Sergeant Gregson's War by Gregson Jim & Gregson J M

Author:Gregson, Jim & Gregson, J M [Gregson, Jim]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Published: 2016-05-23T16:00:00+00:00

Eleven

There was a record player in the education centre, together with three vinyl 33 rpm records, which were still quite novel. I ignored it for three months, then decided it might as well be used. On a quiet, moonless night, I carried player and records out of the centre and across to my room in the sergeants’ mess. It wasn’t stealing. As soon as there was any suggestion of a demand for them, I’d return player and records to their rightful place. In the meantime, one person at least might as well enjoy them.

I loved classical music. I played no instrument and had no technical knowledge. But during my three years in Manchester, I’d listened enthralled to John Barbirolli and the Hallé orchestra whenever time and finance allowed. These records were not ‘glorious John’ but they were music. And they were a great improvement on the scratchy old seventy-eights on which I had cut my musical teeth. You could hear a whole symphony without interruption and the sound quality was much better.

It was a pity I only had three discs. Within a couple of weeks, I knew every nuance of these performances and was asking myself a series of questions. Why did Tchaikovsky never recall or develop that triumphant opening tune in his piano concerto? Was Scheherezade really as exciting as the record sleeve told me it was, when I was hearing it for the eighth time? Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony might well be an ingenious parody of older forms, as the sleeve told me it was, but which works was he parodying?

I was both consoled and frustrated by the presence of music in my room. It made me long for the great monolithic symphonies of Beethoven, which I was sure would stand repetition much better than lesser works. If I was only to have three records, I wanted Mozart and Beethoven and Schubert, not the works of later and lesser men. I look back at the naïve figure in that room and see in him both the Puritanism and the precious innocence of youth.

I inspected my three records and decided that I had the top of the second division here, when I wanted the top of the first. But my player and my three records were an outlet, nonetheless. They reminded me of the life I had left behind and told me it would be there for me again, in due course. I told no one of my musical tastes and indulged myself in private. After a day on the fuel store field with my Cypriot workers, I danced crazily round my room to the accelerating rhythms of ‘Night on a Bare Mountain’, flinging my limbs with abandon in the narrow space available, washing from my mind the images of slowly accumulating towers of jerry cans.

*

All over the island, troops chafed with boredom. I was due a little leave, but had nowhere to take it. Men who had been here longer than me told me how attractive the beaches and holiday facilities at Akrotiri and Kyrenia were.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.