Weird Connections…

It’s very interesting the way the mind works.

This morning in the car on the way home from dropping Crisp at school I had the World Service on and they had a little piece commemorating the fact that today was the anniversary of the death of TE Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”) in 1935. My mind went to the obvious- that I should watch the wonderful movie this weekend (I’m pretty sure Crisp hasn’t seen it- and he should).

But then I couldn’t help hearing “Tee Hee Lawrence… because of his high-pitched, girlish giggle” from Alan Bennett’s wonderful 1968 play Forty Years On that I used to listen to (and not really understand, but enjoyed immensely) as a kid when I delved into my Dad’s enormous record collection of London & Broadway cast recordings. It was an odd thing to be in there, it didn’t really belong as it isn’t a musical, but I loved the voices (of Gielgud and Bennett himself amongst others) and the atmosphere of English public school life (for some reason I think I always had a subconscious desire to go to a public school, probably mostly because of this album and Lindsay Anderson’s bizarre 1968 movie If…). Most of the satire went over my head, but I enjoyed a lot of the jokes even if I didn’t fully understand them.

So, after a quick search found that Google Play Music did not, unfortunately, include that album in it’s archives I did find a complete recording of the play that the BBC did in 1973 on YouTube. A quick detour to one of those YouTube converter websites and I had the audio on my hard drive as an mp3, and I have now uploaded it to my Google Play Music library, so later on when I walk the dog I can listen to it and see what memories it brings back (and if I still find it as funny and slightly mysterious as I did as a youngster), and I present it here for your enjoyment if you have an hour or so to spare 🙂

What an amazing age we live in! Now I just have to go and see if If… is available on Netflix…