Am I the only one to have done something different recently? It started with an out of the blue request.
“Can we go to the proms?” asked my grown up eldest son the other evening. “We can get in for a fiver if we get tickets on the day.”
The proms! I hadn’t been since I was nineteen. A boyfriend took me and we must have gone on the cheap, because I can clearly remember sitting on the floor with lots of rather sweaty people and feeling rather bored.
It wasn’t a great recommendation. But my two oldest children and I were all in London for the night – a rare occasion. And we wanted to make the most of it.
“Go on, Mum,” urged my twenty-something daughter. “We’ve never been.”
My conscience was pricked! It was surely my parental duty to take my offspring to one of Britain’s traditions. However, there was no way I was sitting on the floor again, even if it did only cost a fiver.
Instead, we managed to get some quite decent stall seats for just over £15 each (we nearly bought them from a tout but panicked in case they weren’t legal). We also brought a picnic to munch by the Albert Memorial where I proceeded to loosely fill my lot in on Victorian history, despite yawns on their part.
Then came our first argument. “It doesn’t start until seven thirty,” declared my children, who’ve always assumed they know more than me.
“I thought it was seven,” I protested.
As usual, I was over-ruled and we continued to picnic until the park began to empty. “Maybe you’re right,” conceded my son.
There then proceeded a mad panic dash to the cloakroom to deposit suitcases, but somehow we made it to our seats just as the conductor took up his baton.
“I told you so,” I hissed but my daughter shot me a Mum-Be-Quiet look.
For the next half an hour, the three of us sat there, in stony post-quarrel silence, listening to music that we wouldn’t normally listen to. I have to be honest and say that not all of it was to my taste. My children clearly felt the same, judging from the eye-ball rolling and furtive texting to friends.
But then something miraculous happened. Two grand pianos were wheeled on stage and a pair of glamorous female pianists proceeded to play them in a way I had never seen before. It was almost like a courtship between the hands and keyboard: as a novice piano player myself, I was utterly fascinated.
Then I began to read the programme. Entranced, I began to put the composers’ stories together with the scores; the sombre tones from the war years, followed by the jubilant celebration of peace, suddenly all made sense.
So too did the conductor. Never before, had I observed one at such close quarters. It was like watching a dancer ruling the waves as he dipped and ducked and cajoled and soothed and encouraged his orchestra.
As for the players themselves, we were all riveted by their synchronistic skills. “Aren’t they amazing?” breathed my son whose favourite band is Kings of Leon.
Nor were we the only ones who were there for the first time. Next to us was a fifteen year old boy and his grandparents. “It’s much cooler than I thought it would be,” he confided during the interval.
“That was great, Mum,” said my oldest two as we made our way back on the train. “Can we come again, next year?”
Then the phone rang. It was from the youngest who, at the age of twenty two, is playing at the Reading Festival with his band “Great Cynics”. (Saturday August 24th at midday, since you ask).
“Sorry I couldn’t make it,” he said. “By the way, what are the proms, anyway?”
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