Life must be filled up

The Kinks: Songs of the Semi-Detached by Mark Doyle.

Here’s a book I’m thinking of buying, after reading this review in The Spectator. (I got the link from Liberal England.) I’ve always been a fan of The Kinks. As I’ve got older and the sixties have become history, I’ve been amazed that someone as young as Ray Davies was then could have such an acute sense of a working-class world that was vanishing and write so nostalgically about it. Autumn Almanac and Shangri-La are still favourite songs of mine.

I’ve just read a review of a new book, The Durrells of Corfu by Michael Haag. The reviewer (Lewis Jones) writes about the various places the Durrell family lived before moving to Corfu and hit me with this:
in 1930 … the family moved to a basement flat in the Queen’s Hotel, Upper Norwood…In Larry’s novel The Black Book … the Queen’s Hotel is cunningly disguised as the Regina Hotel, a ‘tomb of masonry’, ‘crowded with ghosts’, and inhabited by prostitutes, perverts and degenerates.

Well! For a brief time in my teens, The Queen’s was my local. It was conveniently situated on the way home from church or youth club (not as proper as it sounds, heh) and was a regular hangout for a gang of us. It was built in 1854 for tourists wanting to visit the relocated Crystal Palace on Sydenham Hill. A few years ago, I found that it had become a hostel for asylum seekers, criticized for overcrowding and general poor conditions. Full circle? It was perfectly respectable when we went there, with never a hint of ghosts or degeneracy. A Google search suggests that it’s now gone up in the world and lost its apostrophe.



The book sounds fascinating, so much so that I’ve pre-ordered it.

When not nipping out for a paper and gossiping with neighbours, I’m listening to Sounds of the Sixties. Tim Rice is standing in again for Brian Matthew, who is ill. There’s no better stand-in than Sir Tim because no one knows more about pop history than he does but I’m worried about Brian because he’s eighty eight. If another legend of my youth leaves us this year I shall be distraught.

I was thinking about how, in my early teens, I would listen regularly to Brian Matthew on Saturday Club. Those were the days when The Beatles might appear on the show, larking about and playing live. In these days of stadium rock and tickets for big name concerts at £80.00 a pop, it’s hard to believe how accessible the big names were in those days. The Beatles and other bands famously appeared on variety bills in small theatres even after they’d become well known. When I was a student, the band booked for the weekly Union dance might be Cream. Seems incredible, doesn’t it? Ah, some of you were born too late.:-)

This photo shows most of yesterday’s non-food purchases at the market. First up, a master class in buying at boot sales.
Me: ‘How much is this?’ (the Monica Dickens book).
Seller: ‘£1.50.’
Me: ‘Too much,’ (puts book back in box).
Seller: ‘50p.’
Me: ‘OK’ (hands over money).

One of my favourite sellers there had what were for him unusual items: three boxes of 45s, all apparently from the sixties. Two blokes (it’s always men) were already looking very carefully through them but I didn’t have the patience. Since the price was ‘three for a pound’ I thought I would just get a few. Amusingly, the giant of a man standing next to me kept handing me records he’d already looked at. ‘Del Shannon?’ ‘Do you like the Everlys?’ When I asked how he could judge my tastes so accurately, he replied, ‘I’m guessing you’re about the same age as I am’! Flattering? Probably not.

The last buy was one I really shouldn’t have made: more knitting patterns. I do not need any more knitting patterns and I have no room for them.

Eheu, another icon of my youth is gone.
I’m amazed he lived so long. When I was at school I went to see every single film he was in. As I wrote on here once, I would pay just to sit and look at him, even when he was old. And he loved cricket, too! I can’t find the very picture I used to have on my bedroom wall, but this will do.

Yesterday, Cornflower posted about a visit she made to Liberty in Regent Street. She commented that there was surprisingly little fabric for sale. What a shame! In my youth I made so many dresses from Liberty fabric. Amazingly, I still have two of them (I think the rest must have gone for patchwork). This is Liberty Tana Lawn from the late 1960s:



Here is a later fabric, early 1970s, in a crisp cotton.



Perhaps I hung on to these because of the amount of work in them. Just look at those self-covered buttons and the bias-cut bound button loops! I can hardly believe that when I was working full time and had a very busy social life, I would still spend a weekend making a dress like that one.

I’m sure that in the sixties there was a small outpost of Liberty in Croydon but I’ve scoured the net and can’t find any mention of it. I think it was in Katharine Street. If anyone else remembers it, do tell!

I could hardly believe my eyes when the latest La Redoute catalogue was retrieved from the letter box. (Hint: if you ever buy one thing from La Redoute you’ll be inundated by mail for ever more.)



‘La Redoute are proud to invite iconic French fashion house Courrèges to lead in our new Autumn-Winter collection. Considered ‘futuristic’ in the 60s, Courrèges’s instantly recognizable style – clean, structured lines, strong geometric shapes and splashes of vibrant colour – has timeless appeal …’

I remember all this from first time around, when I was at school! The white boots, mid-calf length in those days, and the little bonnets. I still love the neat little coats but wonder if anyone will adopt the whole look. Only a teenager with legs like sticks could get away with those thick, white tights. Yesterday the latest Boden catalogue arrived. On offer: ‘sixties-inspired’ (dress); ‘a Sixties sensibility’ (skirt); ‘chic, retro’ (collarless short coat); ‘Sixties Funnel Neck’ (jumper); ‘Carnaby dress’; ‘Sixties Heel’ (shoes). I could go on but you can see it all for yourself on the website.



So, who’s up for yet another sixties revival?

I had a bad day yesterday, for various reasons too tedious to go into, but I was cheered up in the evening. First, I read a book I’d picked up at a charity stall earlier in the day; written for children, it’s one of the best books I’ve read for ages.* Then I watched a programme I’d recorded, Let’s have a party! The piano genius of Mrs Mills. How could Mrs Mills not cheer you up? Pre-Beatles, I was young enough to watch The Billy Cotton Band Show with my parents, which is how I remember Mrs Mills. I also liked Russ Conway, who I thought was lovely and greatly admired Winifred Atwell, another former star you never hear about nowadays. I was obviously too old for Bobby Crush when he came along; I had no idea who he was.

The theme of the programme is also a pet obsession of mine: that performers like Mrs Mills have been written out of musical history because they don’t fit with people’s idea of the sixties. She had albums in the charts for years! She recorded at Abbey Road, where she had a dedicated piano, specially tuned for her distinctive honky-tonk sound. It gives you a good idea of the musical overlap in those days to learn that The Beatles used the same piano on some of their tracks, notably Penny Lane. The piano is still preserved at the studios.

Most of the people interviewed were pianists themselves and they were all at pains to point out the technical difficulty of what Mrs Mills did and how well she did it. Typically, the BBC didn’t seem to have much footage left and we kept seeing the same old clips, mostly from The Morecambe and Wise Show. There are quite a few clips on YouTube and I picked this one because you can actually see her playing.



There was much talk of the decline of piano playing as pianos were banished from homes and pubs to make way for television sets. Nevertheless, Mrs Mills still has her fans. I found 113 singles/albums offered on eBay this morning. The album covers are so bad they’re good, collectable because they’re so kitsch. Click here to see young kingofthekeyboard playing the piano Mrs Mills style. How I’d love to be able to do that! I’d like to be the quiet, shy person at the party who can sit down at the piano and knock out any tune people ask for. We also saw young people reviving the pub singalong, with a vamping piano and customers roaring out Roll Out The Barrel like extras from In Which We Serve, then wondering how it is they know the words. Rick Wakeman pointed out that to someone of fifteen, this kind of music would be something quite new. Highly recommended and still available to view.

*Huck and her Time Machine by Gillian Avery

Last week, LoveFilm sent me Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment in time for Saturday evening viewing. I last saw it when it came out and was surprised to find how well I remembered whole scenes after hem hem years. Morgan, played by David Warner, is a working class artist married to, but soon to be divorced from, rich Leonie, (Vanessa Redgrave, so beautiful). His behaviour is erratic, to say the least. He refuses to accept that his wife has had enough of him and takes refuge in bizarre fantasies, mostly involving animals. (We’d see this again ten years later in The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin.)

It’s rather a subversive film in that at first the viewer is not sure whether or not Morgan is really mad. You tend to sympathise with him because his in-laws and Leonie’s new fiancé, Charles, are caricatures of upper class types of the time. Morgan’s dotty communist mother, (Irene Handl), calls him a class traitor. Marx is another of Morgan’s obsessions. First time around, I thought Morgan really cute and his escapades quite funny. Now, he seems like a dangerous stalker; laying traps for Leonie and Charles (Robert Stephens) and trying to blow up his mother-in-law. You constantly ask yourself why Leonie doesn’t change the locks/move house/get a court injunction (she does try this), to escape Morgan’s unwanted attentions? Uncomfortably, although determined to marry Charles and lead a normal life, she still finds Morgan’s behaviour a turn-on. Spoiled bitch. No wonder the poor chap's confused, and in the end he does go right over the edge.

I’d have to say it’s a good film, if only because I could remember it so well. It does show the best and worst of sixties films. Good soundtrack, very evocative of the period, a lot of Keystone Cops-type dashing about (think A Hard Day’s Night or The Knack), rather too much wackiness. When I was a theatre-mad schoolgirl, David Warner was right up there with Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay for us gels, and if you watch the film, you’ll see why. He’s still acting but I’d say he's less famous than the other two? Some young thing will have to tell me.
( film trailer )

As usual on a Saturday morning (when I’m not at the market) I’m listening to Sounds of the Sixties. Brian Matthew played The Everly Brothers singing Let It Be Me. I turned up the radio as loud as I could stand it. I literally felt goosebumps break out on my arms and when it finished found tears in my eyes. It’s absolutely perfect.



Incidentally, 'your old mate Brian Matthew' and his wife celebrated their sixtieth wedding anniversary last week.