3 September Meet Gill in town and we go skating. Daphne Walker is there with two little girls. We lunch at the SABC with Doreen Taylor. I talk to Arthur (tuba player) and see Edgar C, Gerrit Bonn and Thea’s sister, Wendy (Kim Shippey’s secretary). I go to singing and Webster gives me tea and tells me Anne is feeling a bit miserable and has probably caught a chill. She remarks on my hair style and even he says it looks beautiful. They say the lipstick they gave me looks lovely. Sing Father of Heav’n and do it well. Anne is impressed with my skates! I meet Doreen Craig after her trip to Europe.
Daphne Walker.
6 September Go into studio. Anne comes in looking too beautiful for words. She tells me about her arthritis which keeps her in constant agony. We decide that everyone has something to worry them.
10 September Ear tests with Edith. I learn that Guy Magrath is the examiner. I go to the studio and Anne answers the door as Webster is on the phone with Mum. He comes into the kitchen and gives me a message. When Heather leaves Anne asks me if I should like to help at the theatrical garden party on 5 October with Ruth. They are on the committee – should be fun. Anne says I look more beautiful every week. They emote about all the music history I have to learn for diploma exam.
12 September Go into studio and work very hard as diploma is looming. Anne arrives looking too lovely for words in a pretty summer dress. We run down the King and I together and she says I’m the only person to whom she can say it because S. Africans would say she was acting big! Linda arrives and I go out and meet Webster on the ground floor. He is very sweet to me. Ah, what a life this is!
13 September Go into studio. Desmond Wright calls. Lucille and Anne arrive and Webster gives me some tea and complains about the heat. I say if I don’t pass he knows what I’ll do, and he says if I do he’ll take the keys away! I do vast amount of scales and Anne tells met to open my mouth wider, and he says, “And a very pretty mouth it is too!”
I phone Ruth at night and we decide to go to the theatrical garden party. There is a disgusting article by Jon Sylvester in the Star about Webster. I phone the Star and complain for I feel really bitter about it!
14 September We go to see The Blue Lamp with a lovely Jack Warner of 15 years ago – very similar to studio picture.
16 September Ruth finishes prelims. I do ear tests with Edith then go up to the studio. Webster is still in one piece after the horrible slating in the paper. They tell me all about Mabel Fenney marrying again, Anne’s anaemia and how well Lucille sang in exam. He makes tea for us and we make arrangements about lessons next week. We go to the Victoria hotel and dine with Uncle John and Aunt Nellie up from Cape Town. I drink wine!
18 September Go to studio. Webster phones in the afternoon, calling me Jeannie, and asks me to accompany Selwyn and Dennis at an audition in Ansteys building on Saturday. I agree, naturally enough. He tells me about Elijah which he is singing in Pietermaritzburg. I wish him luck and tell him I know he’ll sing beautifully! He says, “Bless you, dear,” when we say goodbye.
19 September Go to studio and have dozens of phone calls, including one from Brian Morris. Linda arrives before Anne and then when she comes I have to show her the broken window of which she knows nothing. She says she hopes I don’t mind playing for Dennis and Selwyn on Saturday. Anne will probably be early in tomorrow after visit to the doctor.
20 September Work in studio. When Anne arrives she tells me she hasn’t got anaemia but still feels horrid. We have tea and she tells me that Webster refused to phone from Michaelhouse to tell her how he is or to enquire about the blood test. She is very hurt. We do scales for the entire lesson. She gives me a lecture on my inferiority complex. I phone Dennis’s mother to arrange to meet them tomorrow. I wash the dishes before I leave. Lucille is doing The Merry Widow in Afrikaans in Kempton Park.
21 September Accompany Dennis and Selwyn at Gwen Clark’s penthouse in Ansteys. Taubie Kushlik and Ockert Botha are there. The boys sing well. We have a lovely tea after the audition (for Amahl and the Night Visitors) is over. I go to the studio and Anne is still there. She makes us coffee and tells me she loathes Gwen Clark and the pseudo-theatrical types. She says, “You must think I’m a bitch!” but I agree about them. I stay in the studio until 2.00pm. Lucille’s father arrives to talk to Anne.
22 September Phone Ruth who tells me about her exams and how Anne raved about me yesterday.
23 September Ear tests. Edith plays me her pieces and I sing mine. Go to the studio and Anne is on the phone talking to Lucille’s father. She tells me she’s sick of him. She asks me to make tea and tells me about visit to the Capri where she had the ghastly experience of seeing Dickie Loader and the Blue Jeans. She says Webster did phone when he arrived at Michaelhouse after all.. Webster phones to say he’s home again. I wash the dishes.
24 September Webster answers door and calls me, “Darling!” He says the trip was fun but tiring, when I ask how he is keeping. Heather sings a ghastly wrong note and he says, “See what I mean!” We grimace at each other for ages – lovely! Anne tells me that Lucille just passed her exam. The examiner was not at all impressed with her voice.
26 September Anne comes and we do the French song and when Webster arrives he puts everything on tape. He says I shouldn’t take any pills – just a glass of water! Linda W arrives and tells me she thinks I sing most beautifully. Webster jokes with me and then says, “Darling, I wish you all the best of luck.” Ruth phones when I get home and I say I’ll see her at the garden party.
27 September I meet Anne at Edinburgh Court. She has a soothing effect on me. I sing well for Guy MaG and he drools over her. Questions are all fine, as is the sight singing. He seems pleased. Anne and I go and buy a carpet sweeper in Macy’s and she says she was delighted with my singing and thinks I should do very well. She says I am turning out to be another Mabel Fenney! She runs me back to the studio in her blue Anglia and is a regular love.
Webster comes in to the studio and says he hears I sang fabulously and do I want to pay his 1/- bet right now!
28 September Go to Mrs S. Margaret arrives in a state after the exam. Mrs S tells me that Webster embarrasses her when he makes her conduct the proceedings for the nursery school record. All the orphans listened to his programme last week and were very impressed. Listen to Webster’s Great Voices and he plays his Sound an Alarm which is marvellous!
29 September Go to studio to get Rendezvous. Webster answers – still with bad leg. Gertie is there with Anne and they all congratulate me on Higher Local 85%. Tell them about record and then depart. I feel sad about Webster in many ways.
30 September Go to see Kimberley Jim. Webster has only a tiny part as the innkeeper but plays it well, complete with monocle.
October 1963
1 October. Go to studio. Irish woman, Eileen Lawless phones about the theatrical garden party. Talks of “Anne and Leslie”. Ruth phones at night to invite us to Intimate theatre to see Playboy of the Western World. It is excellent. James White is brilliant. We have coffee in Hillbrow and then take her home.
2 October Go into studio. The pianist, Ivor Dennis comes to visit them. I lunch with Mum and buy some new clothes.
3 October Go into studio and Webster arrives after making record with Robin Lister and feeling exhausted. Anne and I have an interesting chat. We visit Mrs Hooper and her son Alan. She is the sister of Ralph Trewhela. I sing for them and they seem to like it.
4 October Go to studio and Mummy phones with results for ATCL – 77% which is very good. Webster phones and Lucille comes and we arrange to meet tomorrow. I meet Webster outside Thrupps. When I come back I give him the bob and he is delighted and bends over me and kisses me sweetly and thrillingly. Anne is pleased with the result. Webster goes through songs with me and I have a long chat with him – heaven!
5 October. Theatrical Garden party. I meet Lucille and Ruth there. When Webster and Anne arrive later than expected, we can hear them fighting with each other before we even see them. Webster’s mood changes and he seems pleased to see us and tells us we look gorgeous. He puts his arm around me. Anne is in a terrible mood, doesn’t even speak to us and marches off by herself, keen to get away from us all. Webster has to run to catch up with her. We see them having strawberries and cream with the VIPs. He signals to us to come over but Ruth tells us to ignore them after Anne’s unusual behaviour. Ruth brings me home in her mother’s tiny car, and we have tea and decide that we will tell them that we met some boys and had a hilarious time in the “rock ‘n roll” tent!
6 October. Drive like a hell hound along the airport road and have rather a reactionary day recovering from Anne’s snub yesterday.
7 October. Go to studio and work for a bit. Ralph Trewhela phones. I meet Ruth and her mother and latter drives us home where Ruth and I have lunch. We enjoy ourselves running the Booths down to the lowest, and singing corny duets together. She invites me to her house tomorrow to swim. We give her a run home.
8 October Go to Ruth’s to swim and have fun, apart from developing beetroot sunburn. After having lunch there I go to studio. Webster is very charming when talking about the garden party but they make no mention of Anne’s bad mood. Apparently, Inia te Wiata went back to Leslie Green’s house and they all had a party. Anne asks if I can come on Monday from now on as they are going to teach at home on Tuesdays.
10 October Aunt Ina Taylor comes and we spend a day of constant natter as she runs down all our mutual relatives. We take her to Zoo Lake for tea.
11 October Go into studio and lunch with Mum. Anne arrives in the afternoon. It is impossible to hold a grudge against her for long. Her arm is still sore and she feels sure she’s getting arthritis. Webster comes and says I might as well get on and do the LTCL. I sing My Heart and I for a last fling before thinking of the next exam.
12 October Go to Mrs S in morning and have piano lesson and then work with Elaine. Just before choir practise Mrs S tells me that Webster was simply raving about me to her and saying how proud he is of me – and Anne was also.
Dad phoned Webster today and he agreed that I could sublet the studio from next March and that I should go on with licentiate and fellowship.
We go to the Piccadilly and see Carry on Taxi.
14 October I work hard at harmony. Ruth phones to ask me to some concerts. She’s given the Booths free tickets to the Maria Stader recital and is going to go with them. She says the Booths were cross with me for never being satisfied with my work. this puts me into a deep depression.
15 October Webster phones in the morning to ask if I’d play for him on Thursday, Friday and possibly Saturday as Anne is going to have her neck stretched. Naturally I agree. I decline during the rest of the day so get Mum to phone them to say I can’t come to lesson. She calls him by Christian name. I phone him at night and he tells me the hours for accompanying. He says Anne will have to have a week of treatment. He asks whether I’m feeling any better now and tells me not to work so hard.
17 October Accompany for Webster. During Linda’s lesson he spends time patting me on the cheek! Yvonne, Margriet, Louisetta, , audition, Graham and Freddie come and we have jolly day with them. Freddie takes us to the garage and when Webster helps me out of the car he puts his arm around my waist and keeps it there. He takes me home and we talk outside for a while. I phone Anne to say he’s on his way home. She is feeling a lot better after the treatment.
18 October Lucille arrives first and tells me about her recently holiday. When Webster arrives in dress suit, he tells me he’s going to the first night of Show Boat and Clara Butt will take me home. Lucille has her lesson and then I have mine during which we decide what to do for next exam. Selwyn, Myrna, Gertie and Charlotte come and all goes well as far as the piano is concerned. I say goodbye to him and am taken home by “Clara Butt” and husband. I feel a bit put out that Anne was not well enough to come to studio but is well enough to attend the first night.
19 October Go to Mrs S and have piano lesson. Go to Booth studio and Webster arrives shortly afterwards full of moans about last night’s late night. I make him some black coffee and we have Leanore who is also tired. Erica and Ruth follow. Ruth is very agitated and excited about going with them to hear Maria Stader. At one moment she tells Webster not to look at her when she’s singing and he says, “You want to spend the whole evening at the concert with me but you can’t bear me to look at you!” Robin is full of events in Show Boat chorus, and then we have Frances and Henrietta, sisters who sing duets together. Webster brings me home – we meet Margaret on the way to the garage. He tells me about their new house in Parktown North. He is not keen on going to the concert and says it’s a pity I couldn’t go instead of him but he knows Ruth would be upset if he didn’t go. He says he doesn’t like going out at night now that he is old!
20 October Ruth phones in the morning to tell me about last night. She got home at 10.45 and they had coffee in the café in Parktown North afterwards. She asks me to go to a Shura Cherkasky recital at the SABC in the afternoon. Gill is there. Cherkasky is brilliant. Ruth brings me home and we have supper and a cosy chat.
21 October Accompany 11.30 – 6.00 Webster arrives and we have coffee. After two pupils we have lunch together. He goes to sleep and I try to study. He wakes up and says, “Put your books away, darling and have a rest.” He puts a cushion at right angles to him and gets me to lie down for a while. He ruffles my hair and makes me feel quite excited. I don’t know what to think. We have tea and I have my lesson and sing The Lute and Harp. Colleen arrives and he says, “Shall we finish this or shall we let her in?” I say archly, “Well, let her in if you hate me.” He stands up and puts his arms around me and nearly squeezes the breath out of my body, saying, “I don’t hate you. I love you.” Colleen sings Our Language of Love and he keeps his hand on my shoulder while I play. He drives me home – presumably for the last time – and kisses me before I go into the house!
22 October Go to studio feeling a bit shattered after the strange events of yesterday. In the afternoon Webster phones to find out if Dennis had arrived there instead of at the house.
He says Anne is in great pain.
24 October Go to studio and work. I phone Webster and he says Anne will manage in today. I have lunch in Ansteys with Mum. Thea arrives, and then Anne, who asks if I could come in to work with Webster tomorrow. Naturally, I say I will. She says she still feels awful. I meet Webster outside the small CNA next to Polliacks and he grabs my hand and asks if I’m going to play for him tomorrow. He is delighted when I say that I will do so. He keeps holding my hand and everyone gapes at us but he doesn’t seem to care.
28 October Go to singing in afternoon – we have tea and sing my two LTCL songs. Anne asks if she can come on Sunday and bring her new dog, a cairn terrier to show me. I am delighted. I’m going to play for Webster on Saturday.
30 October Go to studio. Roselle comes in the afternoon so we sing for each other and come home on the bus together. She’s fun. Ruth phones to ask me to the theatre with Caroline and Graham (C’s fiancé). We see Tigers and Typists with Gordon Mulholland and Joan Brickhill. Mum phones Anne to ask her to lunch on Sunday.
31 October Go to studio. Thea comes and then Webster – he is sweet. At night Alan Hooper and his mother visit and we spend pleasant evening.
November
1 November Go to studio. Lucille and Anne arrive and L has her lesson. When Anne and I discuss accompaniment terms he says, “She was a very good girl!” and makes me blush. I sing and we chat for a while. I’m playing for him tomorrow and on Monday (I hope for the whole day). Anne straightens my collar and all is pleasant.
2 November Webster arrives just after me. We have Mary Wright (Desmond’s sister), Afrikaans girl called Liz then Leonore, Graham, Frances and Henrietta. Afterwards we wash up dishes together… He takes me home and is a darling and says he’ll explain to Anne how to get to the house tomorrow. They are having a party to celebrate their Silver Wedding anniversary tonight – rather ironic!
3 November Anne phones to say she can’t come after all because she’s feeling so awful after her party. She gets quite emotional and says my mother was so sweet to her the other day she could have wept. The Watts come. Poor Mr W is really looking awful and he is such a sweet man. I sing for them and they enjoy it. Ruth phones and she tells me that she’s going to go to Cape Town ‘varsity next year to study.
4 November Go into studio. Webster comes and we discuss my exam… We have lunch and I try to swot. He goes to sleep so I see no harm in doing something similar. Heather and Jimmy come and I have my lesson. Anne arrives after that. A rather strange day, but fun!
5 November – The Silver Wedding anniversary. Go into studio and work hard. Lunch with Mum in Ansteys and then come back to the studio and work some more in vaguely shattering atmosphere. I come home with Doreen Craig on the bus.
6 November Robin phones and tells me all about Show Boat. When I come home Anne arrives complete with puppy, Hilda, and driving the pale blue Anglia. They are going to call the puppy Silva to commemorate their Silver Wedding anniversary! The puppy is too sweet for words. Anne is lovely and says she’ll come to tea and stay much longer in the near future.
7 November I go into town with Alan Hooper and buy a silver wedding gift for Anne and Webster and then go up to the studio. Donald Monat phones. Anne and Webster arrive together and the first thing he tells me is to stop winking! Anne is thrilled with the silver wedding gift and kisses me. He comes into the office to see what’s going on and puts his arm around me and kisses me too!
8 November Work in studio. Webster phones to say Anne has ‘flu so I promise to help him. He brings me a present of some glacé fruits. I sing Always and some of the exam things… He marks the breathing in Always and tells me that, just like the song says, he will always love me! He takes my arm on the way to the car and he kisses me “good luck” for tomorrow’s exam.
9 November Do harmony exam – too ghastly for words! I go up to the studio feeling shattered. Webster is with the girls, Henrietta and Frances, and is very concerned about me when I insist on playing for them. He runs off to make me coffee and the girls are very sweet too… He wishes me luck for the afternoon exam which goes much better. I might actually have passed that one.
11 November Go to studio. Webster arrives early and says he’s tired… He kisses me on the forehead when we say goodbye.
14 November Anne arrives in the afternoon and moans about illness and Colleen’s husband and tells us about last night. I meet Webster from the lift. He looks a bit miserable. I go with Alan Hooper to see Born to Sing. Quite a pleasant evening.
15 November Go to studio. Lucille tells me about Kempton Park Merry Widow and her amorous leading man. Anne goes out for a while and during my lesson we do Always… We manage to do the Lute and Harp and when Anne returns we do the Liszt.
16 November Go to Mrs S and Margaret is there. We stay to choir. We listen to Anne and Webster on Saturday Night at the Palace at night. I am sorry I didn’t get to the broadcast.
A quartet from Saturday Night at the Palace with Jeanette James and Bruce Anderson.
17 November We visit Mrs Lesofsky (My mother’s colleague) to see her new baby – sweet. I phone Ruth and tell her of latest developments. She gives me advice about not going too far and tells me about Anne having an affair with a dancer of 24 a couple of years ago. He was mad about her and devastated when she was not really serious about him. I wish her luck for her matric exams.
18 November Work. Go to singing and Webster answers the door calling me darling and ducks and bringing me some tea. He pats my cheek for an age and we blow each other kisses. Anne tells me that she is feeling awful when I go in to the studio. They tell me about Lucille and the Merry Widow.
22 November Go to studio and Webster comes in the afternoon … Have a pleasant lessons with Anne .
25 November Webster phones at lunch time for a chat and tells me he’s all by himself in the studio until Anne comes in at 4. I promise him that I’ll go in and help him until Anne arrives and he is pleased. When Anne comes in I have my lesson.
26 November Webster phones to warn me that Mr Fenney might arrive looking for Mabel’s tape recorder. I have to say that they are out of town. I go to a lecture by Sir Thomas Armstrong at night – excellent.
27 November Anne phones to say Webster is coming in for some music for a concert tonight. He collects music and it is lovely to see him unexpectedly. I go to concert at St George’s with Betty done by Mrs McDonald-Rouse.
28 November Mr F calls again. Webster comes in at 3.00 and then goes to collect his new glasses at Elkins. Linda arrives and tells me about car accident on Saturday. She sings nicely but commonly..
29 November Go to studio and lunch with Mum. Anne tells me how ill she feels when she comes in. I put 6d in Webster’s meter. I tell them about Thomas Armstrong and I put another 6d in his meter as I go home.
30 November I go to Mrs S and we listen to the Nursery School Sing Along record featuring Anne and Webster. Margaret fetches me at 2.00 for wedding in Orchards which goes well. I phone Ruth at night and we talk about the matric exams and other things of interest.
2 December Go to singing and Webster answers and calls me sweety. Anne tells me she doesn’t feel very well and is seeing the doctor tomorrow. We work through the two songs for the record and have tea. I hear about Mr Fenney calling at home and about Mrs S and her lover! I don’t sing very well and feel embarrassed with him there. I feel terribly depressed when I come home.
5 December Go to studio. Linda comes early and we talk for a while. Webster arrives and is most affable. He comes with me to door – cheers me up a bit.
6 December Go to studio. Lucille doesn’t come so I sleep a bit. Anne arrives and tells me that she definitely has arthritis and has to have a dozen electrical treatments. When Webster comes we do the recordings – not too bad and then work at the Lute and Harp. When I go he comes with me to door and asks if I’ll play for him next Wednesday afternoon. Naturally, I agree.
7 December Go to Mrs S for lesson. I get Margaret on bus both ways. We go to Kenilworth to see Mrs Mcdonald-Rouse’s concert party. The Moodies are there.
8 December Go to studio. Anne arrives at the door as Webster is phoning. As soon as he hears I am there he comes into the kitchen to ask how I am. Have my lesson after Heather. We have tea and I sing well. Anne has to phone when I go so he comes with me to the door and says he’ll see me on Wednesday to play for him.
9 December Go to studio and do some shopping in town. I meet Wendy Wayburne – she’s getting married soon. I lunch with Mum. Denise Wallace calls to ask me to do something for her.
10 December Lunch in Ansteys with Mum and meet Mrs Ormond. Webster comes in afternoon and we have various pupils. He brings me home in the Hillman and kisses me in parting.
11 December Feel in shattered mood after yesterday. I get 88% for teaching but not so good for harmony so I’ll have to resit that exam.
13 December Lucille, Yvonne and Anne arrive. When I come back after the hour Webster is pleasant. He brings me tea and I tell them about the exam disaster and Webster says I must have harmony lessons with Richard Cherry who will be the best person to help me over that hurdle.
17 December Phone Ruth and we arrange an outing for tomorrow. She’s going out with Alan again.
20 December Go to studio. Mayoress of Brakpan and sons arrive and then Webster. Anne tells me about the psychological effect most pupils have on her. When I come home there is a Christmas card addressed and written from Webster and Anne.
23 December Go into studio. Webster comes to the door and when I am sitting in the kitchen he gives me a Christmas gift and signifies secrecy. He kisses me gently and then brings me a cup of tea. After Heather goes I go in and have an hour today because Ruth doesn’t come. We all kiss each other a happy Christmas. I should have waited until Christmas day but I couldn’t resist opening it on the bus. The gift is a heavenly pair of garnet earrings set in gold. They are for pierced ears so I will have to have my ears pierced as soon as possible.
25 December We have lunch at Rhodes Park and take some pictures there.
Me and Mum – Rhodes Park. Kensington, Christmas Day 1963.
27 December Am glad to get back to routine. Anne comes in the afternoon and I meet Webster in town at the corner of Pritchard and Von Brandis Streets. I thank him most sincerely for his lovely gift and he is delighted that I like it. He takes my hand and kisses me, oblivious of all the other people around.
Pritchard Street/VonBrandis Street.
28 December Go to Mrs S for lesson and see Margaret. In the afternoon Betty and I go to see Oklahoma! which is really super. We go to Variety Under the Stars at night. It is a bit common. Peter Lotis is the only person worth looking at and even then he’s rather crude.
29 December Ruth phones to tell me about preparations for her sister’s wedding and how cheeky she was to them yesterday, telling him that he shouldn’t drink. She asks me to swim at her house on Thursday.
30 December Go to singing.I have a good lesson and Anne and Webster kiss me a happy new year!
31 December Go into the studio for the last time this year and work hard. Leslie Green arrives in the afternoon, slightly sloshed. He is sorry they are not there. He says he’ll visit them at home instead.
Quite a pleasant year one way and the other – singing and piano exams, playing for Webster and, just lately, having a change in my relationship with him. I hope next year will be a happy one.
Jean Collen
My public diaries come to an end here. You may notice that I have omitted a great deal from the last few months of 1963. As my late friend, Jean Buckley would have said, “I do not wish to cast the Booths in a bad light,” and neither do I, even though all this happened a long time ago.
My life has continued until now and my husband and I are currently locked down during the pandemic with no sign of a vaccination in sight for us, living in a very different South Africa than the one it was in the days when I delighted in keeping a diary.
There was some turbulence in my relationship with Anne in 1964 and 1965, and in 1966 I went to the UK in the hope of starting a new life there. I returned to South Africa in mid-1968 and was married in mid-1970. I met the Booths again in 1973 and we became friends again. My two children were born in 1974 and 1975 and the Booths returned to the UK in 1978 where they were in great demand by their fans who remembered them from the hey-day of their illustrious career in the 1940s and 1950s. Webster died in 1984.
After his death, Anne and I corresponded frequently and, at her request, I visited her in North Wales in 1990 and spent a very happy time with her. We corresponded until her death in 2003 and she was kind enough to leave me a bequest in her will. In different ways, they both influenced my life very greatly indeed and I will always remember them with great affection.
My mother says, as he is leaving, “Thank you for looking after Jean,” and he gives me a fond glance and replies, “I think it’s Jean who’s looking after me.” He gives a short hoot of farewell as he drives over the Juno Street hill on his way home. What a heavenly day.
1 April – Work. Go to SABC at night. Ruth is there and we have a chat. She is coming to visit me next Monday. Mr Tyler takes us through the Creation.
2 April – Work. Go to singing with a touch of laryngitis. When I arrive I hear Webster and Anne practising the duets for the SABC concert and their voices blend gloriously. They are most sympathetic about my laryngitis. I sing a little, but not much. Webster gives me a lecture on all my inhibitions. He tells me that I am most musicianly and will do well in the exam for I have improved so much.
3 April – Work and lunch in Ansteys with Mum. Go to SS studios for my piano lesson and talk to Elaine and Gill. Ruth phones and tells me she’ll be here at about 11.45am on Monday.
4 April – Have yet another ghastly day feeling ill. Listen to Leslie Green. Only a few weeks to go before he and Anne tour the country and I work with Webster – Hurrah!
5 April – Go to singing. Webster is trying to teach Lucille the bass clef. My throat is still a bit odd. Webster tells me it’s my imagination and microphone nerves! I manage to sing everything softly. He says that Ruth and I imagine a lot. I phone Betty to arrange to go to the Cinerama.
6 April – Go with Dad and book at Piccadilly as Cinerama is crowded out. We take Betty to see Cloak and Dagger with Gary Cooper and Lili Palmer. Webster plays all South Africans in his Great Voices and includes a record by himself, saying, “Seeing I’m South African too!” which is by far the greatest voice of the evening!
7 April – Go to Sunday school and play the piano. Dad fetches me and we go to town to look at the Presbyterian church. Phone Ruth and she says she had a lovely birthday. Webster kissed her and they gave her a card and a scarf. They managed to get into the Cinerama and saw How the West was Won. She says Anne was most concerned about my throat.
8 April – Ruth comes to the house and has lunch and we work at all our exam pieces together. Evidently Webster got sloshed on Saturday night but sang the Resurrection at the Presbyterian Church beautifully. After supper Dad takes Ruth and me to choir where we hear a recording of TheCreation (in German). Webster and Anne sing with Edgar Cree and orchestra on the radio.
9 April – Go to singing and Ruth is there before me. When I go in Webster says he likes my hair. Ruth mentions how much she enjoyed their recording so I say that it was lovely. He says, “Not too bad for a couple of old fogies!” Ruth goes and I sing very well indeed for a change and they both like it. Anne tries on my glasses and I try on hers and Webster’s. He has a new pair with black frames – looks most distinguished!
10 April – Go to town and buy some clothes. I meet Mary Harrison in John Orrs. Have lunch in Ansteys with Mum and then go up to Mrs S. She tells me to tell the Booths how much she enjoyed their performance on Monday evening. She says they are very great people and she remembers how excited she was at seeing them at Broadcast House in 1948. Such a good looking young couple. I go to the library with Dad at night and meet Liz Moir there.
11 April 1963 – Work and go to singing in the afternoon. Ruth has her lesson before me. I sing everything very well and tell Anne and Webster what Mrs S said about their broadcast. Webster says that I should write to the SABC and tell them how much I enjoyed their performance and perhaps they’ll ask them to do another broadcast. I promise to do so. He gives me a list of music for accompanying and says he’ll run me home after we finish at the studio each evening.
Webster’s list of pupils and times for accompanying.
13 April 1963 – Easter Friday. Have restful morning and we go for a run in the afternoon. I sing and play exam pieces to parents and they are impressed, contrary to the last time they listened to me. I hope all goes well.
14 April 1963 – Go into Mrs Sullivan’s and work with Margaret and Mrs du P. Sing in the SS choir and then come home with Margaret. We see Elvis in Kid Galahad. In Great Voices Webster plays the voice of actor, John Barrymore. They went to the same tailor, and George Formby.
15 April 1963 – I work hard but am so strung up about the exam the following day that I don’t sleep all night!
16 April – Singing Exam. I meet Anne on the lift in Edinburgh Court and we go into the SS studio together. Lucille is quite nervous and makes a few mistakes. Guy Magrath is terribly sweet and apart from shaky studies my singing isn’t too bad. The questions and ear tests are a cake walk as Webster would say! Ruth sings nicely and Anne is very pleased with us. Let’s hope we do well. Afterwards Ruth and I go and have lunch together and see a silly film to relax after our ordeal.
17 April – I work at the piano and go into Mrs Sullivan’s studio where I see Svea, Margaret and Gill. We do musicianship and ear tests.
18 April – Work. Have lunch with Mum and then go to SS studio and practise hard. We see Guy Magrath leaving the studio wearing a navy bowler!
19 April – Go to Mrs S and work with Margaret. Afterwards I go to singing and Webster makes tea while Lucille sings gorgeously. I get my results after much teasing on part of Anne – 78% for Higher Local singing (with merit) which is jolly good, considering that I skipped a grade. I sing Father of Heav’n beautifully due to the elation of doing quite well and make arrangements for Monday. Ruth phones at night – she got 72% for Senior exam and Lucille got 72% for Grade 5.
Grade 8 singing report.
20 April – Piano exam. Mr Magrath remembers me from the singing exam and is a honeybunch. He tries his best to put me at my ease. I think I will pass. He says I sang well in my singing exam and he is sure I will make a good teacher. Mum phones Anne to congratulate her on my result. Anne is thrilled and says that while she’s away, “Webster will look after her.” (ie ME!) See We Joined the Navy.
21 April – Have a fairly quiet day to recover from yesterday’s excitement. We go for a run in the afternoon to find Webster’s best route home from our house via Sylvia Pass.
22 April – Go into the studio to work for Webster at last. He gives me the key to the studio and tells me I can come in at any time to practise. He also shows me where the key to Chatsworth – his name for the outside toilet – is kept! and makes me coffee. Mary H, John S, Piet van Zyl and others come and I have a glorious time playing for them and listening to Webster’s advice to them.
My mother had told me to go out at lunchtime to give Webster a chance to have a rest, so I do so and return in time for the afternoon session. He takes me home in his car and before he leaves Juno Street I ask if he would like to come to dinner with us one night and he is touched.
23 April – Go into the studio early and practise on the lovely Chappell piano before Webster arrives. During the course of the day he tells me that they wrote an autobiography called Duet and he will lend it to me to read. Doris Bolton (a fabulous singer), Lucille, and Dudley Holmes come for lessons during the morning. When I return from lunch, Webster asks what I was doing when I was out and says that I mustn’t dream of going out for lunch again but must have lunch with him in the studio. We have a long talk in the afternoon and he tells me all about holidays in Switzerland and Monte Carlo. Norma Dennis (Diane Todd’s understudy) has a lesson in the afternoon. Webster takes me home and tells me all about Lincoln and promises to bring their autobiography in on Thursday. Heavenly day!
24 April – Have lunch in Ansteys with mum. Phone Webster to ask if I may practise in the studio when he’s not there and he says, “But of course, darling. That’s what I meant when I gave you the keys. Take some tea and biscuits if you want some.” He says he got home easily last night and then, “Goodbye, darling.” I practise singing and it goes well. I go to Mrs S for a lesson. Elaine is back from her holiday and Gill is in a grumpy mood.
25 April – Work in studio. Webster arrives, complete with his autobiography, Duet. I am delighted. Colleen McMennamin is the first pupil and she sings well. The other three are pretty hopeless and Webster says it should be a boost to my ego to see how frightful they are! Takes me home in the Hillman and tells me all about how they continued writing their autobiography after the ghostwriter began putting in his own pacifist views and they had to get rid of him. He also gives me a lecture on Bel Canto singing, which merely means beautiful song. I start reading their book when I get home – sheer heaven!
26 April – I get honours for all three piano exams! I read the autobiography at the studio and am quite fascinated with it. What an eventful time they had. Webster arrives with Lucille and we have tea. Other pupils prove rather uneventful. He warns me not to laugh at one particular one. He brings me home in the car and we talk about Ruth and her depressions. He is coming to dinner on Tuesday evening – what fun. Life is heaven at the moment.
Grade 8 piano report
27 April – Webster is there when I arrive and makes coffee for us. Ruth phones to say she is sick and can’t manage in today. Quite a few people don’t come so we finish early. “The devil looks after his own,” says he! He takes me home and says that he might take me out to dinner on Monday. We have a jolly, inconsequential conversation – fun. I listen to his Great Voices at night.
28 April – Quiet Sunday. Go for a drive and listen to the villain of the piece – Leslie Green! I miss seeing my darling Webster today.
29 April – Go to studio and Webster is there and makes us coffee. We get through the morning and have lunch together. He puts his feet up after lunch and goes to sleep and snores gently. His cheeks grow pink and looks very dear, sweet and vulnerable.
Anne sends me a postcard but hasn’t written to him so he is cross. One of the pupils asks what Anne is doing while she’s away and he says, “That’s what I’d like to know!” We have pupils in the afternoon and he tells me on the way home that he intends taking me out to lunch tomorrow. He had been thinking of going to the café opposite Show Service in Jeppe Street, but if there is enough time maybe we could go to Dawson’s Hotel instead. All is heaven.
Anne’s postcard to me from Kalk Bay.
30 April – Go to the studio. Webster is there already and then Lucille, Mrs Smith and Dudley. Dudley is the last pupil before lunch. Webster tells Dudley that he is blowing the family savings and taking me out to lunch. Dudley says wistfully, “And I have to go back to the office on an apple!”
Webster takes me to lunch at Dawson’s Hotel and we have a heavenly sophisticated time there. He and Anne stayed at Dawson’s for several months when they first arrived in Johannesburg. He is rather disappointed that I refuse a drink!
In the afternoon he goes to sleep for a while and then plays a tape of his religious songs for me and makes me cry – they are so beautiful. We have one last pupil and then he comes home to dinner with us. He has two drinks and is so sweet to me and my parents. He keeps Shandy on his knee and calls her, “my girlfriend.” He tells us lots of theatrical stories and is absolutely charming.
Shandy – “my girlfriend”!
My mother says, as he is leaving, “Thank you for looking after Jean,” and he gives me a fond glance and replies, “I think it’s Jean who’s looking after me.” He gives a short hoot of farewell as he drives over the Juno Street hill on his way home. What a heavenly day.
1 May – I wallow in “advanced depression” today. How will I manage after these two halcyon weeks are over? Have lunch with mum and then go to the studio and sing in that hallowed atmosphere. Go to Mrs S, chat to Elaine and teach Corrie Bakker.
2 May – Go to the studio, have lunch there and go to the lunch hour concert. I meet Webster in town and he asks me to put money in the meter for him which I do while he panics and goes to the AA to renew his subscription. He tells me he really enjoyed himself on Tuesday night. I’m so pleased. Colleen sings well but the next two are not so good. He sings duets with the last pupil. He is going to Lord Lurgan’s for dinner tonight and tells me all about him. He makes a right carry on about getting himself “tarted up” for the occasion. Tomorrow is probably my last accompanying day. I am sad.
3 May – Webster phones in the morning to tell me that Lucille isn’t coming this afternoon – I am glad! I go into the studio and entertain Mr Knowles-Lewis (who won the hymn competition last year) until Webster arrives. We have Norma and Selwyn. Anne phones to say that she is home safely and quite exhausted. . The others come and go and then all the heaven of two lovely weeks is finished. Webster thanks me and says he loved having me play for him and if Anne doesn’t feel up to coming in tomorrow he’ll phone me. He takes me home in his car for the very last time. He says quite pensively that, “I’ll miss my Sylvia Pass next week.” We part until Tuesday when I will return to being an ordinary pupil once again.
4 May – I feel sad that my two wonderful weeks are over. I go into Mrs S and have a theory lesson. The choir arrives and we are stooges for two people endeavouring to pass the class teachers’ exam. I have a chat with the TCL secretary and see dear old Uncle Mac for the last time.
I phone Ruth in the afternoon and she says Webster raved and raved about me during her lesson this morning, saying how good I was at accompanying and how the experience has boosted my ego and how he loved having dinner with me and my parents. She says Anne regarded him very coldly when he spoke so fulsomely about me! I phone Anne in the afternoon and we talk for a whole hour about everything under the sun. She tells me that they would have loved to retire to a smallholding in Devon but there wasn’t enough money to do so. I don’t have the impression that she is annoyed with me in any way. I listen to Webster at night.
7 May – Webster phones to remind me to fill in my form for the Trinity diploma exam which I have already done. Go to singing and Anne is looking a little tired. She says she didn’t like all the self-centred South African people she met on her trip around the country with Leslie Green. She says she will be a step-grandmother soon as Webster’s son’s wife is going to have a baby in December. We work at the unaccompanied folk song. Webster tells me that Uncle Mac is going to be doing the exams in September. They had him to dinner on Sunday.
8 May – Work at harmony and go to town and lunch in Ansteys with Mum. Go to SS studios and have a harmony lesson. Mummy phones in the middle of it to say that Webster phoned and wants me to audition at the Brooke on Saturday morning. There is a picture of them in the paper. Phone Anne at night and she says that BB is interested in hearing me but as this is a private audition I mustn’t breathe a word about it to anybody. She says she felt she had to do something for me after our chat on Saturday.
10 May – Go to dentist and have lunch with Mum and then a gruelling harmony lesson. Go to singing and Webster gives me tea. Anne and I go over Gypsy Moon for the audition. Anne says, “You’re a beautiful girl and if you were my daughter I’d be very proud of you.” Go over Father of Heav’n and Webster says he’s playing Kath’s record of it tomorrow night. Anne wishes me a lot of luck and is pleased to hear that I enjoyed their autobiography. She tells me to phone tomorrow night.
11 May – Go for audition at the Brooke Theatre and give Colleen a lift there. We go in and feel nervous. Colleen sings well and should get a part. I sing fairly well and Brian Brooke says I could have a small part which will give me some experience. I go to Mrs S afterwards and sing in ensemble. We see A Touch of Mink. I phone Anne at night and she is pleased and thinks I should take up his offer. I listen to Webster’s Great Voices – he plays Kath and Harry Lauder and talks about Bel Canto.
13 May – Work hard and go to SABC at night. See John Steenkamp and Mrs S. Ruth is there and we work hard with Chris Lamprecht.
Great Voices 13 May 1963
14 May – Work hard. Go to singing in the afternoon. Little boy is having a lesson before me. Anne comes into the kitchen on the verge of tears to moan to me about the child. Webster is more tolerant. She tells me to watch out for Brian Brooke as he’s a wolf – the younger, the better! Sing Massenet and go through the unaccompanied song with Webster which goes well. Norma comes after me looking heavenly and theatrical.
15 May – Have lunch in Ansteys with Mum and we meet Mrs McDonald-Rouse and Mrs Moody. Former tells me to give her love to Webster and Anne. Go to Mrs S and have a long lesson. I chat to Elaine (newly recovered from mumps).
16 May – Lunch with Mum and then go to hear Adelaide Newman and Hans Mommer. Anne arrives rather late and first gives an audition to girl, Heather. I go through all my songs and when Webster arrives he records Father of Heav’n. I feel miserable about it. He makes tea and I wash up afterwards.
18 May – Go to Brooke theatre in the morning and he and Bill Walker audition a few more people. In the end there are 8 of us trying for 4 parts as nuns. Bill Walker’s wife is my rival so I can only hope for the best. BB is quite sweet and calls me darling. Go back to Mrs S afterwards and chat to Suzanne Bilski. I get Betty home on the bus. We see Days of Wine and Roses in the afternoon. I meet Ila Silanski there.
21 May – Work. Go to singing in the afternoon. We go through Love’s Sickness and Webster makes tea. Evidently Colleen didn’t get any part at all for BB was disappointed with her speaking voice and advised her to take speech lessons. They are not pleased about it. I tell them of my experience with Bill Walker’s wife! More or less at the last minute, Webster is going to take the part of Colonel Fairfax in The Yeomen of the Guard for JODS as they do not think the man currently doing the role is up to it. Should be fun. I do the French song well and am there for ages.
22 May – Work and lunch in Ansteys with Mum. I go to Mrs S for harmony lesson and chat with Gill. I do ear tests with Edith Sanders and we decide to go to the studio regularly in the mornings to do ear tests in preparation for the forthcoming diploma exams. Edith has perfect pitch!
24 May – Go to singing. Anne is there by herself as Webster is rehearsing madly for The Yeomen so I make tea for us all – Lucille is there too, having had a lesson before me. Anne tells me that she and Webster had indigestion after eating a sheep’s heart casserole! We decide to do some Landon Ronald songs for a change – she sings them for me in her heavenly voice. They are too gorgeous for words.
25 May – Go to Mrs S and then to Brooke theatre where some of the people don’t turn up. BB tells me to come back again next week but I’m not sure if I shall. We see Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
Webster plays duets by Dennis Noble and himself and a song by Bennie Veenemans, the boy soprano. He played that record to me in the studio when I was playing for him.
26 May – Go to church and copy and transpose Anne’s Landon Ronald songs.
27 May – Work. Go to SABC and we have Mr Tyler once more. We work at English folk and traditional songs.
28 May – Go to dentist, lunch hour concert and library. I see Michael Newell. Go to singing and Webster is back again. Norma arrives too early and upsets things. We do the Landon Ronald songs and he is delighted with the transposition. They are disgusted about Brian Brooke.
29 May – Go into SS studio early and Elaine and I do some theory together. Mrs S comes in and tells us that Stan’s mother has died. I lunch with Mum in Ansteys.
30 May – Go to SS studios again and work hard. Lunch with Mum and come home on the bus with Margaret. She tells me that Peter Lynsky (Jack Point in the Yeomen) is a lecturer at Teachers’ Training College.
31 May – Republic Day. We see To Kill a Mocking Bird with Gregory Peck. It is very good indeed.
1 June – Go into Mrs S and work with Margaret and Elaine. I have a look at the picture of the juvenile lead (Colonel Fairfax) in the OK.
3 June – Go to SABC at night and Chris Lamprecht takes us. Ruth and I meet at interval and have a good chat. She says that they were charming to her on Saturday – lucky her! We’ll see each other at the theory exam on Saturday.
4 June – Work. Go to singing and Anne is there by herself. Webster is exhausted with rehearsing The Yeomen. The musical director, Desmond Wright, was very rude and picked him out for singing flat in the quartet! He hardly even retaliated! We work very hard and I send my love to him and wish him luck for the opening night. She wishes me luck for my theory exam on Saturday.
5 June – Go to studio and work hard. I lunch in Ansteys with Mum. A Mr Haagen comes to the studio in the afternoon to give Jossie Boshoff a lesson. I have a lesson with Mrs S and work with Elaine. Gill, Corrie and everyone think that JB is the limit!
6 June – Webster was obviously the hit of the evening for both critics say that although his singing is not all it once was, his great sense of timing, his experience of G&S in D’Oyly Carte, and his perfect diction carried the show through admirably.
Lewis Sowden – Rand Daily Mail.
7 June – Work. Go to singing and meet Roselle’s sister on the bus. Anne is in the studio by herself again. She has her hair in curls on top of her head (for first night). She tells me over tea that he stole the show. We work hard and she is very pleased. Selwyn comes after me and I wash the dishes before I leave. I meet Brian McDade on the bus coming home.
Oliver Walker – the Yeomen of the Guard crit.
8 June – Go to write theory exam and Ruth is there writing one too. Afterwards we have a cup of coffee in De Beers and she tells me that Anne raved about my concentration yesterday. I go up to Mrs S and deteriorate. I faint 3 times while singing in the choir and my father has to come in to fetch me. I am ill for the rest of the day and Mrs S phones to see how I’m keeping.
9 June – Dora Sowden gives Webster a super crit in the Sunday Times.
10 June – Work. Go to SABC at night and Ruth tells me that she might be going to Cape Town music school next year. We work hard with Chris Lamprecht.
11 June – Work. Go to singing in the afternoon and tell Anne about the fainting attack on Saturday morning. She is very sympathetic and tells me that she had much the same trouble herself, especially on tour. She also tells me that Hilda is going to visit her family in St Helena soon and will be away for six and a half weeks so I shall probably be accompanying for Webster again on alternate days. Apparently, he is threatening a cold today but will have to persevere with the Yeomen. She says he’d be very hurt if I didn’t go and say hello backstage on Friday night. I sing exceptionally well today and she is thrilled. I wash our teacups after my lesson and this pleases her.
12 June – Go to SS studios and work at ear tests with Edith Sanders. Lunch in Ansteys with Mum and have piano lesson in the afternoon. I meet Colleen McM on the bus – she is back working in an office and feeling miserable.
13 June – Go to SS studios and work with Edith Sanders again. I have lunch in the restaurant opposite Show Service and see Leon Gluckman there.
14 June – Anne phones in the morning with a king-size attack of the ‘flu. Evidently Webster is almost as bad. I promise to phone Ruth for her and do so in the afternoon to put her off. We go to Yeomen of the Guard at night and it is really gorgeous. Webster sings beautifully and (as I tell him afterwards) makes a charming young man. I go back to see Webster in his dressing room and say how much I enjoyed it. He is terribly pleased. He has a large glass of whisky sitting on the table. He says his temperature is down and Anne is feeling much better tonight. He is a real honey and as unassuming as always. I say, “Ta, ta,” and leave him to dress and get home to bed and nurse his ‘flu.
The Yeomen of the Guard
15 June – Go in to the SS studio and rave about the Yeomen. Mrs S is very derisive about it. I work with Margaret and Elaine and sing in choir and chat to Binky. Come home with Margaret. See Fast Lady (Stanley Black). Listen to Great Voices and he plays a woman of 69 singing. He says, “I wonder if I’ll sound as good as that when I’m 69!”
17 June – Anne phones me in the morning and says she is still sick. We talk for an hour and I think it cheers her up. She runs down Julietta Stanners-B for the peppermint green costume she produced for Webster in the last act. He’s still sick but managing to crawl on stage every night. She says she’ll let me know on Friday about the arrangements for the next six weeks, and certainly, I may have the studio key once more. I go to SABC at night. I think Ruth is rather jealous about the happenings of the week. We have rehearsal for Friday and Anton Hartman comes into the studio to talk to us.
18 June – Go to SS studio and work with Edith. Have lunch in Ansteys and then see Sparrows Can’t Sing – an excellent and unusual film. Clive Parnell sits in front of me. Ruth phones to ask me to go to the SABC. Chris L is a pig to everyone in general and Ruth in particular -ugh!
19 June – Go to SS studio and practise. I lunch in Ansteys, have piano lesson and work with Elaine. I phone Anne at night and she still feels revolting even though she’s up. She’s not even sure if she’ll come in on Friday. She says that if she does, she wants Webster to come in with her to offset things as it is too much to have to cope with everyone on her own.
20 June – I go to final rehearsal for SABC in the evening. For a change, Chris L is very affable. Ruth is going for her lesson at home on Wednesday but they are not making up the two lessons she missed. She’s cross.
21 June – I go to singing in the afternoon and Anne is back in the studio once more. Lucille, Anne and I have tea together and then I have my lesson. Father of Heav’n goes fairly well. Anne asks me to go in on Wednesday to work for Webster and also next Friday. I’m going to fetch the keys tomorrow. We sing in the Light music concert at the City Hall conducted by Jos Kleiber and it goes well. Ruth remarks that Jos Kleiber is very energetic! Anton H and Edgar Cree congratulate us on our performance.
22 June – Phone early in the morning and speak to Webster to remind Anne about the key. He is sweet to me. I go to Mrs S and work with Margaret and Elaine and then go up to Anne’s to get the keys. I say hello to Robin Gordon and “Clara Butt”! I return to sing in Mrs S’s choir and come home with Margaret. I listen to Webster at night and he plays super duet by him and Dennis Noble.
24 June – Go into town and buy some clothes. Practise with Margaret. Lunch with Mum in Capeniro. I go home on the bus with Colleen McM who tells me about Norma D’s husband and other theatrical gossip. Anne phones in the afternoon and asks me to go for an hour tomorrow. Go to SABC at night. Ruth saw the Yeomen but didn’t go backstage to see Webster. She saw Anne in the audience but didn’t talk to her. She says she thought his voice was rather awful! I thought he sang well. Work at Creation.
25 June – Go to singing for an hour and Webster is back in slightly disgruntled frame of mind. Work fearfully hard at Father of Heav’n but he is sparing with his praise. I sing the Landon Ronald song cycle and Anne raves about my singing and moans at him for being so grim. I have to play for him tomorrow at 3 o’clock. I hope he is in a better mood tomorrow!
26 June – Go into Booth’s studio and practise. Webster arrives in the afternoon and we have Heather Coxon first. I make tea for us and then we have Colleen, and after her our two demons. When Graham has his lesson Webster shines singing his bass arias. Webster brings me home and talks about the Yeomen and how tiring it was to change into three different sets of tights at every performance!
27 June – Go to studio and work in the lovely atmosphere. Yvonne Marais’s mother phones to say she’s sick so I phone Anne to let her know. She is grateful. Go to ghastly lunch hour concert featuring Jossie B, then come home and wash hair.
28 June – Go to studio and get a lift into town with Mr McKenzie. Webster comes in the afternoon moaning about the rain. Lucille arrives with her boyfriend and they sing a duet together. She’s there for an hour and then we have tea. I have my lesson and sing unusually well and he is pleased. Selwyn comes and we have an hour’s break before Betsy Oosthuizen and Graham. Webster brings me home in the Hillman, cursing the rain and the cold engine.
29 June – Go to town with Dad and we see Raising the Wind again – I love that film. Webster’s programme is super.
30 June – Have fairly quiet Sunday. Webster phones unexpectedly at night for no apparent reason except to chat with me. He tells me that he doesn’t think I owe them anything for July owing to all the work I’m doing with him. We talk about various pupils, Brian Morris and Drummond Bell. He says he’ll go in tomorrow on his own and can manage by himself as everyone is so awful!
Ruth phones to say that she went to the dress rehearsal of Mrs Puffin this morning. Webster wanted me to go as well but Ruth said I wouldn’t be able to come because I was working – I could slaughter her!
PLEASE NOTE: My full-length diaries of 1963, 1964 and 1965 were destroyed but I still have summaries of 1963 and 1964 in a five-year diary. Sadly, 1965 is lost forever and could only be recalled by memory after I realised that the diaries had been destroyed. Why the diaries were destroyed is the subject of another story which I will not be sharing here!
1 January – Have a quiet meditative morning considering New Year resolutions I probably won’t be able to keep! We see Jumbo in the afternoon. Jimmy Durante is best but it’s not a great picture. I work at night and listen to the radio.
2 January – Work in the morning and then have lunch in the Capinero with Mum. Go to music with Mrs Sullivan. Gill is leaving for Durban on Friday. We are all shocked about the sudden death of Anderson Tyrer on his way back to New Zealand. He had conducted The Centennial Orchestra, consisting of 34 radio orchestra players supplemented by local musicians. The orchestra was fromed to give concerts in four main centres of New Zealand in 1940.
3 January – Work fairly hard today and listen to Leslie Green. I miss G and S at night after hearing it regularly for a whole year!
Leslie Green.
4 January – I get a lift into town from Mr McKenzie in his jag. He tells me that Penny Sage, his son, Alistair’s girlfriend, is in Europe with Holiday on Ice at the moment.
I go to singing and Webster answers the door looking rather tired. I even have to pour my own tea today. Singing goes fairly well and I learn a lot. Anne is preoccupied with their play and is very theatrical. He says, “Goodbye, dear!”
5 January – I go into Mrs S’s studio, work with Elaine and then sing in the SS ensemble. In the afternoon we see Doctor No – very good.
Webster’s new programme Great voices is lovely and he tells of Peter Dawson discovering his voice and taking him to the HMV studios for a recording audition thirty-four years ago.
6 January – Ruth phones to ask me to go and swim in her new pool tomorrow. She tells me all about Christmas and says that Webster is a honey in all circumstances but Anne is behaving in a very theatrical fashion about appearing in the play. She has put off a lot of pupils because of it but has kept us on because we are special!
7 January – Unfortunately, It is too overcast to swim today so we postpone my visit.
I go to singing and Webster tells me how tired he feels doing the play and says he likes my dress. Anne tells me all about the rehearsals. I work hard and Webster sings with me most of the time – really beautifully. I tell him how much I liked his new programme – he seems pleased about it. A really gorgeous lesson today.
Great Voices
8 January – Work very hard indeed today. There is a matinee of Goodnight Mrs Puffin on Saturday 26 January. I must see if I can arrange to go to it. I hope Ruth won’t be away for it.
9 January – Work hard in the morning and lunch in Ansteys with Mum. I see Gideon Fagan in the city and meet a woman from the SABC choir. I go up to Mrs S’s and work hard – she corrects my harmony.
Ruth phones in the evening about going to the swimming pool and tells me that when Webster took her into town for her lesson last Thursday morning and swore atrociously at the other drivers and drove very badly!
10 January – Go into town on the bus with Gill McD and go to Show Service with her. Ruth is waiting for me at the bus stop and we go back to her house for lunch and swim in her gorgeous kidney-shaped pool in the afternoon. Ruth is coming to visit me on Monday and I’ll meet her at 12.45. On the bus back I see Webster driving home in the opposite direction down Jan Smuts Avenue.
He phones at night, saying, “Hello, dear. This is Webster.” He tells me that Anne is terribly sick with jaundice and can I come next Saturday (a week on Saturday) instead. He says the play is hanging on the balance and he doesn’t know his lines properly.
11 January I go to the shops and then to Rhodes Park Library where I try to swot. I work in the afternoon and listen to Leslie Green. There is a picture of Anne and Webster as they hope to appear in Mrs Puffin.
Anne and Webster with their stage children.
We go to the Carmichaels for drinks in the evening.
12 January – Go to Mrs S and work with Elaine and then sing in the ensemble. We go to see Girls with Elvis in it – childish and dull to my way of thinking!
I listen to Webster and Great Voices at night. It is lovely but how I wish he’d play some of his own records. I suppose he is too modest to do so!
13 January – I listen to the little interview with the Booths conducted by Paddy O’Byrne. They talk about their house, garden, pets and pictures. Webster sounds most sincere but Anne is a little flighty. We go for a run in the afternoon.
At night I phone to see how Anne is keeping. They are both rehearsing at the Alex so Anne must have recovered by now. Hilda tells me that she is still rather tired and weak, but better.
14 January – I go into town to fetch Ruth and meet Gill McD on the bus. I go with her to the bank. Ruth comes home and we have a lovely lunch and a most hilarious time. We play with the tape recorder and I record her singing, whistling and speaking and she is thrilled. She says, quite seriously, that she loves Webster! We have a wonderful time and she promises to send me a card from Rustenburg.
15 January – There is a picture of Webster and Jane Fenn (Mrs Puffin) in the paper. It is simply gorgeous.
I go into town and see Brian McDade. There is a picture of Anne and Webster in the paper at night and an article (most pretentious) called Booths at Home.
16 January – Work and lunch in Ansteys with Mum. I go up to Mrs S and do ear tests with Elsa. I have a nice lesson. Ruth phones to say that she went to the dress rehearsal of Mrs Puffin this morning. Webster wanted me to go as well but Ruth said I wouldn’t be able to come because I was working – I could slaughter her! She must have known that I would have made every effort to go to the dress rehearsal. She says it was good – light and funny. She phoned Anne tonight but Anne was nervous and offhand with her prior to the opening night of the play.
Crit from Rand Daily Mail.
17 January Lewis Sowden’s crit is good as far as the play goes but non-committal about them. I work and phone Ruth to ask her to swop times with me and she agrees. I’m going at 10.30 then. Oliver Walker gives a good crit apart from criticising Webster.
18 January – Webster phones me in the morning to thank me for my telegram and to say that the play is going well and to remind me about tomorrow. He is very sweet and charming and cheers me no end. Work fairly hard for the rest of the day.
I listen to his Great Voices at night – very good, but he’s the greatest voice I know so I miss hearing his own recordings.
19 January – I go to singing. Ruth has a simply ghastly lesson before me. Anne thanks me very much for the telegram. It was so sweet etc! Webster says he’s so sorry he didn’t phone me about the dress rehearsal but Ruth was very firm about telling them that I was working. We moan about her! I would have loved to go. I sing very well and they are pleased. I talk about getting old and he says, “You’re just a little girl to me, dear.” Sweet.
We see Jigsaw with Jack Warner – very good.
20 January – I go to church and make arrangements with Betty for Saturday. I phone Ruth to thank her for changing her lesson with me yesterday. She didn’t enjoy her lesson and I’m not at all surprised!
My mother makes some shortbread for Webster’s 61st birthday tomorrow – I hope he likes it.
21 January – I go to singing and give Webster some of my mother’s shortbread to sample. He says, “Bless you,” a couple of times and Anne says, “Did you know it was his birthday?” and I say I had an inkling about it and wish him a very happy birthday. I sing well and work hard and they are pleased. I ask if I can come backstage on Saturday and they say, of course, I must come. I tell him that I’ll be cross if he doesn’t have some shortbread! I have a lovely time. He is 61 today.
22 January – Work very hard today. Leslie Green has Ivor Dennis to tea this afternoon and he talks of his experiences working with the Jack Hylton show in England – such a sweet old man.
23 January – I have lunch in Ansteys with Mummy – lovely. I meet Roselle Deavall after almost a year. Last time I saw her was on that eventful 11 April, Drawing Room. I go to Mrs S and work at ear tests with Elsa. I have a nice lesson and say I won’t be coming on Saturday due to Mrs Puffin.
24 January – I go to lunch hour concert. Anton H conducts Vincent Fritelli, the brilliant violinist – a lovely programme of Grieg, Sibelius and Saint-Saens.
Mr and Mrs Fordyce in programme of Goodnight Mrs Puffin
25 January – I have my hair set in honour of Mrs Puffin tomorrow. I listen to Dewar McCormack’s Friday at Eight – Bryden Thompson (Scottish conductor) and our Gracie.
26 January – I go to see Mrs Puffin with Betty at the Alexander Theatre in Braamfontein. We arrive quite early, and after we have coffee we look at all the gorgeous pictures of Anne and Webster in the foyer. The play is simply fabulous. They are all good – particularly Anne and Webster. It is a really good laugh and we enjoy it enormously. We go to see the Booths afterwards in their dressing room. They are very sweet. He puts his socks on as we talk of the play, his lines, his illness (the same as Gaitskell’s) and hers. They come out with us and say hello to boy in the play. He catches the same bus as us and is charming. I listen to Great Voices at night.
28 January I go to singing – Webster is wearing his ancient well-cut pinstripe suit. I sing well but without much expression. Anne says Ruth was very depressed about her sisters treatment of her today. They are cross because I didn’t want to audition for My Fair Lady. Webster sees me to door and says, “Goodbye, deeer!”
I go to the SABC at night. Our new choirmaster is called Chris Lamprecht and we start work on The Creation. Ruth tells me of her depression with her sisters and her seeming inability to sing. She wants to give it up for a while after her exam. Her eyes are red and swollen from crying.
29 January – I am not too well today but recover later. Elsa phones at night to see if I’ll go and do ear tests with her tomorrow. I say I will and will be there at two and will collect the keys from the optician.
30 January – I work and lunch in Ansteys with Mum. I go to the SS studio and see Stan who looks very ill. Elsa and I do ear tests together and Mrs S asks me to teach a child called Gail on Monday. I come home on the bus with Margaret. We are going to work together on Saturday morning.
31 January – I make a dental appoint and go to the SABC concert. Two old women are raving about Mrs Puffin and this makes me smile. Jossie B and Nohline Mitchell are the soloists. They sing excerpts from Hansel and Gretel but they hardly get any applause at all.
1 February – Work very hard at recording exam songs and pieces. Parents listen to them at night and my father is rude and hurtful about my singing – particularly Father of Heaven. I feel awful about it and cry for hours.
2 February – I go to Mrs S and do ear tests and then go to singing. I return Webster’s record and he gets the story of my father’s unkindness out of me. He tells me that his own parents were always horrible about his singing and he would never have become a singer had he listened to them. It is kind of him to compare himself to me and my poor efforts. Anne is furious about Dad’s unpleasantness and I nearly cry all over again, but don’t. She says that we’ll make a tape in the studio for him to hear. I sing, not too badly. He says I must bring the offending tape next week and let them hear it. He also says that he used to have a strong Birmingham accent but it never came over in his singing. I’m the opposite as far as Scots is concerned. I see Ruth afterwards and we see The Phantom of the Opera in the afternoon – very good.
3 February – I go to church in the morning and make arrangements with Betty for the Old Girls Reunion and My Fair Lady. Peter Marsden is most affable.
Ruth phones at night and tells me that Anne and Webster were terribly upset yesterday because my confidence had been so severely shaken and that I was so hurt. They kept saying, “Poor Jean,” and Webster said, “These damned relatives.” She says they felt awful about it and were very sorry for me, which was sweet of them and I appreciate their kindness.
4 February – I go into Mrs S’s studio to teach a child, Gail who doesn’t turn up! I come home on the bus with Gill McDade who has been doing her teaching prac. We talk theatre, which is fun.
5 February – Go to singing. Webster tells me he loved the shortbread. He has eaten some of it and still has some left. Says, “Bless you,” again and is sweet. They listen to my recording of Father of Heav’n and Anne asks me rather sharply who was playing my accompaniment. I tell her it was me. We record Father of Heav’n on my tape again and he sings it for me as it should be sung. It is so heavenly when he sings it that I want to cry. He says I must forget vowels and just think on singing the aria. Lunch in Ansteys with Mum. Dad has ‘flu when we return home – it has probably come on because of his unkindness!
6 February – I go into SS studio and work hard in the morning. I “get” Father of Heav’n! I phone Mum at lunchtime and she tells me that Webster phoned and wants me to help him in the studio for two weeks while Anne is away with Leslie Green in April. He wants me to play the piano for him! I am simply amazed and delighted at this unexpected surprise. Imagine seeing him every day for two weeks! I manage to survive ear tests with Elaine and Elsa and a lesson with Mrs Sullivan.
I come home and phone Anne who tells me that she’s got an offer to go away either on 20th or 27th April and Webster would like me to help him in the studio. I say I’d love to do it. She says we can talk about it all nearer the time, and thank you. I am thrilled to pieces. I wonder what Ruth will say.
7 February – Work hard, thinking intermittently of yesterday’s surprise with alternating delight and horror! Mum and I go to the lunch hour concert. Alfred Schenker plays the violin well.
8 February I work. Mum, Dad and I go to see Mrs P and I enjoy it just as much as I did the first time. Anne is charmingly bitchy; Webster is a honey, and Jane Fenn is sweet and amusing. I think Anne sees me in the audience but I don’t think he does – I shall know tomorrow. We have supper in the Galaxy.
9 February – Go to singing in the morning. I work with Webster and he tells me that the reason he can’t play the piano properly is his bifocals! He tells me about the music I’ll need to be able to play for the little time I’m going to help him. We do exercises and studies and when Anne appears I say how much my parents enjoyed the show. Webster says that he soaked George Moore in the second show last night. We work hard and all goes well. I see Ruth before I leave.
I go with Betty to the Old Girls Reunion at Quondam – Helena Tomes is there and Miss Mclarty talks about her trip to America. Webster’s Great Voices are good tonight – Owen Brannigan, Richard Tauber etc.
10 February – I go to church in the morning – Harvest Festival. Doreen asks me to take a class next Sunday.
I phone Ruth in afternoon after listening to Leslie Green. She says that Webster told her that Anne is going away with Leslie Green for two weeks and that I’m going to help him with accompanying! She says I must go and swim again soon – we talk for over an hour!
11 February – Work hard in the morning and go to the music library in afternoon to procure reams of music for sight reading purposes.
12 February – I go to singing. We do Ein Schwan and after the final attempt at it Webster says that it is good and I am a musician. Lucille has left a present, “To dear Uncle Boo and Aunt Anne.” – I ask you! I am made to sing in front of the mirror and halfway through I stop for some reason or other. He says, “God bless you, dear – you and Ruth should be put in a box together!” Have lunch and see Cape Fear with Mum.
13 February Work at SS studio in morning and then lunch in Rand Central. Have a lesson with Mrs S in the afternoon and work with Elaine. Talk to Gill V who is as morose as ever.
14 February – Work and lunch in Ansteys with Mum. Lunch hour concert with Bryden Thompson conducting, and Lionel Bowman as soloist is great. Edgar C, Anton H and Adelaide N are there to hear the concert. Come home and listen to Leslie Green.
15 February – Go to town with Mum and buy a lot of new clothes. Betty phones about My Fair Lady and Dad phones from Warmbaths. Webster phones later to say that Anne is sick so would I like to help him in the studio tomorrow. I say yes, for better or worse, and he says, “Don’t worry, dear. There’s nothing too difficult!” I only hope there isn’t and I can do it properly!
16 February – I go into studio to play for Webster who is very charming. My sight reading isn’t too bad. The first pupil sings Sylvia by Oley Speaks. I’m sure I’ll never forget that first song I played in the studio! One of Ruth’s songs has a difficult accompaniment but otherwise I manage fairly well. He makes me sing with Kath (on record) and we really work hard at it. Lottie (one of the pupils) says she heard me singing a few weeks ago and thought it was lovely! Lucille has an hour lesson and he makes a great fuss of her. He sings Only a Rose with her and puts his arm around her waist! This makes me feel quite jealous! He thanks me very much and says that my playing is well up to standard and I’ll do fine in April. His show of affection for Lucille dampens my good mood somewhat.
I go to the Empire to see My Fair Lady with Doreen and Betty in the afternoon and it is very good. Great Voices is very good too.
17 February I go to Sunday School and take the class. David D begs me to come again next week! Webster phones to ask me whether I will come tomorrow for three hours as Anne is still ill. I agree and he is very pleased.
Ruth phones and we discuss the happenings of yesterday. She says she adored her lesson yesterday and wishes I’d play for her all the time. She doesn’t quite know what to make of the Lucille episode. We don’t like it!
18 February – I go to the studio to play for Webster again and I get through everything fairly well. Margaret Linklater, a girl from the Orkneys is sweet. Her family run a bakery in Benoni. She tells me she’s scared of Webster. Mary Harrison from My Fair Lady has a lesson. She is an absolute scream and also sings a duet with him but there is no canoodling in that one! A tenor, John Steenkamp with a fabulous voice sings operatic arias and he thanks me very much for playing and says – rather condescendingly – that I did well.
19 February – Anne phones to ask me to come at 12.00. I do so. Lucille has a lesson before me and, despite her excellent voice is most unsuccessful! Anne says she’s not very bright musically. I sing Father of Heav’n and she says she thinks it might be a good idea for her to stay away from the studio for I have improved a lot with Webster! Webster makes me do Zion and Open thy Blue Eyes and they both go well. Anne thanks me very much for “holding the fort” while she was ill!
20 February – I work at SS studio all morning – I have to admit that it is rather a dull thud after the excitement of the past week. Have lunch in Ansteys. Mrs S saw Mrs P on Saturday and is non-committal about Anne and Webster! Unfortunately, Jane F has a broken arm and is playing Mrs Puffin wearing a plaster. Webster was trying to tell me this the other day but I didn’t quite follow what he was saying. I have an interesting piano lesson and then do more ear tests with Elaine.
21 February – There is a story in the paper about Diane Todd (who plays Eliza Doolittle) going off to the North Coast for a break. At least I know the inside story on that count. I go to town for the lunch hour concert only to find that it isn’t on this week. I feel rather disgruntled after the heaven of the past week.
23 February – I go to a ghastly performance day at Mrs Sullivan’s and to singing afterwards. They decide that I should sing Softly Awakes My Heart as a change from the exam setworks. I do this fairly well and they are pleased. I tell them about having my eyes tested and Webster says he’s not surprised because he thought I was straining them. I try on his glasses and he says that as he’s about 50 years older than me we can hardly compare our eyes with each other. Anne and he say they are simply sweating on the stage – especially him. I have a fabulous lesson and sing well. I see Ruth, sing in the SS choir and see Gypsy – a bit raucous. Listen to Webster’s Great Voices – it’s like having an old pal in the lounge – the pet!
24 February – Anne phones to ask if I should like to come at 12.00 on Tuesday and I say, “Yes, thank you.” Go to church and Gail asks me to act in another play. Mr R’s sermon is fairly good. Phone Ruth in the afternoon and she says she feels very depressed with singing and Anne and Webster. She says my singing sounded so good yesterday that she didn’t think it was me! I tell her that I’m going to sing soprano at the SABC tomorrow and she is pleased.
25 February – Work. I have my eyes tested and I am to have glasses! Go to SABC and sing soprano and have a lovely time with Ruth. Chris Lamprecht works us on the Creation and we get paid. Bryden Thompson looks in on us. At interval Ruth, Hester and I chat to one another!
26 February – I go to singing and Webster shows me all the decorations for the studio and he says that he worked yesterday wearing only underpants and overall! I sing fairly well apart from “er” vowels but Anne is in a bad mood today (Mrs Fordycey). She goes to the phone so Webster and I talk about the ear tests and Lincoln Cathedral. He is a darling and so sweet.
Ruth phones at night and we talk for an hour and cheer ourselves up!
28 February – I get my glasses today and look like a regular bluestocking. I have lunch with Mum in Ansteys and go to the concert. Bryden Thomson is simply fabulous and Philip Levy is good. I go to the library with Dad and listen to a play on the radio in which Michael Newell (who is in Mrs Puffin) acts.
1 March – Leslie Green says on the radio that he is going on a little jaunt next month – presumably he’s referring to the little jaunt with Anne! Roselle D sings Wouldn’t It be Loverly on Stars of Tomorrow.
2 March – I go to SS studio and work with Margaret and Elaine at dictation and ear tests and sing in the choir. Webster is great at night with his Great Voices and talks about his singing pupils saying that his young friends consider him a square – sweet!
3 March – Another very grim day today. I manage to listen to Leslie G in the afternoon and phone Ruth who enjoyed Breaking Point and is still depressed over her singing.
4 March – Work. Go to SABC at night and see numerous personalities. Nameless Afrikaans woman tells me that Anne walked out on the cast of the Merry Widow in Springs a week before it was due to open but came back for the opening night! Well, she did complain about their behaviour and told me she would never produce another thing in Springs again. Ruth and I sit together and she tells me she is going to see a throat specialist on 21st of this month and if it isn’t right she’ll have to give up singing.
5 March – Work. Go to singing and I’m there early so Webster asks me straight in. Anne is sitting sewing a rug. I admire all the decorations to the studio –it looks really lovely. We have tea and I sing well and they are pleased. She says that my breathing is a bit faulty so we work at it. He puts his hands around my waist so that I can push them away with my ribs – very romantic! She says that my voice has improved beyond all bounds. He says I must get rid of the “balloon” or else he won’t come to see me when I sing – honey!
6 March – Work hard and have lunch with Mum in Ansteys. I go to Mrs S’s but she’s attending a funeral and when she returns she is too upset to give me a lesson. I talk to Gill and Elaine but we don’t do much work.
8 March – Work. Go to studio where Lucille is having a lesson and singing the Maids of Cadiz. He goes with her to put 6d in the meter. I can imagine what is going on while he’s away! I sing scales and studies well and they are pleased. He makes tea and then we do Ein Schwan which goes really well and Open thy Blue Eyes. He says my breathing is very good indeed and he can’t see a balloon today!
9 March – I go to Mrs S today and work hard. When Elaine leaves I go out with her for a breather and meet Mary Harrison – she is terribly sweet and charming. I go back and sing in the ensemble and then we see Billy Budd which is very good. Listen to Webster at night.
10 March – Go to church and Mr R preaches well. See Doreen, Shorty etc. I listen to Leslie G and the Springbok’s G&S. Ruth doesn’t phone which is a bit hurtful.
11 March – Work very hard and go to the SABC at night. Ruth tells me that the Booths simply raved about my singing and say that my voice is settling down nicely. She says that she doesn’t hate Anne any more!
12 March – Work. Go to singing and meet Roselle. Webster answers door and dashes off to buy tea in Thrupps. Anne is sweet and I sing my scales well. Webster makes tea and I sing Zion and Open Thy Blue Eyes. Webster and I decide I must do it in French. They have their certificate from their Royal Command performance appearance in 1945 on the wall. Anne says that someone was being rather derisive about them as teachers so she felt it was time to bring the certificate into the studio. It is fabulous and a real honour for them to have it.
13 March – Work and go to the library and meet Frances de Vries Robbe there. She tells me of her plans to study singing in the UK and make it her career. I have lunch in Ansteys with Mum and then go to the SS studio and have a long gruelling lesson! Evidently we are doing the piano exam on 20th of April which will work in with my accompanying for Webster very well indeed.
15 March – Work and go to singing. Webster says he’s sure Lucille won’t pass her exam. It just shows that one needs something extra apart from an excellent voice! Anne records the French pronunciation on tape and I sing scales and I Attempt from Love’s Sickness to Fly. Webster sings this for me on my tape- I’m proud to have it. Anne discusses the unfairness of the SABC in auditioning Doris Bolton, a soprano originally from Staffordshire. Webster comes down on the lift with me and discusses his teeth which he hopes to get removed soon. I go to guild at night and we have an interesting talk on blood transfusions. See Ann and Brian Stratton.
16 March – I go to SS studio and work hard with Margaret and Elaine. In the afternoon we see Madame which is rather ghastly. I listen to Webster and he is great as usual. Plays recordings by John McCormack, Michael Flanders and Donald Swann, and Anne, who is lovely.
17 March – Go to church and sit with Ann and Joan. Mr Taylor Cape (who christened me in Scotland) preaches well. The Diamonds come in the afternoon. Ruth phones and says she’s thinking of leaving the Booths after the exam. I think this is rather a pity. Evidently she cracked her head on the swimming pool last week and couldn’t go to the gala. Imagine – a year since the announcement of Drawing Room.
18 March – Work very hard. Go to SABC and Simon Swindell is very much in evidence. He says, “Night, night!” to everyone as he leaves. We have John Tyler as choirmaster tonight. He is excellent and amusing. I talk to Hester, Gill and Marie and remember to apologise for Ruth. We work hard at Creation.
19 March – Work. Go to singing in afternoon and meet Roselle on the bus. She tells me that she may be going back to the Booths next month. Webster answers the door and Anne goes out for a bit so I work with him. We go through exercises and studies. The first study drags a bit but the second is good. Anne comes back and we have tea together. She tells me how the SABC audition went for Doris. They lend me some scores to practise my sightreading for next month. He gives me Acis and Galatea and Anne says, “Won’t you be needing it soon, darling?” He replies, “I won’t be singing it again in this life – maybe in the next!”
20 March – Go to the library and lunch in Ansteys with Mum. Go up to SS studio and practise and then have long lesson with Mrs S – she says I’ve improved very much. I do ear tests with Elaine.
21 March – Go into town early and have my hair set in Ansteys by Mr Paul. I meet Doreen and Betty, have lunch with Mum and then come home and work hard at singing. It certainly doesn’t seem like a year since that heavenly Drawing Room evening.
22 March – Work. Go to studio and Webster discusses the aural tests with me and worries about how well Lucille will do in the forthcoming exams! Anne and he say that they like my hair very much. Anne tells me that Mabel Fenney is getting divorced as she now has a boyfriend in London called Maurice Perkin. Webster is mocking about this and says that it wouldn’t be so bad if his name was Perkins, but Perkin is beyond the pale! We work hard at exam pieces and they say I have nothing to worry about. Webster comes down with me on the lift and tells me that he likes a little break from the studio periodically to put money in the meter!
23 March – Go to Mrs S and work with Margaret and Elaine. Webster says on Great Voices that he was the first person to hear the test record of Jussi Bjoerling before the war – his favourite tenor.
24 March – Phone Ruth and she tells me she has to have her tonsils out at the end of the year. Anne is most upset about this as she herself had to have her tonsils out when she was in her forties. Ruth says she thinks Webster played Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair for me last night on Great Voices! Sweet, but most unlikely. We shall see each other tomorrow night at the SABC. We visit the Bullocks in the afternoon and see their new twins who are very sweet. Mr Bullock is my father’s work colleague.
25 March – Work hard and then go to the SABC at night and work hard again with Chris Lamprecht. Ruth tells me about the birthday celebrations for Caroline, and that she herself has failed 3 tests during this last week!
26 March – Work. Go into town and meet Roselle. Webster is in the studio by himself so he gives me a cuppa! Anne arrives and tells me she might have to go into hospital to have part of a diseased tonsil removed. She is very upset. Go through all exam work. Zion is the best thing I sing today. They give me two different scores for sight-reading practice. One has her old name on it – Irené Frances Eastwood.
27 March – Go to the library and lunch with Mum. Go to the SS studio where Frances runs down Anne and Webster. I give Corrie Bakker a lesson as Gill is at a funeral today. I have a gruelling lesson with Mrs S and work with Elaine.
28 March – Work hard. Leslie G mentions that he’s going to Cape Town on his jaunt with Anne soon, although he doesn’t mention her by name!
29 March – Work. Go to singing and I arrive first. We do scales to loosen my jaw. Webster arrives and they inform me that he is a “film star” at the moment in the Jim Reeves film Kimberley Jim as the innkeeper. He informs me that he has strained his shoulder on the set. We do Ein Schwan and studies and they go fairly well. Webster says I must be more abandoned! Selwyn (child following me) sings on Stars of Tomorrow.
As the innkeeper in Kimberley Jim.
30 March – Go to town with Mum and we see the Jim Reeves crowd there. We see a film with Stanley Baker as the star – Good. Webster’s Great Voices is very good. He and Anne are doing a recital a week on Monday with the SABC concert orchestra and Edgar Cree conducting.
t. I tell them of my desire to do Higher Local and skip Senior. Webster says, “I see no reason why you shouldn’t.” I add that I want to do it in April and they are still quite complacent and pleased about the idea.
1 October – Go up to the studio for report cards and Webster answers looking quite well. He greets me with, “I don’t know what Ruth is going to say when she hears but you’ve beaten her.” I say, “But she sang nicely – much better than I did.” “The examiner didn’t seem to think so!” he says with a hollow laugh. Anne brings in the cards. I have 76% and Ruth has 72%. We have exactly the same for our exercises which I think is rather unfair considering how well Ruth sang them.
Go to SABC and when Ruth arrives I give her the report and she is thankful to have passed. Iris and Ila Silansky talk to us at interval and I get rather carried away defending Webster (whom Ila and Iris don’t like for some unknown reason).
There is a rumour that Johan is leaving the SABC. I see the Ormonds’ new black Rover.
2 October – I work hard in the morning and then Mum and I go to Ansteys for lunch. I’m at the studio first. Webster and Anne arrive, looking very smart. I tell them of my desire to do Higher Local and skip Senior. Webster says, “I see no reason why you shouldn’t.” I add that I want to do it in April and they are still quite complacent and pleased about the idea.
They look out all the Bach and Handel arias and try to decide which one to do. We swither over Father of Heav’n but they decide it is too long. “When I played the record Kathleen made of it, I had to cut it,” Webster tells me. We decide on an aria from the Christmas Oratorio by Bach called Prepare Thyself Zion. It is very nice and he sings it for me very softly and sweetly. There is another aria in the work that is beautiful and I must look at it at home when I’m copying out the Zion one – Slumber Beloved. The book belonged to Mabel Fenney (who taught at our school. Webster says he’d like me to do the same aria as she did for my final exam.
They tell me to get The Swan by Grieg. “I can tell you before we start that any song by Granville Bantock would be difficult, so we won’t do that one,” says he flatly.
They tell me that another of their pupils has just started on the exam I have finished and is doing Polly Oliver. He told her that he had another pupil who would probably be delighted to throw the old music at her!
We talk about Mrs Fenney and Anne tells me that she worked very hard indeed and used to come into the studio before they arrived and practised like mad. She adds that the tragedy of it was that she fell madly in love with Webster and showered him with so much attention that the poor darling was very embarrassed. I roar with laughter and look at him and he looks rather uncomfortable and says he must confess he felt rather flattered. Anne says that towards the end it was rather awful – not that she blamed her for she had such an awful husband! Everyone falls for Webster. “She was a bit mad,” says Anne. I think I’m a bit mad myself to be doing this exam. We have a good laugh and I depart feeling quite elated.
3 October – Work hard in the morning copying from the Christmas Oratorio. After lunch, I say goodbye to Mum and toddle into town to purchase The Swan and the new vocal studies.
Go up to studio and Gill is there in the midst of practising for a last minute accordion duet she is to play at the SA Championships. Miss Margaret Cameron comes up and takes a fancy to me and shows me her book of kitchen tea verses with illustrations by Heather McDonald-Rouse. Apparently she has known her for years. She also did the script for Mrs McD-R’s concert on Saturday night in Malvern.
Gill departs to practise with her partner – a chap called Lynn from Durban – “Who would just suit you,” she says. She tells me that Johan has been given the sack. I am so sorry.
I am left alone in the studio and Arnold Fulton phones to inquire about speech exams – he seems to haunt me and I’m sure I’m haunting him.
I come home and try over songs and studies – all most complicated and heaven knows why I have decided to torture myself once more.
4 October – Go to SABC at night. Ruth doesn’t come. Johan works us hard and plays the organ beautifully – I’m so sorry he’s leaving. I really can’t understand that he would have been “given the sack”!
5 October – Work. Dad takes Mum and me for a run to Pretoria which is fun despite the rain.
I listen to recorded version of G and S from last night. Patience is very good. I think Dennis (the boy whose mother made apple tart for Anne, Webster and me) sings Danny Boy on Stars of Tomorrow.
6 October – Go to town and music library. I get three very dry, highly scientific music books. I have to take one back on Monday as it is a work of reference.
Meet Gill who is delighted to have come second in the accordion duet competition. Lynn bought her a brooch to say thank you for playing with him.
Have lunch in Capinero with Mum and Dad and then we see Black Tights, a ballet affair with Cyd Charisse and Moira Shearer. Meet Iris there with her family.
8 October – Go into town with Mum. We have lunch in Ansteys and then go to hear organ recital given by Harry Stanton in the city hall. Very few attend but he plays wonderfully all the same and we enjoy it.
Webster, Petrina Fry and Anne at the wedding of Margaret Inglis and Robert Langford.
At night go to SABC – we work madly on Ninth Symphony and Messiah. Talk to Ruth who is feeling very miserable because she has broken up with Alan as he was getting a bit too serious. She had a lesson on Saturday and is going to do the next exam – Senior. We discuss picture of Anne and Webster which appeared in the Star and she says she thought Webster looked “mouldy”! Anne looks too gorgeous for words. It was taken at the wedding of Margaret Inglis and Robert Langford in Brian Brooke’s garden. We have a good laugh about Mabel Fenney’s fascination with Webster, although we understand her feelings about him!
9 October – I manage to get the diploma syllabus from Mannings. The contents frighten me to death but I’m determined to see it through.
Go up to studio and Webster is there by himself. He tells me that Anne has gone shopping and should have been back hours ago – he is quite worried about her.
He is in the middle of mending a plug which has lost its screw and he seems to find this a most complicated procedure. He curses it in no dignified terms. I ask him how he enjoyed Margaret Inglis’ wedding and he says, “Oh, it was jolly! We had such a delightful time. It was a very small affair.”
He makes me a cup of tea and we take it over to the piano. He starts to get very agitated about Anne and says, “I always worry about her when she doesn’t get back in time. She could easily have been run down by a car.” Knowing Anne, I doubt whether that would be at all likely.
We start on the HL studies and exercises with him playing the piano with sausage fingers. They go quite well, but he says I must learn to cut out the intrusive ‘h’ – it’s bad. Remember what the examiner said in the report.
The studies are fairly complicated and he says that he thinks I should turn the acciaccatura into an appoggiatura seeing the note is dotted – I hope he’s right. He suddenly turns round to me and asks whether I read music better with my eyes or my fingers. I say, “My fingers!” He says “I can’t read music with my fingers – they’re too stiff now and I don’t practise much on the piano, but I don’t find it at all difficult to sing at sight!”
He goes to phone the garage because their car is there. Anne arrives in in the middle of the call and tells me she has had to spend forty minutes in Kelly’s – they’re so stupid.
We go through studies and The Swan and he says I must sing it in German. He asks about solo parts in Ninth Symphony. I say that I think Gé Korsten and Graham Burns are going to sing the tenor and bass roles – he looks quite crestfallen at this.
A woman they both detest arrives and Webster gives her a cup of tea. Anne talks to me about the heat and I say that there will probably be a storm later. There always seems to be a storm on the evening of her programme. I tell her that we all enjoy it very much. She is pleased and tells me that although it is a great success the SABC is taking it off at Christmas. I say that it’s about the most enjoyable programme on the radio and it’s a shame to have it taken off so quickly. Needless to say, we part on very friendly terms.
Listen to Anne at night and she is quite wonderful – conjures up London Palladium memories with Tommy Trinder, and them singing So Deep is the Night.
Plays Lock Up Your Daughters – a mistake – and My Fair Lady. She tells us about Rex Harrison almost becoming her brother-in-law. He worked in the Liverpool Repertory company, lived near them and took a fancy to her sister Phyllis. Perhaps it’s just as well that he didn’t marry her sister, judging by his amorous adventures.
I felt sorry for Webster today. He looked so old and tired and acted in a doddery manner, merely a skeleton of the former man. He has to go to Bloemfontein to direct The Pirates of Penzance soon so perhaps that will put some life into him.
11 October – Go to Mrs S in the afternoon. She had bad weather when she was away in Cape Town. We go through the piles of theory I have completed while she was away. I have to go on Saturday for ear tests.
Listen to Webster on G and S at night – he repeats about half of last week’s programme but still manages to get through the first act of Patience after three weeks at it, after much twisting of the tongue over “The Dragoon guards”.
13 October – Go to SS studio in morning. Margaret is there so I go through some of her ear tests with her.
We lunch in Capinero and Mum brings me a letter from Suzanne Pitchford my old Winchester Castle pal whom I haven’t heard from for almost three years. She’s working in Barclays Bank and seems very happy in Brighton and has a steady boyfriend with whom she intends to “rest her case”.
We see Sergeants Three which I enjoy and hear Only a Rose at night sung by my two pals.
14 October – Go to Sunday School and practise for anniversary.
We go to Diamonds in afternoon and pass Anne’s car outside the SABC. Webster is going to Bloemfontein soon so perhaps he is recording his G and S programme today.
15 October – Go to SABC at night and Ruth tells me that Webster went to Bloemfontein to produce Pirates of Penzance on Friday. He might have said goodbye! We pretend to mope about it and Gill asks why I’m sad. Ruth says, “Because her lover is away!” Have a laugh.
At interval, Ruth says she much prefers Webster to Anne. She has a laugh when I imitate him talking about Margaret Inglis’ wedding.
16 October – Go to the studio in the afternoon and Anne is there in a crimson dress looking hot and flustered. We have tea and moan about the heat. She says it is so hot and dry that she could cry at the slightest provocation.
We start on scales and I sing them to “mee” – I tell her I sound like a sheep. I manage to reach top C. I do exercises and studies and decide that they are quite nauseating. She tells me that Mabel Fenney got her diploma in Berlin and is now going to London to carry on studying either with Keith Faulkner or at the Royal Academy. Her husband is still here, stuck outside of PE managing a cheap hotel. She has been away for over two years and the only way he manages to support her is by gambling on the stock exchange. She flew over here last year and the first thing she did was to drive straight to their house and sat with Webster (who had ‘flu at the time) for practically the whole day. She says it was really very painful for everyone and the more Webster snubbed her, the more she made up to him. He practically ignored her in the end but nothing put her off.
She says that Ruth is having a swimming pool – have I seen it yet? That is the first I’ve heard of it. We discuss the Rover and she says that they’re being quite sensible with their money and not buying another house.
17 October – I work in the morning and then have lunch with Mum in Ansteys. We buy a gorgeous hat afterwards.
Go to SS studio where Gill tells me that Tufty is thinking of following Johan when he goes overseas. I have a good lesson and then have tea with Miss Cameron and Mrs S.
18 October Go to SABC at night and possibly due to the horrors of Latin or a compelling desire to listen to G and S, Ruth doesn’t come.
Roger O’Hogan (choirmaster at St Mary’s, Yeoville) takes us, and is excellent. He was one of the judges in the recent hymn competition. I talk to Tufty and Gill but they’re not as much fun as Ruth.
19 October – I listen to a recorded version of G and S. Webster finishes Patience at last and says that next week he has something interesting for the listeners but he imagines some eyebrows will be raised at it. If he’s going to start playing jazzed up G and S I shall die.
Have lunch with Mum and then go to Piccadilly to see Raising the Wind, a British comedy about music students with James R. Justice, Kenneth Williams and Liz Fraser. It is a wonderful film. How I’d adore to go to a London music college.
20 October – Go to SS studios and work with Margaret and then sing in ensemble. Margaret tells us corny jokes just as she used to do at school.
Go to see Roman Holiday in the afternoon.
22 October – Go to SABC. Pieter de Vaal takes us. Ruth tells me that her singing is growing harsh owing to her mother forcing her to sing high notes. She was talking to Anne and saying how depressed she felt and Anne said, “Well, never mind. You’re not the only one. I get depressed with all these pupils. I can’t stand any of them. There’s only four I like and that’s you, Jean, Lucille and someone else.” (she couldn’t remember the name). Ruth told her that she was only including our names to be polite and Anne replied, “No, darling. I really mean it.” Well, that is something!
23 October – Go to the studio in the afternoon and Anne is there by herself in a shocking pink hat. She makes tea and phones about the car – they’ve bought a new Anglia and it’s giving them a lot of trouble. It has to be ready for next Wednesday because she’s driving down to Bloemfontein to fetch Webster.
We have tea and she is very depressed. “I’ve never felt so unhappy in all my life. I hate this city and the whole country. The people are so inconsiderate and rude here and I loathe it. I’ve hated it from the very first but now here, by myself, I hate it more than ever. If I had a family it might be all right but for a woman all by herself, it’s awful.” I feel very sorry for her.
We start on Ein Schwan and it goes fairly well. We go through it a few times and it improves. She says that Ruth’s voice is tending on the harsh side, probably owing to the Ninth symphony (Probably owing to her mother more likely!) She’s terribly depressed with the weather and Alan. I say – at Ruth’s bidding from last night – that she was much cheerier now. Anne says, “Oh, how sweet. I’m very fond of her indeed.”
She tells me that a shop in Edinburgh sent her a parcel of white heather and she had to pay 20 cents on it because the intimation from the post office never arrived. She says heather tends to get very messy.
We work on the Bach aria and I take down Mabel’s breath marks. She tells me that Mabel had wonderful breath control. They had a letter from her the other day and it was quite sensible. “Whether it’s because she’s found a new boyfriend or not, I don’t know, but it was a normal letter, like you or I would write!”
We work at the aria and Anne says, “Mum’ll have to work at the accompaniment of that soon!” We do study and she says that it is really excellent and I have memorised it well for it is very difficult indeed.
There is a picture of Anne in the paper in connection with Music for Romance, and Webster sings Love, Could I Only Tell Thee on the radio. Her programme is wonderful. She plays Blossom Time with recordings by Richard Tauber and says she went to see the film with the “young man of the moment after a lovers’ quarrel”.
Plays Annie, Get Your Gun and talks of attending the London first night. Goes on to Merrie England and tells of the production which took place in the grounds of Luton Hoo with a chorus of 600 including the Luton Girls’ Choir and a seating capacity for thousands. She plays his recording of The English Rose, and The Night Was Made for Love, which he made in 1935 with George Melachrino in the orchestra playing the clarinet. He had a cold when he made it.
I’ll bet they will go back to England the moment he gets his post-war credits, and good luck to them!
24 October – In the morning Mum and I go to get registered as aliens which, as someone remarked, is rather like going to prison. We have lunch in Ansteys to cheer us up and this is nice.
Go to SS studio and talk to Gill who runs down Mrs S and raves about Gerrit Bonn, whom she calls by his Christian name now. She does some ear tests with me. I have a good lesson but I have a cold coming on – my third this year. I ask Gill to excuse me from choir tomorrow night if I don’t manage to get there.
25 October – Stay in bed in the morning with ghastly cold – feel stiff, cold, achy and miserable. In the afternoon I phone Ruth to tell her that I can’t go tonight and we talk for half an hour.
She says Anne is going to Bloemfontein so she’s going to miss a lesson as there are 5 weeks in the month. We talk of her picture being in the paper and she tells me about the scrapbook she has full of press-cuttings. I relate a similar story of my own scrapbooks. She says that some girls at her school don’t like them and one said she heard them sing at the Wanderers and thought they were dreadful. Ruth says she was so cross that she nearly slapped the girl in question. We decide that they are lucky to have at least two people who’ll stick up for them, come hell or high water. She tells me jokingly that with Webster being away my resistance is low and that explains my cold. Her mother met Diane Todd (who starred in My Fair Lady) and thought she was common.
Listen to Webster at night and he does give us a surprise by playing a version of Mikado recorded for American TV and produced by Martyn Green, with Stan Holloway as Pooh-Bah and Groucho Marx as Ko-Ko. Next week he’s playing Pirates of Penzance as he is “having the pleasure of producing it in the charming new Bloemfontein Civic Theatre.”
27 October – Go to SS studio. Elaine and I spend time doing technical exercises and after tea, I play ear tests for everyone.
28 October – Go to Sunday school and we have our last practice before the anniversary. One little girl tells me that she knows I take singing lessons because they heard me singing when I played the piano and heard how beautifully I could sing!
David Cross tells me that I’ve been nominated to stand for literary CCD minute secretary. I don’t commit myself to anything.
In the paper, Gary A says that G and S is finishing at the end of the year and will be replaced with Webster presenting a programme called Great Voices. Gary A thinks it will run even longer than G and S.
Lord Oom Piet!
29 October Go to SABC. We rehearse with Pieter de W. At interval I am introduced by Ruth to Hester, the new girl who sits next to her. She informs us that she pays £1-10-0 a month for singing lessons with a Mrs du Preez in Roodepoort. Ruth remarks patronisingly that when she improves she can always go into town and learn with someone great!
30 October – Anne phones early in the morning and tells me that “something has come up” and she can’t possibly go into the studio at all today, but could I come next Monday at 3.30 to make up for it. I could. She says that Ruth told her I wasn’t keeping very well. I say, no, I’m not – next Monday will be better. She says she hopes I’ll be better. Degenerate into a state of illness and nausea. Mum has to come home. Spend day in sheer torture.
31 October – Ruth phones me at night to worry me further. The Performing Arts Council is holding auditions on Monday evening for singers. She’d like to audition – would I? I don’t commit myself. Evidently she had a grand lesson this afternoon and got in at 3.50. Anne had already phoned her mother to see what the matter was. Anyway she had a charming time having a little tea party with Anne and singing intermittently. Evidently Anne is missing Webster in the worst way and says she loathes teaching without him and if he goes away again she feels like refusing to teach. His first night is on Saturday and they are coming back on Sunday. She told Anne to send Webster all her love!
NOVEMBER 1962
1 November – Work hard and swot in reference library where all the poor tired students sit staring blankly at their notes. One chap actually falls asleep and wakes up, looking dazed.
At night I go to SABC. Ruth doesn’t come. Johan takes us and Gill runs him down to me. I fear our Messiah will provoke some rotten eggs from the audience unless it improves greatly.
At interval I chat to Iris, Gill, Hester and a middle-aged gent with a leer. Hester tells me she’s in Form 1V at Roodepoort Afrikaans High School and would like to make singing her career. She is rather a nice girl and not ‘loud’ as Ruth described her last night.
2 November – Go to the dentist and miraculously get away with only two fillings but am told to call again in February for a check-up. Buy a lovely dress for tonight, have lunch with mum and have my hair set.
At night I go with Margaret and her mother to the concert. Margaret tends to be rather an erratic driver and Mrs M is most nervous. At Crown Mines hall I enquire about the choir competition in which Ruth conducted and Miss Cameron was the judge. Girls consider it a matter of great hilarity that Ruth’s choir came last and that she conducted in an odd fashion. They tell me that she beat time in wide, uneven strokes and nearly fell off the stage. I laugh at Suzanne’s and others’ description of the event but I still feel so sorry for Ruth. She has a great opinion of herself so perhaps it’s a good thing for her to be cut down to size occasionally.
Concert goes very well indeed and our singing is good. Ellen, my redhead ex SABC friend does a monologue and recitation. A pupil of Walter Mony’s plays one of the pieces WM played in Drawing Room, and at once I am back in Studio G30 reliving those glorious Drawing Room days once more. What fun they were.
Mrs S is in a very jovial mood. Margaret gives me a lift home.
3 November – Go to SS studios. Mrs S says she’d like to see me on the South African Society of Music Teachers’ panel of performers! Have coffee and do ear tests and sing in the SS ensemble.
In the afternoon I go to a cocktail party with Mum and the Lisofskys – a farewell party for Mr Thomas of Shimwells at the house of Mr Immink in Montreux. It is a very nice house with a swimming pool. However, my thoughts are with Pirates of Penzance in Bloemfontein. It’s the first night tonight. I shall probably see Webster on Monday after a long absence of three weeks.
4 November – Play in morning and afternoon at the Sunday School anniversary – I play well and the children sing far better than I expected.
Ruth phones at night – still with the crack-pot idea of auditioning tomorrow. She wants to have an extra lesson tomorrow but 3 is too early, so would I mind changing from 3.30 to 3. I don’t mind, so I agree. She says Anne refused to phone me because she thought I’d be cross if she changed my lesson again! I tell Ruth I’m not going to audition but she is persistent and determined. I still refuse. Says that Anne sends her love to me but she didn’t talk very long and didn’t say much about Webster’s play.
I hear glorious recording of Webster singing The Bells of St Mary’s and manage to record most of it.
5 November – Their twenty-fourth wedding anniversary. In the afternoon I go to singing. Anne and I have a long discussion about opera. I half-promise to audition. Webster arrives, wearing an old tattered raincoat and I am delighted to see him once more. He carries on as though my feelings are reciprocated. He doesn’t know what we’re talking about but tells me that whatever I’m going to do will be a cake-walk. I wonder.
I ask about Bloemfontein and The Pirates and he tells me a funny story. He decided to have a gimmick so they borrowed a chimp from the local zoo to come on stage with the pirates. Everyone was delighted with the chimp and she nearly stopped the show. When he was holding her and making a speech after the show she disgraced herself, so he said, “You naughty girl! I’ll never take you out again!” I have a good laugh.
I sing extremely well and tell them my master-plan for ATCL in August. He says that he is quite certain I can do it and I needn’t worry. Anne says she’ll look up an extra time for me and let me know about it tomorrow. She says she wishes all her pupils worked as hard as I did and mastered things as easily. Lucille has 4 lessons a week and is studying full time, trying to do the exam Ruth and I did, and she still can’t master the pieces for it.
Webster says I mustn’t drag too much in Zion. I feel quite nervous today. Webster comes down in the lift with me to see about his parking meter which is out of order and we talk in a friendly fashion. He comes out into Pritchard Street and stands with me for a few moments. He really looks well and more like his old self.
Go to SABC at night and Ruth comes ready for the audition. When she sees the large crowd, she changes her mind. We fill in forms but I don’t hand mine in either. She told Webster she thought he was looking very handsome and evidently Anne’s face was a picture.
6 November – It rains again but I manage into town through it all. I go to singing and Webster answers the door still looking extremely healthy. He says, “Oh, hello dear,” in extremely friendly accents.
A little girl of about 12 is singing The Honeysuckle and the Bee in a rather sweet little voice. Anne seems rather lost teaching her, but he is sweet and understanding towards her.
When I go in, Webster calls me over to the window and points at the crowns on top of His Majesty’s which are lit up, and asks me, “Doesn’t that sight gladden your Scottish heart?” We both agree that it is lovely to see the good old crowns up on the theatre again. He asks if I’d like some tea and furnishes me with a rather lukewarm cup.
Anne says that if I come at 10 on Saturday during this month, she’ll arrange for me to come on Friday next month after The Merry Widow in Springs.
I tell them about the audition and how we didn’t take it in the end and how the people had to wait for ages. They sent one of their pupils to the audition. She has a great voice but sings everything quite seriously with burlesque actions like Anna Russel. As if this is not sufficient explanation, Webster insists on giving me a demonstration which makes me laugh.
We start on Zion and Anne makes him sing it along with me. He stands next to me so that he can see my manuscript and tells me that it’s an excellent copy. We sing it together and I try to breathe in exactly the same places that he does. He sings most beautifully but drowns my voice without any effort. I don’t mind being drowned out by such a lovely and great voice as his.
He says that, with persistent effort, I shall easily master it. I also sing Ein Schwan. When I leave Webster says, “Aren’t you coming next Saturday?” and looks quite disappointed because I’m not.
I listen to Anne on the radio. She plays her test record from Merrie England and tells us about their trip to Calgary for Merrie England, and then plays his recording of Where Haven Lies from A Princess of Kensington, and says, “My favourite tenor!” afterwards, and their two duets from King’s Rhapsody.
7 November – Go to SS studio and talk to Gill. We do some theory and then I have a nice lesson with Mrs S who wishes me luck for Saturday.
8 November – Work hard and then have lunch in Ansteys with mum. Jossie Boshoff, of all people, is having her lunch there also. I go to lunch hour concert where I see Dora Sowden looking her usual gypsy-like self. Soloist on piano, Yonti Solomon is excellent, and conductor, Edgar Cree, good as usual.
Go to SABC at night. We work with Pieter de V and he wades into I. Silansky, who is furious about it.
At interval Ruth buys me a cold drink and tells me that she is beginning to get bored with singing and wonders if a change of teacher would do her any good. Then she says she knows she couldn’t possibly leave them because they would be hurt. She’s so very fond of Webster, and when he dies, she’ll miss him more than she would miss Anne!
I don’t get around to telling her about ATCL but I really must on Monday for she’s going to have a lesson at 10.30 on Saturday after me, so she shall have to know.
Gill gives me my share of the fee from the Indian Eisteddfod.
9 November – Listen to Webster when I get up. He continues Pirates and he is very much in possession of his senses and is very good.
Go to guild at night and Mr R tells me he’d like to come and hear us singing the Ninth symphony. This is flattering but perhaps he’d like a comp for the show.
10 November – Go and write theory exam at Selbourne hall. I meet Svea and we go in together. Arnold F is there in all his glory and calls everyone darling and drags them to their places. Exam isn’t bad, but I think I made two mistakes. I see Bridget Anderson (Bruce Anderson’s daughter) from the SS ensemble and tall chap who sings in church choir.
Go to Mrs S’s afterwards and talk to Mrs du P. Belinda Bozzoli talks about Ruth and says she has quite a sweet voice. Belinda is applying for an American Field Scholarship. She had an American girl on AFS living with her family while she was over here.
In the SABC bulletin there is an article about Webster and his G and S programme. We have lunch and see The Lion which is very good.
Cecil Williams has been placed under house arrest. He lives all by himself in a flat in Anstey’s building.
11 November – Go to Sunday School which goes fairly well and then go with Doreen and Betty to Memorial service at Boys’ school. The boys’ band plays a lament and Mr R gives the address.
12 November – Go to SABC at night and meet Gill in animated conversation with Gerrit Bonn. She saw My Fair Lady and enjoyed it. I go to the café with her so that she can have a meal.
We work hard. Gideon Fagan, who is to conduct us, comes to listen to the Ninth Symphony and poor Johan gets very flustered.
At interval Ruth, Hester and I go for a walk and Ruth (when we pass the Drawing Room studio) takes it upon herself to relate the kissing episode we had with Webster there. Poor Hester thinks we are two naughty girls! Ruth has a speed domestic science test on Saturday morning so she’s going to singing next Tuesday instead. I tell her about my plans for the diploma and she says she’s sure I’ll get it.
In the second half we do Messiah with Johan. Ruth leaves her Latin book behind so Hester gives it to me so I will have to arrange to get it to her. I’m quite worried about the test she’s supposed to have using the book. Iris brings me home.
13 November – I phone Ruth about her Latin book but she says she’ll borrow a book from someone.
Geoffrey Parsons.
I go to singing in the afternoon. When I go up Anne answers and invites me in to listen to a friend of theirs on the radio – Geoffrey Parsons, who used to be their accompanist, and is now out here accompanying Erik Friedman, the violinist. Leslie Green has him to tea this afternoon. When I go in Webster is quite immersed in the broadcast but eventually sees me and says hello. The interference on the radio is rather bad and I hardly hear the chap at all – the only thing I gather is that he is an Australian and would like to go back. Webster keeps shouting to Geoffrey, “Speak up, Geoff!” When Leslie’s interview finishes, they tell me that originally, he had asked Webster to tea, but this was the only time Geoffrey could go. Anne shows me a picture of them with Geoffrey.
In the society page.
Webster says in teasing tones, “I suppose you want tea?” I say, “Yes please,” and he proceeds to make some. Anne has a look at my ATCL syllabus and says I must make use of my Scottish accent and sing a Scottish folk song. They pore over various books and Webster suggests a song – I don’t catch the title but he finds it most amusing and roars with cynical laughter.
I do my studies and they say that I must keep pace up in the first one, especially the demisemiquavers. He stands and counts while I sing and it goes better. He says they are most complicated.
Do Ein Schwan. He plonks himself down in a chair opposite and stares at me during the whole song and then has the cheek to say that I look a bit nervous. I tell him in dignified tones that it is the lack of accompaniment that makes me nervous.
We go through Zion and he sings along with me and then accuses me of singing a G natural where there should be a G sharp! We succeed in going through the lot without any further interruption. I say it sounds worse every time. He says I’m talking nonsense. I’m getting on with it very well. He says that everything in the Christmas Oratorio is difficult. He sang it two years ago in Kimberley and had to battle with it. He gives me a long list of the oratorios in which he has sung recently. He is going over Elijah for some reason. I say goodbye to him and he says in his ‘folksy’ voice, “Ta, ta!”
Talk to Anne at the door for a while about the Ninth Symphony and tell her about Gideon Fagan coming last night and Johan’s forced resignation. She is disgusted with this and says that she’d believe anything despicable happening in the SABC. We part on most friendly terms. Says that we must start on Zion on Saturday.
Listening to Erik Friedman at the moment and it’s nice to have a vague association with him.
14 November – Have lunch in Ansteys wit Mum and see Arnold Fulton having lunch there.
I go to the SS studio. Gill says she’s heard our commercial recording and thinks it is quite awful. She played it to her classes as an example of bad singing! She says she’ll be glad when Johan goes. She doesn’t seem to have a good word about anyone!
We do some ear tests. I have nice lesson and Mrs S says that if I work there’s no reason why I shouldn’t do Advanced Senior in March. We start working on harmony and I shall probably do the next theory exam in June. She says I may be excused for a while on Saturday morning seeing I’m having singing lessons this month.
15 November – Go to lunch hour concert. Anton Hartman conducts Bob Borowsky and Ethné Seftel. Work in the afternoon and listen to Leslie G. I expect he’ll have Webster to tea next Tuesday. He has John Silver today.
Go to choir at night. Gill, Iris and Winkle? are there so I chat to Winkle and she tells me about her singing teacher. Johan works us hard and we don’t finish till after 10.
16 November – Listen to Webster who goes on with the Pirates. He sounds so benign and sweet – which he isn’t. He’s a big tease.
17 November – Go to a performance in the morning and play quite well. Have coffee and then go to singing.
Anne arrives, telling me that she is really exhausted producing Merry Widow in Springs. They work in Brakpan all day and then go to Springs for rehearsals and the cast turns up half an hour late. She says they’ll never go to Springs again to produce another show.
We start on scales and she’s pleased about the way I’ve managed to cover the break in my voice. I go from bottom G to top B without any effort. We do Zion and then Webster arrives. His face is bright red and he informs me he had a big night last night. I say I went out too so that’s why I’m so woolly today as well. Anne tells me that they went to two dos last night and didn’t get in till about 2.30 this morning.
He says, “I’m going to make a good hot cup of black coffee. Would you like one too?” I say I’m not quite as bad as all that but I’ll take a white cup. He asks Anne what she wants and she says, “Well, I don’t happen to be in a state where I require black coffee, thank you, darling.”
We go through Zion once again and if the last two movements are hurried up I can get through the run with enough breath.
We do exercises and I get into a bit of a fandango as to where I must breathe in one of them. Into the bargain, the keys in the piano stick and I can’t help laughing at that too!
He brings me a cup of scalding coffee and says, “I really need this or else I shan’t be able to get through today.” Anne says, “I must say, you look simply awful today. Perhaps it’s that yellow shirt you have on.”
“No, it’s the way I feel today after last night.”
“Well, the fact that you drank too much is nothing to be proud of!” says she.
I do Ein Schwan and it goes much better apart from the fact that I don’t cover the vowels sufficiently. In Zion he says I sound a bit hooty on the top notes and gives one of his amusing imitations. Do first study as well and it is not at all bad.
He continues to emote about late nights and alcohol and says that he can’t stand them any more.
He sees me to the door and says goodbye in most affable fashion. The funny thing about him is that he is at his nicest self when he has a hangover.
I go back to Mrs S and sing in the ensemble. I walk down the road with Margaret who tells me she’s not very fond of the Parktown girls. She thinks they are a bunch of little snobs.
Have lunch in Capinero and then we see Surprise Package with Noel Coward.
18 November – Dad has a dreadful pain in his leg today so we have a worrying time. I fetch prescription at chemist and there is an improvement.
19 November -Dad better today.
Go to SABC and we work hard with Johan and Peggy Haddon (who played in Drawing Room) accompanies us. Gideon Fagan proves more cheerful this week and seems quite pleased with us.
I tell Ruth that Leslie G might have Webster to tea tomorrow. It would be fun to listen to that with Anne. She has a laugh about the bad hangover.
20 November – Go to singing and Ruth answers the door telling me that they are listening to Webster on Tea with Mr G reen and that Anne is feeling sick.
Gary Allighan writes about the forthcoming oratorio season.
Webster talks to Leslie about Bloemfontein and the chimp, and says that the granadilla vines in their garden are dripping with fruit at the moment, and how long he has been in South Africa.
Ruth goes after telling Anne that she’ll pay her for this month next month. Anne tells me she feels very sick and doesn’t know whether she has apricot sickness or gastric ‘flu. She has a running tummy and feels sick and miserable and can’t eat a thing. She should really be in bed but doesn’t like to leave him in the studio to cope with the piano playing as he isn’t very good at it.
We start on Zion and it goes fairly well but I feel miserable at inflicting my voice on her when she feels sick. He arrives, fresh from his Leslie Green interview and is pleased that we think it was nice. He asks in most concerned tones how she is feeling. She says she is feeling dreadful and will go to bed the minute she gets home. He asks if he should call the doctor. She says she’ll wait till tomorrow and see how she feels in the morning. He suggests a gin and tonic but she says she couldn’t look at one – he mustn’t talk nonsense.
We do the studies and I lose bottom C. He says, “What did you do with that one, dear? Swallow it?” They don’t go too badly but my feeling of concern persists.
I had told her before he arrives about Dad and his cramp on Sunday with neuritis. She says she’s troubled with a slipped disc and has dreadful pain with it and always has to soak in a hot bath for 20 minutes every morning to relieve the stiffness.
Afterwards I talk about Messiah. He says he is very friendly with Leo Quayle and he’s good. Webster is going to PE to sing in Messiah and Elijah soon and the excerpts are to be broadcast on the 16 December between 5.30 and 6.30 pm. We talk about Rudi Neitz and he says that although he’s got a great voice his range is limited and last year he sang Messiah up an octave on the low notes.
I say goodbye eventually and tell Anne that I really hope she will feel better soon. She is shivery and cold and in a very bad way. She has only had a cup of black coffee and two boiled eggs all day and her tummy feels swollen.
Anne’s programme is lovely She plays recordings from Waltz Time and Laughing Lady. The next programme is her last.
I saw a poster in their office advertising an Elijah in Britain – Gladys Ripley, Harold Williams and Webster.
21 November – Have lunch with Mum in Ansteys – this reminds me of Cecil Williams who has flown the country rather than endure house arrest. He’s going to the UK.
Go to SS studio. Gill is there, recovered from her misplaced vertebrae – it’s in its right place once again. She’s teaching Corrie and I look at a South African Stage Who’s Who? My two pals are featured most prominently in it with pictures – he’s wearing a white tie and evening suit. It says he was considered the greatest oratorio tenor of his generation, and talks about their appearances at the Palladium, the Royal Command performance of 1945 and their private visit to the Royal Lodge.
When Gill finishes teaching I mention all this to her and she laughs derisively, saying it’s all nonsense. She says, “He can’t sing any more.”
I inform her that he’s going to sing Messiah and Elijah in PE. She says, “Oh, no! He should give up singing and stick to teaching.” She does make me sick when she runs him down.
Have a good lesson and try to phone Anne to see how she is but no one answers. Either she is all right or else she is alone and sick.
22 November – Work hard and then go to lunch hour concert. Jill Tonkin (from Lace on Her Petticoat) is there. Anton Hartman conducts and Aubrey Rainier is the cello soloist. He plays beautifully.
Webster finishes Pirates and starts on HMS Pinafore. In this recording he is still under the influence of his hangover but he gets through without a mistake even though his speech is rather thick.
23 November – Go to SABC for an orchestral rehearsal. Gideon Fagan is a grand and sensitive conductor and everything goes really well.
At interval Ruth, Hester and I go to Campbells and have a cold drink. Ruth pays. Gé Korsten, who is singing solos in Messiah, is also there. He certainly is a good-looking man.
Ruth says that Anne told her she was very bad at Latin and scripture at school and was so naughty that they asked her to leave. She learnt singing with John Tobin and used to blush throughout her lessons. Ruth says she thinks she was putting on a big act on Tuesday. I don’t really think so.
We go through the Ninth after interval. It really sounds grand. Gideon F is a real gentleman.
24 November – Get a lift to town from Mr McKenzie in his Jaguar. Go to singing in the morning. Anne arrives and is quite well again. I tell her about the Ninth and say that I thought Gé K strained his voice a lot. She says that he isn’t really a tenor – merely a high baritone – and it must take a lot out of him to do the high solo part in the Ninth.
I say that I think Graham B has a glorious voice. She tells me a story about him. At one time he was a hopeless alcoholic but through some religious organisation, he was helped back to sobriety. He was very thankful and consequently became very religious.
A few years ago he went with Webster to sing Messiah in PE and when they were all gathered in the dressing room, Graham remarked, “This is such a beautiful work – a glorification of God – I think it would be very fitting if we all said a prayer before we sing. Shall we all kneel down?”
The others, including Robert Selley, were horrified but they could do nothing else but kneel down while he prayed. The next night, the cynical performers decided not to go into the dressing room if Graham Burns was going to be there so they spent their time waiting to go on stage huddled in the cloakroom.
Robert Selley took about three years to ask Graham back. Anne thinks that Graham was stupid to force religion on to everyone. I laugh to please her, but it doesn’t seem so very silly. I admire him for giving up alcohol.
We do some scales and she gives me a new exercise – a chord and a third up to mee-ee-ray-ay-fa-a-a-a-a-. It is to cover the break. It is very good.
During the first study Webster comes in and he makes me do it again to correct the timing. I tend to drag it.
We do Zion. She says I must make the sound richer. I sing the legato exercise for him. He says I’m putting ‘hs’ in and I must get rid of them.
Ruth is waiting for her lesson when I go so we talk about the Ninth and he says, “Oh, were you working last night?”
I tell him that Gé K had a face like a beetroot and I thought he was going to burst a blood vessel. He tells me derisively that he’s not really a tenor anyway. “I used to be a very high tenor and I found that work difficult to sing – it’ll ruin him. Why, he finds it difficult to sing top G!”
I get my certificate for the singing exam today.
25 November – I hear Geoffrey Parsons accompanying Erick Friedman and he is excellent.
26 November – Don’t feel very well but manage to final rehearsal at City Hall. Gideon Fagan is excellent. I meet Ruth’s sister, Caroline and see her mother. Mr O is in bed with virus ‘flu.
27 November – Go to singing in the afternoon and I sit in the studio for about five minutes before Webster notices me. “Did you really come in with Anne?” he asks. Anne sorts out the various eccentricities connected with my lessons and he gives me a cup of tea. He tells me he has some ghastly things to cheer me up today – the pieces for my diploma.
We start on the studies for which he plays. He doesn’t play the first one too badly so I manage to sing it well and he admits this at the end of it. He plays the second one so badly that I start to laugh in the middle of it. I think he is slightly insulted and when he gets to the end, he says, “Well, it was almost right. If you can sing to that accompaniment you can sing to any accompaniment!”
Anne returns from the office after telling someone coldly on the phone that it is not enough notice to call an hour before a lesson to say that they can’t come. She is not sitting in the studio waiting for them to arrive.
I go through the exercises and songs for the diploma – Purcell and Fauré. She spent an hour in Kelly’s this morning trying to get them for me. They are particularly stupid there, according to her. Next time she’ll try Charles Manning. I recommend him for his son Howard was jolly decent when I went in for the syllabus.
Webster goes through all his oratorios to find a suitable recit and aria for me. He asks if I’d like to do Father of Heav’n with a recit following the aria. I have always thought it most beautiful since I heard Kathleen singing it.
Anne is not fond of it but I persist and so does he. He says to her, “Ah, but you must listen to Kathleen’s recording.” He always says her name in hallowed tones – it gives me a shock every time I hear it. Anne looks very black about it.
For no reason at all, she says, “For heaven’s sake, stop fidgeting and fussing, Boo. You make me quite sick!” He looks very hurt but continues to inform me that I simply must hear Kathleen’s singing of it.
I tell Webster that I hope he’ll do very well with his oratorios in PE. He says in teasing tones, “And I certainly hope you’ll do well in your concerts too, Jean!”
I laugh at the way he says this. He says that he knows Gé K will never do these solos properly tonight. “He’ll probably have to belt it all out to sing at all!”
He gives me his own copy of Judas Maccabeus to look at Father of Heav’n. She says, “Won’t you need it at all, darling?” and he replies, “No! I’ll never sing that again in this world. The only time I shall probably sing it again is in the next world!” It is a very high role so I presume he means that he can’t reach the top notes any more. Poor Webster.
I depart cheerfully with enough work to keep me going for years. I go through his score – his name is signed on the cover and he has listed his appearances on the front cover – 1933 somewhere in Wales. Imagine it – over ten years before I was born.
Dad takes me (in long white dress) to Symphony concert in City Hall. We all stand around in the foyer looking particularly wraith-like. Ruth and Hester have had their hair set. Ruth tells me that Caroline and her mother adore me. We go up to stage door entrance and march onto the stage where we see a full house before us.
Gideon Fagan conducts beautifully and with great feeling. At interval we go and sing scales in the mayoral chambers. I tell Ruth about the Graham Burns incident. She doesn’t think it funny either. Her father is much worse and has sinus trouble on top of everything else.
The Ninth symphony goes very well and our singing is excellent. Gideon has such a lovely feel of the music. The soloists are good although Gé is a little off the beat and there is the usual great applause, bouquets and everything. They bring Johan on stage and the applause is thunderous. I always leave occasions like these with red hands.
Outside, while waiting for Dad to arrive Pieter DeV comes up to me and tells me it was grand and, “U het mooi gesing!” I say, “Dankie, dankie!” and all is most convivial.
28 November – Crits of concert are faily decent. I work at ATCL pieces in morning in a slightly haphazard and gloat over Webster’s Judas.
Go to music in afternoon. Gerrit Bonn told Gill that the orchestra was bad but we were fairly good. Have lesson with Mrs S and get my certificate.
Go to hear Margaret sing at Teachers’ Training College. Meet Ann, Leona and the Spargos. Choral work isn’t bad, recorder group quite painful. Margaret is sweet but very nervous.
29 November – Have lunch in Ansteys with Mum. We meet Sue Johnson from the rink with her hair cut short. She is just the same but never has time to go to the rink now that she’s at ‘varsity.
I go to lunch hour concert. Anton H conducts overture from Norma and Cecilia Wessels, a soprano of at least sixty sings. Her top notes are still good but bottom notes poor. It seems a pity she should have to go on singing when she is so old. Pieter de V is sitting with Yonti Solomon in a box.
Webster goes on with HMS Pinafore at night.
30 November – Go to SABC. Leo Quayle comes and is a real honey – he’s about 50 – very gentle and sweet and certainly gets good results from the choir. He’s South African. He tells us about conducting God Save the Queen at Covent Garden. The Scotsman from PE tells me at interval that he’d love to be singing with Robert Selley’s Festival choir this year too.
Hester tells me that Ruth came last night with her mother but they’re having a cocktail party for her sister’s engagement tonight.
Daddy fetches me. I must say that I think Leo is my favourite conductor so far.
The Booths’ film Lord Oom Piet starring Bob Courtney, Madelaine Usher and Jamie Uys is on at the Capri so I must try to see it sometime next week.
DECEMBER 1962
1 December – Go to town and singing. Anne tells me that their house was struck by lightning during last night’s storm so she didn’t get to sleep till 2.00. I pay her for the music she kindly bought for me and tell her of similar lightning experience at home a few weeks ago.
We start on Zion. She says I have a tendency to drag it. She tells me they listened to the Ninth and rather enjoyed it but thought the orchestra had no verve. She says, “I’m not trying to be big and know more but the UK orchestras have more life in them.” I tell her about Leo Quayle and she says that he was doing very well in Britain and he was mad to come back here when he had so much work over there.
We do Father of Heav’n. She says it’s a most difficult aria. We alter the words of a certain part and she says that if the examiner says anything about the alteration I can always say that Sargent did it that way.
Ruth is late and I tell Anne about Caroline’s engagement and the cocktail party of last night. She says, “Isn’t she having a lovely time now?” I agree.
Ruth eventually arrives and tells us that the party was simply fabulous. The tiles of their swimming pool are being laid today and everything in the garden is generally very rosy.
Ruth says that I mustn’t forget to come tomorrow afternoon to the City Hall. I go back to Mrs S’s. Miss Cameron comes. I practise sight-reading with Elaine.
Caroline Ormond
We have lunch and then see The Jolson Story. Caroline O’s engagement photo is in paper. She is very attractive.
2 December – Go to City Hall for dress rehearsal. In the paper there is an article by Gary A about the two Messiahs – he thinks PE has an edge on Johanesburg because of Webster.
At interval I take Ruth and Hester to the – café and we have cold drinks. Ruth says it might be fun to see The Merry Widow in Springs and we might arrange something. I tell her about the Lord Oom Piet film and she says she’d love to see it.
We take Ruth home. While we are in that direction we pass the Booths’ little house in Craighall Park. The Anglia is in the drive so I expect he must have gone to PE with Graham B or by plane.
3 December – Go to singing. The girl before me doesn’t arrive. Anne tells me she has three mosquito bites and has to take pills for them which make her drowsy. She makes tea and then we start on Father of Heav’n once more.
She says Bill Perry was accepted by PACT. She thinks Gary A was sweet about Webster. She says the orchestra in PE is very bad so apart from the soloists our Messiah will probably be far better than the PE one. He had a terrible cold when he left on Friday and he had to sing on Saturday in Uitenhage with a male voice choir so she doesn’t know how he’ll get on.
We continue with the aria. She says that I have such a pure voice I should make a fine oratorio singer. I mention the film and she looks embarrassed and says that it’s not at all dignified and I mustn’t expect it to be. She says that people who have seen it say they look nice but that’s about all. She’s worried about the show in Springs which opens of Friday night and she vows that she will never do another one even though they pay her a fortune.
At night I go to City Hall for final dress rehearsal. We have the soloists tonight. Nohline Mitchell has a lovely (but cold) contralto. Rudi Neitz is good but (as Webster mentioned) has to go down instead of up on the high notes. Gert Potgieter has a pleasant enough tenor, but, oh goodness, the soprano, Nan Mayer is simply hopeless. She sings out of tune and everyone has to grit their teeth to bear it. When Gert P finishes his Comfort ye and Ev’ry Valley, Gill says cattily, “And how does he compare with Webster Booth?”
I say that Webster’s record is far superior to Gert P and she says, “And how many years ago did he make it? He can’t sing now. He should give up.”
I say, “Admittedly he’s past his prime but when he was Gert P’s age he had a voice 500 times as good.”
She says, “I know that, but he can’t sing now.”
Iris rudely interposes and says, “I’ve always hated his voice and I shall record from PE to compare the two.”
Ruth, her mother and I go over to the café and have a drink. Mrs O says that it sounds really lovely and she’s looking forward to tomorrow night.
Ruth and I go back and I tell her of the unpleasant remarks of Gill and company. She says we must see each other over the Christmas holidays and she will phone.
Leo keeps us a little late but he is an absolute darling. Anton H comes and we present Johan with a present and sing For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow – quite the most beautiful rendering of that ditty, I think. We all get complimentary tickets for tomorrow.
At the car we meet Ruth and her mother so I introduce Mrs O to Dad.
4 December – Go to see Lord Oom Piet in the afternoon. They are the guest stars. The picture itself is quite amusing but I do feel sorry for them.
They are supposed to be singing at a garden party (Ah, Leave Me Not to Pine) thrown by the newly created Lord (Jamie Uys). Anne wears huge dangly earrings and Webster is wearing an evening suit with a cravat in the afternoon. They did this not long after he came out of the hospital and his chin is sunken and he doesn’t look well. Others in the cinema audience have a laugh but I see nothing amusing in it.
Ah, Leave Me Not to Pine, with Jamie Uys squirming in front of them. Disgraceful!
We go to the City Hall at night for Messiah. Ruth is there when I arrive and she tells me that they sent her an account because she didn’t pay her fees on Saturday. She is angry and is going to ask “the meaning of it!” She says they’re very hard up – doing a film like that and taking any engagement for money. She says they should be retired by now. “And living in a cottage in Devon,” I add.
Our singing goes very well. Leo Quayle is fine. The hall is packed and I see the soprano Rita Roberts in the audience. Soprano stays more in tune in the first half. We get a grand reception.
At interval we see the presentation to Johan. He is leaving tomorrow. I am very sorry he is going. Ruth says her chair was collapsing during the first half and she is exhausted from holding it up She is red and nervous. We say we’ll see each other on Saturday and phone each other.
The second half (apart from soprano soloist’s flatness) is excellent. There is wild applause. The Hallelujah chorus is terrific. Johan is brought on stage. Leo kisses his hands at us to signify delight. And so ends our choir for another year.
I have certainly enjoyed my choral work in the SABC and as I look back to each event I remember happy musical occasions – the Passion and Norma bring memories of the Drawing Room and Webster kissing us; Ruth making a fool of herself by mistaking the men’s cloakroom for an exit – that certainly was a night! Stravinsky, Robert Craft and the Symphony of Psalms, the Ninth and now Messiah. Of all the conductors, I think Leo Quayle was the sweetest and best. Father sat in the front row at Messiah and adored it.
5 December – Work and lunch in Ansteys. We get rave notices from RDM and Star – the Star especially says the choir was brilliant and the best of the lot!
Go to SS studio. Don’t do too much work but have illuminating chat with Gill who finally practically discloses the story about Webster she told me partially in April – about the whisky and the ladies’ cloakroom. According to her he was making up to some woman in the ladies’ dressing room at a concert and drinking whisky – or brandy!
I say, “Well, he’s never behaved badly with me.”
She says, “No. You’re his bread and butter.”
I go on, “All he’s ever done is to kiss me,” and she says, “I’m not saying he did anything more than that but it’s immoral.”
I laugh. She adds, “I don’t want to be old fashioned but I like a man to be a gentleman all the time He’s a typical showman and I feel sorry for his wife!”
I must be getting cynical but the story didn’t shock me in the least. As a matter of fact, I’d like him to kiss me again some time – I enjoyed it!
We part on friendly terms but Gill obviously thinks the worst of him.
Mrs S says she thought our performance awful but the critics begged to differ. Despite her opinion, I have a good lesson.
6 December – Go to hear the best lunch hour concert of the season – Leo Q conducts, and Adelaide Newman plays the piano most beautifully.
In the Eastern Province Newspaper, the critic says of Webster’s Elijah – that he sang with his regular superb artistry. I listen to his G and S at night. Continues with HMS Pinafore.
7 December – Go to guild and when I come home the Carmichaels from across the road are visiting. She was a singer and pianist and taught music and tells me that Webster was very involved with Kathleen Ferrier. She tells me that he has had several kidney operations, is a flirt and has led a wild life but is a wonderful singer. I like him none the less after all the damning revelations which might not even be true.
8 December – Go to singing. Hilda from St Helena answers the door. She is very well spoken and charming. Lemon is there too. Anne says The Merry Widow in Springs went very well last night but she was up till 2 every morning and on Tuesday she stayed overnight on a mine and her host had to give her a tranquilliser.
We start on Father of Heav’n and after the story about KF I feel rather embarrassed about it. To crown it all, he comes in and is charming. I ask about the oratorios and he says he had a terrible cold for Elijah but Messiah was much better. They say they knew our soprano, Nan Mayer in Britain – her father was the editor of a London Newspaper. She never got much work in Britain and must be at least 48.
I say that I had another late night last night so that’s why I can’t sing. She says that his coming back has upset everyone.
Do Zion and this isn’t much better. He says that it’s one of my ‘gargling’ days! She tells me that Mabel Fenney isn’t coming back to her husband and intends to stay in London and study. She says she’s probably got a boyfriend over there and after living in Europe nobody can really be expected to come back here.
Ruth is there to hear my bad effort and promises to phone me. I don’t know what they think I do on Friday nights.
Go to see Friends and Neighbours at night at the Intimate Theatre and it is a great laugh. Charles Vernon is unbelievably amusing and I roar. Frank Douglass, Helen Braithwaite are in it too. It cheers me up no end.
9 December – We go to Vanderbijlpark to see our old friends. We see the Alexanders – Inge is home for the weekend. They have two lovely dachshunds.
We see the Hills in passing. Mr H used to teach me music in days long ago. We pop into the Innes’s next door to them. Kathleen is now a picture of health after her terrible car accident. Sadly, she will never dance again.
We finish up at the Watts. Mr W has been very ill with lung problems and has been away from work.
10 December – Work hard. Anne phones in the afternoon. “Hello, Jean?” “Yes?” “Darling, this is Anne.” “Hello.” She wants me to change the time from 4.30 to 3.30. I agree – it will suit me much better.
I phone Ruth at night and we talk for 40 minutes about nothing. I tell her about Gill and she tells me about a wrapping party at her house for the Press Ball. Her father is a director in an advertising agency. She is going to the Drakensberg for the long weekend.
11 December – Go to singing and meet a little boy, Eddie who used to be in my Sunday School class with a lovely little puppy. He blushes when I stop to pat it.
When I arrive no one answers the door and then lift opens and Webster emerges very quietly and I get a terrible fright. He laughs at me and says, “Really, Jean. Your nerves are bad – jumping like that!” He imitates me. “I expect she must be phoning someone.”
We go in and he complains to me about the heat and tells me that he’s had a terrible thirst all day and has been drinking a lot of tea. While he makes more tea he feeds the pigeons in a concerned fashion and I say, “Your pets,” and he smiles at me.
Anne is busy phoning the doctor about her ears and when she comes out of the office she tells him to let me hear the records. He produces Kathleen’s record first and I prepare myself for an effort in self-control. Her singing of Father of Heav’n is quite glorious. He remarks that she takes it rather slowly and he doesn’t think this necessary. She says that her broad Lancashire accent comes over very much in the way she broadens her consonants. Obviously she wasn’t very fond of her.
I then endeavour to sing the same aria. He makes me hold the music up so that I don’t have to look down and swallow. I fill in a breath mark and she says that she sees I’m left-handed. I say, “Yes, another of my faults!” She says, “Nonsense! I’m very left-handed and left-handed people are all infinitely more intelligent.” “Anyway, what’s all this about faults? If we didn’t all have faults we’d be dull!” “Yes, but I have more faults than most,” I answer.
We listen to Prepare Thyself and I am pleased to see that the singer takes a breath in the middle of the long run. When it is finished Webster sings, “And thank God that’s over!” I then sing it and he beats time along with me. It goes quite well.
They say they’re feeling the heat. “It used to be a dry heat that was pleasant but now it’s very humid,” says he. “A damp, horrible heat.”
I come home with Kathleen’s record and a huge picture of her on the cover. During the lesson, Anne mimics her accent and he says, “She was so terribly ill when she made it.”
12 December – Work in the morning and then lunch in Ansteys with Mum – very nice.
Go to SS studio. Gill is there and tells me that she is planning to go on holiday soon. We steer clear of the pet subject – I’ve had enough revelations to last me a lifetime! I have a good theory lesson with Mrs S.
13 December – Go into the library to work and meet the German cellist from the orchestra there. He tells me he is going to Cape Town for his holiday. Lunch with Mum and meet Dawn Snyman from the rink. She hasn’t been there for ages.
Lunch hour concert – Anton H and Gé K. Not bad but latter takes a lot out of himself.
Listen to G and S at night. He goes on with HMS Pinafore and plays He is an Englishman. He tells of broken bottles in “Dear old Dublin in those hectic revolutionary days when we sang this song.” He says that the programme finishes on the twenty-seventh. Next week he’s playing Pineapple Poll. “You can write down all the tunes you recognise,” says he.
14 December – Work and lunch in Capinero with Mum. Go to singing and Webster arrives first wearing his white sports jacket and feeling warm. He says he can’t imagine what has happened to Anne. He dropped her off at a quarter to three at the ABC shoe shop.
We go in together and the phone rings – someone enquiring about the musical activities at the SABC. He suggests the caller joins the choir and says it’s run by someone called van der Merwe. He stops and calls through to me to ask about it and I tell him that Johan has gone overseas and I think Pieter de V is managing it now. He says to the person on the phone, “Better phone Anton Hartman – he’s the head boy of the SABC!” After this conversation, he says he can’t imagine why the person phoned him when he could have phoned the SABC directly.
He says he had to collect a package and pay 5/- for it which he thought rather a cheek. He says that since his illness he hasn’t been able to stand the heat – sweat pours off him. I make some sympathetic noises.
We do exercises and they go so well that he says I should forget them until nearer the time or I’ll get sick of them.
We start on the first study which he plays rather hideously. Luckily the phone rings again and Anne arrives. He returns and says to me, “Did you or I make a mistake or was it the bell?” He sits down at the piano and insists on playing for me again. We get halfway through and she intervenes by giving him a huge poke in the waist. I stop singing and he teases me, “Any excuse for you to stop when I’m playing for you. Don’t you like my accompaniment?” I have a good laugh at him.
The studies go very well too and they are pleased. Anne says her hands are getting stiff – probably from old age.
We start on Open Thy Blue Eyes by Massenet and she says I must sing it twice as fast. Being a love song I must put guts into it!
We also go through I Attempt from Love’s Sickness to Fly. I say I think it’s a bit high for me but they say it doesn’t sound strained at all. Webster tells me it sounds very fresh.
We complain about the heat and I say I should prefer a nice fog. She says the fog was all right when she was young but not now. He tells me he felt very cold in bed last night and Lemon was shivering after his recent haircut, and now today is a killer. He told me this before Anne arrives. He doesn’t look very well with his sunken jaw, rotten teeth and the suggestion of a nervous tic at his eye.
I come home on bus with Rita Marsden and she tells me she has finished matric and is going to work in the library.
15 December – Go skating after a long absence. M skating is just the same apart from some muscular stiffness. Arthur Apfel is back teaching at the rink and Armand Perren has left. There are few there that I know. When I think of the fabulous crowd we had in Erica Batchelor’s day. Still, I enjoy it once more.
We have lunch and then see No Man is an Island with Jeffrey Hunter who has gorgeous blue eyes.
I hear the choir’s recording of Oranje Blanje Blou on the radio.
16December (Day of the Covenant) Go to family service at church and then to Betty’s to listen to the two records. Kath is wonderful despite her rolling consonants. At night I listen for the long-awaited broadcast of excerpts from Messiah and Elijah from PE. The announcer states that the soloists are Monica Hunter, Joyce Scotcher and Graham Burns but he doesn’t mention Webster at all. I imagine that he has made a mistake so I listen for one of the tenor arias.
The other soloists sing at least three solos each but not one of his arias are played – no explanation or apology. It makes me furious. What could have happened that they did not play one of his arias?
Imagine how he must be feeling tonight. Yet imagine what he was! Imagine him as a young man – tall, well built with dark hair and a handsome face; Britain’s wonder tenor. How awful he must feel now being spurned in this corny one-eyed country. I know what Gill and Iris will be saying.
18 December – Go to singing in the afternoon. Webster answers the door and appears quite cheerful. He tells me to help myself to a cup of tea and I clatter around with the cups.
The girl before me (Mary Harrison) is singing light songs. She’s an Australian in the cast of My Fair Lady. She sounds rather fun and being theatrical they get on well with her.
When I go in I see that they have started to redecorate the studio – white paper with silver motifs. I tell him that it looks lovely and he is very pleased.
Anne comes out and asks if I could come in the mornings while they are rehearsing for the next play at the Alex – Goodnight Mrs Puffin. It opens on the 16 January and goes into rehearsal on Friday.
He says, “We haven’t done The Swan for a hell of a long time. We had better do it.” I sing it too softly. “You are singing a Drawing room pianissimo – sing a City Hall one,” says he.
We do Blue Eyes and he comes and stands next to me and stares at the music, informing me that I’ve made a mistake with one of the notes. She says she doesn’t believe him. We do it again and he springs on me in delight when I make the mistake. He says he knew it was most unusual for me to make a mistake in my notation. He crows over me in delight.
I say I’ll fill in form for exam. She says that she’s glad she can depend on me to do things like that. Lucille, who has also to do an exam is quite helpless and has to have everything done for her. Webster says that if she passes this exam he has a good mind to do it himself! He does not appear to be particularly cast down about omission on the oratorio programme.
19 December – Go to SS studio. Gill informs me that she had a fight with Svea and proceeds to tell me all about it in a fuming fashion. She also tells me that Iris phoned her on the evening of the PE Messiah to tell her she’d got through to it. I say, “I suppose you were both able to sit down and run Webster down together?” She says, “Oh no. He hadn’t come on yet.” She herself couldn’t get through but listened on Sunday, saying that he probably wasn’t good enough to be broadcast. I say that he got a good crit and she says, “But so did Nan Mayer.” I say, “Damn it all, He wouldn’t have sung out of tune anyway.” She says acidly, “I’ve seen them having to turn their duets into a comedy act.” I make no further comment.
After that unpleasantness, I have a good and restorative lesson with Mrs S.
I get a Christmas card from Ruth and one from Gill. Ruth’s has their address printed on it.
She phones me in the evening. They had a lovely time in the Drakensberg and she met a man there who did the lighting for the Merry Widow. He didn’t like Anne but liked Webster. There were lots of fights during the show and everyone was temperamental. He said that they are very hard up now and can’t make much appearing in shows but producing brings in a lot of money.
He also told her that at a party someone insulted Webster and he was so furious that he didn’t wish to stay on. Anne refused to leave and this man danced with her for the rest of the evening. If anyone had insulted my husband I would have left with him.
She tells me that Caroline has failed her B Com exams but can write supps. She says she hopes she’ll pass her own exams. She is going to her school dance tonight and isn’t looking forward to it because of all the restrictions. We make lengthy arrangements to see Lord Oom Piet on Monday seeing they’re in it and we’re going to have lunch first. I’m to meet her outside the Carlton at 1.00. It should be interesting to see what she thinks of it.
20 December – Listen to Webster at night and he plays the ballet suite Pineapple Poll. Next week is his last G and S programme.
21 December – Go into town and meet Ruth in Ansteys. We talk for a little while and then I go to the studio. Webster answers the door and complains bitterly about the heat and makes me help myself to tea. Mary departs after wishing them a happy Christmas.
We start on Father of Heav’n and this goes much better today except for my diphthongs which he imitates. We do Zion. He says I do it much more easily than the other. He wonders why.
Their scripts are left on the piano for all in sundry to see. She asks if she thanked me for my card. She says, “It was so sweet of you,” to which I give a watery grin.
I wish them a happy Christmas and they wish me one too. She tells me she expects they’ll be working over Christmas with rehearsals and so on. I say hello to Ruth once more and depart in grim frame of mind.
Mr Stabler comes with a present at night and then I go carol singing with the guild. Archie and David have supps at varsity too. We have fun in my usual dull boring uninteresting way and I act gaily with pain gnawing at my heart.
22 December – I phone Ruth early in the morning. She went to a party last night and hated every moment of it and didn’t dance once. The school dance, however, was nice and she enjoyed it.
We discuss our parents’ ages and she tells me that her mother and father are both 50. We agree that our parents are all wonderful for their ages. She says that Webster isn’t bad for his age but Anne is very worried about the way he drinks. He’s not quite an alcoholic, mind you, but he loves drinking!
The swimming pool is finished and she says that I must go one afternoon to swim there. It’s very quiet, for her sisters are at work and we’ll have fun. She is so sweet. At the beginning of this year I made a resolution to make her my friend and pass my music exams. I’ve managed to do both, thank heaven.
We arrange to meet at a quarter to ten on Monday outside the Carlton. Unfortunately, I decline into a state of dire illness and am indisposed in a most excruciating fashion for the best part of the day.
23 December – Am ill today as well – no church, no nothing!
24 December – Go into town and buy Ruth a present. I meet her outside the Carlton. She’s a bit late but terribly apologetic so I don’t mind having to wait for her. We go to Capri and she tells me that she has not been made a prefect next year and hasn’t had her report yet. She tells me about a new boyfriend called Peter.
We enjoy the film and have a good giggle at them. His head trembles – I didn’t notice before – shame. His bad teeth are also very much in evidence. She gives me a present and I give her one.
We go to Greatermans so that she can get the tip of her shoe mended. Caroline is going to work in the Standard Bank and continue with her commerce degree part-time.
I take her to lunch in Ansteys. She says she prefers Webster to Anne because he’s always the same and never has moods. Her father is a partner in an advertising agency and had to work his way up from the bottom. When he came out to SA he didn’t like it but he couldn’t afford to go back to Scotland so he stuck it out. She says her parents had George Moore and his wife to lunch one day and GM drank a lot.
We have great fun and she promises to phone me after the New Year and I will be able to go out to swim at her house. We wish each other a happy Christmas and part cheerfully.
I meet Elna H on bus. She’s still studying ballet and doing commercial art.
Webster’s new programme Great Voices starts at 7.30 on the first Saturday of the year.
Ruth’s present is a pair of blue slipperettes which are very sweet.
25 December – We spend a quiet Christmas day at home and enjoy a lovely Christmas dinner. In the afternoon I listen to the programme of carols of our choir which we did last year. It takes me back to the night we made that recording.
26 December -We go to His Majesty’s to see The Music Man with Robert Preston, Shirley Jones and Hermione Gingold. It is very pleasant and Robert Preston is full of energy.
27 December – Story about Goodnight Mrs Puffin and big picture of Anne and Webster who play Ma and Pa in the play.
Listen to last G and S. He plays all his favourite Sullivan music: Invocation from Iolanthe, selection from Gondoliers, the Wine song from The Rose of Persia and the Long Day Closes by the Tommy Handley Memorial Choir, “which was formed from Tommy Handley’s famous singing friends so that we could pay tribute to this great comedian.” One way of saying you’re famous! He wishes everyone a fabulous new year and invites them to join him a week on Saturday to hear his new programme, Great Voices.
28 December Go to singing in the afternoon determined to be bright and have a fabulous time. Webster answers the door and I give him a fright with my cheerful greeting, so much so that he tells me not to bother with the cold tea – he’ll make me a fresh cup later on. I chat gaily to Anne who tells me how run off their feet they are with the play but they still managed to have a lovely Christmas. I tell her that Ruth and I saw their picture and enjoyed it very much but thought Jamie Uys should have let them finish their song before he jumped in the river. They both have a great laugh at this.
Anne tells me that they went this morning to have their passports stamped as aliens and he says indignantly that they had to wait one and a half hours to have it done. I tell her we went a few months ago. We agree it would be madness to lose one’s British citizenship. Hilda, however, was not allowed to have permanent residence in this country. They’re very cross about it.
We start on Zion and I sing it very well. He brings me some tea. They tell me that they had a Christmas card from Uncle Mac who told them that poor Anderson Tyrer died on the boat home – possibly from a heart attack. Webster says rather callously, “Uncle Mac must be about 100 – I only hope he lasts long enough for you to get your diploma!”
Also, poor Bill Perry lost all his brothers and sisters in a head-on collision. He had to go to identify the bodies on Christmas eve.
She says I may either come at 10 next Thursday or 4.30 next Friday – the two times are between Ruth and me. I say that I’m sure she would like to go on Thursday and he says they might give her a lift in seeing they virtually pass her door – lucky Ruth.
I wish them a happy new year most effusively and shake Anne’s hand – she gets a surprise. I wonder what to do about him but his hand is already out ready to shake mine with a strong, firm, dependable grip – he holds it for ages. He says something about celebrating Hogmanay in joking tones and she says, presumably trying to imitate Scots accent. “Are you not having a party?” They’re going to one. “But we should really be at home learning our lines.”
I feel quite elated when I leave today. My hand tingles with their handshakes – ridiculous, I know!
Webster says that he was very cold yesterday and they nearly lit the fire. He says that last Boxing day they did light the fire and sat huddled in front of it. She says she went out last night to do a Springbok programme Password and had to wear winter clothes.
29 December – Death of Anderson T reported in paper. He was a famous composer and conductor. In SABC Bulletin there is another article about Great Voices, remarking on the fact that he doesn’t intend to put in his own recordings. He started off at a salary of £4 a week as a singer – and now look at him! They are to appear as Entertainers at Home in Paddy O’Byrne’s Sunday morning programme on 13 January.
Anderson Tyrer, conducting the New Zealand Centenial Orchestra.
30 December – Gary A says that G and S was one of the Top Ten radio programmes of the year.
Go to church and Cecil Oberholzer takes the service. There are very few there.
31 December – Here we are at the end of another year. My only real achievements were passing the exams. Next year I have to pass my finals and earn some money with music.
As far as personal relations go – I’ve made real friends with Ruth and I’m very happy about it. I was sorry to see the last of Peter C and Peter S. As for the Booths – they’ve caused me heartache but they’re the only ones who can make me feel elated. I am as fond of them now as I was when I first met them. I’m glad Webster got over his illness and is now prospering theatrically – I got to know Anne well during his illness and I’m grateful for that.
The SABC has helped me developing musicianship and I have enjoyed my experiences there. It is a pity that we shan’t have Johan with us next year.
It’s been a varied and interesting year if not always a happy one. I hope that next year, despite the hard work in store for me, will be interesting and happy at the same time.
At night I go to the SABC for Drawing Room recording. Anne and Webster greet us all – rather like the King and Queen greeting their loyal subjects – and we sit down in tense nervous state. Anne looks gorgeous in a low-cut black sheath dress and mink stole.
1 April – Go to SABC in the afternoon. Johan takes men and Harry Stanton the ladies. We practise Norma and there is an improvement. Tufty has become very friendly with Gill. Talk to Ruth at interval. Says she’s very tired after dance last night. She is going on Wednesday and is shocked about the cruel cartoon.
I was going to listen to Webster but tape breaks down three-quarters of the way through. Station announcer apologises to listeners “and Mr Webster Booth.” I am livid.
2 April – Go to SABC in evening. Gill comes early and I go with her to have supper. Ruth is there wearing blue jeans and a duffle coat. She says she also calls the Booths by their Christian names. “Stage people like that!” I hope she’s right!
4 April – Work quite hard in the morning and then go to music in afternoon.
At night I go to the SABC for Drawing Room recording. Anne and Webster greet us all – rather like the King and Queen greeting their loyal subjects – and we sit down in tense nervous state. Anne looks gorgeous in a low-cut black sheath dress and mink stole.
Programme begins and Anne sings two songs (one by Ivor Novello with his writing on it) – the Little Damozel, and He’ll Say That for My Love (Handel). She has expression and all else required of a singer. Bob Borowsky sings and Jos de Groen, the bassoonist plays. Anne and Webster sing The Second Minuet and Drink to Me Only. He puts his hand on her bare shoulder as they sing.
Ruth asks him for a lift home and he says, “Certainly, darling.” The second broadcast is fabulous. Anne sings If No One Ever Marries Me and Smilin’ Through. They sing two more duets – Love’s Old Sweet Song and another. Ruth and I wait afterwards and talk to Anne. I tell her that her singing made me cry and she is thrilled, “The highest compliment you can pay a singer!” she says. She was worried about what her voice might sound like with the cold. While we are talking a Lancashire woman comes and congratulates her and says she heard her twenty years ago in Sheffield – she’s English, you know. Says Anne, “Yes, I thought you were!” We all laugh and she says, “Oh, ‘ave I still got me accent?”
Come home after a really delightful evening. When you hear an artist like Anne you realise how far you have to go to be even half as good. It makes me feel utterly hopeless.
5 April – Listen to Webster’s programme of last week – Gé Korsten etc.
6 April – Public holiday and Ruth’s seventeenth birthday. Have a rest in the morning and then go into town for singing lesson. Webster answers door wearing white jersey with green, yellow and red stripes!
Go in. Anne is wearing tight black stovies and revealing jersey. I do scales and am in bad form – if I see them sing the next lesson is harrowing for I know how far I have to go!
Webster makes tea for me. He forgets the sugar so goes to fetch some and Anne tells me of Peter Broomfield’s remark on the radio. “Last night Hennie Joubert accompanied Mi-mi-mi-mi – all the way!”
We do Where E’er You Walk and somehow I just cannot sing well and feel awful. She says I mustn’t sing too loudly in Norma. “Everyone has their off days,” Webster says, “Today is one of mine.” (Probably to cheer me up).
7 April – Collect my long white SABC dress and go to see Breakfast at Tiffany’s at night.
8 April – Go to Sunday School in the morning I really like the new children now.
Go to SABC in the afternoon. Mr Miller, one of the second violins in the orchestra, is on my bus. The full orchestra, Anton Hartman, Mimi Coertse, Gé K and other soloists are there. Anton works us hard. Mimi is petulant and bossy but she sings beautifully.
At interval Ruth tells me she got a Maria Callas record for her birthday and a card from the Booths. Yesterday Anne wasn’t feeling well so she asked Ruth to go to the house for a lesson while Webster went to the studio. She’s coming home with Gill and me tomorrow in Gill’s car. We manage to record last quarter of Norma.
Listen to Webster’s G and S programme at night. He says, “After my costume was made for this part I had my photograph taken and this constitutes one of my few claims to fame. They put the photo into a series of G and S cigarette cards. That dates me, doesn’t it?” He plays Princess Ida and I fall asleep halfway through.
9 April – Have sudden urge to have my hair cut and set so have this done at Marie Distler in the morning and feel a boost to my morale. I meet Diane Munro on the bus and she doesn’t recognise me, but when she realises who I am she likes the new look a lot.
I go to the SABC and we get on the bus to Pretoria. Ruth says the Booth’s house is small and not much to look at from the outside, but charming and whimsical within.
When we arrive in Pretoria we are fed with hamburgers at Tukkies’ cafeteria. We go into the Aula theatre – it seats 3000 people. We work hard.
Anton lets us go home at 11.00 pm. Ruth and I go home with Gill. She and Ruth have an argument about the choir on the journey home. Ruth has a very nice house, white double-storey with undergrowth and trees in the garden. Gill stays quite near her (also in Parkwood) and has a flatlet to herself. I go to sleep quickly.
10 April – Go to town with Gill and then go home. Go to SABC once more, armed with box containing white dress.
Ruth and Gill arrive and we sit at the very back of the bus. Ruth says Anne and Webster should have had children of their own. She whistles beautifully and we travel along in a state of semi-consciousness. We arrive and change into our dresses, parade around for a while and have a meat roll for supper in the cafeteria.
The house is absolutely packed – men in evening dress, orchestra in evening dress, and furs flying, Hartman in tails and Mimi in a black dress with silver top showing her vast chest. She sings well and there are shouts of “bravo!”. She takes bows and we take bows and it is interval.
Gill has tea with Uncle Edgar and Johan, but Ruth and I don’t have anything to drink!
Second half is much better although Jossie Boshoff lets the side down. We finish at ten. Cheers, curtain calls, excitement, bouquets for soloists, an orchid for Mimi…
Return to Parkwood and Ruth is very rude about Edgar Cree, saying that he had a broad accent and puts on his good one. Gill says that he studied at Cambridge. I say I like him as a broadcaster. Gill and Ruth are probably enemies for life.
11 April – Go into town very early in the morning and get home in time for breakfast. Farewell to Parkwood.
Decide to have a rest when there is a knock at the door – Roselle arrives with music and a dog. She wasn’t placed in the eisteddfod and is most disappointed. We sing for each other and record the results.
Go to music in the afternoon and go to SABC in the evening. We go into studio and Anton H begins his recording. At interval, Ruth and I go to have a cold drink at nearby café and return with the same object in view – the recording of TheDrawing Room!
We listen at the door to Webster singing – glorious! When it is over (with much debate) we decide to wait to see him. We go and look in at the studio and Ruth calls to him to “Come here!” He obliges like a lamb and comes out and, guess what?? He kisses us!! I mean it – he gives Ruth and me a kiss each – quite calmly and unhurriedly. We both go red.
He tells us the programme is gorgeous, particularly the brilliant trumpeter. Why don’t we come in and we tell him we’re recording with Mimi. He says, “Oh yes. You’re working.”
He tells us about the eisteddfod. The tenor got a first and quite a few more were highly placed.
We say we’ll have to be going and Ruth walks straight into the men’s cloakroom! He says diplomatically, “The exit is there, and the ladies is over there!” We depart – Ruth nearly hysterical and I very red.
We go back to recording and tell Gill and Tufty about the kiss and Gill says, “Since I saw Webster Booth going into the ladies change rooms with a bottle of brandy, I’ve had no time for him!”
I leave before the recording ends and look out for my father. The first person I meet is Webster, leaving with a retinue of seemingly important men. He stops when he sees me and asks, “Has the recording finished?” I say, “No. I’m looking for my father.” He says, “D’ye think he’ll come?” I say, “Oh yes,” and he says “Well cheery-bye, Jean,” and I say, “Cheerio.”
Father appears and we come home. But honestly, what a night. Mimi gave us some prima donna tactics. (“They do,” says Webster) and she leaves the country tomorrow.
But in Ruth’s night and mine, one thing stands out!
“Webster kissed us when we met,
Jumping from the chair he sat in,
Time, you thief, who loves to get sweets into your list,
GET THAT IN!!”
I don’t care what anyone says about them – or him. Even if it’s all true, I know one thing. He is a great man, a great singer and a pleasure to know!
12 April – Work and record the glorious Drawing Room programme with Oh, Dry Those Tears and the Kashmiri Song.
13 April – In the afternoon I go to the SABC to claim my lost purse. The receptionist tells me proudly that Johan handed it in so I tell her to thank him for me. Honest Hans.
I go to the studio. I see Webster in the CNA so I walk round the block and when I get back I go in almost immediately for the girl before me doesn’t come. Anne likes my hair. We fill in the form for the exam and she tells Webster not to interfere and he looks hurt. We have a glorious fifteen minutes running down Anton H, Jossie Boshoff etc. Anne says that Adalgisa should be a contralto, but of course, Jossie had to have a part.
We talk about Mabel Fenney and I say that she taught at our school for a term. Anne says she was batty but worked like mad.
We work at songs and vocal studies and they encourage me to smile (as always!) All great singers of previous generations sold their songs even if they didn’t have good voices such as John Coates, Anne tells me.
I wait for the lift and when it arrives I open it, thinking no one is there. Get a shock to see Webster. He laughs and says, “Did I startle you, Jean? I’m sorry!”
16 April – Go to choir at night and have supper with Gill and feel like a traitor. We do Stravinsky. Sit with Ruth at interval and we talk about drinking. Apparently her father is a connoisseur of wine. Her parents went to a première at Colosseum costing £5 a ticket!
I start telling her what Gill said about Webster but we have to go back before I can finish the tale. I get her to promise not to mention anything about this incident to Gill in the car. I think Gill overhears this. I feel very muddled about the whole matter. It’s all Gill’s fault for telling me this story and trying to disillusion me about him.
17 April – Go to studio and Webster answers the door. Girl with high but harsh voice is singing Waltz of My Heart and This is My Lovely Day. High notes are quite awful. Anne is wearing a brick red dress. We work hard at all the exam pieces.
I tell them that I’m going to Durban on holiday. He asks if I’m going to the Oyster Box in Umhlanga Rocks, and I say we’re going to the city itself.
18 April – Oh, dear! A terrible thing happens in the broadcast of Drawing Room. It all goes nicely until the last announcement which goes like this, “Now, on behalf of Madame Jean Gluckman, Miss Kathleen – oh, I beg your pardon – Madame Kathleen Allister, Miss Jean er er – oh, yes – Miss Jean Gluckman – that’s right, Mr Gé Korsten and myself, Webster Booth, goodnight – Oh dear, I’d better do that all over again, hadn’t I? Now on…” (Cut short)
Obviously the controller reproduced the wrong announcement and not the repeat, so he’ll get into trouble. It damns him in the eyes of the public and perhaps the SABC. He sounded old, doddery and drunk. He couldn’t have heard the broadcast tonight. If he wasn’t making a programme he’d be at the prize-winners concert. He’s going to get a nasty shock when he hears about it. I saw him that night and he wasn’t drunk but what will people think?
19 April – Programme is done correctly today. Work hard and go to choir at night. Ruth comes and we talk about the mess and she is most distressed. We work at Stravinsky. Ruth wishes father and me a happy Easter.
20 April – Good Friday. I talk to Peter Marsden who is back from the army for two days leave.
I listen to our SABC choir recording of the Passion and Cantata. It is lovely and I am proud of it.
21 April – Go skating in the morning after a long absence. Dawn Vivian is there. My skating is more or less the same but I’m a bit stiff. She tells me that Gwyn has joined the cast of Holiday on Ice and has gone touring all over the world and doesn’t intend returning to SA.
I buy theory questions in Kelly’s and wander around John Orrs. We see Swiss Family Robinson in the afternoon – John Mills, Cecil Parker etc.
22 April – Go to Sunday School and church. I still haven’t got my music from Peter who has given up his singing lessons after less than three months!
Mr and Mrs Watts come from Vanderbijl for lunch. They like the Booths. I sing for them and they are impressed – or are polite!
Listen to Webster and he finishes Princess Ida and promises to start Mikado next week when I’ll probably be on holiday.
27 April – Go to singing and Anne arrives looking very attractive. She says she’s exhausted because of the production of Vagabond King in Springs. They have to go there every night and are furious that some members of the cast haven’t even learnt their parts properly. She had to go by herself on Wednesday because Webster was doing the last recording of Drawing Room and there was an awful storm on the way there.
She says I should practise singing octaves and chromatics when I’m on holiday. He says, “I can’t sing a chromatic scale – I never could!” We decide that the only way to do that is to count the notes on our fingers!
I say that Johan has given me work for my holiday for forthcoming Stravinsky concert. Anne asks if tenors are weak in the choir and I say, “Rather!” He tells me, “They wrote me a letter asking if I’d sing in the chorus for the Stravinsky concert.” I say, “What!”
She says, “We don’t want to act big or anything but, I mean to say, the chorus!” I say I think it is a real insult and he agrees with me. I say, “Are you going to?” and he replies, “Not likely! I phoned them up and said I had no intention of rehearsing every Saturday night for Stravinsky!” Boy, what an insult! She says that people will only go to the Stravinsky concerts for snob value anyway.
We do Where E’er You Walk and work at it. She says I can sing scales on the seashore. I laugh, and he says, “Don’t laugh! I’ve sung whole scores on the seashore. Vagabond King, Waltz Time. People think you’re mad but it’s a wonderful place to sing.”
He makes tea and asks if I’d like a cup. I say, “It doesn’t matter,” and Anne says, “Stay and have a cup. It’ll be ready in five minutes.”
There is a knock at the door – An English lady with little boy (soprano) and a gorgeous hot apple tart so Anne decides that we’ll all have tea and apple tart. “Can we eat it now?” she asks. Mrs Andrews and her son, Dennis are sweet and homely with delightful accents. Webster says, “Where’s the Devonshire cream?” and she says, “Oh, I forgot it at home.” Anne says, “Some of us are from the North Country and Jean comes from Scotland.” Anne takes a piece of cake with cloves, spice and apple and says, “To hell with my figure!”
She notices that I eat left-handed as does she and she remarks on it, so I say, “All great people are left-handed.” We all laugh.
We talk about Drawing Room and Webster tells me that Doris Brasch (he spelt her name BRASH and she was livid) and Graham Burns were the soloists on Wednesday. Anne says, “What did you think of Wednesday night’s programme? My singing was really awful, wasn’t it!” We protest and she adds, “It wasn’t lovely. It was disgusting!”
When I say goodbye to Anne I promise to send them a postcard and she says, “You can tell me if you manage to sing any octaves on the seashore!”
I talk to Dennis’s mother and we say how sweet they are. Dennis calls them Auntie Anne and Uncle Webster. They are wonderful and I love them!
29 April – Mr Marsden kindly gives us a lift to the airport and we eventually board the plane and have a delightful flight to Durban. It’s the first time I have ever flown – it was more like a bus than a plane. The land below looks like a map of physical geography.
We arrive at the Berkeley Hotel where I met Maisie Weldon and Carl Carlisle five years ago. We have a walk along the seafront but I can hardly see myself singing scales there. My room has a radio so I’ll be able to listen to Drawing Room and G and S. I listen to G and S. Webster bursts into song periodically during Mikado.
30 April – We go into town and to the lunch hour concert. Swim in the afternoon in the same pool where we swam five years ago, and I play the piano in the lounge at night.
MAY 1962
1 May – I go to the Durban ice rink in the morning. It is delightfully modern and I skate well.
2 May – We go to the beach in the morning and swim in the surf. We meet Lyndith Irvine and her parents there. They live in Salisbury now. Dad and I see Light on the Piazza in the afternoon and at night the Irvines visit us at the hotel and I play the piano.
3 May – Am listening to Drawing Room with Peggy Haddon and Anna Bender playing duets. Webster says, “I give you – the misses Haddon and Bender!” Signor Vitali plays the trumpet – he remarked on the wonderful playing when we met him on that memorable evening last month. He says, “Wonderful! You make it sound so easy.” After Sarie Lamprecht sings, he says, “Bravo, Miss Lamprecht! That was quite charming.” He sings three Irish songs – the Ballymure Ballad, Trottin’ to the Fair and Maira, My Girl. I wish I could have recorded them.
Dad and I have a swim in the afternoon.
4 May – We go to the beach in the morning and have fun in the surf. I am beginning to tan.
At night we go to the Irvines’ hotel and listen to a small band in stuffy “intimate” lounge. Lyndith has a Crème de Menthe. They went to the Oyster Box today. They also visited Anne Ahlers (friend of Penny Berrington)
5 May – Go to town and postcards to friends and then see The Quiet Man with John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara. Good in parts – like the curate’s egg!
The Irvines phone to say the Webbs have arrived so we go to their hotel to see them. Jackie Keenan is with them. I play the piano in the lounge after walk.
6 May – Go to the beach in the morning and then it starts to rain. After lunch I have a rest and then play the “pianoforte” in the “drawing room”!
I listen to Webster at night. He continues with the Mikado.
7 May – Go to town and have lunch in Paynes department store and swim in the afternoon.
8 May – Swim in the surf. Dad and I see The Guns of Navaronne, with Gregory Peck and David Niven.
I am now listening to the Norma Broadcast – the one we did in Afrikaans at the Aula. Mimi is excellent but Jossie B sounds very worried and a little flat.
9 May – Go to town and have tea in Paynes. In the afternoon go on a coach tour to Umhlanga Rocks . We stop at the Chevron Hotel for tea and go onto the beach which is lovely. We pass through Glen Ashley (where Miss Ursula Scott lives).
I listen to Drawing Room (the second programme with Anne singing duets)
10 May – We go to beach and I come back to listen to repeat of Drawing Room. Anne’s Smilin’ Thro’ is beautiful but the other things she sings are shadows of her former glory.
The Irvines call to say goodbye. They leave tomorrow night by train for a long journey to Rhodesia. I play the piano to a packed lounge at night and they applaud loudly.
11 May – In the afternoon we go to the Playhouse to see Lover Come Back, with Doris Day and Rock Hudson.
12 May – Last full day of holiday. We go to town and have tea in Paynes with pianist playing the piano. In the afternoon I go for a ride in a motor boat with Dad then come back to pack.
13 May – Last day. We take a taxi to the airport after delightful holiday. The Marsdens meet us at Jan Smuts and take us home. Shandy is very glad to see us again! I listen to G and S at night.
14 May – Go to SABC at night. Hester and company tell me that Stravinsky is progressing nicely and there are oodles of professional singers augmenting the choir. He will conduct us on Saturday night.
See Gill and Ruth. Latter is thrilled to see me again and tells me she has been busy with exams and was delighted with my card. Johan works us hard, and guess who is singing in the chorus? Jossie Boshoff! Anton H arrives and tells us how honoured we should feel to be singing with Stravinsky who is no conductor but a very great composer and musician.
Ruth says she thinks Webster is being snobbish and big by refusing to sing in the chorus as all the good singers are in it anyway. Anne, says she, is finished and they should both stop singing publicly. “They’ve had their day,” says she.
I suppose it wouldn’t have hurt Webster’s reputation to sing with us. It would have been very sporting of him but I can understand his point of view.
15 May – Listen to half of the English version of Norma in the evening. Mimi and Jossie B’s Afrikaans accents are very much in evidence in their singing. Choir sounds much better here than in the Afrikaans version. I am reminded that at this particular recording, Webster kissed us – just to think of it!
16 May –. Singing practice goes really well and I am quite thrilled with it.
Go to piano in the afternoon. Mrs S kisses me, and when I go in a party is in progress – it is her birthday! Svea gives me cake and coffee. My lesson goes reasonably well and after it I practise scales to put in the time.
We go to Gill’s studio which is in a rather austere, grim building where music teachers of every variety conduct their lessons – Castle Mansions. Polliacks building is a palace compared with it. We go to Hillbrow to visit a friend of Gill’s – Lynn – a rather alarming but fascinating girl with unusual pictures arranged throughout her flatlet on the eighth floor.
We have supper in the Lili Marlene restaurant. We return to SABC after depositing Svea at Blood Transfusion and hang around in the foyer. Ruth arrives looking very smart. The orchestra is there and we practise hard. The tubist (Englishman) does his best to amuse us and Andy Johnson (the drummer) is good fun too. After hearing the piece with orchestra I can only ask, is Stravinsky mad? It certainly looks like it.
Mrs S is there sitting next to Jossie B. She is most affable to Ruth and me.
Ruth says that Drawing Room was a great flop. She hasn’t a good word to say about them, it seems. Iris Williams gives me a lift home.
17 May – I listen to Drawing Room – the one with trumpeter, Signor Vitali, and Sarie Lamprecht. Webster sings Friend o’ Mine and a Tosti song, Beauty’s Eyes.
Go to choir at night. Talk to Andy Johnson and Iris beforehand. We work very hard with Johan. Ruth tells me that she had a big fight with Eleanor (another member of the choir) who kept Ruth and her father waiting for twenty minutes.
18 May – Go to the studio and am greeted by a tired-looking Anne who says, “Hello, stranger.” She thanks me for my postcard and tells me that Piet van Zyl (rugby Springbok who won a prize at the recent eisteddfod) has had a stroke and she is most upset about it. Lucille’s grandmother died last week and Webster is having a most awful time with toothache. “He had toothache a couple of days ago and thought that a few whiskies and soda would sort it out but when it persisted he had to have the tooth out. There was an abscess in the gum and last night he sat up in bed trembling violently and I had to go and fetch two hot-water bottles for him. Today he had a penicillin injection so he’s sleeping now.”
Poor Webster, and poor her having to do all the work and worry about him.
Singing doesn’t go too badly today except for lower register.
We talk of Stravinsky and I tell her about Jossie Boshoff etc. She says that it was a pure cheek to ask Webster and not even offer him a fee – after all, they make their living by singing.
He phones and says he feels a bit better now and has woken up. She talks to him like a mother to her little boy and calls him darling. She says he can stand a lot of pain but this was all too much for him.
Say goodbye – it’s nice to be back but what a lot of bad things have happened since I’ve been away.
Stravinsky by Hilda Wiener
Anton Hartman meets Stravinsky at Jan Smuts Airport – May 1962
19 May – I am up early and go for my piano lesson. My chromatic scales are shocking. Have ear tests with Elaine Commons and a few others. I hear someone whisper that I have a lovely voice – cheering. Leave with Margaret who tells me that she could sing top C recently but now she’s singing badly.
I go to Ansteys with mother and after lunch we see The Absent Minded Professor which is amusing.
Go to SABC at night. Anna Bender is at one piano; Gordon Beasley at the other, Kathleen Allister on the harp and Andy Johnson on drums. Robert Craft, a thin, pale man with glasses and lovely hands appears and in a soft American accent starts working with us on Symphony of Psalms. Edgar Cree and Johan are seated on the side, and Dora Sowden in a purple turban, sits next to Ruth.
Suddenly Anton H enters with small, stooped little man with large nose, a bald head and high forehead, wearing two pairs of glasses – it is the Maestro Stravinsky, the greatest living composer and musician in the world today. We all stand up and clap violently. I feel quite overwhelmed.
We continue our rehearsal and Robert Craft is very happy with us. Johan talks a lot to Stravinsky who has taken a great liking to him. S follows the score, and beats his music violently.
Ruth tells me that Anne phoned her at 6.30 this morning to say that Webster was sick. Could she go to the house. Ruth agrees. At 8.30 Anne phones once more to tell her that he is far worse than before, very ill indeed in fact, and she is calling the Doctor immediately so don’t come.
There is a picture of Anne in the paper being presented with a bouquet at the Varsity production of Vagabond King. Her dress is very low cut and hair rather strange. She looks tired.
The second half goes well. We do the Bach and Stravinsky looks happy and so does Robert Craft. He lets us depart. “I’ll give a booby prize to the last one out!” says he.
20 May. Sunday school. Afterwards Mr Rainer asks if I would care to take over the post as pianist in junior Sunday School and take a class there. As it will be good experience for me, I accept although I will be sorry to leave the little boys.
When I get home parents tell me that I ought to phone Anne to see how Webster is and if I can do anything at the studio for her. I do so, telling Anne that I heard Webster was not very well yesterday.
“Were you phoning to ask about him – how sweet! He’s still in a lot of pain and getting penicillin but he’s improving slowly.’
“I’m so glad. I wondered, seeing I’ve nothing much to do, if I could help you in the studio next week? I could answer the door and the phone and so on if he wasn’t able to manage in.”
“Oh, Jean, that’s terribly sweet of you and if he isn’t up to it, I’ll phone you by all means, but I think he’ll be able to record his G and S tomorrow morning and he might be well enough to go to the studio.”
“Well, I hope he feels much better soon. Do tell him that.”
“I will, Jean. I appreciate your offer very much and I know he will too. God bless you, Jean. Goodbye.”
Listen to G and S. Webster plays full recording of A Wand’ring Minstrel, “conducted by my old friend and fellow Birmingham citizen, Leslie Heward.” He promises to play Take a Pair of Sparkling Eyes which is on the flip side, shortly.
He continues with Mikado and tells us that Ko Ko means Pickles so if you have a friend called Wilfred Pickles, as I have, it’ll be quite in keeping to call him Ko Ko!”
21 May – Work hard at music. Anne doesn’t phone so I presume Webster is better now or perhaps she thinks I might be more of a hindrance than a help to her!
Parents and self go to final rehearsal for Stravinsky concert in the City Hall. Quite a lot of visitors arrive and sit in the gallery. Robert Craft goes through the whole Symphony of Psalms which takes 25 minutes. Stravinsky and his wife sit in front with Edgar Cree and listen to it all. Stravinsky is very tired and puts his feet up.
At interval Mum and Dad leave and I collect Ruth. We go across to café and she asks about Webster so I’m able to tell her that he’s improving. The Ormonds arrive – he dressed in a duffle coat and cap. Mr O says I brighten up the front row of the choir. They buy us cold drinks and we discuss everything.
Ruth and I return and are overwhelmed by a group of Parktown Girls who are most impressed with Ruth and me. Ruth tells them, “Of course, we’re not just singing in the Stravinsky concert. We’re in the SABC choir all the time.” She tells them that the Bach is pretty dreich! I have a good laugh at the word but she doesn’t even realise how Scottish it is.
We practise walking in. The steps are frightfully steep and we do the Bach again. We get tickets for tomorrow – “With the compliments of the SABC,” and some of them get Robert Craft’s autograph. He is conducting us, and Stravinsky is conducting Petrouchka. Mum and Dad enjoyed the rehearsal but thought it sounds a little weird.
22 May – Practise and then rest in the afternoon ready for the big occasion. I go into the City Hall in my long white dress. I stand with Ila Silansky and Anna Marie and we survey the audience. We go into the mayoral reception rooms to leave our things.
Ruth arrives wearing her mother’s coat so, as I have my coat on as well, we look like peas in a pod together. We go onto the stage of the crammed City Hall prepared for the concert. Anna Bender and Kathleen Allister look quite delightful as does Annie Kossman. Braam Ver Hoef, the orchestra leader, comes on and finally Robert Craft in white tie and tails, still looking very pale. We sing Vom Himmel Hoch and then he conducts the orchestra. After that we sing the Symphony of Psalms, which goes very well. We are given a tremendous ovation and Robert Craft brings Johan on to take a bow as the choirmaster. We all applaud him.
At the interval, we hear from all sides how wonderful everyone in the choir was – so young and talented, and wasn’t the symphony delightful? In the second half we are kept at least 5 minutes waiting for Stravinsky. Anton H leads him on to the stage. He looks around at the audience as though he is frightened and bows and waves his hands to them.
He conducts Fireworks and Petrouchka without a baton. His whole attention is focused on his music and he forgets the huge audience in the City Hall. He licks his finger each time he turns a page.
During Petrouchka heloses his place in the score but manages to find it again. Then it is all over and we hear the greatest ovation, possibly in the history of music in South Africa. Anton H has to lead him on three times more to take bows. The last time he leaves he pats each of the members of the orchestra that he passes, like a father.
We go outside and I wait with Iris for her husband. We see Percy Tucker and Dame Flora Robson with his party. She wears no make-up at all but looks a rather sweet woman.
23 May – Dora S praises Stravinsky to the heights but thinks Robert Craft and choir were bloodless and insignificant.
Oliver Walker praises Stravinsky but says Robert Craft is no “sorcerer’s apprentice”. He says that the third movement of the Psalms was good although the diction was poor. We sounded – says he – more harassed than exalted!
Go to Mrs S in the afternoon and do a lot of ear tests. I’m very good at them. Gill groans and moans about Johan, and Hartman not allowing her to see Robert Craft who has some of her music, and weren’t the write-ups awful?
I listen to Drawing Room at night – the second last one, alas. The soloists are Maisie Flink, Walter Mony, Graham Burns and Doris Brasch. It’s the best programme yet – lovely songs and nice instrumental pieces. Webster joins Graham Burns in a duet, Watchman, what of the night?
There is a picture of the choir with Stravinsky in the Star. I can pick myself out from the crowd on the stage quite well.
I am sitting with choir altos behind the orchestra.
24 May Anne phones about 11. “Hello, is that Mrs Campbell?” “No, this is Jean.” “Oh, Jean, this is Anne … Ziegler.”
She tells me she’s phoning about the audition tonight. Did Ruth tell me about it? Evidently they just want to see us if we’re in the SABC choir and we don’t have to sing. Anne says if we get accepted we had better “lie doggo” – an old British expression says she – from Johan for a bit and then talk to him about it afterwards. I tell Anne that we have decided to ask him if we may be excused for a few months but if he refuses we’ll just stay in the choir.
We discuss Stravinsky. She says she listened to the concert but it just isn’t her kind of music. She prefers a little more melody.
We discuss Webster’s sore teeth. She says he sweated it out on Monday morning and was determined to go into the studio in the afternoon but he just couldn’t make it and it was too late to phone me. He was in the whole of Tuesday but had a bad time of it. Today he’s gone to have the other tooth out and feels a little better.
She says she really appreciated my kind offer but didn’t like to phone me so late when I had Stravinsky to worry about. “Bless you,” says she. We spoke for twenty minutes on the phone.
At night Dad takes me to the Duncan Hall. I tell Ruth about Anne phoning and she says she had a lovely lesson. Anne told her that if you are unwell the first thing to go is the voice. She says that she’s unwell at the moment so hopes we don’t have to sing.
She says, “We’re the best-looking girls in the whole hall!” Anton Hartman arrives and tells us they need 7 altos, 8 sopranos, 10 tenors and 10 basses. Evidently we are in and are told to collect our music from Solly Aronowsky, 406 Internation House, Loveday Street. Ask for a Miss Basson. The first rehearsal is 6 June at Duncan Hall.
25 May – I receive £100-0-0 from Aunt Nellie! I nearly faint – my money worries are over for a while.
I go to the studio in the afternoon. Webster answers the door looking very smart in a black pinstripe suit. He says he still feels a bit grim, “But I think I’ll live.”
Boy, Chris, who cannot sing in tune is having a lesson. He is a bass and having awful trouble. Webster sings his song but Chris still cannot get it. Eventually he leaves after telling me I must have suffered and I must remember that he is strictly an amateur!
Anne is in no mood for giggling and tells me that the boy is hopeless and whenever he comes she goes and sits in the office. I say he does sing out of tune. Webster says that Chris is afraid he’ll ruin his piping or his rowing – why does he sing then? Anne says it takes her an hour to get over it every week.
They ask about the opera and I tell them how they want 10 basses and 10 tenors. He says, “Where will they get 10 tenors? There aren’t 10 tenors in Johannesburg!” Bragger!
We do scales and he keeps saying, “We must do set exercises and then record My Mother Bids Me.” He imitates my faults. As far as I can see, his teeth are all there!
Someone phones and Anne answers. He goes to the office and says, “Tell her you can’t talk now. You’re busy giving a lesson.”
She shouts, “I can’t do that. It would be rude!”
He comes out in an awful rage and tells me that it is such a cheek of people to phone in the middle of a lesson for once one runs late it’s quite fatal. He points out the few mistakes and I watch his hand tremble slightly. He fetches tea and Anne returns and we try to record second verse once more.
As I go, he asks, “How did you enjoy yourself? It’s the first time I’ve seen you since you got back from your holiday.” At least he remembered that I did go on holiday in the first place. I say I had a lovely time and he says, “Lucky girl. I wish I could get away!” If only he knew it – his life is an eternal holiday.
David Fletcher gives me a lift down Juno Street. At night I go to guild and we have a braai which is fun. Peter is very much in evidence.
27 May – Go to Sunday School and have my little boys for the last time. Feel quite sad.
I listen to G and S. He must have recorded this last Monday when he was still under the weather. He starts on Ruddigore and says that he never sang the tenor role in this because the tenor has to dance a hornpipe and no one ever took the trouble to teach him the hornpipe!
Of the main character he says, “He has the manners of a Marquis and the morals of a Methodist!”
29 May – In the afternoon I phone Ruth to check on address in International House. Her sister, very nicely spoken, answers the phone. Ruth says she had an awful lesson on Saturday and couldn’t sing to save her life. She also thought that Webster looks far better than usual.
30 May – We see Taxi to Tobruk with Hardy Kruger and listen to the last Drawing Room which is excellent. He sings a duet with Graham Burns – The Battle Eve.
1 June – Go to studio and Webster answers door wearing Wanderers Blazer. Christopher is having another unsuccessful lesson. He argues about opening throat and mouth and they argue back at him. Anne tells him that he will have to send his cheque and remember that there are 5 Fridays in the month.
Anne comes into the kitchen and talks to me. When Christopher leaves Anne goes to phone and Webster says in his possessive voice, “And how is Jean today?” I say, “Fine, and yourself?” He looks slightly pained and says, “Not too bad.”
We do exercises and he is impossible at trying to transpose on the piano, so I do it for him. He gets rather a shock. Must say that the piano is lovely. We carry on to his bad accompaniment.
Anne returns, complaining about the cold and all goes smoother. We do the unaccompanied piece and they say that it is good too and if I do go slightly sharp it is barely noticeable. He tells me to open my mouth wider and I say, “I can’t,” and he says “Oh, Jean, of course, you can!”
We also do My Mother on tape and this goes very nicely. Anne says that my tone and voice are lovely but, “Don’t be so stingy with it.”
They are very affable to me but jump down each other’s throats at an awful rate. “Put that cigarette out!” snaps Anne. As for the woman who comes after me, Anne says, “Oh, hello Mrs.. I shan’t be a moment.” She comes back to the studio and pulls a tortured face!
2 June – Go into town with Dad to fetch score of Tales of Hoffman from the music library and then go to Thrupps to meet Mum. While I am waiting there, who should come and look in the window but Leslie Green. I see that he goes into Polliacks Building presumably to the studio for tea – lucky creature!
In the SABC Bulletin there is an article mentioning the fortnightly programme Anne is to do starting about 19 June.
3 June – Play piano in Junior Sunday School today. Am given class of eight-year-olds including David Duly, a very sweet but ardent little boy.
In the G and S programme Webster plays his recording of The Lost Chord – about the third time he has played it but it is worth hearing more than once.
5 June – Listen to Leslie Green. He is going abroad soon and has had a yellow fever injection.
I go to a rehearsal at the Duncan Hall. Hartman and Company don’t turn up! I am livid as I had to drag poor Dad out for nothing.
6 June – Go to Doreen’s twenty-first birthday party at night and have good fun. Betty is there and also Mavis Knox. She has been learning singing for two years. She sang in this year’s eisteddfod but wasn’t placed. Peter is there and we dance and he tells me he’s leaving at the end of August to go to Sheffield for a year and isn’t really looking forward to it. Party finishes about midnight.
7 June – Go to town and have lunch with Mum. I go to the lunch hour concert in which Johan conducts, and Gert Potgieter is the soloist. I say hello to German cellist and meet a lady from the choir.
Outside of Ansteys I meet Mrs O in a skirt just like mine and a suede jacket. I tell her of the happenings of last night and she is disgusted. She says Johan might ask us to resign from the choir if we go into the opera, and the choir is better for us at this stage.
I buy a skirt after much searching and see Peter Spargo on the bus coming home.
Ruth phones to tell me that owing to the exams she is writing in August she feels it would be wiser to leave the opera. Says she had a very distressing lesson on Sunday and at the end of it she felt miserable. They told her that they criticise her because her voice is worth bothering about – there are only 6 or 7 pupils whose voices are worth worrying about and therefore they criticise them. They certainly criticise me. She says she’s sure I’m one of the chosen few!
Tells me that Alan (her boyfriend) had a car crash and is suffering from shock. The Parktown girls who were at the Stravinsky rehearsal put the event into the School magazine saying that she and Mrs S sang in the SABC choir!
I tell her about Anne making faces behind people’s backs and we agree that we ought to take what Anne says with a pinch of salt.
8 June Have a last look at the theory for the exam and go to the studio. Webster answers the door and, as I have skates with me, he says, “Hello, what have we here? Been or going?” Anne tells me that she used to skate with some girlfriends until she nearly broke her neck.
I tell them about goings-on at the opera and they are quite disgusted. We see the crowns being removed from His Majesty’s buildings and I say perhaps they will replace them with heads of Dr Verwoerd. Anne says she really hates this country. She tells me they are also teaching in Boksburg now and she finds it rather tiring.
9 June – Go to write the theory exams at the Selbourne Hall. We sit in rows rather like the workhouse and Arnold Fulton regards us closely in case anyone cheats. All goes well.
In Pritchard Street I bump into a dreamy-eyed Ruth who tells me she’s been “with them” for an hour and ten minutes. They discussed Wednesday’s happenings and are furious and want someone – maybe Mr O – to write to the paper about it.
I go to the Old Girls Reunion with Betty and Doreen and see a number of old school friends and teachers there. I am developing laryngitis.
10 June – Remain in bed with laryngitis. Listen to G and S. Webster continues with Ruddigore and says that when they were in Ireland (just after the revolution) a small Union Jack was taken on stage. They had to crawl home to their lodgings to avoid the wrath of the irate Irish.
11 June – Still ill. Sir Malcolm “my old friend and colleague” is coming to South Africa next year.
12 June – Mum and I are both in bed with laryngitis! It is her birthday today.
13 June – Ruth phones. She talks of her sisters and tells me that they are both prettier than her. “My middle sister is a real classic beauty but she isn’t a very nice person!” She is busy with exams.
14 June – Go to lunch hour concert to allay boredom in the house. Norman Bailly, a baritone, sings and is really excellent. I see Andy Johnson, the drummer. Anton Hartman is the conductor.
15 June – Still a bit fluish but I go to my lesson anyway. Anne answers door dressed in “fly-away” coat and big orange hat! She is affable and I go into kitchenette and hear Christopher braying away having most unsuccessful lesson in which Anne asks him coldly, “Do you ever practise?” They are starting to paper the kitchen and are having the studio redecorated.
When I go in she goes to phone someone. Webster says to me, “Well, my lady, d’ye know what we’re going to do today? We’re going to record the exercises. Smile; make the adjudicator enjoy them and charm him at the same time!”
We do exercises which go very well and he is pleased but tells me to do them a bit quicker so that they sound jollier!
We go on to the studies and he says I’m still putting a few ‘hs’ into them and I must constantly think about not doing that! He says that maybe if I accent the ahs I’ll be able to get out of the habit. The Germans stick in “h” but, being English, he cannot tolerate the habit. In oratorio, it sounds awful and he is distressed that Jennifer Vyvyan does it. We do it again and it goes better.
Anne finishes phoning and comes out to tell him that as two people have ‘flu and can’t come, she’s put off the third one as well. He is delighted and says to me sardonically, “We love our work!”
We record the two exercises and although the tone is good, the tempo drags and I don’t observe the hairpins. He says that Ruth has exactly the same fault and we both have to learn the expression marks off by heart. He says I must think of it as a gay dance – even though it isn’t and must interpret the studies as I would songs. In the second study I mustn’t lag on the run and must practise it – also there’s a place where I must breathe where I don’t!
I certainly learn a lot today if it’s any consolation to me. Anne tells that their servant, Hilda has ‘flu too and is delirious and singing. He says he wishes he could have caught her singing.
He comes down with me on the lift to put 3d in the meter. We have to wait ages for it and spend time moaning about it. When it arrives he displays his excellent manners. The building worker comes on as well and he is most affable to him. He ushers me out, hand on my shoulder all the way, talks jovially to the worker about RCA, and tells me to have a look at the studies at home. He knows they aren’t particularly nice but I must have a good attitude of mind towards them. He smokes his famous Gold Flake and when he says goodbye to me he dashes up Pritchard street, still smoking.
16 June – Go into town in the morning and do various chores – library etc. Meet Dad in Galaxy and then we see Circle of Fire at the Empire – excellent.
Freddie Carlé plays Hear My Song, Violetta by my friends and says, “I hope Anne and Webster are listening up in Johannesburg. Greetings to you.”
17 June – Sunday school. Play piano and have a fresh collection of little boys to teach.
Listen to G and S at night and it is lovely. He starts playing the Yeomenof the Guard and bursts into I have a Song to Sing-O and plays a record made 40 years ago. “Listen to dear old Peter Dawson as he was when a very young man of 40!” Lovely.
18 June – Work hard during the day and go to the SABC at night. First person I meet is Andy Johnson. Sit with Anna-Marie and Hester, and see John Walker, Douggie Laws, Ken Espen and Hugh Rouse, also Harry Stanton. Quite a collection.
Go with Gill for dinner and when we come back Johan asks us to go to his office to collect the Stravinsky score. He is most affable and has a lovely comfortable office.
Ruth comes and tells me of a great calamity in Domestic Science over a misunderstanding about the “thrift article” she had to make this afternoon. She spent the afternoon crying while she was making it – poor Ruth.
We work on Ninth Symphony and Die Lied van Jong Suid Afrika – the latter for a commercial recording with an orphanage choir.
Ruth tells me at the interval that Anne has ‘flu so she had him on Saturday and had a wonderful time. Poor Anne. I was quite horrible about her on Friday and she was probably feeling ghastly. Ruth says she prefers having him to teach her. Anne’s fine as a friend but she doesn’t like having lessons with her. I come home with Iris Williams who is nice.
19 June – Practise in morning and then go into town for a photograph for an audition. Have lunch with Mum. Come home on bus with Gill Mc D.
21 June – Go to lunch hour concerts and guess who I have sitting next to me? Mr Ormond. He says that he had a feeling his secretary had asked to leave early to go to the concert so he was there to check up on her. He is very affable – talks about music, the opera, the Booths, and tells me they’re going to have tea in the mayoral parlour with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra soon and is delighted about it. He’s rather a snob but quite sweet. I say that I see Walter Mony is going to play and he says he isn’t good enough. I’ll swear WM was sitting in front of us so I feel awful.
Concert conducted by Edgar Cree is excellent and soloist, Helena van Heerden plays well. Go to Mrs S and have a good lesson. She says I have improved vastly. Listen to Leslie Green at home – he is going abroad tomorrow.
22 June Anne’s 52nd birthday. Go to studio and Anne answers door – still wearing a hat. Christopher is singing The Volga Boatman – very badly.
After his lesson I go in and say I heard she has had ‘flu. She says that she hasn’t had ‘flu but Webster has gone down with it and as he is supposed to go to Bulawayo on Monday to adjudicate at the eisteddfod there, she’s awfully worried. His temperature was 102 degrees. On Sunday he felt awful and couldn’t breathe and she thought he was having a coronary thrombosis. She tried to be calm and sent him to lie down and called the doctor. Antibiotics don’t work with him so the doctor said he was going to let him sweat it out. She says he looks really haggard – about ninety – and has lost a lot of weight.
“Poor darling, I do feel sorry for him, but what can I do?” She stops and then says, “Honestly, Jean, I’ve had more than I can stand with his abscessed tooth and now this. If I have any more trouble, I don’t know what I’ll do.” Her eyes fill with tears and I feel simply dreadful and terribly sorry for her.
She says that if he can’t go he wants her to go but she can’t leave the studio to him because he isn’t in a fit state to deal with it.
Sing all three songs and studies and they all go very well. I can sing much better when Webster isn’t there, although I adore him!
She is pleased with singing but tells me to sing through the vowels of Polly Oliver. She promises to look up the JV record to see from which county it comes. We talk about the studio where we will do the exam – shall be glad when it is over – and all is reasonably cheerful although I feel quite miserable about Webster.
I say goodbye and that I hope Webster will be all right and able to go to Rhodesia. Poor Anne. It is her birthday today but as I learnt this from the Stage Who’s Who I felt embarrassed about wishing her a happy birthday because she’d know then that I know her age. I wish I could have cheered her up today – she really is a darling no matter how insincere she is at times, and she is having a horrible time at the moment.
Go to guild at night – we have a debate about eugenics which is reasonably interesting if a bit depressing.
Webster arrives in Bulawayo to adjudicate the eisteddfod.
Anthony Quail in Stoep Talk wishes Anne a happy birthday and quotes a bit from the Stage Who’s Who!
Happy birthday to: Anne Ziegler, well-known for musical and romantic roles on stage and in films, was born in Liverpool, England.
Irené Eastwood, her real name, married Webster Booth, the well-known tenor in 1938 and two years later began their double act.
They have made extensive tours of South Africa, Australia and New Zealand and have appeared at many of the leading theatres and music halls in London and the Provinces.
In 1956, due to the high rate of British taxation, the Booths settled in South Africa. A year later, Anne Ziegler played her first straight stage role in South Africa in Angels in Love at the then Reps theatre, and has since appeared in numerous plays, operas and SABC broadcasts.
23 June – Go into town with Mummy in the morning but I feel very ill and almost faint so am brought home again in a taxi! Feel absolutely ghastly for the rest of the day. However, we manage to get the SABC bulletin which tells of Anne’s new programmed called Music for Romance starting a week on Tuesday. There is an article about her in which she is very arch and talks about Boo! Imagine using that name in public!
24 June – Very weak today. I listen to Time to Remember at night presented by Leslie Bayley. Also listen to Life with the Lyons which I love.
Webster – poor darling – is wonderful tonight and goes on with Yeomen of the Guard – vamping, kissing and marrying with Martyn Green – all glorious.
25 June – Go to choir at night. Gill comes first and then Ruth. I talk to her beforehand and hear a story about poor Webster. As Ruth had to return a record to them she went along after church last night still in her choir robes. She asked Anne if she could see him and Anne agreed reluctantly. She says she’s never seen anyone looking quite so ill in her life. There he was, lying with all the clothes pulled up over him and his hair hanging all over his face, his medicine bottles on one side, looking absolutely ghastly. Ruth says she felt like crying for him – he looked so ill. Poor, poor sweet old Webster – Bless him!
Apparently, it is quite definite that he went to Bulawayo today.
We work hard and practise madly. Ruth is going on holiday and promises to write – I hope she will. No one could ever have a nicer friend than Ruth. We work hard again and then Gill, Iris and I go for coffee and Iris gives me a lift home.
I don’t honestly think I would have dared to ask Anne to see Webster when he was so sick. In fact, it was rather a cheek, but I can see Ruth’s point in a way. I know she adores and worships him and I’m afraid I do too.
27 June – Work in the morning and have lunch with Mum. Go up to Mrs S’s studio and Gill tells me she’s going to have clarinet lessons with delightful, handsome, bearded oboist, Gerrit Bon, who plays in the orchestra! We do ear exercises and sing and it is all rather fun. Svea and Elaine have very bad colds.
At night Anne phones and before I go to the phone I know it is her. She says she has an appointment on Friday afternoon. We both know this is a lie – and seeing there are 5 Fridays in the month, do I mind not having a lesson. She’ll make it up in July when the little boy before me goes on holiday. I say that’s all right and ask after Webster. She says he went to Bulawayo on Monday looking absolutely ghastly but perhaps the heat up there will cure him. I say that he probably needs to be taken out of himself and I hope he’ll be all right. As she is obviously phoning oodles of people we say goodbye – see you a week on Friday. She isn’t really a very good liar.
I’m going to listen to Make Mine Music to cheer me up!
28 June – Work in the morning and then have lunch with Mum and feel – I must admit – grim and depressed.
I go to the lunch hour concert. Johan conducts well but looks rather miserable also. The Lyra Vocal Quartet are soloists – Doris Brasch, Sarie Lamprecht, Gert Potgieter and Graham Burns. Gert P is the best singer. Sarie L looks and sings grimly. Doris B opens her mouth a mile and Graham B sings well but looks morose. They are very good as a whole.
30 June – Sleep late today. Ruth will be gone on holiday by now. Mum and Dad go to a party in the afternoon and we are going to pictures at night. We see Pollyanna with Hayley Mills and Jane Wyman. It is a really lovely show and a great tear-jerker. We have supper out afterwards.
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
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.
Gibert and Sullivan programme.
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.
Programme for the Andersonville Trial.
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.
The Drawing Room
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.
Drawing Room programmes.
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.
I come home – on air. I believe I enjoyed my little talk with Anne better than anything else that afternoon – except Webster of course. I noticed that she also clapped violently for Webster and laughed loudly at all his jokes. She probably didn’t want to be recognised because she did look a little bit of a sight.
2 August – Another interview – at this rate I will never get the job I want – or even the job I don’t want!
3 August – I am thankful to see Webster looking hale and hearty when I go to studio. I ask how he is and he says in self-pitying little voice, “Well, I’m not as bad as I was but it’s still hanging over me, but I’ll soon shake it off.” He tries to make a cup of tea but a fuse blows so he is upset because we can’t have tea after all. Listen to Dell singing Il Bacio – very well, I must admit. Hear Anne telling her that she started to learn languages as part of her musical training with John Tobin and, of course, she went all over the continent with her family.
Anne tells Dell to sing the last part of the song again and Dell says, “I think I’ve done enough for today, Miss Ziegler. Apparently she doesn’t want ME to hear her sing badly. Anne says, “Well, we’ll shut the door!”
When Dell goes I pay Anne and start on scales. She is thrilled with my tongue in the exercises. We go up quite high – On the high note my voice goes back and she imitates me and then says, “That’s unkind, isn’t it?” and I say, “Yes,” with my tongue in my cheek. She says, “Jean, you’ll have to excuse my hands,” and glances fondly at her lily-white, smooth hands, “But I’ve been gardening like mad yesterday. Someone gave me some plants and they simply had to go in.” I make a polite remark and somehow cannot imagine her digging in the garden.
We start on Oh Love and Anne makes Webster come and sing it with me. He can’t read the words so he sings them incorrectly. She looks around at him and he IS quite injured at being pulled up by her. Anyway, Webster and I get on quite well, but we must have looked a jolly funny couple of duettists as he’s about 43 years older than me. She says I must imagine that I am Delilah, trying to woo Samson and cut his hair off, and look on the aria vulgarly as chorus, verse, chorus, as they do in the jolly old musical comedy. “Singing is like selling Cappuccino stockings in John Orrs. You have to put everything you know into it to sell your songs.” Nice vulgar ideas from an ethereal Sweetheart of Song!
I tell her that I was listening to my voice on the tape and it sounds very cold and she replies with the nice, well-worn lecture, “Smile, use your eyes, have no inhibitions. She writes “Smile” on top of the Delilah song and says, “I should add ‘darn you’ as well, shouldn’t I? Yes?”
I depart and she admires my colour scheme. I say goodbye to Webster and he replies. He’s like a spaniel puppy today.
I go up to choir at night and tell Mr S that I want to sing a solo in the choir sometime. He is delighted and says that he’s crying out for soloists. When we come home, Mr S tells Mrs Weakly that I’m going to sing a solo. I don’t know whether she thinks this is a good idea or not!
Webster at night – I listen and record the programme. He starts off with two items from the Beecham recording of Solomon, a choral piece from the Brahms Requiem to Robert Schumann. Then he plays his own recording from Rigoletto, This One or That One, Care Nome sung by “my old friend, Gwen Catley, one of the most popular coloratura sopranos in Britain.” Gwen Catley has a lovely lyrical voice and she is really gorgeous. Then comes the quartet from Rigoletto – Webster, Edith Coates, Arnold Matters and Noel Eadie.
King’s Rhapsody. Webster and Anne were asked by Ivor to make duet arrangements of – Someday My Heart will Awake and The Gates of Paradise, and finally We’ll Gather Lilacs from Perchance to Dream.
4 August – At night the guild goes to Fotheringham’s bakery and we have a bread-making demonstration. I go with Joan, Ann, Dorothy and Mr and Mrs Spargo. Mr S says that instead of gadding about they could be listening to programmes on the radio, “like to your singing teacher, Jean.”
We have an interesting time at the bakery and cakes and drinks afterwards. On the way home Mrs S raves about the Booths. She tells me that she loves his programme. “He’s a lovely, kindly man – is he like that in real life?” “Yes, he’s a honey.”
“Anne Ziegler is sweet too of course. I remember hearing them sing Messiah and they sang it so reverently. They’re a lovely, humble, reverent couple and I love the way he says “Anne and I” on the radio.” They ask where they live and where their studio is and I tell them about singing with Webster yesterday and about his ‘flu. We part on very good terms.
7 August – Go into town to the dentist and meet Muriel Hicks and Michelle Aronstam from Vanderbijlpark. Both are at Teachers’ Training college, as is Janet Lockhart-Ross, and Biddy Lawrence. Jackie Keenan and Irene Stanton are at Natal Varsity. Betsy Draper is doing a Rhodesian matric and Pam Nicolai and Valerie le Cordeur work at Iscor.
8 August. – Go skating in morning and practise in the afternoon. Listen to Ivor Dennis at night and he reaches the very top of my list by playing a record by Webster – by Coleridge-Taylor. He says, “Most of the listeners will probably know that Webster and his charming wife came to settle here some years ago and they are heard often on the radio.” He is a sweet old man and plays very nicely indeed.
10 August – Go for an interview at SABC – very Afrikaans indeed. Talk to Pieter de Waal on the lift. I don’t think I’m going to get a job there!
Go to the studio and Webster answers the door in kindly, unclish fashion. Dell doesn’t do so well today and I am happy – bad me! When I go into the studio Anne is powdering her face and tells me that her eyes feel as though she has been crying for two days. They are happy with my scales and I feel a little more self-confident than I have done lately. Webster says, “Now do the same with Delilah’s aria.”
He makes tea and Anne says brightly, “Let’s have some of the new biscuits. Will you have one, Jean? They’re delicious.” We go on with the Samson and Delilah aria and they say it has improved but I must clip my consonants with the tip of the tongue. Webster is very red in the face today and doesn’t look very well. Anne gives me a few tongue exercises for my consonants and Webster dashes off to put 3d in his parking meter. I tell Anne that I might be starting work soon and what shall I do about lessons? She says that after 5 pm is a busy time but she’ll arrange something – never fear. She sounds reassuring so I hope she can.
11 August – Listen to Webster at night – he doesn’t play any of his own records. First Owen Brannigan singing The Trumpet Shall Sound, something from the Brahms’ Requiem, a chant by a Russian choir, and arias from Othello and songs from Kismet.
17 August – Go for interview at Barclays Bank, Simmond Street. I’m going to start there in October. Have lunch with Mummy and then go to Afrikaans eisteddfod and see about 20 little grade one girls singing – eek!
Go up to studio and Webster answers door and says in funny accent, “Helloo – Sit ye down.” Listen to Dell singing. Anne says something about Dell going to night spots and they suggest she is “hitting the bottle!” Dell goes out. She is wearing a leopard skin coat. I go in and Webster says impudently, “And how is Delilah today?” They are in the throes of the Afrikaans eisteddfod and have had two firsts and a second and hope for a few more prizes tonight. She is dressed to kill in a dress made of coat material.
Scales go quite well and they are pleased with high B. Webster says the Delilah aria is too pedantic and does one of his gruesome imitations. He says I must think of my voice as a ‘cello, and pretends he is playing it. He is funny at times. Anne tells me how much she likes my white hat. She says, “Oh, it’s sweet, isn’t it, Boo?” He studies it for a moment and says that it’s utterly charming. We say goodbye and I grin at Roselle, whose mother is with her. Come down on the lift whistling Only a Rose in complete abandon.
At choir I sing solo 4 times. I am to sing it on Sunday night. Am listening to Webster now. He plays excerpts from La Bohème – him singing Your Tiny Hand is Frozen, then the duet in the last act with Webster and Joan Cross, and a duet with Dennis Noble.
20 August – Practise song for tonight – God help me! Absolutely massive congregation (for our church) about 80 or 90 and I feel grim – cold hands, warm face, and I try to think uplifting and confident thoughts. My doom arrives and I manage through it fairly well if not a bit tremblingly in my own heart.
Everyone in the choir says that it is good and I feel relieved that it is over. Well, that is my first solo over with reasonable success and I don’t think I let my parents or Webster and Anne down too badly. Let’s hope that future solos will be successively one per cent better and that I will actually enjoy singing them. Whew!
21 August – Go to eisteddfod in afternoon at Library theatre. Girls (Form 2) sing solos – My Skat is ‘n Boerseun.
24 August – I practise the piano in the morning and then go to the Booths in the afternoon. Webster answers and looking worried, says, “I didn’t even hear you knocking!” We start on scales and they are both delighted – I get B flat comfortably. They make me smile while I’m singing. Webster does this in wicked fashion by mimicking me and then he makes me sing The Lass with the Delicate Air and makes me smile again. High A in this is beautiful and they think so too.
Everything goes well. After about four lines of Delilah aria Anne stops me and I wonder what on earth I have done wrong. Webster looks quite thrilled and says, “That note was absolutely beautiful.” Anne says she had to stop me to tell me so. I feel very flattered. We do the aria again and work through it thoroughly.
Anne says, “You have a really lovely voice but you mustn’t be so mean with it – you must let everyone hear its beauty.” I say, “It must be the Scots in me,” and we all have a good laugh.
Anne says that she’s been using all her spare time for the garden and her hands are in a terrible state – they look like the hands of a charwoman. I look at them – they’re lily-white – so I can’t resist saying that they look very nice. She says they’re very dry and she always puts oil in her bath for them but it still doesn’t help.
Webster goes down to put money in the parking meter. She says they have a recording of Delilah at home so she’ll lend it to me. It is done by Risé Stevens. I say that this is very kind of her.
She has a violent choking fit – swallows saliva wrong way and dashes up and into the kitchen to get some water. While she is there Roselle arrives with friend and I hear her telling Anne that friend has a lovely voice and she’d like Anne to audition her and give her verdict. Friend is evidently very nervous but she still thinks that Anne will put her into an opera right away!
Webster comes back and I finish the aria with reasonable success. Webster tells me, “You may think you look silly, but you don’t.”
Listen to Webster at night. He starts by playing O Thou That Tellest by a counter-tenor. He then plays Lift Up Your Heads by Jo’burg African Choral society. Very well sung indeed. He goes on to La Bohème – a well-known aria on every page. He goes on to Naughty Marietta and then plays, Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life “sung by Anne and myself.” Afterwards he says, “Well, that was Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth!” He plays out with the Pizzicato Polka.
He’s singing a solo on Monday night at the Yeoville Presbyterian Church.
26 August – At night I notice Webster’s solo appearance mentioned in the church columns and also get quite a shock.
27August – The other day when Dell asked if she could change her lesson to Tuesday, Anne said, “Well, it’s OK for this Tuesday but the next week is his first night.” I thought at the time that she meant they were going to Lucia di Lammermoor in Pretoria but it says in the paper tonight that Webster is playing in the West End comedy success The Amorous Prawn as the title character, with Joan Blake and Simon Swindell! I didn’t even know about it. Dad says we can go to see Webster in the play so that’s something to look forward to.
28 August – Sunday school. Mark is very naughty. In the afternoon go to Spargos and have a lovely time. We go for a drive and see Waverley, the block of flats where Webster and Anne used to live. We look in Rosebank shops. When we arrive back Mrs S pumps me with innumerable questions about Webster and Anne – Are they well off? Are they religious? I say I think they’re quite comfortable, that they are Anglicans but I don’t say whether they are religious. After dinner we go to Church. Ann comes and tells me that my singing last Sunday was gorgeous and it was a very difficult thing to sing. Leona says she liked the singing but not the aria! I wonder if the Spargos want Joan to do singing. Poor them – they’d be a little worried if they could see the huge picture of Webster and Anne advertising beer!
Webster, Joan Blake and Ronald Wallace in The Amorous Prawn
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29 August – Go into town today for an interview with Sylvia Sullivan with whom I’m going to study piano. She has a very nice studio in Edinburgh Court in Von Brandis Street– quite a few rooms to it. She is middle-aged possibly as old as Anne. She is quite plump but very nice. I’m going to start next Wednesday.
I have to go to dentist afterwards so I go into John Orrs to kill time. The first person I see is Dell carrying a big bunch of flowers, with eye shadow plastered indiscriminately round the relevant regions and wearing her artificial leopard skin coat. She is going up to Webster and Anne. She has changed her time – perhaps because she doesn’t want me to hear her singing. She doesn’t see me but I expect she wouldn’t have been very affable had she seen me. I wonder if the flowers were for Anne.
30 August – Have lunch with mum and then pay another call to the dentist. I’ll be glad when it’s all over for another three months. At night I see another picture of Webster in paper with the rest of the cast – Simon Swindell, Gabriel Bayman, Joan Blake and Victor Melleney. Joan B has a protective arm around Webster’s shoulder. Caption is, “Comedy rehearsal is no joke,” and the whole cast looks grim. Webster looks cute with monocle but what will Anne say about Joan B?
Amorous Prawn rehearsal.
31 August – My 18th Birthday. Go for lesson and Anne is wearing a black jersey – very sexy indeed. A girl is there singing an Afrikaans song terribly and they battle over it with her. She tells them that she is having pupils on Saturday from a quarter to eight till 5 in the afternoon. She says she is not a bit nervous about singing because she has been on the stage since she was three. She is singing this song at a wedding and is worried about it. I expect, by the way she talks, that she will be a really gorgeous-looking girl, but she isn’t. She is tall with glasses and I dislike her on sight!
They are both thrilled with my scales but Anne says I must smile. She takes me over to the mirror so that I can practise there and puts her arm around me in protective fashion. I look in the mirror feeling like a cabbage next to her. I don’t really understand why I should smile when I’m singing scales!
We do Delilah aria and Webster says I mustn’t do it like a little girl because I am a grown woman! I say that I’m afraid to sing too loud in case I go out of tune. He says, “Well, you’re here to learn to sing, so sing out of tune!” We go through the aria again with reasonable success. Anne says I must fill in all the vowel sounds for next week to see that I understand which ones I must use. I say, a little sarcastically, that instead of going out at night I can sit at home doing this!
Roselle’s mother phones to say that Roselle can’t come because she has an inflamed throat and has to stay in bed. Anne says to Webster, “I hope you reminded her that it is a five-week month so we won’t be making up the lesson.” No word of sympathy for poor Roselle and her throat.
When I go, I remark that I hope it will soon be cooler and she says, “Oh, but I love the summer. I think it’s gorgeous.”
I listen to Webster on the radio. He starts with the Sanctus from the Solemn Mass by Beethoven with Elisabeth Schwartzkopf and three other German singers. Webster says that the music is very hard on the voice. He plays Malotte’s setting of the Lord’s Prayer sung by himself. Gerald Moore and Bertram Harrison are his accompanists. It is lovely. At this very moment, I am of the opinion that Webster is far more sincere in what he says than Anne. He has Magic Flute as his opera, one of the two operas in which he sang at Covent Garden (NOT the principal role). He plays the opening scene from Gypsy Baron and this is really lovely. Webster forgot to bring the Samson and Delilah record for me. Perhaps he is too busy with the play.
SEPTEMBER 1961
5 September – Have lunch with mum. Opening night of The Amorous Prawn. Peter phones at night.
6 September – Go for piano lesson with Sylvia Sullivan in the afternoon. She says that I can do a Senior Trinity College exam and seems quite pleased with my playing. Start on set work and she is stickler about fingering. She is very good but quite impersonal – quite the opposite to Webster and Anne. Her niece, Svea Ward, brings her a cup of coffee but certainly not to me! Now look at Webster and Anne – the great man makes tea himself and then gives us all a cup into the bargain!
Oliver Walker’s crit in the Star is a dream as far as Webster is concerned. He says that he has a wonderful sense of timing.
We go to the Strattons at night and we are showered with Ann’s handiwork made in connection with the Teachers’ Training College.
Article about Mabel Fenney – back in South Africa on a visit from Berlin. She is returning to Berlin to complete here course. (Below)
7 September – Go into town in the afternoon and book for The Amorous Prawn matinee next Saturday. Go up to Webster and Anne and Webster answers the door as large as life and in quite a gay mood.
My friend Dell is in having lesson once more, singing Mimi’s aria from La Bohème and breathing badly. Anne gives her usual breathing lecture and makes her practise. Dell says, somewhat sarcastically, “I had better take up swimming to improve my breathing.” Anne says that the area around her own ribs is quite hard which is unusual for a woman and also very large. She used to be quite tiny when she was young – 89,000 years ago – but intercostal breathing developed her. She goes on about how healthy it is to breathe properly and yesterday morning after Webster’s first night when they both felt like hell, breathing did them good.
I go in and pay. Webster asks if I’d like some tea and I say I would love a cup. Anne shouts through – “Boo – will you bring the biscuits, darling?” She asks if I’m going to see him in his play and I say, “Yes. I booked today for next Saturday’s matinee.”
Anne says, “Oh, sweet! It’s really a wonderful play. The first night was one of the best I’ve been to – the audience laughed right through the whole three hours. Being British, I think you’ll really enjoy it.” I say that the crits were wonderful and she agrees emphatically. Webster says I mustn’t expect to see him till about 5 o’clock. He’s actually very modest about the whole thing.
We start on scales and she makes me smile into a little mirror. I get it right but my cheeks tremble for some reason. She, of course, has to notice this.”
She corrects the Delilah vowels – I tell her that she’ll have to excuse it because I was ill at the weekend when I did it. She is all sympathy and finds out that I had a stomach chill. Most of the vowels are right. She tests them as she goes through it and says, “This would sound funny on the tape.”
When we do the aria they are both very happy about it and say that there is an improvement. Webster goes to put 6d in the meter. She says the aria has come on very nicely and next week we must do something about the consonants.
When we have tea and Anne has a biscuit, she says, “I shouldn’t have this really. I’m getting so fat!” I almost choke with derisive laughter! Thankfully, I don’t say the inevitable, “Oh, nonsense, Anne. Look at me!”
I happen to be wearing a copper bracelet for it matches the clip in my hair. Anne says she hopes I’m not suffering from rheumatism. We have a good laugh about it.
I meet Webster at the bottom of the stairs and say goodbye to him.
I go to choir at night and we work through anthem which is lovely – I hope they do it properly on Sunday.
Listen to Webster at night. He presents a really charming programme. He starts with Elijah and says that it’s popular because it’s tuneful music and he thinks that, first and foremost, music should be tuneful. He plays a duet sung by Isobel Baillie and Gladys Ripley, conducted by Sir Malcolm. Next, he plays his own recording If, With All Your Hearts, with Warwick Braithwaite conducting, next Is Not His Word Like a Fire? By Harold Williams. He plays three arias from the Magic Flute, more from Gypsy Baron and ends with Nutcracker suite.
9 September – In the Star there is a gorgeous picture of an almost aristocratic-looking Anne with Mr Leslie Green at first night of Amorous Prawn.
10 September Sunday Times crit by James Ambrose Brown is also excellent and says much the same about Webster – suave, man of the world. Very nice.
Mum and I go with the Diamonds to Hartebeespoort dam and we skirt Craighall Park. I like it very much – it isn’t anything like Houghton but just nice, and in-between and quite modern.
12 September – Go into town and have lunch with Mum. We decide that as I am presumably going to start work soon I should go today and see Anne to arrange a time for my lessons.
She phones and Webster answers and tells him that it is Mrs Campbell, Jean’s mother. He says, “Oh yes, how d’ye do?” Mum asks to speak to Anne and he says, “Who?” and eventually obliges with Anne who says I can come at half past one.
I go up to the studio. Webster answers the door. He opens door, looks at me and says in outraged manner, “What the dickens are you doing here?” I tell him that I have an appointment at half past one and he looks relieved and tells me to have a seat for a few minutes. There is a big bass singing very loudly. Hear Webster cursing the kettle – “My God, this kettle’s got too damn hot!”
Anne comes in to see me, dressed in tight skirt and dark over-blouse. Her hair is almost straight but attractive as always. She goes through her appointment book while big bass continues to sing. We decide on Friday at 5.30 for next week. She asks, “Are you glad you’re starting work?” I say, “Not particularly. I’ve enjoyed doing nothing!”
13 September – Go for piano lesson in afternoon. I feel more at home with Mrs S now.
14 September – Go to Anne in afternoon. She answers the door looking glorious in a very low-cut summer dress. A girl is singing Hello, Young Lovers – not very well. Anne says, “That must be the Irish in you.” The girl says quite vehemently that there is no Irish blood in her. Anne says, “Oh, surely – with a name like Maureen!”
Maureen departs I get a surprise when I see that it is Maureen Schneider who was at college with me.
Anne and I have discussion about times and come to reasonably satisfactory arrangements. Webster presents me with the Samson and Delilah record with a really seductive picture on the cover. Anne says we should listen to it here first so while Webster sets up the record we start on scales. She makes me go to the mirror to see that I drop my jaw right down and then she comes over and puts her arm round me and we do it together. She says that my scales are really lovely.
Webster plays the aria and says I have in my own voice all the power and quality of Risé Stevens if I would project and bring it forward and work. He wants to hear me singing with as much richness as Risé Stevens next week. I have a wonderful voice and I must use it. I feel quite embarrassed but it must be true – he doesn’t say things without meaning them.
Webster makes tea and I sing the aria – well, I think. Webster goes to put 3d in the meter. Anne says she doesn’t think I’m too young to sing Delilah because she had a friend, Nancy Evans and she sang it at 16. She tells me that when she was 17 she joined a women’s choir of 24 voices and received more training in it than anywhere else.
I tell her that I know Maureen and Anne says she seems a sweet girl but hasn’t got a voice anywhere near mine.
We go on with the aria and it goes well. Webster’s suit arrives and Anne signs for it. Webster is in the kitchen with Roselle who is making a frantic attempt to wash the dishes. I depart with record and the signature of Webster Booth scrawled all over it.
I go to choir and then listen to Webster. Today is the 220th anniversary of Messiah so he plays some of it. It was first produced in Dublin where you can get gorgeous shrimps. Handel discovered that one of the singers – a little man from the North wasn’t singing in the right time. He said to him in broken English, “I zot you zed zat you could seeng at sight?” Replied the man, “Ay, so I did, but not at first sight!” His accents are gorgeous and I have a good laugh. He plays the chorus, The Glory of the Lord.
At the opening ladies were requested not to come to the performance wearing hoops. He, himself, has given a recital in the same music hall and he liked it. He plays his own recordings from Messiah and says that this is one of his favourite recordings and one of his best.
He goes on to Madame Butterfly which he says he doesn’t like it very much as it is built around two arias, The Love Duet and One Fine Day.
He goes on to Eldorado by Ralph Trewhela. He says it was originally written for “Anne and myself” for a radio programme but because Anne had so many commitments he was “ably partnered by Doris Brasch”.
15 September – Go to guild at night. I give the epilogue which goes very well and everyone congratulates me about it. We practise for Guild Sunday and they can’t manage one of the hymns so Mrs Russell makes the 4 from the choir sing it alone. Once again I practically sing a solo. I have to do the reading and talk about the work.
Peter walks Doreen, and me home and I get home at about 11.
16 September – We go to see Webster’s play and it is really gorgeous. When we arrive the first people I meet are Claire Judelman and Adele Fisher. Claire tells me about European trip and I tell her I’m here to see my singing teacher. First two acts are good and at the beginning of the third act I see a woman slipping in to the theatre and think it is Anne. Webster comes on – handsome, well-dressed, young-looking – perfect for his role. His diction is glorious, his acting well-timed. He makes the play and when he takes his bow I clap until my hands are red and almost blistered.
I see that Anne slips out the minute the lights go up and I am a little disappointed but when we get outside I see her a little way down the road talking to a fat garrulous man. She is wearing the same dress that she wore on Thursday, flat shoes and straight hair. I go up to her and her face lights up and I tell her, “Oh, Anne, I thought your husband was lovely.” She says, “Oh, I’m so glad you liked him. Did you enjoy the play?” I say, “Oh, yes, it was wonderful. Please tell Webster I thought he was lovely.” She asks if I came with my parents and when she sees them she smiles in charming fashion.
I come home – on air. I believe I enjoyed my little talk with Anne better than anything else that afternoon – except Webster of course. I noticed that she also clapped violently for Webster and laughed loudly at all his jokes. She probably didn’t want to be recognised because she did look a little bit of a sight. The blurb in the programme reads:
17 September – Go and have all my little children for Sunday school. Afterwards I go to Betty’s house with my record (Webster’s actually!) and we listen to Risé Stevens. She has a really thick – or should I say, velvety? – voice. I shall never sing like that. I wish Webster didn’t have such confidence in my voice. I have a nice tea with the Johnsons but feel a bit insulted when Mrs J says that she thinks Webster has a far better voice than Anne and she doesn’t like her. People – especially women of her own age seem to dislike Anne but it’s probably because she’s too attractive for them.
At night we have a guild service and I do the reading which goes off well. Afterwards we have a social and see a film about Liverpool delinquents.
18 September – Letter comes from Aunt Nellie in Scotland and she says her stepson and his wife know my teachers and remember them well. Practise piano and singing.
20 September – Go to piano lesson and all goes well. Mrs S is very affable and we concentrate entirely on the work in hand.
21 September – Go into town and have lunch with Mum and then go to lunch hour concert. Phillip Levy is the piano soloist. I meet Jill Harry. She doesn’t like her job and is leaving at the end of the month.
Meet Gill Mc D in the street and she is very affable for a change. I go up to studio and Anne arrives late with her hair almost straight. She says that all she seems to do is rush around. She was playing for an exam this morning and what with the Springs eisteddfod she has had “a hell of a week”. She gives me a new exercise to do so that I can get up speed.
She says I must be getting a bit sick of Oh Love so I can start a new song soon. We do Oh Love and on the trill my tongue goes up so I must get it down. We look in the mirror and her tongue goes up too! She says she didn’t pay enough attention to her tongue when she was a girl and now – “at my age I’m having to battle with it. When I’m singing publicly I know that if my tongue goes up my voice will go out of pitch and I’d hate to think that when you get to my age you’ll blame me for not insisting that you keep your tongue down!”
Maureen is ill today so Anne comes down on the lift with me to do some shopping. We talk about the play and I say how lovely I thought it was. She says, “Weren’t you shocked?” I say, no. She says she thought he was very well-cast. “Of course some snobs say that it isn’t real theatre, though, is it? But I think it’s a masterpiece.” She quotes, “Easy to write first and second acts but the third act is the telling one.” She treats me as though she is genuinely fond of me and she always brings out the best in me.
Go to choir and come home and listen to Webster. He starts with Dream of Gerontius sung by Heddle Nash and Dennis Noble. He says, “It may be of interest to you to know that I am going to sing in The Dream in PE in November.” He goes on to Tosca. He plays his own recording from it and two other recordings by the Rome opera company.
He goes on to Merrie England and says, “Anne and I have played Bessie and Raleigh innumerable times.” He plays his recording of the English Rose – one of the loveliest recordings I have heard.
Then he says, “I’m going to let you into a secret. When I first took Anne to the recording studios for a test recording, the song which she sang was Bessie’s Waltz song. When she signed her first contract the company gave me the test record and I have it here with me now.” He says after the record is over, “Not bad for a young beginner, is it?”
Next week he is going to play more from The Dream, Der Rosenkavalier and the White Horse Inn.
23 September – Go into town in the morning and meet Ann and Leona preparing to study in Rhodes Park library. I go to Central library and then to John Orrs. When I come out the first people I meet are Webster and Anne and Lemon. Anne is wearing black and white striped dress. She is terribly sweet and Webster gives me big grin. Lemon dashes around madly. What a lovely surprise. Meet Liz Moir as I’m going down Eloff Street.
27 September – Go for lesson with Mrs S. Her studio houses the Trinity College examinations room. Imagine my surprise when I hear a well-known voice talking to someone, “You’ll have to come and have dinner with us then.” I decide not to greet her in case she thinks I’m taking singing with Mrs S instead of with them.
I have my lesson and Mrs S loads me with work which I shall do. On the bus home I think that I should have greeted Anne for I shall have to mention it to her tomorrow so that she understands that I’m doing piano and not singing with Mrs S.
28 September – I have lunch with Mum and then go to a lovely lunch hour concert – Sonette Heyns sings and Edgar Cree conducts. I meet Jill and Lynn afterwards and we talk for a while.
I kill time in the library for a while and then go up to studio. Anne is wearing a pink striped dress. Middle-aged pupil called Nellie is having a lesson. Webster is playing a recording of his Abide With Me (Liddle) and he says, “I’ll play this for you one Thursday night – say a fortnight from today.
Nellie departs and Webster tells me to go in. Before we start on scales Anne tells me about all the prizes they had won at the Springs eisteddfod. I say, “Were you at the Trinity College examination rooms yesterday?” She says she was, and I tell her I was going for a piano lesson with Sylvia Sullivan and I heard her speaking to someone. She said she was speaking to the old examiner from Britain who comes out every year and looks about 90 although he’s only 70!
We start on scales and on one note Webster says, “That was glorious – sing it again!” Over tea I tell Webster rather nervously that I loved his play. He says, “Oh, did you like it? It is fun, isn’t it. Did the others like it?” I say, “Yes, it was lovely.”
Anne says that on that day after the show she went out to see a particular garden. The roof was off on the Hillman and she was wearing flat shoes so she arrived looking a dreadful sight but didn’t expect to see anyone she knew. When she walked in all her friends were there and she felt terribly embarrassed.
We do Roslein and it is agreed that it is an improvement beyond bounds from the last time I sang it. We do Hark, Hark, the Lark and she decides that we should do it. We look at it in one of her books which she has had since school days. He says he hates it for he sang too much of it as a choir boy.
I listen to Webster at night and find complete peace listening to him. He plays a few excerpts from The Dream sung by Heddle Nash and Gladys Ripley. He says he found it very difficult at first but then decided it was the loveliest oratorio of the lot.
Then he goes on to The Rosenkavalier which he sang in 1938 at Covent Garden with Erich Kleiber conducting. He tells the story of Lotte Lehmann’s husband being arrested by the Nazis and she was so upset that she was unable to continue with the performance.
He plays some pieces from The White Horse Inn and says that he spent many happy weeks in the Austrian Alps where the musical is set.
When we finish, Anne says, “You know, Jean, you really and truly have a beautiful voice.” I feel quite overcome at this and look a bit grim. She says, “Well, aren’t you happy about it? You look as if it was something terrible.” I manage to get out a strangled, “Thank you,” and she looks at me and says, “Jean, I really believe that you are shy. Please, whatever you do, don’t feel shy with me. I don’t know about HIM, but please never feel shy with me, dear.”
1 June – College again. We have a long day which is rather depressing after the excitement of the week. This is broken by the lunch hour concert conducted by Jeremy Schulman with Annie Kossman on first violin. They play Poet and Peasant overture. Alan Solomon plays a violin solo with orchestra – Symphonie Espagnol. Last – Knightsbridge March by Coates. I meet Pat Eastwood again in the afternoon.
At night Mr Stratton calls for me for choir and this is enjoyable – any chance to sing is nice for me. A young tenor comes to practise songs for a wedding on Saturday – he’s singing This is My Lovely Day. He has a good voice but a face as miserable as death!
Come home from choir and listen to Webster on the radio. First, he plays a quartet from the Verdi Requiem. Webster says, “Verdi seemed to have a grudge against sopranos. In this record the soprano has to hold a note for twenty seconds – a real test of breathing if ever there was one!”
Plays an aria from Judas Maccabeus sung by Isobel Baillie. “Isobel is my ideal singer of oratorio. The way she floats up to the high Bs and B flats is beautiful to hear. It’s a long time since she visited this country, but I know she is well loved by all who saw and heard her.”
He talks about Faust and says, “I met Anne Ziegler during the filming of Faust. Of course, I was Faust and she the heroine, Marguerite. We used to be so tired doing it that it took the make-up man all his time to cover up our tired looks.”
This leads him into Rosemarie and he plays recordings by George Tsotsi, Frederick Harvey and Julie Andrews. The last sings Pretty Things and, says Webster. “Very prettily she sings it too!” He says he knew Julie Andrews as a child prodigy of 12 years old singing coloratura opera arias and making a lot of money for her parents. She lost her beautiful voice but still has a very workable, pleasing voice and acting talent to go with it.
He clears his throat violently, plays the Soldiers’ March and starts reminiscing about Canada and the Rockies and how much he and Anne enjoyed being there when they did a concert performance of Merrie England in Calgary in 1953. He says that a brown bear pulled at Anne’s skirt and that this was a very happy period of their lives. He plays the finale from Faust with himself, Joan Cross and Norman Walker.
Webster says, “Now Anne will join me in singing Indian Love Call. I’ve heard this record before but I shall never cease to wonder at their voices. So long as that record continues to be played they will be remembered for ever. He ends with the overture to Oklahoma! and then it’s “Goodnight until next week!”
2 June – College and thank heaven for the weekend. In the afternoon I buy a Durban paper and there is the advert for their concert in the city hall for over 60s – 25 cents a ticket with limited seating for the general public at 50 cents a ticket!
Go to guild at night. We have a bible quiz which is quite good fun but wouldn’t I rather have been at the Durban concert!
3 June – Go into town and have lunch with Mum and Dad and buy a few songs. Come home and sing and sing. Hear Webster and Anne singing Only a Rose on Freddie Carlé’s programme – feel terribly happy about this – too gorgeous for words!
6 June – College and then to studio. Phone rings and Anne comes through and says to him, “Webster, Salisbury wants you.” Webster speaks to someone in Salisbury and I hear him say, “Well Anne could come up too, if necessary.” Anne comes into the kitchen wearing a red hat to cover absolutely straight unset hair, and a black dress and coat with wings for sleeves. She looks a bit corny all round. I go in and pay her and this makes her happy.
Anne and Webster meeting All Blacks team at residence of New Zealand ambassador, Lower Houghton.
We start on singing and she informs me brightly that I’m going to get a new exercise today to get the tongue flat. “ca, ca, ca” – very exhausting. She says, “Nothing is impossible.” Says Webster, “Once you get this you’ll wonder why you couldn’t do it all along.” We do The Lass and my breathing is dreadful. He says I’m expounding too much energy in diction and does a cruel imitation of this. We start again with breathing and he sings with me and breathes with me as well, and it goes better.
Anne tells me I have some excellent notes but I shall have to resign myself to the fact that I’m going to be a contralto, do I mind? “Most singers are so disappointed when they hear that they’re going to be contraltos because they think sopranos are far more romantic.” She says this in her most stagy, catty voice. Webster says that I shall definitely have to start on some contralto oratorio arias. O, Rest in the Lord would be best. I say that I shall copy it into a manuscript book for next week. He looks surprised that I should be able to do this.
I ask how they enjoyed Durban and Anne says theatrically, “It was lovely! Very rushed of course, but we managed to get a dip in the sea on Saturday morning, but it was freezing. Both concerts went marvellously – the second one was in the open air.”
Anne asks me if I can go at 4.30 next Tuesday. Will it be convenient? Oh, yes. Offers me an Eetsummore biscuit but I decline with thanks. Anne escorts me to door still in red hat, angel-like coat and straight reddish-blonde hair. Today she was in one of her stagy, and therefore less attractive, moods.
8 June – Go to lunch hour concert – Edgar Cree conducting. The soloist is Cecilia Wessels – a large lady in her fifties looking every inch the typical prima donna of fifty years ago. On the loud notes her voice (dramatic soprano) is excellent but her soft notes tend to crack. Apparently, she is very well known and there is a saying about her, “Don’t say ships; say Wessels!”
At night Mr Stratton takes me to choir and we have reasonable time – all would be so much more pleasant if Mrs Weakley shut up a little. Come home and listen to Webster while lying in bed. He plays an aria from Messiah sung by American bass-baritone, Donald Gramm – Why Do the Nations?
Webster talks about Bach and says that he and Bach have something in common – they were both educated at a cathedral school – free! But there the resemblance ends. Plays the Cantata for Ascension Day sung by four dear friends – Eva Turner, Kathleen Ferrier and two others whose names I don’t catch.
Next he plays something from Thais by Massenet, and then Don Pasquale. Rossini was in poor health when writing this and died in an asylum. Next come three songs from My Fair Lady sung by Rex Harrison, Julie Andrews and Stan Holloway. He says, “Anne always says that Rex should have been her brother-in-law but her sister married an Edinburgh accountant instead.” Re Julie Andrews, “We’ve known her since she was ten years of age and at one time she trained with Anne’s former singing teacher – Lilian Stiles-Allen, who might be known to older listeners as an oratorio soprano.” Stan Holloway: “I’ve known Stan since his concert party days. All three were dear friends of ours.” What a lot of name-dropping in one session! But I’ve always admired the three, especially Rex Harrison for what he did for Kay Kendall.
Lastly, he plays Merry Widow by Mantovani – Manty as he is affectionately known. Lovely programme but none of his records there, I notice.
9 June – College. Gail Blue leaves today – she has found a job!
Go to guild at night. George Fleetwood, Claudie, Rose and I go with Kippie to Parkwood guild and after much searching we find the hall and enter late amidst the rendering of a song by an unfortunate young baritone.
A play is presented – The Late Mr Wesley which is very good and the girl turns out to be Wendy Smith from the rink. Afterwards, we greet each other effusively and she tells me that she’s doing a BSc at varsity and she must come to the rink some time. She is terribly sweet and her acting was lovely. Also meet Lynnette Roberts from college and she is most effusive too. In her effusion she knocks a cup of tea on to George and his suit! Rushes for cloth to wipe it and apologises – effusively!
10 June – Go skating this morning. Neill is there and is gay (when not bragging) and so is Menina full of a long holiday in Durban. Dawn V comes and she too is full of herself. My skating is still the same as it was a year or two ago! Talk on and off and am pestered by Dawn to dance. I have actually lost all lust for skating – the only reason I go there now is for a social occasion. I hope that my interest in singing will not peter out as my interest for skating has but I have been brought up on music so maybe it’ll win through!
In the afternoon I go with parents to see Tunes of Glory with Alec Guiness, John Mills and Duncan Macrae (Parents knew him in Britain). It is an excellent picture set in Edinburgh and I enjoy it immensely.
11 June – Eleven kids in Sunday school today including Michael Ferguson and Mark – what a time I have! In the afternoon I practise singing and sing in choir at church at night. Mr R’s sermon is excellent and after service Leaders’ representatives are elected – Daddy is elected on to the committee.
12 June – Mother’s birthday (60!) College. In the afternoon I happen to meet Dawn Snyman outside the CNA. She hasn’t changed a bit after a year and is still a darling. She says that Erica Batchelor has gone for a holiday overseas. Dawn is going to visit Chubby. Says she wrote five letters to her and got a postcard in return! We talk about Kay and the rink and she says she is at Modern Methods business college. We say we’ll probably see each other at the rink. She is a pet. I always liked her.
Practise singing at night for great day tomorrow.
13 June – In the afternoon go to reference library and read Stage Who’s Who and Television and Radio Who’s Who – both very eloquent about Webster and Anne – makes me feel terribly insignificant and then very determined to do well at singing!
Go to the studio and Webster answers the door and says, “Anne isn’t back yet, but just have a seat till she comes – she won’t be long.” I sit down and listen to Webster coughing. Anne doesn’t come in for ages so Webster says that I had better come into the studio and he’ll make a cup of tea while we wait for her. He says, “I have to go to Rhodesia the week after next, dammit, and God knows how much music I have to take with me.” I make the necessary grunts in reply. Then he says, “I don’t know what’s happened to Anne – she only went to John Orrs and that was half an hour ago.” Anne duly returns after I have had a nice feast on the photographs. She is wearing a fur coat. She apologises for being late. She went to John Orrs to buy a pattern and all the patterns she wanted were out of stock and won’t be in for six weeks.
Anne removes her coat and says, “Well, my dear, let’s start.” Webster brings tea and I drink it. He says to her, “I’m so sorry, I put sugar in it, darling.”
She says archly, “Monster! We’ve had three cups of tea today and I’ve had sugar in every one of them!”
We start on the ca-ca exercise and I tell Anne how exhausting I find it as a prologue. She is delighted and they both stare at my tongue and are charmed with it. Anne says that I must have practised thoroughly which is very different from most of her other pupils who don’t pay any attention to what she tells them to do!
I mention that they asked me to copy O, Rest in the Lord and I produce my copy. They are both thrilled with the manuscript copy and Anne says that Webster will be coming to me to copy out music for him.
We do it and it goes very well. We concentrate on it line by line, and Webster gives a demonstration – no imitations of me this week – and they tell me that my voice seems to have improved and is settling down nicely. We end with The Lass and Anne says that a two and a half octave range is quite fantastic and I have the makings of an excellent singer.
When she sees me to the door, she asks, “Are you glad you’re doing singing, Jean?” and I say, “Oh, yes. I love it!” and boy, I really do. Ernest is waiting to go in for his lesson and gives me an earnest look. Say goodbye and come away gaily – a little more cheered than at other times.
15 June – College. We go to lunch hour concert. Edgar Cree conducts the Ballet suite from Faust and a waltz from Eugene Onegin. Adelaide Newman is one of the best pianists I have heard.
At night I go to choir with Mr Stratton. When I arrive home I listen to Webster and he is excellent as usual. He starts off with an excerpt from the Mozart Requiem and then plays part of the Ninth Symphony, but says that although he likes to listen to it, he loathes singing it, although he has sung it under three twin knights – Sargent, Beecham and Wood, and also Felix Weingartner.
Next he plays two pieces from Cavaliera Rusticana, an opera about ordinary people. He says the opera is very bloody, “A lovely cheerful night’s entertainment.” He plays The Dance of the Seven Veils from Salome, which is unpleasant, in my opinion.
“It’s amazing at how many South Africans we meet here who can remember us in Sweet Yesterday at the Adelphi, specially written for us by Kenneth Leslie-Smith. I would like to play you three songs recorded from the show sung by Anne and me.”
The first is a duet, Life Begins Anew followed by Anne singing Sweet Yesterday and the last one is a rousing one by Webster called Morning Glory. What voices they had! He finishes with some more Lehar.
16 June – College – Go to guild at night and we have Victoria guild over so there is quite a crowd. Playing goes very well and we see two films on refugees – one with Yul Brunner. Ann takes the epilogue.
17 June – Go skating – Dawn and friend, Sally, MJ and Neill are there and we have glorious time. Neill does aeroplane spins with Dawn which come on nicely and a double spin with me which is gorgeous. I have regained old form and all is terribly gay.
In the afternoon I practise singing and at night we go to Mr and Mrs Scott – they have a lovely little flat in Reynolds View. We listen to the Gondoliers and they are full of praise for Webster and Anne. See programme of Dancing Years – they are in advert – Sweethearts of Song.
18 June Sunday school and then a beautiful sermon by Mr Cape. Peter tells me that he has to take speech lessons for preaching so he wants the Booth’s telephone number. The Alexanders come in the afternoon with Mrs Radzewitz’s mother.
19 June – College – come home with Margaret Masterton on the bus and ask her how her parents are enjoying their holiday in the UK. She tells me that her father died in Scotland two weeks ago. I feel rotten about it. Poor Margaret and poor Mrs M. She says that she’s dreading her mother’s return and can’t believe that her father is dead.
We talk about singing and her exams and I tell her about Webster and Anne and singing – contralto etc. She says that Yvonne Hudson (Miss Kempton Park) is learning with Anne. We talk about Drummond Bell which takes Margaret’s mind off her sadness. Apparently, her father knew that he was dying and wanted to return to Scotland to die there.
20 June – College and then singing lesson. They are discussing various songs when I go in – keep on talking about Sweet Yesterday. I sit in the kitchenette and think how gorgeous their record of it sounded on Thursday night.
Anne comes in – is quite charming and her hair looks lovely. She asks if I can change times from Tuesday to Thursday at 4 o’clock. I say that it will be fine. She says she hates messing me around but that will be settled. She says she’s going up to Rhodesia the week after next but will talk to me about that later.
I sure will have a musical Thursday – lunch hour concert, Webster and Anne, choir and then Webster at night.
We start on scales – ca-ing away – and Anne is very pleased with my tongue. We go on to Rest in the Lord and I don’t do it too badly. Webster sings a bit of it with me and tells me that I must sing louder. He stands further away and tells me to sing loudly, so I do. He says, “It’s beginning to sound like a voice now!” What did it sound like before, I wonder! Webster says, “It’s terrible, but I can’t find that contralto book I wanted for Jean – It had Father of Heav’n in it and everything.”
He starts rummaging through all the music albums and Anne says, “Let’s try He Shall Feed His Flock while we’re waiting for him.” My copy of it is “out of date” so she alters it – first wrongly –and she says, “Oh, darling, I’m sorry,” and alters it once more and we start again. She says that I have some beautiful notes in the aria and I must try to get the same quality into all the notes and it’ll sound gorgeous.
Webster says that I mustn’t be afraid of having a good sing. She says, “I hope you don’t feel as though you’ll make a fool of yourself in front of us.” “Good God, no!” Webster says vehemently.
It goes quite well today and they are sweet. Anne says very proudly, “Webster is going up to Rhodesia next week to adjudicate.” I say, “That is lovely.” She also tells me that she is going up the week after next and will have to alter my time again – she’s sorry.
When I leave, Ernest is there once again. Peter is not mentioned so undoubtedly he has not yet phoned. If he decides to go to Nora Taylor I couldn’t give a darn! Listen to the radio at night and Ivor Dennis is excellent in his little programme.
21 June – Hear Kathleen Ferrier singing on the Afrikaans programme. She sings folk songs – The Keel Row, Blow the Wind Southerly, The White Lily, Ma Bonny Lad, Willow, Willow. If that’s what a contralto can do, please let me be one.
22 June – Anne’s 51st birthday. Go up to choir at night – Mr S isn’t there because Mrs S is ill, so we go through the hymns in a haphazard fashion. Ann and Leona come down to excuse him. Joan tells me that she went to see The Dancing Years last Saturday night and loved it, She makes me la away at Waltz of My Heart.
Come home from choir and listen to Webster on the radio. He starts with the Verdi Requiem – Libera and Dies Irae. Soprano ends on pianissimo top B. Very nice but very heavy. He plays his own recording of a recit and aria from Samson conducted by Stanford Robinson with the BBC orchestra – very beautiful indeed. He plays parts of Carmen conducted by Thomas Beecham and sung by Victoria de los Angeles.
He plays parts of Annie Get Your Gun. Emile Littler presented it in London and their friend, Wendy Toye produced it. He says they were at the first night of the show and the audience wouldn’t let the cast go so they had to sing all the numbers from the show over again. When they were in Australia it got the same reception. He ends with the overture to Gipsy Princess which he sang many times for the BBC. The recording is played by their old friend Mantovani.
24 June – Have lunch in and have a look in Polliack’s. Net Maar ‘n Roos is displayed in the window. Mummy says I can have the record some time. We see No Love for Johnny with Peter Finch, Mary Peach, Stan Holloway and Billie Whitelaw – excellent.
Mr and Mrs Diamond come at night and I sing for them. They are impressed and I feel happy.
Webster arrives in Salisbury, (then Rhodesia).
29 June – Go to Anne in the afternoon and have a really gorgeous time. I arrive earlier than her and hear her coming out of the lift and thanking the man profusely for holding the door open for her. She wears a red hat and cape-like coat. She says, “Oh, hello, Jean. Did you think I wasn’t coming?” “Oh no, Anne. I was here early.” “The other two before you have ‘flu so that’s why I’m here so late.”
We go in and she fouters around in the office and I look at the pictures and I try to figure out who some of the people are – I only recognise Leslie Green and the Royal family. Anne asks if I can come on the Monday (a public holiday) because she’s going up to Rhodesia next week on Sunday. Yes, of course I can!
We start on ca exercise which she says is marvellous and dead on. She says that I must do 4 cas at a time on the same note in the same exercise and then my placing will be “bang on”.
We do He Shall Feed His Flock. She says it’s going to be gorgeous but I must watch that I don’t spread my “ees”. She says, “I can say what I like about Boo and I know that we have our little squabbles, but I must admit that he has really beautiful diction. It doesn’t matter what he sings – opera, oratorio or pop musical comedy – his vowels are just the same. He was trained in the right way since he was seven years old as a choir boy and he has never forgotten that basic training. You are just at the right age to be trained in the proper way, Jean, and no matter what you do in the future you’ll always be able to fall back on your first basic training. I think it’s wonderful the way you do everything I tell you to. You’re a good girl and you have a lovely voice.”
She asks, “Do you like singing, Jean?” and I say profoundly, “Oh, yes. I like it very much.” Not very eloquent but very true.
We go on to Rest in the Lord and this goes well until we reach, “And wait…” and then my tongue goes into the wrong position. She takes me over to the mirror to see that I get my tongue down and she looks in the mirror and says, “Don’t mind me keeping my hat on, but my hair’s such a mess that I couldn’t possibly take it off. I’m going to have it done tomorrow though, so it’ll be OK again!”
She says that she thinks I’m losing my breath too quickly because of the “h” and that she gets her “hs” out without moving her ribs with her abdomen. She gives me a demonstration, and honestly, it is quite marvellous. She tells me to feel her ribs and puts my hands on them with hers – they’re gloriously warm compared with my cold ones. She’s a miracle with her breathing.
We do The Lass and when it comes to top A it sounds terrible to me – not so much terrible but because my parents have said it sounds terrible. She says, “Jean, you have a really beautiful note there. No! Don’t make a face. I wouldn’t tell you that if it was rotten. But look happy about it and don’t let people see you’re thinking, “Oh, God, I can never reach this!”
When we finish, Anne says, “You know, Jean, you really and truly have a beautiful voice.” I feel quite overcome at this and look a bit grim. She says, “Well, aren’t you happy about it? You look as if it was something terrible.” I manage to get out a strangled, “Thank you,” and she looks at me and says, “Jean, I really believe that you are shy. Please, whatever you do, don’t feel shy with me. I don’t know about HIM, but please never feel shy with me, dear.”
I tell Anne to have a nice time in Rhodesia and we say goodbye… She is one of the sweetest people I have ever met. She’s so generous and natural – she’s an angel.
Listen to Webster at night. He starts off with something from Elijah. He says that there seems to be everything in the record that he likes – his favourite baritone, Harold Williams, his favourite choral society, Huddersfield, and his favourite conductor, Sir Malcolm. It is a lovely record and Harold Williams is excellent. Webster says HW’s voice is nectar to his ears. Next he plays the quartet from Elijah,Rest Thy Hearts Upon the Lord.
Webster talks about Handel playing the organ for a choral society near Bushy Heath. “Where Anne and I spent much time filming Gounod’s Faust. Evidently the society had a collection of very high tenors and it was for them that Handel wrote Acis and Galatea. Webster plays his own recording of this, Love Sounds the Alarm conducted by Warwick Braithwaite. ‘Well, you can see what I mean about the high notes, can’t you?” he says when the record is finished.
He goes on to Lucia di Lammermoor and says that Mimi C is coming out next August to do this and she’ll have a good two hours of coloratura singing to do. He plays two arias from the opera. He plays three songs from The Song of Norway which, he says, he saw in London. It was produced in America in the open air with an artificial iceberg for the skating ballet. He plays Freddie and His Fiddle and Strange music. He will play more of this next week and some items from The Vagabond King.
JULY 1961
Webster in Salisbury, Rhodesia for Eisteddfod.
6 July – I go to the music library and have lunch with Mum in the Capinero. Afterwards I go to the lunch hour concert and meet Jill Harry, who is much nicer than usual. Edgar Cree conducts orchestra beautifully – Eric Coates suite, My Fair Lady, with soloists from the orchestra.
At night I go to the choir with the Strattons. Ann has gone on holiday with Leona. Mr Stratton and Mrs Weakly are singing a duet on Sunday night. Come home from choir and listen to Webster on the radio. It’s difficult to believe that I haven’t seen him for over two weeks. He starts off with something from Elijah but makes the terrible mistake of saying, “Now something from Mendelssohn’s Messiah!” He plays Woe Unto Them sung by Gladys Ripley and an aria by Harold W. He also plays his own recording of In Native Worth (Creation), which is lovely and two extracts from Nabucco. Evidently Nabucco was the nickname Verdi gave to Nebuchadnezzar because the proper name was so long. “I always associated Nebuchadnezzar with one of the earliest stories I ever heard. A man knocked down a cow in Nebuchadnezzar street and went to fetch a policeman to see what he could do about it. The policeman came along and took out his notebook to write down the details. When he realised the name of the street he said, “Let’s drag the cow round into Smith Street – I can’t spell Nebuchadnezzar!”
He plays an aria by Ezzio Pinza and then the Slaves’ Chorus. After that comes the part of the programme I’ve been waiting for – The Vagabond King, revived by them in 1943 at the Winter Garden Theatre. He plays three duets from the show and I lie in bed and cry the whole way through!
He ends with the overture to Iolanthe and says it’s his favourite G and S opera. And then goodnight and goodbye for another week, but I’m luckier than most – I’ll see them on Monday. I don’t honestly think I could live without seeing them. They’re different from parents and relations. I know that one day I’ll have to say goodbye to them – it’s inevitable – happiness like this doesn’t last forever, but while it does there is no harm in being happy, is there?
7 July – I hear Webster singing in an early recording from 1936 – I Breathe on Windows – a very lively affair by Billy Mayerl.
8 July – Go into town in the morning and buy a few things, including a Rhodesian newspaper. Webster and Anne’s concert in Salisbury is splashed all over it. Go to see Return to Peyton Place with Dad – seaminess isn’t in it!
9 July – Go to Sunday school and have the pleasure of teaching my little boys – and one little girl – and also playing the piano for the department. Sing in choir at night.
10 July – Go to lesson in the afternoon and enter a very quiet Polliacks building (family day) They are running late so I sit in the kitchen and listen to them giving a lesson to Dell. She sings Il Bacio very charmingly and Webster sings along with her. Anne can’t stand this so she says quite rudely, “Shut up!” He does for a time and then joins in again. Dell says that she heard Doris Brasch singing this song very nicely the other evening and evidently Anne gives her a very fishy look for Dell says, “Oh, don’t you like her?” and Anne replies, “Yes, but I think that this is far too high for her.”
Anne has her hair died mousy blonde which looks quite attractive and startling. She tells me she had a really nasty time in the last week. “As you know, I went up to Rhodesia and the first thing I did was to contract a ‘flu virus so I spent practically the whole time in bed.” We start on scales and she looks really ill. I feel terrible for making her pound away at the piano. Webster comes in from the verandah dressed very flamboyantly in a brown checked waistcoat and brown shirt. They are pleased with my scales.
We go on to Rest in the Lord and Webster tells me to almost hum the first note to get the hang of it. He sings along with me and this time she doesn’t tell him to shut up. During one of the breaks, Anne tells me that when she was in Rhodesia she had to make a recording but collapsed halfway through it on Tuesday and then had to get up to do the concert on Wednesday and then they had to finish the recording on Thursday and by the time they got home he had the ‘flu as well. Anne shivers the whole time during my lesson and complains of the cold – she can even make the ‘flu romantic!
We do the Messiah aria which goes reasonably but not nearly as well as when I had Anne to herself. She discovers the Noel Coward songs that I have in a book and she plays them through, singing them vaguely and is quite delighted with them. She says I may as well do a few of them because what I’m doing is hell of a serious, so she picks out three and I try them. I feel a bit nervous singing musical comedy in front of them for isn’t that where they made their money and their name? Anyhow, I do and all goes fairly reasonably. If Webster didn’t exert that magnetic personality of his, I should feel far happier.
When I leave I tell Anne that I hope she will feel better soon. She smiles wanly and says she hopes so too. During the lesson, she remarked several times that she was feeling dizzy, so I was waiting for her to faint into my arms.
Webster comes down with me on the lift to unlock the door, and for want of something better to say, I tell him that it was pity they both got ‘flu in Rhodesia. He says, “I honestly think it was more of a heavy cold that I caught.” His manners are charming as always, and he opens the doors in a courteous fashion and comes right out into the street with me. The pictures are out and I can feel the eyes on us, staring at him. I just happen to be in the way! I leave him standing at the door of Polliacks in the “I am a monarch of all I survey” attitude.
13 July Go to studio in the afternoon. They are talking to a man from the Star as they’re going to advertise for more pupils. “A few vacancies exist for selected pupils..” The ad is going to be in the Star all next week. The man leaves and there is another knock at the door. Webster answers and says, “My God, you’re early aren’t you?”
“I know, I’m sorry,” says Roselle. “But I’ve got a reason. Two men were pestering me downstairs.” Webster looks amused and says, “Well, you’re lucky that someone takes notice of you, aren’t you?” Roselle makes a horrified face and says, “Oh, Mr Booth – they’re horrible.”
Anne tells me that she has to go for her glasses from the optician, but Webster will take me through exercises. What a vile player he is. Exercises go reasonably, but Rest in the Lord cracks on “rest” – an “er” vowel – and we do various experiments to get this without a crack. I think it is partly nervousness at being alone in the presence of the maestro. However I manage to waffle through it and then Anne returns and listens and says it is very unsteady – the understatement of the year.
Do some more exercises and Webster says, “Well her voice cracks in the right place.’ Anne says, “Nonsense – she’s not a bass!” I do more exercises and eventually it is a bit better.
Webster tells me to get Samson and Delilah and look at an aria there. Anne, being in a flippant mood today, rubs it in about me being a contralto with a mezzo top!! I ask her how her ‘flu is now and she says, “Oh, fine, thank you. I got rid of it by working in the garden.” Come home feeling worse than death.
At night Webster plays Schubert’s Ave Maria sung by Marian Anderson – a contralto who doesn’t crack and I don’t suppose she would crack even if she had someone as terrible as Webster to accompany her! He plays Love in her eyes sits playing from Acis and Galatea. He says afterwards, “Well, all you young tenors, get your tongues down and your jaws working!” Bragger.
He plays two recordings from Lohengrin – the prelude and an aria and then some music from Kiss me Kate with Alfred Drake and Pat Morrison, and says that it came to London about 1950 but “Anne and I heard the record before it came to London and we liked Wunderbar, which has since become our most popular duet.” He plays two cuts from the record and says, “Now Anne will join me in singing Wunderbar in Afrikaans, believe it or not.” I can safely say that this left me cold. Their accents, voices, everything about it is terrible. Webster ends with the Nutcracker suite and says that next week he’ll play something from Gangway.
17 July – Poor Linda Michael from college was killed in a motor crash with her brother. Can hardly believe it – poor Linda.
19 July – Back at college and all is miserable because of poor Linda’s tragic death.
2O July – College goes nicely with Jill and Lyn. Go to studio and a gorgeous blonde Anne answers the door. She tells me that Dell is sick – her sixth cold this season.
We start on “ca” and Anne is pleased with new tone. Webster comes in, rather red in the face, and looks surprised to see me there so early. They are pleased with cas and we start on Oh, Love, From Thy Power from Samson and Delilah. Anne sings the whole thing jolly well, considering that it is miles too low for her. She says that Cora Leibowitz sang it at the eisteddfod for the mezzo solo.
This song ends on low A flat and they spend time getting my jaw in the right position for it. After seeing much of Webster’s bad teeth, I manage it. Anne says I must put some “guts” into it and gives rather a good imitation of my choir boy lyrical singing of the dramatic aria. Then she laughs and pats me and tells me that she doesn’t mean to be unkind – I know that, don’t I? I start again and become a little more dynamic and put “Vulgarly I know, darling, guts into it.”
Says something to Webster – and looks fondly at him, saying, “An old North country expression, isn’t it?” She asks me to copy the piece out and, as she says, it’s a stinker to play and to copy. Swears charmingly, “These bloody keys; where the hell is it?”
Webster sees me to the door and asks concernedly if I can manage. They are in good moods today. Meet Roselle on ground floor rushing madly, “Am I late?” she yells, and then, with a “My goodness!” she jumps into the lift and is gone.
There is an article in the paper about them in the morning – they were guests of honour at the Rand Women’s club and spoke archly about their world tour in 1948.
Go to choir and am now listening to Webster. He starts with the Bach Mass in B Minor – Hosanna in Excelsis sung by the Society of Friends of New York. He says he thinks the performance is too staccato. He plays the Ab Dextrum sung beautifully by Kathleen Ferrier. Webster says she was “the loveliest of singers and our dear friend”. He plays his own recording of Sullivan’s Lost Chord made in the Kingsway Hall which seats 2000 people, a full symphony orchestra and a choir of 500. Accompanied by Herbert Dawson on the organ.
He plays three pieces from Il Trovatore and says that he isn’t very fond of the opera – it’s a bit corny. He saw the opera at the Carl Rosa when they were going through a bad period and the chorus was very small so they had to relay it.
25 July – College. At night (after large singing practice) Peter Spargo takes me to Sunday school fellowship at Ann S’s home. A wee bit dull but we have a lovely tea! Come home at 11.
27 July – College – all gay. Go to studio in afternoon and I listen to Dell having a lesson. Anne is in a really lovely mood. She comes into the kitchen and asks, “Would you like a cuppa?” I agree and she fills the kettle. “The old man’s sick, so that’s why he isn’t here.” I say, “Oh, shame. What’s wrong?” She tells me that he has ‘flu really badly and she was frightened in case it was going to mean congestion of the lungs. “On Monday he came home from doing his recording and felt so ill he went to bed.” On Tuesday she called the doctor and he said Webster had to stay in bed. By Wednesday he was delirious.
Then Anne says, “Don’t think I’m telling you lies if I tell someone on the phone that he’s gone away for a few days. There is a certain woman who would be over at our house immediately if she knew he was alone in bed!”
We do some scales and then have tea. She says she has a terrible headache from all the running around. She had a lot of penicillin injections in Rhodesia so she warded off the ‘flu but Webster got it badly. She has a misplaced vertebrae and she’s not even supposed to lift a case, but she likes gardening. “Life’s too short to take precautions and worry about everything.”
We do Oh, Love and she is delighted with the transcription and said she’d come to me any day for copy work. The song goes fairly well and we go through it several times. She is a darling today and I sing well – better than when I’m trembling in front of Webster. I say that I hope Webster will be all right soon and she says she’ll be glad to have him back in circulation again.
I listen to him at night. I haven’t got my list of records here but I remember most of them – a glorious record of Be Thou Faithful Unto Death. He says he always sings this at weddings. Please let him sing it at mine! He also plays his recording of Celeste Aida – from Aida, in his opinion, Verdi’s best opera – conducted by Sir Malcolm. Plays a selection from South Pacific – not a musical I care for. Next week his musical will be King’s Rhapsody.
He talks about adjudicating in Salisbury and the good choirs they have there. “But, alas, choral work seems to be a lost art in the Union,” says Webster. I hope he’ll be better soon.
28 July – Last day of college. Say goodbye to Jill and everyone and feel quite OK about it. I have lunch with mummy then we come home – meet Liz Moir and she asks what I’m doing I say in my “Lizzie” voice that I’m unemployed at present. She wishes me luck and we bid each other goodbye – I still think she’s a pet.
29 July – Go for a job interview this morning. We buy a Philips 4 track tape recording and it is really gorgeous.
We see Tea for Two with Doris Day and it is lovely.
At night I hear my own singing voice on tape for the first time and I am quite pleased. It’s not as bad as I imagined it might be. We have fun with the tape recorder!
30 July –Tape, tape glorious tape! In the afternoon I record Webster and Anne’s Hear My Song, Violetta and it is perfect in every respect but not sentimental enough to make me cry. I go to church and night – Denis Newton preaches beautifully and the choir sounds a little better than usual.
31 July – Spend the day practising singing and piano and amusing myself on the tape – great fun.
Webster asks in his usual vague fashion, “Have you done your piece yet, Jean?” She says, “Of course not!’ and I say, “It’s not till Thursday, Webster.” He looks very knowing as though he knew that all the time.
1 April – Go to Rhodes Park library today. Jennifer Humphreys serves me. Get out autobiographies of Humphrey Lyttleton and Donald Peers – both mention Webster and Anne. Go to town and have lunch with Mum and Dad, then we see Once More with Feeling, starring Yul Brunner and wonderful, whimsical Kay Kendall who died two years ago. See a snippet in the newsreel of Lennie Mills and Glenda doing a routine at the rink – they get a huge ovation from the movie audience and I clap jolly hard too and feel proud of them.
2 April – Sunday school. Not many kids there owing to holiday. I have Neill, Mark, Desmond and a little boy called David in my class. I tell them a story and let them colour in. Eugenie Braun makes me lead singing and I practically sing a solo – can hardly hear the kids! Peter gives me hymns for the guild afterwards – practically all unknown! Go into church with the usual crowd – Leona Rowe is away at camp, and Mr Russell gives a rather dreary sermon.
In the afternoon the Diamonds come and we have pleasant time. I perk up when conversation leads to a discussion about the Booths – they still maintain that Anne’s singing voice is painful but she has a lovely personality and speaking voice. Am persuaded by everyone to sing which I do reasonably.
3 April – Easter Monday In afternoon Dad and I go to eisteddfod and I buy a season ticket. We go to Duncan Hall to hear singing and instrumental items. A little Welshman presides and the adjudicator is from England – very good. After the interval the Welshman tells us to take our seats. I turn round to see what’s what and, out of the corner of my eye, catch sight of Webster. I get a real shock. Whisper to my father who is not at all perturbed, so we sit through the whole competition without further ado.
We get up to go and the first person I come across is Anne looking too gorgeous for words in a flowery dress. Her face lights up as only her face can, and she says, “Why, hello, Jean, how are you?” Webster, who is sitting in front of her, turns round to say hello. I introduce them to Dad and they are really charmed when he says, “I’m privileged to meet you.”
Webster asks in his usual vague fashion, “Have you done your piece yet, Jean?” She says, “Of course not!’ and I say, “It’s not till Thursday, Webster.” He looks very knowing as though he knew that all the time.
Webster and Anne
She says, “It’s a pity you can’t stay for the next item, Jean,” and I say that Mum is expecting us home so I’m afraid we can’t stay. She tells me how sorry she is and we say goodbye to them. We stand at the back of the hall and listen to the last adjudication then depart to the sight of Anne going up to the front, preparing herself to accompany their singer in an art song.
Dad tells me on the way home that he doesn’t think Webster looks very well and that everybody around us was staring at us in admiration for knowing them – I didn’t even notice this as I was too wrapped up in speaking to them! All I know is that I adore them, and other peoples’ opinion don’t count two hoots!
5 April – Listen to Webster’s programme at night, and he was right as usual – it is good tonight! He starts off talking about the difference between opera and oratorio and gives an example from Handel’s Samson – his own recording. He goes on with his story, how he had an interest in Gilbert and Sullivan, how he came to join the D’Oyly Carte Company by barn-storming an audition when the company was in Birmingham and not turning up for an audit when he was asked to go to London to sing for Rupert D’Oyly Carte so that he was sacked. His teacher Dr Wassall was angry that he joined the company and never acknowledged him in future. He toured the UK with the company which included Henry Lytton, Bertha Lewis, Darrell Fancourt, Sydney Granville and Derek Oldham as principals, and Malcolm Sargent as the conductor in 1926. Webster asked Sir Malcolm whether he should sing in Grand Opera, and sang to him from La Bohème. “If you’ve no money, don’t sing in grand opera,” was his advice. He toured Canada with the company where his companion was Martyn Green and he had a wonderful time over there.
He plays a record by Harold Williams whom he obviously feels is the bees’ knees and ends with the overture to Mikado, an anecdote about Gilbert and Sullivan and the promise to play one of the G and S operettas after copyright is surrendered by Bridget D’Oyly Carte at the end of the year. Lovely programme by a wonderful man.
6 April – Eisteddfod at night. Sonnets are all done fairly well mainly by varsity students reciting poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins. I don’t disgrace myself but I don’t win a gold medal either. The girl who wins is about 25. The adjudicator, Miss Levitas, says on my report that I’m sincere!
7 April – Go to the Booths today feeling rather apprehensive. Webster answers door holding a large bell which, he tells me, is supposed to ring every half an hour to let him know when to put another sixpence into the parking meter. He says he’s forgotten how to wind it up. “I can’t depend on my watch because I forget what time I put the money in, in the first place.” Lemon is there so I play with him until Anne comes in, looking beautiful in a charcoal-grey pleated skirt and sweater and black court shoes, all in the best of style.
She asks me about the Eisteddfod and I tell her that I didn’t get any medal but I didn’t dry up either. She reads the report and says, “Who the hell is C. Levitas? I thought the adjudicator was Mary Webster!”
Webster goes out to put money in the meter and to go to a jeweller to find a real copper bracelet for Anne’s rheumatism. Says, “Goodbye, see you in a little while.” Before Anne starts on the play, she tells me that their bass came second, their girl got a gold medal in Lieder and there were several more seconds. I make fitting remarks about their success. She tells me that the girl who got the gold medal didn’t really deserve it, “God forgive me. She got it on musical knowledge.” This girl had great trouble with her voice – her husband didn’t like it but she persevered so that was a kick in the teeth for him when she did well!
We start on And So to Bed and really give it stick. She asks me whether my parents had any theatrical experience because I have such good control of words and cues. Webster comes back and says that the jeweller had no real copper but someone in a shop in Eloff street would make one for her.
We go on with the play and Anne praises Leslie Henson (who played Pepys) to the heights – did I ever see him? I say no, but my father said he was wonderful. She goes into ecstasies about him and says, “If only they would put this play on here.”
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Excerpt from Anne’s score of And So To Bed.
Webster says I am good but must be careful not to tear my throat otherwise, if I was doing a show, I would soon not have any voice left. “Get French through the nose!” I must say that Anne becomes rather flustered herself when she does my part to show me what to do. She says I must learn the scene.
Tells me that Mr Salmon, the music adjudicator took far too long over adjudications. “He’s from Lancashire, but still he took too long!” We have tea and Anne naturally says once again that it is like TCP and some discussion ensues. Asks me to come at the same time next Friday and all is lovely. They’re nice.
8 April – Go skating today. Sue, Neill and Menina are there and I spend most of morning talking to Sue. She tells me about building the float for varsity rag. Says that Jennifer Nicks now lives in Canada. Jennifer Nicks wrote to Gwyn and told him she has called her baby Methuselah-Star – I ask you! Sue skates like a honey as usual and I skate as normal and enjoy myself. She says she thinks Christians don’t have much enjoyment in life.
Scotts come at night. Linda cute, Mr S armed with violin – I accompany him at piano to hitherto unseen pieces which, strangely enough, I succeed in playing. We also gallop through Only a Rose. All convivial.
10 April Have lunch with Mum and she promises to phone Anne about doing singing instead of speech from a week on Friday. This point has been mooted in the family circle so I’m going to do that instead of speech – if they’ll have me. Buy an SABC bulletin and there is an interview with Webster in it in which he talks about his career, stage fright and rewarding moments. He says that he wouldn’t change his life if he could live it over again. “I was given a voice, a figure and my marriage with Anne Ziegler – something that has been successful and happy, and I have adopted what I think to be about the finest country in the world.” He was lucky, but his luck certainly hasn’t spoilt him in any way.
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SABC Bulletin April 1961 WB interview
Mum phones Anne in the afternoon and tells her that I’d like to do singing. She is quite happy about this and says that it’ll be a pleasure to teach me. She tells mum that I’m a sweet thing and they’re very fond of me. Mother says, “Jean enjoys going to you and she’d like to do singing as it goes with the piano.” Anne says that it is half the battle learning to sing if one knows music.
Mummy says, “Jean was a bit nervous to ask about singing,” and Anne says, “Oh, why?” Mummy says, “Well, she’s not too sure of her own voice.” Anne is evidently as big a honey as always, and when Mummy says that I love to listen to Webster’s radio programmes, she says, “Oh, no! Not really!” Well that is that and I hope that I can do well at singing because I love to sing so I must do well. This is really their true sphere.
11 April – Start college again today – new typing teacher – all affable.
12 April – College. Typing teacher says my accuracy is best in the class – whew! Must keep up this good standard.
At night I listen to Webster’s programme. After he left D’Oyly Carte he joined Tom Howell’s concert party, the Opieros, singing operatic excerpts in parks and at the seaside. He eventually sang oratorio tenor solos with the Huddersfield Choral Society and Royal Choral Society under the direction of Sir Malcolm and started recording for BBC studio opera programmes.
He plays records by Isobel Baillie, Dennis Noble and himself singing in La Bohème, and bass Oscar Natzke, with a most beautiful bass voice who died at the age of 39, and a duet from Carmen by South American Soprano and a man with an unpronounceable name. There are several recordings by Webster himself singing opera. He has a beautifully restrained voice and gives a more polished performance. He presents the programme beautifully – polished to a ‘t’. Songs of sopranos all gorgeous – dread to think what he’ll have to say about me – still, the programme is terribly nice.
13 April – College – long day today. Jill, Lyn, Audrey and I go to the library and I meet David Cross there who is very sweet and looks nice enough to divert attention!
In the afternoon I listen to Leslie Green, with Charles Berman as his guest. Latter has made a new recording.
At night phone rings and I know, almost instinctively, that it is Anne – am right as usual! Gives usual greeting, “Is that Jean? Jean, this is Anne Ziegler here!”
She asks (talking very loudly tonight), “Jean, could you possibly come at 4.30 instead of 4 tomorrow?”
“Yes, that would be all right.”
“You see, tomorrow night is the music prize-winners’ concert and I’ve had to change all the lessons around because of it.” (Can’t see any connection at all, but still!)
“So, will that be all right, Jean?”
“Yes, fine.”
“Well, goodbye, we’ll see you tomorrow then.”
“Goodbye, Anne.”
14 April – College as usual. My deskmate Lorraine Feinblum, who is a year or two older than the rest of us, and is engaged. We are all thrilled for her.
I go to the Booths in the afternoon. Lemon snuffles at the door and Anne answers it. She wears a straight skirt with a jersey and grey shoes with an overdose of eye make-up (probably for tonight’s concert). We have customary greeting and she finishes practising an intricate accompaniment for the concert tonight.
Webster comes in and brings various purchases into the kitchen and says, “Oh, hello, Jean. I didn’t know you were here.” We have customary greetings and Anne finishes practising piece for concert.
Anne calls me in and says, “I hear you want to do singing, Jean. I think that’s splendid.”
I say, “Well, I’d like to, but I’m not sure about my voice.”
Webster says, “Well, judging from what I remember from last hearing you, I don’t think you have to worry much about that.”
He asks me what sort of music I have at home and goes to look out some music while I go through the last scene of And So to Bed with Anne. I have learnt it and do it quite well. She says afterwards, “It’s too wonderful! You really do it beautifully – it’s a miracle how you learnt the part – some people doing singing won’t even learn a song I give them to do – but this – brilliant, and very well done.”
Webster says, “It’s very good. You could know the part in a fortnight!” He asks where I have acted before and I say, “‘School plays etc.”
We go through it again and she tells me I have the makings of a fine actress.
They insist that I should sing. I go through some scales with Anne playing and looking down my throat at the same time, and Webster listening very intently with the ear of a master. Anne says my tongue is in a perfect position – how hard I have practised to get it there! – but I must open my mouth wider on the high notes. Webster says I have a very good voice which will be fine for training and Mrs. B says, “It’s all there – you’ve probably got about four notes to add to it yet.”
She makes me look in the mirror to see how to hold my mouth when singing high – the rule is not to show teeth. I’m afraid I look rather like a horse laughing! Webster takes the music and we debate about what I should sing – a Lieder album with dozens of lieder (all in English including On Wings of Song).
I say that I know Wiegenlied best but it isn’t in that book so what about Hark, Hark the Lark? I say I know Hark, Hark, the Lark but when I’ve tried that at home I couldn’t reach high notes. Anne says it was probably in a higher key, so I agree to try it although this key is actually higher than mine, for the top note is high G but somehow I reach it perfectly. Anne sings with me. She really has a lovely voice. Webster stands at my side listening very intently. Thank heaven he expresses approval. He says I must go through my own Schubert album and bring it next week. I have nothing to worry about with regards to my voice –it’s good. I tell him, “Well, I wasn’t too sure about it because I’d never heard it!”
He says, “Well, we won’t let you hear it just yet. Everybody gets a terrible shock when they hear their own voice.”
Anne comes with me to the door and says, “Well, Jean, I’m glad that at last, you’ve decided to obey the request we made to you so nicely such a long while ago. You can go home and tell your parents you have a lovely voice and we’re both thrilled that you’re going to do singing.”
I say goodbye to Anne and Lemon and come down on the lift floating on air. I’m so thrilled about it because they have such a fine musical understanding and can tell a good voice when they hear one. Also Webster has taken on a more authoritative position because singing is his forte. But he’s quite different from the Webster on the radio – I prefer him as he is in the studio.
For ages – since I heard them sing at the church last year – I’ve wanted to do singing. After I heard them I started to enjoy music and singing far more – I know that what they sang that particular evening was light but their presentation of it was perfect. But it has taken me practically a whole year to start my singing lessons with them. I know I’ll never regret it. Not only are they top-notch singers, but they’re top-notch all round.
On Wednesday evening Webster said of Isobel Baillie, “I understand she’s teaching at the Manchester School of Music – lucky pupils.” Well, that’s the way I feel about them. They’re awe-inspiring and make me feel as though I might do well if I work hard.
15 April – Go into rink today. Menina, Neil Craus, Dawn Vivian are all there – Sue is in the rag – and we have reasonably gay time but have to work. Menina is learning with Mr Perren while Jill Jagger is away getting married, and she says he is a real old tartar!
Skating goes very well and is exhilarating. Come into town and buy On Wings of Song in Kelly’s and then have lunch with Mum and Dad in Capinero and then go to see Bottoms Up with Jimmy Edwards. Good but a bit kiddish in places!
16 April – Sunday School today. Mark, Neill, Desmond and Gary W are there and all of them tell me strangest things – some of Mark’s stories are decidedly exaggerated. Stay to sermon by Mr R – quite good but a bit disjointed towards the end. All the usual crowd there but can’t say they thrill me with their spirit. Gail won the prize for best beatnik on Friday night.
18 April – RDM provides pleasant shock for me in morning. Full page picture of Webster and Anne advertising Skal beer! Doesn’t say it’s them but of course it is! Webster complete with beard (he had it shaved off on Friday!) sitting holding glass of beer and Anne sitting on his lap with telegram in one hand and a look of sheer delight on her face. It’s a really gorgeous advert and large – larger than life – up it goes on my wall – if there’s another I’ll put it in my diary!
College goes well today – Lorraine F is excited about her engagement. Go with Jill Harry to library and meet Mary Theodosiou who says she’s working hard, isn’t living in Kensington, and hears that Atholie is pretty fed up working in the library. I’m not surprised, with those awful hours! In the afternoon I vegetate owing to a cold which I must get rid of before Friday at least.
19 April – College. We have a party for Lorraine F which is fun. Come home on bus with unknown but very affable girl who is doing a speed-writing course.
I listen to On Wings of Song at night. Webster doesn’t continue with his own life story but plays records. First one is a Thomas Beecham recording which he got for Easter, then a song by Gigli and an aria from Messiah.
He says that in 1938 he had the honour of singing the tenor role in Der Rosenkavalier at Covent Garden. Richard Tauber was also in the production. He says, “When Richard Tauber was appearing in the same concert as us at the Coliseum Anne asked him what songs he intended to sing. Tauber replied, ‘German songs,’ and his little accompanist (Percy Kahn) added, ‘With English words by me!’”
He talks of another opera by Rossini (I think) and says, “Anne and I sang it at the festival opera season in 1953 and thoroughly enjoyed it.”
He mentions that he sang with Kathleen Ferrier and Gladys Ripley, the two tragic contraltos who both died within a year of one another, Kathleen, a switchboard operator, and Gladys, a hairdresser. Plays record by Gladys and another tenor – how I wished it had been a Kathleen Ferrier recording – very nice though. Ends with overture to HMS Pinafore, conductor – Sir Malcolm, and says, “It’s very light-hearted but I love it!”
Very nice programme and well presented. I do approve of the “Anne and I” part!
21 April – College – thank heaven for the weekend! I kill time in the afternoon by having a long drawn-out snack in the Capinero. I go up to studio at a quarter to four and am greeted by Webster. He says, “Anne isn’t back yet, so do come in and sit down. I’m just trying through the examination pieces – please excuse the mess.” He sits down at the piano and labours away at the exam pieces. I feel a bit corny sitting there so stare at the photographs and see one of Lincoln Cathedral where he was a chorister.
There is a peremptory knock at the door which heralds the entrance of Anne. He answers the door and she walks in without greeting him. She wears a grey princess line coat (she had her picture taken in it autographing their new LP record last October) and says something about gardenias and donating something to some society or other – all a bit vague. She looks very tired today.
She says. “Well, let’s start!” Sits at the piano and he sits on a chair opposite and says that he forgot to note my range. We do all the scales once again and she tells me to drop my jaw more on the higher notes. I reach high A fairly comfortably but B natural is a bit much – I end up looking like a horse on the higher notes. Anne says that she bets that within 2 months I’ll sing high C – I doubt it! He says that I’m a mezzo, but she says, “If she’s a mezzo she’ll be a very high one.” I go fairly low too and reach a bottom E. Amazing – I can hardly reach low G at home. They tell me about vowel sounds, all to be sung with the mouth in the same position. Mrs. B says, “He’s an example of perfect vowel sounds. No matter where in his range he sings, or what the vowel sound is, his mouth is always in the same position.”
Anne makes me sing Hedge Roses in English and they say that my vowels are fairly good except “ee” – I must sing that one in the same way as the others. Anne gives me a demonstration. I sing Hedge Roses in German all by myself with no assistance at all. We go through this twice, and Anne says, “You learnt And So to Bed so nicely for me a little while ago – will you learn this for next week?”
German, I find, is a wee bit more difficult to learn than English but nevertheless, I will for her!
A fire engine passes sounding a siren and Anne says, “Fire engines and sirens remind me of the war and make me feel terrible!” She says I have a well-placed voice and thinks that the few months of speech-training did me good. She feels my breathing and both she and Webster are happy about it. She says to me, “You want to sing good songs, don’t you? Not musical comedy or pop songs?”
Before I have a chance to answer Webster hops in with, “There’s nothing wrong with musical comedy!” So be it.
I depart, saying goodbye, see you next week, with the worry of learning three verses in German. Anne says that next week I must bring some Scottish songs (for English words).
Come home on bus with Rosemary, Jennifer Bawden and Gill Colborne. Meet Miss Ward coming home and take great relish in telling her that I’m completely exhausted after my singing lesson.
Go up to guild tonight. Ann is happy to see me and her reaction about singing lessons all that could be desired. We go to the Central Hall to hear panel of men: Dr Roux (a botanist), Mr McEwan (lawyer), Dr Webb – my favourite minister, and Gary Allighan the journalist and author of Verwoerd – the End. Meeting becomes practically political. All denounce government’s apartheid policy and in one particular question, Gary Allighan answers by starting, “First, let’s forget about the government!” Violent clapping. “There is only one race – the human race!” Shot for him – he was a labour MP in Britain and is a Cockney, through and through. Shorty gives us a lift back and we all go to the roadhouse and have something to eat – good fun.
22 April – Play piano and sing in the morning and then go to town. Go into CNA and mooch around. Look in the SABC bulletin for programmes and am disappointed to see that Webster’s programme seems to be cut out – perhaps it’s been changed to another evening, but if it isn’t, to hang with the SABC!
We have lunch at the Capinero and then Mum, Dad and I go to Brooke Theatre to see Roar Like a Dove with Margaret Inglis, Brian Brooke, Norma West, Robert Haver and also Alfred Stretton (the old man who spoke to us after Caesar and Cleopatra – he’s sweet). Play isn’t all it’s cut out to be. Margaret Inglis and Brian Brooke have whisky voices and Margaret I is hard as nails, although she’s probably meant to be in this part.
24 April – College – goes reasonably – dozens absent. Go into Music library and buy the SABC bulletin in afternoon and study it carefully. I am glad to see that Webster has had ten minutes added to his programme – forty minutes now! On Thursday evening at 9.20pm.
26 April – My father’s fifty-ninth birthday. Webster’s programme tonight is really about the best I’ve heard so far. He says that the first time he sang with Thomas Beecham, Joan Hammond was one of the other soloists. At that time she had a light, lyrical soprano which later developed into a heavy dramatic soprano. He plays the duet from Madame Butterfly which he made with her, which is quite fantastic. Webster is a tenor of great restraint which is pleasing. His voice contrasts sharply with her loud, almost harsh soprano.
Then Webster makes me laugh. He discusses the Strauss operetta, Night in Venice and says that during the Jo’burg production Anne wore a crinoline that covered practically the whole stage. “I look on this duet I am about to play with certain misgivings because during the Jo’burg production I tripped and broke my foot and was laid up in plaster for three weeks!” Poor Webster! He talks of his old friend, conductor Mark Lubbock and how many happy hours “Anne and I” spent with him. “He was a specialist in the music of Franz Lehar and arranged some of Lehar’s songs for Anne and I to sing as duets with his own London orchestra.”
A Night in Venice (1956)
These songs are about the finest I have heard. They sing so beautifully they make me cry because they’re so glorious. Her voice is out of this world – like water floating gently over tiny pebbles. He sings the Serenade richly, gloriously, temperately. Webster and Anne were terribly lucky to be blessed with such voices and I’m terribly lucky to be training under them! He ends off the programme by playing the overture to Don Pasquale, the comic opera soon to be seen in Johanesburg.
27 April – College. Go to lunch hour concert conducted by Anton Hartman with soloists Rita Roberts and Bob Borowsky. This series of concerts is a prelude to the forthcoming opera and ballet season. Both sing operatic arias (separately and together). Duet from La Traviata. Anton Hartman conducts overture to Les Pateneurs and the Flower Dance from the Nut Cracker Suite. Hetty and Jill sit with me and Hetty is charmed – so am I.
28 April – I arrive at the studio before the Booths today. I sit on the little ledge outside and vegetate. One of Madge Wallace’s pupils comes out of her studio and grumbles about having to wait for the lift, but just as lift arrives she goes back into the studio to say goodbye once more so I hold the lift for her.
Mrs. B comes up on the other lift armed with the evening dress she wore to our church concert and a fur cape. She is also carrying a little vanity case. She asks, “Was the lift stuck at the eighth floor?” I have to admit my guilt in this matter but she is quite cheery about it and takes me into the studio.
She tells me they were at first night of La Traviata last night and didn’t get in till half past three. She says, “I just can’t take late nights any more! Tonight it’ll probably be just as late too because we’ve got Don Pasquale.”
Anne says that the production of La Traviata didn’t nearly match the standard of an overseas production, but Mimi Coertse was wonderful. She covered her top notes well and used her face at every possible moment. Her song at the end of the first act, however, was breathy and she broke the trills, but this might have been due to first night nerves or not being used to the altitude. She says it’ll be good for me to see it as Mimi’s singing is wonderfully controlled.
We start on My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose after doing oodles of scales to work on the English vowels. Apparently my phrasing is all wrong. Webster arrives at this point, dressed in tails and black bow tie, looking too gorgeous for words, ready for the first night of Don Pasquale and is very affable. Anne says, “Jean is doing My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose,” and he says, “Oh! I know that one!”
I do Heidenroslein by memory. Webster watches me closely the whole time I am singing and I feel a bit silly. He says to me afterwards, “Honestly, Jean, you’ve got a wonderful memory – and of German too! If I had a memory like yours I could really do wonders!” I smile at him. He says, “But Jean – I wish you’d smile like that when you sing. You’ve got such a lovely smile.”
I sing it again, trying to look a little happier this time. The phone rings and Webster answers it and comes out of the office, saying, “Do you remember people called Wilkinson?” Anne looks quite blank and then says she believes she remembers them vaguely. “Well, they’ve asked us over on Saturday, the sixth of May. Are we free?”
“Oh, no, darling. We’ve got that Mimi Coertse presentation cocktail party. We can’t miss that.”
“Well, shall I say we’ll go over later?”
“Well, we can’t go for drinks. Say we might go later if we can make it.”
“These damned socialites,” says Anne to me in hollow tones.
We go on with Roslein and they say I look a bit cheerier about it. To finish she makes me sing Hark, hark… Webster asks, “Do you like Hark, Hark the Lark?” I say, “Yes, it’s very nice.” He says, “Well, I hate it – probably because I was made to sing it so often when I was young.”
They sing it together – beautifully – as though they know exactly what the other one is thinking and exactly what to do. No. Mimi Coertse might be excellent but she’ll never ever beat Anne, and although Gigli was a great tenor he never had that lovely restraint which Webster displays so eloquently and beautifully. OK, so I’m prejudiced but I don’t care – they’re wonderful singers and lovely people.
Anne asks whether I could change from Friday to Tuesday next week because Webster has a recital in Krugersdorp on Friday. She asks whether 4 o’clock would be OK. I agree and Webster says, “Will I get you a pencil and paper to write it down?”
“It’s quite OK. I’ll remember it, thank you.”
“Yes, I know you will. If only I had a memory like you.”
Anne says, “But darling, look how young Jean is compared with you…”
“Yes, but still…”
Anne makes me feel her breathing again and says that as we’re the same height we should have the same rib-expansion. She has such wonderful breath control – it’s unsurpassed, really it is! I say goodbye and Webster sees me to the door, his tails following behind him.
29 April – Go into town and book seats for La Traviata. We’re going on 3 May – a Wednesday. I feel rather the worse for wear after the debate last night. I also go to music library and procure dozens of songs. I go to Capinero and have lunch with Mum and Dad. He has a book from the library with oodles in it about Webster. Author says that he could have been the finest British tenor if… But tomorrow I’ll type out the relevant parts and put them in the diary.
We go to see Song Without End, the story of Franz Liszt – Dirk Bogarde as Franz – good up to a point. Dirk is gorgeous though!
At night I listen to Afrikaans programme and announcer says, “Nou gaan die sang-tweeling, Anne Ziegler en Webster Booth Indian Love Call sing.”
30 April – Anne in paper advertising Stork margarine.
21 Juno Street, the house with the green roof as it is today, where we lived in late fifties until 1964.
MAY 1961
1 May – Picture of Anne in RDM at first night of the opera La Traviata. She looks quite gorgeous and not nearly 51! The two women with her are Mrs Bosman de Kok (husband is SABC musical director) and the pianist Adelaide Newman. They are probably far younger than Anne but she looks by far the best.
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Anne at La Traviata with Mrs Bosman de Kock and Adelaide Newman
Song by Webster on radio If With All Your Hearts from Elijah. Beautiful song, lovely diction and wonderfully restrained.
2 May – College. Marion Levine gives an interesting talk about communism.
Go to studio once more. Webster answers door and takes me into the sacred presence who is very affable, and I pay her. She asks if I can come next Monday because they’re arranging the programme for the ballet and have to be at the theatre at 7 o’clock every night, so can I come at 4 on Monday. She feels so embarrassed having to change me around all the time.
Webster brings me a cup of tea which I really need, and then we start on the lesson. Webster is very authoritative, and after singing scales he says I get down so low I should be a contralto. Anne retaliates and says (once again) that I’m a very high mezzo. “You mustn’t forget that high B!” Webster is stubborn and I don’t have any say in the matter at all. I sing “My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose…” and Webster sits facing me and criticises me. I must be more resonant on the low b and we practise this for ages. Webster gets up and gives a beautiful demonstration. Anne sings too – quite nasally – probably owing to the lowness of the note. As she says, it’s miles too low for her.
Webster then makes me sing from Messiah – He Shall Feed His Flock. Asks whether I can sight-read music. I say I can only do that on the piano and Anne says that it is exactly the same with her. She learnt to play the piano when she was six and could never sing at sight, but Webster is wonderful at that because he was trained to do it as a choir boy. However, I sing this to accompaniment without hearing the tune and it is reasonable. Find the jump from high C to low C difficult and Webster is quite hurt because of his belief in my contralto abilities.
He says of one particular note, “If you could get all your notes like that one you would be a singer out of this world, Jean.”
One teeny-weeny compliment opposed to a thousand retributions. At one stage of the proceedings, he gets up from the chair and can hardly walk. He looks really agonised and I feel sorry him. It must be arthritis or some such ailment. Poor old Webster.
Take departure – all very affable. Must look over Ave Maria for next week. Anne says of noise, “God, just shut up for heaven’s sake.” Her nerves are sorely tried – shame. She wears a lovely tweed suit with brown jersey and little furry collar and looks lovely, but she would never do to be anybody’s mother because she doesn’t look half her age and she’d steal her daughter’s boyfriends. But she is a honey all the same.
3 May – College during the day and then we go to the opera at night. What can I say of opera? Mimi Coertse has a voice like a bell. With what seems like little effort she sends out notes that ripple and thrill. She plays her part well with great feeling and her high notes are really excellent.
Bob Borowsky as her baritone father is the only other cast member who sings really well but he lacks expression and tends to be lugubrious. The chorus, in my opinion, is bad. The tenor was sweet at times but his voice grew very throaty towards the end.
4 May – College. We go to lunch hour concert. The soloist is young pianist, Yonti Solomon who is really brilliant. He plays a Schumann concerto with Edgar Cree conducting.
At the moment I’m lying in bed waiting for Webster’s programme. Introduces it with the usual, “Hello everyone,” in honeyed accents. First he plays the Jennifer Vyvyan recording of Rejoice Greatly conducted by Sir Thomas B and says, “Here it is, so hold yer breath!”
Next he talks about the opera and how nice it was and plays an aria from Rigoletto sung by Mimi Coertse and George Fourie. He then plays record by instrumentalists including Maxie Goldberg. “What a name to say with a cold in the nose!” says Webster! Next the Fledermaus with the George Melachrino strings and then he reverts back to oratorio. He talks about Kathleen Ferrier who lived opposite them in their home in Frognal and who used to entertain them with Lancashire stories. During her long illness, they used to visit her often. He plays her recording of Father of Heav’n and I lie in bed and cry during the whole recording. Her voice is beautiful and rich. No wonder she was considered the greatest contralto in the world. From her letters in her biography she seemed a lovely, adorable creature, one I would have loved to have known but never shall. It is so sad that she died at such an early age.
He then plays his own recording of Sound an Alarm also from Judas Maccabeus and it is excellent. He introduces the Anvil Chorus from Il Trovatore and says that Gilbert made a great parody of this and sings a snatch of it from Pirates of Penzance – Come Friends, Who Plough the Sea… His last recording is the overture to the Pirates and then goodbye for another week.
6 May – We see Elmer Gantry in the afternoon. Burt Lancaster and Jean Simmons. Best picture I’ve seen for ages, adapted from the book by Sinclair Lewis – shades of Miss Scott who told us all about Sinclair Lewis.
7 May – Go to Diamonds in the afternoon. They play records – tenors, tenors, tenors – mainly Kenneth McKellar – obviously their favourite!
8 May – College again. Shorthand and typing are blooming dull.
I am transported in the afternoon when I go for singing lesson. Webster answers the door and shows me into the kitchen. Anne is on the phone talking to a girl, Mary about her lessons. Webster goes into the studio and informs her of my arrival. She greets me and then disappears once more, has an argument with Webster about the credit note he got from the bottle store for 8 dozen bottles at 3d each – I ask you! I think Anne realises that I am actually there and innocent to the horrors of the bottle store, so while Webster has a late lunch, Anne makes a second entrance and says, “Well, my little one, and how are you and what are you doing with yourself these days?”
I say I’m still at college which sounds infernally dull. She asks what I thought about the opera. I say that I adored Mimi but wasn’t too fond of the French tenor. Anne says, “He’s only a baby of 23 so the two roles were a bit much for him.” Webster says that the role was far too heavy for him anyway. She says, “Weren’t the scenery and costumes terrible?” I didn’t actually think so, but what do I know?
The letters arrive and Anne is quite excited that they have been asked to do a concert tour to Witbank and various other towns in that area. I hope they don’t go! Anne says she wants to ask me a question and can’t wait to see my face, and insists that he sees it too. Would I like to enter the Afrikaans eisteddfod? I grimace wildly and Webster says, “Her profile was enough!” I don’t commit myself however and Anne says that I could enter the ballad section and sing The Lass with the Delicate Air. She says, “Get it anyway and you can see what you think. It’ll be good for you and get you moving.”
I do scales and Anne says I must look happy about them and takes me over to that damned mirror and makes me sing a scale happily. I can’t! She says, “Do it just for me, Jean, dear. I mean this quite sincerely.” Will try.
Webster makes tea for us and I say, “Thank you, Webster,” and Anne says, “Thank you – waiter!” Webster doesn’t look very happy about this. I sing Roslein and it is pulled to pieces again, mainly by Webster who says I show my teeth too much and that he can’t show his teeth when he’s singing. He tries and succeeds in showing a horrible set of teeth altogether. No matter, we proceed and all goes better. At the end of the lesson my little “friend” Roselle arrives and we smile at one another when I leave. Anne asks if I’m going to the ballet and I say, “No.” Rather blunt but true – I loathe ballet anyway.
11 May – Sunday school picnic – walking, standing and working! Listen to Webster at night. He starts with He Shall Feed His Flock by Norma Procter, a contralto with whom he sang a few years ago and thinks could be a worthy successor to Kathleen Ferrier. He plays a record by Roy Henderson who trained both Kathleen Ferrier and Norma Procter and was chorus master of the Huddersfield Choral Society. He says he has a sweet small voice with perfect diction.
He talks about Mrs Fenney who stood in for Miss Heller at Jeppe for a term. “Anne and I had the pleasure of putting Mabel Fenney through to a scholarship to study lieder in Berlin and she and Anne worked very hard on the set piece by Bach.” He plays this piece sung by Margaret Balfour.
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Mabel Fenney (1959)
He goes on to the opera Samson – the opera, and goes into all the gory details of the plot and says, “Nice people!” Plays an excerpt from the opera by Jan Peerce. Then comes music from Schubert’s Rosamunde and after that his own recording – excerpts from Carmen with himself, Dennis Noble, Nancy Evans and Noel Eadie – lovely.
14 May – Church. Dull and unimaginative with sermon by Mr R and ravings from Peter about Song Without End. Shorty gives Doreen and me a lift to her house where I have tea and we run down the camp concert committee and the Lombard family! Play piano and sing. Dad has a cold and I’m heading in that direction too.
16 May – Cold is still rotten so I am absent from college and any idea of going for singing lesson is curtailed. About midday I phone in bleary-eyed fashion to Booth’s house. Woman answers the phone and I ask, “Is that Anne?”
She answers, “No, this is Anne’s maid.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Is Anne there?”
“No, they’re both at the studio. Do you know the number?”
“Yes, thanks. Goodbye.”
I must have spoken to Hilda, their St Helena maid. She is remarkably well-spoken. Phone the studio and Anne answers.
“Is that Anne?”
“Yes!” in startled tones.
“This is Jean speaking.” (Vague affirmation)
“Anne, I’m terribly sorry but I have a horrible cold so I shan’t be able to come today.”
“Oh, Jean, I’m so sorry. Are you in bed?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know how I can make the lesson up to you” (Pause) “But there are five Tuesdays in this month.”
“Yes, that’s what I was thinking.”
“Then we’ll see you next week? I can hear you talking through a cold. I do hope you feel better soon.”
“Thank you – and I’m sorry, Anne.”
Pause “Yes, so am I! Goodbye, Jean”
“Goodbye.”
Spend a miserable day.
17 May – Retire to bed permanently! Voice practically non-existent. Minister comes in the evening but I remain silent and still.
18 May – Still in bed. Listen to Webster at night which is cheering. The first record (not obtainable here) was lent to him – Requiem by Verdi, written after the death of Rossini. He says that he’ll play an extract from it each week. It contains arias sung by his favourite tenor (Jussi Bjorling?). He also plays a choral piece – Sanctus.
The next record is from Elijah, Oh, Come Everyone That Thirsteth by a quartet – Isobel Baillie, Harold Williams, Gladys Ripley and James Johnston. What a wonderful recording. Next is an aria from the work by Webster with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Warwick Braithwaite – often cut from the oratorio. His voice is just perfect. There can hardly be another tenor in this century – and I do believe this – to touch his voice at its best! Next is the overture to the Magic Flute, written by Mozart in “Viennar” – intrusive r terribly and wrongly distinct. He says that this was considered his best work.
He then plays an aria from the opera by Oscar Natzke… Then some more Mozart sung by “that versatile young singer”, Elisabeth Schwartzkopf. He reverts to operetta – The Chocolate Soldier and says, “Anne and I have sung in The Chocolate Soldier many times. It is an adaptation of Shaw’s Arms and the Man, as My Fair Lady is an adaptation of Pygmalion but I do wonder whether we shall hear My Fair Lady fifty years hence as often as we hear the Chocolate Soldier now. Plays the duet Sympathy with Risé Stevens and someone else. Then, says Webster, “Let’s play out with The Gypsy Baron. Very nice programme indeed. Webster has a slight wheeze tonight.
19 May – Still ill – until 22 May!
23 May – Manage to go to college once more after a cold and go to the studio in the afternoon. Anne ushers me into kitchen while they usher two old women – very old-maidish – out, while they chat brightly about the best radiograms to buy. Webster answers them in very indifferent tones. They depart, having thanked them too, too eloquently for sparing some of their valuable time. They call me in and Anne says, “God – we’ll need another cup of tea after that. Will you have one too, Jean?” “Yes, thank you, Anne.”
She says that the women took an awful lot out of her. She says I still sound very nasal after the cold. Convinces me that I am just about dying of illness! We start on scales and all goes reasonably well. Webster says I shall never need my very high or very low notes.
Anne tells me over tea that the tiny dilapidated cottage they bought two years ago and redecorated themselves needed fresh plaster above the curtain rails in the hall, so she spent the weekend on top of a ladder, scraping old plaster off, and as she was literally breathing plaster, she doesn’t know how she is managing to talk today. Webster says dryly, “It must be all the liquid refreshment you had while you were doing it.” Anne pauses and replies, “Oh, yes, I had plenty of tea, coffee, cocoa and – an occasional gin and tonic to go with it!” Another dramatic pause and then she asks, “Do you like gin, Jean?” I say that it’s not very nice. “Don’t you even like sherry?” “No.” “Do you smoke?” “No.” “Well don’t ever develop any of those bad habits.”
We go on with singing The Lass With the Delicate Air. Webster mimics all my mistakes mercilessly and makes me laugh. He says that my “delicate air” sounds like “delicatessen” – the height of insult!
We go on with the song and Anne says, “Watch the time,” and I think she had said, “What’s the time?” I say “Twenty past four!” She says, “That was well picked up!” I stare in confusion and she tells me what she had said and we have a good laugh. Finish with Roslein and Webster says I open my mouth too wide for low notes – a good fault – but it will take too much out of me to do it.
Anne asks if I can come next Monday instead of Tuesday as an uprising before Republic Day is forecast. They have to go to Durban to give a concert on Wednesday and don’t know what they will do if there should be an uprising. It doesn’t strike me until I leave that Wednesday is Republic Day. I hope that they will be safe. Say goodbye (cheerio) effusively and see Roselle, whom I always feel is a far better singer than me. Play piano, sing and listen to radio – Ivor Dennis and Douggie Laws at night.
25 May – College. Go with Jill and Audrey to the lunch hour concert. The soloist is Laura (someone) – a pianist of insignificant looks but with very significant playing!
At night I decide to go to choir practice at church. All make a pretence of being happy to see me. I sit next to Joan Spargo and make myself as insignificant as possible. Ann’s father, Mr Stratton is the choir leader. He certainly has a resounding voice and mimics everyone’s musical and vocal faults aptly.
Come home and listen to Webster on wireless. He starts off with Dies Irae (from that rare recording of last week with chorus and bass (George Tsotsi) with Vienna Philharmonic. “It’s a bit noisy, so I suggest you close the children’s bedroom door!”
Webster plays his own record – a Recitative from Jephtha which is quite gorgeous – every word as clear as day. He goes into some detail about the finale of Samson and Delilah which, says Webster, is “very awer inspiring!” The singers are Rise Stevens, Robert Merrill and Jan Peerce.
He plays a record by Dawie Couzyn from Magic Flute and says that he thought this production was better than Don Pasquale. DC sings it in Afrikaans with horrible diction and a clicky quality to his voice. Not terribly enjoyable. Webster plays complete selection from The Desert Song which Springs Operatic is doing soon, sung by Gordon McRae and Lucille Norman. He says, “Shades of my old friends, Harry Welchman and Edith Day.”
He ends with the overture to Ruddigore – about a witch who forced a family to commit a crime a day – Nice folk! And then, goodbye and so to bed.
26 May College – we have a party for Terry French who is going overseas soon.
27 May – Go into town in the morning and am stopped by terribly handsome young German student who was selling postcards. I buy one, of course! Go to Kelly’s and buy Where E’er You Walk by Handel, a most gorgeous song!
Have lunch in Capinero with Mum and Dad and then we go to the Empire. In the powder room I meet Pat Eastwood looking terribly smart with bouffant hairdo and also a bit fatter. She is most affable and says, “I haven’t seen you for ages. When are you coming to the rink?”
I say, “Oh, yes, I must come soon…” How lovely to talk so casually to the South African figure skating champion and Springbok.
We see The Great Imposter with Tony Curtis – very good.
28 May – In Gary Allighan’s radio crit this morning, he says, “Praise be to Webster Booth, whose On Wings of Song combines familiar music with personal reminiscences, although he should not be so modestly sparse with his own songs.” Shot for good old GA! He’s a man after my own heart – politically and artistically.
Gary Allighan
Anne phones just afterwards and greets father with, “Mr Campbell, this is Anne Ziegler here. Can I speak to Jean please. I am called to the phone and informed by Anne, after she asks how I am, that she’d like me to come at 4.30 instead of at 4. Would this be convenient? “Certainly.” “Are you sure?”….Sing in choir at church at night. All convivial.
29 May – First day of strike evidently a flop as there are no strikers to be seen. I go to the studio in the afternoon and Webster asks me to have a seat for a while and pour myself some tea. I do this and drink tea feeling terrible blasé, and wash the cup afterwards. He plays over tape recording which is rather funny. I giggle to myself.
Anne comes from nowhere and is charming. She tells me to go in and she’ll be with me in a few moments. I look closely at pictures of the royal family at their performance – King George, Queen Mother and the princesses. Webster talks to me about the strike and says that RCA have no workers but Decca have all their workers. He says the town is nice and quiet with not so many people around. We talk about the success of receiving papers and milk and Webster says direfully, “Tonight will be the crucial deciding time. Just as long as they don’t come out and kill us is all I hope for.” Cheery attitude to life this!
Anne returns and we start with scales and they are thrilled at the new quality of my voice and ask what I’ve been doing to bring about the improvement. I sing Roslein to them and they continue to be quite happy about it all – 2 hours practice a day must help. Feel quite embarrassed.
Webster makes me sing He Shall Feed His Flock for all the low notes and sings this along with me – gorgeous! During Lass With the Delicate Air there are many faults. I crack on middle C on “fill” and Webster makes me do it over and over again and takes me over to the mirror to show me how to produce it correctly. When I sing it again he suddenly doubles up on the piano with a look of agony on his face. Anne looks horrified and says, “What’s the matter?” He doesn’t speak for a moment and then says, “Nothing. I just wanted to listen to Jean sing.” Do not for a moment believe this – poor Webster. He recovers and says I must emphasise “gin” in virgin and sings “virgin” and then “pink gin”! Anne and I nearly die laughing. Anne writes down next to it “pink gin!” She says that my diction is generally good. He sings O, Thou That Tellest from Messiah. She asks whether I’d like to do some oratorio. Tells me about a singer in Don Pasquale and says that she couldn’t hear for about five or ten minutes what language she was singing in, her diction was so bad!
Webster goes down to bring the car nearer to the studio and Anne goes on with the lesson – she gives me a whole hour. She feels my breathing and says that my bust mustn’t move and I must watch it. Gives me a demonstration of her own breathing. If I could even breathe like her, I’d be very happy.
I leave at 5.30 and she tells me that she’s going to Durban for a concert at the weekend and tomorrow they have a show at the Wanderers. During lesson Webster asks, “Where’s that contralto album Mabel left us?” I meet him coming from the car and we say goodbye and “Hope there’ll be no riots!”
Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth sang to fellow passengers while flying to South Africa. Their duet was We’ll Gather Lilacs, sung at 18,000 feet as they crossed the Zambezi.
I have compiled the following information from newspapers, personal recollections and programmes. The list is far from complete. Please contact me if you can fill in the gaps.
November heading for Johannesburg.
6 November 1955 – Quick Work. Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth, with their accompanist, Arthur Tatler, fly to South Africa on November 6 to fulfill a concert tour in South Africa, Southern and Northern Rhodesia and Kenya. This will indeed be a flying visit for they will fly everywhere in order to fulfill so many engagements in so short a time, as they return to England on December 11, when Webster Booth is due to broadcast for the BBC on December 14, after which he leaves the following day for Huddersfield to sing in the Messiah.
Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth sang to fellow passengers while flying to South Africa. Their duet was We’ll Gather Lilacs, sung at 18,000 feet as they crossed the Zambezi.
ANNE ZIEGLER AND WEBSTER BOOTH, 8 November 1955
Webster and Anne arrived at Jan Smuts airport on 8 November. They had been booked to appear in concerts with the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra in Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and East London, also in Durban and Salisbury, Rhodesia. Webster gave a rather bitter interview about the changing times in music with the growth of music that appealed more to teenagers and the rise of television.
ANNE ZIEGLER AND WEBSTER BOOTH, 23 November 1955, City Hall, East London. Recital presented by East London Association of the Arts.
After their concert tour they returned to the UK where Webster had several Messiah engagements to fulfil. Despite his bitter comments on his arrival in Johannesburg, 1955 had been a very busy year for the Booths.
ANNE ZIEGLER AND WEBSTER BOOTH, with Arthur Tatler (piano), City Hall, Johannesburg Tuesday, 31 January 16th and 21 February 1956
City Hall, Benoni, Saturday, (opening Benoni’s Golden Jubilee celebrations) 4th February 1956
City Hall, Pretoria, Wednesday, 8 February 1956
B tour to Bethal, Bloemfontein, Parys (concert on an island on the Vaal River), Kimberley, Port Elizabeth, East London, Durban and Pietermaritzburg.
Having tea during the interval of a concert in Bethal during their country tour – their accompanist, Arthur Tatler, Webster and Anne.
10 May 1957, Hobbies Exhibition, East London. The Round Table has engaged Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth to sing (Rand Daily Mail)
THE NIGHT OF A THOUSAND STARS 29 May 1957, Johannesburg. Anne and Webster sang at this concert produced by Cedric Messina and Monte Doyle in aid of the Jimmy Elliott Appeal.
STARLIGHT 13 to 16 November 1957, Prosperity Park, Zoo Lake. All funds in aid of the United Party, Anne, Webster, Maria Pavlou, Eva Tamassy, Gordon Mulholland, Jack Kruger, Charles Castle.
VARIETY UNDER THE STARS 7 March 1958, Joubert Park Open Air Theatre, Anne and Webster and a host of other performers.
1958 snippets
VARIETY PROGRAMME June 1958, Kangalani, home of Eva Harvey (by invitation only!) Anne and Webster, Sini van der Brom, Francois Bouguenon, Eva Harvey.
Variety in the Home – Eva Harvey
GRAND VARIETY SHOW, 27, 28 May 1960, Methodist Church Hall, Roberts Avenue, Kensington, Anne and Webster and other artistes. I (aged 16) attended this show and got their autographs at the interval.
CHRISTMAS CAPERS December 1, 2, 3 1960, Civic Theatre, Bloemfontein, Anne and Webster and local artistes presented by Rotary Club.
CONCERT 30 April 1961, Anne and Webster sang at the Wanderers Club, Johannesburg.
OVER 6OS OLD FOLKS VARIETY SHOW 2 May 1961, City Hall, Durban, Anne and Webster, with Cyril Sugden, Graham Rich.
City Hall, Durban
5 July 1961. Festival Concert, Allen Wilson Beit Hall, Salisbury. Anne and Webster appeared after Webster had adjudicated at Vocal Festival for the Rhodesia Institute of Allied Arts.
SATURDAY NIGHT VARIETY SHOW 1961, Amphitheatre, North Beach, Durban, Anne and Webster and top line variety stars.
GALA BENEFIT SHOW February 1962, Ciros Club, Johannesburg, Anne and Webster appeared in benefit show for the actor, David Beattie, who was suffering from cancer.
CONCERT Mid August 1963, Ficksburg, Anne and Webster, accompanied by Desmond Wright. Webster said that he would have taken me as the accompanist but he didn’t like two women on the stage as it would draw the audience’s attention away from Anne.
1964 Concert tour with SABC Orchestra. Anne and Webster were soloists on this tour.
1965 Concert tour with SABC Orchestra. Anne and Webster were soloists on this tour.
POPULAR CONCERT, 2 October 1966, Johannesburg’s eightieth birthday concert at the City Hall.
GRAND VARIETY CONCERT 15 September 1967, 8.15 pm
POPULAR CONCERTS, December 1967/1968
THE ANNE ZIEGLER AND WEBSTER BOOTH SHOW 26, 27, 28 August 1972, Durban Jewish Club, Anne and Webster accompanied by Jack Dowle, with top supporting artistes.
FAREWELL CONCERT, late 1975, Somerset West
Farewell performance, October 1975.
Anne and Webster had planned to retire from the stage at the end of 1975, but when they returned to England in early 1978 they were in great demand so came out of retirement until Webster’s health broke down in 1983.
Grade 8 singing report.
Grade 8 piano report
Anne’s postcard to me from Kalk Bay.
Shandy – “my girlfriend”!
Great Voices 13 May 1963
The Yeomen of the Guard
Great Voices
Anne and Webster with their stage children.
Crit from Rand Daily Mail.
Lord Oom Piet! 
Geoffrey Parsons.
Gary Allighan writes about the forthcoming oratorio season.
Caroline Ormond
Stravinsky by Hilda Wiener
Anton Hartman meets Stravinsky at Jan Smuts Airport – May 1962
I am sitting with choir altos behind the orchestra.
Webster arrives in Bulawayo to adjudicate the eisteddfod.
WEBSTER BOOTH-ANNE ZIEGLER 