To illustrate my point I’d like to tell you about the relationship I had with my Music Master from the first week of Grammar school until I left in 1971. I invite you to consider how this relationship would be viewed today.

As soon as JB (my Music Master) realised that I had genuine potential he began giving me informal one to one tuition during breaks and lunchtimes. I’d meet him in the school hall and he’d play the Steinway Grand while I practiced my singing. Anyone who had proper vocal training as a child will know that it’s a very ‘hands on’ process as tightening the abdominal muscles while singing isn’t a natural action; it has to be taught and involves physical contact.

When I was twelve I decided to write a descant for a well known Christmas carol and after a lot of scribbled out pages in my manuscript book finally had what I thought was a decent effort so I asked for a private session to discuss it rather than have the rest of the Form giving me a hard time. JB played it through while I sang the carol in its original form and then he spent half an hour explaining to me just how much was wrong with it. All of the criticism was completely constructive and he made sure that I understood where I’d broken accepted rules on chordal progression and why it just simply didn’t work. He also went out of his way to praise me for having the courage to write the piece in the first place.

When I was thirteen JB gave me, as a personal gift, a copy of the Oxford Companion to Music which is the musical equivalent of the OED; it’s an essential reference work for anyone studying Music theory and history. I didn’t know what that tome cost and would never have been so crass as to ask but it certainly wasn’t cheap.

Once I started learning to play the organ, when I was fourteen a significant number of my music lessons were spent with just JB and I in the organ loft of the otherwise deserted Midhurst Parish church. I was too short to reach the pedal board in those days so I’d concentrate on the three keyboards while JB played the pedals; once again physical contact was inevitable.

Just after I finished my mock O Levels JB invited me to a piano recital by Ashkenazy at Brighton pavilion; it was a post exam treat and nothing to do with school at all. I had tea at his house before he drove us to Brighton and after the concert he delivered me back to Lurgashall. I got home just after midnight on a school night and fell asleep while telling my parents what a fantastic concert it had been.

While I was in Lower Sixth Form JB invited me to another concert; this time to hear Itzhak Perlman. Again it was just the two of us and it was a completely unofficial and private event.

Neither of those concerts cost me a penny and on both occasions we had very expensive seats so that we could get the best of the acoustics and a good view of the performers.

I can only imagine how a teacher lavishing such attention on a single pupil would be viewed now but I can assure you that despite a plethora of opportunities no inappropriate behaviour occurred. if JB ever had any designs in that direction, which I don’t believe for a moment he did, he was clearly too reticent to pursue things.

Love

How does a nearly 16 year break something like that to his parents? The only thing to do was talk to the one Master that I completely trusted. The man who’d been my Form and English Master since Second Form.

My fear was that if I simply went home and announced the idea, my parents would just dismiss it as a fantasy and that would inevitably degenerate into a violent confrontation.

Smiling, he pointed out that the most ardent supporter of the whole grand scheme was likely be my Headmaster who frankly didn’t like me.

There was a reason for this antipathy but it’s a story all by itself, one that I will tell because it’s another good example of just how confrontational I could be especially if I was in the right.

All I’ll say here is that I could imagine him being very keen on a proposal that would get me out of his school. I made an appointment to see him.

I arrived outside his office ten minutes ahead of the appointed time having been very careful to obtain written permission from the Master who’s lesson I was missing, I didn’t want some self important prefect finding an excuse to cause friction.

My uniform was immaculate and my hair was neatly combed, I’d even made an extra effort in polishing my shoes the previous evening. At the superficial level I was a model pupil.

Sure enough the Headmaster wasn’t just supportive of the idea, he was positively enthusiastic. It’s a strange feeling to bring someone so much pleasure by telling him his school’s inadequate for a gifted pupil.

It never occurred to me while we were talking that this plan could fail and that he and I would somehow have to plan for another two years of personal confrontation.

He agreed to liaise with Dartington, get all the necessary forms from the local authority and ensure that anything needed from school was forthcoming. My part was to get my parents’ permission.

I waited until an evening when both of them were available and it was just us in the house, not as easy as it sounds. Then I took a very big breath and put the proposal forward.

The anticipated refusal didn’t happen, all they wanted at that point was information. I’d got the prospectus ready for them and told them that the Head knew all about it so all they had to do was contact  him.

When Mum understood the full implications, that I’d be going to boarding school a long way away, she was a little unhappy but I suspected that was a normal maternal reaction.

I hastily reassured her that I did love them but this was such an important opportunity for me to do the one thing that really mattered. I might have been exceptionally good (allegedly brilliant) at some subjects but music was different, it defined who and what I was, I stood up and announced

“I’m a Musician”

They promised to consider the idea, warning that they’d be looking very carefully at all the details. Then they set one non-negotiable condition, I had to pass all my O Levels, absolutely no exceptions.

Satisfied that I had a real chance at my dream I kissed them both, said “thank you” and went to my room to study, although I’ll admit that I did take time off to dream for a little while.

It’s going to take more than one post to tell this story because the details are important.

In February 1969 I sat my mock O levels and everything was wonderful. I passed all of them and got better grades than expected in some. Nobody was surprised that I got top grades in Music, English and French, that was expected of and by me.

What I didn’t know was that a very small group of teachers, the ones that for the main part were worried about me, had been having secret talks. Apparently it had been noticed that I wasn’t happy, I can’t imagine why.

After a long and particularly gruelling session on violin, I was preparing for Grade 6 at the time, my violin teacher asked me if I’d be at all interested in going to Dartington Hall.

Assuming that she meant attending a course similar to Lodge Hill I said yes, of course I’d be interested, how long for?

For the rest of my school days she explained, it was a school specialising in music and performing arts that specifically catered for children who needed more freedom and support to develop exceptional talents.

That felt as though she was doing herself down, she’d never stinted on supporting me and I said as much. Yes, she agreed without a shred of false modesty, she was a very good teacher but she only saw me twice a week. How much better would it be if I had that quality of teaching every day?

Every day, what an amazing prospect! I could already see a problem though, this sort of school sounded expensive and my parents simply couldn’t afford it.

Not necessarily a problem, she assured me. For one thing there were local authority grants available but even better, she wanted to put my name forward for a full fees scholarship.

Wow! I knew I was good, I’d never doubted it but even I wasn’t sufficiently arrogant to believe I might be that good. When I asked if she really thought I could do it she grumpily said that if she didn’t we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

A fair point I conceded, so where did we go from here? She handed me a prospectus for Dartington Hall telling me to read it carefully, we’d talk more at my viola lesson later in the week.

That night I read the prospectus from cover to cover, twice to be certain that I understood everything. Then I sat at my little desk for a very serious think about the full implications of this proposal.

For the idea

I’d be getting the most intense level of music training I could sustain, I would be the only limiting factor

I’d be able to pursue my English and French Literature studies at my own pace being mentored rather than taught

I’d be away from home for whole terms at a time, Dad and I might even be able to get on a bit if I was only home for the holidays

I’d be out of the school where I was so unhappy and which was driving me closer and closer towards a full scale breakdown

Against the idea

I’d be separated from the girl I adored, in a very non-sexual way, and the relationship would probably fizzle out

I’d be separated from my best friend, a boy I’d met in Second Form and with whom I wanted to be much more than friends

I’d be saying goodbye to a few teachers who meant a huge amount to me and had been very supportive

There was no doubt about it, there was much more for the idea than against it and I knew what I’d be saying at my viola lesson on Thursday morning.

All I had to do was work out how I was going to sell this idea to my parents.

Love

The rest of the Easter holiday just drifted by, beyond my music I had no real interests to keep me busy and before I knew it school had started again.

The next event of any real note was my appointment at the orthopaedic clinic and even before the day arrived things started to go wrong.

Dad suddenly announced that he couldn’t get a shift change for the day in question so he couldn’t drive me to Chichester with Mum, which had been the plan all along. The decision was made that at 15 I should be grown up enough to take care of myself and could attend hospital alone.

Er… OK, I could do that I supposed although I was very nervous of the idea. This wasn’t like going to the GP’s surgery where everybody had known me since I was 3 and always called me by my first name, this was a major hospital and everybody would be a complete stranger.

There was an upside however, getting out of school after second period so that I could get the bus to Chichester. Mum gave me money for the bus fare and a “little extra” so that I could get myself a cup of tea and something to eat after my appointment.

On the day I gave a letter from Mum to my Form Master, showed him the appointment letter and got a very genuine good luck wish which made me feel a little better about the whole thing. Delighted at the thought of almost an entire day out of school I made my way to the bus.

Well, if I was grown up enough to attend hospital on my own then I was grown up enough to sit on the top deck and smoke myself into near nausea, so I did but didn’t actually quite reach the embarrassing moment of puking all over the other passengers.

Having been worried silly about being late for my appointment I actually arrived almost an hour early and settled into a corner of the waiting room to get a head start on some prep. When my name was finally called over the tannoy I hurriedly put my books away and got up to face a stern looking nurse who barked ‘follow me’ and strode off down the corridor leaving me to trail along behind her like an obedient puppy.

What happened next is a tale all by itself which I’ll tell next time.

I won’t dwell on the non-event that was my 15^th birthday, that’s part of a broader story.

The next event of note was the choral course, another week at the sanctuary that was Lodge Hill and a far more useful way to spend half of an Easter Holiday than being at home. The fact that I’d be under the watchful eye of my girlfriend was a big plus, there was no risk of untoward incidents.

One of the things that being 15 apparently did was instantly make me capable of organising my own packing for a week away from home. This was a completely unwarranted assumption on the part of my parents and empirical evidence suggested that they were absolutely wrong.

Unpacking in the room at Lodge Hill revealed that I’d I covered the basics of underwear, socks and casual tops (by the simple expedient of upending the appropriate drawers into my suitcase) and my uniform was carefully folded and packed together with a carefully polished pair of shoes.

Mum had thoughtfully supplied toothpaste and shampoo and I remembered my toothbrush so as far as I was concerned I’d packed everything I needed.

Missing in action though, were my hairbrush, dressing gown and, most disturbing of all, pyjamas. For the first time in my life I was faced with the choice of sleeping in my underwear, which I found distasteful or going nude. There was nothing fundamentally wrong with the latter choice although I was very self conscious about my defiantly undeveloped equipment.

Somewhat red faced I explained to my 2 roommates what had happened and they simply shrugged, one of them saying that’s how he always slept anyway. I only really had one worry left, unconcealed inappropriate reactions to seeing 2 frankly attractive boys as nature intended.

Fortunately I’d developed pretty heroic willpower over the preceding couple of years to avoid just such behaviour in the changing room so I was moderately confident of not disgracing myself and getting a kicking for it.

So the first night and the subsequent morning passed without incident and the real business of the course began.

Rehearsals were shorter than those on the orchestral course; young voices have to be treated fairly gently if damage isn’t to be done. We also got longer breaks between sessions which meant plenty of time to dance attendance on my girlfriend.

The confrontation didn’t occur; Fenny wasn’t on the course after all, so I didn’t find myself the centre of a bizzare  tug of war.

Adolescent concupiscence, however, was planning a very traumatic surprise for me which I’ll tell you about next time.

Love

Anyway, I guess I should get back to the complicated story of a schoolboy musician and broken rugby player. To be honest there isn’t a great deal to say about the remainder of the winter term. After the sheer wonder of performing at the Royal Festival Hall everything else seemed flat and rather pointless.

We did a shortened version of Messiah for the school Christmas concert but with only 30 odd singers and the school orchestra it was frankly dull. We sang well and did our best but there just wasn’t the same intensity and I found myself in the middle of a power struggle between choir and orchestra. In the end I took my life in my hands and made my choice, I sang.

There was actually more enjoyment in the trip that our Choirmaster organised to sing carols on every ward of the local hospital and the audience, even though most of them weren’t feeling terribly festive, were wonderfully appreciative.

At church I moved from my accustomed position in the front row, nearest the congregation, to the back row to sing tenor in the choir. It felt weird, being such a short-arse, standing in the back row completely dwarfed by the men.

Christmas and New Year dealt with it was back to school and another term of standing on the touchline, shivering and wishing more than ever that I could play. The sympathy and respect that injury brought had well and truly expired and now really helpful epithets like “spaz” were starting to be thrown my way.

Thankfully I had music to comfort me and the more my Form “mates” tried to make me feel inadequate the more I withdrew to the sanctuary of choir and orchestra. I had grading exams coming up again, the County Youth Orchestra to attend and more instrumental lessons a week than was easily manageable now that it had been decided that learning piano was an absolute must.

As an added bonus I got my customary winter cold which tried its hardest to become something worse and copped the best part of a week off school which I thoroughly enjoyed. Comfort food and the isolation of my bed were just about everything I could hope for.

As I headed towards my 15^th birthday and the end of term, harsh reality poked its head up again, a letter arrived from St Richard’s with my appointment at the orthopaedic clinic. The letter was addressed to my parents of course, at nearly 15 there was no reason why I should have any input or consideration.

The appointment wasn’t until after the holiday so I’d be 15 before I finally saw the consultant and, hopefully, got permission to start playing rugby again. Not that rugby would happen for a long time anyway, summer term meant cricket, athletics and the hated swimming.

Before that, however, there was another residential course to attend, a week of intensive choral work during the Easter holiday. There was to be no repetition of the Lodge Hill incident this time. My girlfriend, I was still in heroic denial about my true feelings, announced that she’d be on the course as well.

I couldn’t help wondering if Fenny would be there, that would be an interesting meeting.

The first is the organ pipe moment. Those familiar with Messiah will know that “And the glory of the lord” opens with a single loud note. It’s a bottom G and is usually played by the organ if there’s one available. Well there was certainly an organ available at the RFH, a huge 6 manual beast with banks of stops that seemed to go on forever and ranks of pipes that almost covered the wall behind us.

Using the deepest voice possible and with the swell wide open, the organist tramped down on the pedal board and from the pipe behind me came a blast of sound and vibration that made me physically jump. The sub sonic effect of such a deep note went all the way down through my chest and beyond giving me a most unpleasant sensation and a real fear of a childish accident.

I smothered a giggle with a fake cough and got my self control back just in time to start singing. When I saw the South Park “brown note” episode a few years ago I immediately thought of that worrying moment from 1967.

Another outstanding moment was listening to Roger Stalman singing “The trumpet shall sound” which is a glorious bass aria that very few people ever get quite right. He got it more than right, he was brilliant and the entire choir was rapt throughout his performance.

Unsurprisingly the biggest high of the whole performance was Hallelujah. I’ve performed and listened to this sublime piece of choral music many times and one thing I’ve noticed is that adults tend to get mired in the religious import and forget what it’s really meant to be; exultant. School children tend to be a lot less inhibited.

Had there been rafters at the RFH we would have raised them and, by heck, we exulted! The conductor held the last syllable and his hand kept going up, demanding more volume, then with a flourish he stopped us and the orchestra played out the closing phrase. For a few seconds there was complete silence apart from the reverberation.

My views on faith are a matter of public knowledge, right here on this blog, I have none. That moment, though, was as near to a religious experience as I ever expect to get. The sheer magnificence of the music and the intensity of emotion left me in tears, heedless of the fact that I was on such public display. The boy next to me put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a little reassuring squeeze, when I looked at him I could see that his eyes weren’t completely dry.

At the end of the work we sat back down while the conductor took his bow and then brought each of the soloists forward to receive their applause. Then the orchestra stood to lengthy applause and finally we were waved to our feet to be given our accolade which was loud, long and frankly merited.

We’d given our best and it had been very good.

Love

Once we were all registered and aboard the coach set off and we immediately started doing warm up exercises to get throats and vocal chords working properly and then launched into a full scale A cappella rendition of Messiah. The driver assured us that it was one of the most enjoyable trips he’d ever done.

Arriving at South Bank there was a mad rush for the nearest toilets where a very long queue formed but at last we were all ready to be ushered into the hall itself. It was a truly awe inspiring sight, the largest concert venue I’d ever been in, as a performer, by several orders of magnitude.

Once the mundane business of signing in had been dealt with the conductor introduced himself and presented the soloists to us. I can’t remember who 3 of them where but there is one that I’ll never forget. Roger Stalman was an almost cadaverous man who had the most glorious and fully supported bass voice. From that moment he became my favourite bass soloist of all time and I’d see him in concert often as the years passed.

Then the rehearsal started, two and a half gruelling hours of constant interruption and repetition as several hundred children who’d never even seen each other before, let alone sung together, were moulded into a choir worthy of the RFH.

We got an hour’s break, with a buffet lunch and then it was back for an entire afternoon of further work, this time with the full orchestra and the organ. The conductor relentlessly drilled the choir out of the incredibly annoying, but almost universal, tendency to put an inappropriate rallantando into the final Hallelujah of the Hallelujah chorus.

My own choirmaster had already dealt with this irritant during rehearsals at school, pointing out quite correctly that Baroque choral music rarely ends with a rallantando, the final phrase should be strictly a tempo and then the final “jah” is held fortissimo until the conductor decides that it’s gone on long enough or members of the choir start to faint from lack of oxygen.

At last the conductor was satisfied with our performance and we were given a couple of hours to attack the tea that had been laid on and then stretch our legs for a while, with strict instructions not to leave the South Bank complex, there were to be no pupils lost in London! I was quite content to sit and gaze at the river for a while and then study my score to be absolutely sure I was confident about the tenor part.

After a quick wash we put our uniforms on and assembled in the auditorium for some final words of encouragement. It was going to be a long wait as we were to be in place before the audience started arriving but at least we got to sit down. Looking round I realised that the wide range of uniforms on display produced an effect somewhat like a Jackson Pollock painting but I suppose that in 1967 abstract art was quite appropriate.

Our Choirmaster decided to arrange us in order of height with the tallest towards the centre and the shortest on the outside. Guess who found himself on the extreme end of the row completely exposed to the auditorium?

Looking behind me, we were in the very back row, I discovered that I was sitting in front of one of the open 32^ft pipes of the great organ; this promised to be an interesting experience later.

Love

Still showing no signs of imminent puberty my voice changed but not in the conventional way. None of my upper register disappeared, I was still happily singing soprano, but the lower register got a lot lower, to the point where I could comfortably sing tenor.

There was none of the squeakiness and random pitch shifts normally associated with a breaking voice, it was just different and the Choirmaster was delighted. He could probably have been a little more tactful in moving me to the back row.

“Malcolm, I want you with the tenors, they’re a bit weak” was not at all well received and as so neither was I. One of the legitimately broken-voiced boys actually made the very hurtful remark “I don’t know what you’re doing here, McLachlan, you’re not even developed yet”.

I had a champion though, a fellow orchestral player two years above me, who stood up for me and told the affronted boy to leave me alone, I was there because I could sing the part and was needed. To be honest I was, the tenors were weak. Just to undermine myself though, I earned my first shilling about ten minutes later.

Our Choirmaster had a little tradition that he’d established when he first started teaching and carried it on when he came to our school. If someone made an honest mistake but did it with absolute confidence then he’d throw a shilling at them as a reward.

If the errant pupil was paying proper attention and caught the coin then they got to keep it. If they weren’t watching the Choirmaster, as they should be, then they’d probably miss the coin and it had to stay on the floor. It was a fun little idea and kept people on their toes.

I was paying attention; I’d just got a bit confused as to which part I was singing. I caught the coin, apologised for the error and was thus a whole shilling richer. Of course I was also extremely cross with myself for making such a silly mistake in the first place.

Travel arrangements were announced for the big day itself and immediately there was a little panic for me, the coach was leaving for London at 7am so that we’d be at the Royal Festival Hall in time for the big final rehearsal with all the other schools, the orchestra and the soloists.

To be in Midhurst for 7am would mean getting up at about 4am, assuming I could persuade Dad to drive me there in the first place. The Music Teacher who’d sold me my violin came to the rescue and said I could sleep at her house the night before.

My parents were quite happy with the idea, a much more civilised arrangement than getting up in the middle of the night so everything was fine and the day before the big day I arrived at school with my satchel, my violin, my viola, a suitcase with a perfectly pressed uniform and overnight stuff in it and a sleeping bag, the most unwieldy set of luggage you can imagine.

Obviously staying with a teacher meant that prep and practice had to be done, possibly more assiduously than at home but it was fun having an accompanist for my violin and viola session. I also got the opportunity to go through some of the still new to me tenor parts of Messiah and then it was time to bed down on the biggest sofa I’d ever seen, bigger than my bed at home.

Love

This wasn’t because I feared violence, it was a trick I’d developed when I got a sudden surge of stage fright realising that my parents were in the front row of the audience for my first concert. Without my glasses I couldn’t see a damn’ thing, I’d got my part firmly memorised so I didn’t need to read the music. As long as I could vaguely make out the Conductor’s waving baton I was fine.

What it meant now was that I couldn’t see the accusatory stares that were almost certainly being aimed at me when the Head got to the Under 15s, although the blush I could feel creeping up my neck and over my face somewhat gave the lie to my feigned insouciance. At least the Head just read out the score, no mention of the atrocity committed by the Linesman.

Apart from some rather fierce jostling as we left the hall that was more or less the end of the matter. If the other boys thought that effectively ostracising me was some form of punishment they badly miscalculated. For one thing I’d pretty much stopped caring in First Form and, for another, most of them hardly talked to me in the first place.

I had a much more important iron in the fire, my audition for the County Youth Orchestra. My violin teacher gave me a date, tee hee it was on a Saturday, and then even offered to take me there herself. That was a major bonus; the journey to Chichester was a three bus marathon from Lurgashall. All I had to do was get to Petworth, where she lived, a mere 5 miles from home and only a mile walk to the bus stop.

Arriving at the school where the auditions were being held I went to sign in and had my first experience of something that would dog me throughout my teenage years. Checking my details, the woman in the office raised her eyebrows questioningly and asked “It says here that you’re 14, is that right?” What fun it was being a late developer!

I assured her that it was quite correct, I was indeed 14, 14½ actually, and her eyebrows went up even more. Why, I wondered, would anyone lie about their age and why had God or genetics decided that at 14 I still had to look like an 11 year old?

The audition was quite terrifying. Playing in front of the County Director of Music while my teacher sat watching my every move and listening to my every note had me sweating. Inevitably I made mistakes, the pressure was enormous, but tolerance seemed to be in that morning and allowances were made. I didn’t play badly; I just didn’t demonstrate my usual confidence.

At last it was over and all that remained was the big question. Could I commit every 4^th Saturday to rehearsals? My head said “Not without talking to Killer (the Games Master) first” and my mouth said “Yes, of course I can” so that was it, I’d passed. All I had to do now was present Killer with this fait accompli; he was not going to be a happy chap.

Love