2017 overview
The major news of 2017 is that I became a guest speaker on a cruise ship talking on Maritime History. I had nine lectures to give on a 16-day Transatlantic voyage as Holland America repositioned Prinsendam to Florida to start her winter South America programme.
More about voyages and ships in 2017
The voyaging year started with me being my friend Tony’s guest on Fred. Olsen’s Black Watch on a segment of her world voyage from Tahiti to Sydney.
The highlight for me was New Zealand as I liked Auckland and Wellington was lovely in the sunshine. We saw the mud springs in the rain at Rotorua, but the high point was seeing the South Island fjords in fine weather and, against the odds, Milford Sound in sunshine. We flew out via Los Angeles and back via Singapore so I have finally done the full circuit. The flights were not entirely enjoyable and Tony hinted then that he was finding the long flights ‘a bit too much’ for him at 82. He did four assignments over the summer and invited me on the Prinsendam trip as his guest, so it was in my diary and things re-arranged to make it work. In September I was at the Southampton Boat Show and I got a call saying he was not well and would I take over his assignment? We had talked of me taking the longer haul ones and him doing the ex UK or short flight ones.
After thinking about it overnight I agreed, with some worries, about my ability to remember all his anecdotes. Fortunately, my friend Clive suggested we rifle through his archives and we found a lot more pictures, so after a weekend in Norwich collecting material, I set off with enough new material to make the series ‘my own’. It was a largely US and Canadian passenger list and I found a few things that need more explanation for that audience, but overall, I think I got away with it! I did tell some friends I made near the end of the trip that it was the first time I had done it. They were kind enough to say that they would never have guessed. I did know the pictures in Tony’s talks as I had maintained the PowerPoints for 12 years and I had heard him give seven out of the nine several times, plus I used to give training talks when at work and for the Ocean Liner Society, so it was not an unfamiliar situation, but I just had to learn the material so I could speak with some authority on the subjects. I have signed up with Tony’s agents in my own right now so I may get some more to do when there are long sea passages and the guests need entertainment in the form of daytime talks and presentations.
Also on the shipping front, a book I laid out last year for a friend in New York hit the presses and is now available to buy from Overview Press.
Incognito Theatre, Home & garden
At Incognito, my backdrop for Enemy of the People was on TV as our Patron, David Jason was interviewed on our stage for a documentary on his career that went out in August. I am doing less lighting there as set design and building is taking my time – I have trained others to work the control room. This autumn I did the set for the Neil Simon Play ‘The Odd Couple’ (we did the female version) and over Christmas my set for ‘Night must Fall’ that goes up in January 2018 will be decorated – we got it built in two days. I have started using 3D modelling software for the set design and it does help getting the construction and awkward sight lines worked out in advance.
The hens moved up to Yorkshire last year and that allowed me to make the garden more green with flowers for colour, bees and interest. I am not completely happy with it yet, but it is heading in the direction of a cottage garden. Joel is not around so much to assist me as he has taken over the North division of Sport England and can operate from the Yorkshire house (and be with Jamie more) so I only see him then he has stuff to do at Headquarters or in Parliament. Their Yorkshire garden is looking lush and he won a lot of prizes in the village show from the vegetable beds we built in 2015 and his greenhouse.
To cover the gaps, feed the cat and keep Benjy company when I am away, we have a new lodger, Sebastian, who is a student from the Czech Republic. He is doing Physics (4 year MSC) at Kings. He is incredibly bright and I admire him for doing a complex degree in a second language.
In the spring, I lit a short run at the Pleasance Theatre (off the Caledonian Road) that had been hired by Theatre in the Square for Euryice and in the summer, I lit the London run of Cyrano de Bergerac in Highgate before its main season at Minac in Cornwall ( which I couldn’t do, as I was booked for the France holiday).
Yorkshire concerts
The North York Moors Chamber Music Festival had its central place in the diary and I was at all the concerts and lit nine of the eleven (one is an afternoon concert in a church with large windows so I get a day off and another is well lit and the lighting stands would be intrusive). I tweaked the rig a bit and did some different things but more changes are planned for 2018 which is the 10th season. An additional function I picked up was the laying out of the Festival Programme.
Other holidays
Apart from the two voyages, I stayed home a bit more this year to enjoy the garden and England in the summer. Jamie had a concert in July in New Romney so he, Joel and I had a cottage in Rye for a weekend and did the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch railway, some historic houses and Bodiam castle. Earlier in the year six of us hired from the Landmark Trust the house A.W.N. Pugin built for himself in Ramsgate at about the time he was decorating the Palace of Westminster. The staircase influenced many a vicarage and country house design for decades afterward. That was a fresh but refreshing weekend in a corner of England that I had never explored before. In September, I joined my friends Cliff & Tim in France for a beach and sunshine week among the coastal band of pine trees. I had intended to go by train, but the sustainable way is a ridiculous price so I took EasyJet to Biarritz and a local train to the nearest station for less than a third of the St Pancras to Dax train fare. Although the weather was not horrible, it was less good than one would expect at that time of year, so not quite the ‘time to bask’ that I had hoped for, but we ate well and the chaps are easy to get along with, so I got a number of things written and drawn on my laptop while I was away, as the site had good Wi-Fi.
