Egged tales (more stories from 40 years ago)

1978 marked the golden jubilee of British Habonim (the movement spread to other countries a few years later); it was decided that we would mark the event by putting on what might be termed a 'musical' which was named 'Egged tales' (on the basis of the Canterbury tales; Egged is the name of the national Israeli bus company). I wasn't involved at the very beginning, but I was roped in shortly afterwards (either late December 1977 or early January 1978) to be the musical director of the show. One movement worker had a strong background in theatre, the wife of our shali'ach (an Israeli family sent to Britain to help run the movement) had a similar background, and there was one young man who thought that he was Danny Kaye.

In true Habonim style, there wasn't a written script initially; the musical would be built on scenes developed through group improvisation (but then formalised) and songs. As usual, the songs were adaptions of existing songs with new lyrics. For obvious reasons, we (I became part of the production company) were limited to using members from London; a message went out inviting anybody who was interested to attend rehearsals. I developed a group consisting of two brothers from Ilford (guitar and bass), my friend Debby (clarinet - I didn't know that she could play!), one youngster on violin, an even younger youngster on percussion (I bought him a pair of bongoes) and myself, playing mandolin and lead guitar.

Throughout January, my group worked on the songs which we had to play; I wrote what might be termed an overture, whose tune was based on the Israeli national anthem, but this got discarded at some stage. The opening song was  'The Deadwood Stage' from the film  'Calamity Jane'; whilst I might have been vaguely familiar with the tune beforehand, I think that I learnt it - and taught the others - from a cassette version prepared by the Danny Kaye wannabe. I don't remember now what the other songs were, although the finale was a song from 'Joseph and the technicolour dream'.

In February I had to curtail my involvement in the musical in order to devote myself to my university studies: we had final exams at the end of the month. When I came back, I found my group of musicians well rehearsed.

We took the show 'on the road' during the Spring holidays. After a final rehearsal in London one Saturday afternoon, we took the scenery apart and loaded everything into a truck which headed north to Manchester. A coach was hired to take all the youngsters, but I travelled separately in a car with my fellow producers. As far as I remember, we appeared at the Free Trade Hall (or maybe the Lesser Free Trade Hall) in Manchester the following day. I confess that I remember nothing of the performance. After the show, all the youngsters stayed overnight with their counterparts in Manchester, whereas we stayed in the Habonim building at Upper Park Road, Salford: a very familiar location for me.

The next day, we made the short trip to Leeds, where we set up in some hall (this might have been the Habonim building there but I don't think so) and performed again. Once more, the youngsters stayed overnight before setting out for Glasgow, whereas my cohorts helped pack everything then set out immediately for Glasgow. I remember falling asleep quite quickly then waking up somewhere north of the border. When we arrived at the hall, I set up the audio equipment half asleep; I remember being pleased that we had an eight track mixer but that's all I remember. The show went in a flash - although nominally awake, I was asleep. It's like when we used to go on night walks at summer camp - I would walk and have no memories of a few hours. Fortunately after this show, we had a few days rest.

One week after the Manchester show, we reconvened at the Savile Theatre in London's West End - or at least I think that it was the Savile. The Wiki states that the theatre was turned into a cinema in 1970 which makes me wonder where we did appear. I did a little busking in the street in the afternoon, not that anyone stopped and gave me money. As usual, I remember nothing of the performance, but two things have stuck in my mind from that day. At some stage, the cable from my electric guitar to its amplifier caused problems, so I had to play one extra song on mandolin; I think that during the interval we got the guitar/amplifier working again for I certainly played 'stinging lead guitar' during the finale. After the show, I met my old girlfriend G, this being our final meeting. It wasn't too much of a surprise as her youngest sister appeared in the cast but always the fool, all I could talk about was the problem with the guitar and not about anything about her (like how she was, what she was doing, etc).

I had recorded one show with two microphones and my trusty stereo cassette deck; I invited the man who ran a home studio in Hendon to record the London show, but I had left it too late and he was busy that day (my friends and I recorded 'an album' in his 'studio' (his front room!) in 1977, but that's another story which seems not to have been written about here). So I tried again to get a good recording from the London show. Eventually with the help of Mr Warren (the Hendon man), we were able to patch together an audio souvenir of the show. I have a cassette somewhere, but haven't heard it for years; I don't have the means to listen to it now, even if I wanted to. 

I have just dug out the cassette from its hiding place; the 'liner notes' say that the show was recorded in Birmingham, 9 April 1978. Birmingham? It seems that I had the itinerary wrong - we must have appeared first in Birmingham on Sunday, then travelled further north to Manchester, Leeds and Glasgow. Maybe we didn't appear in Manchester? My mind is a blank and these memories aren't likely to return. 

A year later, some of the senior participants would relive the show when we took part in the celebrations for 50 years of Habonim in Israel. Although I vaguely remember the atmosphere, the only real memory I have of this event was meeting the then president of Israel, Yizhak Navon.

[Edit from a year later] I am fairly certain that the order of shows was Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow, home for a few days, Birmingham, a week off, London.