Ralph Vaughan Williams

On Saturday (24th) I spent the day wandering around Dorking in Surrey on a self devised Ralph Vaughn Williams discovery tour. Unfortunately there was little to see. There is a statue outside the Dorking Halls but it seemed out of the way due to its location at one end of the high street. There is also a plaque in the porch of St Martin’s church where RVW conducted many a concert. But that was about it. I did find a leaflet that gave other connected locations such as the White Horse hotel (concerts) and the Oddfellows building (rehearsals) but the museum had nothing neither did any of the local book shops. I was told to try the library but it was closed. We did drive to Leith Hill Place to see his old house but it was difficult to see from the road and is not open for visitors. His other address known as ‘White Gates’ off Woodcott road has now been demolished. I did think I was going to see more but maybe the people of Dorking do not view him with any tourist potential. I did manage to get a couple of Naxos CD’s of his music and spent the afternoon listening to such gems as The Lark Ascending and Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis. As I lay on my hotel bed listening to this wonderful English music I could only feel a little sad that we are not celebrating one of our composers more in the very town that he lived. But should we? Maybe if there were rows of RVW tea shops and souvenir emporiums I would complain about the commercialism. Perhaps we should just be satisfied with his musical legacy and not crave worthless memorabilia and biographies by the score.