Warmed up by a visit to Claremont (see reference 2), where, it being Esher, we were greeted, as it were, at the gate by a middle aged lady dressed both very expensively and rather young for her age. One suspected a lady with both a husband with plenty of money and plenty of ladies to lunch with.
Took a cold sausage roll, deciding too late that warmed up might have been better. But the gardens were as fine as ever. A fine, relaxing sort of place, warming up us nicely for an inspection of St. George's back in the village, having been tipped off that it might be just the place for a birthday reading from Proust.
The church was locked but a notice on the door advised that the key was to be had from Savills nearby, where a very smooth young lady explained that a group of old ladies already had it. Back to the Bear (a well known establishment operated by Youngs) where the ladies (on a supervised day out from their care home) turned out to be taking tea and from whom I was able to recover, despite their concern that the keys had been given over into their custody, what turned out to be two keys, one regular and one impressively and ecclesiastically large, so gaining entry to this old, interesting and very lightly used church. It was indeed very suitable, being quite small, but with the nave overlooked by a handsome three decker pulpit to read from, the first time we have seen such a thing since 2011. See Fairfield at reference 4. I tested the pulpit with a short passage from Genesis, from the bible provided, rather to my surprise a modern rather than the St. James version. 1961 from O&C, the people that do A-levels. But at least it had not been translated into children's language for convenience of comprehension. Accoustics fine. For the gentry, there was a handsome box built into the wall opposite the pulpit and the for children and ladies there was a gallery. A room adjoining convenient for the setting up of a barrel, which I felt sure the landlord of the Bear could be induced to provide for the occasion. A room which also contained a piano which could be used to add a bit of tone to the occasion, a piano from a company called Samick, of which I had not previously heard, but which I now know has grown to one of the largest manufacturers of musical instruments in the world, from a modest start in Korea in 1958. The Korean start not having been loudly advertised in the main, Nashville flavoured web site at reference 5, but I tracked it down at reference 6. A suggestion that a good part of their income comes from guitars but who have, relatively recently, moved into high end pianos, partly by organic growth and partly by acquisition.
Back to Savills to return the key to a very smooth young man (you get plenty of estate agent for your money in Esher) who thought it very likely that I would be able to hire the church for a select evening function and suggested I get in touch with the conservation trust who looked after the place. A few advertisements spread around Esher to make up the audience and off we would be able to go. The thought being that there would be enough people in a place like Esher who would be up for a spot of culture with refreshments on the house to make things go with a bang.
Next step in the project would be to make a selection from Proust. We had already decided that we should use the Thomas Seltzer version of the Scott Moncrieff version: in the first place, it would seem a touch pretentious to do the thing in French and in the second, the chosen version is better than the French original. Amplified into English, as it were, by the tremendous empathy that Scott Moncrieff was able to bring to the business.
Current thought is to take something from very near the beginning of the great work. Perhaps starting with the famous passage that starts: 'It seemed quite natural, therefore, to send to him [editor's note: Swann] whenever we wanted a recipe for some special sauce or for a pineapple salad...'. Such a wonderful description of aunt-life in the provinces, a description which takes me right back to my own aunts in darkest Huntingdonshire, now Cambridgeshire.
Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/hcp-1.html. Two full months ago.
Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/claremont.html. Even longer ago, by a few weeks, which fits with Hampton Court having been something of a favourite.
Reference 3: http://www.stgeorgesesher.org/Home.htm.
Reference 4: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=fairfield.
Reference 5: http://www.smcmusic.com/.
Reference 6: http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/samick-musical-instruments-co-ltd-history/.
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