MUSINGS FROM THE BOWER 42

When I was a teen – many moons ago – the pop music of the time was mainly the beat groups, such as The Beatles. However, immediately before that, there was a time when solo artists dominated the charts. This was the music that I loved when I was at primary school and in the first couple of years of secondary school, when artists such as Elvis, Bobby Vee, Cliff Richard, Mark Wynter, Marty Wilde, Roy Orbison, Eden Kane and many others were producing songs with catchy tunes and lyrics. Nowadays, this music is the backbone of all those sixties compilations that you hear played in the shops.

It’s easy to make fun of that kind of music today, and many people do but at least all those artists could sing without resorting to voice enhancers, and the musicians would perform on stage with just basic equipment, playing live, not miming.  When the groups came along, it was a different kind of music.  The Beatles changed the whole scenario – here was a group, not just one solo singer, and the music scene altered dramatically. Within months, the solo singers were finding the going tough. Many changed track, moving into acting, song writing or record production, while a few managed to stay the course by altering their style.

Over the last few years there has been a huge nostalgia revival, with ‘retro’ being the in-word, and people of all ages seeking out 1960s’ fabrics, furniture, clothing, pop art – and rediscovering the music. A series of cds appeared, called ‘Dreamboats and Petticoats’, containing music from the era, sung by the original artists, and these proved so popular that a musical was written, based on the early sixties. Set ‘in a youth club somewhere in Essex’ the musical Dreamboats and Petticoats is a story of young love, told in a clever way using the music of the time. Laura, a gawky schoolgirl, is a talented musician and she loves Bobby, but he thinks of her just as his friend’s kid sister. The youth club form a group and need a lead singer. Bobby wants the job, but then along comes Norman with his quiff and curled lip, and many of the girls fall for him. One of the girls, Sue, ultra glam in low cut frocks and a seductive wriggle, tries to make Norman interested but he ignores her so she flirts with Bobby to make Norman jealous. Naturally, this also upsets Laura, who has been attempting to write a song with Bobby for a talent contest. The show is funny, laced with sixties references from Wagon Wheel biscuits to ‘O’il Give it Five’, and the songs are woven, often humorously, around the events, including an anguished Bobby who mistakenly pushes Sue out of his bedroom window and promptly sings in horror, ‘There goes my Baby’! (Part of a Roy Orbison song).

Mark Wynter in the 1960s

One of the best things about the show, apart from the feel-good factor, is that all the singing and all the music is played live at every performance – which takes some doing when the performers are also dancing frantically. In fact a couple of girls somehow manage to play the saxophones while dancing, rocking and twisting! I’ve seen the show twice so far – I saw it just before Christmas in the West End, and it is now touring, so I caught up with it in Cambridge. The youth club leader is played by Mark Wynter, who was a huge star in the early 1960s with songs such as Venus in Blue Jeans, Go Away Little Girl, It’s Almost Tomorrow and many others.  Cannily, when he saw how the groups were taking over the music scene, he switched to acting, over the years getting to play roles in musicals such as Cats, Barnum and Phantom as well as serious dramas.  I’ve known Mark since the early sixties, and was so pleased when, at the end of the show, they announced that they had a real pop singer in their midst, and he came on – as himself – to sing some of his hits. I was rushed back through time!  After the show we chatted for a long time.

Mark and I after the show

A couple of weeks previously, I had been at another concert. This one was by someone who continued his singing career, bouncing back time and again after people said he was ‘finished’. Today, he’s a national treasure, an icon with thousands upon thousands of fans across the globe – through strangely, still hasn’t managed to crack America.  Of course, I’m talking about Cliff Richard – or Sir Cliff as he is often referred to nowadays – and he was holding a concert at an open air venue at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire.  The concert was entitled ‘Still Reelin` and A-Rockin`’.

The Military Wives Choir

The show began with the Military Wives choir who performed several songs, including a wartime medley. This choir is formed by wives, partners and service women of British Military personnel, located around Britain. They were excellent, and they ended with the Jubilee song, ‘Sing’ written by Gary Barlow and Andrew Lloyd Weber.

A short break – you could feel the tension and the  rising anticipation. Suddenly – there he was. Cliff bounded on stage resplendent in a scarlet jacket and denim jeans. For the next hour and a half he worked his way through his hits – Move It, Livin’ Doll, Devil Woman, In the Country, The Young Ones, Miss You Night, We Don’t Talk Anymore, Please Don’t Tease, and my personal favourite, Wired For Sound. The hits just kept on coming.

He danced, spun, jumped – I was exhausted watching him! At the end – standing ovations –of course, he came back again, and again, and again. It was as though he didn’t want to go, and naturally, we didn’t want him to go either. It was a magical evening, quite warm and amazingly not raining, and sitting there amidst thousands of happy people, all thrilled to have seen Cliff in action, was better than any tonic a doctor could have prescribed. Anyone who thinks that Cliff is ‘past it’ would have changed their mind had they been there that night!

MUSINGS FROM THE BOWER 41

This week I fed lemurs and lorikeets, had lunch in a café with a view of tigers from the window, watched a flying display of hawks and owls and saw a group of otters munching minced meat. Yes, I was back at Paradise Wildlife Park, Broxbourne. My husband and I were taking part in a ‘Lemur Experience’, which lets you spend half an hour inside the lemurs enclosure, feeding them with fruit.

We were given large bowls containing chopped fruit as well as some biscuits, and we sat inside the cage holding the bowls on our laps. Instantly the ring-tailed lemurs were upon us, perching on our laps or shoulders, using their long fingers to delicately take a piece of apple and then hold it to their mouth as they nibbled. Lemurs are beautiful creatures; like monkeys, they are primates but unlike them their long tails are not prehensile, they are just used for balance. It’s a very special thing to be close to such lovely animals, and though you are advised not to stroke them, the feel of their soft fur against your cheek as they rest against your head is super.  Their keeper, a young lady called Daisy, came in with us to take photos and to answer all our questions. Like many of the other keepers, she began as a volunteer before being taken on as a paid member of staff. All the staff I met at Paradise Wildlife Park obviously enjoy their jobs, and their love for animals shines through. They work long hours – they can’t just pack up and go when the visitors leave, as the animals must still be cared for – but it can be a rewarding job for those with a genuine feel for wildlife.

The display of hawks and owls, as well as a large red and gold macaw and a couple of lovebirds was excellent and entertaining. A barn owl swooped from post to post and a large Harris hawk demonstrated its enormous wingspan. Later it was the turn of  Stella, the Eagle owl. Stella is getting on a bit, and likes, naturally, to take things easy. So, instead of flying (which uses far too much energy!) she slowly plodded along the grass, giving the impression that she was in charge of her section of the display. It would begin when she said so and would end when she was ready, and not before.  So Stella sat on the fence, flew a little, deigned to collect some food, then sat, and sat, and sat until eventually she decided to go back to her cage. Apparently that part of the routine is nicknamed ‘Stella Time’ – no one knows quite how long it will last!

Feeding the lorikeets with nectar was another enjoyable event. These vividly-coloured small parakeets are beautiful, and have long tongues with tiny hair-like bristles on the tips, which help them to soak up the nectar. When we entered their aviary we were given pots of the liquid and the birds swooped down and perched on our hands and arms and, in my husband’s case, his head, and they dipped their tongues into the nectar. After having a ‘conversation’ with a cockatoo in a nearby aviary and admiring various other birds, we went to see the stunning snow leopards, cheetahs, ocelots, tigers, lions and leopards. The lions had a white cub, called Zuri, which is Swahili for ‘Beautiful’ and is also of Basque origin, where it means ‘White’.

A favourite animal of mine is the red panda, and often at zoos they tend to be curled up asleep high in a tree, but those at Paradise Wildlife Park seem to be active. Certainly, each time I visit they are climbing in the branches or feeding on the platform, munching bamboo. These sweet-faced, gentle creatures hail from south-east Asia, and although called pandas are more closely related to racoons, weasels and skunks. Nearby are the otters, they move so quickly, jostling for position as they are fed. Otters are other creatures that I could watch for hours, admiring their sleek bodies and the way that chase each other around the enclosure, seemingly full of energy.

Zoos such as Paradise Wildlife Park are a pleasure to visit – attractively laid out, plenty of trees and flowers, walkways that enable you to get different views of the animals, and enclosures containing interesting, beautiful creatures that encourage you just to ‘stand and stare’. This zoo is deeply committed to conservation, with a separate establishment in Kent (not open for general viewing) that is a haven for big cats, with many breeding successes.

What a wonderful day we had – we were even lucky with the weather. It didn’t rain (well, only a little)!

MUSINGS FROM THE BOWER 40

This blog is running late. I seem to have been rather busy what with one thing and another, plus the fact that suddenly sunshine and blue skies came along, and I certainly wasn’t going to miss out on them. The bower is coming into its own now, as the clematis is sending up clusters of pink and purple flowers and the honeysuckle will soon be in bloom. Nearby, a mock orange shrub is a mass of white-tipped buds – I love the heady scent of this plant and am eagerly waiting for the buds to open. What I would really like to get is a ‘New Dawn’ climbing rose – this rose is a very delicate shade of shell pink, and I first made its acquaintance way back in the 1950s when my Dad planted one to grow around the porch of our new house in Welwyn Garden City. We had moved from a flat in Brixton – three rooms, no bathroom, outside lavatory – to, what to us, was paradise. Now we had a garden rather than a yard where hardly anything grew and Dad discovered that he enjoyed gardening,

He also found that he enjoyed constructing things from wood, and soon our garden boasted a rustic trellis, complete with a gate, over which roses such as Paul Scarlet and Golden Showers climbed, In front, he planted bush roses, including Peace, Fragrant Cloud, Super Star, Ena Harkness, Orange Triumph and Iceberg. The creation of the garden was no mean achievement, because when we moved in, the house was new and the garden was just one solid bed of yellow clay. He learnt the names of the plants and shrubs, reading about them in a large gardening encyclopedia which was soon well-thumbed, and he taught the names to me. Out on a walk one day, he found a large branch that had snapped from a beech tree, He pushed it into the ground at the end of the garden, and much to our amazement it grew. As far as I know, the tree is still there, it must be over fifty years old now.

The apple tree that I sometimes mention in my blogs actually came from Mum and Dad’s garden. Dad planted the tree as a sapling in the 1950s, but by the early 1970s had decided that it was in the wrong place and didn’t know what to do. So my husband and I dug it up – it was quite large, but somehow we managed to transport it to our new home, and it has grown into a magnificent tree beloved by the birds and squirrels, with a beautiful crop of blossom in the spring and, most years, a large crop of eating apples. Dad planted fruit bushes – his favourites were raspberries and gooseberries, and I remember hot sunny days (it was always hot in summer when I was young, or so it seemed!), picking the gooseberries so that Mum could make pies or jam, and my hands and arms being scratched by those vicious thorns. I didn’t much mind though, and every so often I would put a gooseberry into my mouth, revelling in that slightly bitter taste that made my tongue tingle after I had crunched through the bristly skin. Dad also grew potatoes, lettuce, tomatoes and beans – he experimented with many vegetables to see which would grow best. We ate healthily in the 1950s, no ready meals or frozen vegetables then. Mum cooked everything from scratch, an on Sundays would produce a full roast dinner with apple pie or jam tart for afters. She always made two so that we had a choice of pudding.

Of course, I had my own little plot, and especially loved pansies. One year I bought some from the greengrocer – he fobbed me off with some shrivelled plants, thinking that it wouldn’t matter as I was just a small girl. He soon found that it did matter when Mum marched back to the shop with the pansies and demanded he replace them with good plants. She didn’t want my interest in gardening to disappear if I became disappointed that my pansies wouldn’t flower! I sowed seeds too – Virginia stock, night scented stock, cornflowers and love-in-a-mist. There were nasturtiums as well, although they always ended up thick with blackfly. These are old-fashioned flowers, rather like the golden rod and tall Michaelmas daisies that Dad planted along our boundary fence, and the peppery smelling lupins, clove-scented stocks and tall hollyhocks with their delicate, almost translucent flowers that he grew in the flowerbeds. He adored French marigolds, especially the clear lemon-yellow variety which he swore kept the whitefly away, and he planted white honey-smelling alyssum and light blue lobelia around the edges of the borders. He put Canterbury bells, phlox, antirrhinum, lavender and dahlias in a bed that ran along the edge of the lawn. The one flower that I really disliked was called ‘Love Lies Bleeding’ – one year Dad planted it all along the front garden, and I thought that not only was it ugly with its long, dark red, drooping tassels, but also the name was horrible!

My garden today is much smaller than that of my childhood, just about a quarter of the size, but I do cram a lot into it. Sadly, there is no room for a herbaceous border, and many of the plants and trees are grown in tubs. I always have pansies, alyssum, hollyhocks, lavender and lobelia, and scatter seeds of the ‘old-fashioned’ annuals wherever I can.  I have a variegated hosta in a tub that Dad gave me about twenty years ago – each year the snails and slugs enjoy a feast, but it fights back fresh and green every spring.  And of course, I have his apple tree. When he died, in 2000, Mum bought a red-flowered crab apple tree that she planted in a large pot in her garden. Just two-and-a half years later, she passed away as well. I brought Dad’s potted crab apple tree to my garden, and potted up a white-flowered crab apple in her memory. The two trees stand side by side, giving a beautiful display in spring and an abundant crop of crab apples in autumn. Living memorials for two people who loved flowers and gardens so much.

Red blossom for Dad.......

       

                

....and white for Mum