A Cultured Class of People

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I was moved to tears this morning by the utter, transcendent beauty of Maria Callas' voice in the love duet from Puccini's Madame Butterfly, recorded in 1955 at La Scala, conducted by Herbert Von Karajan. I was trying to cut some small beading to make frames for the tiles we use in the cottage that take the washing-up liquid and soap bottles, and to be frank, I had to stop and wipe my eyes before I was about to take a chunk out of myself with the tenon saw. I guess the answer to that one is, don't listen to Italian opera whilst working with sharp things. However, I've finally bought a copy of the recording, which arrives Monday. I'll just avoid listening to it in the workshop.

It made me think though, about the blokes in my family before me. Aside from from my dad's father, who was just, well, a tough nut of the first water; most of the men, whilst being hardened working-class blokes themselves, had a finely-tuned sensitivity to art, and music in particular. My dad's oldest brother Sam, a welder by trade - although that narrow definition itself does him a gross disservice - had a particular fondness for Italian opera himself. Particularly La Boheme, also by Puccini, and very particularly, with Gigli in the male lead: he had the complete recording on a stack of 78 rpm records [Google it if you're under sixty]. Likewise, my dad had a fondness for that particular opera, and both he and his second-oldest brother Arthur [blog posts passim] also harboured a lifelong love of poetry.

I wrote a short while back about my uncle Arthur, and his having survived the Arnhem debacle in WWII. However, immediately prior to that, he was involved in the taking of Sicily from the Axis powers, and the relief of Brindisi, when the Italian forces capitulated. What I didn't mention was the fact that - as his son, my cousin Richard reminded me - his group of gliders, towed by American planes, also of the First Airborne, dropped them several miles short of the landing zone, in the drink. My uncle was in the sea for eight hours - and, like all of the Harvey brothers, unable to swim - and the thing that kept him going until he was rescued was reciting poetry to himself. Utterly remarkable. And there are still people around who dismiss the working classes as uncultured and ignoble. Think on, our time will one day out...

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