Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Foreword
- Introduction and Acknowledgments
- CHAPTER 1 Lincoln
- CHAPTER 2 Exile
- CHAPTER 3 Sacred and Profane
- CHAPTER 4 High Holborn
- CHAPTER 5 Young Britten
- CHAPTER 6 Amateur Nights
- CHAPTER 7 Bournemouth at War
- CHAPTER 8 Private’s Progress
- CHAPTER 9 Enter Grimes
- CHAPTER 10 From Berlin to Lucretia
- CHAPTER 11 Covent Garden
- CHAPTER 12 Galley Years
- CHAPTER 13 Triumph
- CHAPTER 14 Resounding Ring
- CHAPTER 15 Tristan
- CHAPTER 16 The Final Years
- Notes
- APPENDIX I Discography
- APPENDIX II Choir repertory of St Alban the Martyr, Holborn, 1926–1936
- APPENDIX III Works conducted by Goodall with the Wessex Philharmonic Orchestra
- APPENDIX IV Selected Bibliography
- Index
CHAPTER 7 - Bournemouth at War
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 March 2023
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Foreword
- Introduction and Acknowledgments
- CHAPTER 1 Lincoln
- CHAPTER 2 Exile
- CHAPTER 3 Sacred and Profane
- CHAPTER 4 High Holborn
- CHAPTER 5 Young Britten
- CHAPTER 6 Amateur Nights
- CHAPTER 7 Bournemouth at War
- CHAPTER 8 Private’s Progress
- CHAPTER 9 Enter Grimes
- CHAPTER 10 From Berlin to Lucretia
- CHAPTER 11 Covent Garden
- CHAPTER 12 Galley Years
- CHAPTER 13 Triumph
- CHAPTER 14 Resounding Ring
- CHAPTER 15 Tristan
- CHAPTER 16 The Final Years
- Notes
- APPENDIX I Discography
- APPENDIX II Choir repertory of St Alban the Martyr, Holborn, 1926–1936
- APPENDIX III Works conducted by Goodall with the Wessex Philharmonic Orchestra
- APPENDIX IV Selected Bibliography
- Index
Summary
ON the outbreak of war London's theatres and concert halls were closed, along with its cinemas and art galleries. The Royal Choral Society suspended its activities and the Handel Society was disbanded for good. Goodall had no paid work of any kind. Eleanor's school was evacuated to Shropshire and she went with it, leaving her husband to his own devices in London, where he took to writing slogans on walls and pavements in support of Mosley's campaign for a negotiated peace; the BUF was not declared a proscribed organisation until July 1940.
Goodall's confused state of mind can be gauged from a letter he wrote to Maisie Aldridge on 22 September 1939:
No work at college – more staff than they need. Prices are going up more and more. What is all this for – certainly not to protect Poland or we should declare war on Russia – we’ve done nothing to assist Poland – thousands of lives have been lost – merely because a stupid and ignorant minority would rather anything happen than that we should have any understanding with that country.
I’ve been listening in to the German news bulletin 9.00pm-9.15 from Cologne or Hamburg. 10.40 a talk from an English person who happens to be in Germany. 11.20 & 12.15 news bulletins.
I have opened the eyes of 5 or 6 people this week to the fact that even this country breaks promises and didn't even keep the Treaty of Versailles – well I must stop now – and go to a B.U. meeting.
The “English person” was presumably the propagandist William Joyce, known to the British public as Lord Haw Haw.
The temporary collapse of London's musical life gave Goodall's Symphony Rehearsal Orchestra an unexpected boost, for a number of leading players from the LSO, finding they had no work, applied to join to keep their hands in, though they drift ed away again when Queen's Hall reopened in early October. More players were lost to conscription, and eventually the orchestra had to close down before a cycle of Sibelius's symphonies could be completed.
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- Information
- The Genius of ValhallaThe Life of Reginald Goodall, pp. 53 - 66Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2009