Tags
A Christmas Carol, Anastasia Stanmeyer, Berkshire Magazine, Charles Dickens, Courtyard by Marriott, Ebenezer Scrooge, Gerald Dickens: My Life on the Road With A Christmas Carol, Lee MA, Lenox MA, Nashua, Tetley Tea, Tetley Tea Folk, The Berkshires, The Gilded Age, The Midfield Cafe, Ventfort Hall Mansion
My room at the Marriott in Nashua was almost feeling like a home away from home, having stayed there for three nights, but on Thursday morning it would be time to pack up my things and get back onto the road once more. I didn’t have an early departure time in mind, so took a fairly relaxed approach to the morning, gradually getting things back into my case, before going to the lobby to buy some breakfast from the kiosk. When I got downstairs I discovered that there was no breakfast service available, as there was some issue with their payment system. The lady who had been given the job of breaking this news to the various hungry guests explained that the hotel were unable to charge anyone for food that morning. I personally didn’t see an issue with that, but I suppose it is a matter of perspective. I took the offered cup of complimentary coffee back to my room, and made new morning plans. A quick search on my phone revealed that there was a diner nearby, the Midfield Cafe, and I decided to pay it a visit. I didn’t do any great research: a diner is a diner. Breakfast is breakfast, right?
The map on my phone told me that Midfield Cafe was only about 6 minutes away, but I got my intersections a bit mixed up, so the journey was a little longer. In fact I was convinced that I had really gone wrong with my navigation, for the route took me away from Nashua city centre, out of residential neighbourhoods, and into what appeared to be the edge of some kind of airfield. The road become more of a track and was petering out, so I turned round and started driving back to the road, when I saw a small sign in the dirt, pointing towards a collection of buildings: Midfield Cafe. I had come so far, so I thought I may as well explore further.
I parked the car, and following the signs found myself in a small airfield office, with a door at the back with the Midfield Cafe sign on it. I walked through the door, passing another door through which I could into a small hanger, with various light aircraft parked up, then up a flight of stairs and found myself in a long room, with windows looking out over the runway. The walls were covered with photographs of various planes, and characters who had been members of the flying fraternity there. Hanging from the ceiling were models of various military aircraft, B52s and the like, suspended in the air, so as to display them in their natural element.
A lady was serving another couple, but indicated that I could just take any table and she would be with me in a moment, I sat down and looked out at the airfield as a small light aircraft took to the skies, rather strangely being chased by a black car, maybe they are filming a new Mission Impossible movie here!
The Midfield Cafe was far from being a cafe solely for the various pilots and mechanics who were working at the field, for even in the time I was seated there, the room filled up with people like me, families, couples, children. The whole thing was looked after by one server who had a T shirt with ‘Captain’ printed on it, and she did an amazing job of making everyone feel special and welcome, whilst being aware of who else needed attending to.
I had ‘A Midfield’ which was a standard 2-egg breakfast, with orange juice and coffee, and it was delicious. Little unexpected moments like this are so exciting and the memories that they bring are the ones that really stay with me long after the tours are done.
The cafe was very busy when I left, I said a grateful goodbye to the captain, and drove back to the Marriott to finish my packing. I got on the road at 11, and headed south towards Boston, before heading west, retracing my journey from a few days before back towards Worcester (I could even see the hotel I’d stayed in), and then towards The Berkshires, the mountain range situated in western Massachusetts.
For my English readers I need to point out that the first syllable of ‘The Berkshires’ (no, don’t be pedantic, I mean ‘berk’ not ‘the’), is pronounced to rhyme with work, shirk, or Turk, not with shark, clerk or even with the county of Berkshire…
The highway climbed higher and higher, and even though it was a bright, clear, sunny day I could see how cold it was, for the great cliffs of rock left when the cutting for the road had been blasted through were covered with thick icicles. It reminded me of the days driving along the banks of the Susquehanna River towards Lewisburg in Pennsylvania, for the same natural ice sculptures used to form there too.
At around 1 I stopped for lunch at a Panera bread, having a healthy salad, remembering that I had a show that evening, so avoided all dairy products. The final part of the journey was easy, for this would be my 5th trip to the mountains, and I drove through the town of Lee and on towards my destination of Lenox, and another Courtyard by Marriott hotel without the aid of any navigation devices other than my own memory.
My venue in Lenox is the beautiful Gilded Age mansion, sorry cottage, Ventfort House and at 4.15 I pulled up outside, and was greeted by Haley, who manages the house. We went into the Library, where I would be performing, and the 80 chairs for the sell out audience were all laid out. At the far end of the room is an alcove, and in previous years I had performed on a very small stage tucked in to it, but more recently I had been on floor level. This year the stage was back, but Haley said that it was easy to just close the plush red curtains over the alcove and use the floor again, and this is what I decided to do, as it brings me closer to the audience, and gives me a little more width to play with in a room where space is of a premium.
Last year at Lenox I spent a morning doing an interview for The Berkshire Magazine, a widely distributed glossy publication that promotes all that the region has to offer, and the result of that interview was now in print, in the December 23 issue. It looked absolutely amazing and Anastasia Stanmeyer, the journalist, had done a superb job both with her words and photography.
My dressing room at Ventfort is a grand boudoir in the first floor, which is appropriately called ‘The Green Room’ It had been decorated and restored during the last year and looked magnificent. As I admired the work Haley introduced me to Wendy, the new Executive Director at Ventfort, who took up the role just a week after my last performance, and has spent a year in rapt anticipation for my return.
Before the audience arrived I had one more job to do, and that was to re-record the promotional video for the Isle of Wight Festival story writing competition. During my first attempt in Nashua I had got some of the details wrong, and my brother Ian had asked if it would be at all possible to film a second version. I stood in the to the cosy library at Ventfort House, a far cry from the vast expanse of the Nashua Center for the Arts, and delivered my lines with, I hope, more accuracy this time.
It was 5pm now, and members of the audience were beginning to arrive, so I retreated to the Green Room once more and relaxed on a chaise longue before returning to the lower floor to mingle as the guests enjoyed a sumptuous pre-show tea service. Books where for sale, and I signed copies as bone china cups were filled from silver teapots with, as Haley proudly announced, Tetley tea from Yorkshire. Tetley’s is a favourite standard tea what we in England would call builder’s tea. The television commercials for the product were famous in their day, and featured an animated group called the Tetley Tea folk, who were white-coated engineers, wearing flat caps, and spoke in a broad Yorkshire accent, delivering the company’s popular tag lines, such as ‘two thousand perforations, let the flavour flood out,’ before the final voiceover which proudly announced that ‘Tetley make teabags make tea’. All of these memories came back to me in the elegant dining room, and I smiled quietly to myself.
The show was due to start at 6.30, but the large majority of the audience were in their seats by 6.15. When the last few were seated, Wendy walked to the front of the room and introduced herself before giving her introduction and welcoming me to the stage.
My decision to use the floor space meant I was very close to the front row of the audience, which also meant that during those passages when I at floor level, or even sitting in the chair, the people sat further back would not be able to see me, so I made sure that I changed the performance as much as I could to allow everyone to view the action. I used the central aisle a lot more than I usually would, making my way up it to represent the road with snow on the ground, as Scrooge is returned to his childhood by the Ghost of Christmas Past, using it as the ‘long bare melancholy room’ at Scrooge’s school (a line stolen from my 2-act version of the script, because the room suited it), and even as an extension of Mr Fezziwig’s dance floor. That old gentleman seemed to be in a particularly energetic and festive mood. on Thursday evening.
Another thing I had to be careful of was the proximity of various china ornaments and lights balanced on the wooden dado rail. I was terrified of accidentally knocking something off with my cane, and when Bob Cratchit came running in to the office on Christmas morning, I didn’t carelessly fling his scarf at the hatstand as usual, but rather more carefully took it off and placed it.
The audience were an interesting mix of folk who laughed out loud throughout the story, and those who listened more quietly, appreciating the language and the history. But, however the people chose to enjoy it, enjoy it they certainly did for at the end everyone stood up and cheered and clapped.
After leaving the room I dashed upstairs to collect my pens, as I knew that there were a few more autographs required, and then stood in the hall and chatted as the audience made their way into the chilly night. Many wanted photographs and others simply wanted to discuss the performance and their reaction to it, and some of these comments were very moving indeed. Wendy was delighted, and was beaming from ear to ear.
I went up to my room and changed out of costume, hanging it in a large wardrobe so that it would be out of sight when Friday’s visitors toured the house, and then I drove back to my hotel. I ordered a burger from the Courtyard by Marriott kiosk, ate it in the deserted hotel lobby, and then went to my room where I watched some TV before turning in for another night.