I first met Maurice in 1975, the year I began working as an English teacher at Old Swinford Hospital in Stourbridge. He was a friend of Freer Magnus, whom Id known at Swansea University during 1974 - 75, when we were training to be teachers. Freer got a job teaching History in Birmingham, not far away from Stourbridge. He loved singing and joined a male choir called the Canoldir. Here he befriended Maurice.
I used to meet Freer from time to time – either for walks in the Clent Hills or for beer and jazz. On one occasion he brought Maurice to a pub in Wollaston, Stourbridge, where we drank Ansells bitter and talked. I remember Maurice making a about my bachelorhood: you havent been snapped up? In those days I was 23 or 24, had a fine head of hair and was athletic. We returned to that pub (I forget its name) occasionally, and I pointed out, to Maurices amusement, an elderly customer who bore a facial resemblance to the actor, Sir Ralph Richardson. More about Maurices love of plays later.
soon became friends. He was older than me – in his – and was an accountant. However, we had several things we enjoyed literature and beer and conversation; we liked going to the theatre; we liked walking in the mountains; and we enjoyed foreign travel, especially in Italy.
Maurice lived in Oldbury, near Birmingham, in the same modest house all his adult life. His address was 30 Florence Road, which I always thought rather symbolic – Florence being the birthplace of the Renaissance, and Maurice being a huge fan of Italian Renaissance art. He drove a car and would to Stourbridge for a drink. We usually went out on a Sunday evening to one of the excellent Stourbridge real ale pubs: ‘The Waterloo (which served the now defunct Simpkiss beer), ‘The Royal Exchange (Bathams), ‘The Unicorn or ‘The Plough and Harrow (Ansells). Further afield we visited the home of Bathams, ‘The Bull and Bladder in Brierley Hill, ‘The Wheatsheaf (Holdens) in West Bromwich and ‘Ma Pardoes in Netherton. Maurice was a member of CAMRA (the Campaign for Real Ale). When I visited his house, there would always be a ‘Whats Brewing, the CAMRA
newspaper, lying around on the sofa, as well as the latest Good Beer Guide. And when I moved overseas, Maurice would sometimes enclose an article from Whats Brewing in his letters to me.
In my days as a boarding master at Old Swinford Hospital School, Maurice would park his car and walk up the rickety old staircase of Founders Building to my bachelor flat. Later, when I had quit boarding and moved to Parkfield Road, we followed the same Sunday routine. Maurice always drove and could handle his beer; even after four pints I never recall him being tipsy. We would sit side by side in the pub – Maurice on my left, his deaf left ear facing away from me (I used to joke that he shared this infirmity with Julius Caesar) – talking about plays and books and life in general. I found quietly stimulating.
For years Maurice had no television. He lived in a world of classical music, preferring his old 78s and his radio to watching TV. I had a TV in my school flat, and one day Maurice came along specially to watch a recording of the Canoldir Choir. The TV
camera panned in on the faces of the Canoldir singers and lingered for some seconds on Maurices bearded countenance. I remember being amused by his barely moving lips, by his apparent lack of gusto.
Maurice was the most unassuming, undemonstrative, unpretentious person I have ever known. He was not given to long speeches or to emotional outbursts. He camouflaged his many passions – for music, theatre, books. travel, beer – underneath a deadpan expression and laconic statements. Occasionally, though, he would open up and reveal his enthusiasm for something he loved. I remember uncorking a bottle of Chateau Musar red wine and Maurice exclaiming: This wine is gorgeous! from him were rare. Sometimes he would burst into laughter.
