Two weeks from today, if I survive, I will enter my ninth decade.
I just found among many souvenirs a Playbill from London’s Shaftesbury Theatre with my signature and 28/2/69 written in my own hand.
For about four centuries no play could be publicly staged in England before its script had been submitted to the Lord Chamberlain and its production allowed.
That restriction on the freedom of expression had just been lifted.
Shortly before that I had met a young lady who had come to London to take a post-graduate Certificate of Education in the University of London, and was lodging in fashionable Cavendish Square with scores of ladies in a similar predicament. Their address was a convent, though most of the ladies were lay. Not to be confused with “laid”. Which might, just possibly, be a clue to their eagerness to see the new play, described as a “musical” which had first been staged in America.
The play was called “HAIR” whose pubic performance had grabbed acres of publicity. So I accompanied a cohort of the ladies, which included a young nun from Malaya who was keen on pop music.
As I can’t sing in tune I’m not qualified to give an expert opinion. But it was very, very loud, and I can’t remember anyone leaving
the show humming a tune from it. But it had some funny skits in it.
A few years ago the show was re-staged in London and folded in less than a week..
Anyhow my partner at the show, who was once a leader of a Youth Orchestra, still sings in our Parish Choir and a couple of nights ago sang in a joint carol service with the local Anglican choir. We celebrated our Golden Wedding Anniversary last August, with our family including grandchildren.
There are other vignettes from the Sixties which, when I’m in vacant or in pensive mood. flash upon the inward eye and sometimes might seem very rude –
1. Such as a fine Summer’s evening in 1966 when the Great Fire of London was commemorated by a fireworks display on the Thames and trees by the Embankment supported fit, long-legged, mini-skirted young ladies. At the time they had not taken to wearing tights but had garters and suspender belts. They really encouraged vaulting ambition.
2, Round about the same date at the corner of Piccadilly and what used to be Swan and Edgar’s, where I usually bought an IRISH TIMES I saw another young beauty, innocently bend to fix her shoes. A couple of fortyish men, bowler-hatted, pin-striped, mustachioed with silk umbrellas and regimental or club ties looked at each other, their moustaches curling like the Laughing Cavalier. If caught on camera and accompanied with a bar from Rule Britannia, the scene would sell for a million dollars (in those days) in the USA.
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