morning, cocooned in my oxygen chamber trawling through years of documents on the laptop I came across something that I had completely forgotten about: a diary written between 2008 and 2011 that chronicled my ultimately futile endeavour to write an opera whilst juggling three children at demanding ages and about as many jobs. I sat in the chamber reading way after the oxygen session had finished, guffawing and pronouncing it comedy gold. Which probably means that one or two of my readers might find it relatively amusing, so I shall publish it here in its entirety. The copious footnotes reflect the fact I was in the throes of my MA at the time; apologies for the long scroll to reach them, but some are quite funny. Well I think so…

But first, we need to fill in a few gaps; I will attempt to do so in as concise a way as possible. Ha! I hear you cry. As if! But here goes…

Crescendo…writing for children led me back to Proper Composing…two piano pieces written for weddings and entered into national competition in consecutive years… both awarded first prize giving me confidence to write more…and more…and apply for MA in Composition at City University under Prof Rhian Samuel.. stopped Crescendo to focus on MA but everything else continued and sleepless nights were added… after MA in 2010 was brought into lovely Prep school St Joseph’s in the Park to teach Early Years music and run ensembles and clubs, which soon branched into doing Basically Everything.

There we go. Evidence that I can do Concise. And now we come to the main event, the long-lost diaries of PurpleSam that describe my crazy vision to write and stage an opera about the life of a local historical figure, Constance Lytton, whilst juggling an overdose of normal life. As stories of failure go, it’s quite a good one.

How (Not) To Write An Opera

28 July, 2008

Sat aboard Pegasus Airlines plane at Stanstead airport, waiting to depart for Bodrum, Turkey.  Have separated highly-strung offspring as much as possible, Lydia and Ariane either side of me and Michael next to Steve in the row behind.  I wonder if I’ll ever get to sit next to my husband again on a plane/in a car/ at a dinner table.  Holidays in particular provide an unrivalled opportunity for sibling friction, coming with a ‘100% stress or your money back’ guarantee, yet for some reason every year we forget the vows made after the previous vacation (‘NEVER again!’) and delude ourselves that the perfect family holiday^[1] is possible.  This year we’re off to check out Mum and Dad’s Holiday Home No. 2, the Turkish Abode, for a rent-free 2 weeks.^[2]  Feeling more relaxed than usual, however, in the knowledge that I have somehow completed my first year of nominally-termed ‘part-time’ MA in Composition (of the musical sort), mainly under cover of darkness.  Two weeks in the sun should be just the thing to properly recuperate.  It should be.  But I plan to write an opera instead.

It will be called Lady Constance and tell the story of Lady Constance Lytton, a suffragette who disguised herself as a commoner to be able to suffer fully for her cause and to expose the shockingly different treatment of lower- and upper-class prisoners in the early Twentieth Century.  The Lytton family lived for a considerable time at Knebworth House and the neighbouring country house Homewood, both of which are under a mile away from our house in Knebworth; indeed, our own road is a turning off a road named Lytton Fields.  The descendents of the Lytton family still occupy Knebworth House to this day; Henry Lytton Cobbold is most keen for the story of his Great Aunt Constance, whose tomb stands in the grounds of Knebworth Park, to be told.  It has all the right ingredients for an opera- drama, despair, self-sacrifice, triumph, death- even unrequited love.  Furthermore, it lends itself to the medium of a community opera particularly well, with obvious opportunities for a children’s choir and women’s choir (and I’m sure I’ll get the men in too somehow).

My task for the flight is to read all one hundred pages of Constance Lytton’s Prisons and Prisoners, which will be one of the main sources of the libretto.  In fact, in the absence of a piano (sob), I hope to write most of the libretto whilst on holiday.  Well, nothing wrong with being optimistic.  On holiday in Romania at the age of eleven, I wrote a book.  Actually, not a whole book. In fact, only about two chapters.  It was called The Magical Kingdom of Quev, and was not at all modelled on the Oz series which I was obsessed with at the time.  Hmm, I can’t imagine my children lying on the beach writing a book.  In fact, I can’t imagine them lying on the beach reading a book.

Yesterday we celebrated my sister-in-law Joan’s birthday at Steve’s parents’ house, in Mediterranean temperatures that provided a certain amount of acclimatisation for Turkey.  The men (in one of their cars/ hi-fi conversations that always seem to mysteriously lead to Gordon Brown) were discussing the wonders of noise-cancelling headphones, saying how good it was to have music flooding through your head that no-one else can hear.  That’s pretty much my permanent experience as a composer; no £100 noise-cancelling headphones required.  In fact I can’t imagine what it’s like not to have music constantly flooding through my head.  Anyway, to Prisons and Prisoners now (with obligatory internal soundtrack accompaniment).

Hurrah for Nintendo DSs and new games bought for flight!  Children have been happily playing for over an hour now, allowing me to get lots of reading and notes done.  I am not fretting that the (American) dad in the seat in front of us has been spending the same amount of time explaining rocket science to his five-year-old.  Surely by developing my own intellect, my children will automatically benefit, through some sort of outer-body DNA transfer…

Ah, perfect… sat on sun lounger next to pristine, empty swimming pool (many apartments in complex not yet sold).  Huge speakers are pumping out Turkish radio, courtesy of complex owners.  Surroundings could not be more conducive to writing an opera.  In fact, it’s very similar to composer Maxwell Davies’ Scottish retreat, if I pretend that said music is the waves crashing against the rocks, and that the children moaning about having to have a second application of factor fifty sun cream are, in fact, seagulls screeching as they fly past.  What did I say about the pool being empty?  A family with more children than the Von Trapps have now descended upon it.  I shall pretend that they are but Max’s selkies^[4], flopping their sleek, shiny masses into the clear waters.

What am I doing trying to write an opera when I have three children, three jobs and a Welsh dragon for a MA tutor that I should probably be trying to appease by writing my dissertation, or at least some ‘proper’ music without tunes or children in it?  As a certain (I think/hope female) composer once said, ‘You should only ever write something if you can’t not write it’.  Well, I can’t not write this so there you go.  Why not? Because it is a labour of love- for music, for poetry, for our community, for Knebworth and its story.

What I’m doing trying to write a book about writing an opera is a different matter.  It is quite possibly a completely foolish idea.  The reason I’m chronicling the whole process, though, is so I have a story to tell if/when the whole thing comes to fruition and people ask ‘How on earth did you do this?’. I wonder, sitting here writing this at the end of July 2008, if Lady Constance will ever become a reality.  If you’re reading this, then it has indeed and I will leave a space here for suitable words of joy to be inserted later on my part _________________________________________.  If you’re not reading this then I am writing to the second drawer of my bedside cabinet, wherein reside many unfinished works of the pen from years gone by.

29 July, 2008

So here we are in Turkey.  Quite a shock as it’s so much less developed than any country we’ve been to before.  The roads have no markings (or rules) but plenty of pot holes and stray dogs, donkeys and people.  There is plenty of beauty to be seen as well though and gorgeously hot weather.

The girls bounced into our room this morning saying: ‘Happy Anniversary, Mummy and Daddy!  Now, you’ve got to do exactly what you did on your wedding day.’  Oh, heck.  ‘Both say ‘I do’ and then kiss.’  Phew.  ‘Go on, go on!’  Then followed a clearly-rehearsed song in quasi-reggae style in which Lydia provided a bass riff (to the syllables ‘dun, dun, dun’) and Ariane sang words over the top: ‘My Mummy is so beautiful, my Daddy is so handsome, as you know…’  Very sweet and lovely.^[3]

30 July, 2008

1 August, 2008

Two days later, and I am once again in a sun lounger soaking up the wondrous rays^[5].  Children have got used to the lazy pace and are now completely chilled out, Michael lying reading (I take back my earlier comment) and Lydia floating in the pool on the inflatable crocodile, eyes closed.  Steve is reading his yearly library book, one of the ones sporting a picture of a man holding a gun on the side (the only criteria I have to follow when selecting a book for him).  Ariane is hopping from one sun bed to the other, chatting about everything under the sun, but that’s Ariane.

We seem to have commandeered the second swimming pool, leaving the first one to the Von Trapps.  Over the last two days (o.k. so it took me longer than the flight) I have finished reading Prisons and Prisoners, and feel even more strongly now that Constance Lytton’s story should be told.  The women of today, not to mention our daughters and granddaughters, should know the reality of so many women’s sacrifices for their freedom a hundred years ago. 

Friday 22 January, 2010

Unless you are skimming through this looking for the interesting bits (ha- there aren’t any), you will notice that today’s date is an eternity away from that of my last diary entry.  So what happened?  Firstly, four dissertations of several thousand words each, three of them elegant and well-researched^[6].  Once the MA tightened its grip again in the autumn of 2008, it did not let go until handing-in day last August^[7], and then left its scars so that I couldn’t think about writing music, or even writing anything, until two days ago.

Monday 14 February, 2011

And unfortunately that didn’t last long.  Yes, here I am over a year later from even the previous (all too brief) entry, and the folder labelled ‘Lady Constance’ stands untouched on my music room shelf next to ‘Music to Study’ and other improbable projects.  Why, oh why?

Here comes the list of excuses: massive house alterations resulting in constant presence of men and dust in house for many months last year (OK so I didn’t mind the men), children constantly off school due to illness/appointments/science tests, cooking, shopping, washing, ironing (can’t say ‘cleaning’- we even have cleaners now so that I have more time to waste)- in short, life with a husband plus three children at the worst age for emotionally tormenting their parents: ‘You are the most unfair parents EVER- I want to move out’ (OK fine, just you try to find somewhere else to live) ‘You don’t know my life!’  (Yes, we do), ‘You’re not the boss of me!’ (Yes, we are).

It still doesn’t ring true though.  I’ve completed many other projects in worse and more pressurised conditions (I’m sure I’ll think of some).  The difference is that I have lost that burning desire- the feeling that I can’t not do it.  So, let’s see if I can get that back.  Tonight I shall take myself off to bed early with Prisons and Prisoners in hand (After teaching until 9 p.m., collecting Ariane and another child from Guides immediately after, swapping Said Other Child with Lydia when Said Other Child’s Mum brings Lydia back from dancing, co-ercing girls into bed by 10, shouting at Michael to get off X-Box, being told all his other friends are allowed to play for longer, crashing on to sofa in front of TV and falling asleep.  Ah.)

What I have so far failed to mention, however, is the fact that during the summer and early autumn of 2008 I actually wrote a large amount of music and libretto for the opera.  And Rhian, my MA tutor, actually told me that three lines of it were very good, so there is hope.  Somewhere.  There is also considerable enthusiasm for the project from Ariane, who had her eye on the part of the young Emily Lytton when this all began, although despite a recent film audition for the part of an 8 yr old, acting the age of 7 when she would realistically be at secondary school would be pushing it.  She can be the young Constance instead; the link to the leading lady will appeal to my starry-eyed girl.

Wednesday 16 February, 2011

Things are looking up.  Only two days since the last diary entry and here I am again.   I haven’t ventured into the Lady Constance folder just yet for reasons anticipated above and the fact that Ariane was home sick yesterday^[8]–  but I’m working up to it.  Have just completed my first musical work since the MA; it may just be just a workshop piece for my lovely young string players called Max and Millie’s Space Adventure^[9] but it is music (sort of), I enjoyed writing it and felt some of the old freedom of composition returning.  It is an unfortunate and completely unfair co-incidence that the main melody of one of the pieces, March of the Martians, is almost identical to one of the themes in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Love Never Dies^[10]. However, I have all the evidence I need to prove that mine came first – so take that, Andrew.

Thursday 17 February, 2011

How about this- daily entry!  This is turning into a real diary now.

Feeling uplifted this morning after Michael’s parents’ evening last night.  It feels strange even typing these words.  We have dreaded parents’ evenings since his very first one, where all hopes for our bright little four-year-old were dashed upon being shown the table where he had to sit by himself to do his work: ‘He’s a bad influence on the other children’.  That was even before the teacher approached the subject of Michael biting anyone who dared to cross him… The parents’ evenings that followed had less of a focus on criminal activity yet possessed one common thread: ‘Michael could do very well… if he tried.’  So it was with fear and trepidation that we went along last night with our lazy, X-Box-obsessed fifteen year-old in tow.  The only redeeming fact was that, being the first time Michael was allowed to attend with us, we were genuinely looking forward to seeing him squirm in front of us when his teachers berated him.^[11]  However, we were in for a shock.  The first glowing report was believable enough as it was for history, Michael’s favourite subject.^[12]  By the time we arrived at the science teacher, however, we were in what seemed like a fantasy land: ‘Ah, Michael…’ (teacher looked wistfully into the distance before continuing in his soft Irish lilt), ‘Such a quiet boy, sits right at the front, only speaks up when he has a most piercingly-intelligent question…and his Physics module result: full marks –full marks– I’ve never seen anything like it before in my life.’    As we looked across to Michael, who was sporting an angelic smile which to the practised eye revealed the slightest hint of a smirk, it was us who were squirming in our seats.  Needless to say we didn’t go through the usual ‘No, you’re not going on your X-Box on a school night’ when we got home.  Perhaps this was all a carefully-planned coup…

Yesterday I listened to the Lady Constance music that I had so far composed on Sibelius.  The very substantial opening section ‘Farewell’ has potential but needs huge re-working (OK so everything Rhian said was right), but I’m still fond of the children’s songs (choosing to ignore R’s judgement on these, which I think I’m entitled to do given my personal experience of writing for children v. hers, which is non-existent.  I think.  I hope).  The other bits are not bad either. 

12.30 p.m.:  Have just returned from fellow villagers Derek and Jenny’s house for a Knebworth Festival ‘Village Talent Showcase’ planning meeting (how very Vicar of Dibley).  Walking through the village on the way there,  I had the sudden illumination that even if I don’t write the opera, I can still write this book- it will just be the chronicle of not writing an opera; a monument to all over-stretched thirty-something women^[13] with unfulfilled artistic aspirations.  A chronicle of failure.  I’ll go with the opera.

The meeting reinforced this considerably.  This village is amazing!  It is full of people who love music and can play/sing it well, who love their community and want to bring it closer together- in short, Knebworth is the ideal candidate for a community opera.  Furthermore, the village seems to be able to get its hands on as much money as it wants from diverse and sometimes unusual means (best not to ask too many questions) for even the most luxurious and ambitious projects^[14].   This prompted me to recall that two years ago I was told that I would be given all the funding I need to make the opera happen (shame money can’t buy a constant stream of perfect composing inspiration).

Writing this diary is doing me the world of creative good in itself, however (apart from the obvious fact of it stopping me writing the actual opera).  I remember one particular day at the very beginning of my relationship with Steve, a Saturday at his house where everyone was lounging in front of the football on TV, when I felt what can only be described as an itchy unsettledness.  Steve noticed this and asked me what was wrong.  I said that I just wasn’t used to doing this passive sort of stuff, that a Saturday for me would usually be spent writing poetry, short stories, music.  Steve must have thought that I was off my block, but married me (and the creative urges) all the same.   Over the last couple of years that itchy feeling has come back and I now know why.  Somehow, possibly as part of the post-MA shell-shock package, I have managed to set up camp as far away from an ivory tower as it is possible to be, my stimulation ranging from music teachers’ forums at best to Facebook and E-bay at worst.  O, to get back to the old days of being so totally consumed by a composition that anything else (sleep, food, Ice Road Truckers) is irrelevant until it is completed!  When the children were very small I once had them standing by the front door in coats, shoes, hats and gloves (a feat in itself not accomplishable in under 45 minutes) when inspiration hit and I made them wait there for at least half an hour longer while I sat at the piano scrawling away.  And then there were the Supermarket Years: shopping lists and cheque books covered with melodies and rhythms which leapt into my mind somewhere between Morning Goods and Foil and Clingfilm.   One piece which turned out quite well was entirely conceived at Sainsbury’s Petrol Station; I still contemplate the pumps with fondness to this day.

14.56: Must go now- small pupil arriving in half an hour and tomorrow’s school lessons to plan beforehand (and reports to write- oh well).  Usually I live for the end of the school day when I can lose myself in teaching, but today has flown by writing this and thinking about Lady Constance.  This is more like it.

23.23: And this is more like the other side of the coin (the one labelled ‘reality’); have a glimpse at the rest of my day:

3.30-4.30: Taught two pupils

4.30-5.15: collected Lydia and others from school orchestra

5.15: bought fish and chips for tea^[15] and did not buy icing sugar for icing ready-made cakes for school cake sale^[16]

5.30 ate tea

5.40 helped a flapping Lydia pack for school ski trip which leaves tomorrow

6.00-7.20: taught two more pupils

7.20: iced cakes with Ariane and decorated with Value Midget Gems (well, having bought the cakes in the first place I’m hardly going to buy them back at the cake sale)

7.40: tested Ariane on spellings for test tomorrow (honestly, does she really need to be able to spell ‘autocrat’?^[17]) whilst running bath

7.50: bathed the girl whilst making phone calls to arrange her half-term social life

8.10: dried the girl whilst hunting for continental adapters/camera batteries etc for Lydia

8.30: threw Ariane in bed just as teenage pupil arrived

8.30-9.20:  taught teenage pupil^[18]

9.20-10.00: final packing/flapping/hugs/bed for Lydia

10.00-10.45: prepared for school teaching tomorrow

10.45: Steve arrived home (yes, that late) and I realised I had not yet made slow cooker lamb dish to cook overnight ready for meal with friends tomorrow

10.45-11.15: made lamb dish after creatively adapting the recipe just for the rush of not following it exactly^[19]

11.15-11.30: answered copious e-mails

11.30-11.54: finished writing this, which is now by far and away the longest diary entry yet.  And so ends my day, five minutes before tomorrow.

Friday 18 February, 2011

00.09: If only.  About to go to bed when remembered that did not write school reports which are required tomorrow (well, today now).  Guess I will be up a while longer.

Monday 21 February, 2011

I like unpredictability as much as the next person, if not more, but the last three days have had every plan crushed by that vicious predator known as migraine.  Friday morning brought its own mini-drama, an aperitif for what was to follow.  Managed to get Lydia to school with suitcase, passport etc for ski trip, then myself to work yet without, to my horror, the sheet music required for that morning’s assembly.  Quick assessment of situation- could I play The Lambeth Walk and Maybe it’s Because I’m a Londoner from memory for the Pre-School ‘Pearly Kings and Queens’ assembly? (this school thinks big- I like it)  I doubted it, particularly in the case of the second song, but busking was the only option I had.  If I pulled it off, it would be an impressive feat, to the parents at least (‘this new teacher is amazing- she doesn’t even need music’).  If I failed- well, that didn’t even bear thinking about: Friday morning assemblies at St Joes are as high-profile as the opening night of a West End production, with a greater number of critics.  Imagine my joy, then, when I arrived at the (gleaming new top-of-the-range electronic baby grand^[20]) piano to find an exact copy of Maybe it’s Because I’m a Londoner waiting for me.  And my further joy when my wonderful colleague Gabriela informed me that she had recorded the music yesterday and could I please just press the button at the right time.  This was no problem: my button-pressing skills are well-documented.  I would thus only have to play The Lambeth Walk from memory, which I was pretty confident doing- and would be sure to remove any trace of music from the piano so as to achieve the full impressive effect as described above.  It worked a treat.

Better still, the pre-school children were so tired/hyper after their assembly experience that usual music sessions were not required, so I found myself sitting in the staff room for half an hour with only a glass of water and my thoughts (which inevitably turned to Constance Lytton) for company^[21].  It was thus turning out to be an easy morning in the end, at least until the moment when, surrounded by a class of five-to-six year-olds wielding brightly-coloured plastic recorders^[22], a myriad of fireflies appeared before my eyes.  They were as bright as sparklers on Fireworks Night, darting about wildly and dancing out of time with the children’s shrill recorder sounds.  Migraine aura, the signal that informs me that I have a ticking timebomb inside my head that will explode very shortly.  No, please no- not now!  As the class teacher was in the room did not feel I could quickly pop the pill which would make attempts to detonate the bomb; she would no doubt interpret this as my hitting the Prozac as a result of arming her class with potent musical weapons in the shape of Hornby recorders.  So I instead struggled to the end of lesson, rammed said drug down throat and hoped for the best.  Had decided to cancel lunchtime orchestra and leave right away, to give myself some chance of keeping the car on the road on the way home, when Felix’s mum appeared heralding a guitar.  ‘So sorry that Felix forgot his guitar this morning; I’ve brought it in for him.  He hasn’t missed orchestra yet, has he?’  ‘No, it starts in a minute- and so kind of you to bring it in.’ The children and parents of the school are committed to me, so I must be just as committed to them.  Orchestra went ahead^[23].  

Anyway, the less said about the rest of the day the better.  When finally home, fell into bed and deep three-hour sleep verging on unconsciousness which seemed to knock the migraine on the head (as it were), meaning could just about cope with friends coming round for dinner (to glean expert advice from Steve and I re. forthcoming school appeals; we should set up a business in this, having been through so many).

The after-effects of the migraine, however, were such that for the whole weekend I felt as if someone had plunged a large syringe into me and sucked out everything that wasn’t fat/ loose muscle (told you it was vicious).  This did mean that, all other plans cancelled, I had a licence to lie around reading Prisons and Prisoners and my notes upon it scrawled two and a half years ago; unfortunately the latter made little sense so it is back to the writing board for me without passing Go or collecting £200.

Tuesday 22 February, 2011

Shall I inform Steve that I am writing a best-selling book? ^[24]   I refer to this diary of course- to try to write a novel on top of this and the opera would be plain madness (or would it?  The novel of the diary of the opera…..shut up).  No, I think I will wait until the publishers’ bidding war is underway before revealing it as a wondrous surprise.  Steve will probably greet the news with a ‘That’s great’ and wonder why I am sulking for three days afterwards, before it transpires that he wasn’t actually listening when I told him because he was watering his chilli plants at the time (I speak from experience).

Wednesday 23 February, 2011

3.30 p.m. Writing this in a sauna (so far, so good), fully clothed (less good), otherwise known as Aquasplash Hemel Hempstead (less good still).  However, I have two hours to do plenty of reading while Ariane and her friend (new BFF and apparently blood sister Chloe) throw themselves down various water chutes (or, more realistically, stand dripping wet and cold in long queues; it is half-term after all).

5.45 p.m. Two and a half hours.  The girls are having so much watery fun that they want to stay until the pool closes. That’s fine; have got lots of reading done- not only An Uncommon Criminal and Prisons and Prisoners but also my own notes of 2008 from the British Library and Knebworth House archives.  More scribbled notes without proper references (bad girl!  Did I not learn anything from the MA?); it thus seems that I will probably have to repeat the research.  Oh well.  It will be fresh at least.  My reading today has confirmed that one of the most difficult issues to deal with in the opera will be Constance’s relationship with John Ponsonby, or Swift as he was often known. It is clear that this was not a simple case of unrequited love but that there were barriers either side.  I am loath to leave it out of the opera- it is too much a part of Constance for that, and the relationship’s failure meant that she was so much the more ‘married’ to her suffragette cause^[25]– yet by way of necessity may have to simplify it as ‘boy from wrong side of tracks meets girl’.  It works in all the films.

Have now planned out the two acts of the opera, each of which will have three main sections, and made a grand to-do list:

1.  Watch/study modern professional and community operas (i.e. not Don Giovanni)
2. Do /redo research in Knebworth House archives
3. Complete libretto
4. Write music
5. Do orchestrations
6. Sort costumes/props
7. Sort amateur and professional performers/venue etc etc.

This seems to me highly achievable by, say, the end of this year or, failing that, 2015.  Let’s go.

9.45 p.m. Very excited!  Have ordered first edition (1914) of Prisons and Prisoners!  Found three copies from different sellers online, two costing about £80 and the third £25.  I took a gamble on the cheaper one after seller assured me it was genuine. We shall see.  One thing is for sure: it will be an improvement on my current copy, printed out from the internet and stapled together in sections, much of the ink smudged as a result of Turkish pool-side reading.

Thursday 24 February, 2011

Decided to do a little sorting out in bedroom before getting down to opera work this evening (one daughter in Austria, the other one at sleepover, Michael married to X-box: this half term is proving to be rather luxurious).  Two hours later, however, I was still engrossed in reading the last of the love letters between Steve and I which we wrote on a daily basis during our long-distance engagement.  Ah, young love, intensified by the heartbreak of separation!  Was fully immersed in the world of yore, sighing at our sweet declarations of forever to each other, when the phone rang.  It was Steve, calling from a Eurostar train on the way to Calais.  Ah, my Steve, obviously missing me (it’s a long day trip to Paris).

 ‘Got to be quick,’ said the same voice which once made time itself disappear, ‘Credit card fraud.  Ring the company NOW and see what’s going on.’

BOOM- back to reality.  Made the phone call and discovered that some prat in Oxford has been ordering daily take-aways and mobile phone top-ups courtesy of our credit card details.  Hope he gets heart disease/ radiation poisoning.

Thursday 16 June, 2011

Oh, come on!  June!  At this rate you can expect an entry in three pages’ time from my retirement home…  It’s not surprising that I haven’t written any words or music in the last three months, however, when I keep having days like today:

8-9:  took child no. 2 and others to school in Ware.  Fought through rush hour traffic to Stevenage, then fought through shops hunting for essentials for same child’s school trip to France next week (thongs, facemasks etc.). 10.15:  Drove straight to Baldock, collected child no. 1 from school after exam for study/X-box leave, drove him home via Hitchin orthodontist and 40 mins wait for 30 second appointment.  11.55: arrived home, rushed around like headless chicken stuffing clothes into washing machine, unblocking bathroom sink with plunger etc.  12.20: drove back to Stevenage to collect child no. 3 and various other people’s offspring (the ones who have proper jobs) from athletics festival^[26] and deposit them back to school.  1 p.m.: arrived home to find Michael on the X-box, having a well-earned break from, well, no revision, made lunch and copious necessary phone calls, and here I am faced with yet more phone calls/e-mails/ washing/tidying/lesson preparation/practising of numerous piano parts for Saturday’s Festival Showcase.  So I’d better go.

Tuesday 10 October, 2011

Yo, readers!  I am back!  But the excuse for my absence this time is a most wondrous one- I am a proper composer again, writing for professional musicians and even the odd famous (ish) actor^[27] and being taken seriously for it.

Still struggling with the ol’ housewife and mother constraints- today, for example, has been mainly spent in the car on a magical mystery tour of North and East Hertfordshire schools and orthodontists- but there is music in my head again so nothing else matters.

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^[1] Or at least one which does not involve first degree murder

^[2] It’s nice when your parents have hobbies.  Even nicer when theirs is buying foreign properties.

^[3] Well, for the first ten times.  It then became their holiday theme song and got sillier as each day passed, to the point that at the end of the two weeks it was being sung in the nude (by the girls, not us) with their new Turkish belly-dancing outfits wrapped in turbans round their heads. 

^[4] Arty Scottish term for seals.

^[5] You can tell that no German families had ventured to that part of Turkey.  We each had our own sun lounger every single day, no clandestine 4 a.m. trip to place towel on bed required.

^[6] Unfortunately these were the school appeals to beg for secondary schools for Michael and Lydia rather than the MA dissertation, which I was attempting to write simultaneously.    

^[7] The official handing-in day.  I submitted my work the day before so that we could have a stress-free departure to Mum and Dad’s Holiday Home no. 3, the Second Spanish Abode, the next day.  All was going swimmingly until, with the music office at Uni about to close, I punched the last set of holes in my dissertation and they came out wonky.   Sat through celebration dinner at Planet Hollywood thinking only of wonky holes, which then terrorised my dreams all night.  The next day, printed out whole new copy, punched  it with straight holes (well, Steve did in sympathy for my clear lack of fine-motor-skills), jumped on train to London, ran through streets, handed the wretched thing in, jumped on next train back, jumped in taxi to airport, jumped on plane, did not move for entire week.

^[8] This is a girl who is never off school, detesting the boredom of home/bed, but who obviously felt obliged to make her personal contribution towards this half term’s impressive ratio of Days with Children Off Sick v. Days with Children at School (approx 20:13).

^[9] The long-awaited sequel to Max and Millie’s Undersea Adventure of 2006, BMA (Before MA)

^[10] And even more unfortunate that said theme from Love Never Dies is a supposed example of the trashy music that the Phantom writes in the absence of his muse, Christine.

^[11] As opposed to brushing off everything we reported back to him with assured statements: ‘Ah, that’s not what Mr. X meant at all’, ‘Ah, now you see Mrs Y is such a terrible teacher she’s just trying to cover up for her own failings’.  I still maintain that this boy is going to be a barrister.

^[12] Although we suffered some  humiliation ourselves here for not having believed Michael when he told us that his predicted grade B had been computer generated and his real expected grade was A*.  Well, come on!  There’s a typically improbable teenage excuse if ever I heard one.

^[13] Or, let’s face it, forty-something by the time I’m through

^[14] This year’s village talent show will feature tiered seating and a professional light show in the church at the cost of £1000.  On that basis it is not unrealistic to suppose that a modest opera house could be erected for Lady Constance and situated in the grounds of Knebworth House, preferably within view of her resting place.

^[15] Healthy cooking/eating comes to an end by Thursday, which is effectively the weekend.

^[16] How can the village Co-op not stock icing sugar when we are constantly forced to bake/fake cakes due to school fundraising ploys?  Thankfully ran into BF Judy who promised to deliver icing sugar along with daughter for violin lesson half an hour later.

^[17] You can just imagine the children’s creative writing submissions: ‘One day once upon a time far away there lived a fairy, a rabbit and an autocrat’.

^[18] I like teaching teenagers- finding a way into their world and trying to be the hippest, coolest music teacher ever.  I like to think I succeed but they probably just think I’m really sad.

^[19] You either see cooking as a science or an art.  For me it’s the latter.  Steve, however, practically writes a method, result and conclusion every time he makes porridge.

^[20] How I love working in a prep school

^[21] Very alien experience though.  Working mostly from home means that there is always something to do and a coffee or lunch break means doing the washing/ironing/bills.  Even the staff room chat at St Joe’s during morning break feels like a guilty pleasure to me.

^[22] My crazy idea, I admit- part of my master plan to turn St. Joseph’s into a mini-Purcell School

^[23] This of course had nothing to do with the fact that Felix’s Mum is a bestselling author and more than once recently I have been casually wondering if she would be happy to have a quick look over this tome and give me some advice of the literary kind.

^[24] /a mediocre book to be published by dodgy village publisher/ a dire book to be printed out from computer then bound in the Stevenage branch of Staples (delete as required)

^[25] Plus can hardly turn down a good bit of tormented love- it is an opera after all

^[26] Ariane lost her race, the 800m, by staying in her lane throughout, no doubt thinking that all of the other competitors who left their lanes to run on the inside would be disqualified. 

^[27] Crispin Bonham-Carter; I was asked to write a piece of music for instrumental ensemble to accompany his reading of John Betjeman’s poem The Licorice Fields at Pontefract, as part of an evening of poetry and music. It was the only new work featured; the other poems having been previously set by the composer Betty Roe.  Crispin was entirely charming.

If you have read all the way down to this point, I salute you. A medal is in order. Or a large glass of fine sparkling wine.

So there you go: The Opera That Wasn’t: but the will and the passion that was. Maybe one day someone will pick it up and run with it, making the dream a reality…

‘If you can dream- and not make dreams your master…’ (Rudyard Kipling)