Harold Darke

I resigned from St Michael's but I did sing the solo in In the bleak midwinter and was complimented on it. (Dec 17th lunchtime carols). Jim was an American repetiteur in the chorus and he was a marvellous pianist. He went to Germany. The 1973 diary is fascinating as it is a whirlwind of going to operas, concerts, rehearsals, galleries. 1974 was equally exciting and a month before we married I started at Balham music library as an assistant. At the end of my career I left as the boss! In those days vinyl was big. Alas a lot of nonsense was going on with me banished to the basement so Francis could entertain his many gay Black friends upstairs. There was talk of scams as well. Mr Goring had built his own empire of music libraries all of which eventually shut. The one person I really liked from those days was Gill Mason married to Chris. Jane Allen and Una disliked me and thought me cheeky! 

Engaged

My diary shows that the date was fixed very quickly by October 15th. Father Eldridge, Simon and Carole were informed. We had an engagement party on Nov 17. The first 6 months of 1973 I worked in Tower Hamlets libraries which was often extremely dull. I took every opportunity to visit galleries and operas. St Michael's Cornhill went well and I seem to have recorded items according to my diary. Liz gets mentioned a lot. So I was very busy (what's news) plus commuting from Ealing having left the flat in Clapham South after finding a cat hair in my breakfast egg. She probably was not allowed to have a lodger in a council flat! The move to the BBC library Brentford meant an easy coach commute from Ealing and cooked lunches in the Ealing canteen chatting about the chorus every day with oone of the altos.Simon and Jenny Moore are much in evidence.  Of couse I had to commute but by then I was at 99 Oxford Gardens chastely in the living room on a put you up. 2 buses every day. Late nights were not fun getting home. 

Liz's aunts K and Sheila in South Africa

Lyn had been a good friend to me at Ealing making sure I got a bedsit in the house.

These are 2 spoof cards of films as we used to catalogue them at the BBC. One reason I left was that a man in our office was promoted who did no work at all! Most people were there just get into the BBC. One compensation was being able to watch films of concerts like Giulini conducting the War requiem at the Albert Hall.