My mother, Lindy Runcie, liked clarity, even if her own stories proved to be all detail and no narrative.
She might launch into an anecdote featuring a man called Bert but then jazz-improvise her account so that it featured two or three other people called Bert, and it was only when she got to the end that you realised one of these Berts was a dog.
Attending cultural events often involved going through the plot in advance so that she could be clear about the narrative and concentrate on the performance. This was particularly important when visiting the Royal Ballet because, as George Balanchine observed, there is no dance move that says, ‘This is my mother-in-law.’
Modern interpretations could confuse her (‘Why are they all dressed the same? You can’t tell them apart’). In her later years, she liked to provide her own comments and clarifications before, during and after a performance. At Barrie Kosky’s challenging production of Poppea at the Edinburgh Festival in 2007, after some ghastly murders, the surviving characters expressed their relief.
In a dramatic pause, my mother, seated alarmingly near the conductor/ director, exclaimed in exasperation, ‘Why are they all masturbating?’
This is not the kind of observation you might expect from the wife of Robert Runcie, the Archbishop of Canterbury. I was embarrassed then, but now I look back with great fondness on my mother’s curiosity, enthusiasm and attack; her desire to embrace the new and to extract every ounce of enjoyment.
She was an enthusiast, which made her stand out from her more jaded, seen-it-all-before friends. Nothing ever passed her by.
This was a mixed blessing. As a musician, she had a gift for timing. Just before a performance of Hugo Wolf’s Lieder at the Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, as the audience went quiet before Simon Keenlyside sang Denk es, O Seele, my mother looked up from studying the programme. She had just discovered the composer’s unfortunate fate after he had lost his virginity in a brothel.
‘What is tertiary syphilis?’ she asked.
The hall remained silent.
‘Mum, this is not really the time.’
‘Yes, I know, but what is it?’
‘I think it’s the final stage of syphilis. Heart problems, memory loss, personality changes, blindness, insanity...’
The accompanist’s hands were poised over the piano keys.
‘Well,’ she replied, just before the first notes were struck. ‘I only hope you don’t get it.’
By James Runcie, London NW1, author of The Grantchester Mysteries, who receives £50
Readers are invited to send in their own 400-word submissions about the past
