A
sprinkling of memories By Jo Hammond
“It’s always up to London,” Stella told me.
“Even when I’m coming from Liverpool and London is ‘down’ on the map”? I asked.
I was spending a few days with her and my grandfather,
en route to my first year of college in the Merseyside city.
She nodded. “Itıs
convention.”
I filed the information in my
naive 19-year-old brain along with the other items I’d gleaned from her during
my visits.
London was always up for me and I was
always up for London. 3 Cumberland Gardens was London. My grandparents were London.
I remember when they took me to a hot-off-the-press, recently discovered mosaic
Roman bath near the Thames in the heart of the city. Even though I was about 12
years old and bored with school history, they quickly caught me up in their excitement
as we entered the small room. This was real, a time warp. In there alone, we were
able to examine the place in detail.
My
grandparents never talked down; I learned through them, not by pedantry, but by
osmosis, through their enthusiasm, which was so obviously genuine that I knew
I’d feel the same way they did.
The Wagner Ring cycle was one of their
passions. They were attending the complete cycle at Covent Garden on consecutive
nights during one of my visits at age 16. They’d discuss the plot during
dinner, evening by evening, motivation, significance, the staging, and every aspect
of the current production. Listening intently to their talk and realizing I was
missing a Great Event, I vowed that I would hear this Ring as soon as possible.
When I was older, Stella would preface her recommendations with, “I really
think you should see…” And I knew I’d be in for a treat. When I
returned for my first visit to England (1987 after 20 years in an isolated area
of coastal B.C. in Canada) she dealt admirably with my culture shock; I put myself
totally in her hands. What an incredible three weeks that was.
Even the mundane remains vivid in my mind: when about 40 years ago Isabel and
I talked her into buying soft toilet paper rather than the dreadful stuff we used
as kids for tracing paper. We had an amazingly gracious discussion about that.
And
I remember the time (circa 1960?), when my grandparents were organizing a party
for a number of important guests, many well known in the world of art, music and
drama. Stella gave me some India ink and a paintbrush that morning to “paint
the bare spots on the carpet stairs”. That was the party where there were
so many people in the living room they feared that the now sagging floor would
collapse into the cellar. But nobody said anything and the party was a great success!
She was fond of all musicians, even the street buskers into whose upturned hats
she used to throw a few coins. “I never pass them by without giving a donation”,
she told me.
In one of her many letters to me (April 1987, aged 86) she wrote,
”Iıve just been asked to lecture in the British Museum in August. It’s
funny, at this advanced age Iım doing more this year than for several years past,
why I can’t imagine. It’s nice but they are all new lectures, which
means an awful lot of preparation to getting slides made”. It was during
my visit just a month before that letter she told me how, in order to secure a
certain position, late in life, she’d deliberately mislead the “powers
that be” about her age.
Right on! I say. Good for you, Stella! Happy Birthday!
Josephine Hammond