Back to the Future

[Hornspieler]

It was while I was working on a contract with Rank Xerox International in Uxbridge that I received an urgent call from the Manpower Services Commision to go down to Enham Industries, a Government Sponsored Sheltered Workshop for the Disabled in Andover to sort out a materials flow problem. So my free weekend was abandoned to go to Andover and give them some help.

I was not in the best of moods. I had been looking forward to a couple of days watching TV before returning to Uxbridge.
Then I knocked a telephone directory off my desk and onto the floor. As I bent down to pick it up, it fell open aat a certain page and I saw, top left a name and phone number that I would certainly never forget.

Her father! Let's just call him AL
I dialled the number and he answered immediately.

Now it was my turn to speak.
I'm sorry to bother you, Sir but this is ....(I told him my name)

AL: "I remember you. You're a horn player, aren't you?

"Yes that's right, sir. I was hoping that you could tell me how to contact Pamela.

AL: "She's married now, you know?"

Yes, I know that. You see I'm writing a piece about the Ernest Read Summer Orchestral Course for school children and I thought she might be able to assist me with her memories of the tutors for the string sections.
She was at teacher training college when I last saw her.

AL: "Well she's teaching now at a school near High Wycombe, but I can give you her phone number"

That would be very helpful, Sir

AL "Well, I would suggest you ring her on a school day between four and four thirty in the afternoon." (was there a slight warning note in his voice?)

Thank you very much. I'll ring her on Monday.

AL "I'll give her a call to tell her you might be phoning, so that she won't be out shopping or something.

Thanks again. That's very helpfull

So begins my story of "The Girl in the Red Mini"
I will be happy to send a copy to any forumite who PMs me with their email address.

I'm starting to get away from the "BACK" to talk about the "FUTURE"

(The Air display is flying overhead as I type. Don't forget that "Flight of Three" is also on offer.

HS

[vinteuil]

.

I had just finished work and was about to leave when I clumsiy knocked a telephone directory off my desk.

It was for the Oxford and Bucks Area.

As I picked it up, the pages fell open and in the top left hand corner, I spotted a number that I had not used for 29 years.

That act of carelessness was to bring about a complete change in my life.

If you want to know why, you will have to ask me to send you a short story called "The Girl in the Red Mini"

[Barbirollians]

.

Can't we just let HS post his reminiscences here - whether he has posted them on the site before in similar form is of no interest to those who have not read them before .

[Once Was 4]

That BBC stopwatch will have come in handy.

Hmmm! It reminds me of a story told by an old friend and colleague who himself had been desk partner, (when young) at Sadlers Wells, of an elderly violinist who was a founder member of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. He said that the then Orchestral Manager, a Mr Pratt, would accost any player who arrived less than 10 minutes before a rehearsal with the words "technically late, technically late". Certainly, when I was a regular extra/deputy with one of the BBC orchestras in the 70s, the Orchestral Secretary (a very efficient and, in private, a very nice lady), always stood at the front of the orchestra with a big ledger, ticking you off as you arrived. I wonder if this was a note of your arrival time?

[Tony Halstead]

Can't we just let HS post his reminiscences here - whether he has posted them on the site before in similar form is of no interest to those who have not read them before .

exactly so.

[Hornspieler]

Good morning, Tony (and to all our fellow forumites)

When my young bride and I joined the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, we were together, engaged in the same activity for 24 hours a day - except that she was playing the violin when I was playing the horn.(No comments please!)

Does "Absence really make the heart grow fonder"?

If we go back again to the future, what was the position of married couples in WW2?

Young men had to leave their wives and go off to fight the enemy whether on land, at sea or in the air.
The wives without children were recruited into the workforce on the "home front" - Womens Land Army, Ambulance Drivers, and especially, Munitions Factories and Weapons Construction.

But they were not alone. They found themselves working alongside young men who were in what was known as "reserved occupations" and many of those wives had heard no news of their husbands since waving them goodbye on a railway platform.
They could be in a POW camp, Killed in action, fighting in North Africa, or in the secretive SAS.

So the temptation was there, to seek company and comfort from those young men who were working alongside them every day, and were also missing something - "a bit of the other"

So did the absence of those husbands make their hearts grow fonder? Or if so, was the presence of their male colleagues a temptation to draw the attitude ".. well it's only a temporary thing and he won't ever know, will he?
How many husbands returned home in 1945 to find their wives with a two year old child?

I leave it there, and I've written this to lead me on to a discussion into the effects of togetherness 24/7 and absence for weeks at a time.

HS

.

[Hornspieler]

Always together or mostly apart?

When my young bride and I joined the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, we were together, engaged in the same activity for 24 hours a day - except that she was playing the violin when I was playing the horn.I've written this to lead me on to a discussion into the effects of togetherness 24/7 and absence for weeks at a time.

In my message #13, I listed the companies for whom I had undertaken surveys and reports as a Management Services Consultant:
As you can see, all but one required me to be away from home for long periods, including mostly overnight stays.

My wife was playing full-time with the BSO; which required occasional long tours and overnight stays.
We hardly saw each other for days at a time, but there was no animosity between us - it was how things were and we both accepted that technically, we were not emotionally committed to each other.

So the incident which I reported in message #16 would not have caused panic or dismay on either of our parts.

It happened - some may say an incredible coincidence, but it was one that would change the future for both my wife and myslf:

Here is where it is imperative that I give you access to "The Girl in the Red Mini" which I wrote a fortnight later. Too long to fit into one post, but as it is in four sections, I will, with the our genial hosts indulgence, print those four section and it's outcome in separate posts.

Please do not post in between those four inputs and by all means let me know after reading the outcome of that period in my life.

[Hornspieler]

The Girl in the Red Mini

PROLOGUE

I drummed my fingers impatiently on the rim of the steering wheel and looked at the dashboard clock for about the fortieth time. Twelve twenty seven. I was supposed to be there at twelve thirty and here I was, stuck in a traffic jam ten miles away.

The rain cascaded across the windscreen and rattled on the roof. The two hours arm-deadening labour of the previous evening, wax-polishing the car,were wasted within minutes as the mud from the road works leapt from the tarmac in spiteful, destructive globules.
My stomach muscles tightened into knots of apprehension and unease.

Should I try to get to a phone and tell her that I was going to be late?

No point in considering it. By the time I was clear of the traffic, it would only cause further delay and I didn't know the number of the inn anyway.
Either she would wait, or she would assume that I'd got cold feet.

There was nothing I could do so I slipped a cassette into the stereo and tried to relax.

The day had started badly. My dentist, usually so punctual, had kept me waiting for ten minutes and then his receptionist had delayed me further dealing with my account. The two hours, which I'd allowed for the thirty mile journey was reduced by fifteen minutes. Then someone ran into the back of me at a pedestrian crossing. No damage to my car and a witness to testify that I was in no way to blame, but a further ten minutes wasted.
Wandsworth Bridge solid with traffic and now here, on Western Avenue, snarled up once again.

At last the traffic cleared and I was on the M40, flashing along at one hundred plus. Off the motorway and another frustrating five miles before I spotted the hotel.

I swung into the car park and looked anxiously for a red Mini. Yes,it was there and she was sitting in the driving seat. Did she also look apprehensive, I wondered? I flashed the headlights and waved. She waved back in recognition and I jumped from the car, coatless in spite of the downpour and went over to her.

"I'm sorry I'm late." I said "The traffic, it was awful.'

"Pity about this rain" she answered "It was lovely here yesterday. How was your dental appointment?"

Apart from a brief telephone call, two weeks previously, those were the first words we had spoken to each other for twenty five years.

Twenty five years! Twice as much as a llfe-sentence for murder and yet, suddenly, it had become as if it were no time at all.

"Let me buy you a drink" I said "Then I'll tell you what it's all about."

[Hornspieler]

Prologue

PART ONE


To go back those twenty five years in time is to go to the other side of a marriage which was blissful but which turned sour, to a totally different career, and to a set of standards and moralities which the youth of today would consider laughable. The year was 1957.

I was engaged to be married and I was a freelance musician in London.

I thought nothing of accepting an engagement to play in a concert at Eton College. Why should I associate it with the Slough Philharmonic Orchestra? I didn't know they gave their concerts at Eton. To me, it was just another 'gig' and it fitted conveniently between a rehearsal and performance at Maida Vale Studios for the BBC Third Programme, as it was then called.

The only exit from the concert hall at Eton College is by the front entrance and she was standing on the steps waiting for me, as I headed for my car.
My stomach hit the floor, my head spun, my heart either stopped or beat at twice its normal speed and for a moment, I really thought that I was going to be sick. All my plans, all my hopes, everything shrank into nothing as I looked at her. I was right back to where I had been seven years previously; before I had come to terms with the realities of life, before I had met and become engaged to my fiancée, before the time when I had wanted to kill myself and had lacked the courage to do so.

"Hello" she said "I thought I recognised you. How are you?"

“I'm fine" I said "It's nice to see you. Don't you play with the orchestra now?

"No. I don't really have time. You know how it is. We always seem to be so busy.” I didn't, but I nodded anyway.

"You’re a married woman now then. Tell me, are you happy?"

"Oh yes. It's wonderful, really."

I didn't believe her. I still don't. If she was in love with that man, she could never have behaved the way she had with me.

"I'm glad" I said "You know that your happiness was always the most important thing to me. There were never any hard feelings."
"What about you?" she asked casually "Are you married?"

I could have hit her. It was the way she said it, as if our relationship had been of no importance either to her or to me.
No apology, no 'sorry it had to be this way', no 'thank you for understanding'.
memories flooded back to me, right from when it all started, in the summer of 1948.

[Hornspieler]

PART TWO

When does a boy become a man?

When his voice breaks? When he grows as tall as his father? When shop assistants call him “Sir”?

No. None of those things. I believe that a boy becomes a man when, for the first time in his life, somebody else becomes more important to him than himself. It happened to me when I was fifteen years old.....

They say that fifteen is a difficult age for a boy.
I was certainly never aware of feeling difficult or of being found to be difficult. I had passed through the stage of puberty without really noticing it; probably because I had bridged that particular age gap by association with my elder brother and sisters, who were already through it. My voice had broken, I didn't have acne, I wasn't shy and I had not a care in the world. In fact, I must be honest and say that I was precocious, cocky, sardonic and yet, in spite of all those undesirable aspects of my personality, I was popular and could feel at ease in almost any company which I chose to grace with my presence.

All right, I admit it. I was conceited and looking back on it now, I'm surprised that anyone was willing to have anything to do with me, let alone eager to cultivate my friendship.

I wasn't conceited about one thing, though. I never thought that I was good looking and I envied those of my friends whom I considered were more handsome than myself .

I was also lazy, because things had always come easily to me and I had never needed to learn the discipline of hard work. At school, I sailed through all my examinations without even bothering to do any revision beforehand, I sang in the school choir, which was of high standard and gave many broadcasts, and I played the french horn in the school orchestra.
I joined the local orchestral society and the chamber music society, where everyone else was older than myself,but no more skilled in their musical abilities.

Each summer, I went to a school orchestra's summer course where I was one of a clique – the smart set, if you like - who, being more accomplished than the average, tended to form themselves into an elitist group.

I've never liked using clichés but I have no choice here. Pride comes before a fall, they say. How very true that statement is.

No, she wasn't one of our 'set'. She was just a girl who played the violin to an average school orchestra standard and she sat in the middle of the section, so how did I notice her?
It was like looking into a jeweller's window. There is always one gem that compels immediate attention. It may not be the most expensive piece on the tray, but somehow the eye keeps returning to it.
She was just such a jewel. Everything and everyone around her was out of focus. I saw only her and in that instant all my pride, self-confidence and conceit left me.

I loved her. I was her slave to the end of time. Never again would I be a free man. Knowing nothing about her, not even her name, I would have sacrificed my life for her there and then, without even enquiring why she wanted me to. It was an elating sensation, but it was also a very frightening one.


I turned to my second horn. "Who's that girl down there in the second fiddles?'

"Which one?" So, he could see more than one. She didn't have the same effect on everybody then.

"The one in the red blazer, with the dark hair – the pretty one."

That was an understatement if you like. She wasn't just pretty, she was ravishingly beautiful. The young Elizabeth Taylor wasn't even in the same class as far as I was concerned.

"Oh, her. That's Roger’s girlfriend.'

"Who's Roger?"

"That chap with the glasses. In the viola section."

I turned to look. Yes, there he was. Just my luck! Better-looking than me. Taller and more athletic. I hated him at once and wished him dead.
What a dreadful emotion to feel. Even now, I shudder at the memory of it. It wasn't his fault. He was just luckier than me, that's all – or so I thought at the time.

"I'm going to marry that girl." I announced.

"Don't talk daft. You don't even know her."

"That can be arranged."

"What, with him around? He never lets her out of his sight."

"That too can be arranged. I'll get Mike to challenge him to a game of tennis. She's bound to come along to watch and then I can chat her up while he's otherwise engaged."

“You crafty devil! Are you always that unscrupulous?"

I looked straight into his eyes. "It's important, Chris. It's the most important thing that's ever happened to me. Back me up, will you? Fend him off for a few minutes if they finish the game before I finish talking to her.”

[Hornspieler]

"What will it be, then? Gin and orange?"

"What a marvelous memory you have! Fancy remembering after all these years that I used to drink gin. We all did, didn't we? It was the smart thing to do. No, I'll have a medium sherry, please."

The inn was typical of what one would expect to find in urban Buckinghamshire. Tudor beams, horse brasses, hunting horns that don't have a hole through them and everything geared away from the local peasantry and towards the middle class ‘yah-yahs' who commute (how I hate that word!) to Marylebone and the City
beyond. The dining room was temporarily closed and a cold buffet was being served in the bar. There was nowhere to sit down.

"I hate standing up to drink" she said "I’m sorry about the lunchroom. It used to be quite good here before the place changed hands."

"Look" I said "I offered to buy you lunch. I wasn't talking about a cold snack on a plate. Why don't I drive you into the town to a proper restaurant? You can leave your car here and we'll come back for it."

We dashed across the car park, skipping around the puddles.
I unlocked the passenger door and she climbed in

* * *

The last time she had done that was almost two years to the day after the successful outcome of the tennis match which I mentioned
previously. While Roger was suffering defeat at Mike's hands, I
succeeded in persuading her to let me take some photographs of her
which meant, naturally enough, that I had to have her address in order to send copies to her and so I was able to develop a correspondence between us.

It was early on in that exchange of letters that I discovered that Roger posed no threat at all. Theirs had been only a temporary
liaison. Her real boyfriend lived in her home town but he was away
doing his National Service.
I suffered agonies of unrequited love in those two years. First, she agreed to meet me. Then she backed out, claiming that she had to be fair to her absent swain. Then, she met me anyway and I took her home (we had moved to London by this time) to introduce her to my family.


I didn't dare tell her that I loved her, but I was able to take her out, to the theatre or for an occasional meal and I sat and suffered the humiliation of listening to her telling me about her latest conquest, who was the captain of her college’s rugby team. And all the time, there lurked in the background the real threat; the regular boyfriend whose service days were drawing to a close.

I saw my first Mozart opera at that time and it was 'Cosi fan tutte'. How ironical! The title translates as 'Women are all the same' and it's the story of two young men who tell their loves that they must go away for military service, as a ruse to test their fidelity. The two return in disguise and woo the young ladies, who succumb to their advances.
Well, I reasoned, those two young ladies couldn't have been properly in love, not as I was and my hopes rose.

Roger's sudden death, falling from the spire of his college in Bedford with a chamber pot in his hand, shook me to the core. I had wished him dead and the Devil had granted my wish. I felt awful, wicked, sinful and afraid. It was a bad omen. I had put a curse on him. Had I also put one on myself?

Apparently not. I don't understand to this day why she suddenly
agreed to go away with me for a week to another orchestral course
but she did. I was a student at the Royal Academy of Music by this
time and I was also getting quite a lot of professional work so funds were not a problem and I had learned to drive a car.
I arranged to pick her up at her home and I met her parents for the first time.
What nice people they were! I took to them immediately but I was not unaware that I was being subjected to a fairly close scrutiny. I passed the test, apparently, because there was no objection to my disappearing for a week with their daughter.

When she climbed into the passenger seat of that car, it was the culmination of two years of hard work, indescribable misery and a dogged refusal to abandon what had seemed from the very outset to be a hopeless quest. I had seven days in which to tell her that I loved her in a way that she could not possibly imagine; that I wanted to marry her and that I was prepared to wait all my life if necessary.

On our first evening there, I took her out into the warm summer night and turned her so that the soft moonlight was lighting her face.

"I want to kiss you' I said "Will you let me?"
"I wouldn't know."

This was ridiculous! What was this? Some sort of a guessing game
that people play? A straight yes or no, that's all I was asking for.

"Well I'm going to anyway." I said and I did, clumsily and inexpertly.

"We'll do that again if you like. Properly, this time."

I couldn't believe my ears! She liked it. She'd wanted me to, all the time.

I kissed her again, hungrily, pressing her against me, distracted
beyond reason by the sweet, yielding softness of her.

"I’ve waited to do that for two years" I muttered into her hair. "I’ve been in love with you from the moment I first saw you."

"I know." she said, quietly “I've always known that."

For seven whole days, apart from the constraints of the dormitory
arrangements, we were never apart. We went everywhere with our
arms round each other's waists. At night, we kissed and cuddled in
the back of the car.

"Oh oh. Here come the Siamese twins" my friends used to chortle "Make way for two, chaps."


I was in dreamland. She loved me! She never said so in as many
words, but I knew it was true. Nobody could behave as she did unless they were in love. I knew that I was the envy of all my friends and that made the enjoyment of her all the sweeter.
All the agony and worry and bitter disappointment had been worth it. I had achieved what even I had thought to be impossible. What a wonderful, lovable, beautiful girl. How could I ever hope to be worthy of her?

My friend Denis tried to warn me, but I refused to listen to him.
"I love her, Denis. We love each other. I'm going to marry her. You're jealous, that's all. l don't care what you say. I’ve never been so happy in my life and I'm not going to let you spoil it.”

“You're going to be hurt Don. Believe me I'm telling you for your own good".
"Don't interfere Denis. If you can't speak well of her then don't even dare to mention her name."
He shook his head sadly and walked away. It was the end of a very valuable friendship.


On our last night there, I asked her to marry me and she paid me a
great compliment, albeit unknowingly. She didn't actually say no, she just changed the subject and so I was not rejected. It was unwise of me to have mentioned the subject anyway. I was much too young even to contemplate the idea of marriage. Did I mention that she was more than two years older than me? Probably not. It was yet another reason why my quest had been hopeless from the start.

On the day that I took her home, she was reluctant to let me go. She took me along to show me off to her sister. She took me around her home town, showing me the sights. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind, although I'm sure she would have denied it, that she was, for that brief time, truly in love with me.

Within a few days from the time that we returned home, she wrote to me. She had to admit that she missed me, she said, more than she had thought she would. Her mother had questioned her closely on her return. She had sensed that something had happened and she was uneasy about her decision to let her daughter go with me.
The regular boyfriend was due out of the RAF at any moment. He
definitely bore the parental seal of approval and mother was worried.

She signed that letter 'With much love' which was the closest she ever came to saying that she loved me. I, of course, wrote to her in the most passionate terms. I was no longer afraid to declare my love. The pity is that I was too inexperienced to convey how I felt.

Why did Dr Faustus have such success with his Marguerite? It was because he had the experience of age to back his youthful appearance. I could do a much better job of writing those letters now. Anyway, I was quietly confident. The regular boyfriend was no more than a habit. She couldn't possibly love him, or she would not have behaved as she did with me.
I booked seats for the theatre in London and she came into
town to meet me for the first time since I had declared my love to
her.
We wandered into the park after the show and spent about an hour
kissing and embracing and then I walked her to her bus stop at
Victoria. She clung to me tightly as we kissed goodbye and she
probably put more into that kiss than she ever had before.

"I've got to go away next week." I told her "But I'll bring you back a special present for your birthday. It's something you've always wanted. Goodnight, darling. Safe journey."


A week later, I returned from my trip and there was a letter from her propped on the mantelpiece in the hall. I sauntered into the lounge to read it.

Dear Don,
I know this letter will come as a surprise to you, but Norman
and I are going to get married and we shall announce our
engagement on my next birthday.
This means of course that I will be unable to see you again and I must ask you not to write to me or attempt to communicate with me in any way. I am very grateful for all the love and affection you have given me and I wish you every possible success for the future.

Pamela

I just made it to the bathroom in time. My stomach heaved and I was sicker than I'd ever been in my life. All I wanted to do was die – and the sooner the better.
In less than one hundred words, she had completely destroyed my hopes, my dreams and my reason for living.

And she didn't even say she was sorry!

* * *

[Hornspieler]

NB This is the last of a consecutive series of posts Please start reading from post #22

[SIZE=2] PART FOUR

I studied her walk as we headed towards the restaurant. It hadn't changed, that lively springing step with a slight sway of the hips.
"We've started going to the Colosseum twice a month. I decided it was time I learnt something about opera."
I nearly asked her if she had ever seen 'Cosi fan tutte' but I bit the words back.
"I'm not keen on opera. I always disliked playing in an orchestra pit and I don't like opera singers in the main. They're mostly unmusical and they can't act anyway."
"l've written off for tickets to Glyndebourne this year. Have you ever been there?"
I nodded. "It was very claustrophobic in that auditorium. I just felt that I had to get out as soon as possible."
"Why did you give up playing?" she asked me, as we sat down to study the menu.
"I played for some of the greatest conductors in the world. Beecham, Bruno Walter, Furtwangler, Kleiber, Monteux, Horenstein -then they all seemed to die at the same time. There's no one around that I'd particularly care to play for now and also, I wanted to quit while I could still play. I've heard so many brass players who've carried on for too long and ruined their reputations. So I went into management and now I'm a consultant."

"Okay" she said "So now the time has come. Tell me what it's all about. Why did you ask me to meet you."

"Well, it's difficult to put it neatly so you'll have to indulge me and not interrupt. You see, two years ago, I decided to take up writing. I suppose it's natural that you can't just suddenly stop being a creative person and in fact I've written three books now, which are all at the publishers. Well, the first one, the one that started it all, is about teenage love. Not the joys and the pleasures but the miseries and the heartache and the loneliness and the pain of enforced separation from the object of that love."

I paused to look at her and to see how she was taking it.

“Carry on” she said “I’m not interrupting."

"Well, I believe that one can only write convincingly about emotions if one has
actually experienced them. You can't, for instance, convey the emotion of fear if you've never been afraid and the only person I've ever felt these emotions about was you, so I've built the central character on you and I've given her your name. The events in the book are pure fiction, of course. There isn't a surname or place name in the book and nobody but you would recognise yourself, but I felt that I owed it to you to tell you before the book was published, rather than have you pick it up on a bookstall and be upset when you saw what I'd done."

"What sort of a book is it, then?"

"Well, as I said it's about teenage love and it's very explicit in places, because it has to be, but you certainly couldn't say it was pornographic and I've tried to treat the subject with a reverence that kids don't seem to have nowadays. They think no more of jumping into bed together than you or I thought of holding hands in the cinema. I suppose I ought to let you read it, really, I have a copy in the car."

"And what if I don't like it?"

"Well it doesn't really make any difference whether you do or not, does it? As I
said, it's fiction anyway. You couldn't sue me but, no. Read the book anyway and
then let me know what you think. I'd be prepared to negotiate changes.”

“Look, they want us to leave now. The restaurant's closed. I'll get your coat."

“I’m taking a risk, giving you this" I said, as I handed the manuscript over to her in the car. "You may well order me never to darken your doorstep again, but I must emphasise once more that the story is fiction; it has nothing to do with our relationship."

"Do you know? I’ve started to take singing lessons" she told me on the way back to the inn "Just imagine, at my age. We've joined the local musical society and you know it's much more fun; dressing up and performing on stage."
We arrived back at the inn and she climbed into her red Mini.

"Goodbye" she said "Thank you for the lunch. I shall start on this book as soon as I get home."

I stood in the middle of the car park in the rain and waved until she was out of
sight

Was the book really the reason that I asked to see her?
No, of course it wasn't! The chances are a million to one that she would ever have seen it anyway. She doesn't read that kind of book. The truth is that I wanted to 'lay a ghost'. I wanted to see her as she is now and convince myself that she no longer means anything more to me than a tender memory, that my obsession is with the past and a desire to return to my youth

Well, I failed in my objective. I know now that I still love her as much as I ever did, that I am still her slave to the end of time, that I would gladly give up everything I have - even my life; if I could relive with her those seven, wonderful days.

So she goes back to her golf, her bridge and her singing lessons.
I go back to sorting out people's problems - everybody's except my own ....

* * *
~


Epilogue

.... Well, that is what I wrote at the time, but she rang me a few days later, suggesting that we should meet again, as she had much to tell me.

We were married a year later and have remained happily so to this day.
Thirty four years now, and still blissfully together.

[Hornspieler]

I was not sure whether it was possible to split a document into four posts so my thanks to the Hosts of the R3 Forum for allowing this.

So now I have completed my input from "Back" (1948) to "The Girl in the Red Mini" - my future.

Please feel free to comment.

Hornspieler

[Hornspieler]

I was not sure whether it was possible to split a document into four posts so my thanks to the Hosts of the R3 Forum for allowing this.

So now I have completed my input from "Back" (1948) to "The Girl in the Red Mini" - my future.

Please feel free to comment.

Hornspieler

A seventy year account of my activities, triumphs and disappointments. Mistakes and Regrets,

The future? What do any of us know?

Please feel free to comment or to ask any questions - either on this thread or by PM.

Good viewing to you all.


Don (aka Hornspieler, Vinsun Beech, Donald Frederickson and various other Nom-de-Plumes) -
,

[Hornspieler]

A seventy year account of my activities, triumphs and disappointments. Mistakes and Regrets,

The future? What do any of us know?

Please feel free to comment or to ask any questions - either on this thread or by PM.

Good viewing to you all.


Don (aka Hornspieler, Vinsun Beech, Donald Frederickson and various other Nom-de-Plumes)

It would appear that nobody is interested in expressing any sort of comment or opinion, so I suggest that this thread should be removed from the forum. (and a lot of other threads bearing no relation to music or items of discussion relevant to Radio 3}.

HS