Britten's Children

Benjamin Britten loved boys but could be trusted to have them sleep over because he valued them for their innocence. Parents allowed him free access to their little nippers and the little nippers- now old men- speak of him with an affection tinged with hero-worship.  They feel privileged to have known him. David Hemmings- now not only old but dead- cut to the chase. "Did he give me one? No he didn't"

Autre temps, autre moeurs.

Britten was a paedophile, but an ethical one. We seem to have lost the ability to conceive of such a thing. I think it's a pity. 

Birdwatch

I just participated in the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch.

My score (much better than last year's) is

8 starlings
3 collared doves
2 house sparrows
1 robin
1 great tit

Jimmy Blades

David Hemmings was talking about the first night of Britten's Turn of The Screw, and how it didn't get any better than to be lying in the arms of the principal singer as the percussionist Jimmy Blades wound things up with a whumph whumph on the drums and I thought "Jimmy Blades! He came to our school once and gave a talk!"

It was a fabulous talk. There was something deliciously wicked and conspiratorial about James Blades (I know nothing about his personal life- I'm talking about his manner) and he left such an impression on me that decades later I put him in a poem....

BARBAROUS CLANGOUR

                  

The great percussionist James Blades

Lightly beat  his tiny gong

And the throb went round the panelled hall,

Building up to an all but unbearable

Yeatsian boom. “Now that’s what I did

On the soundtrack for Rank. The gong they show you-

Six foot across- which were it real

Would have had your brain draining out your nose-

Was actually made of papier- mache.”