a little game I play

Here’s a little game I play when I’m dabbling the uncertain waters of numerology and looking back on some of the significant years of my life.  You might like to join in.

I was born in the London Borough of St Marylebone :: 1927 december 05

I take each individual digit of my date of birth and add them together :-

1+9+2+7+1+2+0+5 = 27

2+7 = 9

Now let’s see how significant for me have been each of the years ending in ‘9’.

1939. I am 11 years old when I hear on the wireless the voice of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain telling us we are once more at war with Germany.  So I shall remain here in Caerphilly with Uncle Harry and Auntie Lilla instead of returning to London. The countryside, the boys’ grammar school, the scouts, the people I meet are all so famously new and different.

1949. I am 21 years old when I come up to University College Oxford to read for an Honours Degree in Music. I have just finished two years of compulsory National Service in the army. Many of the men in college are older than me.  They have been through real war. I am now an adult in an adult world.

1959. I spent so long in intensive thought and study. Now, at the age of 31, I am newly converted to the Roman Catholic Church, ‘Master of Music’ at Westminster Cathedral, and a Professor at the Royal Academy of Music.

1969. This is my first full year as Assistant Director of the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music. A year-and-a-half ago I was doing rather well as a professional musician with a practice centered around my teaching at the RAM and, as I told myself, I could easily go on doing the same sort of thing for the next 25 or 30 years. But that would be it. There were no obvious prospects for advancement. Then, in the March of 1968, there were those ads in the best of the Sunday newspapers. And here I am. We celebrated my 41st birthday on the ship coming over.

1979. December 31st. Afternoon. Tea time. I am sitting on a QANTAS plane waiting for take-off. This decade in Australia has radically changed my life in ways I could never have foreseen. Now my work here is ended. I am 52 years old. I am going back to England.

1989. November 9th. I am 61 years old. I am in Berlin. It is the Annual General Meeting and conference of our European Seminar in Ethnomusicology. I am here to present a paper at one of the formal sessions and to write up the proceedings for publication. Much more importantly, we are all joining the champagne and celebrations marking the opening of borders and the Fall of the Berlin Wall. This may even be the end of the Cold War.

1999. Oxford. As the year draws to its close I am safely past my 72nd birthday. I recall a particular Christmas at Nana Cameron’s when I was seven or eight years old. The elders were talking about their pasts and their futures and I sat and wondered whether I could possibly live long enough to see the 21st century. It seemed so incredibly far away. And by then I would have passed my allotted three score years and ten.

επί-λογος

I am not going to pretend that 1999 or 2009 were earth-shattering years for me. They were not. In 1996 I gave my ultimate organ recital ending with a thumpingly good magnificent performance of Franz Liszt’s Prelude and Fugue on BACH. Some weeks later, and for the last time, I played the organ for a Sunday evening service. I turned off the wind. Closed the console. Made farewells to the choir. Folded my tent .. and quietly went on my way. For the better part of sixty years my weekends had been devoted to providing music for the church :: Nonconformist. Spiritualist. Low Church Anglican. High Church Anglican. Roman Catholic High Mass - and  Solemn Vespers with Benediction. Now all that was ended. I was free. 

Free to spend weekends under canvas with friends of multivariant Pagan persuasions. Free to drive many a fruitful mile to speak at their moots, to feature in their annual conferences, to remind them of Helen Duncan, the Repeal of the 18th century Witchcraft Act, and of ‘Dafo’ - but for whom the Wicca might still be one of the arcane hidden mysteries.

I have meandered the rocky track from MS-DOS to Windows 8 (ugh!) and on to the glorious summit of Apple and the iMac. I have been part of the University’s teams teaching Word Perfect, dBase-II, MS Word, Excel, the C programming language, C++, Visual Basic, MS Access, and others now forgotten.

When I came back this time I chose my parents well. My mother and my father both were active accomplished Christian Spiritualists. My mother gave me my first piano lessons. Together in public concert, we played a 4-handed duet when I was 4 years old. My father inspired me, sang, and guided the circles. So has my Web of Wyrd been spun with twin strands striving for the ultimate in music and in religion.

As a good Sagittarian I have travelled far and wide. Physically. Intellectually. Spiritually. The path ahead has a far horizon. My revels now are - not yet - ended.