Post 266. WHERE TO START?

AS A SIMPLE SCRIBBLER.
Manchester Arena.

Have to start there, don't you.
Another lunatic attack on innocent people (this time mostly young pop fans) who had been watching a concert given by the singer Ariana Grande.
As a simple blog scribbler there's not much I can add to that already written and said by experienced folk in the media and by the kith and kin of those so tragically involved. It was a savage, stupid, senseless act (for whatever twisted reason it was carried out) and it will accomplish nothing.
The sympathy of every right-minded person, religious or not, is with the victims and those closest to them.
Latest news is that Ariana Grande (together with a strong supporting team) will be back at the Arena in a fortnight's time. It is one of those situations where she can be faulted if she returns very quickly and faulted if she doesn't.
I think good on her and those supporting her.     
HOME. 
Loss of another old friend.
Another of our cancer suffering friends died early this month.
His name was John Robins and he was an islander to the core. Born on Guernsey, he moved to England as a teenager; was, by all accounts, a fine footballer (and master of the two-footed tackle); joined the police force in Southampton; moved on to spend four years as a policeman in New Zealand; returned to this country; rejoined the police and, until his retirement, was the Special Branch officer here on the Isle of Wight.
He then became a leading figure in the running of CCTV on the island.
John, a staunch family man, never stopped organising and was never still. The monthly lunch club (consisting of retired police colleagues and allied friends) to which he introduced me over twenty years ago, was his club.
His circle of friends was vast and the gathering at his funeral last week exceeded any we had ever seen.
Maureen and I stood, in the overspill outside the crematorium, throughout a fascinating service which included tributes by his brother and by two former senior police officers. It was a lovely sunny day and it was a privilege to be there.
RIP John Robins. Good copper. Good friend.
BLOG POST 265
Re: Peter White.

The mention of broadcaster Peter White (above) in my blog post earlier this month elicited a lovely response from another old friend, Ian Dillow.
In an email Ian wrote that he was not sure if Peter White could sing but he could do pretty much everything else.
It seems that 'about a hundred years ago,' in order to earn some extra crusts, Ian did weekend shifts as a news reporter and presenter at Radio Solent.
Back then you had to "drive" your own studio so presenters 'had to learn (or try to) how to operate the myriad switches and buttons' glaring at them from the desk. In Ian's early days he was completely overawed by all this.
When, eventually, he shared his problems with Peter White, that gentleman said maybe he could help.
He then took Ian back into the studio and slowly and calmly introduced him to all the lights and buzzers. It was a virtuoso performance. Peter White is blind: has been from birth. He was also the BBC's disability correspondent and regularly took himself off to places like Washington DC without an apparent care in the world.
"An amazing guy," Ian wrote, "and a really nice one too...I wonder why he is so absent from our screens these days."
Well, I have heard him sometimes on Radio 4, Ian, and I can only put down his absence from our television screens to the notion that his niceness might not fit in with the modern definition of good tele.
Think about it.




 

Post 265. THIS IS ROBERT WHITE.

TELEVISION.

The Good Old Days.

American Irish tenor Robert White (above) was one of the many talented performers who graced the stage of Leeds City Varieties during the thirty years (1953 - 83) that The Good Old Days, produced by Barney Colehan, was televised.

Recent repeat showings - currently from the seventies - of the show, will have reminded those who cared to revisit them that popular entertainment will never die.

I particularly mention Mr. White because, not only was he then (and is still now) a very fine tenor, in our house he possessed a dual persona.

How come?

Well, in our house, whenever I sat at my computer with the music centre gently relaying Den's musical choices of the day, if those choices happened to include the voice of Peter Dawson, my Leader, as she passed by en route to wherever, would pause in the doorway to say with a smile: "Ah, Robert White."

So that's how come.

In our house, Peter Dawson (Australian bass-baritone and songwriter born in Adelaide in 1882) regularly metamorphosed into Robert White (American tenor and voice teacher born in the Bronx in 1936).

Don't ask me how it happened.

I have absolutely no idea.

He just did.

For some years I shook my head and said: "No, love, it's Peter Dawson, but you're close."

Then I gave up.

(Well at least she didn't confuse Peter Dawson (in the wing collar) with Peter White, a visually impaired English radio broadcaster and thoroughly nice bloke, who probably couldn't sing for toffee.)

Time went by and elderly memories became slightly foggy (well, mine did, anyway).

Then, a few weeks ago, BBC Four re-ran a Good Old Days episode first broadcast on New Year's Eve 1978/9 and there, along with Roy Castle, Dolores Gray and Eira Heath, was the handsome, forty-two-year-old, note-perfect tenor Robert White who, for his set, sang Sylvia and Danny Boy and, to round off the show, When You Come To The End Of A Perfect Day.

I duly recorded it and at breakfast the following day played it back for Maureen.

"Remember Peter Dawson?"I said. "Well, my love, this is Robert White."

"What a nice surprise and what a lovely voice," she said. "Is he still alive?"

"Dunno," I said. "Look him up on your ipad."

She did.

"Says he was born on the 27th October 1936. That makes him exactly six years and a month younger than you."

"No whatsit watson," I said. "I'll have a look on my computer later on."

I did.

Not only is he still going strong at eighty years old but, according to his Wiki entry, he still teaches at Juilliard in New York, one of the most prestigious music schools in the world.

So can he still sing?

If you would like to know, Google: Bird Songs At Eventide - Robert White - YouTube and hear him, two days after his seventy ninth birthday, enchant a gathering of well-wishers with an impeccable rendering of Eric Coates's composition.

 And that's it for now.

Footnote:

We had our local elections.

The results were not surprising.

More, perhaps, at the end of the month.