A Curious Boy

by Richard Fortey

  I dithered. I felt pulled both ways. The English master said that he trusted I would be following him into the sixth form. He was quite sure that this was the right way for me to go. I had taken my French O level a year early and afterwards spent a rather superfluous year quietly reading a few French novels in class (while the latecomers swotted) among which Tartarin de Tarascon by Alphonse Daudet sticks in my mind because it was supposed to be funny, and its humour passed me by. I attempted to learn colloquial phrases from our old textbook. Some of them were funnier than Daudet, because they were completely arcane: ‘He always wore a broad-brimmed, black felt hat’ is a phrase I have yet to employ in France or anywhere else. The French for ‘I couldn’t help laughing’ was (I think) ‘Je n’ai pas pu m’empêcher de rire’ – but when I did use it at last in France I earned only a mystified shrug. My French was about fifty years out of date:[3] when asked where I lived I was trained to reply ‘Je demeure en Londres’ which was equivalent to saying ‘I dwell in yonder great city’. A school trip to France was an extraordinary adventure at that time, with terrible old ships that had been around since the Great War that tossed and groaned as they breasted the waves, and swilled with vomit. Matelots with Gauloises hanging on their lips made rude remarks that bore little resemblance to the French I knew. Once on land, the toilets were holes in the ground designed for undignified squatting. I loved it all. I had silly fantasies about being a charismatic Frenchman, rather like Jean-Paul Belmondo, lounge-lizarding on La Rive Gauche. It would be hard to give up. Years later I took up smoking untipped Gitanes because of the swirling gypsy on the packet. I still dream about the decadence of those cigarettes.

  On the other hand, I had Mr Williams and geology. I could follow my favourite activities as part of my schoolwork, with the guidance of the best teacher in the school. Mr Williams suggested in his gentle way that he would be happy to welcome me into his small club. I could keep up my art, whatever happened. Even then, the advice for an aspiring scientist was to study physics, chemistry and mathematics. I had done well enough so far to make this a viable choice. I had also taken mathematics early, and to everyone’s surprise I had done well afterwards with an extra O level in something called ‘Further Maths’ completed in one year. Perhaps this was one of my talents. Maybe this was the better way to go?

  I needed arbitration. Word of my dilemma must have reached A. Sainsbury-Hicks. I was summoned again to the corridor leading to the staff room. After all, if I made the wrong choice it might diminish his school’s chances of getting that winning number of Oxbridge places. The headmaster strutted out of his private quarters and eyed me, meaningfully. ‘Now, Fortey,’ he barked, ‘I’m going to ask you a direct question and I want a direct answer.’ ‘Thank you, sir,’ I said, trying to sound up to the response required. The gaze became more piercing, an awl penetrating my very soul, a skewer spearing the clumsy chunks of my self-doubt, ready for grilling. ‘Are you more interested in people or things?’ said A. Sainsbury-Hicks. I knew I had seconds to make up my mind. My life whizzed past in a few images: trout, birds, chemicals, fossils, mushrooms. ‘Things, sir,’ I replied, without much conviction. ‘Science sixth for you!’ said A. Sainsbury-Hicks. Thus was my future decided in a couple of minutes: the points had been switched, and the track was laid down for me to follow whether I liked it or not.

  * * *

  In the winter of 2006 I went on another of my personal fungus forays. Every weekend during the colder half of the year I find time to make a short walk in the chalk hills around my home town in Oxfordshire. I poke around looking for small things that might be easily overlooked. If there is a mild period, all kinds of subtle fungi decide to produce their fruit bodies and grow spores. A ditch might be just the place to look, or an overgrown hedge bank, or maybe a moss-covered log. The small boy with the Observer’s Book and a basket is now white-haired and with a hand lens dangling around his neck, but it is the same explorer as ever was, curiously probing around to see what might turn up. The winter is a time for cryptic species hiding under bark, little flasks of spores hidden under the skin of dead and dying trees. I can detect them by stroking the surface of bark as would a blind man. The tips of the hidden fruit bodies project slightly, and fingertips are more sensitive than anything else to minute irregularities. These species all need a microscope for identification (they are specialised ascomycetes), and I could not have attempted them before I had my own laboratory. My family refers to them as my ‘things on sticks’, with gentle eye-rolling.

  One of my local sites is at the edge of an ancient manor called Grey’s Court, owned by the National Trust; a tiny road called Rocky Lane runs past it. The verges of the road are overgrown and damp – just the place for fungi. I was searching for small species that like to grow on the stout stems of dead burdock, that tall herb whose seeds hook into clothing with such remarkable persistence. I had already found one or two common small fungi when I noticed a conspicuous bright orange patch a few centimetres long, on one side of a particularly large standing stem where it disappeared into the mossy ground. Under my lens I saw at once that the surface of the patch was a mass of small pores, the ends of short tubes that must have been lined with spore-bearing cells. I knew at once it was something unusual. I took the fungus back home carefully and placed part of the sample in an airtight box with some moss to keep it in good condition. The rest of the sample I rested on a glass slide to allow the spores to drop from the tubes, which took an hour or two. The spores made a white spore print, but there was nothing unusual in that. Under the microscope they were colourless, elliptical in shape and only four-thousandths of a millimetre long, and about half as wide. I squashed a sample of the orange fruit body, which proved to be rather soft, and composed of strongly coloured threads (hyphae). I owned a large book about these kinds of fungi, which are known as poroids. The book was supposed to summarise the current state of knowledge of several hundred species, with determinations aided by keys to sort out contending identifications. I could not get my find to fit exactly with any fungus in the book. I needed to dry the samples – over very gentle heat – to preserve them from decay. If this is done properly all the microscopic features are well preserved for future study. I was in correspondence with a helpful mycologist at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew whose expertise outstripped mine, so off the dried sample went for his scrutiny. He, too, confessed himself baffled. There was, he said, one final recourse. The specimen should be forwarded to the authority on these kinds of fungi, Professor Leif Ryvarden of Oslo University. Breath was bated. Judgement was awaited. At last, I heard from Oslo that the orange patch was, as the jargon has it, a species new to science. That explained why it could not be keyed out in the big book! It seemed extraordinary that it was possible to find a relatively conspicuous new species a mile away from my home in the domestic countryside of the south-east of England: another surprise from the Kingdom of the Fungi. A year later the fungus had a name, Ceriporiopsis herbicola. Its second, species name refers to the fact that it was found on a herbaceous stem rather than on wood, which is usual for other species of Ceriporiopsis. The name became ‘official’ when it was published with a description and drawings in a scientific journal published in Norway in July 2007 – Cerioporiopsis herbicola Fortey and Ryvarden was on record in perpetuity. This is the only fungus to which my name is attached. Over many years, I had coined dozens of scientific names for fossils, but there is something special about naming something that is still alive. Before it gets a name an organism does not properly exist: the name serves to bring it to reality. It becomes an entry in the catalogue of life. It becomes eligible for a biography.

  The full mushroom basket.

  6

  Entr’acte

  For most of my school years I rose an hour early so that I could arrive at The Green, Ealing, in time for choir practice. My juvenile voice was as clear as a bell, with that poignant edge typical of boy sopranos. My mother had even tried to get me into the choir school at New College, Oxford,
when she thought that I lacked a brain. Fortunately, at that time I also lacked the ability to read music reliably and their choirmaster sent me packing. Ealing Grammar School boys’ choir rehearsals became my favourite part of the day. It nurtured my musical aspirations from the soprano days, through the alto period when my voice started breaking, until stabilisation came at the baritone of my maturity. The boy soprano was allowed to sing the intro to the mighty chorus ‘Glory to God’ in Handel’s Messiah. I can still do it, in a strangled falsetto, if I am plied with strong spirits. ‘And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heav’nly host, praising God and saying …’ Not a big part, but a significant one. The choir had a regular engagement at the Christmas carol service, when we sang beautiful arrangements of traditional carols by David Willcocks, choirmaster of King’s College, Cambridge, and all the parents attended. We looked forward to the arrival of Simper’s mother, who was dressed up to the nines, and wore fantastic hats. The music was moving, no question, and I might have had difficulty squaring this with my increasing atheism. I believe I took God out of the equation and put human genius in its place. I did not examine too closely the conundrum that Johann Sebastian Bach wrote sublime music out of profound conviction. I suppose I was just grateful for his depth of belief: don’t look at the motor, look at the distance covered.

  In charge of the choir was John Railton, who lived for music. He was the only rival to Mr Williams for modest, but absolute dedication to his subject. He never had to bully or cajole; he just carried his choir with him on the back of his enthusiasm. When he was in his thirties he had a cancer which entailed having one of his arms amputated, but he was soon back on the podium conducting with his other arm. He was a modernist, with particular enthusiasm for the music of Benjamin Britten. We sang all of Britten’s cantatas during my schooldays. John Railton introduced us to the visceral excitement of Stravinsky and Bartók, and young enthusiasts would listen respectfully to Vaughan Williams in the music room, where they had a machine that played the new, long-playing vinyl discs.

  At home, when I was young we had an old machine that played 78 rpm shellac records that came out of brown paper sleeves decorated with an image of a quizzical terrier looking into a gramophone: ‘His Master’s Voice’. Since each side lasted just a few minutes my music was bite-sized. I knew Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto only in morsels, but I sang along to the opening melody while the striding piano chords accompanied me. Short pieces by Delius, or Chopin études played by Arthur Rubinstein fitted more neatly on to one side. Beniamino Gigli sung conveniently concentrated arias by Puccini, and Wagner was represented only by overtures. Some even older records were inherited from the music-hall days, and humorous monologues written by Stanley Holloway were my favourites. I listened over and over to a funny double act called ‘Gert & Daisy Make a Christmas Pudding’. Elsie and Doris Waters (G&D) were once great variety stars, now totally forgotten, but their names – real and stage – could have been a catalogue of the Wilshin Aunts. I remember a few 78s by title alone: a number called ‘Under the Bazunka Tree’[1] will remain forever obscure. Maybe the title was more memorable than the tune.

  John Railton introduced some taste into my arbitrary musical selection, and made me a lifelong devotee of many twentieth-century composers whose works I first heard or performed in his company. We sang Belshazzar’s Feast, William Walton’s wonderful and frenetic oratorio, and Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, and Constant Lambert’s Rio Grande. My schoolmate John Sivell played the brilliant piano part in the latter; he was destined to be a professional musician. We became involved with performances of contemporary music: Peter Maxwell Davies’s O Magnum Mysterium was exceptionally difficult, and I will not forget the almost shockingly intense glittering brilliance of the composer’s gaze when he came to give us his blessing. Lennox Berkeley’s Mass was an altogether gentler affair, and the composer was reticent and gracious. The acme of the choir’s achievement was performing in the offstage chorus in one of the very early performances of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem. I was, of course, an absolute square – I was neither a hep cat, nor did I dig bebop. Rock ’n’ roll passed me by like one of those speeding cricket balls that never engaged with my hand or my bat.

  My teens were the years of intellectual seriousness. I have never been so serious since. I climbed rather than retreated inwards, reading everything in an unstructured way, making collections of ideas as I might fossils or fungi. My equally cerebral friends and I had pretensions to be young aficionados at the cultural cutting edge. Our music even left Mr Railton behind as we ventured to hear serialist composers, or the continental enfants terribles. I made discoveries. The operas of Leoš Janáček had recently been performed under the championship of Charles Mackerras in the 1960s, and I was an early convert. The BBC had a series of Thursday Invitation Concerts, and they were free – although you had to apply for tickets. They were broadcast on the intellectual’s own radio channel, the Third Programme, and the presiding spirit was the very embodiment of the avant-garde, Hans Keller. He looked a little like Albert Einstein, only cleverer. His cranium bulged with brains. Private Eye regularly mocked his Germanic earnestness. The concerts were held at the Maida Vale studios in London, and there was Hans Keller himself shaking hands with the people that mattered. A few boys in their mid-teens must have seemed slightly anomalous but nobody threw us out. We heard John Ogden play Olivier Messiaen’s Oiseaux exotiques, and six instrumentalists and a contralto perform a version of Pierre Boulez’s Le marteau sans maître. There may have been some Hans Werner Henze. I believe I was also at a performance of John Cage’s infamous 4′33″, but since that comprises four minutes and thirty-three seconds of total silence, it is hard to say.

  John Railton disappeared from my life after I left school, and the singing that had once been so important to me became occasional. I briefly joined an amateur choir in Berkshire, and performed the usual glees and madrigals with pleasure, but it was not the same as being part of the exciting London scene. The larynx began to rust. I have never forgotten Railton’s influence, and the musical tastes I developed at the time that I sang in the school choir have stayed with me. I never thought to hear about him again, but in 2006 I was surprised to receive a letter from Devon from a gentleman who wanted support for his proposal to get John Railton an MBE – the award for those who are not part of the great and good, but who deserve recognition for what they give to others. It is an award by acclamation, and so is probably the one that is actually worth something. John Railton had retired to Devon and made another, wonderful choir. It gave me great pleasure to compose that letter. I asked my correspondent whether he would give me a contact for my former choirmaster – I felt that I needed to thank him for his benign influence on my life. Railton replied to say that he could not remember me very well, but he had a recollection of a jolly, red-haired boy (I was both gloomy and dark). This proves that the importance of the student to the teacher is not equivalent to that of the teacher to the student, but I was not very disappointed. After all, his music came first. I learned in 2012 that the MBE had been awarded to John Railton for his inspiring example.

  As the teenage intellectual developed, communication with parents almost ceased. My room became a haven, and the Third Programme on the ‘wireless’ a constant companion. The radio may have been my best friend during puberty. I certainly did not cause any trouble for Mother or Father; I was more like a trainee monk. The BBC was apparently laying things on especially for me, and it was an extraordinary time for culture. I heard what was possibly the first broadcast of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. I knew it was important, but I could not work out why. I wallowed in an early repeat of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood. Some lines lodged in my memory: ‘before you let the sun in, mind he wipes his shoes’ and the night ‘starless and Bible black’ are still lurking deeply somewhere inside my skull. I still think of one of my favourite composers as ‘Johann Sebastian mighty Bach’. I owned a published collection of Thomas�
�s radio pieces (Quite Early One Morning) that conjured the poet’s Swansea boyhood so well, and I practised trying to write in that wordy, musical way that he had made his own. I listened to accounts of his alcoholic end in New York, and part of me was horrified, and the other part thought that this was the way a poet ought to die. I learned his poem ‘Fern Hill’ by heart. There was a revival of interest in the anarchic plays of Alfred Jarry, and my ear was glued to the radio to learn of the dreadful deeds and goings-on of Ubu Roi. I doubt any youth could have been more eclectic.

  The ‘theatre of the absurd’ was all the rage. I caught Eugene Ionesco’s play Rhinoceros on the Third Programme, a drama that established the genre. A British playwright in the same vein, N. F. Simpson, was soon enjoying success in London with A Resounding Tinkle. My first excursion to the live theatre was to see its successor, One Way Pendulum. It was a cacophony of eccentric invention set in a suburban house not so very different from Ainsdale Road, and I could identify with the son, Kirby, who was attempting to teach a battery of stolen ‘speak your weight machines’[2] to sing the Hallelujah chorus from Handel’s Messiah. N. F. Simpson must surely be the godfather of Monty Python. I was inspired to write a play of my own entitled The Cow in the Attic, in which a suburban family sit down to supper while a cow’s tail, udders, and so on dangle above their heads from a hole in the ceiling. The dialogue had a wee bit of Waiting for Godot about it, I dare say. The English master Mr Sheehan read it and was clearly unaware of its masterly place among its contemporary theatrical oeuvres. Sadly, no copy of the work survives.