I have no regrets - Tony Cunnane's Afterthoughts

Written on 25 October 2011

I see there is yet another controversy (the forthcoming film Anonymous) about Shakespeare’s works and who is believed to have written them. I have a confession of sorts to make. I have never been to a theatre to see any of his plays and I have never read any of his plays. I cannot even remember ‘doing’ his plays at any of the three grammar schools I attended between 1947 and 52. (I was not a troublesome pupil, I hasten to add: I moved between Wakefield, Leeds and Salford because Dad was a Prison Officer and, since he was moved every two or three years, we had to follow.)

Some no doubt well-intentioned person gave me Charles and Mary Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare when I was about 10 years old and known to be a prolific reader. I thought it was an exceedingly boring book and I don’t think I got past p20 before, to my shame, I threw the book against my bedroom wall and never opened it again. That's no way to treat any book. How about this patronising extract from the Preface (which I copied this morning from the Internet) as an example of muddled thinking and sexism (but it was published in 1807):

"It has been wished to make these Tales easy reading for very young children. To the utmost of their ability the writers have constantly kept this in mind; but the subjects of most of them made this a very difficult task. It was no easy matter to give the histories of men and women in terms familiar to the apprehension of a very young mind. For young ladies too, it has been the intention chiefly to write; because boys being generally permitted the use of their fathers' libraries at a much earlier age than girls are, they frequently have the best scenes of Shakespeare by heart, before their sisters are permitted to look into this manly book."

I spent nearly three years at RAF Gaydon in the 1960s and my regular pub (for fabulous steak pies and Flowers' draught bitter) was the Black Swan, always called the Mucky Duck, in Stratford – literally just across the road from the RSC. During ‘the season’ we regularly queued at the bars alongside actors in exotic costumes – presumably during intervals in the evening’s performance. Never once did it occur to me to go to a performance.

Should I feel guilty? Well, I don’t. Have I missed anything? I don’t think so. And I'm not a philistine either!

The other day I read a short piece in the Daily Telegraph about thrilling ends to symphonies. On the short list were Bruckner’s 5th and 8th, Shostakovich’s 15th, Mahler’s 9th, and Elgar’s 1st. I know all those well and have CDs of them, but to that list of thrilling finishes I would add Mahler’s 2nd, Sibelius’ 2nd and, for a classical symphony, the final 20 fortissimo D Major bars of Beethoven’s 9th (the purely orchestral bars after the soloists and choirs have finished). The closing bars of all those symphonies send shivers down my spine whenever I hear them – and I listen to them regularly.

The closing bars of the symphony are truly awe-inspiring but there are no orchestral instruments playing – just a wind machine and a wordless off–stage soprano (Margaret Ritchie at the Premiere) - both fading eventually into silence over many seconds. I even believed that the temperature in the Free Trade Hall had deliberately been turned down several degrees to enhance the shivers! The most moving, as distinct from awe-inspiring, part of all was several minutes earlier at the beginning of that fifth and final movement when the on-stage Speaker declaimed Captain Scott’s last written words. I learned those words that evening and have never forgotten them (although, sadly, they are rarely declaimed at performances of the symphony these days):

"I do not regret this journey. We took risks, we knew we took them; things have come out against us, and therefore we have no cause for complaint."

More events from January 1953 on my Early Years website here