gradus :: london 1952 to 1959

It is the summer of 1952. I am 24 years old. I have a brand new Honours degree in Music from the University of Oxford. I am married. I am unemployed.

It is the summer of 1959. I am 31 years old. I have just been appointed to succeed George Malcolm as the Master of Music at Westminster (Roman Catholic) Cathedral.

If this were an examination question I would add one word. Discuss. It is more instructive to say Explain. And that’s what I am going to try to do. As much for my own satisfaction as for anyone else’s.

/* my inner voices keep on and on. Oh what a tangled web we weave! Now. I’ve written it down. Perhaps the voices will turn their attention elsewhere. To what really matters. To the main threads */

How did I get from ‘over qualified and unemployed in Harcourt Street’ to ‘the Master of Music’s rostrum in Westminster Cathedral’’?

And the first part of the answer to that is the thought that came to my mind in those very early days at Paddington Chapel. As I express it again now the wording may be slightly different but the import is the same. Sundays are special. We put on our Sunday Best and we go to church.

There was another thought that went with it – and I remember actually saying it my parents. Religion shouldn’t be something we put on with our best clothes and put aside when we take them off.

Old Self contributes another vital factor. Musically I was well prepared.

And another. That the religion I experienced in the family circle was often more perceptive than the religion I heard from the pulpit. Not always the most comfortable position to be in.

* * * * * * *

From the first time I played the harmonium for the Children’s Church in the basement of Paddington Chapel, I was no longer simply someone who put on their best clothes and went to church on Sunday. I was part of church music. Often out of sight. But always part of the platform. Singing on the Decani side of St Mary’s church choir was still part of that pattern. Playing the harmonium for Spiritualist services picked up the thread. The vivid anglo-catholicism of St Peter in Fulham made me aware of theatre. By contrast, morning assembly at Mercers’ was mundane. St Barnabas in Pimlico was the Oxford Movement in glorious preRaphaelite setting. We made good music together. The organ contributed to my Fellowship of the Royal College of Organists. The choir made possible my Choirmaster’s Diploma. St Mark in Marylebone eventually turned my feet toward the authority of Rome. And it was music for the Catholic liturgy that sang with each footstep.

But another pattern still ran alongside. This was the spirituality that came from my parents. The certainty of the reality of the Other Side. From the organ loft it seemed to me this certainty was by no means present in some of the services I played for. In others, the words of their prayers were offered up to a distant God scarcely apprehended. Anglo-Catholic churches tended to have a different feeling. The Real Presence was on the altar.

Old Self leans over with a reminder. The immortal soul experiences life through the intermediary of the physical body. We are both public persona and private insight. We are in the workaday world created around us and the world we create with our own inner senses. They cleave together like the strands of a double helix. Interdependent.

* * * * * * *

I go back and re-read the paragraphs I’ve just written. How did I get from there to here? I’d almost forgotten to mention the key in the ignition. It really was one of those significant moments. When I recall it I see myself sitting in a boy’s desk in a classroom – though the reality was nothing like that. The mental image is there to remind me that Young Self’s inner consideration took place on the premises of the Central Foundation (Boys’) Grammar School in Cowper Street.

>> IF you are going to stay in teaching THEN it’s time to start looking for a job as Director of Music in a comfortable Public School. IF you are NOT going to stay in teaching THEN it’s time to move on to something else. <<

It wasn’t by any means the sending out of a thought to achieve a desire. It was simply recognising a situation.

Be that as it may. Within days rather than weeks I opened my copy of The Times to see a display advertisement inviting applications to fill the impending vacancy of Master of Music at Westminster Cathedral. This was a job I could do. From then on it was up to me to pick up my cues. I did. Forwards and backwards. Backwards and forwards. And then one day there was the announcement of my appointment. On the Court Page of The Times. I had achieved an ambition I expressed when Sir Stanley Marchant interviewed me for admission as a student to the Royal Academy of Music. That was 1944.

francis cameron, oxford, 05 april 2012

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