Me, Jonathan Miller and the Victoria Line …

Blog 93 – Me, Jonathan Miller and the Victoria Line by Ms Paige Turner. Be the first to spot the synaesthesia and you will win an assessment of one of your poems – value: £10.

It’s a giveaway in the title: who I met on the Tube last week. He was sitting in the corner, inconspicuously reading a book. I was half way through writing a sonnet. I thought I recognised him. Maybe he was an ex-Creative Inker. He caught my eye and smiled. His face showed the landmarks of a friendly car tyre. I smiled and glanced away and glanced again. He looked up from his book and gave another short smile. I then knew it was The Doctor. His acknowledgment to me invited a response. Maybe he is inconspicuous on the Tube. So I said, “I saw you speaking about ballet at the Central School of Speech and Drama when I was nineteen.” I guess my facial landmarks indicated this was some time ago as he said he couldn’t recall.
I recall that lecture at the Embassy Theatre with clarity. Ballet has no words and life, Dr Jonathan Miller said in 1973, was a life of words. Actually, I feel ballet has a place, especially when you’ve sent 7000 words down the chute on a Masters’ assignment (see blog 83). However, I fell in love with Dr Jonathan Miller in the Embassy Theatre in 1973 and all over again on the Victoria Line as I have been totally in love with his voice and the Beyond the Fringe sketches. He told me he was directing Opera – and on the way to a rehearsal. I told him I was on the way to Croydon as my daughter was defending one of her biggest cases and over lunch Miss Trial said, “Oh, Mum you didn’t tell him you were doing a Masters at Cambridge, did you?” Of course and he had asked where I was staying and I told him it was a two year course, five residentials and quite a bit of online work and that I thanked him for our dialogue and that I would dine out on it.
Miss Trial whipped out her encyclopedic mobile and discovered that Sir Jonathan Miller was twenty years older than me to the day and that he is an alumni of her college. Information is fast. Then later on this clammy City day, dining out with her and son-in-law Master Mind, back at Victoria, I re-told the story of me, Jonathan Miller and the Victoria Line. Master Mind said, “Where did you get on?”
“Oxford Circus,” I said.
“Two stops to Victoria,” Master Mind replied. “Quick chat.” He’s quick.
“Oh, Master Mind,” I said. “Never mind the width, feel the quality.”

• A few places left on Tuesdays – Get Inspired and Thursdays – Get that Book out of You – 10.00am until midday at the Fitzwilliams Centre, Beaconsfield, Five week courses beginning mid-September. Email me for a syllabus.
*No-one spotted the intentional error on last week’s ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ and not as I wrote, ‘The Fault is in Our Stars’.
• Prizes must be taken up within six months.