Misplaced Pages

#195804

131-907: The orchestra is named after the composer Benjamin Britten , who lived in the East of England. It is a registered charity . The orchestra does not have a principal conductor but works with a range of international guest artists from across the musical spectrum as suited to each project. Recent seasons have included projects with Brad Mehldau , Thomas Adès , Pierre-Laurent Aimard , James MacMillan , Ian Bostridge , Joanna MacGregor , Mahan Esfahani , Masaaki Suzuki , Polyphony , director Katie Mitchell , Imogen Cooper , Dhafer Youssef , These New Puritans , Jaga Jazzist and Rufus Wainwright . In 2013–14 Britten Sinfonia collaborated with artists including Paul Lewis , Ian Bostridge , Netia Jones , Mark Padmore , Pekka Kuusisto , Iestyn Davies , Patricia Kopatchinskaja and

262-460: A Pacifist March to words by Ronald Duncan for the Peace Pledge Union , of which, as a pacifist, he had become an active member; the work was not a success and was soon withdrawn. The best known of his compositions from this period is probably Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge for string orchestra, described by Matthews as the first of Britten's works to become a popular classic. It

393-572: A dame school , run by the Misses Astle. The younger sister, Ethel, gave him piano lessons; in later life he said that he remained grateful for the excellence of her teaching. The following year he moved on to a prep school , South Lodge , Lowestoft, as a day boy . The headmaster, Thomas Sewell, was an old-fashioned disciplinarian; the young Britten was outraged at the severe corporal punishments frequently handed out, and later he said that his lifelong pacifism probably had its roots in his reaction to

524-491: A municipal borough which became part of the administrative county of East Suffolk in 1889, the district contained the parish of Lowestoft, from 1890 to 1907 the district also contained the parish of Kirkley . On 1 April 1974 the district and parish were abolished and became part of Waveney in the non-metropolitan county of Suffolk. It retained a ceremonial mayor elected annually by its district councillors and acting as charter trustees until 2017. Suffolk County Council

655-520: A storm surge caused severe flooding of Lowestoft and its suburbs. Lowestoft is among the UK's driest areas: annual rainfall averages under 600 mm distributed fairly evenly through the year. Mean daily summer temperatures peak at 21 °C in August, when the town averages over 200 hours of sunshine, while in winter minima average 2 °C. Marked snowfall is rare. Sea fog and cool onshore breezes can affect

786-525: A Theme by Frank Bridge for full orchestra for the Frederick Ashton ballet Le Rêve de Léonor (1949), but he later described the teacher–pupil relationship as "beneficial five per cent to [Britten] and ninety-five per cent to me!" Throughout the 1950s Britten continued to write operas. Billy Budd (1951) was well received at its Covent Garden premiere and was regarded by reviewers as an advance on Peter Grimes . Gloriana (1953), written to mark

917-501: A bit but not for long (he was quite tough), the staff couldn't object if his work and games didn't suffer. He wrote lots of it, reams and reams of it. Audrey Alston encouraged Britten to go to symphony concerts in Norwich . At one of these, during the triennial Norfolk and Norwich Festival in October 1924, he heard Frank Bridge 's orchestral poem The Sea , conducted by the composer. It was

1048-693: A composition scholarship at the Royal College of Music (RCM) in London; his examiners were the composers John Ireland and Ralph Vaughan Williams and the college's harmony and counterpoint teacher, S P Waddington. Britten was at the RCM from 1930 to 1933, studying composition with Ireland and piano with Arthur Benjamin . He won the Sullivan Prize for composition, the Cobbett Competition for chamber music, and

1179-443: A damaged heart, and doctors warned his parents that he would probably never be able to lead a normal life. He recovered more fully than expected, and as a boy was a keen tennis player and cricketer. To his mother's great delight he was an outstandingly musical child, unlike his sisters, who inherited their father's indifference to music, while his brother, Robert, though musically talented, was interested only in ragtime . Edith gave

1310-538: A farmer had been thwarted by lack of capital, and he had instead trained as a dentist, a profession he practised successfully but without pleasure. While studying at Charing Cross Hospital in London he met Edith Hockey, the daughter of a civil service clerk in the British Government's Home Office . They were married in September 1901 at St John's, Smith Square , London. The consensus among biographers of Britten

1441-491: A few days later, Britten gave him what he had written of Praise We Great Men . I heard of his death ... and took a long walk in total silence through gently falling snow across a frozen lake, which corresponded exactly to the inexpressible sense of numbness at such a loss. The world is colder and lonelier without the presence of our supreme creator of music. Peter Maxwell Davies , 1977 Britten died of congestive heart failure on 4 December 1976. His funeral service

SECTION 10

#1732858867196

1572-516: A great interest in writing music for children and amateur performers, including the opera Noye's Fludde , a Missa Brevis , and the song collection Friday Afternoons . He often composed with particular performers in mind. His most frequent and important muse was his personal and professional partner, the tenor Peter Pears ; others included Kathleen Ferrier , Jennifer Vyvyan , Janet Baker , Dennis Brain , Julian Bream , Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau , Osian Ellis and Mstislav Rostropovich . Britten

1703-498: A highlight being a tour of South America , and is frequently heard on disc, BBC Radio 3 and commercial radio. The orchestra has received awards including a Gramophone Award and in 2007 won the Royal Philharmonic Society Ensemble Award in recognition of its work. In August 2020, Meurig Bowen took up the post of chief executive and artistic director. Bowen was previously head of Artistic Planning at

1834-543: A loss of 60 jobs, having once employed 800. The timber company Jeld-Wen closed its factory in the town in 2010. From the mid-1960s to the late 1990s, the oil and gas industry provided significant employment in the area. For many years the Shell Southern Operations base on the north shore of Lowestoft Harbour was town's largest employer. A decision to close the Shell base was finally made in 2003. Oil and gas

1965-426: A loss of £40,000 and raised concerns over its sustainability, whereupon further financial difficulties coupled with bad weather and low visitor numbers made the 2012 airshow the last before it was discontinued. Near the town centre is Lowestoft Maritime Museum , open from late April to late October, which has exhibits of maritime artefacts, an extensive collection of ship models and medals, marine art, fishing and

2096-563: A naval base. It is sometimes placed among the UK's most heavily bombed towns per head of population. The Royal Naval Patrol Service was mobilised in August 1939, mainly by trawlermen and fishermen of the Royal Naval Reserve . Its depot, HMS Europa , was also known locally as the Sparrow's Nest . Lowestoft is the major settlement in the East Suffolk district. In 1885 Lowestoft became

2227-427: A poem by Edith Sitwell . He returned to Aldeburgh in August, and wrote Welcome Ode for children's choir and orchestra. In November, Britten realised that he could no longer compose. On his 63rd birthday, 22 November, at his request Rita Thomson organised a champagne party and invited his friends and his sisters Barbara and Beth, to say their goodbyes to the dying composer. When Rostropovich made his farewell visit

2358-516: A profound impact on the town's industrial development – its fishing fleets could sell to markets further inland, and other industries such as engineering gained from increased trade with the continent. Peto's railway enabled Lowestoft to become a flourishing seaside holiday resort ; much of Peto's seaside resort in south Lowestoft still exists, including the Grade II listed Kirkley Cliff and Wellington Esplanade terraces. During World War I , Lowestoft

2489-654: A specialist in self-catering UK holidays, is also a large employment provider. The town centre is the main shopping area in Waveney district. The retail chain Marks & Spencer has a store. Chadds independent department store was founded in 1907, and after nearly 100 years trading in the High Street, was taken over in 2004 by the Great Yarmouth -based Palmers group. Specialist shopping areas, branded as The Historic High Street and

2620-812: Is a Grade I listed building . In the town centre is Our Lady Star of the Sea Church , a Grade II listed building in the Arts and Crafts style and the most easterly Catholic church in the British Isles. Lowestoft's town-centre library contains a local-history section and a branch of the Suffolk Record Office. Lowestoft Hospital closed in 2016. Services are now provided by the James Paget University Hospital in Gorleston. The main burial grounds for

2751-612: Is also located there. The Mincarlo , the last surviving sidewinder trawler of the Lowestoft fishing fleet , can be visited at Lowestoft Harbour. The East Anglia Transport Museum holds a collection of buses, trams and trolleybuses in Carlton Colville . Lowestoft retains several narrow lanes with steps running steeply seawards, known locally as "scores". They were used by fishermen and smugglers and now feature in an annual charity race. The borough church, dedicated to St Margaret ,

SECTION 20

#1732858867196

2882-443: Is still a major industry. The town has made efforts to develop as a centre for renewable energy in the east of England. The non-profit Orbis Energy centre has been set up to draw business in the green-energy sector and features solar thermal heating . In April 2009, Associated British Ports announced that the harbour is to become the operations centre for the 500 MW Greater Gabbard wind farm , which when completed will be

3013-553: Is still located in Lowestoft. Other major traditional employers included Eastern Coach Works and engineering and shipbuilding companies clustered around the harbour . These included the Brooke Marine and Richards shipbuilding companies, which together employed over a thousand men but went out of business in the 1990s, and the Norwich-based engineering company Boulton and Paul . Some shipbuilding and repair still goes on at

3144-628: Is that his father was a loving but somewhat stern and remote parent. Britten, according to his sister Beth, "got on well with him and shared his wry sense of humour, dedication to work and capacity for taking pains." Edith Britten was a talented amateur musician and secretary of the Lowestoft Musical Society. In the English provinces of the early 20th century, distinctions of social class were taken very seriously. Britten described his family as "very ordinary middle class", but there were aspects of

3275-626: Is the county authority. A civil parish of Lowestoft was created on 1 April 2017, governed by Lowestoft Town Council, which elects a town mayor annually. The town is part of the Lowestoft parliamentary constituency . Before 1 April 2019, Lowestoft, as part of Waveney District Council, was divided into ten electoral wards, with Carlton Colville treated as a separate electoral area. Harbour, Kirkley, Normanston , Pakefield , St Margarets and Whitton wards elected three councillors each, and Carlton, Gunton and Corton, Oulton and Oulton Broad wards two. Of

3406-514: The BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales , and director of Cheltenham Music Festival . The Creative Learning department of the Sinfonia provides educational support to the mainstream concert season. These activities involve: All of these activities are led by Britten Sinfonia's musicians and associated composers and workshop leaders. For audiences of all ages and levels of experience,

3537-522: The BBC Singers , who first performed it the following year. In this same period he wrote Friday Afternoons , a collection of 12 songs for the pupils of Clive House School, Prestatyn , where his brother was headmaster. In February 1935, at Bridge's instigation, Britten was invited to a job interview by the BBC's director of music Adrian Boult and his assistant Edward Clark . Britten was not enthusiastic about

3668-514: The Marina , the Players (Lowestoft) and The Seagull . The 800-seat Marina, operated as a charitable trust, was restored and refurbished in 2012 and its cinema upgraded to digital in 2013. A small four-screen cinema, the independently owned East Coast Cinema, underwent modest refurbishment in late 2011 to upgrade facilities and allow 3D films to be shown. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra has played regularly at

3799-849: The Pakefield cliffs of south Lowestoft in 2005 allow human habitation of the area to be traced back 700,000 years. Habitation occurred in the Neolithic , Bronze and Iron ages and in the Roman and Saxon times. Several finds have been made at a Saxon cemetery at Bloodmoor Hill in south Lowestoft. The place name derives from a Norse personal name, Hlothver , and toft , an Old Norse word for homestead. It has been spelt historically as Lothnwistoft , Lothuwistoft , Lestoffe , Laistoe , Loystoft and Laystoft . The 1086 Domesday Book gives Lothuwistoft village some 16 households in three families, with ten smallholders and three slaves. The manor formed part of

3930-618: The Richard Alston Dance Company with premières from composers including Sally Beamish , Roderick Williams , Mark Simpson , Brett Dean and Philip Cashian . Britten Sinfonia performs in concert halls around Europe and festivals and is a regular at the BBC Proms and has residencies in Cambridge, Norwich , and Brighton with a concert series at London's Barbican Centre and Wigmore Hall . The ensemble has an international profile,

4061-757: The Suite on English Folk Tunes "A Time There Was" (1974); the Third String Quartet (1975), which drew on material from Death in Venice ; and the dramatic cantata Phaedra (1975), written for Janet Baker . In June 1976, the last year of his life, Britten accepted a life peerage – the first composer so honoured – becoming Baron Britten, of Aldeburgh in the County of Suffolk. After the 1976 Aldeburgh Festival, Britten and Pears travelled to Norway, where Britten began writing Praise We Great Men , for voices and orchestra based on

Britten Sinfonia - Misplaced Pages Continue

4192-546: The coronation of Elizabeth II , had a cool reception at the gala premiere in the presence of the Queen and the British Establishment en masse . The downbeat story of Elizabeth I in her decline, and Britten's score – reportedly thought by members of the premiere's audience "too modern" for such a gala – did not overcome what Matthews calls the "ingrained philistinism" of the ruling classes. Although Gloriana did well at

4323-530: The 1950s. Hemmings later said, "In all of the time that I spent with him he never abused that trust", and Crawford wrote "I cannot say enough about the kindness of that great man ... he had a wonderful patience and affinity with young people. He loved music, and loved youngsters caring about music." It was long suspected by several of Britten's close associates that there was something exceptional about his attraction to teenage boys: Auden referred to Britten's "attraction to thin-as-a-board juveniles ... to

4454-416: The 1960s and although 100 boats remained by the 1980s, there are now only a few small boats operating out of Lowestoft, with no large trawlers. By 2011 just three traders remained at the town's fish market, which is under threat of closure due to redevelopment of the port . The Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS), a large fisheries research centre that is a part of Defra ,

4585-517: The 1960s, the Aldeburgh Festival was outgrowing its customary venues, and plans to build a new concert hall in Aldeburgh were not progressing. When redundant Victorian maltings buildings in the village of Snape, six miles inland, became available for hire, Britten realised that the largest of them could be converted into a concert hall and opera house. The 830-seat Snape Maltings hall was opened by

4716-427: The 2001 census there were 27,777 households, giving an average household size of 2.40. In total 8,430 (30 per cent) were classified as one-person households, while 26 per cent included children aged 15 or under. The proportion of households without a private car was 29 per cent, whilst 22 per cent had two or more. In housing tenure, 72 per cent of homes were owner-occupied. Originally based on fishing and engineering,

4847-476: The 48 council seats in the district, 26 represented wards within Lowestoft and three were in Carlton Colville. In 2010 the council changed to a system of all seats being elected every four years. On 1 April 2019, governance arrangements for Lowestoft changed with the merger of Waveney and Suffolk Coastal District Councils to form a new district council of East Suffolk . Elections were held on 2 May 2019 for

4978-483: The Aldeburgh Festival. One of the best known of Britten's works, the War Requiem , was premiered in 1962. He had been asked four years earlier to write a work for the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral , a modernist building designed by Basil Spence . The old cathedral had been left in ruins by an air-raid on the city in 1940 in which hundreds of people died. Britten decided that his work would commemorate

5109-510: The Brittens that were not ordinary: Edith's father was illegitimate, and her mother was an alcoholic; Robert Britten was an agnostic and refused to attend church on Sundays. Music was the principal means by which Edith Britten strove to maintain the family's social standing, inviting the pillars of the local community to musical soirées at the house. When Britten was three months old he contracted pneumonia and nearly died. The illness left him with

5240-524: The Conservatives and six to Labour. On Suffolk County Council, Lowestoft and its district are represented by eight councillors, split equally between four divisions: Gunton, Lowestoft South, Oulton and Pakefield. For county council elections, held every four years, Pakefield division includes Carlton Colville. After the 2017 election, seven of Lowestoft's county councillors represented the Conservatives and one Labour. In 2018, one Conservative councillor left

5371-698: The Creative Learning programme offers opportunities to meet, talk to and work with performers and composers; discover more about the ensemble's wide-ranging repertoire; and develop new musical knowledge and skills. "... infused with irresistible energy ... cogent and compelling" – The Times "Britten Sinfonia has quietly established itself as one of the countries most flexible chamber orchestras" – Evening Standard Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten OM CH (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976)

Britten Sinfonia - Misplaced Pages Continue

5502-519: The East Point Pavilion the tourist information service. The beach south of the Claremont Pier is a Blue Flag beach . Lifeguard facilities are provided during the summer and water sports take place along the coast. Tourism is a significant aspect of the town's economy. The town features two major attractions, the first being Pleasurewood Hills Theme Park, situated on the northern edge of

5633-524: The Kid and An Outdoor Overture , both of which influenced his own music. In 1940 Britten composed Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo , the first of many song cycles for Pears. Britten's orchestral works from this period include the Violin Concerto , Sinfonia da Requiem , and An American Overture . In 1941 Britten produced his first music drama, Paul Bunyan , an operetta , to a libretto by Auden. While in

5764-533: The Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth areas, closed in 2011. Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft Enterprise Zone was announced in 2011 and launched in April 2012. The zone, developed by New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership, has six redevelopment sites across Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth . The bid for the zone in 2011 envisaged creating 13,500 jobs by 2036. It involved the Norfolk and Suffolk Energy Alliance and focused on developing

5895-840: The Marina Theatre since 2005. Lowestoft Museum, which holds a collection of Lowestoft Porcelain and artifacts describing the town's history, is in Nicholas Everett Park in Oulton Broad . There are some small museums in Sparrow's Nest Park in the north of the town, including the Lowestoft War Memorial Museum , the Maritime Museum and the Royal Naval Patrol Service Museum. The Heritage Workshop Centre

6026-553: The Orchestra (1945), written for an educational film, Instruments of the Orchestra , directed by Muir Mathieson and featuring the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Malcolm Sargent . It became, and remained, his most often played and popular work. Britten's next opera, The Rape of Lucretia , was presented at the first post-war Glyndebourne Festival in 1946. It was then taken on tour to provincial cities under

6157-481: The Queen at the start of the twentieth Aldeburgh Festival on 2 June 1967; it was immediately hailed as one of the best concert halls in the country. The hall was destroyed by fire in 1969, but Britten was determined that it would be rebuilt in time for the following year's festival, which it was. The Queen again attended the opening performance in 1970. The Maltings gave the festival a venue that could comfortably house large orchestral works and operas. Britten conducted

6288-655: The Second World War began, Britten and Pears turned for advice to the British embassy in Washington and were told that they should remain in the US as artistic ambassadors. Pears was inclined to disregard the advice and go back to England; Britten also felt the urge to return, but accepted the embassy's counsel and persuaded Pears to do the same. Already a friend of the composer Aaron Copland , Britten encountered his latest works Billy

6419-457: The Stone (1939). In 1937 there were two events of huge importance in Britten's life: his mother died, and he met the tenor Peter Pears . Although Britten was extraordinarily devoted to his mother and was devastated at her death, it also seems to have been something of a liberation for him. Only after that did he begin to engage in emotional relationships with people his own age or younger. Later in

6550-529: The String Quartet in F, completed in April 1928, and the Quatre Chansons Françaises , a song-cycle for high voice and orchestra. Authorities differ on the extent of Bridge's influence on his pupil's technique. Humphrey Carpenter and Michael Oliver judge that Britten's abilities as an orchestrator were essentially self-taught; Donald Mitchell considers that Bridge had an important influence on

6681-617: The Triangle Market Place, have been developed on the northern edge of the centre. Several retail parks have appeared, the largest being North Quay Retail Park in Peto Way. Lowestoft is a traditional seaside resort , first developed as a bathing site in the 1760s. The coast has been called the " Sunrise Coast ". The town's main beaches are south of the harbour, where two piers , the Claremont and South piers, provide tourist facilities, and

SECTION 50

#1732858867196

6812-511: The US, Britten had his first encounter with Balinese gamelan music, through transcriptions for piano duo made by the Canadian composer Colin McPhee . The two met in the summer of 1939 and subsequently performed a number of McPhee's transcriptions for a recording. This musical encounter bore fruit in several Balinese-inspired works later in Britten's career. Moving to the US did not relieve Britten of

6943-419: The US, Koussevitzky, always generous in encouraging new talent, offered him a $ 1,000 commission to write the opera. Britten and Pears returned to England in April 1942. During the long transatlantic sea crossing Britten completed the choral works A Ceremony of Carols and Hymn to St Cecilia . The latter was his last large-scale collaboration with Auden. Britten had grown away from him, and Auden became one of

7074-510: The banner of the "Glyndebourne English Opera Company", an uneasy alliance of Britten and his associates with John Christie , the autocratic proprietor of Glyndebourne. The tour lost money heavily, and Christie announced that he would underwrite no more tours. Britten and his associates set up the English Opera Group; the librettist Eric Crozier and the designer John Piper joined Britten as artistic directors. The group's express purpose

7205-537: The box office, there were no further productions in Britain for another 13 years. It was later recognised as one of Britten's finer operas. The Turn of the Screw the following year was an unqualified success; together with Peter Grimes it became, and at 2013 remained, one of the two most frequently performed of Britten's operas. In the 1950s the "fervently anti-homosexual" Home Secretary , Sir David Maxwell Fyfe , urged

7336-511: The cane or the slipper were happily rare (although one nocturnal expedition to stalk ghosts left its marks behind); he worked his way up the school slowly and steadily, until at the age of thirteen he reached that pinnacle of importance and grandeur, never to be quite equalled in later days: the head of the Sixth, head-prefect, and Victor Ludorum . But – there was one curious thing about this boy: he wrote music. His friends bore with it, his enemies kicked

7467-478: The composer sustained many deep friendships to the end of his life. Throughout his adult life, Britten had a particular rapport with children and enjoyed close friendships with several boys, particularly those in their early teens. The first such friendship was with Piers Dunkerley, who was 13 years old in 1934, when Britten was aged 20. Other boys Britten befriended were the young David Hemmings and Michael Crawford , both of whom sang treble roles in his works in

7598-401: The composer's so-called "corpses" – former intimates from whom he completely cut off contact once they had outlived their usefulness to him or offended him in some way. Having arrived in Britain, Britten and Pears applied for recognition as conscientious objectors ; Britten was initially allowed only non-combatant service in the military, but on appeal he gained unconditional exemption. After

7729-558: The creation of Snape Maltings concert hall in 1967. In 1976, he was the first composer to be given a life peerage . He died shortly afterwards, aged 63. Britten was born in the fishing port of Lowestoft in Suffolk , on the east coast of England on 22 November 1913, the feast day of Saint Cecilia , the patron saint of music. He was the youngest of four children of Robert Victor Britten (1877–1934) and his wife Edith Rhoda, née Hockey (1874–1937). Robert Britten's youthful ambition to become

7860-498: The cycle. In September 1928 Britten went as a boarder to Gresham's School , in Holt, Norfolk . At the time he felt unhappy there, even writing in his diary of contemplating suicide or running away: he hated being separated from his family, most particularly from his mother; he despised the music master; and he was shocked at the prevalence of bullying, though he was not the target of it. He remained there for two years and in 1930 he won

7991-465: The dead of both World Wars in a large-scale score for soloists, chorus, chamber ensemble and orchestra. His text interspersed the traditional Requiem Mass with poems by Wilfred Owen . Matthews writes, "With the War Requiem Britten reached the apex of his reputation: it was almost universally hailed as a masterpiece." Shostakovich told Rostropovich that he believed it to be "the greatest work of

SECTION 60

#1732858867196

8122-433: The death of his mother in 1937 he had used money she bequeathed him to buy the Old Mill in Snape , Suffolk which became his country home. He spent much of his time there in 1944 working on the opera Peter Grimes . Pears joined Sadler's Wells Opera Company , whose artistic director, the singer Joan Cross , announced her intention to re-open the company's home base in London with Britten's opera, casting herself and Pears in

8253-609: The documentary films Coal Face and Night Mail in 1935. They also collaborated on the song cycle Our Hunting Fathers (1936), radical both in politics and musical treatment, and subsequently other works including Cabaret Songs , On This Island , Paul Bunyan and Hymn to St Cecilia . Auden was a considerable influence on Britten, encouraging him to widen his aesthetic, intellectual and political horizons, and also to come to terms with his homosexuality. Auden was, as David Matthews puts it, "cheerfully and guiltlessly promiscuous"; Britten, puritanical and conventional by nature,

8384-421: The economy of Lowestoft has declined over the years. Although the tourism sector has grown, the major employers in the town are the wholesale and retail sector, with 18 per cent of employment. Service industries, including health, social care and education are significant employers, while manufacturing employs about 10 per cent of the workforce. Employment can vary seasonally due to the importance of tourism to

8515-442: The economy. In early 2011, around 10 per cent of the working population of the town claimed Jobseekers Allowance . Until the mid-1960s, fishing was seen as Lowestoft's main industry, although from the 1930s the percentage so employed directly and in trades associated with fishing was actually only about 10 per cent. Fleets of drifters and trawlers caught fish such as herring , cod and plaice . Catches have diminished since

8646-414: The end of his life, when he told Pears that it had coloured everything he had written since. Colin Matthews comments that the next two works Britten composed after his return, the song-cycle The Holy Sonnets of John Donne and the Second String Quartet, contrast strongly with earlier, lighter-hearted works such as Les Illuminations . Britten recovered his joie de vivre for The Young Person's Guide to

8777-426: The energy sector initially using tax incentives, simplified planning regulations and the provision of improved broadband internet services. The sites in Lowestoft are Mobbs Way, Riverside Road and South Lowestoft Industrial Estate. Associated British Ports, the operator of the Port of Lowestoft, published their Lowestoft Masterplan, which aims to regenerate the harbour and take advantage of renewable energy, including

8908-507: The first performance outside Russia of Shostakovich's Fourteenth Symphony at Snape in 1970. Shostakovich, a friend since 1960, dedicated the symphony to Britten; he was himself the dedicatee of The Prodigal Son . Two other Russian musicians who were close to Britten and regularly performed at the festival were the pianist Sviatoslav Richter and the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich . Britten composed his cello suites , Cello Symphony and Cello Sonata for Rostropovich, who premiered them at

9039-499: The first substantial piece of modern music he had ever encountered, and he was, in his own phrase, "knocked sideways" by it. Audrey Alston was a friend of Bridge; when he returned to Norwich for the next festival in 1927 she brought her not quite 14-year-old pupil to meet him. Bridge was impressed with the boy, and after they had gone through some of Britten's compositions together he invited him to come to London to take lessons from him. Robert Britten, supported by Thomas Sewell, doubted

9170-530: The fishing industry, activities with the Royal Navy in WWII, and shipwrights' and coopers' tools. Lowestoft is among the more socially deprived areas in Suffolk, with Kirkley the county's most deprived ward, ranking 173rd most deprived in England out of 32,486. The area attracted European Union redevelopment funding. The Waveney Sunrise Scheme invested £14.7 million, funding transport improvements and tourist facilities such as fountains on Royal Plain, as stimulants. Regeneration company 1st East, which focused on

9301-444: The harbour is an area of old sand dunes known as the Denes, along with more beaches and Ness Point , the easternmost point of the UK. Lowestoft has been subject to periodic flooding, notably in January 1953 , when a North Sea swell driven by low pressure and an extreme high tide swept away many earlier sea defences and deluged most of the southern town. Heavy rain caused flash flooding in the town in September 2006. In December 2013,

9432-418: The harbour. Major local employers include Birds Eye frozen foods, with 700 workers. This has been located in the town for over 60 years. The food-processing company Wessex Foods closed its Lowestoft plant in 2010 after a fire destroyed the factory and it failed to find alternative premises. Several other employers have shed labour in recent years. The Sanyo plant in the town closed down in 2009 with

9563-542: The in-fighting among the company, Cross, Britten and Pears severed their ties with Sadler's Wells in December 1945, going on to found what was to become the English Opera Group . A month after the opening of Peter Grimes , Britten and Yehudi Menuhin went to Germany to give recitals to concentration camp survivors. What they saw, at Belsen most of all, so shocked Britten that he refused to talk about it until towards

9694-611: The king's holding in the Hundred of Lothingland , worth about four geld in tax income. Roger Bigod was the tenant in chief. The lost village of Akethorpe may have lain close by. In the Middle Ages , Lowestoft became an important fishing town that came to challenge its neighbour, Great Yarmouth . The trade, particularly for herring , continued as the town's main identity into the 20th century. The naval Battle of Lowestoft in June 1665

9825-537: The leading 20th-century composers in the genre. In addition to large-scale operas for Sadler's Wells and Covent Garden , he wrote chamber operas for small forces, suitable for performance in venues of modest size. Among the best known of these is The Turn of the Screw (1954). Recurring themes in his operas include the struggle of an outsider against a hostile society and the corruption of innocence. Britten's other works range from orchestral to choral, solo vocal, chamber and instrumental as well as film music. He took

9956-551: The leading roles. There were complaints from company members about supposed favouritism and the "cacophony" of Britten's score, as well as some ill-suppressed homophobic remarks. Peter Grimes opened in June 1945 and was hailed by public and critics; its box-office takings matched or exceeded those for La bohème and Madame Butterfly , which were staged during the same season. The opera administrator Lord Harewood called it "the first genuinely successful British opera, Gilbert and Sullivan apart, since Purcell ." Dismayed by

10087-472: The main town in its district. Its development grew with the fishing industry and as a seaside resort with wide sandy beaches. As fishing declined, oil and gas exploitation in the North Sea in the 1960s took over. In 2021 the built-up area had a population of 71,327 and the parish had a population of 47,879. Some of the earliest signs of settlement in Britain have been found here. Flint tools discovered in

10218-575: The most easterly point is a large compass rose, the Euroscope , set in the ground to give the direction and distance to various cities in Europe . Belle Vue Park (Sparrows Nest) is the site of the Royal Naval Patrol Service memorial. The central depot for the service was in Lowestoft when it was mobilised in August 1939, on a site known as Sparrow's Nest, adjacent to the memorial. The memorial has

10349-505: The names of the 2,385 members of the service who died in World War II. Prior to this, it was the site of the "North Battery", which stood on the cliff and was constructed in around 1782. It was a four sided bastion set back from the cliff edge, housing four 18-pounder canon, with a guardhouse and magazine to the rear. All traces are now gone, minus two cannons with are now mounted around the memorial. Lowestoft Lighthouse , built in 1874 to

10480-580: The new Lowestoft Eastern Energy Facility (LEEF) on the former SLP land at the outer harbour amongst other projects. The harbour is a focus of redevelopment proposals for Lowestoft through the Lake Lothing and Outer Harbour Area Action Plan , submitted in February 2011. The plan focuses on the redevelopment of brownfield sites in and around the harbour area to create jobs, particularly in the renewable energy and retailing sectors. The town has three theatres:

10611-407: The north and high points of 20–30 m (66–98 ft) above sea level. The rock beneath is crag-sand with overlying sand and glacial till deposits with gravel, with the crag exposed at coastal cliffs such as Pakefield 's. Areas around Lake Lothing feature alluvium silt; some marshland remains west of Oulton Broad. The sandy beaches south of the harbour have Blue Flag status. To the north of

10742-480: The north of the town centre, stands 16 metres high at 37 metres above sea level, with a range of 23 nautical miles (43 km). It was automated in 1975. It is the United Kingdom's most easterly lighthouse . The first two lighthouses in Lowestoft were built in 1609 on the foreshore and candlelit, to warn of the dangerous sandbanks around the coast. These were the first constructed by Trinity House . The Low Light

10873-465: The nuisance of hostile criticism: although Olin Downes , the doyen of New York music critics, and Irving Kolodin took to Britten's music, Virgil Thomson was, as the music scholar Suzanne Robinson puts it, consistently "severe and spiteful". Thomson described Les Illuminations (1940) as "little more than a series of bromidic and facile 'effects' ... pretentious, banal and utterly disappointing", and

11004-522: The party and became an Independent. Lowestoft, the easternmost town in the United Kingdom , lies on the North Sea coast. The town is divided by Lake Lothing , which forms the inner part of Lowestoft Harbour and gives access via Oulton Broad and Oulton Dyke to the River Waveney and the Broads . The northern half is on the island of Lothingland . Lowestoft is mainly low-lying, with hilly areas in

11135-454: The police to enforce the Victorian laws making homosexual acts illegal. Britten and Pears came under scrutiny; Britten was visited by police officers in 1953 and was so perturbed that he discussed with his assistant Imogen Holst the possibility that Pears might have to enter a sham marriage (with whom is unclear). In the end nothing was done. An increasingly important influence on Britten

11266-473: The premieres of his operas A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Jubilee Hall in 1960 and Death in Venice at Snape Maltings Concert Hall in 1973. Unlike many leading English composers, Britten was not known as a teacher, but in 1949 he accepted his only private pupil, Arthur Oldham , who studied with him for three years. Oldham made himself useful, acting as musical assistant and arranging Variations on

11397-614: The principal character. After the completion of the opera Britten went into the National Heart Hospital and was operated on in May 1973 to replace a failing heart valve. The replacement was successful, but he suffered a slight stroke, affecting his right hand. This brought his career as a performer to an end. While in hospital Britten became friendly with a senior nursing sister, Rita Thomson; she moved to Aldeburgh in 1974 and looked after him until his death. Britten's last works include

11528-499: The prospect of working full-time in the BBC music department and was relieved when what came out of the interview was an invitation to write the score for a documentary film, The King's Stamp , directed by Alberto Cavalcanti for the GPO Film Unit . Britten became a member of the film unit's small group of regular contributors, another of whom was W. H. Auden . Together they worked on

11659-447: The ranks of his 'corpses' and I have always recognized that any ordinary person must soon outlive his usefulness to such a great creative artist as Ben." Dame Janet Baker said in 1981, "I think he was quite entitled to take what he wanted from others ... He did not want to hurt anyone, but the task in hand was more important than anything or anybody." Matthews feels that this aspect of Britten has been exaggerated, and he observes that

11790-464: The regime at the school. He himself rarely fell foul of Sewell, a mathematician, in which subject Britten was a star pupil. The school had no musical tradition, and Britten continued to study the piano with Ethel Astle. From the age of ten he took viola lessons from a friend of his mother, Audrey Alston, who had been a professional player before her marriage. In his spare time he composed prolifically. When his Simple Symphony , based on these juvenilia,

11921-482: The relationships affectionate – including bed-sharing, kissing and nude bathing – but strictly platonic. Lowestoft Lowestoft ( / ˈ l oʊ ( ɪ ) s t ɒ f t , ˈ l oʊ s t ə f / LOH -(ih)-stoft, LOH -stəf ) is a coastal town and civil parish in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk , England. As the most easterly UK settlement , it is 38 miles (61 km) north-east of Ipswich and 22 miles (35 km) south-east of Norwich , and

12052-480: The rest of his life. The Aldeburgh Festival was launched in June 1948, with Britten, Pears, and Crozier directing. Albert Herring played at the Jubilee Hall, and Britten's new cantata for tenor, chorus, and orchestra, Saint Nicolas , was presented in the parish church. The festival was an immediate success and became an annual event that has continued into the 21st century. New works by Britten featured in almost every festival until his death in 1976, including

12183-517: The score of the new opera until August 1970. Owen Wingrave was first broadcast in Britain in May 1971, when it was also televised in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the US and Yugoslavia. In September 1970 Britten asked Myfanwy Piper , who had adapted the two Henry James stories for him, to turn another prose story into a libretto. This

12314-716: The sexless and innocent", and Pears once wrote to Britten: "remember there are lovely things in the world still – children, boys, sunshine, the sea, Mozart, you and me." In public, the matter was little discussed during Britten's lifetime and much discussed after it. Carpenter 's 1992 biography closely examined the evidence, as do later studies of Britten, most particularly John Bridcut 's Britten's Children (2006), which concentrates on Britten's friendships and relationships with various children and adolescents. Some commentators have continued to question Britten's conduct, sometimes very sharply. Carpenter and Bridcut conclude that he held any sexual impulses under firm control and kept

12445-423: The six new Lowestoft wards. The seats, fourteen in all, are allocated to Carlton and Whitton (2), Gunton and St. Margarets (2), Harbour and Normanston (3), Kirkley and Pakefield (3), Lothingland (1), and Oulton Broad (3). There are also changes to wards adjacent to Lowestoft. After the inaugural 2019 East Suffolk District Council election of 2 May, eight of the fourteen Lowestoft seats over the six new wards went to

12576-418: The son of a dentist. He showed talent from an early age. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London and privately with the composer Frank Bridge . Britten first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to international fame. Over the next 28 years, he wrote 14 more operas, establishing himself as one of

12707-441: The success that Frank Bridge had enjoyed in the US; the departure of Auden and his friend Christopher Isherwood to the US from England three months previously; hostile or belittling reviews of Britten's music in the English press; and under-rehearsed and inadequate performances. Britten and Pears consummated their relationship and from then until Britten's death they were partners in both their professional and personal lives. When

12838-541: The term was invented by Lord Harewood. Both Mackerras and Harewood joined the list of corpses, the former for joking that the number of boys in Noye's Fludde must have been a delight to the composer, and the latter for an extramarital affair and subsequent divorce from Lady Harewood , which shocked the puritanical Britten. Among other corpses were his librettists Montagu Slater and Eric Crozier . The latter said in 1949, "He has sometimes told me, jokingly, that one day I would join

12969-450: The town are Lowestoft Cemetery and Kirkley Cemetery . The town is twinned with the town of Plaisir in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France to the west of Paris. Ness Point , the most easterly location in the United Kingdom , is located in the town close to a 126-metre wind turbine , known locally as Gulliver. At the time it was completed it was the country's tallest. At

13100-522: The town hosted a major air show during the summer, dubbed the Lowestoft Airshow. A major attraction, the two-day event took place in August, and featuring a wide range of aircraft including the Red Arrows , a Lancaster bomber , Spitfires and an Avro Vulcan . From 2004, it was run by Lowestoft Seafront Air Festival Ltd, a non-profit company, but suffered financial difficulties. In 2010, the event made

13231-606: The town, while the second is the Africa Alive! wildlife park, situated in the south at Kessingland . The town maintains a holiday park at Pakefield , operated by Pontins , and a small caravan site near its northern beach. The natural attractions of the Broads and the River Waveney on the west edge of the town, also attract visitors and been the site for boat trips and water sports events, with companies such as Hoseasons operating hire boats from Oulton Broad . Between 1996 and 2012,

13362-423: The town. Lowestoft is Suffolk's second largest town, after Ipswich , with an estimated population of 58,560 in 2010. The wider urban area brought the estimated population of the built-up area to 73,755 in 2018 from 68,850 at the 2001 census. The town's wider urban area includes the suburbs and villages of Carlton Colville , Gunton , Pakefield , Oulton , Oulton Broad and Kirkley . Other outlying villages in

13493-447: The twentieth century". In 1967 the BBC commissioned Britten to write an opera specially for television. Owen Wingrave was based, like The Turn of the Screw , on a ghost story by Henry James . By the 1960s Britten found composition much slower than in his prolific youth; he told the 28-year-old composer Nicholas Maw , "Get as much done now as you can, because it gets much, much more difficult as you grow older." He did not complete

13624-428: The urban area include Blundeston , Corton , Gisleham , Kessingland and Somerleyton . About 10 per cent of the area population at the 2001 census was aged 75 or over and 20 per cent under 16. In general the population of several wards is slightly skewed towards the elderly. The population is mainly classed as "white", with minority ethnicities making up 1.4 per cent, compared with 8.7 per cent nationally. At

13755-536: The wisdom of pursuing a composing career; a compromise was agreed by which Britten would, as planned, go on to his public school the following year but would make regular day-trips to London to study composition with Bridge and piano with his colleague Harold Samuel . Bridge impressed on Britten the importance of scrupulous attention to the technical craft of composing and the maxim that "you should find yourself and be true to what you found." The earliest substantial works Britten composed while studying with Bridge are

13886-468: The work was much enhanced when Koussevitzky took it up shortly afterwards. In 1942 Britten read the work of the poet George Crabbe for the first time. The Borough , set on the Suffolk coast close to Britten's homeland, awakened in him such longings for England that he knew he must return. He also knew that he must write an opera based on Crabbe's poem about the fisherman Peter Grimes. Before Britten left

14017-482: The world's largest offshore windfarm . The turbines will be located 15 miles (24 km) off the Suffolk coast and the Outer Harbour will be used to house the necessary operational support facilities. Other developments in the renewable energy sector include a prototype tidal energy generator being produced by local company 4NRG and wave power systems developed by Trident Energy. Hoseasons (now part of Awaze ),

14148-438: The year he got to know Pears while they were both helping to clear out the country cottage of a mutual friend who had died in an air crash. Pears quickly became Britten's musical inspiration and close (though for the moment platonic) friend. Britten's first work for him was composed within weeks of their meeting, a setting of Emily Brontë 's poem, "A thousand gleaming fires", for tenor and strings. During 1937 Britten composed

14279-630: The years by Britten before his final heart complaint developed. Emotionally, according to some commentators, Britten never completely grew up, retaining in his outlook something of a child's view of the world. He was not always confident that he was the genius others declared him to be, and though he was hypercritical of his own works, he was acutely, even aggressively sensitive to criticism from anybody else. Britten was, as he himself acknowledged, notorious for dumping friends and colleagues who either offended him or ceased to be of use to him – his "corpses". The conductor Sir Charles Mackerras believed that

14410-408: The young Britten his first lessons in piano and notation. He made his first attempts at composition when he was five. He started piano lessons when he was seven years old, and three years later began to play the viola . He was one of the last composers brought up on exclusively live music: his father refused to have a gramophone or, later, a radio in the house. When he was seven Britten was sent to

14541-777: Was Thomas Mann 's novella Death in Venice , a subject he had been considering for some time. At an early stage in composition Britten was told by his doctors that a heart operation was essential if he was to live for more than two years. He was determined to finish the opera and worked urgently to complete it before going into hospital for surgery. His long-term colleague Colin Graham wrote: Perhaps of all his works, this one went deepest into Britten's own soul: there are extraordinary cross-currents of affinity between himself, his own state of health and mind, Thomas Mann, Aschenbach (Mann's dying protagonist), and Peter Pears, who must have had to tear himself in three in order to reconstitute himself as

14672-625: Was bombarded by the German Navy on 24 April 1916 in conjunction with the Easter Rising . The port was a major naval base during the war, including for armed trawlers such as Ethel & Millie and Nelson used to combat German U-boat actions in the North Sea such as that of 15 August 1917 . In World War II the town was heavily bombed by the Luftwaffe for its engineering industry and role as

14803-411: Was a celebrated pianist and conductor, performing many of his own works in concert and on record. He also performed and recorded works by others, such as Bach 's Brandenburg Concertos , Mozart symphonies, and song cycles by Schubert and Schumann . Together with Pears and the librettist and producer Eric Crozier , Britten founded the annual Aldeburgh Festival in 1948, and he was responsible for

14934-516: Was a success in North America, with performances in Toronto, New York, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco, under conductors including John Barbirolli and Serge Koussevitzky . In April 1939 Britten and Pears sailed to North America, going first to Canada and then to New York. They had several reasons for leaving England, including the difficult position of pacifists in an increasingly bellicose Europe;

15065-412: Was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera Peter Grimes (1945), the War Requiem (1962) and the orchestral showpiece The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1945). Britten was born in Lowestoft , Suffolk ,

15196-459: Was discontinued in 1706 after sea encroachment, but re-established in 1730 in a form that could be easily moved in response to further changes to the Stamford Channel and shoreline. It was discontinued in August 1923. The High Light tower was rebuilt as the present lighthouse in 1874 with the intention of displaying an electric light, but when opened paraffin oil was used instead; not until 1936

15327-611: Was equally unflattering about Pears's voice. Robinson surmises that Thomson was motivated by "a mixture of spite, national pride, and professional jealousy." Paul Bunyan met with wholesale critical disapproval, and the Sinfonia da Requiem (already rejected by its Japanese sponsors because of its overtly Christian nature) received a mixed reception when Barbirolli and the New York Philharmonic premiered it in March 1941. The reputation of

15458-511: Was eventually dissuaded by his parents, on the advice of the RCM staff. The first of Britten's compositions to attract wide attention were composed while at the RCM: the Sinfonietta , Op. 1 (1932), the oboe quartet Phantasy , Op. 2, dedicated to Léon Goossens who played the first performance in a BBC broadcast on 6 August 1933, and a set of choral variations A Boy was Born , written in 1933 for

15589-562: Was headed by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother . Despite his large number of works on Christian themes, Britten has sometimes been thought of as an agnostic. Pears said that when they met in 1937 he was not sure whether or not Britten would have described himself as a Christian. In the 1960s Britten called himself a dedicated Christian, though sympathetic to the radical views propounded by the Bishop of Woolwich in Honest to God . Politically, Britten

15720-449: Was held at Aldeburgh Parish Church three days later, and he was buried in its churchyard, with a gravestone carved by Reynolds Stone . The authorities at Westminster Abbey had offered burial there, but Britten had made it clear that he wished his grave to be side by side with that, in due course, of Pears. A memorial service was held at the Abbey on 10 March 1977, at which the congregation

15851-550: Was it electrified. The lighthouse, with two cottages originally for lighthouse keepers, is a Grade II listed building . Lowestoft Lifeboat Station, at the mouth of the outer harbour at the South Pier, is one of Britain's oldest, founded in 1801 and open to visitors throughout the year. The lifeboat is Patsy Knight , a Shannon class lifeboat which replaced the Tyne class boat Spirit of Lowestoft in 2014. A former Lowestoft lifeboat

15982-471: Was later used as a brewery and malt kiln. Most of its remaining buildings were demolished in 1955. Sir Samuel Morton Peto 's arrival in 19th-century Lowestoft brought a change in the town's fortunes, including its fishing industry. To help stimulate this, Peto was given the task of building a line for the Lowestoft Railway and Harbour Company, connecting with Reedham and the city of Norwich. This had

16113-514: Was not, and learned little from him. He continued to study privately with Bridge, although he later praised Ireland for "nurs[ing] me very gently through a very, very difficult musical adolescence." Britten also used his time in London to attend concerts and become better acquainted with the music of Stravinsky , Shostakovich and, most particularly, Mahler . He intended postgraduate study in Vienna with Alban Berg , Arnold Schoenberg 's student, but

16244-488: Was on the left. He told Pears that he always voted either Liberal or Labour and could not imagine ever voting Conservative , but he was never a member of any party, except the Peace Pledge Union. Physically, Britten was never robust. He walked and swam regularly and kept himself as fit as he could, but in his 1992 biography, Carpenter mentions 20 illnesses, a few of them minor but most fairly serious, suffered over

16375-494: Was recorded in 1956, Britten wrote this pen-portrait of his young self for the sleeve note: Once upon a time there was a prep-school boy. ... He was quite an ordinary little boy ... he loved cricket, only quite liked football (although he kicked a pretty "corner"); he adored mathematics, got on all right with history, was scared by Latin Unseen; he behaved fairly well, only ragged the recognised amount, so that his contacts with

16506-497: Was sexually repressed. In the three years from 1935 to 1937 Britten wrote nearly 40 scores for the theatre, cinema and radio. Among the film music of the late 1930s Matthews singles out Night Mail and Love from a Stranger (1937); from the theatre music he selects for mention The Ascent of F6 (1936), On the Frontier (1938), and Johnson Over Jordan (1939); and of the music for radio, King Arthur (1937) and The Sword in

16637-531: Was the first in the Second Anglo-Dutch War . Held 40 miles (64 km) off the coast, it was a victory for the English. Lowestoft Porcelain Factory , from 1757 to 1802, was in production for longer than any English soft-paste porcelain manufacturer other than Royal Worcester and Royal Crown Derby , producing domestic pots, teapots and jugs. It stood on the site of an existing pottery or brick kiln and

16768-659: Was the music of the East, an interest that was fostered by a tour there with Pears in 1956, when Britten once again encountered the music of the Balinese gamelan and saw for the first time Japanese Noh plays, which he called "some of the most wonderful drama I have ever seen." These eastern influences were seen and heard in the ballet The Prince of the Pagodas (1957) and later in two of the three semi-operatic "Parables for Church Performance": Curlew River (1964), The Burning Fiery Furnace (1966) and The Prodigal Son (1968). By

16899-419: Was to produce and commission new English operas and other works, presenting them throughout the country. Britten wrote the comic opera Albert Herring for the group in 1947; while on tour in the new work Pears came up with the idea of mounting a festival in the small Suffolk seaside town of Aldeburgh , where Britten had moved from Snape earlier in the year, and which became his principal place of residence for

17030-491: Was twice winner of the Ernest Farrar Prize for composition. Despite these honours, he was not greatly impressed by the establishment: he found his fellow-students "amateurish and folksy" and the staff "inclined to suspect technical brilliance of being superficial and insincere." Another Ireland pupil, the composer Humphrey Searle , said that Ireland could be "an inspiring teacher to those on his own wavelength"; Britten

17161-463: Was used during the Dunkirk evacuation of British forces from France in 1940. The South Broads Lifeboat Station , an inland RNLI station, operated at Oulton Broad in 2001–2011. Lowestoft Town Hall stands in the High Street. Various forms of local government have met or been based on this site since its establishment as a Town House and Chapel in 1570. In 1698 a new Town House was built, incorporating

#195804