Insert Title Here

I have just got back from the first dissection meeting of a new and very promising writers' group, at which I got a lot of useful feedback. I am taking away the message that I am on the right track and am worrying about the right things, though I may need to be a little more careful about some of them.

I have a prospective title.

This was in no way discussed, but an idea has spontaneously occurred anyway. I very much admire the Woody Allen film Match Point, particularly the way that the title tied in not just with the setting, but with the structure as well. The film opens with a tennis player describing how a match can be won or lost if the ball hits the net cord, as it is little more than a coin toss which side of the net the ball will land, causing jubilation to one player and despair to the other. This theme is repeated later in the film, and how the film ends depends on a very similar event (which I won't spoil).

The ending of the novel is very clear to me. George will finish it single (again...), but very much changed for the experience, and he will set off to start university with a new, justified, sense of optimism (not revealing details!). Upbeat is a possible title. It means two things - optimistic in mood, and, musically, the unstressed beat preceding a (more 'interesting') bar/phrase/movement. Both of these fit the feeling with which the novel ends. A paragraph setting this up at the beginning, and another at the end would tie the plot, the setting and the title together nicely I think.

Ages of Man IX : Back on the shelf

(Badly need Edward to develop some depth and elicit some sympathy from the readers. This is also the scene where the main idea in the book is first hinted at)

After the rehearsal, the orchestra had decamped en masse to the nearest pub, where they promptly overwhelmed the cook with a massive backlog of food orders. It was the kind of pub with numbered tables in a strictly regimented layout; the orchestra had fragmented into a series of small groups. Most groups had pushed their tables together (to the disapproving glares of the landlord), but Edward and George now found themselves at a small table some distance from the rest of the orchestra.

Edward was a Social Drinker. To him, this meant that he had the occasional drink when out with others "to keep them company". To everyone else, it meant that he quickly became drunk on booze that he wasn't used to, and trampled blindly into awkward conversations. He was attacking a pint of the local brewery's stronger ale with suicidal enthusiasm. George had once tried a sip of wine when he was ten and hadn't liked it. He hadn't touched a drop of alcohol since and was horrified at the mere thought of further experimentation. He was making the most of still being too young to drink legally in pubs; goodness knows what excuse he would be compelled to resort to after his birthday next month. He nursed a lime cordial as though it was served in the Holy Grail.

"You and Ellen seemed to be getting on well."
"Er, we've only really introduced ourselves. She seems very friendly."
"You sly old dog. I bet you have the pick of the girls at school!"
"No more than anyone else - it's a boys' school."
"In the holidays? Lots of nice local girls - they must be fighting over you!"
George paused; the conversation was getting painfully close to the nerve. "Not really, I don't tend to get out very much in the holidays. Mum needs a lot of help decorating and so on."
"Oh, so you're not a ladies' man?"
"I wish. Maybe after I start university?"
This derailed Edward somewhat. His own love-life was a complete non-starter, and he had it set out in his mind that youthful advice from a young stud like George would be just right to set him on the road to success. He was determined that the tour was the perfect time to 'score', and that he should get some guaranteed hints as soon as possible. Finding out that George was clearly even more clueless was something of a disappointment. Not being one to change his mind, he ploughed on ahead anyway.
"I was rather hoping for your help. It's been a long time now since Marjorie passed on. Since your father left home all those years ago it's just been the two of us in that big house, and without her I'm just rattling around on my own. I think it's about time I found someone else, someone I could settle down and enjoy my retirement with."
"Sounds like a wonderful idea. I know Mum & Dad would be delighted if you found someone else."
"I know it sounds silly, but I don't want to be one of those people you read about who die in their sleep, but no-one notices and their corpse lies in their bed for weeks on end before it gets found."
"That's a bit morbid! Surely you don't have to worry about that at your age?"
"I know, I know, but it scares me. I don't get a lot of visitors, so I do worry about it. I've never lived on my own before. It was nice at first, having all the freedom, but now it just seems like the house is a great big empty hole waiting to swallow me up." Edward had a singular ability to sound cheerful even when saying these things.
"Well a nice companion for you would do you a lot of good. I'm sure it's what she would have wanted" George was beginning to worry what was coming next.
"I agree. Trouble is, between you and me, Marjorie was, well, she was my sweetheart in the sixth form, and you got married young in those days. She was the only girlfriend I've ever had, so it's 45 years since I was last, well, in the market as it were."
"I'm sure it will all come flooding back to you. I expect it's like riding a bicycle - you never forget how."
"I wish." said Edward, who actually had forgotten how to ride a bicycle.
"Are there any single ladies in the orchestra?"
"Actually quite a few. I talked to Ted Coote, who sorted out all the hotel bookings, and there's a surprising number of potential targets. Quite a few girls around your age too."
The two of them exchanged a look, and in that moment they realised that they weren't so different. George looked away first, stifling a smile of newly-kindled optimism. Edward didn't get the hunting tips that he wanted, but at least he had a hunting partner of sorts. He felt better already.

There are times in cricket matches where a batting side is struggling to avoid a follow-on and the probable heavy defeat that follows. Two hapless tail-enders find themselves at the crease knowing that all their best batsmen have failed, and that they are facing 90mph deliveries whistling past their noses. It is only a matter of time before they have their stumps torn out, yet they soldier on, pluckily offering weak defensive prods at the incoming onslaught. Spectators of both teams tend to enjoy watching these gladiatorial passages of play, partly because they admire the bravery, but mostly out of schadenfreude. George and Edward were to womankind what these beleaguered tail-enders were to Brett Lee, but without the protective padding.

Ages of Man : Comments

I've had a look back over the initial character descriptions I wrote, and in both cases my perception of how they will be has shifted. Not hugely - the basic idea is still the same - but enough to warrant a re-write of the description! One of the reasons for experimenting like this on a blog is to solidify such things before I start writing proper, so I suppose it is serving its purpose. I had previously expected that Edward would be on at least an equal footing with George, but I'm increasingly thinking of George as the lead.

As for plot, I'm keen on the idea of George unsuccessfully pursuing Ellen, unaware of the fact that she is way, way out of his league. I think that she might end up having a little soft spot for him simply because he is brave enough to try, and is probably quite different from the rest of the small subset of men who are brave enough to hit on her.


One problem that has to be addressed is making sure that the readers sympathise with both the characters. George is quirky, shy, and naive, whereas Edward is tactless and inconsiderate. Trying to make them both likeable in spite of this is difficult. The story is essentially a coming-of-age tail, with the spin being that there are two of them doing it at very different times of life. If people don't like the characters 'before' then they aren't going to stay interested long enough to enjoy 'after'.

Another note on characters; no character of any significance is based on a single real person, but I definitely draw inspiration from real life. Generally this is blending together several people I have known, exaggerating some features and discarding others, arriving at someone who is not the same as anybody, but is (hopefully!) nevertheless believable, interesting, and deep. I find Edward more difficult to write, perhaps because I don't/didn't particularly like the people he is drawn from!

I really hate the working title now. Will have to think of something better. I'm also starting to think that the parents will not appear at all, except perhaps over the 'phone.

Ages of Man VIII : Tally ho?

(about time the guys started interacting with women, or at least trying to...)

After a slightly panicked hour of rehearsal, George was visibly relieved when Mr Sharpe called a ten-minute break. He had every intention of spending it all in the gents' loos, not out of any lavatorial necessity but simply for the sake of having some comforting walls between him and other people. His escape was intercepted by an unstoppable onslaught of Well-Brought-Up-Young-Lady-Being-Friendly-To-A-Newcomer.
"Hello there, I'm Ellen, I don't think we've met." said she with an expensive accent, extending the hand not carrying her cello.
"How do you do? I'm George". He hoped his intention to hide in a cubicle was imperceptible in his tone of voice, but he felt it twice as acutely at the prospect of making small talk with his new acquaintance. She was a few years older than he, tall and slender with dark hair and a friendly smile. She radiated casual class and was immaculately dressed; the Venn Diagram of women who wear tight white jeans, and women who could carry off tight white jeans had a happy intersection with Ellen. That part of him which didn't want him to flee wanted him very, very much to stay where he was.
"Pleased to meet you, George. You play wonderfully." Ellen was determined to
put him at his ease.
"That's very generous of you to say so, thank-you. I thought I'd made a bit of a mess of it, actually." He was beginning to talk to his shoes.
"Don't be silly! You're doing very well. Don't worry about Mr Sharpe, he's like that to everyone. The nastier he is to you, the more highly he thinks of you."
"He must be positively horrible to you then!" said George slightly too quickly, and immediately worried that it sounded corny.
"Talented and charming! What a catch you are for the orchestra!" Ellen did indeed think his jabbered compliment was corny, but she had a wonderful knack for making people feel good about themselves. "How did you come to join us for the tour?"
He gestured across the room towards his grandfather. "I'm Edward Kent's grandson, he said there was a shortage of violas and that I should come along. I'd only have been sitting around at home, so I thought I ought to. I need the practice! How about yourself?"
"I've been here since I was a girl. Mother's absolutely potty about music, she's in every orchestra within 50 miles, and I simply got swept along."
"Tally ho!" Edward had misinterpreted George's gesturing as a summons, and rampaged over to join them. "I see you've met Ellen, wasting no time there, you young stud!"
Ellen saw the look of sheer horror on his face, and deftly defused the situation.
"I was just telling him about Mother, about how she's been with the orchestra for twenty years. You've been here almost as long, haven't you? You and she must have some memories!"
"Well I'm just a newcomer, I've only been here fifteen years! Still, your mother and I have done a few concerts together since then! Nothing will ever quite compare with the time we played..."
Before the monologue got into full swing, George took the opportunity to excuse himself quietly, and rushed to the gents to spend the rest of the break cringing in the corner of a cubicle.

Ages of Man : VII

"So, what's the plan for today?" said George, as they pulled off the motorway.
"We're going straight to a rehearsal now, then we'll check into the hotel later. First concert is this evening."
"Fair enough. Which pieces are we doing?"
"Carmina Burana is the main piece, we're doing Tannhauser Overture in the first half along with a song cycle by some German composer no-one's heard of."
"Sounds very good. I've got Tannhauser on LP."
"LP? Don't they allows CDs in your dormitory?"
George didn't answer. He was considered among his friends as something of a technophile, and was as adept with cutting-edge technology as anyone, so it generally came as a surprise when people found out that he had a vast arsenal of 12" vinyl records. His love of modern technology had somehow become intertwined with his calculatedly old-fashioned streak, and the result was a fascinating clash of cultures. He had spent a week of his previous holiday creating a beautifully-designed website containing artistic photographs of his collection of rotary-dial telephones; he took the photos with his high-end DSLR camera.
"Do you know which desk I will be playing in?"
"Didn't I tell you? You're principal viola."
"Principal? Gosh, I didn't realise that. Can't a someone from the orchestra do it?"
"Not really, the only other violas who are coming are Mrs Atkinson, who hasn't been up to much playing since her arthritis set in, and Helen and David, but they both said they didn't want the job."
"But I've never played as principal. I thought I'd just be making up the numbers."
"Oh don't worry about it. The music's quite easy." Edward was not the type to embarrass easily. It wasn't that he didn't care about making a fool of himself, rather it never occurred to him that anyone could make a fool of themselves. To do so would require a sense of dignity, which he utterly lacked. He therefore assumed that everyone else was the same, and hadn't the faintest sense of when other people were embarrassed, especially when it was he who was embarrassing them. It hadn't occurred to him that George might have preferred a less prominent part in the orchestra - he didn't care what people thought of his playing, why should anyone else? Sadly, not caring how you sound is not conducive to musical excellence - he was a dreadful musician, but he neither realised this nor cared.
George, on the other hand, was mortified at the thought of leading the section, small though it was. Some orchestral players didn't care a jot about which part they played, would happily play anything that was put in front of them egolessly. Some sections would think nothing of rotating parts for different pieces. String players, on the other hand, defended their desk position with the same enraged defiance as certain middle-aged women defend their right to be called 'Ms'. The orchestra's few good players percolated to the front desks, and stayed there. Shy players, and those who knew their own limitations, stayed at the back. The middle desks were occupied by mediocre players who were either inadvisably trying to work their way forwards, or fighting to avoid the ignominy of being moved back; sometimes both at once. To be in a middle desk was to wear a symbol of status, however microscopic, and it meant having someone to look down on in order to feel better.
George was one of nature's back-deskers, though he was afflicted with the unfortunate ability to play very well indeed. He would far rather sit behind row upon row of inferior violists, secure in his anonymity and, though he'd never admit it to himself, a buried sensation of smugness at being better than those in front of him. Being principal terrified him, even though the music would be essentially identical. He would far rather be surprisingly good (or, in his unswervingly-modest words, 'not disastrous') than disappointingly bad, and the thought of being compared unfavourably to the other players turned his stomach into knots. George had, however, made one error of judgement: he had grossly over-estimated the skill of the other players.

Ages of Man : VI

Item 3: To receive the tour manager's report

Mr Coote stood to say that he had successfully secured a rehearsal venue for the first afternoon of the tour (c.f item 2 of previous meetings minutes re: Mr Sharpe's concerns about guest players not attending earlier rehearsals). He expressed that he was having difficulty with the logistics of transporting around so much percussion and asked that for future tours consideration be given to this before choosing pieces because the seven percussion parts in Carmina Burana by Carl Orff were causing him grief. Mr Kent helpfully offered to bang a few pots and pans when the bassoons weren't busy. Mr Sharpe said this wouldn't be neccesary. Mr Kent said that he had played some lovely bongos in his time to which Mrs Sharpe replied that there was no need for that sort of language. Mr Coote then gave a detailed account of the transport arrangements for the many instruments on the many legs of the journey. Both pages of this account are attached to these minutes. Mr Coote was thanked by the committee for the lengthy trouble which he had obviously gone to.

Ages of Man : V

(attempt at sustained dialogue, and at creating impressions for the reader without explicitly stating them. Nothing startling, just some basic character exposition.)

It was some minutes after they had left the house before conversation started in earnest. Edward's 'driving head' appeared to require such concentration as rendered him incapable of speech, at least until they reached the motorway, where he steadfastly drove in the middle lane irrespective of his or anyone else's velocity.
"That's better. Always good to get out on the open road and stretch the old wheels!" said Edward in enthusiastic tones.
"Quite." said George, at once relieved to break the silence and shy of the impending conversation.
"Second lane to the right, and straight on 'til morning!"
"I hope it won't take that long."
"Won't be much more than an hour."
"That's not so bad."
"So, tell me. Glad to be rid of school?"
"It hasn't really sunk in yet that I've left for good. I'm well accustomed to moving between there and home, so it just feels like another summer holiday. Funny to think I won't be going back."
"Did you like it there?"
George paused. "Yes, I suppose I did. A lot of the other boys hated it and couldn't wait to leave, but I never felt like that."
"Home from home, eh?"
"Quite."
"I remember the day I left school. We bounced the headmaster's car between two trees so that he couldn't drive it home. Goodness knows how he got it out again."
"I never thought of you as a troublemaker."
"I didn't actually bounce the car myself, but I helped them by watching out for teachers. Not that they could have done anything to stop them."
"There was a big water-fight around the school grounds."
"Get very wet?"
"Not really, we went and played croquet instead."
"Croquet? How civilised! Does anybody still play that these days?"
"They certainly do. At least, we did. For all its apparent gentility, it is a vicious game, and excellent fun. There was a group of us played every Sunday. We thought we wouldn't get another chance to play at all, let alone with each other, so it seemed a good idea to get one last game in."
Edward considered this for a moment. "I bet you'll miss your friends."
"We'll keep in touch, by post, or possibly by electronic mail. We've already arranged to meet up again after the first university term."
"What are you going to study?"
"Aeronautical Engineering at Bristol."
"Oxbridge not appeal to you? I'd have thought the cloistered passageways were right up your alley!". Edward beamed, pleased with himself.
"Shall we say they appealed to me, but the feeling wasn't mutual. Still, Bristol is closer to home, and it has a very good reputation. Most of my friends are going to Cambridge, though."
"Must be a bit of a disappointment! All your friends off to Cambridge and you to Bristol, talk about kicking you when you're down."
"Hadn't thought about it that way, really." He hadn't, but he did now. Conversation halted while George gazed blankly out of the passenger window and realised that he was the only member of his beloved Croquet Club who wasn't going to Cambridge. He wasn't ambitious by nature, and felt no envy for his more successful friends, but instead he felt left out of all the fun. Being a Cambridge undergraduate fitted his self-image so perfectly that he couldn't imagine fitting in anywhere else. He didn't like where this new train of thought was going, having boarded it so suddenly thanks to his grandfather's tactless questioning, and after a while he restarted conversation purely to stop having to think about it.
"How is work going?"
"Still chuntering away, pretty quiet for me at the moment."
"Not much business these days?". George wondered if 'chuntering' was a real word.
"Hardly, we've the highest utilisation on record, we've a huge backlog of orders. I've been back at work nine months now, they gave me lots of compassionate leave after Marjorie passed on, were very good about it."
"It must be good to be working again."
"I've been with the company for a quarter of a century now. I've got the gold pen and everything. Nothing surprises me any more. No point getting another job at 63, not that I could, so I'll just hang in there for another couple of years and top up my pension fund. Still, keeps me out the house!"
"Remind me exactly what it is you do?"
"I'm a chemical engineer. I work down at the plant, making chemicals for industry. Compressed nitrogen and oxygen, mostly."
"Do you work a lot with the machinery?"
"All the time. Well, I spend more time in the office than the crawl-spaces these days, the younger lads do that.
George gazed again out of the passenger window, and spent the next half-an-hour in silence, watching cars under-taking them.

Ages of man : IV

(attempt at a vivid description of a minor character who will appear in only one scene, vaguely in the manner of Dickens.)

After the previous night's exertions, Edward and George surfaced too late for breakfast at the hotel, and set forth in search of a greasy spoon cafe recommended to them by the ineffectual girl at reception. They eventually located it, through a process of elimination, by walking in the opposite direction to that in which she pointed them, and then finding it across the street from the petrol station to which it was allegedly next door.

Taking seats at the only vacant table, it was immediately apparent that this was a very popular establishment. Unending legions of worried-looking waiting staff charged about the place carrying vast platters of cholesterol. Each of them paused at their table just long enough to insist on taking an order for tea. Edward expected being given a cup of tea from each of half-a-dozen waitresses, which George rather liked the sound of. They found it difficult to maintain conversation over the most penetrative voice imaginable, which belonged to a small lady in an apron barking orders at the cholesterol legions; the Napoleon of grime. At once nasal and gravelly, with a distinct Irish burr, her voice was clearly audible from behind the kitchen door. Mrs O'Neill was unquestionably the proprietor of the cafe; any attempts to imagine her boss started and ended with Zeus, and even then there would be a power struggle. She was very short and slender, but her sheer presence would stop armies in their tracks; she would stride into a war-zone to tell them to keep the noise down. They would. She patrolled around the cafe, ensuring good order and making light chit-chat with her customers. At least, she believed it was light, and she was genuinely trying to be friendly, but a barked interrogation as to George's satisfaction with his breakfast elicited no more than a whimper. He would happily have rubbed his stomach and made yummy noises before a plate of fresh turd if Mrs O'Neill were watching; happily this was not the case, because the food was genuinely excellent. She clearly ran a very tight ship; customers were left in no doubt that they would get exactly what they wanted, generally before they ordered it, but this was not a place to linger, particularly if one wanted to keep one's hearing. Some eating establishments hire cocktail pianists to add quiet background music; Mrs O'Neill could hire a military marching band.

Ages of Man : III

(this is Edward & George's first scene together).

George was sitting by the window, waiting for the arrival of his grandfather. He wasn't expecting him for another quarter of an hour, but George had nevertheless been staring out of the window for twenty minutes already. His parents were the proud owners of a perfectly functioning doorbell, and he had no reason to believe that his grandfather had any serious lack of skill in its operation, but he still felt the urgent desire to watch his ancestor inaccurately park his estate car and, it was hoped, walk up the garden path to seek admission. He didn't know why he felt such urges, but his mother always kept vigil for at least an hour in advance of any ETA, and it wouldn't do to insult the family solidarity.

Having successfully deposited his enormous car, Edward was beginning to contemplate the tricky doorbell conundrum when the door opened of its own accord, revealing behind it a pasty teenage boy with a runaway fringe who was vainly, and indeed vainly, trying to disguise his obvious nervousness.

"Hello, Grandpa" said he, proffering a hand.

"Hello there, lad!" said Edward, taking it. "You're looking ever so much taller than when I last saw you".

"You're looking ever so much shorter since I last saw you!" replied George, with just enough edge in his voice to discourage any further discussion of the subject; in his experience no-one over the age of twenty had the faintest recollection of the hideous embarrassment inherent in being the object of such a conversation, and he went out of his way to remind them as politely as he could manage. He also didn't like to point out that they'd seen each other some nine months previously at his grandmother's funeral, and any subsequent increase in height was attributable exclusively to the growth of his hair. "Do come in. Good journey over?"

"Bit of traffic on the ring-road, but I'd expected it and left in good time."

"Can I offer you a drink? I have some tea in the pot." George was an excellent host, but very seldom had anyone to practise on.

"No thanks, I'd like to get straight on, got my driving head on now!"

George gave the mildly sycophantic guffaw he had been taught to use in such situations. "Right well I'd better tidy up the kitchen before I leave." It was spotless apart from a steaming teapot, two matching mugs and a plate of biscuits in protractor-perfect formation.

"Your parents about?"

"They're at Pilates."

"Oh well, I'll see them next week I suppose. Is this your luggage?" exclaimed Edward, gesturing at three old-fashioned leather suitcases in the hallway. "Are these your father's tatty old cases? Yes, they have his initials. I thought these got thrown out years ago. No matter, I'll pop them in the car. Are you quite sure you need to take this much stuff?"

George was proud of his ancient family luggage, and had expected his grandfather to be rather more pleased to see it. Having tidied the kitchen, he picked up his viola case, locked the front door behind him, and went out to the car. He then pretended to have forgotten something, and went back into the house to check that he hadn't left the gas on, even though he hadn't used it all morning. Thus satisfied, he locked the front door again and took his seat in the car, worrying that he hadn't locked the front door but being too proud to turn back a second time. He wondered for a moment why he'd agreed to come on the trip - he wasn't used to being with groups of people he didn't know, and he certainly wasn't used to being with his grandfather without his parents being there.

Ah well, he thought, it will be an adventure.

Ages of Man : thoughts so far

I've got quite a strong idea now of what the two main characters will be like, and I'm finding it fairly easy to write things in their voices. The two pieces I've written are the first contact the reader will have with the characters, so they essentially serve the same purpose as the descriptions I set out earlier (obviously less explicitly). Little set-pieces like the letter, and the minutes (which I think can work as a thread running through the book), are fun, but I'm a little worried about writing long passages of bog-standard descriptive prose. Dialogue is fine - I've done this before for the stage - but descriptive text is something I will have to learn how to do. The whole public school setting is a little cliched, but this is I think justified to introduce the character quickly, and it really won't be dwelled on.

I'm already regretting the working title of Ages of Man, which doesn't really capture where I want to go. I don't think now that it will have much about one person growing up to be like another, which is something that I would like to explore in future, but I don't think this is the right outlet. I haven't a good alternative yet. They say you should think of the title first and write the rest later, because by the time the work is finished you stand no chance of changing the name. This is exactly what happened with Guilds, which at no point did we ever think was the perfect title, but we never came up with anything better, so it stuck.


I don't know yet where the book is going, whether it will be largely character-based humour, or possibly turn into a total farce a la Tom Sharpe. I've also got to figure out where the narrative voice sits, whether it will change to see the world in the same way as the main character in the scene, or whether there will be a fixed viewpoint.

Plenty to think about!

Ages of Man: II

Dear Grandfather,

Thank-you very much again for your kind invitation to join your orchestra for the coming tour. As I said on the telephone, it is very gracious of you and the orchestra to consent to have me play with you. It will be very educational playing with so many experienced players, and I hope to learn a lot by it. It will be jolly nice to spend some time with you as it's been a few years now since the days when you taught me to skim stones on the beach! Perhaps we could find a nice shingly beach somewhere and try again?
Time at school is passing swiftly, though I'm looking forward to coming home for the summer. I was in a play last week; we did A Midsummer Night's Dream along with the local girls' school. I was only one of the Rude Mechanicals, but I got cheers when I tripped up Bottom and hit him over the head with my shovel. He thinks it was all an accident, but I had such a small part that I thought I ought to do something interesting. Daniel Chorley-Phillips told me it was the only funny thing he'd ever seen me do, and he's never nice to anybody. I rather think I have acquired a Reputation. I even got double-helpings of custard all week!
I hope you have heard from Father; he was meant to come to see the play, but he had to cancel. I don't think he's coping very well with all that has happened; he's a tough fellow and I'm sure he'll be alright, but I'm a little worried about him. He seems a little distant on the telephone, which isn't like him.
Anyway, I must sign off, I've got plenty to do this evening.

Looking forward to seeing you soon,

George.

Ages of Man : I

(note: this is experimental writing on my part, and I reserve the right to change things arbitrarily, and to jump around the plot as suits. This is a first attempt at an opening section.)

Item 3: To receive the Tour Manager's report

Mr Coote stood to deliver his report on the forthcoming tour of the South Coast. The coach is booked within the budget set. Accomodation has been booked for all four legs of the tour, but in some cases the orchestra will be split between several bed and breakfasts as it is too large to fit in one, and that single members would have to share a twin room. Mr Kent pointed out he could think of a few people he would like to share with, to which Mr Coote responded that sharers would be put together on the grounds of their sex. Mr Kent said that this was exactly what he had in mind to which Mrs Sharpe replied that there was no need for that sort of language. Mr Coote continued, saying that he had liased with his counterpart in the choir. They are having trouble raising interest for the tour, but still expect to go ahead. Mr Sharpe then asked Mr Kent how he was getting on with filling the gaps in the orchestra for the tour Mr Kent replied to state that he had sorted out his viol tendencies, but had a distinct pain in the brass. Mrs Sharpe reminded Mr Kent that there was no need for that sort of language. It was generally agreed that the tour was shaping up nicely, and the chair asked for his thanks to the organisational team's efforts to be recorded.

Edward heard the post land heavily on the mat, and knew without looking what had arrived. Hurriedly opening a thick envelope, he pulled out the minutes from last week's orchestra committee meeting. Poring over them, his breakfast getting cold, his gleeful expression was interrupted only by the occasional tut at the spelling of Mrs Sharpe, the reluctant minutes secretary. He picked up the telephone and punched in a number from memory.

"Ah, Mrs Sharpe. Edward Kent here. Yes. I hate to bother you with more of that cursed committee business, but I just got the minutes from the last meeting and have a few comments. Oh don't worry, it's no trouble at all. No, really. You know I don't like to nitpick, but you have some spelling errors under item 3 - accommodation has two 'm's, and liaise takes two 'i's - one either side of the 'a', like two thorns straddling a rose. No, "a rose", not "arose". You missed some punctuation as w--, oh, I'll bring them in for the next meeting. Quite. Funny this, me telling you about your language after you telling me off for mine! All in good fun, you know, just trying to brighten up another boring old meeting. You know if you ever need any help I'm on the end of a telephone. No, I'm not saying that you need help, but I'm here all the same. It's no trouble. See you on Thursday. Bye."

Ages of Man : Background

Of the ideas I'm currently toying with, one of the more promising is a story (I think a novel rather than a stage performance of some kind) about a middle-aged man nearing retirement - Edward - and his teenaged grandson - George. Edward is a fairly recent widower after forty years of marriage to his first sweetheart, and both he and his grandson are stumbling for the first time into the arena of romance, and form an unexpected bond through their shared experiences. The setting for the action is the tour of an amateur orchestra of which they are both members, which affords ample opportunity to poke gentle observational fun at the English middle class, and at amateur musicians. The working title derives from a Titian painting Three Ages of Man, which depicts the same person as a baby, a man in his prime, and an old man contemplating death (link). In this instance, it is not the same person, but three (the father playing a supporting role) who share a strong family resemblance but have their own distinct characteristics. (Anyone who has met the men in my paternal family will not doubt where I draw this from...)

Edward is sixty-four, and is approaching retirement from a moderately successful career as a civil engineer. He believes himself to be smartly dressed at all times, but his clothes are too threadbare these days for this to be true. His wife died a year ago, and he now feels ready to find someone else; he wants someone bright and energetic, in contrast to his brooding wife. He is terrified of dying alone. He is generally cheerful and friendly, and superficially well-liked, but people tend not to want to get to know him well. He bumbles. He plays bassoon, and has been an enthusiastic member of the orchestra since its foundation in 1980; he is no better a player now than then. He makes jokes about the committee being boring and pointless, but is its keenest and most diligent member.

George is seventeen, and in his final year at an all-boys school and looking forward to university. He is a little awkward and inexperienced socially, but is surprisingly perceptive, and in many ways sees the world far more clearly than does his grandfather. He has a tendency towards cynicism, and is considered by his peers to be an "old man" already. He has few friends, but those he has he adores and shares everything with. Most of his clothes were bought by his mother, who keeps him firmly under her wing. He was brought into the orchestra to make up the numbers for the tour, and plays viola rather better than he lets himself believe.

I find the possibilities afforded by letting these two loose on womankind to be fascinating, and I think they will give plenty of opportunity both for comedy and poignancy. I love looking at situations from people's different points of view, and I think these two will give plenty of scope for that. Dickens was a master at painting vivid portraits of ordinary people, invariably reminding the reader of someone they had met themselves; I admire this greatly and try hard for all my characters (and there is opportunity for them to meet plenty of minor characters) to be "real" in this way. Terry Pratchett, when asked if there are any real people in his books, responds "I hope so", which for me sums this up wonderfully.

I hope to make a first attempt at a scene from this in the near future.