A Publication of
THE JOHN MEADE FALKNER SOCIETY
Founded 8th May 1999
A Publication ofTHE JOHN MEADE FALKNER SOCIETYFounded 8th May 1999 |
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| Newsletter No.9 | 8 May 2002 | |||
Kathleen Falkner
The Society has suffered a grievous
loss with the death of Kathleen. From the first she was a stalwart and
exceedingly generous supporter of the cause. We shall miss her greatly and a
tribute is enclosed with this Newsletter.
John Noble's death is
another blow to the Society. He was the grandson of JMF's closest friend, also
John Noble. He grew up at Ardkinglas house, built in 1907 by Robert Lorimer, one
of Scotland's leading architects, for his great-grandfather, Sir Andrew Noble.
He was educated at Eton, where he achieved fame when he and a friend cheated in
the steeplechase by having one of them begin the race whilst the other, dressed
in identical kit and hiding near the finish, jumped out to win in some style. In
later life he was an oyster grower and founder of Loch Fyne Oysters and Loch
Fyne Restaurants. The Daily Telegraph recalled him as "a man of great
charm....renowned for his [occasionally subversive] sense of humour and his
exceptional generosity. Whenever he was at home, Ardkinglas was open to all.
"Christopher Hawtree and I can both testify to his charm and generosity, when he
entertained us in the early 1990's when we visited Ardkinglas to research the
huge treasure trove of JMF letters there. He was one of the first to join the
JMF Society, but modestly declined the offer of becoming President. He will be
missed.
New Members
Since the last Newsletter in July, the
Society has welcomed four new members.
Julian Payn, although now
living in the USA is British and grew up in Brighton. He wrote, apropos of
Moonfleet, "never has an author captivated me like this and sent me on
such a quest to learn more about Falkner himself and Weymouth". Since then he
has purchased Kenneth Warren's biography of JMF and a copy of the Poems
and read The Nebuly Coat and engaged in correspondence, through me,
with Peter Davey. Not a bad start.
Andrew Nye lives in Swindon
and is a Headmaster. When he wrote, he was about to re-read Moonfleet,
with a view to introducing it to children in his school. I think he relishes the
challenge of using a book "which is culturally remote from their experience" .
George Woodman's article in the July Journal reminisces on his
attempts to interest a class of 13 year-old girls in Moonfleet. Andrew
reminded me of the lovely walking country to the south of Swindon, on the
Marlborough Downs. Barbury Castle is "still a wild and romantic place of sheep
and skylarks".
Giselle Panero is our first member living in South
America -in Buenos Aires. She recalls visiting Fleet Old Church at the age of
fifteen, a perfect age for empathising with John Trenchard. She was "so much
enchanted by it" that she returned there in July 2001. Thanks to our Society
leaflets left there, she was able to get in touch with us. JMF certainly visited
South America to push armament sales for Elswick but, I think, only went to
Brazil and Rio. There is a future article in there somewhere.
Carroll
Bishop, who hails from Toronto, made a chance remark on the
weymanforever@yahoogroups that we both belong to. Although dedicated to the
appreciation of Stanley Weyman, other authors are often referred to. Caroll
responded to someone who had asked "Who the heck is John Meade Falkner?", with
"He's heaven -wrote Moonfleet and The Lost Stradivarius and,
oh, that one about the flawed church". Naturally, I wasted no time suggesting
she should join us. Carroll is a writer from a writing family and organised the
William Morris Society of Toronto. Carroll got the first Jung newsgroup online
and has produced and directed The Immortal Hour by Fiona Macleod [b.
Wil1iam Sharp], friend of Yeats and Rossetti. She is particularly fascinated by
the era 1890-1910.
George Woodman wrote in respect of Christopher
Hawtree's recent article on JMF and Reference Books. It inspired him to look up
Dorothy Eagle's The Oxford Literary Guide to the British Isles and
found quite a generous appraisal. He points out that JMF also figures in
Everyman's Dictionary of Literary Biography.
Page and
Allan Life wrote in January in appreciation of the comments Mark
Valentine unearthed in The Spectator and to say that they are
collecting every edition of The Lost Stradivarius they can find. Page
says, "My favorite [other than the original, of course] is the Oxford World
Classics paperback". Edward Wilson, take note.
Raymond Moody is
clearly not content with authorship of two fascinating articles on Falkner and
Burford for the JMF Journal [the second is in the forthcoming July
issue]. He has recently figured in The Times - in the "Not Dead Yet"
column - and then in The Daily Telegraph as a voice of Middle England
over punitive inheritance tax issues. Believe me when I say our Society does not
pay for authors' articles: I might write to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in
case he thinks this is where our members' wealth is coming from!
Moonfleet - the Opera
Exciting news from the
Royal Grammar School, Guildford - the Director of Music there, Peter White, has
been commissioned to write an opera for the Croydon based Trinity Boys Choir.
The latter have an extraordinary reputation for the quality of their singing,
performing and recording all over the UK and abroad. Last year they took part in
a superb production of Benjamin Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream at
Glyndebourne.
The choice of subject for their fortieth anniversary
production -to be performed in the Fairfield Hall in 2004 - was left to Peter.
He was determined "to write an opera that contained some 'meat' and was not
simply a collection of little ditties felt to be suitable for young children.
When I was twelve I was a soloist in the fIrst production of Alan Ridout's opera
The Children's Crusade, which followed the fortunes of refugee children
during the Second World War. The impact on me was enormous and I have always
wanted to produce a work of similar weight and 'darkness'....Moonfleet
is the ideal choice." The libretto is being written by Martin Cawte, an English
teacher at Portsmouth Grammar School and a tenor in the choir of Portsmouth
Cathedral.
Watch this space.
Colonel J.H. Taylor has recounted * how, on visiting his house
in about 1930, Dorothy L. Sayers was drawn to his collection of detective and
mystery fiction. She took down from the shelf The Nebuly Coat and
referred to it as "a book of which she was very fond and much admired".
Moreover, she was able to turn to the hymn tunes of the appendix [as played on
the hours by Cullerne bells] and hum them spontaneously from the score.
Trevor Hall goes on in his interesting essay to define the similarities
between the churches, the bell-ringing and the storms that damage the
countryside of The Nebuly Coat and The Nine Tailors - Miss
Sayers' renowned mystery story based on the English art of change-ringing.
For some reason over the years it became common for "ringers" to try and
find technical errors in The Nine Tailors [there are very few indeed
and none that invalidate the bell-ringing aspects of the story], yet to ignore
The Nebuly Coat - probably because of its scarcity until recent times.
A short while ago I made some comments on The Nebuly Coat and in
passing stated that Miss Sayers was far more accurate in her description of the
change-ringing than was John Meade Falkner. I gave my reasons in rather
technical terms and was asked to state them in terms suited to the non-ringer;
hence this note.
It all hinges on chapter 18 of The Nebuly Coat.
You will remember that Cullerne church/Minster has 8 bells but lacks
bell-ringers experienced enough to ring a "full peal" [i.e. 5,040 changes] to
welcome home Lord and Lady Blandamer from their honeymoon. The ringers of
Carisbury are invited to come over to St. Sepulchre's and to ring that peal,
despite the architect [Westray's] concerns about cracks in the tower. He is
over-ridden both by the clergy and by his chief, Sir George, and the peal takes
place. Falkner sets the scene well, describes the necessary maintenance of the
bells and frame and says "and when the day came, the ringers stood to their work
like men and rang a full peal of grandsire triples in two hours and fifty-nine
minutes". This is excellent, accurate and believable. [lnformation he may have
got from any peal board in any 8-bell tower in the country, in fact.] So far so
good. Later, when the peal is almost over he is again correct - "the 5,040
changes were almost finished". It is the little bit in between where he throws
away all his accuracy and believability. Westray - you may remember - stays in
the church throughout the 3hr. peal. He goes up to the bell frame, the ringing
chamber, finally listening inside the church from the organ loft where the sound
of the bells is much muted. In order to provide more of what Pooh Bah would have
called "verisimilitude" he demonstrates once and for all that he knows nothing
of change-ringing, making two mistakes in quick succession: one of which the
veriest tyro at ringing would pick up! :-
"He could hear deep-voiced Taylor John go striding through his singing comrades in the intricacies of the Treble Bob Triples "Now "Taylor John" is the heaviest [or "tenor"] bell of the ring of 8. [A set of bells is called a "ring", not a "peal". Falkner uses "peal" quite correctly for the performance.] In triples, as any ringer knows, the tenor bell does NOT "go striding through" the other bells, mingling with them in the changes. He stays at the end of each row of changes, in eight's, marking time with his deep "bong", just like a drum. [It is known technically as "covering".] Triples are changes on 7 bells in which the bells change in 3 [i.e. Triple] sets of pairs. The maximum changes possible is in fact 7x6x5x4x3x2xl = 5,040 the exact length of a peal. So a peal of triples on 7 bells with the 8th bell covering, is the extent of changes possible.
Membership Subscriptions
Most of you renewed your
membership in January. However there are a few still outstanding. If your
envelope has the "Black Spot" on it, then Blind Pew has swapped Societies to
suggest immediate payment! I do hope you all feel you are getting good value for
your £5.00 / $10.00 subscription. It just about covers the printing and postage
costs of the three Newsletters and Journal each year. Cheques should be made
payable to "The John Meade Falkner Society", not to me.
Best
Wishes
Kenneth Hillier
Greenmantle, Main Street, Kings Newton,
Melbourne
Derbyshire. DE731BX, England,
U.K.
Moonfleet@greenmantle63.freeserve.co.uk