Mrs. B.: “Would you like a punch, Vicar, ’tis the season?” Vicar of Aldenham and Radlett: “Well, I don’t mind if I do, Mrs Broadbridge!” So, quick as a flash, I gave him a playful and fairly gentle punch on the rib-cage. He was quite rattled. “Only joking, Padre!” I reassured him. “Look what I’ve … Read More
Well, I’m literally over the moon! Nirmal (we’re on first name terms!) says that he was so impressed by my political vision and the short shrift I gave to those feminist sacred cows, that he wants more from me. Rather than everything being politics, politics, politics (reminds me of the rather rude “Boobies, boobies, boobies,” … Read More
Preamble I grew up in Radlett, Hertfordshire, about 15 miles from London, in the same cunningly modified semi-detached late 1930s home for the first 19 years of my life, and would periodically return there, sometimes from New Zealand, for a further 19 years. Our place was right by a bluebell wood and opposite wheat fields. … Read More
…by Lillian Broadbridge, with the Revd Septimus Hazard, MA. You’d never guess, I’m a poetess! That little spark of creativity has always been within me, and I felt I just had to write this, bringing back memories of the good old days when Churchill was at No. 10 and our dear Queen was young and … Read More
In this monthly address to the Postil Magazine, I will skate on thin ice and dwell for a little while on the wise invocation in the Lord’s Prayer: “Lead us not into temptation.” Temptation is a universal sentiment. There’s even a rather fine American soul group named after it. So, to quote one of their … Read More
Dr. Mark Stocker, our former art history joke writer, now turned learned musicologist, is a good friend of an ageing Anglican rector, the Revd. Septimus Hazard, MA (Oxon). For the last forty years the latter has occupied, not without incident, the well-endowed Eton College living of St. Swithin’s, Prawnsby, Norfolk. The rector was chuffed at … Read More
Lounge Music, also known as Easy Listening, is considerably harder for an intellectual such as myself convincingly to theorise. It was—and remains—huge in terms of its popular impact and when these things were properly measured, in records sold. And yet there is a dearth of literature on it. This is music that is predominantly sung … Read More
As befits a genre that emphatically rejected the two or three-minute pop song, this article will be the longest in my series, and unashamedly so. Progressive Rock, a.k.a. Prog Rock, is a pleasure about which I feel remarkably little guilt, and is perhaps the most reflective of my socio-economic privilege. My offering takes the form … Read More
Chris Farlowe, Rod McKuen, Colin Blunstone and Clifford T. Ward aren’t exactly celebrities; the sole exception is McKuen who nonetheless died relatively obscure and unjustly patronised. The first three have remarkable voices in utterly different ways, whilst the fourth was a singer/songwriter of minor genius. McKuen was a later discovery for me – he was … Read More
I know that my childhood and youth would have been a lot less pleasant had I been deprived of reggae. My love of it is admittedly superficial but strong – the insanely compelling reggae beat, the equally compelling melodies and – something all too rare in rock and even in mainstream pop – a frequently … Read More