Chapter One
Michael Daniel
Robert Norton decided to arrive amongst us on a Monday morning in February, in
the snow. To those people who don't live in a busy commuter belt, that might
lack significance. To those who do, the fraught nature of a trip along an
approach road to junction 11 of the M25 at 8am
on a Monday will be only too easy to understand. The pregnancy had not been
particularly easy - I had lost Michael's twin early on, and now he was over two
weeks' late in being born - so I had decided that a long and difficult labour
was probably on the agenda and hadn't bothered to rush too quickly into the
maternity unit.
However, I had
not banked on Graham deciding to feed the cat, make himself a four-course
breakfast, prepare several rounds of sandwiches, collect a copy of 'The Times'
and make various other preparations as if for a siege before leaving the house.
Hence by the time we were stuck in the traffic jam along the A320 I was being
forced to lie about the frequency of contractions rather than have both of us
panicking uncontrollably. By the time we arrived in hospital, Michael had
seemingly gone off the idea of being born at all, and eventually was delivered
by forceps at 12.27pm, weighing 7lbs 13oz, and was rushed away as he seemed
reluctant at first to breathe. After a few minutes, the midwife returned him to
me, with the prophetic words, ' This one's been here before……….. look at the
way he's watching everything.'
I had never
seen any young babies before, much less a brand new one, and as I took this
grave little stranger into my arms I was awe-struck and strangely moved by the
way in which he looked up at me. He and I surveyed each other carefully; he was
obviously studying my face intently, recognising my voice but quite clearly
uncertain as to whether or not I was going to be up to the job of being his
mother. That was look I came to recognise well - and so did many others. It was
never a case of being criticised, or even of not being good enough; but you
always knew when Michael looked at you with that very direct gaze that he KNEW
the answer to the unspoken question.
Unfortunately,
in those early days, the answer was painfully obvious to both of us. Being a
total novice I didn't know anything about babies at all. In 1986 it was the
norm for mothers to stay in hospital for five days - and thank heaven I did,
for if I had gone home in the first couple of days I doubt Michael would have
survived until the weekend, never mind to age 14! It was only when Christopher
was born, exactly three years later, that I realised that in those first couple
of weeks I had NEVER picked Michael up to cuddle him; it never occurred to me
that I could. I picked him up to feed him or to change him, and then I put him
down again. I often wonder if that was one of the reasons why he was such an
un-tactile child. Furthermore, I am rather ashamed to confess that I seriously
underfed him in those early days. He was bottle-fed and because in the first 48
hours he only took 2 or 3 ounces from each bottle, I thought that was all he
should be taking. Demand feeding hadn't permeated through to my brain, for some
reason. After he screamed his way through day 3, the sister picked him up,
swaddled him tightly, gave him 6 ounces of milk, winded him and he settled
straight off to sleep. 'That's more like it!' she said. 'I wonder what was
wrong with him?'
I didn't dare
confess.
In any case,
all of that became academic very quickly as Michael gave us the first of what
would turn out to be a lifetime of medical emergencies. On Saturday, February
22nd, aged five days, he was getting ready to be discharged. I had
started to get him dressed in his own clothes for the first time and had the
carry-cot all ready for the Big Trip Home. The registrar came in to assess him
for discharge and performed all the usual tests. She was listening to his
heart, and I wasn't paying too much attention, when her face suddenly changed.
Then came the words that no mother wants to hear but which we became all too
familiar with:
'I think
there's something wrong here.'
Michael was
wrapped up in a warm blanket, a pram appeared from somewhere and he was pushed
straight across to the x-ray department for some scans and tests on his heart.
I was so shocked and distraught I didn't go with him; strange to look back on
that now, but I was busy shouting down the phone to Graham to come as quickly
as possible. By the time Michael was brought back to me on the ward, the duty
paediatric consultant had arrived at the hospital and come to see us. This was
the first time we met Dr. Richard Newton, a wonderful doctor whom Michael
always liked immensely, and for whom I frequently felt so sorry as over
Michael's short life he battled to make sense of the many and various - and
rare - illnesses which befell him.
Michael was
taken off to have an ECG because it was decided that he was very 'breathy'. I
hadn't noticed - as I say, I'd never been near a tiny baby before so in all
honesty I probably wouldn't have thought anything he did to be particularly
remarkable. The ECG machine could not be persuaded into life that afternoon,
and after another overnight stay and much discussion we were allowed to take
Michael home on Sunday afternoon, on the understanding that we would be back on
Monday for the ECG. We drove home through the snow and as I carried Michael
into the house it dawned on me again what a miracle the whole thing is; that
two of us - a couple - went into the
delivery room and three of us - a family - walked out. And of course that
process was to be cruelly reversed in another hospital room nearly 15 years
later.
Michael's
tests on Monday showed no abnormality in the actual chambers of the heart, so
the general opinion was that this was a straightforward murmur of a sort that
generally cleared up on its own as the child grew. Certainly Michael had
regained his birthweight within the first ten days and seemed to be doing quite
well. This was to be a familiar pattern throughout Michael's life; the initial
scare, the feeling that everything was under control - and then Michael's own
personal spin on the situation which always sent it belly-up when we least
expected it.
In this case,
although we were concerned, we were reasonably comfortable even though another
ECG in early March still didn't establish what was happening, and we simply got
on with the job of enjoying our baby. We had to set the alarm clock to wake him
up for feeds at night or else he would sleep through. Maybe I should have been
a bit surprised at that, but once again, I assumed it was fairly normal
behaviour and got used to staggering out of bed in the small hours to force
Michael awake to be fed. He was still putting on weight, and he had started to
smile from 4 weeks old and generally appeared to me to be a normal baby.
Another
echogram towards the end of March raised some more concerns; the murmur was
still there but 'not making a distinctive murmur sound' - and by now the
opinion was that whatever and wherever the hole was, it was also affecting
Michael's lungs. By two weeks later, he had stopped gaining weight and we were
asked to bring him back to St Peter's a few days later for a further echogram.
This time they located the hole - it was identified as a 'patent ductus
arteriosus '. This is a little valve which is open during pregnancy to allow
the blood to circulate around the baby bypassing the lungs, as obviously the
baby is taking in oxygen from the mother and not from the air. It is supposed
to close at the time of birth and as the baby takes its first breath. Frequently
it doesn't, but usually the hole will gradually seal itself as the child grows.
In Michael's case the hole was still open, and there was a lot of excess blood
in the left ventricle. Dr Newton was of the view that Michael would need an
operation at some stage to close the hole, and he told us that he would refer
Michael to the Brompton
Hospital.
Now we did
begin to worry and to watch Michael like a hawk. Of course, from my lofty
position as an ignoramus, I wasn't really certain what I was looking FOR exactly,
but I was determined not to miss anything. We began to worry if he cried in
case it put more of a strain on his heart and lungs. We worried if he DIDN'T
cry in case it was significant in some way. Meanwhile the recipient of all this
attention was continuing to be more aware, to make more sounds and to smile and
even laugh.
A week after
the last echogram we had a phone call from the Brompton saying that they had
had a cancellation for the next day, April 16th, and would we take
Michael up at 10am. Surprised but pleased, we went along and Michael had
another set of X-rays, ECGs and other tests. Then he was taken upstairs to a
much larger echo machine. While the results were being discussed, we sat
outside in the corridor feeding Michael. He was about halfway through a bottle
when the consultant came out; 'I'm sorry, Mr and Mrs Norton', he said, ' but
you will have to stop feeding Michael straight away. The ductus is so large
that Michael is in heart failure, and we need to operate on him right away. Fortunately
there is a space on the end of today's operating list……'
I think I
rather lost track after that and didn't really get the gist of much else that
was said. Now I am much better at it; I listen hard and then go to pieces
later. But this was one of the first times I had heard bad news and it was all
too much. For the surgical team, of course, this was a routine operation,
although not without risks. I remember meeting the surgeon, a huge man with
hands to match, and thinking to myself that I couldn't envisage how a man with
hands that size could operate on a baby's heart - which wouldn't have been much
bigger than a large walnut. Fine for playing Liszt, though, I decided.
Graham and I
were horrified that things should take such a sudden and unexpected turn.
Graham asked what the success rate of this operation was. 'About 80%,' replied
the surgeon. This meant that one in five babies could die from it. Neither of
us liked the sound of that, so we asked what would happen if we refused to give
consent. ' Then I'm very afraid that Michael will die quite soon,' came the
gentle but firm reply. So we signed the form.
Michael was
carried down to the theatre at 6pm
by a hospital porter - too small for a trolley - and the nurse accompanying
them suddenly ran back along the corridor and asked if he had been christened.
'Er….no,' I said, bewildered. She wrote down his chosen names carefully on the
back of her hand in biro as she dashed off again. Graham and I wandered into
the hospital chapel and sat there for a while, making plea bargains with God. I
suppose that over the next few years, God must have wondered why we kept on
doing it - after all, there were no hard promises coming forth from His
direction. Funnily enough, at that stage, neither of us was confirmed, although
I had always been a regular churchgoer. Graham hadn't even been christened; for
both of us Confirmation would come in the next few years. Meanwhile, this was
the first of many hospital chapels to receive visits from us.
The next 36
hours in Intensive Care were as traumatic as one might expect, although from a
medical point of view Michael was making good progress. Once down on the
babies' ward, we quickly made friendships with other parents in the same
situation. I sometimes think that it is only another parent in that state at
that time that really understands how you feel. And of course there is ALWAYS a
child worse off than your own; a good perspective for anyone.
Michael
recovered quickly and was back home five days later. This seemed incredible to
me; and in fact we were told that babies take a day for every week an adult
needs to get over this sort of operation. Michael had a pretty ugly scar, which
meant he needed careful handling. We assumed the scar would fade, but it never
really did; even when he died, it still reached halfway across his back, just
as it did when he was eight weeks old. This scar was to prove a feature for
him. When he was at the Royal
Grammar School, some
twelve years later, an impressionable, nay gullible, young boy asked Michael
how he had got it. 'Well,' said Michael, 'I was surfing off the coast of Florida and there was
this shark…….'. One of the benefits of being so small and apparently frail, as
well as having a fearsome intellect and a reputation for being a 'straight kind
of guy' , is that people tend to believe you. Michael built quite a reputation
on this for a little while.
Once we were
discharged from the Brompton, delayed shock set in, I think. Looking back,
there I was, aged 27, having always done well at my grammar school by dint of
working hard. I went off to University where I didn't work quite so hard, but
throughout my life it had always been the case that if I wanted to know about
something, I looked it up in books and then applied the knowledge. That was the
case with pregnancy, more or less. I knew how I should look after myself and I
knew the theories on babycare. So I couldn't understand how I had managed to
'fail' at producing a healthy baby, particularly when you only had to turn on
the television or open a newspaper to see someone who patently had NOT looked
after their child and yet the infant appeared to be thriving. I just didn't
understand it, and I soon came to the conclusion that somewhere along the line
I must have done something wrong.
Before I could
think it through logically, though, we were already into our second health
crisis. Michael had come home from the Brompton on Monday evening. By Tuesday
night he was being very sick and acute diarrhoea. Late that night I phoned the
Brompton to ask whether it could have anything to do with all the drugs which
he had been given whilst there. The answer was quite definite: no. By the next
afternoon, we were back in St Peter's, trying to correct the dehydration, which
was not helped by the fact that Michael had lost a great deal of weight in the
previous couple of weeks. Ironically, he was in St Peter's longer than he had
been in the Brompton for his heart surgery. By the time he came home again, we
all felt as though we had been through a war. Nevertheless, as far as we were
concerned, it had been a traumatic start but he had recovered, and was not
expected to have any further problems. Certainly, he continued to achieve all
his developmental milestones.
In July, he
was christened during the morning service at St Nicholas' Church in Pyrford. It
was a very special service; the sermon focussed on the meaning of Michael's
name - 'chosen by God' - and the relevance of that, given how ill he had been.
It was around this time that the vicar had come to see me to talk about Michael
and to bless him. When I said how distressed I had been that my child had been
so ill, he made the comment that Michael wasn't mine, he belonged to God and I
was in fact taking care of him - he was on loan, so to speak. I have often
returned to that conversation in the light of future events and thought that
maybe there was a grain of truth in it. I discussed it with Michael himself, on
one occasion. Michael said to me,'Well, actually I don't want to belong to OR
be loaned by anyone. I will choose when I go back to God, if I possibly can.'
And what prophetic words they turned out to be. St Nicholas came to play an
important part in our lives; after Christopher was born in 1989 I became
Director of Music to the Parish for five years. My sister was married there, my
mother's ashes were interred there, and now Michael himself lies there, under a
Christmas tree on the hillside, just as he had always wanted ( give or take the
odd mausoleum…….. of which more anon).
By the Autumn,
it was certainly noticeable that Michael wasn't growing very much. In fact, he
was no bigger at one year than he had been at six months - but he was walking,
starting to talk and extremely lively, so again, we were never too worried. We
had a lovely Christmas with him, as all first Christmases are, but by
mid-January we were back in hospital again, this time with a high temperature
and breathing difficulties. Nobody was certain what was wrong; his blood counts
were low, and he had a few small patches on his lung, but otherwise there was
nothing much to go on. He came home for a couple of days, but by January 28th
was back in hospital. This time the diagnosis was pneumococcal osteomyelitis (
a severe bone infection which can be extremely serious if left untreated); he
had been limping and his temperature was very high. Plenty of intravenous
antibiotics sorted the problem out eventually, and he was home in time for his
first birthday on February 17th …… and a bout of chickenpox to go
with it. I still thought we had simply been unlucky; even so, I still found the
sight of this little chap in hospital so very distressing. Michael, though,
never showed any signs of being unhappy. In the evenings, we would wait at the
corner of the ward watching him as he fell asleep, quite unperturbed by us not
being there, before going home for the night. He was always - and he remained -
totally co-operative with the nursing staff throughout all the various
procedures he had to endure. Meanwhile, in his brain he was planning his own
revenge - by May we were back in the hospital again. This time, he was refusing
to eat. Our GP thought the osteomyelitis had returned. Dr Newton thought,
probably correctly, that Michael had
simply worked out that food was the one area of his life that he had control
over. Eventually he 'agreed' to eat a little bit - and then I realised that he
would often not swallow it. He would 'store' it in his cheeks like a hamster,
and when he had his after lunch nap I would have to empty out the food from his
face!
Michael hated
food throughout his life. He didn't enjoy taking time out from whatever project
he was engrossed in at the time to come to the table, nor did he find anything
pleasurable in the social side of meals, either at home or in restaurants. I
still wonder if it dates back to his first few weeks before his heart surgery,
when feeding made him so tired and breathless and simply wasn't a good
experience for him. Throughout his life, his diet was never wider than fish in
breadcrumbs, party-size sausage rolls, chicken nuggets, yorkshire puddings,
omelettes and roast potatoes. And mustard, bizarrely. I tried EVERYTHING. Every
ploy known to mothers. I left food around the house, I withheld treats, I
bribed him ( hopeless, that one) and we saw doctors, psychologists, homeopaths
and every other type of -ologist and -path barring psychopath. We didn't need
one of those. That was me after several years of this. And yes, I have
frequently asked myself whether this contributed to his cancer. But to be
honest, I see little point in beating myself with that particular stick now; I
had all that out with Michael and he simply ignored it. He said he hated most
food and that was an end to it, as far as he was concerned. Fortunately, by way
of relief, God sent us Christopher who was different from Michael in every way
possible, not least in his capacity to eat for Europe,
should it ever become an inter-continental sport. The spicier, the better. So I
must have done something right SOMEWHERE along the line. One of the most bizarre
aspects of Michael's treatment for cancer was seeing him eat and eat whilst on
steroids. He stuffed biscuits and chocolates and pizza incessantly - it even
amused him. I remember one evening where he had eaten so much he lay flat on
his back on the settee, groaning that his stomach felt near to exploding. He'd
never before felt full!
Chapter 2
By the time
Christopher was born, 5 days after his big brother's 3rd birthday in
February 1989, Michael was quite clearly displaying all the personality traits
which would mark his older childhood - great intelligence, a sparky sense of
humour and a huge interest in everything going on around him.
He was
fascinated by the concept of a new baby in the house. " My mummy has a
baby in her tummy" was a sentence he used as the ultimate put-down if he
felt any other child had too much to say for himself. I was concerned that
Michael had started playgroup just three or four weeks before the birth, but he
took it all in his stride, rushing in with his Thomas the Tank Engine lunchbox
and appearing to make friends quite happily. I was more worried when he decided
to rename himself 'Peter' at this point, and would write 'Peter' on all his
paintings and other pieces of work. Unsurprisingly, not many of these arrived
home in the early stages of his playschool career. Peter's mother, on the other
hand, was probably overwhelmed by her son's artistic output.
Undoubtedly
Michael felt pushed out in the first few days of Christopher's life. On the
first night at home, Michael - who never woke in the night - came into our room
on several occasions, turning up finally at 6.45 am. Graham told him it was FAR too early to be waking
up - and then my mother, who was staying with us for a few days, found him
kneeling at the end of his bed in tears. I got up and went into his room, and
after a few stories cuddled up together in bed he cheered up. He was already
starting to read at this point, he had a prolific book collection and was
always keen to go to bed in the evenings because he would put a story tape on
his cassette recorder and then sit, listening, while he leafed through his
books. He would read to the baby from a very early stage, enjoying being the
'big brother' despite his very tiny stature.
It was also
clear that he was extremely mature for his age, and two incidents stick out in
my mind from his pre-school days. Graham was away working in Zurich for a few days so I was on my own in
the house with the boys. Christopher awoke at 6am one morning for his feed, and when I came to change
his nappy it turned into one of those experiences which requires all involved
to have a total change of clothing. I switched on the teasmaid and went to our
walk-in airing cupboard, not realising that Christopher was crawling along
behind me. As I was in there, he stood himself against the door, which slammed
shut. With no handle on the inside, I was stuck - and the teasmaid was about to
fill the teapot with boiling water, making a noise which would attract Christopher's
attention.
Being
claustrophobic, I decided that panicking was an appropriate response at this
point. I shouted loud enough to waken the dead - and Michael was impossible to
waken. Fortunately, he wandered out onto the landing. Aged just 3, the following
conversation took place:
" Mummy?
Where are you?"
"In the
airing cupboard……….."
"Is that
sensible?"
"No. Now,
Michael, I need you to let me out."
"I'm too
SMALL, Mummy, I'll have to find something to climb on……"
Parents of
toddlers will appreciate that, at this moment, most 3 year olds would have
realised that this was a golden opportunity to eat chocolate/watch television/
draw on the walls in wax crayon or do anything else which is usually banned. I
feared exactly that. But to my surprise, Michael found a stool and, somehow,
managed to open the door. He was totally taken aback by the enormous hug he
received.
"But
Mummy," he said, "If I COULDN'T have done it I would have dialled 999
and told the policeman to come and get my Mummy out of the airing
cupboard!"
Sang-froid as
only Michael could show it.
On another
occasion we were discussing aeroplanes. He had a fine collection of Airfix
models, mostly built by his adoring grandfather. I told Michael I didn't like
flying AT ALL. (Something to do with being the daughter of an air traffic
controller, probably.) My son looked at me pityingly for a few minutes, before
launching into a detailed - and, as I discovered later, not being too clued-up
on these things - entirely accurate description of how an aeroplane gets off
the ground.
This
precociousness was not always beneficial. After his 3 1/2 year health check ( a
kind of paediatric MOT ), Michael and I were referred to the Child Guidance
Clinic. The doctor who had carried out the assessment had felt that Michael did
not relate to other children in the same way as most toddlers, preferring to
talk to adults. Too right! One session at the clinic told us what we had known
all along - that Michael was far too keen on books and numbers to want to spend
much time playing. And so it remained.
Chapter 3
Michael was
still very small for his age when he started school, but the hospital was quite
happy at this stage simply to monitor him a couple of times a year. He began at
the local state primary school in January 1991, shortly before his fifth
birthday. He started on a Monday morning, and on the Thursday of that week,
January 10th, I took Christopher with me on a visit to the Rector's
wife. She and I were having coffee while Christopher played with her two year
old twins. We discussed Michael's less than happy start, and I remember saying
to her that we had always been told that once he'd made it to school, he would
probably settle down healthwise and live to be 100.
Within ten
minutes, her phone rang. I heard Shelagh say, 'Yes, that's right, she IS
here………', and then she re-entered the room looking very pale.
'Michael has
had some kind of accident in the playground,' she said. 'The ambulance is just
leaving the school now.' I abandoned Christopher to her and ran for the car.
Later on, I would have no idea where I had left him; I have no recollection of
getting to the hospital at all, although I confess I recollect only too well
reversing into a bollard outside A&E.
Michael was
lying on a bed in Casualty, his headmistress sitting next to him, with his eyes
tight shut. He had been sick, but when examined by a doctor was found to have
no extraneous mark or bump and I was allowed to take him home. Graham arrived
back at the house shortly afterwards, and we were both concerned that Michael
didn't seem certain of who he was and was still being sick. I rang the hospital
again. 'Give him Calpol for his headache and see what happens,' was the
response. By the afternoon I was very unhappy about him and decided to call out
the GP. He was a family friend and was able to see at once that Michael was far
from well. His eyes were not reacting normally, nor were his reflexes. Within
an hour we were back in hospital. This time Michael was x-rayed. The cause of his
symptoms was now obvious; there was a long thin fracture line running from the
top of his skull round the back of his head and edging into the temporal bone
behind the left ear. Apparently, Michael had been outside at playtime and been
with his friends on the 'wendy house' style climbing frame. He was on the top
step of the ladder when we think he must his banged his forehead very hard. At
that point he presumably passed out, since he went straight backwards off the
ladder and managed to fall onto the back of his head without breaking his neck,
suggesting he was very relaxed as he hit the ground.
The 'ground'
in question was the playground - made of tarmac. Although all the equipment in
borough council-run playgrounds in the local parks was set into soft surfaces
at this point, in the schools this was not the case. Surrey County Council were
of the opinion that a soft surface encouraged children to be over-confident,
thus making them more prone to accidents which would then result in more
serious types of injury. Good grief. We spent a lot of time trying to challenge
that school of thought - to no avail.
Januaries
never were very good for Michael.
He remained in
hospital for several days. Serious head injuries take a long time to recover
from, however, and have many side effects. Still, at least we were getting in
some practice for the brain surgery to come later. His sleep pattern changed
overnight. Always a good sleeper, he would never again find it easy to go to
sleep at night and he woke early from this point until the time of his
chemotherapy.
One of the
benefits of the illness, however, was that he was rather fragile for going back
to the rumbustious school playground, and for the rest of that half-term - his
first school experience - he attended the Hospital Teaching Centre at St
Peter's Hospital. This is for long-term sick children ( originally for
orthopaedic cases when the Rowley Bristow Orthopaedic Hospital was still in
existence) who are unable by virtue of their illness to attend mainstream school.
We were very lucky that this facility existed; in most areas, a child in
Michael's situation has to resort to home tuition for a couple of hours a week,
which can be very isolating.
Michael loved
it. He loved the individual attention but, even more, he loved the fact that,
because of the mixed ages and abilities, he could take each subject as far as
he was able. He never forgot it - and the one big benefit which cancer brought
him was the ability to go back to the hospital school and meet friends there -
and in a way he came full circle.
The skull
fracture marked the beginning of another set of medical problems. It must be
said right away that, despite having the most sophisticated of scans over the
next ten years, there was never any proof that the accident was related to all
that followed. Maybe Michael had a weak skull in the first place. He had a
large haemangioma ( a collection of blood vessels, like a red birthmark or port
- wine stain ) under his left ear and cheek, which wasn't really visible unless
he was hot or angry. THEN it stood out! All these things might have played a part. Now we'll never know. But later that year
( in 1991) Michael became ill again. He had a very high temperature and his
left ear - the whole ear - swelled to several times its normal size. This gave
us a huge laugh at poor old Michael's expense since he looked like a cross
between ET and an African elephant. Back into hospital he went; the diagnosis
was pneumococcal cellulitis and mastoiditis
and, just as with the earlier ostomyelitis, the treatment was high doses
of intravenous antibiotics. It was at this point that Michael became the
needlephobe that the staff of the 30 hospitals he visited in his life will
remember. Because he was so small and thin, it was never easy to find a good
vein. Trying to inert a canula was always a trauma for all of us and I learned
to dread it, pleading, cajoling, threatening and using all sorts of wholly
inappropriate bribes to try to help things along. It never did.
On this first
occasion, the cellulitis was brought under control pretty quickly. Yet again,
we regarded it as an unfortunate one-off. Sadly that was not the case. Michael
had several recurrences, each one spreading swifter than the last and each time
involving more of his face. It happened about every 18 months - once on a choir
tour to Poole ( Poole General Hospital ), once on holiday in France (
Draguignan Hospital ) and a couple of times at homes. The last time was the
worst - for a while we feared he might lose the sight in his left eye, so
serious was the swelling behind it.
He had tests
at Great Ormond Street to see why he kept getting infections, but nothing ever
came of it. I decided he was a 'Friday afternoon child' - constructed from
cheap parts just before God finished work for the weekend.
Chapter 4
Of course, all
of this simply states what was wrong with Michael but in no way
illustrates all that was right.
By the age of
6 he was clearly far from happy at the local state school and we moved him to a
prep school in Guildford which was also the Choir School for Guildford
Cathedral Choir. We had taken him to an open day, and when he heard the
Cathedral Choristers singing, he turned to me and said, ' I want to do that.'
He had been playing the piano since he was 4, despite having tiny hands, but I
always felt his heart wasn't really in it. I was proved right when he chose the
cello. From the beginning it was clear that this was where he was meant to be.
By the age of 11 he had passed Grade V on both cello and piano - he never fell
below high distinction marks on the cello, nor did he rise above low merit
marks on the piano! Undoubtedly one of the factors here was the strong
relationship which he forged with his cello teacher, Annelies Scott. A
wonderfully open young woman with a remarkable resemblance to the Vicar of
Dibley and the same warm and welcoming smile, she inspired Michael, as she does
most of her pupils, to great things. She always said that she only had to worry
about the technical side, that the musical side was already there in spades.
She was right in lots of ways, but her exuberant enthusiasm was a perfect foil
to Michael's quiet nature and the result was wonderful.
In Michael's
last two weeks, when he was in hospital, I put on a CD of the Bach cello
suites. On one occasion he became distressed and said, 'No! Not that,
please…..' On another occasion he smiled dreamily.
'I love that
sound.'
'Michael, do
you remember when you played this piece?'
'No! Did I
play this instrument?'
'Yes, you did,
Michael, you played it so beautifully…..'
'I remember
something…… there was a lady…… she was lovely……… yes, I remember her……….' And
he smiled, gently.
He passed his
audition for the Cathedral Choir by singing 'Jingle Bells' in the school choir
practice in September, 1993, and fell instantly in love with the whole thing.
He was 7 when he joined, and the only probationer at that time. One consequence
of his limited stature was obvious at once - he was too short to see over the
choir stalls. It was a source of amusement to many of the congregation as the
years went by when, first, his eyebrows appeared, followed several months later
by the eyes, nose and finally, by the time he had been in the choir for several
years, his mouth. He wasn't too easy to see by the time he left, either.
Despite that, he was always treated with jocular kindness by the older boys.
Andrew Millington, the organist, would say later that he could see Michael had
something about him from his earliest days, and, in Andrew, Michael found
someone else whose influence over his life would be considerable. After all,
Michael spent nearly six years in the Choir - almost half his life - and
without any shadow of a doubt it was the thing he felt most committed to apart from
the cello.
He was totally
in awe of everything and everyone, and from the first day became consumed with
ambition to be a Head Chorister. He took it all extremely seriously and,
although he had been going to Church all his life, found the High Church rituals
fascinating. He became so used to strange things going on at the Altar that
sometimes we were only aware after the event how much he took in his stride.
One evening
after Michael had been singing at the Installation of the new Bishop of
Guildford, we had brought him home late and put him to bed before going
downstairs to watch the news. There, before our incredulous eyes, we heard all
about the protest by 'Outrage' supporters, when several people had burst
through the Sanctuary doors, chanting and shouting, before being removed by a
number of people including both the vergers and some of the more eminent of the
local constabulary who had thought they were simply having a pleasant evening
out.
Graham and I
looked at each other and made for the stairs. 'Michael,' we asked, 'Were there
a lot of people in the Sanctuary shouting and waving banners this evening?'
'Yes,' said Michael, surprised to be asked, ' And lots of people running about
for a while, too.'
'Didn't you
think it was odd?'
'No, was it?'
The sang-froid
again. Nothing EVER fazed Michael, really. I don't ever remember seeing him
incandescent with joy or sorrow; certainly extremely proud and content, but
never, ever 'jumping-about happy' such as Christopher ( or I!) might get. I
truly think that, as the midwife had said, he'd 'seen it all before'.
He was
surpliced in September 1994 after two terms' probation and took his place as a
full chorister. While a probationer, he had studied all the basics of the trade
with Geoffrey Morgan, the sub-organist, on Monday mornings whilst the rest of
the choir rehearsed with Andrew, and therein lay the foundations of a respect
for Geoffrey that lasted throughout his time in the Cathedral until his
funeral. Michael always said that he learned most of his music theory in these
lessons, as well as developing a deep love of the psalms and their chants. It was no coincidence that Michael was to ask
Geoffrey to play at his funeral.
'I know what
music I want and I like the way Mr Morgan plays it,' was what he said.
Having said
that, he knew only too well how much he owed to Andrew. He sang his first solo
aged 10, and after that sang more and more of them. He had a very high, pure
voice - not a big voice by any manner of means, but he was invariably reliable
and always faultlessly in tune. Hearing that voice soaring above me in the Nave
of Guildford Cathedral as he effortlessly hit one top C after another in the
Allegri 'Miserere Mei' on Ash Wednesday, February 25th 1998 - well,
that is a memory etched in gold.
Being the
littlest chorister brought its own set of dilemmas. Shortly after starting in
the choir, he lost a double tooth. The Tooth Fairy obligingly swapped said
tooth for some derisory amount - I forget the going rate at the time. Michael
appeared for breakfast.
'Cor, Mummy!'
he shrieked. 'Wait till I tell the other choristers about THIS!! The Tooth
Fairy has been and left me this money!!'
I anguished
all over my cereal. To maintain the innocence of childhood or to subject my
beloved baby to the ridicule of lofty 9 - 13 year olds? Reader, I destroyed his
innocence. I can still see his crestfallen little face now. On the bright side,
of course, this honesty saved his father several pounds in the following couple
of years! In truth, I suspect that particular bunch of boys would have been
quite gentle about it. One of the biggest joys to Michael about the Choir was
in being part of a team; of course, at a day school this was always going to be
a less powerful element than Christopher was to encounter by boarding as a
chorister later on, but nonetheless, to Michael, it was an important factor.
Academically,
too, Michael was up there with the best. We had had a full assessment done by a
child psychologist before changing schools - in fact it was at her suggestion
that we moved him. Everyone was in agreement that the large classes at the
local school did not help him; once we discovered that his IQ was well over
140, we realised that we needed to encourage him in all sorts of directions.
Having said
that, honesty requires me to say right away that Michael always was a lazy
toad! He always did the absolute minimum for homework - it was finished,
invariably, but he never walked 'the extra mile' - or even the extra inch, come
to that. When asked about it, at an early age, he said, 'But it's all in my
head! I don't need to write it down as WELL!' Indeed, in his last illness, he
was honest enough to say that one of the benefits was not having to flog his
way through acres of homework. He died before he had to get to grips with any
GCSE coursework - and he always knew that that would have been a huge source of
contention between the two of us.
Still, in
terms of raw intelligence, Michael was hard to beat. He sat the 11+ Entrance
Examination to the Royal Grammar School, Guildford, and was invited on the
basis of the results of that, to sit the scholarship exam. Fortunately for him,
it didn't involve any revision or learning; it consisted of verbal and non -
verbal reasoning, various forms of IQ tests and such things as reconstructing
models from apparently random shapes. This was all grist to Michael's mill. He
had already been awarded a major music scholarship; now the two were rolled
into one as Michael was made a King's Scholar. This was something of which we
were all inordinately proud. Michael played on this pride shamelessly and
somehow managed to wangle out of it a new computer for the family. 'After all,'
he said, 'Just think how much money I have saved you on school fees!' And he
was right. By the time he was Head Chorister, his choral scholarship and King's
Scholarship together equalled his total school bill.
Not content
with that, he also passed the 11+ exam for Eton College. This was all beyond
the wildest dreams of a couple from a state grammar school and the local
comprehensive. Even a chorister son at a prep school was a novelty to me. Eton
College seemed way out of our league! Nonetheless, Michael's musical talents
opened doors for him, and it was clear that he was going to be a strong
candidate for a music scholarship to Eton at 13. He moved from his prep school
to the RGS aged 11, in September 1997, where the Music Department was able to
provide him with far more challenges, but at this stage we were still allowing
for the possibility of him moving across to Eton at 13. The thought of making
this decision taxed Graham and I greatly over the next two years, but Michael
wasn't too troubled. By the time we had to make the final choice, Michael had
decided that he simply did not want too board. And that was the end of it. The
prospect of turning down Eton College seemed bizarre to me; but somehow these
things have a habit of turning out for the best - and, as it transpired, thank
heaven he stayed at RGS.
Chapter Five
In fact, one
of the deciding factors in the education issue was Michael's health. Again.
1996 was an
extraordinary year for our family in many ways. In January, my piano duet
partner and I flew out to Tokyo to take part in the International Piano Duo
Competition, where we won First Prize in the piano duet section. This was a
huge event in my life, something which I felt I had been working towards for
many, many years, and so I was thrilled when Michael and Christopher were
bursting with pride on my return home….. until I realised that they were more
interested to know what I had brought them back in the way of presents!
Then, in
February, Christopher moved into the spotlight for a while by taking it upon
himself to have a voice trial. I had made two assumptions:
1)
the boy had a voice like a duck
2)
he would wish to share this with
the Guildford Choir, alongside his brother.
In fairness to
me, this wasn't because I had actually heard Christopher, really, it just
hadn't really occurred to me that he might want to do it particularly.
One evening, a
week before Christopher's 7th birthday, Graham came home with a copy
of 'The Times'. He read Michael an article about the Choir of the Chapel of St
George, at Windsor Castle. Michael wasn't overly interested but, to my
surprise, Christopher asked when the Voice Trials were. Two weeks' time
appeared to be the answer.
'But do you
WANT to be a chorister?' Not an unreasonable question given the article he had
written for the FCM magazine not that long before!
'Yes I do -
but NOT with Michael. I want to go somewhere different.'
This presented
all sorts of problems; for a start, he was at the Choir School for Guildford
Cathedral, and there are strong protocols about anything which might be seen as
'poaching'. Secondly, neither Graham nor I had any desire to see our 'baby'
boarding. Still, I felt I couldn't refuse him the chance. 'After all,' I
reassured Graham, 'I don't think he can really sing!' Huh.
I selected a
song which I knew he liked - and I am given to believe that not too many
would-be choristers have offered 'Cabbages fluffy and Cauliflowers green' as
their chosen song! - and set to work. We only had limited time. Then, to my
utter amazement, on the Wednesday before the trial, Christopher suddenly said,
'I think I'll use my proper voice now………'
And that was
when I found out he could sing.
He passed the
voice trial. Graham and I then had our first major disagreement in fourteen
years of marriage. Graham felt he couldn't allow a child to board; I felt he
should be given this chance since he so obviously wanted to take it. In the
end, Christopher said he wanted to look around the school again - after which
he simply insisted.
Michael
watched all of this with interest. He had never considered his brother might be
gifted or self-motivated enough to take charge of his own life - especially at
the tender age of seven! He began to look at Christopher in a new light - and,
of course, once they were both choristers there was an endless source of
conversation between them, most of which was of the 'my choir is loads better
than your choir' variety.
When
Christopher started his new school at Windsor Castle in September, 1996,
Michael was at first quite devastated. Eventually he learned to enjoy the
benefits of our undivided attention and would resent it rather when the 'cuckoo
in the nest returned', as he put it! Against that, he disliked the focus that
his brother's absence allowed us to put on his homework and cello practice.
There was no doubt, too, that in many ways he was jealous of the opportunities
which were open to Christopher as a member of a high-profile choir. Although
his commitment to Guildford Cathedral and its Choir was total (it came before
EVERYTHING else in his life ) he was undoubtedly envious when he saw his
brother singing on a television broadcast with Jose Carreras, or at Prince
Edward's wedding. It wasn't so much that he thought he had made the wrong
decision himself, for as he said he had never wanted to board. But he
appreciated what Christopher had, and in some ways wished he had that too. He
always had a secret hope that the two choirs might sing together at a service
or a concert. In the end, of course, they did - at his funeral.
So it was an
interesting year for Michael, and in some ways a good one. At Easter, the
Cathedral Choir went off for a two week tour of some of the southern states of
America. They had a wonderful time, staying in hotels and with families.
Michael was always lucky with host families, and on this occasion near Atlanta
had a night out at an ice-hockey match, which he thoroughly enjoyed. Unusually
for him, he achieved the whole tour without a single episode of illness, for
which Andrew Millington was profoundly thankful, despite having roped in a
choir mother who was also a GP to come along in case of disaster! Then, in
August, we all flew out to Florida for the holiday of a lifetime before
Christopher went away to school. We had a week with Mickey Mouse, a week in the
blissful surroundings of Marco Island and a few days in the Keys. It was the
most wonderful time, truly a holiday which we all looked back on with huge
affection. The boys were in their element.
Christopher
went off to St George's on the first Sunday of September. The house was a very
quiet and unnatural place to be that night! I started a new job myself that
week - as a peripatetic teacher at the Royal Grammar School in Guildford - as
well as being in charge of the music at the local state primary school. Michael
himself was just beginning his last year at prep school.
On Monday
September 16th, I had a telephone call to say that Michael had been
taken ill on the games field and was in the school sick room feeling very dizzy
and unwell, with an earache. I brought him home; he certainly looked poorly,
but there were none of the signs which always shouted 'cellulitis!' to me, so I
simply assumed it was some kind of ear infection. He had no temperature and few
symptoms beyond some dizziness. I left him in bed in the care of a friend while
I went over to St George's to see Christopher, who only went up to Evensong in
his cassock on Mondays and Tuesdays, so there were few opportunities to support
him. When I returned home, he was still not well and I thought I would take him
into the surgery if he still seemed distressed the next morning. Sure enough,
the next morning he was still clearly in some distress - in fact, every time he
moved at all, he was sick. By some act of Providence, a GP friend rang me very
early that morning and, when I described his symptoms, was adamant that I ring
the doctor straight away. Poor Michael - all he wanted to do was to lie flat on
the floor. Within a couple of hours he was on his way back into hospital, where
he was seen by another specialist doctor whom we had come to know very well,
and whom we all, particularly Michael, liked enormously.
Patrick
Chapman originally crossed our paths when Christopher was very young indeed and
having one ear infection after another. I was always very impressed that Mr
Chapman never reached automatically for the scalpel, but always looked to see
what options were available ( in that instance, the six or so weeks that
Christopher was on a mucus-reducing soya milk diet will remain with me as a low
point. The SMELL of that stuff!!!!! ). Christopher did end up with his first
set of grommets at the early age of 14 months, but at least it meant that we
had someone we trusted by the time Michael had his first ENT problems. Glue ear
in childhood is extremely common, so the fact that Michael had a myringotomy in
August 1992 was nothing to worry about. The following April, in 1993, he had
another operation in which four permanent molars were removed and braces
fitted; these teeth had appeared to be rotten, possibly as a result of earlier
illnesses, and it seemed best not to take any chances but to take them out. By
September of that year, he was having more hearing problems and this time the
'glue' was drained from both ears and grommets inserted.
On this
occasion I was severely put out. I had spent years and years taking Michael to
hospitals, hanging around in thankless waiting rooms and buying innumerable
cups of disgusting coffee. On this particular occasion, I had to be at a staff
meeting at my school, and I delegated the job of taking Michael into hospital
to Graham, as it was only a routine day case surgery. Imagine my wrath,
therefore, when I discovered that on arrival at the hospital, they were asked
if they could be followed by a photographer for the day! The hospital were
making a book called 'Michael's Day in Hospital' with words and pictures that
could be used to show other children what was involved in a day case operation.
There was 'Michael and his Daddy check in', 'Michael and his Daddy meet the
anaesthetist,' 'Michael and his Daddy go down to theatre', 'Michael and his
Daddy talk to the surgeon', 'Michael and his Daddy recover after the operation'
and, finally, 'Michael and his Daddy are escorted off the premises'. Michael
and his Daddy got a bit of a frosty reception when Christopher and his Mummy
heard all about it. I was, therefore, quietly amused on a return visit to hear
that the most common response to this book was, 'Why can't I have my
Daddy here with me too?!'
A few weeks
after this operation, Michael woke up one morning and said one of his ears was
leaking. Unusual, I thought. Not many seven year olds complain of leaky ears.
He was very insistent that I did something, and on inspecting his pillow I had
to admit that his ear was, indeed, leaking 'water' at a great rate. A trip to
hospital proved inconclusive but there were a number of serious implications,
not the least of which was the worry that this was cerebro-spinal fluid coming
from somewhere in the brain. After the initial drastic leak, there was a small
seepage of fluid for a few days, and then it simply stopped, as suddenly and
mysteriously as it had begun. Michael had x-rays of his head and mastoids at
the local hospital, which didn't show anything obvious, and then we were sent
to the Atkinson Morley hospital in Wimbledon for a CT scan. No one knew what
was going on. In the end, the conclusion everyone came to was that Michael
might have some rare allergy to the grommets, and they were removed in yet
another operation in October.
In retrospect,
maybe it was a leak of inner - ear fluid. And the reason for thinking that was
because of what was happening to Michael as he lay in hospital in September
1996. Patrick Chapman had never met a patient like Michael before. Over the
eight years that he took care of him, he was always amazed at the variety of
rare and inexplicable symptoms that Michael threw up. However, just like
Richard Newton, he patiently and doggedly tried to get to the bottom of what
was going on, because he felt - as Graham and I still feel - that somewhere underneath it all there must
have been some connection between all these illnesses. On this
occasion, though, he was quite clear about what had happened. Michael had had a
perilymphic fistula. In his oval window, deep inside his ear, a rupture had
occurred which had allowed fluid to escape from the labyrinth and out through
the ear canal. As a result, he could not keep his balance but was suffering
acutely from dizziness and sickness. The only way to stop the symptoms was to
have an operation to repair the hole; this involved taking a little piece of
fatty tissue from Michael's earlobe and patching the tiny hole.
This is not an
easy nor a particularly pleasant operation; although he recovered well and
quickly, the removing of the packing from Michael's ear was not a happy
experience. I sat there as Mr Chapman pulled at yards and yards ( so it seemed!
) of bandages and Michael got more and more hot, bothered and distressed.
Finally he had had enough. 'Why don't you just pull the rabbit out of there and
be done with it!!' he shouted. And I have to say it did look rather like a
magician's flourish. Afterwards, Michael and I laughed that his earlobe was
probably the only place on his entire body where he had any fatty tissue at
all!
Patrick
Chapman told us that a perilymphic fistula is an uncommon occurrence in
children. That, of course, surprised us not at all. By this stage in Michael's
life we were very accustomed to the nature of his illnesses. In fact, I
remember our GP saying to me on one occasion that whenever an article in the
Lancet or BMJ featured something very extraordinary, the
once-in-several-GP's-lifetime scenario, he'd shove it in a drawer and wait for
Michael Norton to turn up with it! On the other hand, in 14 years I don't ever
remember Michael catching a cough, cold or stomach bug. Common or garden illnesses
passed him by altogether. If he couldn't get a trip in an ambulance or a visit
to some esoteric tertiary hospital, it wasn't worth the bother, I suppose.
Nevertheless,
as I say, Patrick Chapman felt that there must be some link between the skull
fracture and this latest problem. This became of increasing importance as we
realised that, as a result of the leak, Michael had lost all of the hearing in
his left ear. We were unaware of this at first; it takes a while for the ear
canal to recover from the trauma of having an 'entire magician's hankie
collection' down it, as Michael put it. After that, the vagaries of the NHS
audiology department are such that between November and January Michael had
several appointments which were rearranged and then cancelled for various
reasons. He was convinced something wasn't right, and by January we were all
very unhappy. Finally, in exasperation, we contacted Patrick Chapman who
arranged for us to see his private audiologist. We were devastated at the
findings - Michael was totally deaf in his left ear with little or no prospect
of anything being possible to reverse that. And of course, our worry was that
the same thing might happen to the other ear. At least if the problem was
related to the fracture line running into the left temporal bone, then
hopefully it was restricted to one ear only. Even so, for a musician this was a
terrible blow. Have you ever sat in a great Cathedral with your finger in one
ear? Probably not, admittedly. Next time you go, try it. The distortion of
noise is quite unbelievable, and I perfectly understand Michael's distress in
the early days of coming to terms with it. He was certainly desperate to
protect his 'good' ear. For a musician to lose any hearing is a fundamental
trauma, and he was terrified of losing the other. If we ever went to a show or
a noisy function, he would always take an earplug to protect his right ear, and
going to discos or rock concerts simply wasn't something he was prepared to do.
What would have happened as he got older, I don't know. It was the first time
he ever expressed any feeling of unfairness or irritation with his health.
Patrick was, I
think, just as upset as we were. He never missed an opportunity to talk to
other experts in his field about Michael, and I know that Michael's notes went
with him to at least one American conference so that he could ask questions of
those who specialise in the minutiae of ENT. As a result of his diligence and
that of Richard Newton, we visited Harley Street surgeons, the Royal Ear, Nose
and Throat Hospital, the Atkinson Morley, Great Ormond Street and Southampton
General Hospitals. There was never any conclusive information to be had - but
Michael was always more than aware of how much work was going on on his behalf.
His trust in
Patrick Chapman was unquestioned. We had always assumed that the perilymphic
repair would be a once and for all surgery which would put an end to all the
problems, but 18 months later, whilst on another Cathedral Choir tour ( this
time to Amsterdam) he became very ill with a strange infection-like illness in
his left ear. He recovered after a while, but in August 1998 he became terribly
ill, this time on holiday with us in the South of France. I always found it
weird how he became ill away from home - one theory is that swimming every day
might have been a contributory factor if there was already a tiny leak in his
ear. I am not suggesting for a moment, of course, that for any Little Joe
Ordinary there might be a problem! (I would use Christopher as an example here
but I can't even begin to tell you about his medical excitement in the South of
France in 1995!!!) .
Whatever the
reason, Michael became so ill with cellulitis that we feared he would lose the
sight of his left eye, so serious was the swelling behind it. Again, his ear
was huge and swollen and the French doctors, who were wonderful, said we needed
to take him home. We put him in the car at our rented gite near St Tropez at
4am one morning and drove non-stop, with him nearly unconscious in the back of
the car, arriving back at the Royal Surrey County Hospital around fourteen
hours later. Thank heaven for the Shuttle and its helpful staff. They looked in
the back of the car and I think were so concerned about a corpse being driven
on if they didn't act quickly that we were waved straight onto the train.
Patrick
Chapman suspected another leak, but because of the location of the oval window
there was no way of knowing for sure without performing another surgery. We
knew Michael wasn't going to be up for that, and decided not to tell him until
a few days beforehand. When he found out he was absolutely furious.
Interestingly, though, he wasn't so cross with Patrick - he felt that if Mr
Chapman said he needed another operation then he needed another operation. He
was mad with us for not telling him and had no patience at all with the concept
of the fact that we were trying to stop him getting into a state for days on
end beforehand. He said it was HIS body and he had a right to know.
That was a
lesson well learned by us.
There were
plenty of people who advised us to have another opinion or to engage another
surgeon. At one point when there was a vague hint that Michael might need to
have preventative surgery on the other ear to avoid the same problem arising
there, the same remarks arose. As far as Michael was concerned, they were
non-starters. He said, 'It's about trust. I KNOW Mr Chapman is trying to do his
best for me, so I'll take my chances with him, thank you.' I tell you, if you
were a friend of Michael's you could lay claim to some fairly powerful loyalty
Chapter 6
In the summer
of 1998, Michael achieved his long-held ambition and was appointed a Head
Chorister in the Cathedral Choir. This was a source of great personal pride to
him, and he took the position extremely seriously. During the summer holiday
before his installation, though, he chalked up another first when he and the
rest of the Choristers sang at the BBC Promenade Concerts. Michael was especially
thrilled because he had a short interview in the BBC Music Magazine Proms
Special Supplement. His name in print - and in a significant journal! Not that
this was the first time. During the previous December, the Choir had sung at a
Charity Carol Service in aid of Macmillan Cancer Relief at the Guards Chapel in
Wellington Barracks. Amongst the eminent guests were Margaret Thatcher, Diana
Rigg, Hugh Laurie and Helena Bonham -Carter, and Michael was looking forward to
it because he was going to sing the opening solo. I think most of us would
confess to the hairs on the back of our necks standing on end when we hear
those first unaccompanied notes of a boy treble singing 'Once in Royal David's
City……………' soaring through a darkened Cathedral. Michael had sung this on many
occasions - the first at age 7, in our local Parish Church in Pyrford, just a
couple of weeks before he joined the Cathedral Choir as a probationer. By 1997,
he was very confident about it; he never went sharp or flat and the organist could
always strike up for verse 2 without worrying that Michael had strayed into an
entirely different key!
On this
occasion, Michael sang beautifully, the service went off without a hitch, and
he was getting out of his cassock to come home when a photographer from the
'Tatler' appeared, asking who had sung the solo. The resulting picture, of a
laughing Michael unbuttoning his cassock, appeared in the magazine in the New
Year, and we would never have known if Christopher's headmaster hadn't
commented on it. After that, Michael came in for a lot of friendly ribaldry on
the subject of his receiving hundreds of fan letters from well-connected young
women. Rather to his disappointment, he didn't even get one.
Thus by the
time he was installed and presented with his Head Chorister medal, on Sunday
September 13th, 1998, he was already a seasoned campaigner in terms
of solos and musical responsibility. He was in his second year at the Royal
Grammar School by now, and was coasting a little academically. Not because he
was so far ahead of everyone else, but rather because he was lazy. There were a
few lively evenings at home on the subject of homework, as I remember it.
Nevertheless, we knew how much the choir meant to him, and we had a small
post-Installation get-together with a few of his school friends and their
parents. Of course, his non-musical friends probably thought he was quite mad
to want to do it, but they always supported him and, as far as I am aware, no
one ever made fun of him because of his voice. In fact, even his toughest and
most macho friends seemed to have a rather grudging respect that he could do it
so well. And as Michael said, he was earning some money from it. Much better
than having to get up early for a paper round!!
I kept his
programmes and service sheets from every special service in which he sang, such
as All Soul's, Advent, Easter, Michaelmas plus all the occasional concerts at
which the choir performed. In addition to this, we kept all the newspaper
cuttings, school concert programmes, bravery certificates from hospital ( lots
of those! ) and other memorabilia. I have a large box file for each year, and
one of the pleasures and sorrows of researching this book has been looking over
all Michael's achievements. I have done the same for Christopher, too. I cannot
recommend it highly enough. A couple of years after Michael was born, my father
presented me with a series of scrapbooks containing all my own press cuttings,
together with all my certificates from music festivals and exam report sheets.
It's my life story, I suppose, and I was always very determined that I should
be the archivist for my children until such time as they could take it over for
themselves. Michael was very keen on the idea; indeed, I have just picked up
from the box marked '1998' details of services for Sunday, January 18th.
The setting for Evensong that day is Tippett's St John's Service, and there is
a note in the margin written by Michael that says 'I did the solo in the Nunc
Dimittis'. It is a very difficult piece of writing and I was never sure that
Michael was singing the right notes. But later on that particular evening I
remember very clearly that Andrew Millington phoned me at home to say how
wonderfully he thought Michael had sung. Apparently it was all absolutely spot
on. And here is another piece of paper - a review of that concert in the Guards
Chapel, Wellington Barracks, taken from the Internet:
'The concert……. opened with the traditional 'Once in
Royal David's City', the first verse of which was sung by Michael Norton. His
beautiful voice, heard in the stillness of the candlelit chapel, set the tone
for the evening.'
I would never
have remembered half of all of this. It doesn't bring Michael back - but it
keeps a lot of him far more alive in our memories. We are so very lucky to have
all this material; not many parents would have so much.
Meanwhile, at
the RGS, Michael was getting into another of his loves - drama. In his first
year, the school mounted a production of 'Oliver!'. Michael would have loved to
have played Oliver and his tiny frame and treble voice well equipped him for
the part. But there was no possibility of him fitting in rehearsals around
choir practice, and he had to abandon the idea. Instead, he became involved in
his year group's drama project. He was actually very good. I watched him in one
sketch and I had been watching for several minutes before I realised that the
old lady in a wig was my son. The other thing about that evening was that one
person dropped out of the show with only two or three days to go. Michael
learnt the words in half an hour. That was why I should have realised something
was wrong when he was having problems learning some words in December 1999.
Hindsight….. a wonderful thing. Michael looked forward with great enthusiasm to
being able to get far more involved with drama once he left the choir; of
course, that was not to be.
So his second
year at the Grammar School was dominated by his Head Chorister commitments.
Pulling out the Cathedral Newssheet for the day of his installation, I see that
the anthem at that first service was 'Ubi Caritas' by Durufle. Interestingly,
it would also be the last anthem he sang as Head Chorister. And, of course, it
was the anthem he chose for his funeral. I wonder if he knew. Looking through
this box, which is full of the service sheets from just his final year, I see
how many solos he did sing. I don't remember it that way; another good reason
for keeping all this paper. Of course, there are now so many poignant things
about it. Here is the Evensong sheet from November 8th, 1998, for a
service attended by members of Marie Curie Cancer Care. One of the hymns is 'He
who would true valour see' - one of Michael's funeral hymns. Who would have
thought that, two years later, we would be using the services of these
wonderful nurses? I always think it is just as well that we can't see into the
future. But nice, too, to know that Michael was already repaying a debt he
didn't even know he would owe.
Michael did
all sorts of things that term; he made a demonstration radio advert for a
student at Surrey University as part of his degree coursework. Although it was
only a demo, it is wonderful quality, made in the Cathedral, and features
Michael singing 'In the Bleak Midwinter' . Again, a precious possession for us
now. That Christmas, BBC Southern Counties Radio recorded their Service of Nine
Lessons and Carols at the Cathedral, and Michael was lucky enough to have a big
solo which was heard all over the region on Christmas Eve and again on Christmas
Day. He may not have lived for long but far more people heard him sing than
have heard me play the piano, I should think!
Chapter 7
Looking back
on 1999 now has a special poignancy; the last year in which Michael was well -
at least for the most part. January was a special month because on the 16th
was my 40th birthday.
I was 18 on a
Sunday, and didn't have a party. I was 21 on a Wednesday, the first day of term
at Royal Holloway College, where I was studying, and I had a few friends in my
room for cake and champagne, but nothing wild or hedonistic. When Graham and I
were married, on October 16th, 1982, we had a relatively small
affair, with around 50 people, and a lunchtime reception in the College Picture
Gallery. No late-night disco or other extravagant largesse! On my 30th
birthday I was 8 months' pregnant with Christopher and I had a sedate evening
at the local Toby Carvery for a few friends, as I was unable to do anything
more than waddle about like Moby Dick's big sister. I remember working out as
quite a small girl that my 40th birthday was going to be on a
Saturday, and after this series of quiet celebrations I had every intention of
pushing the boat out. Graham was also going to be 40, in April, but we decided
to have a weekend away for his birthday and to celebrate and blow away the
post-Christmas cobwebs in style.
The boys were
very excited about this, and we spent much of 1998 deciding how exactly we were
going to organise things. We chose a venue and caterers, but Michael and
Christopher were keen on a theme. As musicians, we thought we ought to think of
something related and finally my love of jazz proved the key influence. We
decided to hire a proper 1920's jazz band - the 'Black Bottom Stompers' - and
once that had been settled the rest fell into place. The theme was black and
white, and rather than insist on black tie we simply put 'Dress: Black and
White' on the invitations. Which was how we came to have Morticia Adams, Elvis
Presley, two Mint Humbugs and a giant panda present at the celebrations.
This hadn't
really occurred to me as an option, having chosen a sensible black and white
evening dress, but Graham fancied going as Dick Turpin ( Dick Turnip according
to Christopher ), and the boys thought they ought to have a costume, too. So
down we all trekked to the fancy dress shop. I spent half an hour trying to
persuade the two of them to go as a pantomime cow, but there were such
arguments as to would be the respective halves that I simply gave up and
allowed them their own choices. Or rather I prayed they wouldn't choose
anything too overtly offensive.
Christopher
gave away a little of himself at this point by choosing a Fred Astaire outfit,
complete with cane. He looked incredibly dapper and I was just congratulating
myself on having such a suave and urbane child when he produced a little
moustache and announced he was actually supposed to be Charlie Chaplin. He'd
certainly perfected the walk.
Michael gave
away even more of his own nature. I was amazed when he emerged from the
changing room dressed as - a monk. At least, I thought he was a monk. He then
turned round, and I saw he had a skull mask and was clutching a scythe. Yes, he
came to his parents' fortieth birthday party dressed as the Grim Reaper. This has
a totally different overtone now, of course, but at the time it was simply
Michael showing his rather unsavoury sense of humour about the fact that he
regarded Graham and I as unacceptably over the hill.
It was a
wonderful party. Everyone who had ever meant anything to either of us was
invited. There were people there whom we hadn't seen for years - and many of
them hadn't seen the children since they were tiny, if at all. The boys had a
terrific time, dancing, eating and being irritating - but they spoke to
everyone there and that meant such a lot to us once Michael became ill, because
ALL of our friends had met him and understood so much more clearly what we were
going through.
The music was
a real feature of the evening. Although I had hired a professional band, I had
invited the Royal Grammar School Jazz Band to come and play for the first hour
or so of the party - and they kicked up a storm. Once things got going, Andy
Wilson, my colleague from school who actually ran the band, put Michael up on
the stage to conduct. He was hopeless at it but it made a good video! Then,
once dinner was finished, I had a surprise for Graham. He is a non-musician; he
doesn't play any instrument but, like anyone married to a musician and with
children who are choristers, has heard an awful lot of music in his time and
learned to enjoy it. And in particular, he loved to hear Michael play. So
Michael and I had worked on two cello pieces in secret, and once everyone was
quiet, Michael started to play George Gershwin's 'Summertime'. He played
beautifully; the video shows that, not only could you have heard a pin drop in
that room, but also even the hardened jazz professionals came into the back of
the room to listen. For a boy of twelve, playing to all his parents' friends and
relations ( the most embarrassing of situations in which to play!) he showed
extraordinary poise. Then he swung into 'I've Got Rhythm' and managed to play
with huge panache - despite the spike of his cello (which was wedged into the
floor to hold the instrument still) coming loose and sliding all over the
place. He was always the consummate professional - the show goes on regardless!
I had given
the job of Videomaster -in -Chief to my sister's husband, Robin. Both Graham
and I had been under the impression that the boys had been behaving ( nearly )
impeccably all evening. Viewing the video the next day kicked that idea well
and truly into touch. I watched in mounting horror the antics of my younger
offspring, most of which do not bear repeating, but in some ways that video is
now a perfect foil to the idea of the boys being in any way little angels or
musical prodigies. At one point, Michael is behind the camera recording whilst
Robin picks up Christopher by one arm and one leg and swings him round like a whirling
dervish. Michael is laughing so much he can barely hold the camera still.
Everyone there
looks back on that evening with affection - and not least because they remember
seeing Michael at his most serious and musical and at his most beguiling and mischievous.
There are plenty of shots of him inciting his brother into doing something
unspeakable. And that was always the way they operated - the brain encouraging
the brawn. Although I have to say that there was always plenty of brain on
Christopher's side, too. They made a great pair when they moved into action
together.
Graham's
birthday provided some high drama of a different kind. Graham has always been a
fan of speed, and my brother-in-law is a thousand times worse. Christopher, of
course, was born to be wild. Michael was always like his mother - an
inveterate, died-in-the-wool copper-bottomed coward. So I booked a session at
the local go-karting circuit on April 5th, Bank Holiday for the four
of them. Because we went first thing in the morning, there were only the four
of them plus another man and his son on the track. Thank goodness. Michael was
very wary of the whole thing, but was persuaded into a driver's all-in-one suit and a racing helmet.
Christopher couldn't wait to get into the kart. Robin and Graham, naturally,
were behaving like a pair of infants. They had the compulsory talk and set of
instructions and they were off. As I said, Michael was always a coward and he
set off at about 3 miles an hour. He would have been overtaken by milkfloats
and babies with toddle trucks. This approach is infinitely more dangerous than
driving with the flow of traffic, and I was absolutely petrified watching him,
because neither his father nor his uncle showed any care or attention
whatsoever. They were charging round the track in a way which made Ayrton Senna
and Michael Schumacher look like Noddy and Big Ears out for a Sunday drive.
After a few laps, though, Michael built up a little more confidence and, having
started with a lap time of 86.57 seconds, finished with a personal best of
40.48 - a huge triumph for him, because he was always terrified of having any
accident where he might bang his head again.
Christopher,
meanwhile, was having his own personal trauma, having been forced off the track
and into the tyres by either his uncle or his father - each subsequently blamed
the other - and hurting both his neck and his knee, where it went into the
steering wheel. Quite badly shaken and not a little upset, he had the sense to
head back into the pit, where the marshal tried to flag him down. I say tried,
because by the time he got to the pit, Christopher had apparently forgotten all
the basic rules and, in his distress, accidentally accelerated hard instead of
braking hard. The resultant surge forward meant he ran slap into the marshal,
taking most of the skin off the poor man's shin and necessitating his removal
to the first aid centre. Christopher was now overcome with shame, embarrassment
and sheer terror that the marshal was going to thump him - and has never been
go-karting again since!!
Looking back
on these two occasions now reminds me that we were a very close family, despite
Christopher being away at boarding school and Michael having such a heavy
weekend programme of services and choir practices as well. Having two chorister
children in separate choral foundations simply means you have to spend time
apart, but we always made sure we sat down to Sunday lunch together. The bottom
line for us has always been that we are a family - first and foremost. So when
we won a free sitting at a very posh photographer's in a raffle at
Christopher's school, we thought it would be a good chance to have the boys'
picture taken together in their cassocks and surplices, with the added benefit
of Michael being able to wear his Head Chorister's medal at the time. The
photographer suggested that the boys took their instruments as well, so we
turned up laden down with robes, music, spare clothes - enough for a
fortnight's holiday, not an hour in a studio! We had the boys taken together
and individually, in their robes with their instruments, and in casual clothes
standing back to back. Then we had some taken of all four of us together, and
one of Graham and I, at the boys' specific request, which I thought was rather
touching of them. It was a fun afternoon. Getting the four of us in one frame
was an art form - finally Christopher was put on his stomach at the front, with
Michael kneeling over him, gritting his teeth as Christopher smiled merrily
whilst kicking his brother out-of-shot with his heels at the same time!
The results
were beautiful. I should have realised when we were taken into the 'viewing
room' and offered a glass of wine that we were talking serious expense here,
but in any case watching all the shots come up on the computer was a delight.
The photographer had captured the essence of the boys perfectly, and we ended
up spending literally hundreds of pounds. The main focus of this expense was an
enormous picture of Michael and Christopher, each in cassock and surplice,
standing side by side, Christopher with his violin under his arm and Michael
holding his cello. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing when Graham said how
large he wanted it - but when we collected it I knew he had been right.
This photo
hung in the living room of our house in West Byfleet and attracted a lot of
derision and ribaldry from our friends since it looked as though it should be
hanging in the entrance hall to Versailles. But I always had this feeling at
the back of my mind that we needed to have a truly stunning picture of the boys
together and I wasn't sorry we had had it done. Now, of course, it is a very
poignant sight through the hall window of our new house. After all, it
represents how Michael will always be to Graham and I - forever fourteen…….
Chapter Eight
Although
Graham and I obviously could not both be at the Cathedral AND at the Chapel at
the same time, one of us would always try to be at each place on Sunday
mornings and evenings. The worst times were Christmasses and Easters. In 1999,
though, Christopher understood that Michael had priority as it was his final
year of singing, and both Graham and I were keen to be at his last Christmas
and Easter services as Head Chorister. In fact it was necessary; as a day choir,
there is no boarding school attached with Matron and catering department! So
during the Christmas and Easter seasons in particular, it is the job of the
senior chorister parents to provide teas before big concerts or in the break
during the middle of long practices, and to serve mince pies and coffee ( and
sherry!) on Christmas morning when the Cathedral refectory is shut. The mothers
often joked that when the boys received their Head Chorister medals, their
mothers should receive the Order of the Golden Teatowel - we spent a lot of
time washing up!
Christopher
was very good about it. He accepted that it was Michael's last year, and we
promised him that we would all be over at the Chapel listening to him far more
often in the year 2000. Of course, we weren't. But we were not to know that at
the time. My family and friends were all very good about going to hear
Christopher when they could - and in fact he wasn't really ever too worried if
we were not there. Many of the boys who lived a long way away saw their parents
far less frequently.
But despite
all this, I still feel very much that we remained very close and always sought
out each other's company. Neither of the boys was ever keen to have lots of
friends home in the holidays, either. They seemed to prefer being together even
though they fought all the time. Things were beginning to change in the last
year, as Michael started to think about going out and meeting his friends in
Guildford more often. But certainly in 1999 they seemed quite happy to be with
us and at home. They knew we would always be there to support them in concerts,
on Sports Days and in anything they did which parents could attend.
There was one
big exception to this, and I regret it still. As I said, Graham and I decided
to go away for his fortieth birthday, and we had used up our airmiles to go to
Vienna in the middle of March. As a musician, I had always wanted to go and was
really looking forward to it. Once it was all arranged and set in stone, we
found out that the Royal Grammar School was giving its biennial concert that
same weekend. The main item on the programme was Leonard Bernstein's
'Chichester Psalms, with Michael singing the treble solo. We debated long and
hard and finally decided to go to Vienna anyway, making sure that we had plenty
of friends set up with tape recorders. Michael said that he didn't mind,
although I am sure he did. We rang him on Saturday morning from the middle of
Vienna. He was still on a high - 'It was wonderful!! Everyone stamped their
feet and cheered at the end and I had to come back onto the stage again!' I
wished so much that we had been there - and the recording shows just how good
Michael was at that time. The local paper said,
'The whole
performance was lifted by the quality of the soloists. The RGS is lucky in
having the Head Chorister of the Cathedral Choir, Michael Norton, amongst its
pupils.'
It was one of
the first times Michael had truly found a sense of the excitement of performing
on stage - and it fuelled his appetite for more. I always wondered if, once he
was grown up, he would tell anyone who asked that his parents 'never came to
anything', since it has always seemed to me that one small oversight by parents
is the only thing which children carry into adulthood as an abiding memory! In
any case, we were back by the following Wednesday in time for the Cathedral
Concert, given as part of the 1999 Guildford International Festival, in which
Michael was once again a soloist, this time in one of Poulenc's Four Motets for
a Penitential Season.
During the
Easter holiday, Michael went on a residential music course at Gatton Park, in
Surrey. He didn't have a great history of being away from home, and I also
think that he was terribly prone to homesickness. Even when away on choir
tours, he would often send a postcard, which would say he was missing us.
Usually, of course, by the time he was due to come home, he was having such a
good time he was reluctant to do so. This was no different. For the first 24
hours he was fairly miserable, I think, but after that he made friends with the
other boys in his dormitory and by the time we went to hear the end of course
concert, he was thoroughly enjoying himself. Most of the boys in his particular
group of friends were much older - and considerably bigger - than he, but that
never seemed to matter. He said he'd had a fantastic time and when could he go
again? Oh, and his cello playing had improved, too.
This led to
him wanting to join the Surrey County Youth Orchestra. You have to be around
Grade 7 - 8 on your instrument to join, and Michael auditioned in the Summer
Term of 1999. He passed, and was soon enjoying this new way of spending Friday
nights. It was something he wasn't able to commit to fully in that term,
because he was still singing in the Choir. Evensong in Guildford finished at
around 6.15; Youth Orchestra in Woking began at 6.45 so he was rushing around a
bit at first. But in September he had no other claims on his time, and he
thoroughly enjoyed being a member of the cello section until he became ill.
From Easter
until the end of Michael's time as a chorister was a whirl of concerts, and not
just with the choir. The Royal Society of Church Music had one of its large
'Come and Sing!' Evenings in March, when anyone was welcome to turn up at the
Cathedral and rehearse, then perform, Faure's Requiem with the Cathedral
Organist conducting. Andrew Millington asked Michael if he would come along and
perform the 'Pie Jesu', the most famous part of the work, which is performed by
solo boy treble. As usual, not at all fazed by being the youngest performer by
several decades, he stood up in the pulpit and sang beautifully. He repeated
this with the Grammar School Choir and orchestra in Holy Trinity Church,
Guildford, in June of that year. I remember that concert especially well, since
the church is directly opposite the Three Pigeons pub, where there is a large
television screen. On this particular hot, dry summer evening, England was
playing a football match as part of some important tournament or other and the
pub was buzzing. The boys had half a mind on what was going on elsewhere, it
must be said, and as the soloists filed in I wondered what was going to happen.
The baritone soloist was a maths teacher from the school with a magnificent
voice, who stands about 6'3". Michael was standing next to him, looking
about 3' 6". The whole thing went off wonderfully well. The last movement
is a very quiet and gentle piece, 'In Paradisum', which finishes so terribly
softly. Just as the last strains faded away, 'GOOOOOAAAAALLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'
erupted from over the road. Fortunately, to the less enlightened of the
audience, it simply sounded like an unexpected ovation for the wonders of the
music.
Meanwhile,
over in Windsor, Christopher was preparing to sing at the wedding of HRH the
Prince Edward to Sophie Rhys-Jones. Michael was not a little jealous of his
brother at this point, and there were quite a lot of pointed remarks about
'conceit', 'jealousy', 'inability' and 'sour grapes' around the Sunday lunch
table. He sat in front if the television highlights making caustic comments,
but, of course, was secretly rather proud. If anyone else dared to criticise or
mock what his little brother was up to, Michael was straight in like a terrier,
defending Christopher from all-comers, even in his absence. It's odd how
families work like that!
Graham and I
took a weekend break in June and went to Paris with two other couples - we are always amazed at how
much time there is in a weekend which doesn't have services and choir practices
in it! We had a wonderful time sight-seeing, eating, drinking and visiting
museums, whilst Michael stayed with a chorister friend. Even something that
straightforward would always involve Michael going away with an envelope full
of his medical history and other details, long lists of phone numbers and
copious instructions and reassurances to whomsoever he was staying with at the
time!
Chapter Nine
By now we were
moving towards July and all the usual summer term festivities. Michael won
first prize in the school singing competition, and in the Intermediate Piano
Competition, something which amused us both hugely, given the fact that
whatever in life he was known for, it certainly was not playing the piano! He
was also working towards his Grade 8 singing at this time, and we struggled to
teach him a song in German, since he didn't speak the language at all. How he
managed to learn all the words so quickly was a mystery to me, but he told me
he did it by sound - just as he did with notes. He obviously made a good job of
it, in any case - because when the mark sheet came out, he had been awarded 139
marks out of a possible 150. The examiner wrote, 'I enjoyed every moment of
your singing, which always displayed commitment and warmth. Well done!'
It was a
particularly busy time for the Cathedral Choir, because Andrew Millington, the
Organist and Master of the Choristers, was himself leaving the Cathedral after
sixteen years at Guildford to go to be Organist at Exeter Cathedral. Preparations
were being made for his last Evensong on Sunday 11th July, the
service at which Michael would take his farewell also. Although Michael's voice
wasn't anywhere near breaking, leaving at the end of Year 8 seemed the right
thing to do. This was the usual time at which boys moved on, and after six
years it was time to find some time for all the other things he was keen to try
- drama, Youth Orchestra, hobbies - and maybe even some more thorough homework!
The last
'singing weekend' of July 1999 was a very busy one. As well as the usual
commitments, Andrew's departure added an extra dimension to things as we all
felt that it truly was the 'end of an era'.
Because all the choristers at Guildford are sponsored by individuals and
organisations, it has always been the way of things that the choir hosts a
'Sponsors' Party' on the last Saturday afternoon of the choir term, following
Choral Evensong. The parents join forces to provide the food for around 120
people, including all the choristers and their families, the Cathedral staff
and the sponsors together with various friends of the choir. The Dean and the
Master of the Choristers then present their annual report before the leaving
boys and their parents provide a short musical entertainment.
This required
a fair amount of careful organisation on the part of the senior chorister
parents, as we set out food and plates, balanced tea urns and put out trestle
tables. For once we were blessed with glorious weather and we were able to set
up the tea tables outside. This left indoors to be set out in readiness for the
entertainment after tea. The nature of this 'entertainment' was something which
had been taxing me ever since the previous September, but once I knew that
Andrew was leaving, the obvious answer presented itself - a skit on 'The
Phantom of the Opera ', retitled 'The Master of the Choristers'. We started
off, though, with Michael and another chorister playing their instruments;
Michael played Bach's wonderful and poignant 'Arioso' on the cello. It was one of
the occasions when he played at his best - I wish I had thought to ask someone
to video it.
Then, with
Andrew Millington completely in the dark as to what was coming next, we swung
into the sketch. I had written a story for a narrator to join up the songs; The
Phantom of the Opera became the Master of the Choristers; The Music of the
Night became The Music of the Choir - and so on. All the singing was done by
the three senior choristers and a few of the more 'have-a-go heroes' amongst
the lay-clerks. I wasn't sure at first what Andrew was making of it, but I
think he saw the funny side. The boys thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to
send up their much-loved conductor and it turned into a really affectionate
tribute. The afternoon ended with all the choristers - from senior down to the
most junior probationer - coming together to sing 'Thank You for the Music',
after which Michael presented Andrew with a copy of the sketch and an
orchestral score by Elgar.
I think that
by this time Michael was becoming quite emotional himself at the prospect of
leaving the choir. After all, he had spent half of his life singing and working
in the Cathedral. He had a very strong religious faith - although I am not sure
that he had crystallised that in his own mind at this point - and he was
uncertain about the new direction his life was going to take, although he was
very much looking forward to having more free time, as he saw it. So by that
Saturday night, he was quite quiet and thoughtful as we left the party.
The next day,
Sunday July 11th, 1999, was his last day in the choir. As usual, the
day began with choir practice before Eucharist. Looking at the music diary for
that day, I find it particularly poignant to see that the anthem at Eucharist
was Durufle's 'Ubi Caritas'. I still don't know if that was a factor in
Michael's decision to have it sung at his funeral, but it brings a certain
completeness to it.
This Sunday
was also Christopher's last singing day of the academic year. At St George's,
there is always a family picnic at lunchtime, again masterminded and
coordinated by the senior chorister parents. Graham and I had explained to
Christopher that we wouldn't be at any of his services on that day ( my father
was recruited to go to Evensong and take Christopher home ) but we would get
across to Windsor for lunch. Back at Guildford, having finished Eucharist
Michael then moved on to sing Mattins, which on this occasion was an extended
service for Sea Sunday. Graham and I grabbed him at the end of the service and
rushed round the M25 to arrive at Windsor in time to have a picnic lunch with
Christopher, say goodbye to his leaving Head Chorister and his family, before
getting back in the car and rushing back round the M25 to Guildford in time for
choir practice for Evensong, which was a very special service. Being Andrew's
last service, the Cathedral was full. Many of the congregation were
ex-choristers and former layclerks who had returned from around the country for
a short concert which was to take place after the service, and featured many of
Andrew's favourite pieces.
As well as the
'normal' liturgy for Evensong, the three leaving choristers were 'valedicted'.
All three mothers had tissues on hand for this particular occasion! In the
middle of the service, the three of them left their choir stalls and came and
stood in front of the Dean. Andrew then said:
'Sir, I
present to you Michael Norton on his leaving this choir.'
The Dean
answered with:
'Michael, on
behalf of the Chapter and the Congregation, I thank you warmly for the years of
your service to this Cathedral, when you have sung to the glory of God and to
our delight.'
(Here the Dean
presented a bible to him.)
'Receive this
Bible. May its word be a lantern unto your feet and a light unto your path.
May God the Holy
Trinity make you strong in faith and love, defend you on every side, and guide
you in truth and peace. Amen.'
And that was
that. The end of the most important and influential part of Michael's life.
Except….. not quite. The absolutely last time he donned his cassock, surplice
and medal was the following Saturday, July 17th 1999, when he sang
at the wedding of the Dean of Guildford's daughter. The anthem was the
'Hallelujah' chorus from 'Messiah' by Handel. I remember thinking that that was
a pretty good piece to end a career on!
Anyway, we put
all that behind us in August and set off for our annual holiday. For the first
time in many years, we were going on our own and not with friends. I was
slightly apprehensive about that - the thought of being with my immediate
family with no outside mediators for three weeks was rather alarming! We drove
all the way down to Amelia, about 40 miles from Rome, stopping off in the
Alsace on the way for some serious wine investigation, and in Modena where we
discovered nothing at all happens.
We stayed at
Amelia in the most wonderful apartment in an old farmhouse owned by a
delightful couple in their sixties. 'Mr Franco' and his wife were so welcoming
and we took to them immediately. Every morning there would be fresh vegetables,
eggs and honey on our doorstep and sat on the terrace enjoying the most
fantastic views as we ate breakfast or dinner. We balanced our time between hot
days of sightseeing and lazy afternoons in the pool. Mr Franco spoke a little
English and we speak no Italian, so we got by in English and French, but he
didn't need much language to communicate with Michael, to whom he took an
instant liking.
The boys had
always wanted to see the Sistine Chapel, and we promised them that we would go
into Rome on the high-speed train. This journey was purgatory for Michael,
because every time we shot in and out of tunnels, although my ears 'popped' a
lot, he seemed to be in agonies of earache each time. He recovered by the time
we arrived at the Coliseum and he and Christopher were fascinated by this place
which they had seen so often in photographs. For Graham and I, Rome is a
special place because it was where we spent our honeymoon. Even so, we found it
hard to keep up the enthusiasm when the temperature was well into the 90's! We
packed more into one day than you would have thought possible - but the
highlight was undoubtedly the Sistine Chapel. It was being cleaned and restored
when Graham and I had been before, but now we could see it in all its glory.
The boys were dumbstruck and we spent a long, long time looking at the frescoes
and picking things out. Just how much they had taken in was obvious when we
went to Todi and studied the incredibly bad copy of the Last Judgement which is
on the back wall of the Duomo there. In fact, the boys specialised in 'Last
Judgement' pictures - Christopher was always very keen to study devils and
compare the 'yuck' factor of various artists. He had long been a fan of
Breughel and Bosch so he found Leonardo rather tame, it has to be said!
Having
finished at the Chapel, we went into the Basilica itself. The boys were totally
overwhelmed by the size of the place and walked around with their mouths open
in awe. Michael was used to the concept of an open space, because Guildford is
very light and airy, but they hadn't really seen anything on this scale before.
They spent a long time looking about them - and, I suspect, enjoying being out
of the savage heat outside!
Then something
unexpected happened. Graham and I, despite the fact that we were always
worrying about Michael and his health at some subliminal level or another,
tended to think that for Michael, it was a simple fact of life that he seemed
to end up in hospital from time to time. I had been reading from the guide book
and telling him who all the statues were, when he suddenly walked away from me.
I turned around and found him rubbing the feet of, I think, St Luke - it said
in the guide book that pilgrims did this in search of healing. When I asked him
what on earth he was doing, he said, 'I'd love to have my hearing back - and
I'd love to be well again.' I was
surprised and very saddened.
Overall, it
was a wonderful holiday. No-one was ill, there were no trips to hospital and we
thoroughly enjoyed being together. We ate and drank well, we enjoyed the
sunshine and the company of our charming hosts and we even rose above the boys
fighting over the latest 'Harry Potter' book!
By the time we
arrived back in England at the very end of August, we were refreshed and ready
for the next chapter in our lives. Christopher was looking forward to returning
to school. I had a new job to go back to - I had been appointed Head of
Keyboard Studies at the Royal Grammar School, with a remit to work three days a
week and overhaul some of the extra-curricular musical activities. Michael, of
course, was getting ready to embark on a new, choir-free existence. We all
looked forward to the beginning of a new era in our family life.
And that was
exactly what we got.
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