Griff writes to Ida of his restless night made pleasant with thoughts of her. He muses that he was busier at Manchester travel agency offices than those of Ashton but seems to nap much more now. Well there is a war going on, so I think you can give yourself some slack there, Griff.
The area around Piccadilly train station has taken quite a beating in the war: "Tonight's alert found me at London Road station, depressed about a train that had just gone without me and thinking what a horrid spot London Road would be during an alert, with a large hole at the side of Mayfield and an even larger one in the midst of property (that was!) at the back of Mayfield!"
He'll have to miss a lot of card games in the coming months with his home front volunteering, "fire duties you know!!!" and likewise him and other bases at the choir are missing rehearsals with their war work.
He wishes to be a part of the Hallé chorus however as John Gielgud will be the orator for Arthur Bliss' "Morning Heroes" symphony, for its premiere in Manchester at the Odeon Theatre. "It will be a privilege to be associated with anything that he appears in, even my tiny back-row-end-of-the-firm role."

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.

Griff writes to Ida, "I hope my pet grand operas plus Herr Hitler won't prevent you seeing me on Saturday."
He details the rest of the film "It's A Date" which they went to see but she had to leave part way through.
He hopes she sleeps without "expecting tiresome disturbances by Herr Hitler's air fleet!" and hopes she enjoys the opera. He will go to see the opera at near the Stockport travel agents offices where he is working, at the Stockport Hippodrome.

Ref: CARROLL/IGC/3 GG
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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.

It's been a busy night for Griff and Ida and the air raids, as he relates to her. He apologises for not going to her immediately when she came to the shelter but he had to hand over his Rummy cards to another before he could get away. "Elsa told us to hurry, as the lights were going out; in our ignorance about the 'all clear' we imagined that either the raid was so severe and they were being turned off at the chief man, or that they were to be removed from our small compartment because there was plenty of room elsewhere! Now the whatnots are sounding again and I shall be disturbed ruthlessly."
He hopes it hasn't spoiled their day but "Herr Hitler can cause most painful interruptions, though." He defends his lazy walk home as he would not have made it to his local shelter in time anyway "and Elsa's shelter is far superior to those surface shelters en route."
He approves of the Hallé concert listings and signs off to bed, "I heard the last all clear, so I hope it will be a peaceful night now."

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.

Griff writes to Ida proclaiming that he writes best after 11PM as "we call live in one room and even one 'bit of family' can disturb."
He mentions Paul the pope and how he keeps the flies away on their walks but that it is much less effective in the hills.
He visited her father when work closed early at the travel agency but then got caught in a storm on the way home. He then fell asleep after a boring book but before his tea, "there is much to be said for the Spanish Siesta."
Ida's visited a fortune teller who prophesised she would have a romance with a Frank, "if ever you introduce me to a 'Frank' I shall fall at your feet in a dead faint," he dramatically promises. He petulantly decrees that "I have decided I don't care for the name at all."
He arranges to meet her and offers some cinema options of Gulliver's Travels and the Wizard of Oz, "I enjoyed 'Gulliver' though, but thought the other just too potty." Fair enough.

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.

Griff writes to Ida conspiring to see her, "my intention to visit the shelter is a serious one; if I choose occasionally to be wandering at large in that area, what more natural that I should seek shelter if there be a Warning?" Just so he could see her while she is on Air Raid Precaution Warden duties.
There is currently a warning sounding but as his mum and aunt say, "bombs aren't falling so there is no real raid."
He describes in detail a fabric and style of coat he dislikes.

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.

Griff writes to Ida recalculating their past time, cinema-going, in response to war activity. "No, definitely not the Capitol, now that the enemy are paying so much attention to South Manchester. We shall have to hold a quick council of entertainment!"
He's been improving his card game where he can, from trains to the Air Raid Shelters, "gambling prohibited, and rightly upheld by all, though I saw two men smoking - me not guilty!!"
He thinks street lights should be turned off when an Air Raid Warning sounds, "I still think there aren't enough precautions in and near the cities."
He slams Elgar's Symphony 2 but jokingly concedes that maybe he just hasn't listened to it enough times. During blackout protocols at home, he's been practicing on Boris his cello.
He's glad Hilda Collens is returning to the Matthay School of Music.
"It is very sad about those people being hit in the shelter. There is a rumour round here that something fell near Fallowfield Station and I thought about one of your pupils who lives near there, the scholarship lad, I imagine. Even Ashton-under-Lyne has been visited! They hit a rubber factory near Guide Bridge but I think the damage is only slight."

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.

Griff writes to Ida hoping she has had a good time in Blackpool. He offers his preferred seating for the Hallé concert they will attend.
He tells her of how at Birch church, he became entangled and ensnared in the Scout's own procession when he was trying to sort out "Banner Wagging" (presumably for the choir). It became quite a confused mess for everyone involved, including Ida's father Walter.
He rejects the idea hat Britain isn't a musical nation, citing all the music making bodies he can think of, including the Matthay School of Music.

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.

Griff updates Ida on his job security. While he will be kept on my Swan and Leach travel agency, he will have to leave a lot of his hard work at the Stanton office at Piccadilly without a promotion. "We are not industriously destroying the work of 10 years" at the Piccadilly office after they got everything so organised and he'll spend the war years bouncing around offices near Manchester. He's not looking forward to Ashton, "they're only busy for about four weeks in the year and I should fade away!" The Altrincham branch should be safe from any cuts "for the right type of client lives there," even though the Piccadilly offices "are taking more money than the majority, but the RENT! Horrible."
He's been head hunted of sorts by an acquaintance who semi-retired near to where Griff likes to holiday in the Cotswolds, "but not to be contemplated unless you move the Matthay School to that district!! Very Safe!!!"
The cold church at Birch made for a freezing choir practice.
He's booked tickets to the ballet after some back and forth with the box office.
His "mother seems better, thank goodness. The Doctor says the heart is wonky but not diseased, and indigestion is present but the liver sound. I think she will be alright with care." Sadly she died just a few months after.
He arranges to meet with her and go to the cinema.

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.

Griff writes to Ida about the logistical issues of civilians preparing for war, "this evening went slightly wrong. I had worked it out with the Parents that it was the one and only for the obtaining of gas masks, and I said I would go with them as they seemed a bit shy. The queue was so large that finally we abandoned it." A friend of his relays stories that people had waited for hours only to be told stock ran out.
He admits he wanted to go home while on Isle of Wight but now that he's back he would quite like a few more days away from all of this.
He shares the Rummy League table with her and then a long list of authors. He jokingly recognises that "it isn't right to encourage fine pianists, ramblers, and brilliant conversationalists to read novels, when all the qualities are the complement of one person, it is all wrong." But he does it anyway.

Ref: CARROLL/IGC/3 GG
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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.

Griff has been to Cambridge and thanks Ida for the letter that awaited him when he got home. He offers he a list of novels he owns as a sort of "Circulating Library". In London, he recalls "there were thousands in Whitehall and the war memorial was a mass of wreaths." He gives his impressions of Godshill on the Isle of Wight and sketched silhouettes of pipe styles, a la René Magritte.

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.

Griff offers suggestions for Ida's route home from Port Patrick.
"A church choir isn't a very respectful sort of place, for one is either listening to set prayers, or looking at the music to come; in between the general singing and so forth." But if he can keep the choir boys in line then he's done a good job, "I see some of 'em out on Wednesday evenings, and believe me...!"
He hopes to take a day trip with her or, failing that, "I wonder if you would care to join the gramophone orgy" of him and his parents sitting listening to recordings.

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.

Griff tells Ida that she looked so nice at the card game that he barely managed to keep staring at her all night by staring at his cards instead.
He wasn't taken with the film he saw and wishes to meet up with her earlier. He jokes about his 3 hearts, "the one that ticks; the personal, that helps me to enthusiasm and makes me like people; and the third, or imaginary, really trivial in a way and bestowed on" books, galleries, parks etc.
Walter Carroll, Ida's father, is near retirement and seem very reluctant about it. Griff rightly guesses that the normal retirement leisure won't be enough for her dad.
Griff describes his bedtime routine in minute details - lots of toes - and a dream he had about Ida. He dismays at her thought of giving up card games but urges her that her consequent free time should not then be filled with work.
He knows that "for a good part of the year I live on my nerves between nine AM and seven PM" and knows "I often feel so unbearably shy that it is easier to write about certain things than to say them." Good job you like writing then, Griff.

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.

Griff writes to Ida thinking he saw her at the back of Birch Church last service. He urges her to a series of options for the next time she visits the church so that he can see her after instead of her rushing home. "So with a steadily burning hope, I leave it to you."
He admits he has a lot of work to do with some songs he must learn as "it looks rather unwieldy." He's nervous about singing in front of her but glad the accompaniment and practice, even with "Maestro No.1 at the keyboard."
He hopes she will wear the same dress that she wore to the Matthay School of Music prize giving to the Hallé's first concert of the season.
He admits that while "All Men are Dangerous," their friend Dr. G should marry. His bachelor status has him "simply perspiring with Worry."
He hopes to take Ida to the cinema and has been listening to the radio. He relays comments by author E.M. Delafield who remarked on the subjects favoured different kinds of singers to sing.

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.

Griff tells Ida that he knew today was going to be " Stoogish Day" and might be in a bit of a temper not being able to see her and being run ragged at work. He needs a break.
Re Birch church choir's Haydn rehearsal, "I indulged the relaxed throat by singing the Latin words instead of the English and was shocked when Hickson said: 'Where were you brought up - Rome?' I didn't think he would hear me." He hopes she would join the choir, "things could be better then."
He's listening to radio and updates her on the Rummy League table. Writes about books and wishes to borrow hers on ballet.
He signs off with a little bit of music notation.

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.

Griff describes his journey to Ida, by boat, made somewhat awkward by having to share a cabin. He pledges that "next time, I shall demand a cabin de luxe and sleep in both of its real beds alternately, hour by hour, with a private bathroom." He wonders if she too saw the "Jaffa orange moon".
He describes some scenes from the boat's departure and characters thereof.
He'll book tickets for the cinema and would like to go for a walk with her. He marvels at her capacity to organise things such as the Matthay School of Music.
He debates with himself on whether he should volunteer for war service locally should the time arise, but recognises that it is very possible he will get called up the army anyway.

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.

Griff was delighted with the letter Ida sent, your huge letter hit the floor with a thud that rand and echoed through the house." He laments that he wasn't able to give her his full attention on the phone though, and apologises for any show of jealousy he may have given in regards to her spending time with her friend - that was not his intention.
He remarks on a maritime disaster (possibly the Thetis of 1939), "I agree that the disaster is horrible. Such dread happenings, makes one think a lot. man-made folly, almost invariably, and in this case possibly the carelessness of one or two people on board - a hatch left open, or an order to dive when too near the coast or both."
He laments his lack of horticultural knowledge and hopes to see her soon.

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.

Griff playfully accuses Ida of purposefully losing at cards. He's been to choir practice at Birch and even managed to get there on time, "much to the surprise of all." He made straight to the library, "lifting eight books therefrom; have no intention of reading them," they are just for reference and a single play they contain that "I have always wanted to see this but have been thwarted, so I shall now be able to read it and imagine the rest."
He talks of plans to go to Southport for the choir picnic, all of them in five cars "either slim or friendly." He bristles at remarks made about his eating habits.
He's glad to hear more of the wedding she attended but "cannot accept the Stanton Village way of calling it 'Stahnton' and in September shall probably visit the place and walk up and down all of the streets (both of them, that is) shouting the name with a very short 'a' indeed."
He admits he likes cricket, "there are many things so graceful about a spot of good cricket" and to being a Manchester City fanatic.

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.

Griff half chastises Ida for burning the first attempt at a letter to him and leaving another unfinished, insisting that he would have liked to read them anyway.
His singing practice hasn't gone quite so well, "a frightful frog in the old Adam's Apple." He admires the curve of Ida's throat where her Adam's Apple prevents it from being a boring straight line. "I am merely interested in the aesthetic charm of curves in comparison with entirely uninteresting straight lines. I always fond of curves."
He obsesses over trying to get her both a letter and a card with train times in appropriate time, without crumpling both letter and card, or sending her the impersonal card without letter, or getting everything to her too early.
He offers entertainment ideas in the form of cinema and radio 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.

Griff writes to Ida a quick missive confirming their plans to meet for a walk and a trip to the cinema.

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.

Griff writes to Ida that he'd love to go to the cinema with her after a walk, "we might bag a back row position, where we could doze in comparative obscurity and greater comfort."
He mentions some films they could see.
He brings her attention to the South Manchester School of Dancing's advert and its particulars.
The Hallé are planning their first ever Sunday evening concert, to be performed at the Paramount Theatre in aid of St Mary's Hospital.
Griff asks Ida not to be concerned about losing weight as she would only be shedding "non-existent surplus plumpness." To lighten the mood, he gives a short dissertation on a strange book he read purporting to show how women and men have fundamentally different tastes when it comes to laughter and comedy. He lays out a sort of experiment he conducted with an acquaintance.

Heather.Roberts@rncm.ac.uk is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Ref: CARROLL/IGC/3 GG
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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.

Griff tells Ida the seconds between their last meeting (324,000) and "I was most touched that it seemed a long time to you, too." He was pleased he got to see the cricket, though. He will plan their outings better next time, less time waiting for tickets and more time enjoying a walk.
He comments on the historical fairness of the film Marie Antoinette and the qualities of different kinds of dresses. He comments also on speciality dishes he knows of through his journeys with the travel agents.
He refers to the whist drive at Birch church, in aid of the church and the choir, and is hoping not to go, believing he gives enough for the choir anyway.
He admits he spotted a pretty blonde on his journey "but I hope you didn't think I was classing myself with the Don Juan's of the travel party." He claims to have "succeeded in remembering where I had seen the man who was lying on the river bank. He is a client of the old firm, and we used to book him to Germany. A year or two ago he married a German girl and they have not been to Germany since, so they may not be Nazis. In fact, I think there are traces of Jewish blood in both of them."
He invites her to a play.

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.

Griff writes to Ida when he returns from a trip with the travel agency. He hopes she has enjoyed the party she attended, desires a description of her dress "and of the party if you wish, from the non-personal angle, leaving out the bits about the attractive dance-partners whom you meet."
He admits that he hasn't rehearsed some of the songs he was supposed to and promises to not get in her way too much while her friend Peggy visits. He would however, like to tag along with the trip to the Paramount with her music students.
Their friend Mrs A. "is still worrying about Tommy [her son] and the general lack of peace in the world. It is rather uncivilised at present." Tommy ended up serving in WW2 in Europe.
He discusses clothes and his bad luck in finding things that fit him well, the trials of tight collars for a singer but "I am sure not all adam's apples are insightly, for I have often looked at yours with quite opposite feelings."
Shares the details of Beethoven concert on the radio and relays the details of his trip to Europe. He sings the praises of the Hook Continental train as they travelled to the Netherlands and through to Belgium, back to London where he takes his colleague on a tour of London. He assures her that "I did not notice the Dutch girls and didn't want to anyway."

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.

Michael remembers the school's closure.

Michael: Yeah. It was sad because when it closed it—to me it closed for the wrong reasons. Yeah.
Heather: How do you think so?
M: Well… I don’t know if they couldn’t have taken us here… And you see… Ms Carroll wrote, and it’s in the book there, that the local education authorities were supposed to be taking this over. There was no such thing much certainly England as music lessons in local authority but they had had it in Scotland before we had because my wife had it. But you see we were piano students and if you are a piano student the local authority not interested in you, they want to make like… big orchestras. Because they do shop window. They are not interested in you and what you do, they are interested in what we do as a council so the music service, you know, becomes a sort of Cinderella puppet of what all the good things are of who the local authority is, you know. So we didn’t get catered for. But I didn’t give up. And it was done thoughtlessly, you know. Either Ida Carroll knew most people wouldn’t get catered for and just turned a blind eye to it all, maybe she turned a blind eye or she had to turn a blind eye to it or— Ms Cox or whoever, they knew this was going to come to an end, and that was the fundamental thing that went right back to the beginning of the school and it was abandoned. And when I was teaching, I was shocked and cross to find out that children were coming to the college that I was teaching and I said, ‘Well where did you learn this?’, ‘Well I go to Royal Northern on a Saturday morning’. Within a period of time it’d opened again and I thought, ‘That’s—that’s a tacit acceptance that that was mistake’, you see.
I was a bit… I was a bit yeah and you know, turned out some interesting people but I don’t— I think the continuity was broken and that… So yeah, it was a shame. It did it because it was expedient to do it or whatever the reason was, it wasn’t necessarily the right reason. That’s what I mean by that

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

Michael remembers some of the school's teachers.

Michael: So they were very sort of nurturing people and very kind, I think it was either Ms Kay, Constance Kay, might have been, or it might have been Ms Wilde, that had a thing in the… when my mother first came in the 47’, biros were getting, you know, they were coming in and she had a biro. But my mother said when she was writing the ink would used to sort of bobble. You know, like you would get sort of bobbly biro sometimes and she just used to do this with it. And one day they went in and my mother was in a terrible state because her arm had swollen massively. And it turned out that it was the biro ink. That was— that had got into the bloodstream and had given her septicaemia which was sepsis, isn’t it yeah? You know, blood poisoning. And they rushed her into um… into the Royal and they tried to find out what it was that she might have been doing and either Hilda Collens or somebody had to get on— find out who manufactured these pens and she actually got them to disclose what was in the ink. And they said, ‘Oh we can’t tell you that, it’s a company secret’. And I don’t know what she said but she jolly well made them, you know, stand to say what was what and, you know, it saved her. I don’t think anybody like that— I think she has an enormous amounts of resources, this woman. Of all kinds and knew when to use, when she actually had to.

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