Today was final training at Snape before we start ushering for real next week. We're seasoned invigilators of the art exhibitions now, but this is our first proper gig, the reason we signed up and were vetted as volunteers. They're a lovely crowd, front of housers Deborah and Beverley, and house manager Jeremy, and though Snape concerts are run mainly around music lovers who would sweep the floors for the privilege of being part of the scene, unpaid natch, they are awfully grateful to us. Honestly, it's the other way around guys! I was feeling very relaxed until they started to tell us what could go wrong though rarely did, and I felt a minor fit of the vapours coming on. A heart attack in the middle of a slow movement, the sufferer sitting in the very middle seat in the middle section. Whatever happens, though they only touched on terrorist attacks and didn't tell us how that would pan out, the show must go on. I loved that: It's showtime! So everyone has to be slid out of their seats so that the victim can be reached and treated. Aaargh! People coming back late after the interval: sorry, you can't come in! Double-booked seats! People sitting in the wrong seat! People coughing! Suddenly it didn't seem the breeze it had. But these things almost never happen, they assured us again. Really?
| View from the concert hall |
They needed someone urgently for an afternoon concert on Saturday, and as everyone else muttered and flipped diary pages, I volunteered. You'll be first, my friend Sammy said. Let me know as soon as it's over how it went. But then I too looked at my diary and saw Die Meistersinger Live From The Met. Sammy was in like a shot. She'll get her red usher's ribbon, but I'll have mine soon too. Such a pleasure to be part of Snape. Not only a world class concert venue but the most beautiful, atmospheric place I can imagine. Having an interval drink on the terrace on a summer's evening when the tide is in and the estuary full, the sun bouncing off the golden reeds, you'd believe you were in heaven.
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