My musical education had begun during my school days, but it was my time in London during my National Service in the RAF, which enabled me to come as often as money and time allowed, to concerts at the Royal Festival Hall. So I learned to love music of many kinds, watching conductors such as Sir Adrian Boult, Sir Malcom Sargent, Sir Thomas Beecham, Bruno Walter and - the greatest of them all - Otto Klemperer. A particular pleasure, if the interval occured at the right moment, was to stand on a summer evening on the open-air balcony on the south side of the HAll, overlooking Hungerford Bridge, and watch the 9:10 express to Folkestone and Dover pull out from Charing Cross, hauled by a magnificient Battle of Britain class pacific - music of a different kind to a railway enthusiast's ear!