First love

 Grumpy

Here I am in Ghent note the long beard and the cine camera also the Johannian blazer! In his book "Sweet sorrow" David Nicholls comments that first love is boring. Well at the time it was anything but! What a mixture of emotions! Gradually Liz and I grew closer. We spent a lot of time together on chorus trips that year - Spain, Belgium, Orange. In fact it was a bumper year for tours. No sooner had I started than Ron Archer was asking "You going to Spain?". It was Belshazzar with Fruhbeck de Burgos and we sang 3 times in Madrid. The Sunday audience clapped us off the stage! I gave Liz my red carnation and that became our flower! In Barcelona I nipped off to Montserrat retuning by scary cable car (woman I can't look it's fantastic I can't look). Ron saw me dash into the hotel on the Ramblas and there was just enough time but it was madness and you needed to be fresh to sing! 2 years ago we visited Madrid and Barcelona and the wonderful Montserrat (Liz had sung there with the chorus impromptu on a previous trip). There is a photo of me in Ghent with beard looking very grumpy. I was not impressed at being asked to pay for a kneeler at Mass! There was a similar occasion when I walked out of Mass at St Charles square over the priest's homily - no idea what he said! Liz was very concerned. But I am jumping ahead! We went to the Proms because Dad was a steward and always sat in the left hand box first tier. When Liz went away I really missed her and she knitted a yellow waistcoat for me (Dad Is that for loverboy?) I must have looked a sight when I first visited Oxford Gardens Bible under arm and a deerstalker to keep my ears warm! We were at the concert by Maria Callas and Giuseppi di Stefano with Ivor Newton at the Festival Hall which was televised. She got a standing ovation at the start but listening again to it they were both awful, But what  a stage presence! I was also at the last appearance by Jacqueline du Pre playing the Elgar at the Festival Hall, Liz could not watch her but I think her performance was wonderful.