Bruce Montgomery/Edmund Crispin: A Life in Music and Books To my parents, for their constant encouragement Bruce Montgomery/Edmund Crispin: A Life in Music and Books

David Whittle Leicester Grammar School, UK First published 2007 by Ashgate Publishing

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Whittle, David The life and music of Bruce Montgomery/Edmund Crispin 1. Montgomery, Bruce, 1921–1978 2. Crispin, Edmund, 1921–1978 3. Composers – Great Britain – Biography 4. Novelists, English – 20th century – Biography I.Title 780.9'2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Whittle, David, 1958- Bruce Montgomery/Edmund Crispin : a life in music and books / by David Whittle. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-7546-3443-0 (alk. paper)

1. Montgomery, Bruce, 1921–1978 2. Authors, English—20th century—Biography. 3. Composers—England—Biography. I. Title.

PR6025.O46Z95 2007 780.92—dc22 [B] 2006021119

ISBN 9780754634430 (hbk) Contents

List of Plates vii List of Music Examples ix Acknowledgements xi

Introduction 1 1 ‘Daydreaming child with nice manners’: 1921–1928 3 2 ‘An intellectual snob’: 1928–1940 7 3 ‘A seminal moment’: 1940–1943 23 4 ‘What a bloody business’: 1943–1945 37 5 ‘You mustn’t mind if I pay for it’: Music and Novels 1945–1952 59 6 ‘It ought to go off all right’: Music 1948–1950 81 7 ‘I still think it isn’t half bad’: Music 1951–1952 103 8 ‘The home of lost corpses’: Novels 1947–1948 121 9 ‘Mania for needless impostures’: Novels 1950–1953 133 10 ‘A genuine unforced enthusiasm’: Films 1948–1962 145 11 ‘Complicated by downright panic’: Films 1958–1962 163 12 ‘Much engrossed with Doom’: Anthologies 1954–1966 171 13 ‘I’ve become an Immobilist’: 1950–1962 183 14 ‘A sort of slack sabbatical’: 1962–1976 193 15 ‘A full scale replica of Chatsworth’: 1962–1976 207 16 ‘Slightly low water’: 1959–1970 219 17 ‘High time I was under new management’: 1957–1976 233 18 ‘The bonelessness of the short-distance funner’: 1974–1978 243 Postscript 259 Appendix 1: Montgomery and Detective Fiction 263 Appendix 2: Montgomery and Film Music 269 Appendix 3: List of Montgomery’s Novels and Other Books 275 Appendix 4: List of Montgomery’s Compositions 277 Appendix 5: Discography 301

Bibliography 303 Index 305

List of Plates

1 domus, RBM’s childhood home 2 rBM in 1925, aged 4 3 Olive, RBM, Robert Montgomery, Elspeth, Sheila and unidentified man at Hayling Island, August 1928 4 rBM at his piano in Rock Hill House, c.1950 5 rBM composing at his piano in Rock Hill House, c.1950 6 Jeni Turnbull, RBM, Mrs and Mr Turnbull at the Crown and Thistle, Abingdon, New Year’s Eve, 1954 (Jeni Turnbull) 7 sinfonia of London dinner at ISM Club, c.1957. RBM on nearest table, 6th from right, looking away from camera. Others present include Muir Mathieson and Malcolm Arnold, on top table, respectively 5th and 6th from left. (James Brown) 8 rBM with his parents and Nora, c.1960 9 rBM with Elspeth, Sheila and Nora at Rock Hill House, August 1960 10 rBM’s brief conducting appearance in Raising the Wind, 1961 (Canal+ Image UK) 11 rBM with his mother and Mr C.A. Warnford, assistant manager of the ABC Cinema, Torquay, at a showing of Raising the Wind, 1961 12 Week Meadow (author) 13 Brian Aldiss, and RBM at the British Science Fiction Association Convention, Bull Hotel, Peterborough, April 1963 (Brian Aldiss) 14 rBM with Desmond Bagley at Week Meadow, c.1970 (Joan Bagley) 15 rBM with Ann outside Week Meadow on their wedding day, 19 February 1976

Uncredited illustrations are from the collection of Sheila Rossiter.

List of Music Examples

2.1 Pilgrimage 15 2.2 Pilgrimage 16 6.1 Four Shakespeare Songs (Second Set): ‘When Icicles Hang’ 84 6.2 Four Shakespeare Songs (Second Set): ‘Who is Silvia?’ 84 6.3 Four Shakespeare Songs (Second Set): ‘Under the Greenwood Tree’ 85 6.4 Willy Drowned in Yarrow 87 6.5 Mary Ambree 89 6.6 Mary Ambree 89 6.7 Christ’s Birthday: ‘In the bleak mid-winter’ 92 6.8 Christ’s Birthday: ‘In the bleak mid-winter’ 93 6.9 Christ’s Birthday: ‘In the bleak mid-winter’ 94 6.10 Concertino for String Orchestra: ‘Moderato quasi allegro’ 97 6.11 Concertino for String Orchestra: ‘Moderato quasi allegro’ 97 6.12 Concertino for String Orchestra: ‘Moderato quasi allegro’ 97 6.13 Concertino for String Orchestra: ‘Lento espressivo’ 98 6.14 Concertino for String Orchestra: ‘Lento espressivo’ 98 6.15 Concertino for String Orchestra: ‘Vivace ed energico’ 98 6.16 Concertino for String Orchestra: ‘Vivace ed energico’ 98 6.17 Concertino for String Orchestra: ‘Vivace ed energico’ 99 6.18 Concertino for String Orchestra: ‘Vivace ed energico’ 99 7.1 An Requiem: ‘Lord, thou hast been our refuge’ 104 7.2 An Oxford Requiem: ‘As for man, his days are as grass’ 105 7.3 An Oxford Requiem: ‘As for man, his days are as grass’ 105 7.4 An Oxford Requiem: ‘As for man, his days are as grass’ 106 7.5 An Oxford Requiem: ‘But thou, O Lord, art my defender’ 107 7.6 Venus’ Praise: ‘Ask me no more where Jove bestows’ 108 7.7 Venus’ Praise: ‘Ask me no more where Jove bestows’ 109 7.8 Venus’ Praise: ‘Love for such a cherry lip’ 110 7.9 Venus’ Praise: ‘Love is a sickness full of woes’ 111 7.10 John Barleycorn: ‘The Three Hungry Girls’ 116 7.11 John Barleycorn: ‘The Corn-Dance’ 117 7.12 John Barleycorn: ‘The Corn-Dance’ 118  Bruce Montgomery/Edmund Crispin: A Life in Music and Books 10.1 Nurse: Section 1M1 152 10.2 Carry On Nurse: Section 4M2 152 10.3 Carry On Nurse: Section 1M2A 153 10.4 Carry On Nurse: Section 1M1 153 10.5 Carry On Teacher: Section 10MA 154 10.6 Twice Round the Daffodils: Section 1M1 154 12.1 At The Round Earth’s Imagin’d Corners 173 12.2 At The Round Earth’s Imagin’d Corners 173 Acknowledgements

I have been very fortunate to meet nothing but generosity in the writing of this book. Montgomery’s friends and acquaintances have been unfailingly helpful and willing to speak to me, as have custodians of archives and other material. In particular, I must mention Dr Judith Priestman, Dr Peter Ward Jones and the staff at the Bodleian Library for permitting me to sift through Montgomery’s papers before they were catalogued, and for their help in fielding questions. I am also grateful to Merton College and St John’s College, Oxford, for providing me with accommodation and other facilities. Many individuals have helped me enormously, and their interest in the project, and in many cases their hospitality, has made the toil of research a pleasure. It is a strange feeling (almost one of impertinence) to quiz people who knew Montgomery and from their recollections paint a portrait of a person I will never meet. Their eagerness to talk about Montgomery demonstrates, I think, the esteem and affection in which he was, and is, held. I owe some of them a particular debt. By the end of my conversations with Brian Aldiss I felt very well informed about the development of science fiction, having known more or less nothing about it previously. He has been a great supporter of the biography. The late Geoffrey Bush was also an enormous enthusiast for the project and kept me up to the mark with notes and jottings. The detailed reminiscences of Colin and Mary Strang and Audrey Stock were all the more pleasurable for having taken place whilst enjoying their lively and convivial company. In the early stages of my research I greatly appreciated Robert Pascall’s wise advice whilst trying to fashion a thesis out of the material. I must also thank my friend and colleague Charles Paterson who inadvertently set me on the Montgomery trail; his eager discussions of twentieth-century English music and detective fiction are always illuminating. I am most grateful to Phil Clymer and Chorion for readily allowing me to quote so extensively from Montgomery’s novels. I am very happy to acknowledge the following people and organisations: the late Sir Kingsley Amis, the late Sir Thomas Armstrong, Sir Malcolm Arnold, Joan Bagley, Julie Baldwin (Collins Publishers), J.G. Ballard, Betty Baly, the late Jacques Barzun, Jean Bell, the late Revd J.G. Bishop, the late Bill Blezzard, Christopher Bornet (Royal College of Music), Richard Braine, BBC Natural History Unit, Geoffrey Brown (Merchant Taylors’ School), James Brown, the late Geoffrey Bush, Rev. C.A. Cardale, the late Humphrey Carpenter, Michael Charlesworth (Shrewsbury School), Charles Cleall, Robert Conquest, John Noble Cooper, Cecil Cope, Caroline Cornish (BBC Written Archives Centre), Rosi Crane (BBC South & West), the late Julian Critchley, Constance Cruickshank (Faber and Faber), the late Mary Peel Davies, Oliver Davies (Royal College of Music), Kieran Doyle, the late Ruth Dyson, Evening Standard, Percy Everett, Elizabeth Ferrars, The Film Institute of Ireland, Dick Francis, Anthea Fraser (Crime Writers’ Association), Dr M.R. Freedland (St John’s College Society), Spencer Freeman (Novello), Brian and Nancy Galpin, xii Bruce Montgomery/Edmund Crispin: A Life in Music and Books Douglas Gamley, Michael Gilbert, Alexander Gleason, Livia Gollancz (Victor Gollancz Ltd), Ron Goodwin, Hilary Goodworth, Richard Gordon, Douglas Greene, Richard Hardcastle, George Hardinge, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center (University of Texas), Desmond Hawkins, Capt. M.J. Henderson (Band of the Irish Guards), the late Patricia Highsmith, Sheila Hodges, Erica Hutchinson (Performing Right Society), the late Michael Innes (J.I.M. Stewart), the late Arthur Jacobs, Barbara James, John Jenkins, Sir Anthony Jephcott, Micky Jones, H.R.F. Keating, Michael Kennedy, Brian Ladd, Philip Lane, J.C. Larkin, Zachary Leader, N.A. Lee (University of Bristol), Leicester Probate Sub-Registry, Helen Leiper (), Anthony Lejeune, Christopher Longuet-Higgins, Macmillan Publishers Ltd, Eileen Mann, Robert McNeil, Graham Melville (British Film Institute), Jamie Milford, Eleanor Millard, Janet Moat (British Film Institute), the late Charles Monteith, David Morgan, and the Executors of the Estate of , Music Publishers’ Association, Northwood Preparatory School, Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, Pauline Oldham, Imogen Painter, the late Theodore Pantcheff, Ann Parker, Christopher Parsons, Muriel Pavlow, Leslie Phillips, Kate Pool (Society of Authors), Michael Powell, Josephine Pullein-Thompson (PEN), Peter Rogers, the late Bernard Rose, the late Alan Ross, Royal College of Organists, Sheila Rossiter, Edwina Sampson, Jennifer Savery, David Shapland, Bryan Shaw, John Shirley, Nigel Shortman, Nigel Simeone, Joyce Sims, Elspeth Slaughter, Wyn Smith, Tony Soper, The Spectator, Veronica Stallwood, J.S. Sudbury, Gavin Sutherland, the late Donald Swann, Eric Sykes, the late Julian Symons, Mary Thairlwall, the late Gerald Thomas, Stephen Tothill, Ursula Townsend, Jeni Turnbull, F.P. Turner (Rank Film Distributors), the late Michael Underwood, the late John Wain, Anna Walne, Elizabeth Wells (National Sound Archive), West Country Writers’ Association, the late David Whiffen, the late David Williams, Alan Willmott, A.J. Wright. I am grateful to the following copyright holders for permission to reproduce material: Quotations from Montgomery’s novels are reproduced with the kind permission of Rights Limited. Copyright © Rights Limited, a Chorion company. All rights reserved. Letters to Montgomery from Oxford University Press are reprinted by permission of the Secretary to the Delegates of Oxford University Press. Extracts from The Letters of Kingsley Amis (edited by Zachary Leader) are reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. Extracts from Memoirs by Kingsley Amis are used by kind permission of The Random House Group Limited and Jonathan Clowes Ltd, London, on behalf of the Literary Estate of Sir Kingsley Amis. Copyright © 1991 Sir Kingsley Amis. The extract from a letter to the author from J.I.M. Stewart is used by permission of A.P. Watt Ltd on behalf of Michael Stewart. Extracts from letters to Montgomery and the author from Julian Symons are reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Group Ltd, London, on behalf of the Estate of Julian Symons. Copyright © Julian Symons. The extracts from Mary Ambree by Montgomery are reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press. Acknowledgements xiii The plate from Raising the Wind is reproduced by permission of Canal+ Image UK Ltd. I am happy to acknowledge quotations from Montgomery’s forewords to Best SF and Best Detective Stories. All musical extracts are © Novello unless otherwise stated. The letters from Philip Larkin are © Faber and Faber. I must express my gratitude to those who have corresponded with me and who have granted permission for extracts from their letters to be quoted. Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders of the remaining material. I am indebted to Rachel Lynch, Heidi May and Sarah Charters and the editorial team at Ashgate for putting up with my increasingly manic demands as the pressure has grown. My thanks go to Andrew Baker-Munton, Charles Paterson, Pat Walne and my parents for reading and commenting on the typescript. I need hardly add that any remaining infelicities are entirely my own responsibility. And finally, I must mention my late cat Montgomery, whose name and frequent looks of reproof did much to stir my feelings of guilt during the many moments of literary lethargy.

Oakham 2006

Introduction

On Thursday 24 August 1961 at the Plaza Theatre, Lower Regent Street SW1, a film, Raising the Wind, was given its premiere. A comedy set in a music college, it was immediately compared to , a 1954 release which followed the antics of medical students. The cast included many stalwarts of British comedy of the period, some of whom appeared in both films: Kenneth Williams, Leslie Phillips, Liz Fraser, James Robertson Justice and Sid James were notable amongst them. Producer Peter Rogers and director Gerald Thomas were a well-established pairing, responsible for the increasing number of films in theCarry On series. The members of the production team and cast, gathered in their evening dress at the Plaza, were cheered by news of pre-release bookings at coastal resorts. At the Forum Cinema on Jersey, for instance, Raising the Wind had taken more at the box office than any film so far in 1961. Reporting the premiere with a double page spread of photographs, Daily Cinema announced that pre-release bookings had ‘scored a shattering success […] exceptional bookings [at coastal resorts] giving every indication that Raising the Wind is destined to be one of Anglo’s all time box- office giants’. For one man the premiere represented a particular success. Bruce Montgomery, not yet 40 years of age, was responsible for the storyline, screenplay and musical score of the film. He had also conducted the music and acted as technical advisor. Such a wide-ranging creative contribution remains highly unusual, if not unique. That Montgomery had written the music was not unexpected: Raising the Wind was his fortieth film score. This number included the fourDoctor and fiveCarry On films so far released. What was less expected, perhaps, was that he should have written the screenplay of a film which theObserver reviewed as ‘a jolly British romp’. Yet, under his pen-name of Edmund Crispin, Montgomery was the author of eight highly acclaimed detective novels and many short crime stories in whose pages the farcical often makes an appearance. The production had been a very happy one, with Montgomery in his element as technical advisor. The members of the orchestra enjoyed having a more important role than in most films, and particularly relished having to play the William Tell Overture so fast that it ended in total disarray. Montgomery had coached Leslie Phillips to conduct so well that the orchestra applauded the actor. With Peter Rogers and Gerald Thomas backing him, Montgomery was already at work on a sequel. In reply to a letter of congratulation on Raising the Wind from Josephine Bell, a fellow writer of detective novels, Montgomery wrote: ‘It isn’t a picture calculated to raise the cultural tone of the nation.’ Despite this realistic, if rather gloomy,

1 Daily Cinema, 28 August 1961 2 Observer, 27 August 1961 3 rBM to Josephine Bell, 5 October 1961  Bruce Montgomery/Edmund Crispin: A Life in Music and Books appraisal of his work, the film marks the culmination of the most successful years of Montgomery’s career. He was regarded with esteem by devotees of the detective story for his eight novels, even though the last had appeared eight years previously, and was frequently called upon as an authoritative commentator on the genre by journals and the broadcasting companies. He had also established himself as a distinctive writer on science fiction. The series of Best SF anthologies he edited for Faber from 1955 have since been described as ‘crucial in establishing valid critical standards’. He had written the scores for some of the most prominent British films of the 1950s; he had a large body of serious concert music in the catalogues of Novello and Oxford University Press; he had earned a lot of money from film work and royalties; a house was about to be built to his own specification in Devon. Yet despite these other activities, Montgomery regarded himself first and foremost as a composer of concert music. He had been working for this time when he would have sufficient money to be able to concentrate on composing such music. Raising the Wind was almost Montgomery’s last film score. He had often found it difficult to complete music on time, and in 1962 he reduced the recording schedule for Carry On Cruising to chaos when he failed to produce most of the score. It was the last straw for Peter Rogers and Gerald Thomas. They never employed him again. Montgomery had been a heavy social drinker for some time, and this rejection (with the subsequent loss of its ample remuneration) pushed him into alcoholism. The effect on his constitution, which had never been robust, was catastrophic. In the remaining seventeen years of his life, Bruce Montgomery’s musical output was negligible. He completed only one more novel. He had made a musical and literary name for himself by the age of 30, well before his Oxford friends and contemporaries Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin made their names as men of letters. Yet he seems to have seen what was coming. In June 1956, not long after Lucky Jim had propelled Amis to fame and The Less Deceived had established Larkin, Montgomery wrote to the latter:

What with Kingsley becoming a prominent literary figure, and now you, I feel like an ageing hare overtaken by squads of implacable tortoises. There’s still time, I suppose, for me to switch to some pursuit more highly esteemed than either film music or detective fiction – but should I be any good at it if I did? And what would become of the big cheques I so much enjoy receiving?

The doubts that Montgomery habitually harboured about his work are evident. The story of his life is that of a gifted man to whom success came early and easily in different fields. The question his life poses is why the ‘ageing hare’ aged quite so abruptly.

4 Trillion Year Spree, Aldiss, p. 628 5 rBM to Larkin, 19 June 1956 References Aldiss, Brian (with David Wingrove), Trillion Year Spree (Paladin, London 1988) Amis, Kingsley , Memoirs (Hutchinson, London 1991) Blake, Lord and Nicholls, C.S. (eds), The Dictionary of National Biography, 1971–1980 (Oxford university press, oxford 1986) Bush, Geoffrey , An Unsentimental Education (Thames, London 1990) Carr, John Dickson , The Crooked Hinge (Xanadu, London 1989) Critchley, Julian , ‘Fen’s Creator’, Illustrated London News, Christmas 1979, p. 47 Drabble, Margaret (ed.), The Oxford Companion to English Literature (Oxford University Press, Oxford 1985) Greene, Douglas , John Dickson Carr, The Man Who Explained Miracles (Otto Penzler Books, New York 1995) Herbert, Rosemary (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing (Oxford University press, New York 1999) Jacobs, Eric , Kingsley Amis, A Biography (Hodder and Stoughton, London 1995) Larkin, Philip , Foreword to Fen Country by Edmund Crispin (Gollancz, London 1979) Larkin, Philip , Introduction to Jill (Faber and Faber, London 1975) Larkin, Philip , Required Writing, Miscellaneous Pieces 1955–1982 (Faber and Faber, London 1983) Leader, Zachary (ed.), The Letters of Kingsley Amis (Harper Collins, London 2000) [LKA] Meredith, Anthony and Harris, Paul , Malcolm Arnold: Rogue Genius (Thames/ Elkin, Norwich 2004) Montgomery, Bruce , ‘Edmund Crispin’, The Armchair Detective, Vol. 12 No. 2, Spring 1979, pp. 183–185 Morrison, Blake , The Movement (Oxford University Press, Oxford 1980) Motion, Andrew , Philip Larkin (Faber and Faber, London 1993) Ross, Alan , Blindfold Games (Collins Harvill, London 1986) Thwaite, Anthony (ed.), Selected Letters of Philip Larkin (Faber and Faber, London 1992) [SLPL] 304 Vaughan Williams, Ursula , RVW: A Biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams (Oxford University Press, Oxford 1988) Wakeman, John , World Authors, 1950–1970 (The H.W. Wilson Company, New York 1975)