to and the evocation of the kind of romantic ‘world we have lost’ so dear to English urban dwellers was felt in a range of contexts: through the creative use of folk music in perhaps unexpected settings like the Stantonbury musical plays on local historical themes or – even more widely – through the remarkable popularity of folk-based dance bands for annual barn dances at every kind of local social gathering from PTAs or sports clubs to ladies’ keep-fit or fund-raising events. For the active folk performers, however, few though they were, the world of folk music was something which gave a deep meaning and value to their view of themselves and their experience: something that they ‘spend more time thinking about than their work’; they ‘live for folk’.
7
The world of musical theatre
There was a strong operatic and pantomime tradition in Milton Keynes, stemming from the older towns on to which the city was grafted. The Bletchley and Fenny Stratford Amateur Operatic Society was already putting on Gilbert and Sullivan operas before the First World War, a tradition which continued for many years (Wright et al. 1979, Pacey n.d.), while Newport Pagnell had a Gilbert and Sullivan Society at the turn of the century. Local schools too had long put on musical plays. Among them were the long-remembered Bletchley Road School productions of The Rajah of Rajahpore and The Bandolero between the wars, the latter to audiences of all the local celebrities and raising the then record sum of £128 (Wright et al. 1979).
This tradition was still very much alive in the 1980s, partly overlapping with classical music, but separate both organisationally and to some extent in personnel. It included a wide range of musical categories – light opera and operetta, musical plays and comedies, ‘musicals’, pantomimes and some music hall singing – all sharing the property of being presented through dramatic enactment on stage, often accompanied by the theatrical appurtenances of costume, make-up, lighting, and carefully produced dramatic ‘spectacle’. The activities of those engaged in this well-established form of musical expression were not just separate one-off efforts but related together and organised within its own world of musical theatre. Within Milton Keynes this found expression in a flourishing amateur operatic society which had been putting on regular performances for a generation or more, as well as two active Gilbert and Sullivan societies, and musical plays and pantomimes were a constant feature of school and community group activities, above all at Christmas.
The continuing strength and attraction of the local operatic tradition can be illustrated from the Bletchley (later Milton Keynes) Amateur Operatic Society. This was started in 1952 by a local Bletchley businessman who got a few of his local and church friends together, saying how much he loved the music of Lilac Time and couldn’t they have a go at it? He succeeded in his persuasions, and Lilac Time was soon followed by The Maid of the Mountains and Quaker Girl.
From then on the society snowballed, drawing in not only local businessmen in Bletchley but enthusiastic participants from all backgrounds: teachers, bricklayers, electricians, secretaries, self-employed plumbers, housewives and professionals of various kinds; and it had close links to local churches. The list of patrons numbered many local notables, both those from the traditional land-owning families and, increasingly, public figures from local government or – like Dorian Williams – of national fame, and there was always financial and moral support from the local business community with whom the ‘Amateur Operatic’ had consistently beneficial links. The founder, Ray Holdom, was musical director for many years, and besides his musical leadership also used his business contacts in television maintenance to interest yet more potential members in Bletchley and, from the mid or late 1970s, in Milton Keynes as a whole. By the 1970s and early 1980s, the Milton Keynes Amateur Operatic Society was thus one of the most successful local societies with a very active membership of around 100, backed up by many part-time supporters and regularly enthusiastic audiences.
The centre of its activities was still, as from the beginning, its large-scale annual production in Bletchley. Over the years, these had included (among others) Lilac Time, The Count of Luxembourg, My Fair Lady, Orpheus in the Underworld, Blossom Time, The Sound of Music, White Horse Inn, Waltz without End, Rose Marie, The Student Prince, Free as Air, The Gypsy Baron, South Pacific, Pink Champagne, Carousel, Half a Sixpence, Summer Song, The Pajama Game, and The Merry Widow, some more than once. These annual productions were grand affairs with a run of five, six or seven performances, complete with London-hired costumes, full-scale stage management, lighting and scene shifting, as well as lavish programmes containing photographs of the main performers and officers, synopsis of the plot, and decorative, often witty, advertisements by local businessmen connected with the society. The cast usually included about 20 principals, a chorus of around 30, a troupe of dancers from one of the local dancing schools, and an orchestra of about 20 local instrumentalists. In addition, of course, as the programme seldom omitted to point out, ‘there have to be two off-stage workers for every one on stage’ (often spouses and friends of the performers), not to speak of three or four rehearsal pianists and both producer and musical director. These productions were acclaimed events in the locality, usually packed out on the later evenings and for many the occasion of an annual family outing. The society also often put on less elaborate ‘variety concerts’ or musical evenings of ‘songs from the shows’, while their week-long Christmas pantomimes were light-hearted affairs, extremely popular with local audiences. Their versions of Aladdin, Dick Whittington, The Sleeping Beauty, Mother Goose and many others were often booked solid well before the holiday, most of them written by Ken Branchette, a local test driver technician who had been a member of the society for twenty-five years.
These amateur operatic events received lavish coverage in the local press, no doubt partly because of their well-connected networks. The local papers often devoted nearly a page of review to the main annual productions, complete with photographs and a full cast list down to the names of every one of the chorus, dancers, orchestral players, scenery painters and builders, and lighting and stage assistants. Such accounts were presented with an air of analytic detachment but overall were extremely laudatory, in practice constituting one expected element in the shared celebration. The whole cast and their admirers could bask in such comments as ‘And what a chorus the society now has!’, ‘The singing of all these principals, both in solo and in combination was a strong feature … there was also considerable strength in the supporting parts’, ‘The speciality dancing … was splendidly done’, ‘And once again the set designing genius and stage manager was Ken Branchette’.
Every year had its high points, but for the Amateur Operatic Society one of the largest occasions was their ‘Silver Jubilee Year’ of 1977, when they celebrated twenty-five years of active existence. A special ‘jubilee committee’ was set up including local businessmen who persuaded many local bodies to sponsor them. They put on a year’s programme of Babes in the Wood in February, Schubert’s Lilac Time in May, a variety show in the autumn and a Grand Finale in Bletchley Leisure Centre in October, with all proceeds going to a local hospital charity: ‘it is felt that after the Society’s 25 successful years in the area the adoption of the principal charity would be a most fitting way of saying “thank you” to the community as a whole for their loyal support during this period’. The year’s events brought great satisfaction to the committee and organisers who recalled how twenty-five years before, the society had started off with many young members: ‘many are still members and still looking young’ and, still with a large number of young members and a supporting list of fifty or so patrons, were already ‘looking forward to their Golden Jubilee in 2003’.
The Silver Jubilee was a specially grand event, but every year involved intensive effort and rehearsal by scores of participants. Preparations and rehearsals went on almost all year for the major annual productions, in a recognised cycle that started off with the enrolment and AGM evening in the autumn, then the start of the weekly or twice-weekly practices. As the time of the main public performances in April or May approached the pace of rehearsing increased. Even during the main part of the year ‘it took over my life’, as one member put it – attending regular rehearsals
