Official Magazine of the Northern School of Music, covering the academic year 1962-63

Geoffrey Griffiths writes to Ida Carroll, "all holidays have to end sometime and you will enjoy being back at school on Monday, chasing poor Miss H.C. around." Ida was secretary for the Matthay School of Music (later Northern School of Music) with Hilda Collens as principal.
He details train options for her journey.
He laments the cooler weather, "I suppose it is too much to expect or hope for a continuance of rich sunshine for the whole summer."

Ref: CARROLL/IGC/3 GG
With thanks to the Ida Carroll Trust
Date is unknown.

Part of the #NSM2020 project "A 20/20 Legacy: the centenary of the Northern School of Music" supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Geoffrey Griffiths muses about sleeper trains and offers the details of his recommendations to Ida Carroll for her journey to Portpatrick.
He's listened to some concerts and comments on Thomas A's "Territorial activities" - possible the Territorial Army?
His card playing friends as the "greatly reformed Night Club" look "absolutely dead tired and washed out." Despite that "we were all on Superior Party manners and had dignified conversations, even listening to a serious talk on the radio." Everyone perked up for cake.

Ref: CARROLL/IGC/3 GG
With thanks to the Ida Carroll Trust
Date is unknown.

Part of the #NSM2020 project "A 20/20 Legacy: the centenary of the Northern School of Music" supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Ida Carroll writes to a Mr Gibbins re his book. He wishes for a friendly debate it seems about its subjects but she fears she will agree with most of it, "in fact I have not backed out so far that I am completely extinct." She recommends that he arrange a chat with Hilda Collens instead if he wishes for debate.

Ref: CARROLL/IGC/3 GG
With thanks to the Ida Carroll Trust

Part of the #NSM2020 project "A 20/20 Legacy: the centenary of the Northern School of Music" supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Geoffrey Griffiths remarks on the crank household, "Father came home with a cold, Mother was annoyed because of his cold, and Auntie had fallen out with the weather."
He's enjoying Gladys Mitchell's book "The Devil on Susan Hill" but it's influencing his grammar.
The Burch Choir seemed to have welcomed some new sopranos but "young Newhouse made a quick start and was last seen disappearing into the blackout towards Anson Estate with two of them." Young Newhouse is in a bit of trouble now it seems, "if we have no exact information we invent some. We should make very good Ministers of Propaganda!"

Ref: CARROLL/IGC/3 GG
With thanks to the Ida Carroll Trust
Date is unknown.

Part of the #NSM2020 project "A 20/20 Legacy: the centenary of the Northern School of Music" supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Ida Carroll's membership card for the Manchester branch of the Music Teacher's Association. Well connected to the association, the school could invite speakers to visit the school such as Stewart Macpherson.

Ref: CARROLL/IGC/3 GG
With thanks to the Ida Carroll Trust
Date is unknown.

Part of the #NSM2020 project "A 20/20 Legacy: the centenary of the Northern School of Music" supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Geoffrey Griffiths remarks of the post office corner where he meets Ida Carroll, "I hardly remember it before the blackout but it must have been positively distracting," with how busy it is even now. The cinemas are still pretty busy it seems.
He promises to return her gloves is they can meet on Tuesday and has stocked up on novels, including "Shabby Tiger" by Howard Spring set in Manchester.

Ref: CARROLL/IGC/3 GG
With thanks to the Ida Carroll Trust
Date is unknown.

Part of the #NSM2020 project "A 20/20 Legacy: the centenary of the Northern School of Music" supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Geoffrey Griffiths describes, in quite spacious detail, the concert seat and area that Ida Carroll has booked for him. He saw her father Walter Carroll and a couple of faces from the Matthay School of Music (Northern School of Music) - Diana Lockhart and Eileen Chadwick. He felt sleepy during Mozart but Brahms woke him up.
He's going to see the Mikado, Gilbert and Sullivan opera, but has to go alone as none of his family will go with him.
He's looking forward to the choir resuming at Birch Church (which Walter Carroll directs) but is unsure about where all the new people will be as there's not much room.
Speaking for everyone ever he remarks that "Afraid I say I don't like gossip, yet I enjoy it secretly."
He writes about letter etiquette, adjectives and abbreviations. Remarking on possible unemployment he tells Ida not to worry, his family at least have enough money to sustain his parents.
He asks her to another play, "The Women", with a cast of 40 women "-no men!"

Ref: CARROLL/IGC/3 GG
With thanks to the Ida Carroll Trust
Date is unknown.

Part of the #NSM2020 project "A 20/20 Legacy: the centenary of the Northern School of Music" supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Geoffrey Griffiths wishes Ida Carroll good luck in her Red Cross training, likely for the war as an Air Raid Warden. He enthuses that "you will be the perfect collaborator when we write a detective story. You, now know everything about anatomy, and poison I see, all the best thrillers have poisonings, murder and injuries."
He complains that where they usually meet at the P.O. corner (possibly the post office at the corner on Lapwing Lane where Ida lived?), "is becoming noisy, especially on Saturday nights and I don't like being distracted in certain ways, it upsets me."
People have remarked he's gloomy and depressed and he worries about her working too much, hoping she gets at least 1 night off this week.
He chats about previous crushes (dangerous territory, Griff) and says "I may look at other woman, and still use the trick of comparison, and still to their disadvantage."

Ref: CARROLL/IGC/3 GG
With thanks to the Ida Carroll Trust
Date is unknown.

Part of the #NSM2020 project "A 20/20 Legacy: the centenary of the Northern School of Music" supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

"This letter is all wrong and out of place", writes Geoffrey Griffiths. He's a couple of letters on the go and has his dates mixed up. He wonders if he can entice Ida Carroll out on walk, around Piccadilly or All Saints, or even along Oxford Road although that's "hardly respectable."

Ref: CARROLL/IGC/3 GG
With thanks to the Ida Carroll Trust
Date is unknown.

Part of the #NSM2020 project "A 20/20 Legacy: the centenary of the Northern School of Music" supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Geoffrey Griffiths writes to Ida Carroll about an opera on the radio, "it was Modern, and modern opera I can't stick. So the knob was given a firm turn to the left - off. In forty years time I may be stroking a long white beard and televising the same opera with relish."
He references a tension in people, "I hoped lots of people would be drawn together more because of the war but nerves probably act as a counter-balance."
He arranges visits to friends, including someone with a new radio (very exciting.)

IT IS DATED! I think it's the only one out of the hundreds I've seen. OMG. Anyway...

Written just a couple of weeks before the start of WW2. Geoffrey Griffiths, in this epic multi-day letter to Ida Carroll refers to the Hallé's season, hoping for Mendelssohn's "Elijah" but happy to settle for other things to study and sing.

He worries about the "painfully enforced lack of exercise" which he thinks is making him gain weight.

He went home from meeting her, at about 1100 at night which she may think late but "in Lourdes in 1937, or just outside the town border, gaiety not being allowed during Pilgrimage time, a quite respectable group of tourist agents might have been seen going home at four in the morning; I know, because I was with them." He dismisses accusations of being a trouble maker, saying he usually sticks to the "middle" groups depending on their choice of entertainment but relives when "they even made me dance, but I must have been under the influence of Drink."

He discusses seaside resorts, liking Eastbourne but "Bournemouth wasn't as good as Brighton - well, I arrived there one afternoon from the Rye district and fled screaming (silently) on the first available train to London."

Ref: CARROLL/IGC/3 GG
With thanks to the Ida Carroll Trust
Date is unknown.

Part of the #NSM2020 project "A 20/20 Legacy: the centenary of the Northern School of Music" supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Geoffrey Griffiths is expected at "the Night Club" - friendly card game, but Ida Carroll has given up cards. Ida would like to go to the Chauve-Souris and Geoffrey would like to come too (likely the theatre troupe by Nikita Balieff or a production of "Die Fledermaus" opera).
He chats about a game of cricket, stating that "everyone was happy with the probable exception of the visiting team."
He comments on the pleasing performance of Mischa Auer in "You Can't Take It With You" (a film first showed in the US in 1938), and admits that "it's the first time I've heard of the wrong - and apparently uncorrected - delivery of a typewriter to be an excuse for becoming a playright - playwright!"
Fun fact: Mischa Auer used his grandfather's surname for his acting career. Leopold Auer was a famous musician who Tchaikovsky dedicated his complicated Violin Concerto op.35 to when it was written. Auer never played it - dismissing it as too unpleasant and too complicated. So, violinist Adolph Brodsky gave it a bash, giving it its first public performance and him and Tchaikovsky became sort of pen pals. Brodsky became the second principal of the Royal Manchester College of Music. We have Tchaikovsky's letters and Brodsky's marked up score of the music in the archives at the RNCM. It really is a small world!

Ref: CARROLL/IGC/3 GG
With thanks to the Ida Carroll Trust
Date is unknown.

Part of the #NSM2020 project "A 20/20 Legacy: the centenary of the Northern School of Music" supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Geoffrey Griffiths thanks Ida Carroll for the Hallé concert tickets but returns one as his mother won't attend (she is ill and dies in 1941).
He asks her to look out for the Penguin edition of "A Farewell to Arms" by Hemingway.

Ref: CARROLL/IGC/3 GG
With thanks to the Ida Carroll Trust
Date is unknown.

Part of the #NSM2020 project "A 20/20 Legacy: the centenary of the Northern School of Music" supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Just a short letter from Geoffrey Griffiths to connect with Ida Carroll in the morning before his day starts.

Ref: CARROLL/IGC/3 GG
With thanks to the Ida Carroll Trust
Date is unknown.

Part of the #NSM2020 project "A 20/20 Legacy: the centenary of the Northern School of Music" supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Geoffrey Griffiths was stopped in the street by a police officer "a Robert" asking for his identification card on the way to work. In WW2, everyone had to carry an ID card - it proved who you were and allowed people to be identified if they were injured or killed in attacks. It also seems to be used to just keep tabs on travel agents going about their business.

The message is interrupted when Geoffrey's fellow fire watcher comes to his door.

Ref: CARROLL/IGC/3 GG
With thanks to the Ida Carroll Trust
Date is unknown.

Part of the #NSM2020 project "A 20/20 Legacy: the centenary of the Northern School of Music" supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Ida Carroll took Geoffrey Griffiths to Dunham Massey and Heaton Park at the weekend, "some of the nicest places." But of course, "every is grand when we are together!"
He invites her for a walk around "the leafiest parts of Heaton Mersey," and outlines his work day at the travel agency.

Ref: CARROLL/IGC/3 GG
With thanks to the Ida Carroll Trust
Date is unknown.

Part of the #NSM2020 project "A 20/20 Legacy: the centenary of the Northern School of Music" supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Geoffrey Griffiths wonders if he saw Ida's sister Elsa in the ginnel when he was leaving Ida's house. "It may have been Elsa, complete with bike, though the steel hat looked wrong somehow."
He admits to being jealous in a dream in which he and Ida met a chap at a railway station with a handsome moustache who kissed Ida on both cheeks. Any dream readers out there want to have a go at breaking the symbolism down?
A wartime tragedy is the shortage of "the magic cake" at Ashton market. The letter slips into what must be strange code here as I have no idea at all about the meaning of "so would underneath the mac do for the time being, most beautiful, instead of the pocket?" What on Earth is he referring to??

Ref: CARROLL/IGC/3 GG
With thanks to the Ida Carroll Trust
Date is unknown.

Part of the #NSM2020 project "A 20/20 Legacy: the centenary of the Northern School of Music" supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Geoffrey Griffiths wants to have Boris (his as yet unknown string instrument) at work with him so he can practice. But there's no room in the travel agents where he works. "Do you think I ought to have a small flute or something, to have at the office?"
"I could try to write a novel for that matter but it's so awkward hiding it away when anyone comes in." He does get in quite a bit of singing practice at work though.
The camp beds they are issued with for the Auxiliary Fire Service, when he is on his night shifts there during the war, are all broken, split and uncomfortable.
He arranges a meeting on Tuesday evening with Ida outside the post office.

Ref: CARROLL/IGC/3 GG
With thanks to the Ida Carroll Trust
Date is unknown.

Part of the #NSM2020 project "A 20/20 Legacy: the centenary of the Northern School of Music" supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Ida Carroll is accompanying the Matthay School of Music (later the Northern School of Music) examinations on piano and Geoffrey Griffiths is incredibly tired. He seemed to have suffered from a small bout of delirium or vertigo, "On Tues night I had to stay awake because the bedroom kept slipping about and altering shape."

Ref: CARROLL/IGC/3 GG
With thanks to the Ida Carroll Trust
Date is unknown.

Part of the #NSM2020 project "A 20/20 Legacy: the centenary of the Northern School of Music" supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Geoffrey Griffiths wishes Ida Carroll good luck for her concert on Friday and promises that if she were to "telephone me on Friday afternoon if you are determined to run away and we will!" As she seems worried about playing well at the concert.
He reminds her that on Saturday he must be home before blackout as it "is my night this week to tour the property on any sort of alert."
He would like her to visit Mrs Scott who she misses, but he doesn't fancy visiting Oldham and Vernon (of the same travel agency he works for?).

Ref: CARROLL/IGC/3 GG
With thanks to the Ida Carroll Trust
Date is unknown.

Part of the #NSM2020 project "A 20/20 Legacy: the centenary of the Northern School of Music" supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Geoffrey Griffiths nearly retraced his steps to Ida Carroll when the "all clear" was sounded, even though he was nearly home. However he knew she would have gone to bed and any attempt he made to even tap on the window, she would have taken for the mice and ignored.
He thanks her for the extra time they had together "snatched from Hitler and on one of your duty nights". Ida was a Air Raid Warden for the Didsbury area.
We learn that Geoffrey's instrument Boris is a portable stringed instrument, not sure what it is yet, but he would like to play or sing for her "if you can stand it."
He has slipped up slightly - he's named the knight in his chess set in such a way that it has betrayed his "naughty thoughts" when they okayed a game together. No idea what but it seems to have irked her father Walter!

Ref: CARROLL/IGC/3 GG
With thanks to the Ida Carroll Trust
Date is unknown.

Part of the #NSM2020 project "A 20/20 Legacy: the centenary of the Northern School of Music" supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Official Magazine of the Northern School of Music, covering the academic year 1961-62

Official Magazine of the Northern School of Music, covering the academic year 1960-61