Aldous had agreed to having another concert in his grounds. He has a useful barn with good acoustics which can be turned into a concert hall of some description, holding about a hundred people. It had been quite a success last year. A lovely venue in a rural setting. Fields, woods.
\nSomebody said Glyndebourne. It must be nice having one\u2019s property likened to Glyndebourne, if on a different level obviously. Let\u2019s try and be up to it.<\/p>\n
The village people were notified of the forthcoming event, asked to book early and warned that numbers were limited. No harm in exercizing a little pressure\u2026 It was no good anyway.
\nHardly anyone booked. People had to be chased up and made to buy their tickets. One can\u2019t really say \u201cno\u201d to somebody one is supposed to be friendly with. One can\u2019t say \u201cno\u201d to somebody one works with. One certainly doesn\u2019t refuse a free ticket \u2013 Aldous himself had bought up quite a number to give them away. Sometimes it was difficult to make people pay on the spot. It upset Aldous\u2019 wife. It happened to me twice that people couldn\u2019t pay \u00a32 or so, because they had to \u201cgo to the bank in the morning\u201d. I let them off, saying they could pay at the door. Aldous\u2019 wife thought they were naughty and wrote \u201cto pay\u201d on their tickets.<\/p>\n
Aren\u2019t people sticky where money is concerned? How much had I taken so far, Aldous\u2019 wife asked. I was afraid, not much. Anyway, it all helps. The organizers were apparently going to great trouble about providing refreshments. I heard they had paid out so much already. Just for food! Should they not cut down on that and let the musicians have more, Aldous\u2019 wife wondered. She was glad it wasn\u2019t her business. She had enough hassle preparing the barn. She was quite exhausted and started thinking was it worth it. She in fact might not have it again next year. She hadn\u2019t asked me to help her, she kindly told me, because she knew I was busy doing good deeds. I was grateful for her consideration.<\/p>\n
People would expect concerts in such venues to be in aid of something. Last year it happened, much to the organizer\u2019s embarrassment, that in fact the question was asked: \u201cWhat was the concert in aid of?\u201d Really it had mainly been to support a few competent young musicians. The question of charity had not been considered. There was no evidence of it on the programme. Fortunately, somebody had had the foresight of making a donation of \u00a37 to the Church, \u00a37 that were left over, towards the restoration of the roof more exactly. So there was the answer: in aid of the Church. The person who told me chuckled. They\u2019ve learnt their lesson for this year\u2019s concert and printed on the invitation: \u201cproceeds after expenses to charity\u201d. It looks good, meets any honest citizen\u2019s expectations and what is more, means nothing, being totally non-committal. The organizers decide about expenses and any amount left over depends on how well tickets sell. Everybody should be happy like that. To do things absolutely correctly, the name of the charity benefiting was printed on the programme. Very appropriately a charity supported by musicians.<\/p>\n
Some time after the concert, Aldous\u2019 wife told me they had received a number of letters from people who had much appreciated the music and even made donations. \u201cOr for the kitty,\u201d Aldous\u2019 wife suggested. \u201cIt would be nice to have something in the kitty.\u201d Is she thinking of next year?<\/p>\n
Anyway, the concert was a success, and how about a report about it in the local newspaper? Aldous\u2019 wife was all for it. The men would have to do that of course. Aldous was a little tired, but willing to contribute. Things that go on in a small village, in his grounds! He could write a report together with somebody else. However, this person was more than a little tired. Always willing to oblige, it is true. Had Aldous had the energy to grab him, he would not have resisted. As it happened, Aldous couldn\u2019t be bothered, and his wife tried in vain, so she told me, to push him. Nothing came of it in the end. What a shame.<\/p>\n
Aldous took the opportunity, on the night of the concert, for a little advertizing. What a chance having a hundred people in one room who wanting to sit down have to remove a slip of paper from their seats first! Because that was what he had done. People were bound to take notice of a slip of paper on their seats. What was the best way psychologically speaking of putting the message over to them? By making them aware in friendly terms of an important meeting. It concerned the future of their parish \u2013 much debated for a long time \u2013 and he was going to be one of the main speakers. At the end the reader was told in large print to take the date of the meeting down in his\/her diary NOW. No harm in telling people clearly and helping them not to forget\u2026<\/p>\n
After the concert a lot of these papers were found left on the seats. \u201cPeople didn\u2019t even bother to take them with them,\u201d somebody complained to me. I told him I had left mine, too. I had no use for it. The other person looked surprized and then laughed\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Aldous had agreed to having another concert in his grounds. He has a useful barn with good acoustics which can be turned into a concert hall of some description, holding about a hundred people. It had been quite a success last year. A lovely venue in a rural setting. Fields, woods. Somebody said Glyndebourne. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading-aloud"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/Readingaloud1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/Readingaloud1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/Readingaloud1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/Readingaloud1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/Readingaloud1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/Readingaloud1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/Readingaloud1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/Readingaloud1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/Readingaloud1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}