A commentary by Geoff Hale
In the summer of 1949 a chance meeting of three members of the Clevedon Choral Society
outside the Six Ways Post Office, sowed the seeds for the birth of the Clevedon Light
Opera Club. The future musical director, Herbert Charman, along with the future secretary,
Arthur Hill, and the piano accompanist, Len Willmott, felt there was a need for more
secular music to be heard in the town. After discussing the idea with Arthur Coles,
future tenor lead and musical director, and my father and mother, Cliff and Olive
Hale (future chairman and treasurer), they called a public meeting in the Christ
Church Blue Room.
Of the many who turned up to the meeting were several who offered financial backing totalling the sum of £110, a substantial amount considering that many families lived on £10, or less, per week. The decision was taken to form the Club, and plans were made to perform a concert version of Merrie England, by Edward German, and a full costume version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s one act opera, Trial by Jury the following May.
Of the proposed performance venue, an un-named contributor wrote in the 1989 anniversary programme of CLOC’s production of The Music Man: - “Facilities at the Salthouse Pavilion left much to be desired. The stage was so small that when the hired scenery arrived it had to be cut down to fit, space in the wings was unheard of and the electrical equipment was so primitive it's surprising that no one was electrocuted. Backstage toilet arrangements were almost primeval (an 'Elsan' behind the back cloth) and the men's dressing room was a 15-foot square marquee erected at the rear of the building, which is why the club couldn't perform before May. However, the ladies did have a couple of tiny rooms inside the building. At night all the contents – costumes, make-up and bar stock (oh yes, we had our own little bar there) had to be brought in from the marquee and placed on the stage for safety. The leaks in the Pavilion roof were so well known that one avoided selling tickets (at least to friends) for those seats underneath them. A bonus in good weather was being able to sit on the sea-wall between Saturday performances whilst eating our tea”.
I was 10 when these events took place, and the rehearsals presented my parents with a problem – what to do with me? Arthur Hill and his wife, Winifred, had a daughter of the same age called Susan who caused them a similar problem; the solution was simple, Sue and I were to spend the rehearsal evenings together, baby-sitting each other! This arrangement continued for several years until Sue and I were old enough to join the Club ourselves.
A seventy minute sound recording of CLOC's 1953 production of The Mikado was made by the orchestra’s clarinettist, Mr N. Davies, who was a professional sound recordist. He secreted his far from ‘compact’ equipment under the footlights and recorded the output of a single microphone, (mounted just above the footlights), directly onto twelve inch discs each spinning at 78 revolutions per minute. As the microphone was in the middle of the orchestra the sound balance was far from perfect, (with the clarinet dominating), but some idea of the performance can be gained.
My Father bought a set of copies from Mr Davies at the time, and many years later he copied these discs onto a Compact Cassette, prior to discarding the discs (mores the pity!). I have made a CD from this cassette. The beginnings of some of the songs are missing because Mr Davies was too late starting the machine, and as he was limited to a recording length of 4 minutes a side, his recording sometimes misses the ends of numbers. Obviously these recordings were done during different performances throughout the week, but all the music is present although no dialogue was recorded.
A similar recording was made of the 1954 production of Rebel Maid, again I have a copy of some of this music on CD.
Geoff Hale - Autumn 2005
The First Ten Years
