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