JANUARY 1962
3 January – Work. I have a cold drink with Yvonne and Lezya after work. I go to music and talk to Gill V who is going on holiday soon. Music goes well. I am improving and have a lot of things to work on. I go to table tennis at night. Peter says nothing about singing lessons so I don’t say anything either.
4 January – Work and have lunch with Mum in Ansteys. I go up to the studio and Webster answers the door. Nellie, as usual, is singing. Webster comes into the kitchen and makes tea. He is sweating and complains bitterly about the heat. He makes tea very efficiently and gives me a cup and then returns to Nellie who continues singing oblivious of rather ghastly mistakes!
When she goes, Anne in a pretty flowery dress and with hair definitely grey, tells me to go in. She too complains about the heat and orders Webster to bring her another cup of tea.
She asks about the SABC choir and I say that we are still on holiday until the 22nd of the month. She says she expects we’ll sing in the last symphony concert. She tells me that Anton Hartman has a wife called Jossie Boshoff who is a third rate coloratura and has been included in the season as the only vocal soloist. Webster says he can’t fathom the audacity of Hartman if she could sing, but when she can’t – well! He says that she’ll sing the bass arias herself if need be!
We do scales, starting from high note and coming down in order to settle the registers, I gather, although Anne feels that vocal registers are rude words. Anne says, “I wouldn’t say this if I didn’t think it true or if I didn’t mean it. You honestly have the makings of a magnificent voice if you work hard at it. It’s really beautiful!” I look cynical. She says, “Truly. If someone hasn’t a voice, I’ll teach them but I won’t tell them they have a voice if they haven’t. Your voice could really be exceptional when you’re a bit older.” I try to look modest but I feel gratified. We work very hard and long at the exercises.
Bill Perry arrives and we do My Mother Bids Me. Webster glowers at me the whole time so that I can’t smile. They moan about it and I say that I feel stupid when I smile. Anne gives her usual talk about it. “Singing is like selling stockings in John Orrs. You have to give it everything you’ve got. That’s what got Webster and me to where we are today. We would go on to the stage and even though we had squabbled off-stage we would make the audience believe we were madly in love. I
We do scales, starting from high note and coming down in order to settle the registers, I gather, although Anne feels that vocal registers are rude words. Anne says, “I wouldn’t say this if I didn’t think it true or if I didn’t mean it. You honestly have the makings of a magnificent voice if you work hard at it. It’s really beautiful!” I look cynical. She says, “Truly. If someone hasn’t a voice, I’ll teach them but I won’t tell them they have a voice if they haven’t. Your voice could really be exceptional when you’re a bit older.” I try to look modest but I feel gratified. We work very hard and long at the exercises.
Bill Perry arrives and we do My Mother Bids Me. Webster glowers at me the whole time so that I can’t smile. They moan about it and I say that I feel stupid when I smile. Anne gives her usual talk about it. “Singing is like selling stockings in John Orrs. You have to give it everything you’ve got. That’s what got Webster and me to where we are today. We would go on to the stage and even though we had squabbled off-stage we would make the audience believe we were madly in love. I would give him a lovey-dovey look and we would use our eyes and smile at one another. Isn’t that so, darling?”
Webster agrees. “Yes. Very true!”
I respond with a watery smile and agree to try.
7 January – Sunday school and Church.
Listen to Webster’s first programme of G and S. He introduces it with his recording of A Wand’ring Minstrel. He does Trial By Jury. I think he should talk more during the programme.
11 January – Have lunch with Mum in Anstey’s.
Go to studio. I listen to Nellie singing. Webster comes in and says, “God, let’s make a cup of tea! Is this weather hot enough for you, Jean?” He goos over Lemon and tells him, “Say hello to Jean.”
I hear Nellie say that she never goes to the theatre as her husband doesn’t approve of it.
Anne has her hair pinned up at the back – dead straight. It looks lovely. She tells me they went to see Beryl Reid’s show at the Playhouse and they thoroughly enjoyed it. They were very friendly with her in England and Anne thinks she’s got fatter and older-looking since they saw her last. When they were at a rehearsal at the BBC she was there wearing a hat with a cluster of feathers in it. She had complained in her broad B’ham accent, “I don’t know if it’s all this excitement but I ‘ave an awful headache.” A few weeks later she told them that it wasn’t the excitement giving her the headache, “It was that ‘at!”
We start on scales and Webster tells me that they sound much better. We have tea and Anne tells me that I have a most beautiful English complexion, “Hasn’t she, Boo?” I blush.
We continue with vocalisation studies which go particularly well. She corrects a few things and we go over them again to correct the mistakes but can see – as can they – a marked improvement.
Webster presents me with his record of Songs of England so that I can listen to Sweet Polly Oliver – A collection of English songs sung by Jennifer Vyvyan with Edward Lush at the piano. We listen to the record – Jennifer Vyvyan has a good voice and is extremely musical . Accept it with thanks. His signature is scrawled on the cover – L. Webster Booth. Anne says my Scots accent must not come out in my singing. I say I can’t hear this accent – even on tape. She says, “Oh, yes! It’s there!” Poor me.
She asks, “Have you seen your friend Peter since his lesson?”
I say, “Oh, yes. He enjoyed it. He’s decided he has a lot to learn.”
She has a good laugh. I manage to smile today but before I start singing Webster says to me, “I don’t want to be nasty, Jean, but remember to smile!”
I feel quite elated when I say goodbye.
14 January – Sunday school. Go to Betty’s afterwards and listen to Jennifer V. Her Bobby Shaftoe is fabulous. I love her “bookles”!
In the afternoon the Stablers from the flats on the corner, Robert’s Heights, visit. She is a doctor of psychology – a charming old lady. I listen to Leslie Green. Gary Allighan in the Sunday Times gives Webster a rave notice for his new programme.
Church at night. Listen to Webster’s G and S programme and his change in presentation makes the programme quite fabulous. He plays his own recording of The Lost Chord which is glorious – Herbert Dawson at the organ. He tells us that only two people were allowed to make G and S recordings without the personal supervision of D’Oyly Carte – Malcolm Sargent and himself!
He tells the story of HMS Pinafore and introduces the characters by imitating them. It is a really fabulous presentation and I enjoy every minute of it. I can congratulate him on Thursday now without any qualms about being insincere. Good old Webster – he’s done it again!
15 January – Go to work and faint when I’m there – am slapped and have water thrown over me and am then sent home! Mummy restores me to life! Rest for remainder of day and manage to practise at night. Strangely enough, all goes well!
16 January – Work. Lezya – who doesn’t look even vaguely ill – departs in the afternoon and I am left on my own to pass a million entries. Steadily decline but manage to get through it all.
Practise at night and we are invited to the Scotts on Saturday night. The choir starts on Monday. Have received no intimation about it so may phone Ruth Ormond.
17 January – Go to Mrs S in the afternoon and see Stan, her brother-in-law. Receive intimation from Johan v d M concerning choir on Monday night.
18 January – Work. Have a gorgeous lunch with Mum upstairs in Ansteys.
Toddle up to Webster’s at night. He is most affable and tells me to help myself to a cup of tea. I do this and make much noise with cups. Nellie (whose diction and voice are not at their best this evening) holds forth. Anne is silent but Webster is more eloquent. Nellie asks for a drink of water and he comes to get one for her and tells me, “It’s too hot to think, far less sing.” Nellie goes and tells Anne that she hopes she’ll be better next week. I wonder what is wrong and go in at Webster’s bidding. When I go in I get the fright of my life – Anne is pale with a huge swelling at one ankle and is hobbling. I voice my horror and she tells me that she has an allergy to mosquito bites and the swelling is the result of one. When she was in the south of France she was always hobbling around or had her arm in a sling because of mosquito bites. She hobbles over to the piano and tells Webster that she’d like a cup of tea and a biscuit because she feels hungry.
We start on scales which go reasonably well. She says I must retain my mezzo quality up and keep the soprano quality for the very top.
I thank Webster for his record and tell him I enjoyed his programme tremendously on Sunday night. He says, “Did you really? I couldn’t hear it very well because we were out in the country in the car. Do you think it’s the right formula?”
I say how I loved his characterisation of the parts – he seems pleased.
Anne says that I might (if I want to) audition for a part in the chorus of the two operas taking place soon with Mimi Coertse in them. Speak to JvdM. She says the SABC choir will probably be asked to sing in them anyway.
We do Sweet Polly Oliver and work like hell on it. Anne says that my consonants are lazy so we go through the thing again. I am accused of Scottish accent. She feels my breathing although she can hardly get up.
We do My Mother. Webster sings one part to me as it should be sung. It is as though I have never heard or seen him sing in my life – as I expect he sings on stage – quite a different man with a smile and a light in his eyes as though he’s singing for the joy and love of it. Losing his voice? Not Webster!
When talking about the opera, Webster says, “Tell them you won’t sing for any less than £50 a week! Have a good laugh.
When I leave I tell Anne that I hope she will be better very soon indeed. She is so sweet and puts such a good face on it. She even tells me, “I’m glad I come from the North Country – all the people drop their jaws and yap all day there!” (in appropriate accents!)
With her hair back, her face pale and her ankle sore, she looked her age today, but there is still something about her that makes her remarkable. She is an angel at heart and I adore her!
19 January – After work I sing for at least two and a half hours in the evening. Confirmation from father that My Mother Bids Me has vastly improved.
20 January – Work in morning and meet parents in the Century restaurant and have lunch, then see Bachelor Flat with Terry Thomas – a poor film. We get a lift home from Mr Russell.
At night we visit the Scotts. Linda is going to high school shortly. Mr S says, “Tell Webster to play Iolanthe and the Mikado – the real Gilbert and Sullivan.”
21 January – (Webster’s sixtieth birthday). Webster at night is terrific.
22 January – Work. I go to SABC at night. We are doing a Cantata and Passion (Bach) for Good Friday (in Afrikaans). We will be singing in Norma with Mimi Coertse and also Tales of Hoffman, Hansel and Gretel and in the Symphony of Psalms when Stravinsky comes out.
Speak to Ruth O at break. She lives in Parkwood and goes to Parktown Girls’ High (in Form 4 this year) and Webster and Anne are on visiting terms with her parents. She calls them Anne and Webster. She tells me that Anne came to her house this afternoon with music for her exam – she’s doing the same one as me – and Anne showed her all my songs and exercises.
We say that neither of us can smile; we both hate looking in the mirror at the studio for next to Anne we look like hags; we are both nervous and it seems we both think alike generally. She tells me that Webster has a red face because of sunburn! She knows Mrs S for she teaches at her school. She says, “Girls are frightened of her, but I’m not!” We both blush when nervous and we’re nervous when we sing alone. It was a lovely conversation.
25 January – Have lunch with Mum in Ansteys.
Go to studio. Webster answers and he is not looking very well. I help myself to tea and wash and dry cup too. Nellie is singing for all her worth.
Go in and Anne tells me (on enquiry) that she had to stay in bed last Friday and have a cortisone injection but she’s all right now.
She tells me that a girl, Colleen McMenamin has been accepted into the SABC choir and is supposed to be going tonight. She’s a mezzo and comes from Germiston. I say I’ll look out for her on Monday. We’ll have quite a gang soon!
At Webster’s suggestion we start on vocalisation studies. Have to battle like mad over them. He spares me nothing although I’m dead beat. After many contortions by Webster and myself they improve.
We do My Mother and she says that my consonants are positively sluggish. No wonder – so am I! We try it to “ca” at Webster’s provocation. This is a great success and for once, he is pleased. When we do it again my diction has improved.
Webster gets terrible pain around his chest “like a band of hot steel pressing on me.” She looks startled and he says, “It’s probably the cheese sandwich I had at lunchtime.” He takes pills and I depart.
He is rehearsing for a new play, The Andersonville Trial.
26 January – At lunchtime I meet Liz Moir with her mother. She is most affable. I meet Mum in John Orrs and we look at sales. Do large and very profitable singing practice at night.
27 January – Work hard and buy some clothes afterwards. I pass the studio and their car is parked in Pritchard Street. When I come out of John Orrs I see Webster looking very hot in shirt-sleeves getting into it.
28 January – Sunday school and work. Webster’s programme is lovely.
29 January – Work. Go to SABC at night and have a wonderful time. Gill is back. I talk to Ruth and she asks if I saw picture of Webster and Anne in the Star. She saw the Amorous Prawn twice. I don’t come across Colleen M. I think she is married.
30 January – Work hard. At night Peter C arrives unannounced and we sing. He had Anne all to himself on Saturday. Webster was probably rehearsing. His voice has definitely improved.
FEBRUARY 1962
1 February – Lunch with Mum in Ansteys.
I go to singing at night. When I get out of the lift am confronted with an agitated Webster who tells me he can’t stop to let me in now but will be back in a second – I presume he has to put 6d in the meter. He comes back and complains about the heat. We go in and I pour myself tea and wash the cup. Nellie is singing for dear life.
Go in and pay Anne. She looks as gorgeous as she did in the recent photo. She is wearing her mauve dress. We talk of choir and she says I must try to sing in Tales of Hoffman as it is essential that I appear before a huge audience! She says, “I hear you are doing the Bach Passion and Cantata. Webster says, “Charming music, isn’t it?” in sarcastic tones, and he says, “They can keep the Passion – and the tenor role!”
We start on vocalisation studies for Trinity College and they go exceptionally well. Anne says I mustn’t let my chest sag when I sing. She makes me feel above her chest and how she manages to control her breath without her chest sagging! Fantastic – honestly!
I persevere with the exercises and they come right and feel right too! Webster comes in and listens and says that he can hear that I am smiling as tone is much lighter. We do them unaccompanied and all is well.
Do Bedfordshire Carol and she emphasises the diction and this improves. We end with the first vocalisation study. Goes well and they are thrilled and so am I. Webster says it’s glorious. Anne says I’ll go very far and I am elated. She and Webster are going to audition people in Springs for their production of The Vagabond King.
Have supper and then go to the SABC. See Anton Hartman and (presumably) Jossie Boshoff, his wife. See Annie Kossman and Hugh Rouse. The latter dashes in at 7 on the dot for the news and dashes out promptly at a quarter past.
We go to Studio 2c and copy in words of music and sing the Passion. Gill waits with me until Dad arrives and talks of Edgar Cree as “Uncle”.
3 February – Saturday off. Go into town with Dad. Have lunch in Century and then we see The Innocents with Deborah Kerr.
5 February – Work. Choir at night. Have an argument with a woman about Webster and Anne. We have the AGM and I talk to Ruth. She says she doesn’t blush in front of Anne alone but I mustn’t tell anyone – it isn’t that she doesn’t like Webster – she adores him – but she can’t imagine what the answer is to this strange phenomenon. I can imagine vaguely, but I don’t tell her.
8 February – Work. Go to Ansteys for lunch and then go up to the studio in the afternoon. Anne answers door looking gorgeous in white skirt with hair grey-white – lovely. She tells Nellie that Lucille came for her lesson today and had a bad nose bleed.
Go in and Anne makes tea. She washes cups and I dry them and she tells me all about the tank being clogged up with tea leaves put there by Madge Wallace. She says Webster’s play was super and LS gave it a terrific crit. They saw Oliver but it was so amateurish it nearly broke her heart. There wasn’t a good voice in the show and it makes her cry to think of the West End productions she used to go to.
She says that Webster is so tired that he didn’t wake up till ten this morning and consequently didn’t come to the studio. All he seems to do now is sleep and, as I know, he’s no youngster now. She says that Nellie told her that she hardly ever talks to her husband and she thinks she’s getting to be the same now although she expects that after so many years it’s only natural that they don’t have much to talk about any more.
I sing (believe it or not!)and she marks my vowels – all my “ah” vowels (practically) should be “ers”! Singing goes quite well but I too feel desperately tired. She sings to a very top G. Funny, but her voice has returned as though it had never been absent!
When I depart, she says she adores my hair band. The colour is glorious. I say that my hair won’t stay in curls so she says, “Do it in a bun like Hilda, my maid from St Helena, does.”
Says she’s dying for Oliver Walker’s crit.
I meet Joan Armstrong from Vanderbijlpark standing outside the Carlton Hotel in Eloff Street. She is doing a hairdressing course and she makes a note of Penny Berrington’s address in New Zealand.
OW crit is awful. He doesn’t even mention Webster at all. He says the play drags and some of the players took little trouble to disguise their own speech and mannerisms! To think that ten years ago he and Anne were right at the top of the tree and now he has to resort to playing bit parts! The Amorous Prawn was a small part too but he was wonderful in the play. Unfortunately, this part definitely falls into the bit category.
Nellie said to Anne that she felt sorry for her having to teach people to sing and it’s quite true. Had they saved six months’ wages when they were at the top they could be living in luxury in Britain. Instead – what? I know I’m secretly glad that they had to come out here but how I wish they could lead distinguished and comfortable lives. Poor Anne and Webster!
9 February – Go to guild at night and have interesting talk about the Red Cross.
10 February – Work hard in the morning. In the afternoon I go with Betty to the Old Girls’ Reunion at Quondam. All very pleasant. Misses Reid, Allen, Heller, Martin and Hanna turn up in full force as does Margaret Masterton, Yvonne Lautré, Sandra Heyman and Wendy Wayburne. We sit with Margaret, Yvonne, Eugenie Braun, Joyce Aitken and a few others. Margaret sings Nymphs and Shepherds and The Lass with the Delicate Air.
I talk to Margaret about Mrs Sullivan. Apparently, Margaret knows all about what I’m doing at the SABC. She says she’d like to join the choir when she can find the time to do so.
There is a matinee of Webster’s play next Saturday so Betty promises to go with me.
11 February – Sunday School in the morning. I have Betty to visit me in the afternoon and we decide to meet at 1.45pm at the corner of Rissik and Pritchard Streets for Webster’s play.
I listen to Webster at night and before him to Edgar Cree. Webster is excellent as usual and goes on with the Pirates of Penzance. It is really good and he helps the music along with an interesting discussion.
12 February – Work. Book for Webster’s play at Show Service. Have lunch with Mum and go to choir at night. All goes well. I talk to Ruth who tells me she is depressed. School went all wrong today and she had a puncture on her bike. She enjoys tennis and says she only goes to church (St Francis, Parkview) in order to sing in the choir. She would like to make singing her career if her voice develops fantastically and she thinks that when she leaves school, she’ll work for a while. She is going to Webster’s play on Friday first show “because the seats are cheap!” I suppose she isn’t as wealthy as I had imagined.
She is singing The Nightingale by Delius which she hates. “I’ve told the Booths,” says she, Where the Bee Sucks, which we both adore, and Hush My Dear, “It’s easy,” says she.
14 February – Very ill indeed and am incapacitated completely.
15 February – Work. I have a nice lunch in Ansteys with my mother. Go up to the studio and Anne is there alone with Nellie. When I go in Anne remarks on the fact that (as per her suggestion) I am wearing my hair in a bun. She thinks it suits me. She says she feels good with longer hair and I say I like her hair longer. She had it set for a Ciro’s charity performance for David Beattie. This went well, with 400 at Ciros and 25 artistes. The cabaret finished at one but she got home at 4! She had a wonderful time and feels that all work and no play etc. She says, “Webster has got to the stage where he wants to go home, lock the front door and go to bed and doesn’t bother to talk to me but I believe in enjoying life. Theatrical life is the only life I know and I like to have fun.”
We start on scales and she makes me sing to “moo” opening up to “ma” in front of mirror. She puts her arm round my waist and sings with me and I improve. We do vocal studies and I say I haven’t had much time to practise owing to illness. She is charmingly sympathetic. We talk about Ruth, and Anne says she’s quite a character.
We do My Mother which improves today. She says “Did I ever tell you the story of that Craven A advert?” I glance at the bewitching picture of her and say, “No.” “When I was very young and in the chorus of a show professionally for the first time, a photographer discovered me and asked me to pose for this advert. When I went along, he said, ‘Smile!’ I grinned, showing my teeth. He said, ‘That’s not smiling. I want a smile from the eyes.’ I’ve always remembered that advice. You can wangle yourself into many places with a smile and you have a lovely one if only you’d use it more often.”
That picture is truly bewitching so I decide to try to smile!
We do Sweet Polly Oliver and it goes well because of the smile. It’s the first time I’ve been able to smile for her! She says she hopes Bill Perry doesn’t come as she can’t stand him. He has a wonderful, God-given voice but he’d rather go for a couple of beers after work rather than work at it. “I am not a deeply religious person but I do believe that when you have a God-given gift like that you should work at it and make something of it.”
17 February –Work in the morning and have lunch with Mum and Dad.
I meet Betty and we go to the Alexander Theatre. Webster’s name is included in the supporting cast and there is a picture of him in very warm clothes in the foyer. We have terrific seats. Mrs Sullivan is sitting a few seats along from us.
Play begins and it is, to say the least of it, a fantastic experience. Webster as the prison doctor is on stage all the time and speaks hardly twenty words during the whole proceeding. However, as we are sitting practically at eye level to him, he stares at me and gives me a broad grin when he should be concentrating on the bleak trial. My heart jumps madly into my mouth and I blush. Thank heaven for the darkness of the theatre. I smile (a little!) at him and look at someone else when the experience gets too intense for me.
After the first act I think that perhaps this is all in my imagination but Betty – without any encouragement – says that she noticed him staring at me when his attention wandered from the stage. In the second act, all is confirmed and I spend a nice time looking affably at him and he at me! This is the first time I have had a tête a tête with a famous actor (singer) with eyes from stage to audience! His acting (when he remembers to act!) is good but as he sat there, looking rather weary with his eyes blinking in the strong stage light, I thought how he had sung with the famous and acted in all the international theatres. This part is hardly better than a walk-on. It’s shameful. He was so apathetic towards the part that instead of concentrating on the proceedings on stage he concentrated on me instead! Poor Webster. I think he would honestly prefer to be sitting at home in front of the fire at night rather than “sit on his behind” – as Ruth said – on the stage of the Alex. Nobody can know how sorry I am for him yet he – in spite of it all – remains, kind, friendly and understanding.
However, although his part was small he certainly gave me “my money’s worth!” If only Anne had seen him!!
18 February – Sunday school.
Listen to Webster at night and he is excellent. He finishes Pirates which is terrific. He says that when he was young and in the chorus of pirates they all used to bang their cutlasses on stage to make a noise! He plays a few things from The Sorcerer – someone has lent him the record.
19 February – Work. Go to the choir at night. Ruth says she loved the play and I tell her about strange happenings when I went. Gill and I talk to Johan. We see John Silver, Esmé Euvrard, the drummer from the orchestra and Hugh Rouse.
21 February – Work hard and go to my piano lesson. Gill is there and we discuss the Bach. I do quite well at the piano. Mrs S says the play on Saturday was very depressing and Webster had an awful part to play for such a great man!
22 February – Work. Have lunch in Ansteys – gorgeous.
Go to singing at night and Webster is there! After Nellie goes I go in and we discuss the play (with no reference to his unusual behaviour!) Anne is not terribly enthusiastic about it but he says, “It’s well done, isn’t it?” I agree but say it depressed me. He says he nearly falls asleep every night and one chap opposite him actually did fall asleep the other night!
We start on My Mother and then he wades into me, pointing out various faults: diction is not clear. I have hardly any expression and no smile. He enlarges on these things. I should picture what I’m singing about – forget about the audience – OK, so I’m tired, singing should reinvigorate me, not make me think, “Don’t say I have to sing this bloody song again!”
He sings the whole song through and she accompanies him beautifully. Right, so it isn’t a song for a man to sing under any circumstances but he can and does, so beautifully that I am mesmerised and listen as though in a dream. That a man of 60 can produce such beautiful sounds and words is fantastic. Even when he criticises me he still remains my favourite tenor.
During tea he looks at the jasmine on my cardigan and says it looks like an amethyst. He used to have one on a tie-pin but Anne had it set in a ring with two diamonds.
He sings Sweet Polly Oliver for me – again with the required expression and once again it is brilliant. I can’t say I think he is fantastic to him, but he is!
Anne says I must look in the mirror and work everything out for every bar. I depart, determined to bring mind over matter.
23 February – Work and go to guild at night. They have a mock wedding with Leona and David. Ann is the best man and Peter, in long plaits is a flower girl. The Strattons are moving to Brakpan and Ann says she is dreading the move.
24 February – Go to the doctor in the morning. Evidently I have high blood pressure possibly due to nervous tension.
We go to pictures in the afternoon – The Rebel with Tony Hancock.
Anne is the stage personality for this week in the Star. The interviewer says it amazes him how such an attractive woman is not on the stage more. He mentions the Palladium, Command performances, records etc.
While I am writing this diary and listening to the radio I hear You, Just You duet – it’s utterly glorious.
25 February – Don’t go to Sunday School today. Listen to Leslie Green in the afternoon. He plays the Booths’ Deep in Your Heart. He first met and interviewed them in 1948. He liked them and they have been friends ever since. I record Webster in the evening singing Sylvia – beautiful. I listen to the G and S programme at night. He plays Patience.
26 February – Work hard. Go to SABC at night. Ruth comes and we greet each other. While waiting for things to start Gill and I talk to a dark woman behind us. She says, “Do you learn with Anne Ziegler?” I agree that I do, and she says, “I thought I’d seen you there. I am Cora Leibowitz!” I remember Anne telling me that Cora Leibowitz sang Oh, Love From Thy Power at an Eisteddfod.
When Johan comes we start on the Stravinsky which grows on me as we go over it. At interval, Ruth and I sit in the foyer and talk gloomily about not being able to smile and we decide that this week we’re going to!” She says, “I look forward to my lesson all week and they are so sweet when I get there but I still can’t smile!”
Ila Silansky talks to us and we talk about eisteddfods and how we dislike them. Ruth won a medal at the Springs one. Ila Silansky says the children in the flat above her imitate her singing. Ruth says her two sisters tell her to shut up even when she knows her voice sounds beautiful. She can reach top G flat. At the Springs Eisteddfod Roselle sang on the same night and Roselle and her mother made Ruth nervous and consequently, Roselle came first. Ruth doesn’t have much of an opinion of her. Ruth will be 17 on sixth April so she’s only about one and a half years younger than me.
28 February – Work hard. Go to piano lesson and girl who learns singing with Mauryn Glenton (who has the studio next door to Mrs S) is singing loudly in the corridor! I see Gill, and Mrs S fills in forms for TC theory exams – two exams on 9 June.
MARCH 1962
1 March – Work slackens off a fraction but Mr Allen still flaps. Have lunch with mum in Ansteys and meet Gwen Per from school.
Go to singing at night and Webster isn’t there. I go straight in because Nellie has ‘flu and isn’t there either. We start on vocalisation studies which I have cunningly put on the top of my pile and they go gloriously. Anne makes tea and I pay her and we return to the exercises.
Anne says that my voice is really beautiful now and my production is vastly improved. I give her the look of a hardened cynic and she says, “What have I or you to gain by telling you that? I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true. Don’t you notice it?” I say, “Yes, I do, but nobody else does.” We do the exercises and she picks out the notes that tend on the hard side and we work on them. She says, “Have all your notes like a string of pearls as my old music mistress used to say.”
Over tea she tells me that she went to see the mime of Marcel Marceau last night and it was the most absorbing act she has ever seen. Speaking nary a word he entertained the audience for two hours on a bare stage.
I tell her at the end of the lesson how I intend to give up the bank at the end of March in order to study music full time and she is pleased. She is quite shocked about the high blood pressure diagnosis. I say it’s probably due to overwork and nerves. She says that I am the type of person who “bottles everything up” and I mustn’t.
3 March – See the Scott Fitzgerald Tender is the Night in the afternoon. Rather depressing.
4 March – Listen to Webster at night. He sounds rather tired. He keeps on saying, “In my day,” which makes him sound decrepit. He’s right though – Patience is a bit corny.
5 March – Go to SABC at night and see Gill who introduces me to her friend Doreen who works there. We go to Doreen’s office in Springbok Schedules and see exactly what is going to happen tomorrow on Springbok. Leslie Green actually has a written script for all the supposedly off-the-cuff things he says on his programme.
We go to a grill house for supper and then go back to choir and have Harry Stanton, the organist at St Columba’s Presbyterian Church in Parkview as our accompanist. We do the Bach, and Johan takes a lot out of himself conducting the choir.
At interval Ruth tells me that on Saturday morning she went to a wedding and got a little tipsy toasting the bride and when she got up to the studio she was rather happy. Leslie Green came and they all had tea together and he listened to her singing.
Her father says that the Booths are good social drinkers – they can take a lot at a party without much reaction but they’re not alcoholics. She says that Webster could have been the best operatic tenor in the world but because of his relationship with Anne he wasn’t. Anne had an offer to go to Hollywood but because of Webster, she refused.
After the rehearsal I meet her father – a small man but quite charming. Gill asks me to stay with her for two nights when we’re in the opera in Pretoria. She gives Harry Stanton a lift home – he lives a few streets away from her in Parkwood.
8 March – Go to studio and Anne tells me to help myself to tea. Nellie sings badly and leaves. When I go in Webster tells me, “I’ll be out of prison on Saturday night – that play has been a real prison for me – every moment of it.”
We start on studies and Webster says the quality is beautiful but I must keep it moving even when it’s soft. He says, “You must know these things so well that ten professors can be there and it won’t worry you.”
We do My Mother and he says, “Why didn’t you smile?” I say indignantly that I was smiling and he says, “You were not – you were frowning all the way!”
They make me go and look in in the mirror and sing to myself. I do this and try to smile all the way. He says, “You see! An entirely different song.”
9 March – Lezya goes on holiday. Picture of Webster in paper. He’s one of the adjudicators in a hymn writing composition. I go to Betty’s twenty-first birthday party at night. There is a huge crowd there, including Mavis Knox.
10 March – Work in the morning. After work, walking along Pritchard Street, I meet Ruth looking red and flushed. She informs me in breathless tones that she has just been to her lesson and had a wonderful time. Webster was there and she is so happy.
Go to YWCA to meet Patricia Webb who is just the same but more sophisticated and just as cheeky. We see Back Street which is excellent although Patricia passes caustic comments throughout the film.
12 March – Go to SABC in the evening. Gill says Harry Stanton hinted for a lift in as well as from the SABC. He takes the girls for rehearsal and Johan takes the chaps. Harry takes us through Norma at record speed and sings very badly to demonstrate how it should be done.
Ruth says her father has a nice voice and coming in in the car he was imitating Webster and she was pretending she was Anne. She says they certainly don’t think I am bad-looking. When they were talking about people not smiling when they sing, Webster said, “Jean, there’s a sad one for you!” and Anne said, “She’s a very beautiful girl and if she smiled she could go so far with her singing.” Ruth says, “For goodness sake, don’t tell them I told you. They told me this in confidence.”
She thinks they should have had at least one child and she’d like to meet his son, and isn’t Harry Stanton a card?
She says Edgar Cree looks as though he wears a corset. She went to hear Tamas Vasary yesterday and cried at the Chopin. We go on with Norma and I introduce Ruth to Dad afterwards – he likes her.
14 March – Work. Have my piano lesson in the afternoon and meet Pat Eastwood who is now at college and Elna Hansen who is doing a modelling course and teaching ballet. Gill and Svea Ward (SS’s niece) are at SS studio. Mrs S is in good mood and I do loads of scales.
15 March – Work. Lunch in Ansteys with Mum. Go to Webster and Anne and Webster answers the door. Nellie is singing badly and he brings me a cup of tea – lukewarm and devoid of sugar and I have the good grace to tell him it’s “perfect”!
I ask Anne about a new earlier time for when I leave the bank. While she arranges this I sing to Webster’s awful accompaniment and go sharp on the last three notes.
We do the vocalisation study and he doesn’t get the beat right so it doesn’t go very well. Anne returns with time – 4 on Friday as from April – and she takes over on the piano. When Webster sits down he groans and clutches his back!
I make a second attempt at the studies and, with Anne playing, they go very well. I go on to Polly Oliver and get into a nice fandangle. Anne says, “Sweety, you really must smile when you sing.” “I can’t.” “But, darling, you must. It’s no good singing if you won’t. You’re not shy of us, are you?” I say nothing and gaze at the grain of the wood in the grand piano. Webster says, “Good God – no!” “I expect I must be!” “Oh, darling no – not after all this time. Does he worry you more than I do?”
Webster stares at me and I want to crawl under the piano. Unconvincingly I say, “No!”
I do it again with a will and it all turns out all right. I promise him I’ll spend all my waking hours gaping in mirror and smiling at myself. He tells me I look very attractive when I smile and I don’t look a clot.
16 March – Guild. Peter tells me he is giving up singing lessons with the Booths – after less than three months!
17 March – Go into town with mum to buy material for the choir. I also buy an SABC Bulletin which brings me glad tidings. Webster has another programme, starting a week on Wednesday at 8.30 pm It is called Drawing Room and will be a show with a small studio audience depicting the early 1900 entertainment. There is an article by him in the magazine.
18 March – Sunday starts with gorgeous article and picture in the Sunday Times by Gary A. He hopes the new programme will bring them back as duettists.
19 March – Go to SABC. At interval Ruth tells me that Webster asked if she’d like to go to recording on Wednesday and she said she’d phone on Tuesday night. She says she’ll ask him I can have three tickets as well. We continue with Norma.
20 March – Today at work I take heart and phone Webster myself. He is sweet and when I ask him about tickets for Drawing Room he says, “But I thought I asked you to come.” I say, “No, you didn’t.” So he says, “Well, we’d be delighted to have you. Meet Anne in the foyer at 8 o’clock, and don’t be late! If it goes swimmingly we’ll finish by 9.30.” I say I’m looking forward to it tremendously.
I work very hard and phone Ruth to tell her what has happened. She says that she and her parents will be going tomorrow. I will see her at a quarter to eight in the foyer.
21 March – I go for a music lesson and at night I work myself into a state of nerves about going to the SABC. We arrive and Lucille is there with a number of her relatives. I meet Joy Bodes who is going to a recording of Eye-gene Jackpot. Ruth arrives with her parents. She is also Scottish and comes from Kelvin Grove, only a mile away from where I was born.
Anne arrives, her hair in a bun. Ruth’s and my parents go into the studio and I am left to help Anne with the lists. She takes me into the studio from the stage side and everyone gapes at her. She tells me to save a seat for her. I sit with Ruth and keep a seat for her between us. She comes in eventually, and Webster – face very red, wearing evening suit with a red rose in his lapel. He sits down at a table in the front of the studio and tells us that he has picked a very select audience because of the nature of Drawing Room. He is charm itself and introduces the artists – Anna Bender (accompanist), Walter Mony (violinist), and Rita Roberts (soprano). His compering is terrific and he sings two songs which are beautiful – Parted and The Sweetest Flower that Blows. His hand shakes as he handles the music but his voice is as perfect as ever. Anne doesn’t look at him the whole time he is singing but looks very sad.
We have an interval after the first recording. Anne says that RR should open her mouth more. When we return Webster sings If You Had But Known so beautifully I want to howl. We are told to talk in between the items and Anne talks sweetly to me the whole time.
In the second programme he sings O, Dry Those Tears and the Kashmiri Song so utterly and completely beautifully in a voice that only God could have given him that tears come to my eyes. I am shocked to see Anne crying next to me. She looks utterly heartbroken.
At the end of the recording she powders her face and talks to us brightly. Ruth says that Webster was wonderful and Anne says fiercely, “Yes, of course he’s still got a voice.”
When I leave with my parents I tell her that Webster was lovely and sang terrifically. She says in joking tones, “Yes, we’re both very proud of him, aren’t we, Jean?” I could have crawled under a sofa if there was one around.
What an evening. Anne says that most of the people in the audience are hangers-on and pays very little attention to them. Ruth and I seem to be teachers’ pets however, and she puts her arm around me and is the sweetest, most adorable creature.
As for Webster – he’ll get to heaven before any of us with a voice that only God could have fashioned and the angels given to him.
22 March – Go in to the studio and learn that Nellie is leaving because she is moving to Bloemfontein. Anne kisses her goodbye and cries.
I go in and rave to Webster about the programme and he says, “Well, I hope it comes over as well on the radio.” Anne says rather bitterly, “Yes, he sang very well, didn’t he?”
I sing quite well too and she is pleased but she looks very strained. We do My Mother which goes much better than usual and she suggests that we leave it for a while and do something else.
Webster answers the phone and tells one of their friends that Anne is having a terrible time with her back. They say my voice is getting much higher and she thinks I’m going be a ‘low” soprano or a “high” mezzo. She tells me to find something a bit higher to sing for next time.
23 March – I phone Ruth to tell her I can’t go to choir. Will she apologise for me? We talk about Wednesday and agree that it is terrific.
24 March – Work very hard and Mr Allen goes mad.
The Halls, who have been living in LA for past two years, come to visit us. She tells me that there was quite a scandal about his divorce in the thirties. His wife divorced him because of Anne.
Scotts, who are going to India, come in the evening and we have a pleasant time. I sing for them and they appear to enjoy it.
25 March – In the afternoon I go to SABC and feel quite nostalgic about Broadcast House after last Wednesday. We look in at Mervyn John and Esmé Euvrard broadcasting in their studio. He says over the air, “There’s a lot of very attractive people standing outside the studio. Welcome to Springbok Radio!” Esmé waves at us!
Gill arrives with Harry Stanton and we go in and talk to Cora Leibowitz. She thinks Anne is very emotional and that Webster has a better voice than Anne.
Listen to Webster at night. He says he will recap to let people who “might have gone to parties or gone to bed early” to hear what happened in Iolanthe.
26 March – Last day of work. I am wished well in my musical career by Messrs Buckley, Ford and Peddie.
Go to SABC at night. We go on with the Passion with Johan and Harry Stanton. Ruth says the Booths gave her a lift home on Saturday as they were going to a wedding.
She tells me that next Wednesday Anne and Webster are singing duets on Drawing Room at SABC. I’d love to go but I’m not sure if I can.
We have Gert Potgieter to sing with us in the second half.
French lady from the bank tells me she is practically neighbours of the Booths and that their house was in a terrible mess when they bought it for only £2500 but they have made great improvements to it.
27 March – Go to dressmakers for a fitting for my concert dress.
28 March – Go to music in the afternoon and Mr McKenzie gives me a lift to town in his Jaguar. Mrs S says I must come to the morning recital on 7 April.
Go to SABC and we make a recording of the Passion with Gert Potgieter. At interval, Ruth and I are confronted by two old women wanting to know where Webster Booth’s programme was being held. Ruth and I take them along and decide to stay ourselves. Luckily the programme is just starting so we crawl into the last two back seats and are given a surprised look by Webster. Soloists are Gé Korsten, Jean Gluckman, Kathleen Allister (harp). Pieces are In a Persian Market, The Sunshine of Your Smile, Always, An Old-fashioned Town. We slip out at the end with another thunderous look from Webster and return (a bit late) to our own recording which we complete very successfully.
29 March – Listen to Webster and record him. It is gorgeous and glorious. His singing is wonderful.
I go into town. Webster is teaching Lucille. When I go in he says he’s expecting her ladyship at any minute and would like to record me. He plays something at the wrong speed and says, “In case you don’t know it, that’s Ruth singing Messiah!” We do the Bedfordshire May Day Carol and when he plays it back to me he points out one beautiful tone and tells me to match all my tones with it and then I shall have a perfect voice.
At this point, Anne comes in looking thin, pale and ill. I say I was sorry to hear that she was ill. She looks resigned and says, “Yes, these things do happen.”
While we have tea we listen to playback of recording. She tells me, “Smile, don’t pull faces. You are pretty when you smile. Have self-confidence. We’ll have to do something to boost your morale.”
After recording do Where E’er You Walk. They say I can do this for a change. It’s a man’s song but it suits my voice which (says Anne) has a Jennifer Vyvyan quality.
I ask Webster if we can come to the concert next week and he says he’d be delighted to have me and I can bring as many as I like. How many shall I bring? I say three. I say to Anne, “You are singing next week, aren’t you?” and she says, “Yes, if I’ve got any voice by then.” I tell her that we’d love to hear her singing and she looks wistfully pleased.
I tell him that we were there last night because we escorted two old ladies there. He says, “Yes, I saw you. I tried to catch you at the end to see how you were getting home but you disappeared very quickly!”
He asks what I thought of today’s broadcast and I emote about it and she says the piano solo was too long. We all admit that he sang beautifully. I’m going next Friday at 4pm. They couldn’t care about the public holiday – Van Riebeek day is not important!
30 March – Cartoon of Webster in Show Folk in the Star.
Jean Collen 7 April 2021.
WEBSTER BOOTH-ANNE ZIEGLER 