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Ernest Hecht with Arsenal silverwear |
Hecht to kick off pianist tribute
HE’S a force of nature, though you had better not tell him that.
But if you do, mention Arsenal and all will be smiles.
I wasn’t surprised when I rang Ernest Hecht yesterday (Wednesday) to ask him about the latest list put out by his Bloomsbury publishing firm Souvenir Press, and then was told he had just held a big bash at the Cochrane Theatre to celebrate his 80th birthday.
“Why didn’t you invite me?” I complained.
“Your line’s always engaged and I couldn’t get hold of you.”
Maybe, I thought to myself, maybe.
But I can never get annoyed with Hecht. I had no need to ask him whether he had been to the Emirates Stadium on Tuesday for the Olympiacos game. “What do you mean?” he asked. “The referee doesn’t start until I sit down!”
Naturally, Hecht has a special box at the stadium, and has been an Arsenal fan from his teenage days.
Next Tuesday he’ll be dropping into the National Gallery for a special day of events in honour of the great pianist Myra Hess – an annual affair laid on by the Ernest Hecht Charitable Foundation.
Hecht came to London in the late 1930s as a refugee from the Nazis, and at first lived above a cinema in Tottenham Court Road. Later, he was evacuated to Wiltshire with hundreds of other children from the area.
Though he would have been too young to go to the wartime concerts by Myra Hess at the National Gallery, they are so much a part of the folk memory of Londoners that of course he knew all about them.
Hess, who lived in Hampstead, added to her fame as a pianist when she performed at special morale-boosting concerts at the National Gallery. At some concerts she would continue playing the great masters to packed audiences while the bombs were falling and the building shook.
Lord Kenneth Clark, the great art historian, described how “The young and old, smart and shabby, Tommies in uniforms with their tin hats, old ladies with ear trumpets, office boys and busy public men” all flocked to the concerts.
The Myra Hess Day on Tuesday will feature the actress Patricia Routledge and concert pianist Piers Lane.
Routledge will perform a monologue of Hess’s own words. Music will include works by Scarlatti, Beethoven, Schubert and Chopin, and the theme by Bach made famous by Myra Hess: “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.”
In honour of Myra Hess’s passions for training young musicians, the Yehudi Menuhin School Orchestra will perform a lunchtime concert of works by Purcell, Mozart and Howard Ferguson – Myra Hess’s adviser during the war.William stays Queen Mum on book cash
THE moment I met William Shawcross I knew he was one of those men who are always in a hurry – driven by a sense of destiny, I suppose.
He was on the staff of the Sunday Times at the time and had come to my home to discuss a story I was working on.
Later, William, son of Lord Hartley Shawcross, a one-time big gun in the postwar Labour government, became an established author, wrote an acclaimed book on the Vietnam war, and has just been touring the TV and radio studios to talk about his latest book, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother – the official biography of the Queen Mother.
I also met him a few years ago at a party at the Vietnamese Thanh Binh restaurant in Chalk Farm Road where he and the former Labour leader Michael Foot were guests.
William had struck up a friendship with the owner Thanh Doan much earlier after meeting her at a Camden Town supermarket where she was working at a cash till. He had heard her speaking Vietnamese to another woman and introduced himself because he wanted help with the language.
When I rang him this week about the Thanh Binh he was pleased to hear it was still going strong. I couldn’t resist asking him about rumours that he had been paid a £1million advance for the Queen Mother book. “Oh, no!” he laughed. “I wish it was true!”
But he didn’t want to tell me what he had got paid.No sweat! Hetty’s hike ahead of 104th
HOW many centenarians do you know that go on three-mile hikes for fun?
Hetty Bower, who turns 104 on Saturday, is the only one I can think of – and she makes it look easy.
Last week, the indomitable Ms Bower, who lives at the Mary Fielding Home in Highgate, paced across Wheathampstead in Hertfordshire to raise money for disadvantaged children in Zambia.
The effort has already raised more than £1,000 for the cause.
Margie Dolan, Ms Bower’s 71-year-old daughter, joked this week that Hetty had been “in training” for weeks, walking in the Long Mynd in Shropshire and staying in youth hostels along the way.
“We thought it might be a struggle for her but it wasn’t at all. She is just the most astonishing and wonderful woman,” said Ms Dolan.
It’s no one-off either: Hetty still walks almost every day, either to Kenwood or Lauderdale House depending on her preference. But she has more relaxed plans for her 104th bash tomorrow (Friday) – a tea party, then a concert the following day.
Presumably, she doesn’t want to exhaust her guests! Sarah’s change of tone?
LOYAL Labour council candidate Sarah Hayward kindly helped my colleague score an interview with Tony Blair when he was Prime Minister in 2006.
She was so helpful I assumed she must have been as loyal to Blair as she was to her beloved Arsenal. But surely Blair would have frowned at the letter in the Guardian on Tuesday she put her name to alongside Jon Cruddas, Ken Livingstone and others. It warned of the mistakes Blair’s New Labour had made ignoring the votes of delegates at previous conferences. |
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