Morton Marrian
Francis John Morton Marrian - 1912 to 1998
Why his parents chose to call him by his third name is a mystery, but Morton he was. And nonplussed he was when, on the odd occasion he found himself in hospital, the nurses would refer to him as Francis
He adored his parents, particularly his mother and he found it extremely difficult watching her die of Parkinson's. Her early death removed an important source of advice and guidance and he made some bad decisions, ones that were to lead, over time, to destitution in a one room bedsit in Wandsworth. This he bore with extraordinary equanimity and I cannot recall a single occasion where I heard this gentle and courteous man complain of it
His father left him some money which, although invested soundly at the time, was never managed properly. Morton became fixated on his dead father's view, valid decades earlier, that War Loan was a proper home for his inheritance and, despite the entreaties of his brother, refused to entertain any thoughts whatsoever about moving it somewhere more profitable
Having been unable to overcome his difficulties with the general manager at his father's shoe factory, Morton left what would probably have been a secure job. He lived at his parents' home, jobless, for many years. After his mother's death, his father moved into a family hotel in Bournemouth and Morton moved to London, or, more accurately, the home counties. He never entered employment again. He busied himself with his composing, his exploration of some of the mysteries surrounding William Shakespeare and with the Marrian family tree (see side panel). He also wrote some poetry and, on one occasion, released £50 worth of a rare butterfly into the New Forest concerned about its decline. He had no home, choosing to stay in small country hotels as he wandered, scraping on gravestones or consulting parish registers, or at his club in London. His search for his forbears even took him to France and Belgium, which is where the Marrian ancestors lived before coming to England in the early 16th century. His mode of transport was a Rover A40 which he kept until it began to use more oil than petrol! The back of the car was piled from floor to roof with his books which followed him everywhere because he had nowhere else to keep them!
In the end his money ran out and his good friends Anthony and Maggie Barker arranged a bedsit for him in Wandsworth which was to be his first, and final, home since leaving his birthplace. He remained there for 20 years, coming into "town" almost daily to have a cup of coffee with me, to use the piano, or to see his great nieces before heading off to a library or second hand book shop in search of intetellectual sustenance. Towards the end we would descend on his bedsit on a Saturday morning, cook him an enormous breakfast on his little camping stove and talk about the old days
He loved music and, in my school days at Shrewsbury, I used to test him by turning on radio 3 and asking him to name the piece playing. He never let me down. But during his last few years he listened less and less because he said it interfered with the compositions with which he wrestled. Once a piece neared completion, I would be summoned to help find two, three or four musicians to play it to him, or at least to make a recording of it for him, so that he could guage whether the reality of it measured up to what he heard in his head. The musicians complained about the legibility of his scores and I ended up investing in a simple software program (Noteworthy Composer, I think it was called) and transcribing his scores so that at least they were readable!
He died in St George's Hospital in Tooting, London. He'd fallen out of bed at home and been unable to get up. He lay there throughout the night before an anxious neighbour entered his room the next morning and called an ambulance. Although he had hypothermia, he also had prostate cancer and was never strong enough to leave the hospital. I saw him on the day before he died and left him a note as he was sleeping that we were away for the weekend and I would come to see him on the following Monday. The hospital called as we neared our cottage to say that his death was imminent. I asked if he was conscious and was told that he wasn't and that he was not expected to regain consciousness. There were reasons why I didn't turn around and go back to the hospital to be with him but I always regret that I didn't - not that it would have made any difference to him. The hospital rang again shortly after midnight to say that he had died