More notes from Walter Carroll, local Manchester composer, who supported the Northern School of Music since its conception in 1920. These could be more notes from his contributions to the school's summer courses for teachers and musicians.

An expert in music education at the time, what sort of changes do you think would be considered now in this sort of lecture?

Ref: CARROLL/WC/8
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.

Walter Carroll, composer and father of Ida Carroll (student-secretary-principal of the Northern School of Music, formerly Matthay School of Music), was often a guest at the school's summer school for teachers and musicians.

This tiny neat notebook are his notes from the 1934 course.

Ref: CARROLL/WC/8
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.

Did you know that Walter Carroll, composer and father of Ida Carroll (student-secretary-prinicipal of the Northern School of Music), kept a sort of log book called "The Musical Education of Ida Gertrude Carroll".

It starts with a foreword, "From the date of birth there was always music to be heard in the house". The notebook tracks development in her musical skill and appreciation year by year until she is about 5.

What do you think of her early years with music?

Ref: CARROLL/WC/8
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.

It's the most well documented romance in the RNCM Archives. Have a look at the wartime love story between Geoffrey Griffiths and Ida Carroll before you go and read some of their amazing letters on our Northern School of Music digital exhibition here on MDMA. Thanks to the National Lottery Heritage Fund for giving us the resources to digitise these amazing collections!

This video is part of Heritage Open Days 2020. Don't forget to check out the other videos for the festival here on MDMA.

It's the hottest topic in RNCM history this year: the Northern School of Music! Have a look at its history at a glance and don't forget to check out the rest of its amazing history with our Northern School of Music digital exhibition here on MDMA. Massive thanks to the National Lottery Heritage Fund for giving us the resources to digitise the amazing collections.

This video is part of Heritage Open Days 2020. Don't forget to visit the other videos for the festival here on MDMA.

Griff ran to catch a glimpse of Ida after a church service (Boxing Day?) as a friend relayed she had seemed in "low spirits". He couldn't catch her but "probably as well, for no doubt it was an occasion when you preferred solitude."
Possibly the service seemed to be a farewell service involving the rector or her father Walter Carroll, it's not clear.
He would like to meet and walk with her soon, just for as long as she would allow.
He was glad she didn't agree to the endless bus rides he proposed. His original idea was "roving at the back of the old mind that if we weren't back home too rapidly, you might be the first person to wish me a 'Merry Christmas'." It worked! 12:03AM she wished him well and gave him his card on the day itself.
He has plans to listen to the radio and watch the football (bad weather prevents the latter.)
He's glad to hear she enjoyed the jigsaw for Christmas - he thought a youthful game would suit her youthful spirit. Griff played cards on Boxing Day and has been catching up on his sleep, "you appeared in at least twelve dreams out of at least twenty."
We see his first venture in the game of whist - which in later letters he becomes very passionate about.

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 apologises to Ida for being moody when they met early that evening, and for suggesting a meeting place so far away from her Air Raid Precaution beat. If an alarm had sounded she would have had an unfair distance to cycle.

He frets over busy rushes and wants to visit the library and get some practice time with Boris (his cello?) on Saturday afternoon so he won't be able to see her.

Sounds like a moody bad week for Griff as things start to pile up.

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.

A little different letter from Griff to Ida. After telling her he has burned her letter, "for ill-intentioned burglar might find letters if he searched hard enough, but that can't be read again," he relates a sort of autobiography.

He remembers living in Buxton during the First World War as his father was working there. "Two hotels were turned into hospitals for the Canadian wounded and there was an endless procession of battered humanity." After the war they lived with an elderly lady in Levenshulme, sort of live-in help in exchange for rent and his dad was a gardener.
He writes about getting a his job at Stanton's the travel agency, and how the first boss went off the rails and stole from the business, the second was an "Efficiency Expert" looking for any reason to lay off staff, and the third was a nice chap it was working out "until the Depression reached us with its cuts and so on."

He recalls girlfriends but realises now that relationships aren't just about going out together, but that they need to be "fundamentally domestic". He laments that "I shouldn't care to know just how much misery there is, and has been through the ages, by the exercise of what one might call passion without love." He confesses to Ida that "your influence on me was profound, and still is, and likely to be so."

Ref: CARROLL/IGC/3 GG
With thanks to the Ida Carroll Trust

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

Geoffrey Griffiths wishes to see Ida Carroll but it may be a whole week until they can meet. He worries about not knowing where she is - what if there is an attack?
It's getting busy at the travel agents he works at, with Easter week hours working into the evenings. So much so that he has to take the accounts with him to his voluntary service on the Auxiliary Fire Service in Ashton and do them in the pub where they keep lookout.
There were some seemingly unrelated notes on transport with the letter - and a lovely hand drawn map of the Wilmslow Rd/Parrs Wood area of South Manchester.

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.

Geoffrey apologises to Ida for not dropping her book "The Little White Bird" back to her, even when he walked it over to house and everything. "You only have to look at me and I forget nearly everything."

He went to see The Changing performance at the Free Trade Hall, [a large choral work I think?]. He recalls the performance being awful but the journey being more so, "I smoked and muttered terrible oaths all the way, but y 8pm I was as warm as toast."

Talks about changes in the worlds of choirs, with Malcolm Sargent working with the choir at Birch Church, even though the weather was keeping most singers away.

He pleads with Ida to be careful with her electric heater after reading about someone who died from electrocution using it in his bathroom.

He advises her on her train journey with her sister and predicts that even without the final scores tabled that Ida has won The Rummy League.

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.

Geoffrey admits to Ida Carroll that despite seeming unaffected, "I am perturbed often, but probably not outwardly; if you could see 'inside' me you might sometimes find me far from calmness, very far, even with you."

He has finished his book, J.M. Barrie's "The Little White Bird" in a night by the fire. "If you give me an interesting book, I can read like anything."

He tried to arrange a short trip with her, anywhere, "a trip to anywhere could suit me if you go too." In the meantime, he is looking forward to going to Sale [probably to play cards with friends]. He goes on a tangent about modern art forms such as Surrealism, which he reckons that by pinning orange peel to a block of wood you could call Sunrise. And The New Poetry, modern form, which he claims is easy to write but not easy to understand. He has a go himself, which he graciously gives Ida the copyright to as he teases that it may be famous one day, and drops a little limerick in the letter too.

He likes to listen to the radio with the lights out, "Just the thing for a pale wintry evening." He apologises for the seating mistake at a play they attended and praises her for looking so young always.

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.

It seems Ida Carroll has written an apology to Griff for being so preoccupied with work lately. He is very gracious, as it "is so very easy to understand and I swear it hasn't disturbed your usual sweet nature."

He mentions books he's recommended - one which she used as a writing desk instead, an (H.G.) Wells volume. He recommends Locke's "House of Baltazar" or Verne's "Round the World in Eighty Days" if she finds Wells too upsetting.

We learn about some of the effects of the Second World War on civilians. Griff admits that being taken unawares by a train whistle in the distance is enough to send him under a table. "It is almost odd to recall the happy pre-war years," but he hopes that "we shall settle down some day, a better world may emerge, if there isn't too much inflation."

He discusses spending time at the travel agency's office in Stockport with their real coal fire and cocoa to drink.

Though he admits he is tired with these nights disturbed by war, he promises not to fall asleep at the cinema, especially as he is "intensely aware of you, my dearest, for I love to sit and walk beside you."

Last time he did sleep, he dreamt of a train ride in the local area and seeing her waiting for him at a station and agreeing to walk with him. He was proper made up.

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.

Geoffrey Griffiths writes to Ida Carroll whilst on the boat to Europe on his short holiday, He reckons he strained some sinews in his foot trying to rush for the post to send a letter to her before and "am now limping about on all fours." Not the best way to spend a holiday. But does not regret rushing out of a funeral that ended early to catch the second half of a match. Half price at half time - can't ignore a bargain.

He's slightly teasing when he writes "if the boat sinks in the gales remember I have four books belonging to you, I haven't made a will but should like you to have my volume of Scott's poems and anything else you fancy."

Ida, it turns out doesn't like comedy films (despite the fact that he brings her to them A LOT) and, a self-proclaimed "student of the psychology of laughter in relation to the screen and stage (having read one large, fat textbook) I should like to know, if you don't mind being experimented upon, whether you remember any performance by a comedian who has impressed you."

He described 2 dreams: one in which he is in a hall with members of the Hallé Orchestra, and Ida is amongst them with a cello, and the other dream of him walking with Ida and he talking about the cultivation of daffodils, "which is pure cheek, I admire flowers and plants very much but don't know a think about growing them." Fascinating, Griff.

He encourages her to go into professional performance more, or to set up her own business so "I could try to crash in as partner!" Little did he know that he would indeed end up working with her at the Northern School of Music as the bursar, and she the secretary and later principal.

He muses about heading to the continent, "In some respects we are a good joke to our friends on the continent, but I think the failing applies to men mostly."

I mean...

He refers to conscription in the impending war, how some people loathe it and others are excited to go. He claims "it's hard to be a pessimist on a Tourist Office" with all the lovely brochures and posters coming from Italy and Germany, but recognises that the it's going to create a real problem for the tourist company's balance sheets. "Anyway, I regret bitterly our political games of the last 21 years," since WW1 he admits.

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.

Geoffrey Griffiths has been on holiday! He's been away for 3 days, too long to be away from Ida Carroll he writes to her, with an agents' trip. Possibly part of his work with the travel agents?

He talks almost solely about what he ate. It's basically a 3 day menu from Manchester to Rotterdam, Brussles, Antwerp and back. He blames the single ham sandwich he ate on the way back for "the beginning of the reaction" which he believes is the reason "I am now slightly queer; either a slight chill or the beginning of appendicitis." He even updates her on what he ate when he got in, "to bring the description of the trip up to date."

No idea what he thought of the actual places he visited. His excuse is the group was whipped around with no time to enjoy things, and that the best parts were the infrequent moments of slower living where he could people watch.

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.

Geoffrey Griffiths writes to Ida Carroll, complaining of a late night for the wrong reasons. "Quiet Tuesdays are our right and proper due, and it was very and it was very bad taste on the part of Mr. H[itler]!"
He writes from his voluntary service with the Auxiliary Fire Service in Ashton which he sarcastically praises that "beds and blankets have arrived after a nine day duty, so we've all suffered alike. Justice."

He is thinking of taking Ida to see the new film Dr. Cyclops, "I am not sure whether he is a nasty Dr. Cyclops or a nice one." Spoiler: he nasty.

They're going to see a Schubert concert and "you will be pleased to know that I am bringing the full score to the concert (I have one) for an orgy of page turning - or am I?!!"

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.

Fae Jones talks about finding out about the death of John Barbirolli (conductor of the Hallé Orchestra) and auditioning for the Hallé Choir at Zion Arts Centre.

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

Fae Jones chats about the impact and legacy of Ida Carroll, principal of the Northern School of Music, on Manchester's musical offering.

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

Fae Jones praises the impact that studying at the Northern School of Music has had on her life.

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

Fae Jones praises an inspirational music teacher from her high school for introducing her to the wonders of music making.

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

Fae Jones talks about her impressions of Beatrice Rollins of the Northern School of Music, and the difference between music teachers now and how it was taught then.

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

Fae Jones remembers how the Northern School of Music made her feel, and the influence of Ida Carroll on the school.

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

Fae Jones talks about the "peculiar" building of the Northern School of Music.

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

Fae Jones talks about her admiration for pianist Clifford Curzon, a great friend of the Northern School of Music.

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

Geoffrey Griffiths salutes the weekends as that is when he gets to see his girlfriend Ida Carroll. He curses the postman for delivering her letter ate and making him wait a whole work day until he can get home to it.
He jokes that "if our respective 'firms' go bust we shall have to start a business together." Some financial worry at the Northern School of Music during the war may have prompted this. Although he admits that is she had to cease teaching music it would be a great loss as it is so important.

He's borrowed the score for 'La Triviata' from the library as he plans to see it soon, and wishes to attempt an analysis. He is "taking care to avoid the charming, pretty and high-spirited young ladies of the Matthay School of Music" on the night. (The Matthay soon changed name to the Northern School of Music).

He reminds her that he has loved her for 14 years.

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.