Early musical career

I hate English Ballads, don’t sing them,

I wish cousin John wouldn’t bring them,

Into the fire I beg you fling them,

And sing in loftier key.

 

Thomas Haynes Bayley

(an English ballad writer of the Regency period)

Little is now known or remembered about Middleton's life; but it is possible to reconstruct something of the time when, at the age of forty two, his first travel books appeared.

It was rather fortunate that he was out of sympathy with twentieth century materialism. One can only hope that he truly believed in all that he wrote in 'A Vagabond's Odyssey': 'Probably we vagabonds are mad and the great majority who laugh at sentiment are really the sane ones. How strange indeed, if, after all, the poets are wrong and the great and glorious aim of the universe is affluence, with flabbiness, grand piano fortes, Brussels carpets.:.'

Some of the problems that ‘commenced when he settled among civilised people' were financial. There was enough money to support wandering troubadour but now he had a wife and growing family to support. Middleton had been married for five years when 'Sailor and Beachcomber' was published. He lived with his wife and two baby girls at 70 Wolfington Road, West Norwood, South London. He had married his cousin, Alice St John, whom he had known since she was a little girl.

Their marriage took his family by surprise and they may have viewed it as scandalous. Not only were they cousins but he was fifteen years her elder. (Alice was twenty two and Middleton was thirty seven.) A member of the family recalls the speed of their marriage. "I'm off to marry Arnold" was Alice's cheerful comment as she swiftly packed her bags. They were married at Lambeth Registry Office on July 22 1910. They immediately set up house in Wolfington Road after a short honeymoon at Hastings. A nephew of Middleton, Eric Watkins, met them on the promenade and recalls thinking that Alice looked about fourteen years old. She was very attractive and had the face and figure that a Pre-Raphaelite painter might have contemplated.

At Wolfington Road they lived in a gloomy, ground floor flat. The house was owned by Middleton's mother. She was a rather garrulous, octogenarian figure who lived alone in the top floor-flat where she continuously made her self cups of tea on a rusty, old gas-ring.

West Norwood - a gloomy, grey, Dore-coloured suburb - was in stark contrast to the brightly coloured world of Middleton's youth. A few streets away from Wolfington Road ran a smoky commuter train to London. On the other side of the tracks lay Norwood Cemetery.

Wolfington Road meandered down to the local High Street; after a grim walk past rows of dark, small, semi -detached Victorian buildings it turned a corner and joined Norwood High Street near West Norwood Station.

Taking bearings by the red-bricked public library; and walking to the left, Streatham Hill could soon be reached. A few miles further and the wilds of Brixton - then a respectable middle-class suburb - were open for exploration. It was such a change from Papua, Malay and Borneo. The vagabond must have recalled the freedom of his youth with some nostalgia, comparing it enviously with the restrictions of married life. When times were hard and creditors pressing -which they often did - it would be delightful to imagine that he sauntered down to West Norwood Station, with cap on the ground and ‘Paganini's variations ‘in the air, to serenade the homecoming commuters!

But there was occasional income from his job as a composer. In an emergency a note, or a few coins, might be produced from an old sea-chest kept in a corner.

Middleton's composing career as a composer had begun out of desperation - as he recalls in a 'Vagabond's Odyssey’. He is starving in a New York garret and describes his physical and mental state:

‘My ambition to outrival Paganini on the violin had subsided from its state of enthusiastic fire and had left in my heart a dull callousness. One intense wish survived; to get a sound pair of boots and a new suit. Winter snows were only just melting and much privation had considerably thinned me. A desperate remedy was needed. music hall hits come, have their day, are whistled by the elite and the street Arab, and suddenly I thought; why should I not supply the public with their rotten melodies?" I would do it on origInal lines and give the American public something new. Did they not hail as brand-new old melodies that Wellington’s soldiers sung at Waterloo and antiquated strains brought over by the passengers of the Mayflower with one bar reversed and the title bar altered,

I would jump from my bed at night and, throwing off my blanket which consisted of half-a-dozen old overcoats which my landlady had lent me, write down some inspired strains and next day put them to suitable words, words with those sentimental and lavicious suggestions in them that suit the public taste, for the artist in me had sorrowed and become temporarily gross.’

Being totally incorrigible, Middleton’s artistic soul had again become gross in the early years of the twentieth century - in England.

One of the first of his songs to appear was called 'Right in the Heart of June. It was bought by W.M Paxton in 1905 and was one of the many thousands of song sheets that littered the lower end of ‘Tin Pan Alley’ and overflowed onto countless piano-stools. With its simple waltz melody the song was typical of the popular music of the period.

The lyrics were by Florence Genevieve St John She had been another cousin of Middleton - and an earlier girlfriend.

'Beau - tIt-ti --ful Beau-ti-ful June' coos Florence while the composer chirrups ‘Cuckoo! Cuckoo! on a few felicitous piano chords up to a high B flat. 'Darling my heart is thine'~ Dearer than all to me’ she croons as the composer retorts with the gleeful trill of an ecstatic nightingale.

Middleton's achievements sometimes fell short of his expectations. In 'A Vagabond's Odyssey’ he recalls walking along a New Zealand bush-track on his way to apply for a position as violin dance-player "I had been reading my Byron and Keat's 'Ode to a Nightingale'," he remembers,"To which I had written music notwithstanding that the ode was music itself: He adds apologetically "For when we are young we rush forward to paint the cheeks of the Gods and teach wise old bush fallers philosophy.’

Beau-ti-ful Beau-ti-ful June

The nightingale you’ll hear

Singing its plaint-tif tune

Poor Florence! She had been fond of her vagabond cousin - and his brothers, for she had lived with two of them consequently before setting up with him. First the elder brother, Horace; then she married Charles - whom she discarded for Arnold.

The British Library reveals more of their collaboration. In 1903 W.H.Broome published ‘Sal, I loves yer, I do’ song written by Florence Middleton and in the same year came ‘The Rising of the moon. Introducing spectral humming part.’ again the lyrics were by Florence and this song was followed by ‘Alabama Way,’ the following year, ‘Song and Cake Walk. Words by Florence G. Middleton (with tonic sol-fa)’.

They lived in a dingy flat above West Norwood Railway Station Their living room was perpetually dimmed by a smoky haze. Nobody can recalls whether this was due to the puffing of the trains outside or the smog belching out of the composer's pipe.

And then the vagabond married Alice!

*

Much to Alice's annoyance, Florence continued to vIsit her husband after he had married her. This relationship finished one Christmas. The family was poor. Florence had sent her newly wed cousin a specially baked Christmas pudding with the message; ‘Could he please return cooking basin as soon as possible?’ Middleton had promptly thrown the pudding into the fire blazing in the hearth and immediately handed the basin back - much to the confusion of shy niece who had been the messenger. She never forgot the event.

Florence was later spotted in a nearby street. She had rather an effusive, dramatic personality - perhaps once having trodden the stage. Grabbing one of Middleton’s nephews by the arm, she enthused over her new husband - a shadowy figure at the end of the street, hovering with a long pole. She had married a lamplighter.  

  *

Descendants of Vane St john, the father of Florence, have discovered that Florence Genevieve St John married Charles Middleton, one of Arnold Middleton’s elder brothers on, May 17,1888, in Brisbane, Australia. Violet, Ethel and Florence St John left London on Sept 5, 1883 on the ‘Friedenburg’ arriving in Moreton Bay, Jan 20, 1884. They travelled steerage. Ethel died of typhoid on May 9. 1885 in Brisbane Hospital and was buried at Tooling Cemetery, Mar 21, Queensland. (Information supplied by Oliver St John)

The St Johns and Middletons had arrived in Brisbane, and resided there, before Arnold Middleton’s arrival when he ‘jumped ship’ which throws some light on the second chapter of ‘Sailor and Beachcomber’ and Middleton’s description of the growth of suburban Brisbane,

Florence is next mentioned on an English census of 1901 living (on her own means) on the London Road to Croydon, with Arnold Middleton.

A marriage certificate has also been found in which informs us that she married again, to Edmund Wilson on Dec 1913 at Lambeth, South London and there is a reference to a lamplighter.

*

Florence might have consoled herself with the thought that she had missed marrying a difficult and temperamental man - one whose temper was as uncontrollable as his imagination - and one whose temper grew over the years. Alice later spoke, tactfully, of her husband's brainstorms.

And the vagabond often had very little money especially during the first world war. His wife later laughed at her husband’s attempts to feed his family. A pot of gravy would be left perpetually simmering on the hearth. At dinner-time he would drop pIeces of bread into the pot and then and then hand the pieces, delicately, on a fork to his children with the encouraging comment, ‘Look at the meat! Look at the meat.” (After bluffing his way successfully around the world, it must be noted that Middleton was less successful at bamboozling his own children.)

But there were compensations for Middleton's temper and the lack of money. He had musical talent and was a gifted entertainer. He was a professional composer of popular music and sold songs to as ten different publishing companies. Being a bit of a rogue he even sold the same song to different companies with anew, title and the first few bars reversed.

The back streets of Tin Pan Alley must have been place's that he knew well. It is not hard to imagine a Chaplin-like figure airily wandering into the office of a publishing company, striking up a tune on his violin and charming his song into print.

*

Middleton cast his musical net very wide. One of the first musical pIeces to appear was a spirited 'Bohemian Cake Walk' which was sold to Whitmarsh and CO’ in 1903. In the same year he sold 'Beloved' to J. Williams' . This was a piano piece bravely subtitled 'Bien aime - morceau de salon pour le piano. It is an oddity in the Middleton ouvre in that influences are decidedly classical. Woven around a simple haunting melody are Lisztian flourishes and Mendelsshon and Schubertian improvisations. The whole effort ends hilariously' with a few Beethoven tonal thunders. However the composer did have a little success with it and the same company bought out another version with lyrics added. (Beloved - the song based on the famous piano solo (available 2/-) bravely proclaims the music sheet.) He later cannibalised the piece to make a music ‘entr'acte’ called ‘Song of the Night’ which is scored for full military band and orchestra. It was later recorded on the ‘Regal Zonaphone’ label.

*

Middleton cast his net even wider than songs. He composed a few waltzes ‘The Ranee Waltz’ and the “Firenze Waltz’. His music also tended to reflect the light music of the previous century - of Strauss Waldteuful and and Offenbach. Similar influences can be traced in the songs. At the same time that he composed ‘Right in the Heart of June ’another song appeared - ‘Thou forsakest Me.” It is a sad, lyrical ballad to the words of Hienrich Hiene with pretensions much higher than ‘Right in the Heart of June.’ Along with Byron and Keats, Middleton had packed Prout’s Harmonies’ into his travelling portmanteau. Other songs were composed ‘The Bay of Dream ’’The Two sirens’ ’The Samoan Love Waltz’ and ‘The Forest Lovers.’ They are simple Edwardian ballads. But wisely the composer stuck to what he could do best - which was compose bright cheerful marches.

*

It is odd that the vagabond should have produced compositions in a field in which he was rather an incongruous figure. But Middleton was rather an incongruous figure at the best of times. It was fortunate that he had been born into, and married into, a family with a romantic sentimental streak - a family that could be amused by his eccentricities. At times, the vagabond’s antics in England equalled those recorded in his travel books.

A niece, Gwendolin, who was a very young girl during the first world war, recalls something of her uncle’s personality at the time. Like many girls of her age she knitted a scarf for the ‘Red Cross’ to send to the soldiers on the front line. She was a very slow knitter so by the time she had finished the scarf the war had ended. It was suggested that she send it to her uncle Arnold. She received a thank you letter back in which he had written:’ ‘Every time I shall wear this scarf I will think of your lily-white-arms around my neck’ She liked the thought for, sixty years later, she remembered the letter.

Her uncle did have a soft, sentimental side to him - but one that often made Wolfington Road a pleasant place to visit. Family and friends were entertained by stories, and improvisations on the violin. The vagabond was also an accomplished zither player.

‘Right in the Heart of June’ invokes the drawing room ballad and the age before the gramophone industry. Minstrelsy may have been dying in the world, along with the Edwardian era, but when visitors entered Middleton’s parlour, passing a huge oil painting of Florence on the hall - such was his admiration for her that one almost had to genuflect before her image - they were welcomed by its charm.

Indeed, at 70 Wolfington Road, the first world war had clearly not been in progress. In a postscript to ‘a Vagabond’s Odyssey’ - addressed to his South sea chums - the vagabond takes a bemused, anthropological look at his own country and notes that the natives are on the war path again. “It is much safer now to live in the Solomon Isles,” he adds ruefully.

Incidentally, Alice rather disapproved of the painting of Florence, her husband’s ex-girl friend on her wall. She maliciously repeated the Christmas pudding incident to all members of her family. She always added, “Well, it shows that he couldn’t really have been all that fond of her.

'Light as 'South Sea Foam' (Methuen 6/-) is Mr Safroni-Middleton's latest collection of adventures and experiences among the South Sea islands as a troubadour disguised at times as a shellback. The author carries a fiddle, and won his way to the hearts of secretive ladies much as did his prototypes from Provence with their harps and lutes. In return for his music some of them made love to him, some, we suspect, made schemes to eat him, while others obliged with amusing stories about forgotten Gods who dressed in woven starlight and featherdown and displayed an ingenuity which might well have been expected from their cousins of Nifelheim or the hard working theogonies of the cold and vigourous north. But the cannibals were not indigenous, however, and there is a diverting episode of a retired British criminal, setting up as a cannibal king in a small way, who was well beaten by an indignant compatriot and afterwards ceremonially buried by a naval landing party under the impression that he had been a respectable member of the Church of England. Amid his tales of the loves of Gods or of men and goddesses, the author has stumbled upon some merely mortal affairs of the heart such as that which led to the elopement of a maid of honour from the Court of Queen Pomare. But disaster dogged her flying footsteps, and the poor girl went md, before she could marry her stowaway lover. The book is a jumble of poetic descriptions, mythological scenes and blunt episodes of sordid modernity. On one page goddesses weave mysteries from moonbeams and sunsets, on the next, drunken sailors intrude with stupid vulgarities, the author fiddles before assemblies of high chiefs and princesses, and incongruously travels to the next island concealed in a coal bunker while he dreams of the fish and the crab!

(Review of ‘South Sea Foam’ from the ‘Times Literary Supplement’ of 1920.)