The Sunday Times magazine - June 1980 (selected pages)

MES

N X

2: specialist collections - dolls to dog collars

THE SUNDAY TIMES Contents, June 29, 1980 Cover: Bethnal Green Museum doll. Photograph: David Cripps

THEGOOD

MUSEUM GUIDE The second of our 11-part series to collect and keep on the unburied treasures of Britain: Specialist Collections.

Page 37 Curiosities.

Page 38 English ceramics.

Page 40 Street lighting, photography, theatre.

Page 44 Oriental collections.

Page 46 Shells, clocks and watches, relics of the Raj - and dog collars. Page 48 Museums of childhood.

Page 50 Facilities for children.

Page 51

MAIN FEATURES Sex odyssey: how Gay Talese found that the way to achieve lasting satisfaction from the American sex revolution was by writing about it.

Page 24 Trigger happy: the Soviet AK-47 assault rifle — a winner for more than 20 years.

Page 30 Palmy days: why the British now love Hawaiian-style clothes. Page 58 Aristocratic Arabians: the U.S. vogue for super steeds.

Page 62

LIFESPAN Painting: the modest genius of Douglas Percy Bliss.

Page 69 Fashion: the T-shirt turns another cheek.

Page 70 Bread: the plant bakers who repented - and why.

Page 71 The Searchers: still making fans and influencing producers. Page 72 Wine: the best from Italy. Page 73 Claire Bretecher.

Page 75 Page 79 Games.

A Life in the Day of Mary O'Hara.

Page 86

This week our section for younger readers unveils some brand new fashion ideas - though you'll have to wait for them in the shops ! We tell you how to make your own sundial and we have news of a mobile sports centre : other people please copy.

We also begin our new puzzle, The Mighty Molecule, while Flash Gordon continues his adventures and Lesley Judd picks your prize-winning letters.

Page 80

Mary O'Hara, singer, talks to Glenn Gale at her Hampshire cottage; photograph by David Lavender

A LIFE TOTHE DAYOF MART O'HARA Psalm 139 sets me up for the day. I lie in bed when I awake and reflect on its words every morning: 'O Lord, You search me and You know me . ' I used to be a very irregular riser, getting up anytime between nine and noon. Mainly, I think, as a reaction to the years I spent in a monastery where I had to get up at five every morning.

But now Fve schooled myself to wake

Mary O'Hara, seen here near her cottage home, gave up her singing career to join the enclosed Order of Benedictine nuns when her husband died. Since she made her comeback three years ago her record Tranquility has sold 300,000 copies

up at eight.

Almost my first act is to go downstairs and see what the postman has popped through the letterbox. I sit on the doormat and go through the post.

The guest room is round the corner and friends who come to stay complain that the assorted chuckles and chortles I emit in response to my mail wake them up. Ablutions are followed religiously by 20 minutes callisthenics in the study - with Terry Wogan's patter on Radio-2 for company. I often get ideas for songs from listening to Terry's programme.

However, when I'm having breakfast or washing up I switch to Radio-3.

Breakfast is unvarying. It's always fresh fruit followed by oatmeal porridge with pure bran, wheatgerm and honey. Until recently, I used to have cream and milk but the herbalist who's been treating me for sinus trouble discovered that I was allergic to milk products. I rarely drink tea or coffee, when I do it's usually herbal tea.

I do all my own housework and, having rushed through the chores, I settle down to some practice. This involves doing vocal and harp exercises, learning new accompaniments, revising old songs and composing new materials. I am also sent lots of sheet music to browse over. Personally, I prefer music to be sent on cassettes as I don't have a piano at home.

Around this time my manager, John Coast, calls me on the phone.

I've only been with him a short while but already he knows not to disturb me before lla.m. We discuss various projects he's got lined up for me -1 usually find my practice sessions take on greater urgency after he's called.

Since coming under the care of a herbalist I've had to regulate my eating habits. So at one o'clock everything stops for lunch - two slices of wholemeal bread, a lightly boiled egg, fruit juice and nuts. I make myself have three meals a day because I don't want to lose weight. I eat sensibly, mainly health foods.

After lunch I put on jeans and wellies and set out on a walk lasting anything up to two hours. It's probably the most imponant activity of my day. I live in a cottage on a 1200-acre estate on the Hampshire/Wiltshire border surrounded by beautiful country, so I can walk for miles through meadows, fields and woods - seeing sheep, horses, cows and the odd deer without coming across another human.

If I've had to to go away recording during the day I take my walk at night, with a lantern. At first people on the estate thought I was a poacher, but now they've got used to my nocturnal habits.

On my walk my mind is completely relaxed. Although I relate well to people it's in my nature to be a loner. I'm enriched by friendships but I'm very content to be by myself.

When I left the monastery, after a second bout of what can best be des-

cribed as nervous and physical exhaustion, I had no desire to take up my previous occupation as a professional singer. It was very reluctantly that I agreed to go back to singing.

The trappings of show business don't interest me. I'm content to go to a concert hall or television studio, perform as best I can and then jump into 'Marco the Dragon* [her red Volkswagen Polo] and return to my cottage, walks and, in the summer, tennis. I love the grace and movement of tennis. I only wish I could play it all the year round.

I return home from my walk about four o'clock ready to tackle my correspondence. I get lots of letters from people who've been affected one way or the other by my music and I answer them all. I write the letters sitting on the floor with the writing pad on my knees.

I'm frightfully scatty, forever losing things like my precious address book or my diary. But I get on to St Anthony [the patron saint of lost property] and ask him to get cracking.

He's never failed me so far. Only a few weeks ago I left my handbag in a taxi in London and, within three days, it arrived by first-class post with everything intact. Inside was a note, signed 'an admirer', taking me to task for being careless and informing me that as a reward my admirer had bought goods worth ÂŁ50 off one of my credit cards.

Early in the evening I look through

Radio Times and TV Times and mark the programmes I want to see. I would never miss The Muppets, Fawlty Towers or the Attenborough programmes. But the television is never switched on before I sit down to dinner about 7p.m. Until I was taken off dairy products I used to be a vegetarian. But now that I've been put back on meat I have lamb, chicken or beef with plenty of raw vegetables and fruit to follow.

If there's a recording session or a concert coming up I will spend a large pan of the evening practising, sometimes even late into the night.

The estate stables are next door to my cottage and one of the stable lads tells me that a couple of the horses are susceptible to my music - especially at night.

I'm rarely in bed before midnight, even though I keep promising myself an early night. I often write letters in bed, but nearly always I read. At the moment it's Van der Post's biography of Jung. I tend to re-read; Pve recently gone back to Tolkien and Tagore.

Then before I shut my eyes I reach for my seven vitamin pills and down them with a drink of lemon and honey. I picked the formula in a health food shop in Canada. It's perfect for a good night's sleep.

Next week: Jack Higgins, author