My chosen profession was therefore a scholastic one, and my choice of Alma Mater was Goldsmiths' College (now famous as the home of the National Centre for Orchestral Studies, but then entirely innocent of any orchestral activity except that of the Evening Institute, where a symphony orchestra under the baton of the redoubtable and sympathetic Frederick Haggis met each Tuesday and performed once each term to my immense delight and enlightenment). It was here that I met for the first time players who had been my idols for years - members of the London Philharmonic like the flautist Gerald Jackson and oboeist [sic] Horace Green, the horn player Charles Gregory and bassoonist Cecil James. To play with them was a revelation, and far more advantageous than study with any professor, however famous. They or course came only for the final rehearsal, but it was an event worth waiting for. As I've said, the way to learn to play in an ensemble is to play in one. << less