CRUEL FATE

“Oh, cruel fate, when wilt thou weary be?”    (Shakespeare)

   Jacqueline du Pre

The other night, I was watching a moving television documentary about the career of the English cellist, Jacqueline du Pre. I enjoy classical music – always have since I was a young boy – so I knew about du Pre when I was growing up in the Swinging Sixties. You could hardly call the cello an instrument to rival the guitar in the affection of the youth culture of the era, but with her long blond locks and miniskirt, she was as much part and parcel of the celebrity scene as Sandie Shaw, Marianne Faithfull, Petula Clark, Mary Hopkin and a host of other female, mini-skirted performers. Du Pre and her husband, Daniel Barenboim, were the golden couple of the classical world, the Posh and Becks of their era, as frequently in the social and gossip columns of the newspapers and magazines as they were in the reviews of their concerts.

The documentary made it abundantly clear that du Pre was unrivalled as a cellist, noted for her passionate and emotive playing, who won plaudits and acclamation from well-known contemporary musicians such as Yehudi Menuhin, Itzhac Perlman, Zubin Mehta, Leonard Bernstein and Yo-Yo Ma, who all placed her on the pedestal as the most gifted cellist of her era, a genius, quite unlike any other before or since.

It was a particularly emotional watch because of course I knew how it would all end. By 1971, her playing had noticeably declined as she began to lose sensation in her fingers and other parts of her body. She was eventually diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1973 and thereafter it was a swift and shocking physical decline until her death in 1987, at the age of 42. Can one imagine – it seems scarcely possible to do so – what it must have been like to lose the wherewithal to perform at the very highest level of her profession - at the age of 26?

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At which my mind went on a wander…. Duncan Edwards played left-half for Manchester United and England, one of the Busby Babes who had the footballing world at their feet in the mid-1950s. He was noted for his physical strength and authority on the pitch. Bobby Charlton, a team-mate of his, said of him, “Look at pictures of the team lined up before kick-off. You can see Duncan with his barrel chest thrust out and you just knew you could not possibly lose!” Edwards was, as was Charlton, on the cusp of a glittering domestic and international career. But as we all know, only Charlton was able to fulfil that early promise.

Duncan Edwards (far left) lining up with the Manchester United team. Note the thrusting chest that his team-mate Bobby Charlton referred to.

Returning home from the semi-final of the European Cup against Red Star Belgrade, the plane carrying the Manchester United team crashed in a snowstorm at Munich Airport in February 1958, killing seven players and fourteen other passengers. Charlton survived. Edwards did not. He was only 21.

Philip Hughes, an Australian, scored his first Test century in 2009, aged just 20, in only his second game for his country, thus becoming the youngest Australian Test centurion since Doug Walters in 1965. Tipped by no less an authority than the Australian captain, Michael Clarke, as “a future 100 Test man”, Hughes had achieved only 26 of them when he was struck on the back of the neck by a bouncer and died at the wicket, aged 26

 Opponents tend to the felled Philip Hughes, but he was already dead.

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The difference between these three tragic figures of course is that du Pre was aware of what was happening to her, whereas Edwards and Hughes perished instantly. Perhaps a more apt case would be provided by another Australian of an earlier era, Archie Jackson. He played eight Test matches between 1929 and 1931, making his debut, aged only 19, against England, scoring 164, thus becoming at the time the youngest Test centurion in the history of the game. His career coincided with the early playing years of Don Bradman, with whom he was frequently compared. Many seasoned observers believed that Jackson was the better batsman.

Early in the 1931-32 season, Jackson coughed blood and collapsed during a Sheffield Shield match. He was subsequently diagnosed with tuberculosis. His health deteriorated rapidly, and he died at the age of 23. He was a hugely popular and greatly loved figure. Thousands lined the streets of Sydney for his funeral and the six pallbearers were all members of the Australin team, one of whom was Bradman.

Archie Jackson’s funeral. Don Bradman is the pallbearer at the rear of the right side of the coffin.

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It was often speculated – even by the great man himself – that had Jackson lived, he might well have rivalled Bradman as a batsman…and let us not forget that The Don became the undisputed greatest batsman in the history of cricket.

The point is that Jackson was fully aware of what was afflicting him. Back then, the established treatment was rest, exercise and a proper diet in a sanatorium at high altitude, but the prospects, particularly for one so badly infected as Jackson, were slim. He knew what was coming; thus, he married his girlfriend shortly before he died.

We – all of us – suffer some form of loss in our life, some big, some small. It is how we deal with it that defines us as human beings. Who can say that the loss of a beloved pet is any more or less heartbreaking than the realisation that MS was going to rob a young woman of playing the cello like an angel in front of thousands of adoring music lovers? “Fate will unwind as it must.” I am not sure why I remember that quotation from Beowulf. It was about the only thing I learnt from my (unwilling) study of Anglo-Saxon at university. Or, as Goldie Hawn so memorably put it, “You often meet your fate on the road you take to avoid it.” In Greek mythology, the Fates were the personifications of destiny, the role of whom was to ensure that every being, mortal or divine, lived out their destiny as it was assigned to them by the laws of the universe. Put it like that, du Pre, Edwards, Hughes, Jackson, all of us… we don’t stand a chance.

“Oh, heaven, that one might read the book of fate and see the revolution of the times.”

William Shakespeare   (Henry IV Part 2)