Gladys, Frieda and the passing of beauty

MG scribbles:

One always likes to believe that one has been born into, and grows up in, privileged times; an age unique in the history of the world. This, I think, is true of every generation, no matter when, or where, they are born. To come of age in late nineteenth century Paris, the age of Monet, Morisot, Baudelaire and Zola; to grow up amidst the despair in the the years following the First World War and to witness, first hand, the second coming of the modernist movement; to be alive, youthful and impetuous, when Lenin and Trotsky galvanised the peasant masses to storm the winter palace. It would indeed have been a privilege.

I was born into mid-1950s Britain. A country reeling from the aftermath of a bloody conflict which few desired and yet which no-one could avoid; a war of sharply conflicting ideologies with the hardware to accompany it; a war which saw the dawn of the atomic age and the spectre of Mutually Assured Destruction. Whilst, in truth, I, perhaps, would have prefered to have been born 4 years earlier (I would have got to see Hendrix at the beginning instead of just the fag-end of the apocalypse at the Isle of Wight) still I consider myself fortunate. To have grown into adolescence in an age of protest and 'free love'; to witness and experience the culture shock of radical feminism; to enjoy the first fruits of our parents' labour with enhanced prosperity and a freedom which was open to all, not just the privileged classes. Such optimism in the great 'white heat' of Wilson's (Harold not Woodrow) technological revoloution.

Although the youthful, and possibly naive, optimism of the late 1960s must stirke the generations that succeeded us as all so much fantasy, a future doomed to failure, still it seemed real to us. Incredible as it may seem, we really did believe that we could change the world! For the better! Ours was not an optimism grounded in nilhilism or dandyism or wanton violence; ours was based on that fundamental Christian and European ideal of LOVE (and PEACE and GOODWILL to all men)!

I was reminded of this through a truly bizarre documentary film about the life and works of one Gladys Mills, Mrs Mills. I do not know why I watched it, I abhor Mrs Mills, although I do have a vinyl LPof hers, inherited from my mother; truly dire! And yet the film almost immediately set about wrapping me in shrouds of cling film with the tale of a music hall performer, long past their sell by date; an anachronism in an age of 'Ferry across the Mersey' and 'Ticket to ride' not to mention 'Arnold Layne' and 'My white bicycle'. Such is her fame and popularity that there is a piano, housed on its own in an Abbey Road studio in London, which goes by the moniker of the 'Mrs Mills piano'. (It's the piano on 'Lady Madonna' by the Beatles!)

Mrs Mills, Glad to her friends, was a roly-poly, big fat mama exponent of the style known as 'stride piano'; heiress to the legacy of Russ Conway and Winifred Atwell.  'Stride piano' was a technique developed, and much beloved, of the ragtime pianists of the 1920s and notoriously difficult to play at speed. While the right hand hammers out the melody, the left hand 'strides' through the bass line with syncopated chords; you do have to know your 'shapes', instinctively. It was a style born out of family 'get-togethers'; when the extended family, aunts, uncles, in-laws, would gather around the upright piano in the parlour or the pub and sing early 20th centruy English music hall songs in mimicry of the 'Blitz-mentality'; a style which mid-fifties Britain would still gleefully embrace.

Mrs Mills was a staple 'guest'on the variety TV shows all through the sixties and early seventies. As the decade went on she became more incongruous with each passing year, although she was immenseley popular.As the Beatles were producing Sgt Pepper, Steppenwolf were releasing 'Born to be wild', Keith Emerson was burning effigies of the American flag during performances of the Bernstein song, 'America' and Black Sabbath were digging deep into the sound of the industrial jackhammers of the Midlands to produce the first glimmerings of 'heavy metal', Mrs Mills was still gaily banging out the old staples; 'My old man said follow the van', 'Roll out the barrel', 'Ma, he's makin' eyes at me' etc on her 'old joanna'.

Despite the bewildering array of musical styles born out of the era of 'downloadable' music when record deals are fast becoming a thing of the past and any nerd can create masterpieces in the privacy of their own bedroom and sell them, the unliklihood of Mrs Mills success is as bewildering today as it was at the time. Perhaps the English have always had a penchant for rose-tinted nostalgia and they had yet to become jaded and worn, tired out by pessimism and optimism in equal measure, and were still able to bask in the refelcted innocence of an age long past; destroyed by memories of the Holocaust and Vietnam.

Strangely I have also become captivated by a soap opera! I usually find the soaps too awful by far and yet Holby City, a kind of British 'ER', has had me tuning into Youtube to catch up on the 'back broadcasts' from the last 4 or 5 years. Whilst there is an awful lot of repetition of plot, incongruous storylines, impossible relationships and bizarre events, still it seems to capture the very madness inherant in the UK's National Health Service. Recent episodes have been lacklustre, although I have a sneaking suspicion that this may be due to the disappearence of the triumvirate of 'eye-candy'; Phoebe Thomas, Rebecca Grant and the quite simply awesome Olga Fedori as the goth ward sister. A truly inspired creation! Somehow the current crop do not quite measure up!