Jim Mason
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A Memory of Malcolm ArnoldThe sad news of the death of my old friend Sir Malcolm Arnold has reminded me of the first time that I met him.
In the summer of 1958 a series of residential weekend courses was organised at Exeter College, Oxford University. One of these was for musicians from the services, to study composition, I attended with others including Paul Neville, Roy Nash, Don Guthrie and Peter Sumner, we were all Bandmasters at the time. There were also a number of very, very academic and studious people from the army and a group of ladies from the Band of the WRAC. There were other courses in other subjects at the same time, including a group of young ladies from Sweden ( I have no idea what they were studying, but they did wonders for the social life!)
Our professor was Malcolm Arnold and he made it clear that he thought the whole set-up was a huge joke and he was determined to enjoy the weekend in every way possible. We thought that the course was a great success, and found it of great benefit - in all sorts of ways!
On the last night of the course, Malcolm suggested that we should produce a concert for the other courses in the college, and the organisation of this was was put in the very capable hands of Don Guthrie. To start the evening, he organised an open air bar on the grass in the quadrangle where the concert was to be held ( We found out later that this was strictly against the college rules, students were not even allowed to walk on the grass!)
For the content of the performance some of the army chaps played a variety of very dull and obscure music, and this was followed by the WRAC ladies singing a selection of madrigals (rather badly) conducted by their Director of Music. At this stage Malcolm was almost reduced to tears of frustration and was rolling on the grass with a handkerchief stuffed in his mouth to hide his hysterical laughter. The evening then took a different turn, as our contribution was a combined rendering of Don Guthrie's "The Troopship" with vocals by the Swedish ladies , in a language which I can only describe as "Swenglish". The concert concluded with Malcolm giving a 30 minute performance, playing trumpet with his right hand and accompanying himself on piano with the left, and all interspersed with a few very risque lyrics.
Malcolm stated afterwards "Thank God for the Marines, otherwise I would have died of boredom" I remained in touch with Malcolm and worked with him a couple of times in later years. He never forgot Oxford! (Or the Marines!)
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