PEOPLE - MICHAEL WITHERS

His name has loomed so large in these pages that few readers can be unaware of who he is, nevertheless a few more details are called for. I first met him about four years ago when he was sharing a student flat with someone else I had gone to visit, and was suddenly struck by the fair-haired diffident young man to whom I'd been introduced, "I'm going to like him," I thought. About 2 and a half years passed before we met again, contact being made both by the fact that Mike was now M.D. of Imperial College Op. Soc, and the knowledge that we both shared an inquisitive interest in obscure operas. He probably gives the lie to Shaw's dictum about hell being filled with musical amateurs, for never before have I met an amateur musician with such enthusiasm, determination and self-critical sensitivity, bursting with what Arthur Waley called "the restless instability of genius". A disarming diffidence and an apparent naivity mixed with a very stubborn will and almost unbelievable reserves of quiet strength. Being his friend is not easy, it is not relaxing, but it's bloody marvelous. MICHAEL WALTERS

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