PRIZE & PROMS

Yesterday was the Haddenham Horticultural Show. It includes Crafts and those are the sections I was interested in. I took the long hexie quilt plus three photos, one of Sarah's, to enter into the various sections of the Photographic competition. Nothing doing. There were some excellent Portraits but - how do/does the judge pick out what's best?The photo below shows the quilts
which were entered and we were each awarded a prize. The one on the left was 3rd, the centre runner was 2nd and I was lucky enough to be awarded first prize for the long hexie quilt. My prize is a grand 60p - don't spend it all at once! Awful colour walls.....Friends from the art group did well - one diffident friend, who likes pencil drawing, gained 3 prizes and was really pleased, not expecting anything. Another entered 13 paintings in different mediums and sections and won in 9 of them...not bad for a little group.
In the evening I actually watched TV - on a Saturday evening!!! Unheard of, with normal appalling TV on a Saturday. I had listened to part of the Proms on Radio 3 some days before then saw it was part of Saturday evening's listing. As it was Hollywood Musicals music from the 1930s to late 60s that was right up my street. So with Ashley jumping on, off, on my lap I settled down to a couple of hours of reminiscencing. Photos taken from the TV are never really satisfactory - but just a couple. The 1930s section used several Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers b/w films for music and songs - I hadn't heard of the singers but they received a good reception! The days of escapist films to 'take you out of yourself' with dapper Fred and glamorous Ginger, twirling across the screen. No home entertainment, the weekly visit to the cinema was a window on another world. There didn't seem to be much from the 40s. No Big Band music, no Glen Miller, Harry James etc. That was a shame. Those 40s films are really 'my time' with people like Carmen Miranda and her headgear of piles of fruit, Rita Hayworth, Betty Grable (of the million-dollar legs), Ann Sheridan and Ann Miller tap dancing, though James Cagney strutting about singing 'Yankee Doodle Dandy', didn't appeal to me at about 11. America really got into its stride with films for the War Effort after 1941. Mum and I went to the local cinema, the Regal, once a week, sitting under the mock rafters and trellis, intended to make you feel you were outside on a lush verandah...Then a notice would be put on the screen that the air raid warning had gone - but no one moved, we all stayed put in our seats. At least I could remember the majority of the words of the songs in this first half of the show.
This section went from the 1950s to 60s. Well, I married in 1953, another lifetime, and living in the country where there were no buses at all. Then moved to somewhere closer to civilisation though buses stopped running early in the evening so it still meant a 2 mile walk home - and me, being a townie then, was used to buses every 10 minutes... So, cinema visits became, almost, things of the past. No cars for the likes of us. I do remember Show Boat, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (based on the rape of the sabine women and the word I want escapes me) Calamity Jane with Doris Day flashing her smile at us - and who remembers Mario Lanza? So most of the music in this half was familiar but not so much in a film context. As you'll realise I didn't make notes so this is from memory! Finally to bed about 11.30 to have a read before Lights Out. 'Auschwitz, The Nazis and the Final Solution'. Gentle bedtime reading.