Letter
The Hallé, Walter Carroll, Ida Carroll, Geoffrey Griffiths, St James Church Choir at Birch-in-Rusholme
1938

After an "interesting day" at church and choir Griff has no appetite for practicing his music, he tells Ida. Walter, her father, is leaving Birch church.
He must deny being very tired and delayed when he comes to meet her and is trying to be social with friends. He is surprised Didsbury and Palatine Road harbours drunk people and must concede the useful presence of policemen.
He has declared the cello part of Brahms E Minor his theme song. Her father Walter has been saying nice things about Griff but "he might have a few things, of a different kind, to say if he knew of my nocturnal perambulations, or some of them any rate." He ruminates on when they first got to know each other. He says "I took you to be a natural happy person from the first day I saw you," but knows that joy can't reign all the time. He reminisces about the day her "Father heard me calling out numbers at Swan and Leach one day." He's reminded of it as the first concert he went to was the Franck symphony, which is due to play at the Hallé soon, just a few days before he met her Father. He knew nothing of music but Franck "dazed me completely, but I went again and again." He especially loved the first time he heard Elgar's Dream of Gerontius, and "little did I dream that I should have the privilege of singing in the Chorus of that same work on November 14th 1935." He tells her that his passion in partly her fault as well as her father's. He tells her of another music buff he knows, Leonard Riley and his brothers Eric and Harry who would give "first rate gramophone concerts."

Ref: CARROLL/IGC/3 GG
With thanks to the Ida Carroll Trust
Date is unknown.

Part of the #NSM2020 project "A 20/20 Legacy: the centenary of the Northern School of Music" supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.