Roundabout
Cement
the true symphony of modern titan.' His black hair hung shaggily down over his Collar; the small eyes looked sad with the slightly furtive air of an unfrocked priest. The Wigmore Hall audience listened respectfully, disbelief sus- pended by a decorous thread of good manners. There were little men blinking from the vaults of Broadcasting House, old girls with straggling locks, frowning connoisseurs, culture-vultures keeping up with the Spike Joneses, music critics sniffing the air for the correct line, French students vaguely hoping for a row.
'Composers of Musique Concrete have found the traditional sounds long since inadequate to their purposes,' the lecturer went on, giving the traditional English vowel sounds the full elec- tronic treatment. 'Their world is the one that is around us, their rhythm the rhythm of life, their frequencies those of the street, the factory, nature, birds. Some people are never sensible to this music because they wait for the old rules. There are rules—the rules of everyday.'
He looked across conspiratorially at the plat- form where a proudly aloof young man with aquiline features and wild eyes sat quivering at the Controls, white hands on knees, watching tensely like a figure in a Cocteau film. The tapes began to revolve. The pieces had names like 'Nuclea,' 13iamorphoses,"Orgues de Cristal,"Deserts' tell you sincerely that it moved me to tears. It was Played in 1954 at the Theatre des Champs Elysees to a jeering audience').
Electronic instruments imitated the howling of dogs. There was a sound like a giant roulette board, factory hooters, weird interstellar echoings, dentists' drills, burps. Some of it reminded one of a sound track to The Dam Busters or a herd of bulls loose in_Selfridges Bargain Basement. Some uf it was exhilarating, a supercharged Good Show. 'Etude aux sons tendus' by Luc Ferrari sent Violent onslaughts of energy into the hall which erupted here and there in muffled applause.
The last extract was from `De la Nature par Lucrece et Andre Almuro.' Ever since the age of fifteen, when my whole outlook was changed by the De Rerun? Natura, I have longed to transk to Lucretius into sound.' The machinery started to develop engine trouble. There was a lot of crack- ' ,Mg, explosions, distortion. It wis hard to tell which of the noises were meant. The Cocteau ,, 1°Linfl man shot a swift glance of anguish at his master, then glared at the amplifiers with finely chiselled scorn. 'The traditional louds and softs of the orchestra are not very precise,' said M. Ahnuro reproachfully. Ten years ago the new tlInsie was born. What of recent trends? 'The i , 'Inage seems to have gained supremacy in Musique oncrete, both as means of departure and end- W,,
Mixers
ASSORTED MUMS, wearing sparkling Woolworth ear-rings, cotton print dresses and shapeless cardi- gans, trailed along the platform. Beside them, carrying bulging suitcases, plodded cheerful dads in brown or light-blue suits, pullovers and open- necked shirts. And all round swarmed the chil- dren. Teenage girls in smart mass-produced clothes teetered past in pairs. Young men, less spruce and often alone, edged forward more self- consciously to the barrier. The Butlin Special had arrived at Clacton with the autumn holiday- makers.
Breezy young men in red coats sprang forward and relieved the travellers of their luggage. (What's that, luv? Yes, it'll be at the Camp before you get there. No, dearie, no waiting at all. Special Camp. buses just round the corner there.') A few minutes later the buses disgorged their load before the Camp Reception Hall. Inside, the bronze bust of Mr. W. E. Butlin, self-satisfied and paternal, watched them arrive. The woman's voice on the loudspeaker, soft and comforting, coaxed the new arrivals to join the queue at the counter, to collect their chalet keys.
As I explained my visit, the girl at the desk relaxed into a more natural smile and her accent modulated up half a class. 'I thought you didn't look the Happy Camper type,' she said. The Happy Camper type is consciously out-for-a- good-time. He is compliant and malleable, un- enterprising, ordinary-and-proud-of-it. He comes from the no-nonsense prosperous sections of the lower-middle and working Class. (Camp holidays are not cheap. They cost up to £15 a week.) The soothing announcements on Radio Butlin honeyed on. A meal, the Campers were told, could be obtained any time up to 3 p.m. It was suggested that after luggage had been left in the chalet they might make their way to the dining rooms. The food is good—less plain than one might expect, remembering that over half a million peop!e pass through the Camps in five months. The sausages consumed in a year, we were to!d, would stretch from Butlin's Head- quarters in Oxford Street, London, to their Metropole Hotel at Blackpool.
The older teenagers trailed round the Camp, warily summing up the 'talent' among the oppo- site sex. By supper time the Happy Campers were divided into 'houses,' which took their names from the Royal Dukedoms—Connaught and Edinburgh, Gloucester and Kent, Windsor and York. Competitions held in the Camp during the week, from bowls to beauty contests, and from rock 'n' roll to knobbly knees, carry points in the inter-house cup. Through an appeal to house loyalty, Campers are persuaded to participate in activities. Halfway through the' first course of supper the loudspeaker crackled. 'Hallo, folks, said a cheery man's voice. 'This is just to remind you that we belong to that wonderful, stupendous house of . . ."YORK,' they thundered. They were learning fast. The holiday has the effect, probably intentional, of turning all Campers into hearty extroverts, at least in the Holiday Camp situation. The aim is to portray the Camp as a cosy paradise, a comfortable, chummy haven, isolated from the harsher reality outside. The passes issued to those leaving the Camp explain that their purpose is to prevent outsiders from entering 'and enjoying the facilities for which you have paid.'
'Many of you,' declares the brochure of wel- come, 'will be old Butlinites . . . who would never think of trying anywhere else for your annual holiday away from it all.' The spontaneous loyalty, the immediate response, Holiday- Butlin's, is what the organisers seek. To achieve it they bring out every weapon in the propaganda armoury. There is big brother Billy Butlin, 'loved by all his campers, respected as the GuV'ner 'by his staff.' There are the constant announcements on the Tannoy—boisterous and hearty, remind- ing the Camper that he is having a good time, or gentle and soothing, persuading him that every- thing is in order for his comfort. There are Camp badges and rosettes, Butlin slogans and chants, rallying banners, 'he bright uniforms of the staff, the shields, the cups and the trophies.
Holiday Camps have often been criticised for the regimentation which they are said to impose.
This is a false impression. On a typical Sunday evening there were three dances, a cabaret and a variety show in progress. The indoor swimming pool, the fish-and-chip shop, the pub and the com- munity hymn-singing were all crowded.
On the third day, as we detached the Happy Camper badges from our lapels and made our way towards the check-out point, the houses were massing for Keep Fit. Behind their red-coated banner-bearer, like the Chosen People crossing the Red Sea, the house of York straggled from the recently flooded end of the sports ground. On the altar at the top of the field a high-bosomed, Teutonic-looking, vestal virgin was demonstrating chest exercises. The flow from the loudspeakers was angled at those who stood at the edge, uncer- tain or ready to watch with silent amusement, and, slowly, they began to trickle on, to merge with the rows of swinging legs conducted by the white goddess. Butlin Campers are not regimented; they are manipulated.
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