Notebook
I have never believed in ghosts — not really — but T am not sure that I would have been brave enough (even if I were rich enough) to buy Nether Lypiatt Manor in Gloucestershire. Anyway, it has just been purchased, for £300,000, by Prince and Princess Michael of Kent. To the locals it is known as 'the haunted house' and has had several owners in the past 20 years, some of whom have less than happy memories of the time they spent there. But no doubt Princess Michael (nee Reibnitz), who is apparently called the Valkyr by other members of the Royal Family, is well able to deal with any myths which may attach to the place. The story goes that in the early 18th century, not long after it was built, a judge who lived at Nether Lypiatt (I think his name was Cox) sentenced a blacksmith to death for some petty theft. He then told the man that his sentence might be commuted if he made a pair of wrought-iron gates to stand in front of the house. When they were finished the judge claimed that one of the scroll forms faced the wrong way, and so he hanged the unfortunate man from his own gates. The blacksmith's ghost is said still to haunt the house of his executioner. Sometimes the gates are, unaccountably, found open at night. However, there is a predictable lack of hard evidence for these tales. Nether Lypiatt is a Grade I listed building — its gates get a specific mention — but there is some doubt whether they are the original ones. And one recent owner of the house had his own way of pre-empting, or exorcising, the blacksmith's spirit. When a party of ghosthunters came one night (on the anniversary of the hanging) to keep vigil outside the gates, they were thrilled to observe, after a that the gates were slowly opening. This. , however, was achieved by means of a fishing line attached to one gate and pulled from a window of the house.
In these times of recession, with the best seats at Covent Garden costing up to £30. One might think it would be easy enough to get tickets for the opera. But it is not, and in the case of Un ballo in maschera, which opens this week, I have found it impossible.
i MY postal application for tickets, sent n advance of the relevant date last November, was returned. A ticket agent telephoned the booking office on the day it opened, but without success. He said I had no chance of getting a ticket now because Covent Garden had withdrawn all the allocations which used to be made to agencies. I was particularly keen to see this pro.duction — to be sung by Luciano Pavarotti , Montserrat Caballe and Renato Bruson (my favourite baritone), and conducted by Haitink — but minor attempts at stringpulling have also been unsuccessful. I shall even be denied — and so will you — the pleasure of reading a review of the production by our distinguished opera critic. The Spectator has not been invited. Press tickets are issued by Covent Garden on an ever more curiously selective basis. The weeklies are more often than not excluded: again, the Spectator was not invited to The Ring last autumn, while some daily papers were given tickets to both cycles. This is all very distressing, not to say wrong. For myself, I suppose I shall have to become a Friend of Covent Garden, though it hardly reflects my present feelings towards the Opera House. Under the circumstances I am not heartbroken to learn that Un hallo in maschera will not now be quite. what it should have been. Pavarotti will miss the first night, and perhaps others; and Bruson is unable to sing in several of the eight performances.
One of the untrumpeted recommendations of the Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure is for local prosecution departments which would function independently of the police. This would be a step towards the excellent Scottish institution of the Procurator-Fiscal. Under that system and the similar systems used in most European countries, the public prosecutor is responsible not only for the conduct of all criminal cases but also for the initial decision to prosecute. The Royal Commission would still leave that decision to the police, but it would give to public prosecutors the power to alter or drop charges. This is all-important: it would lead to a greater consistency in the bringing of prosecutions, and it is no surprise to learn that the Scottish system produces a substantially higher rate of convictions. Since the Royal Commission's proposals have not blindly followed the Scottish practice, perhaps they have a better chance of being implemented. A previous Royal Commission, on the police, made similar recommendations in 1962. How many more commissions will be needed before the Home Secretary responds? There was a time when I liked watching football (and once even enjoyed a modest success playing left half at school), but the game has no appeal for me any more. It is not so much the antics of the players and the 'fans' which has killed my enthusiasm; rather is it the behaviour today of some football managers who have sought, with the help of the popular press, to give to their humdrum jobs the spurious glamour of film stardom. It would be hard to argue that, over the years, Mr Malcolm Allison or Mr Tommy Docherty had greatly enhanced the reputation of football. (Mr Ron Greenwood, on the other hand, has just received a well-deserved CBE; and Mr Lawrie McMenemy is to be congratulated for, among many things. advertising nonalcoholic beer on television.) Mr Docherty is at present charged with perjury, and his trial was due to take place in March. But a judge has now agreed to it being postponed to allow Mr Docherty to take a job in Australia with the Sydney Olympia Football Club. Why should he be indulged in this way? Apparently Mr Docherty cannot afford to pay his legal fees, but may be able to do so by the end of the Australian football season. It is absurd that he should be permitted to defer his trial on a serious criminal charge (rather than apply for legal aid) merely because he has squandered his previous earnings. However, I am told that, in the fine old Scottish tradition, he is now being rather more careful in financial matters. After Mr Docherty had paid a visit recently to a 'health farm' the staff were disappointed to find that he had left only a one-pound tip in a chest of drawers in his room. On the following day the manager of this institution received a telephone call: Mr Docherty thought he had left a pound note in a chest of drawers, and could it be sent on to him at once.
We are being duped by the Russians. Nothing new in that, you may think, but this is clearly part of an insidious campaign. It concerns matches, safety matches of the sort sold in boxes at four pence each. Most of them, of whatever name, carry the information on the label that each box contain i on average 50, or sometimes ,48, matches. But I have recently come across two boxes — one 'USSR made', the other 'Czechoslovak made' — which are sold for the same price yet state on their labels, 'Average 30 Matches'. In a random survey which I have just conducted, a box of Viking (made by The Cornish Match Co.), which I bought for three pence, contained 53 matches (stated average 50). A 4p box of Landmark, 'Matches for Value' (made in Russia), contained 25 matches (stated average 30). Of course it is true that an average is an average, and that retailers' prices vary, but we are still left with about twice as many Cornish matches as Communist matches for an equivalent cost. I leave it to Which? magazine to continue the research.
Simon Courtauld
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