Post by postscript on Dec 15, 2005 8:27:55 GMT
Part 4
No, it’s not suddenly coming ‘thick and fast’, it is just that I have not been able to post more regularly.
What that disappointment of not meeting Hayley backstage at The London Palladium drove, however, was a desire to know as much as I could about her. In fact, part of that search involved questioning myself as to the motives that drove a 62-year-old bachelor to be so besotted over a (then) seventeen-year-old girl, chasing her round the country as I was later to do, although I didn’t know it then.
I have the whole collection of Charlotte Church’s CDs which I enjoy, excepting her latest. I bought each CD as it became available, even if I hadn’t heard a track from it beforehand. I have heard tracks from her latest CD and I think I understand what she is trying to do but it is not a CD for me, at the moment. I see that CD as a ‘growing-up’ statement, or a cathartic or chrysalis stage, through which she is working out her own grown-up understanding of herself and her relationship with the world, as a now mature and successful woman. Dolled up to hit town she is very beautiful and desirable.
One can only note that many, but by no means all, young people have difficult stages at different periods unique to their circumstances in the change-over from youth to adulthood. It is not just them having to adapt. It is often the adults around teenagers who have the difficulty in acknowledging that change is taking place. Often it is the adults that feel insecure and unable to change their attitudes, or accept the reality of a growing-up young person and the need for the adults themselves to readjust their attitudes towards teenagers accordingly. This may apply to Charlotte, it certainly does not apply to Hayley’ which I think is an important difference between them.
There is also an appallingly negative attitude towards young people, possibly engendered by a negatively-orientated national press (UK) that seems to revel in pulling anyone down rather than reaching up and applauding achievements. I will come back to this later, when I reveal my own rebellious responses that did not emerge until mid-life—and ‘no’, I was not having a mid-life crisis!
Child stars have always had great difficulty in making the transition for, unlike other teenagers, child stars need to make statements to their public as well. I remember the ruckus that hit the headlines when Hayley Mills (the heartthrob of my teenage years) made that transition in ‘The Family Way’, showing us for a few seconds her in a bathing scene.
Later, we learned she had developed a relationship with one of the film’s directors/producers, although old enough to be her father. As her real father, Sir John Mills’ remarked at the time, ‘well, at least he’s as rich as she is so it’s not her money he’s after’! The problem is that young people growing up in the full glare of publicity tend to have an odd mixture of two options: a maturity of intellect, whilst retaining a childlike inexperience of life; or a childlike intellect and mature, earthy self-confidence.
Hayley’s reticence when asked for her views on Charlotte, I suspect are not so much to do with diplomacy (although a relevant consideration), as the understanding that comes naturally to a fellow teenager. Hayley may not have the same type of problems we perceive of the average teenager but she has friends who may have or who know friends who do have. However, in ‘The World at Her Feet’ Hayley did observe that she found Charlotte impenetrable. She felt Charlotte maintained a mask over her true self. ’You never know what she is thinking’, Hayley said after meeting Charlotte in an hotel in Cardiff..
My fascination for Hayley is that she is so extraordinarily normal and well-balanced in an arena in which normality is not the expected norm. Not only that, but the family environment from which she derives is equally level-headed and down-to-earth, while displaying a sense of fun and enjoyment of life that dismisses any danger of taking any of themselves too seriously.
Dame Kiri Te Kanawa described Hayley as a ‘superb ambassador for New Zealand’. In that, she may have made an understatement. I regard Hayley as a superb ambassador for youth as a collective whole. In that level-headed normality she is simply doing what the great majority of young people are doing, finding themselves, examining the talents they have and developing them as best they may, so they can make a purposeful contribution to life.
In Hayley’s case, unlike most teenagers who have the quiet privacy of friends and local scene, Hayley has to do her experimenting in the full glare of potential world attention. Yet she still dares—may she never lose that willingness to dare, for the moment she does, she will have stepped upon a pedestal from which fear of falling inhibits experimentation. That down-to-earth normality, ‘I just want to see how far I can go’, should cushion any potential pitfall, for in that normality lies her strength to dare, which means squaring-up to the risk of making a mistake. She is human and continually self-questioning as to whether she is ‘good enough’, needing the assurance of those whom she trusts to convince her she has indeed got it right but when sure of herself, determined in pushing through her way of doing things.
It is very easy to place upon Hayley the burden of being a role model for young people and this would be wrong. However comfortably she may laugh off any stresses and strains, the reality is that the path she has chosen is paved with stress above the ‘normal’ for anyone. With superb aplomb she appears to cope with a situation and life-style that would fox, panic or be simply beyond the comprehension and abilities of the average adult.
Until more senior management responsibilities made the life impossible, I spent twenty years of my life, from ten to thirty as a keen amateur thespian, spending my twenties with one of the few amateur dramatic companies in the country of sufficient stature as to be able own its own theatre. Performing a fairly demanding nine-to-five job (which actually ran over somewhat longer hours!); plus a three-hour theatrical performance in the evening, for periods of two weeks and sometime three; while sometimes being in the early stages of rehearsal (such as learning the book) for the next play, is the nearest the amateur can get to experiencing professional weekly rep.
Hayley is not in the same location beyond a single night. She is not just all over the country, interspersed with other gigs such as recording sessions, interviews, publicity/promotional sessions but all over the world. The hidden organisation behind the young girl we all adore and for whom her appearances are far too short is phenomenal. Not so much in scale of people but the work load a few people carry for her, much of which is basic, mundane office slog.
So, the fascination I have for Hayley is diverse and complex. The privilege of finding she will take the time she does, when she can, to chat and the accumulative experience of those all too fleeting few minutes over a period of time, has merely confirmed what that first live experience of her on stage at The London Palladium told me in an instant and why I was determined to meet with her if I possibly could—she is a wonderful human being, in whose company it is a joy and a privilege to be.
Peter
No, it’s not suddenly coming ‘thick and fast’, it is just that I have not been able to post more regularly.
What that disappointment of not meeting Hayley backstage at The London Palladium drove, however, was a desire to know as much as I could about her. In fact, part of that search involved questioning myself as to the motives that drove a 62-year-old bachelor to be so besotted over a (then) seventeen-year-old girl, chasing her round the country as I was later to do, although I didn’t know it then.
I have the whole collection of Charlotte Church’s CDs which I enjoy, excepting her latest. I bought each CD as it became available, even if I hadn’t heard a track from it beforehand. I have heard tracks from her latest CD and I think I understand what she is trying to do but it is not a CD for me, at the moment. I see that CD as a ‘growing-up’ statement, or a cathartic or chrysalis stage, through which she is working out her own grown-up understanding of herself and her relationship with the world, as a now mature and successful woman. Dolled up to hit town she is very beautiful and desirable.
One can only note that many, but by no means all, young people have difficult stages at different periods unique to their circumstances in the change-over from youth to adulthood. It is not just them having to adapt. It is often the adults around teenagers who have the difficulty in acknowledging that change is taking place. Often it is the adults that feel insecure and unable to change their attitudes, or accept the reality of a growing-up young person and the need for the adults themselves to readjust their attitudes towards teenagers accordingly. This may apply to Charlotte, it certainly does not apply to Hayley’ which I think is an important difference between them.
There is also an appallingly negative attitude towards young people, possibly engendered by a negatively-orientated national press (UK) that seems to revel in pulling anyone down rather than reaching up and applauding achievements. I will come back to this later, when I reveal my own rebellious responses that did not emerge until mid-life—and ‘no’, I was not having a mid-life crisis!
Child stars have always had great difficulty in making the transition for, unlike other teenagers, child stars need to make statements to their public as well. I remember the ruckus that hit the headlines when Hayley Mills (the heartthrob of my teenage years) made that transition in ‘The Family Way’, showing us for a few seconds her in a bathing scene.
Later, we learned she had developed a relationship with one of the film’s directors/producers, although old enough to be her father. As her real father, Sir John Mills’ remarked at the time, ‘well, at least he’s as rich as she is so it’s not her money he’s after’! The problem is that young people growing up in the full glare of publicity tend to have an odd mixture of two options: a maturity of intellect, whilst retaining a childlike inexperience of life; or a childlike intellect and mature, earthy self-confidence.
Hayley’s reticence when asked for her views on Charlotte, I suspect are not so much to do with diplomacy (although a relevant consideration), as the understanding that comes naturally to a fellow teenager. Hayley may not have the same type of problems we perceive of the average teenager but she has friends who may have or who know friends who do have. However, in ‘The World at Her Feet’ Hayley did observe that she found Charlotte impenetrable. She felt Charlotte maintained a mask over her true self. ’You never know what she is thinking’, Hayley said after meeting Charlotte in an hotel in Cardiff..
My fascination for Hayley is that she is so extraordinarily normal and well-balanced in an arena in which normality is not the expected norm. Not only that, but the family environment from which she derives is equally level-headed and down-to-earth, while displaying a sense of fun and enjoyment of life that dismisses any danger of taking any of themselves too seriously.
Dame Kiri Te Kanawa described Hayley as a ‘superb ambassador for New Zealand’. In that, she may have made an understatement. I regard Hayley as a superb ambassador for youth as a collective whole. In that level-headed normality she is simply doing what the great majority of young people are doing, finding themselves, examining the talents they have and developing them as best they may, so they can make a purposeful contribution to life.
In Hayley’s case, unlike most teenagers who have the quiet privacy of friends and local scene, Hayley has to do her experimenting in the full glare of potential world attention. Yet she still dares—may she never lose that willingness to dare, for the moment she does, she will have stepped upon a pedestal from which fear of falling inhibits experimentation. That down-to-earth normality, ‘I just want to see how far I can go’, should cushion any potential pitfall, for in that normality lies her strength to dare, which means squaring-up to the risk of making a mistake. She is human and continually self-questioning as to whether she is ‘good enough’, needing the assurance of those whom she trusts to convince her she has indeed got it right but when sure of herself, determined in pushing through her way of doing things.
It is very easy to place upon Hayley the burden of being a role model for young people and this would be wrong. However comfortably she may laugh off any stresses and strains, the reality is that the path she has chosen is paved with stress above the ‘normal’ for anyone. With superb aplomb she appears to cope with a situation and life-style that would fox, panic or be simply beyond the comprehension and abilities of the average adult.
Until more senior management responsibilities made the life impossible, I spent twenty years of my life, from ten to thirty as a keen amateur thespian, spending my twenties with one of the few amateur dramatic companies in the country of sufficient stature as to be able own its own theatre. Performing a fairly demanding nine-to-five job (which actually ran over somewhat longer hours!); plus a three-hour theatrical performance in the evening, for periods of two weeks and sometime three; while sometimes being in the early stages of rehearsal (such as learning the book) for the next play, is the nearest the amateur can get to experiencing professional weekly rep.
Hayley is not in the same location beyond a single night. She is not just all over the country, interspersed with other gigs such as recording sessions, interviews, publicity/promotional sessions but all over the world. The hidden organisation behind the young girl we all adore and for whom her appearances are far too short is phenomenal. Not so much in scale of people but the work load a few people carry for her, much of which is basic, mundane office slog.
So, the fascination I have for Hayley is diverse and complex. The privilege of finding she will take the time she does, when she can, to chat and the accumulative experience of those all too fleeting few minutes over a period of time, has merely confirmed what that first live experience of her on stage at The London Palladium told me in an instant and why I was determined to meet with her if I possibly could—she is a wonderful human being, in whose company it is a joy and a privilege to be.
Peter