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Jeffrey Tate

Letters to the Editor

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July–August 2013, no. 353

A question of syphilis

Dear Editor,

I enjoyed Jeffrey Tate’s excellent review of Paul Kildea’s biography of Benjamin Britten (June 2013). It is always interesting when doctors disagree with a diagnosis – especially with the benefits of hindsight.

I agree that syphilis seldom gets to the tertiary stage without being picked up earlier (and Britten’s own cardiologist has disputed the claim that Britten contracted it). Presumably, Peter Pears would have had symptoms as well – assuming that there was no treatment with penicillin, which was available from the early 1940s. If the surgeon was correct (and, like Jeffrey Tate, I would want to see more concrete evidence), then the other possibility is that Britten may have had some fleeting liaisons of his own!

Dr Alastair Jackson, Melbourne, Vic.

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Benjamin Britten: A Life in the Twentieth Century by Paul Kildea

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June 2013, no. 352
Jeffrey Tate reviews 'Benjamin Britten' by Paul Kildea

It would be a pity if this well-researched and nuanced biography of the greatest English composer of the second half of the twentieth century became known for the rather sensational medical revelations contained in the last chapter. Certainly, they gave me pause before I began reading the book.

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Diary by Jeffrey Tate

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September 2001, no. 234

At dawn, we scraped the ice from the windscreen and fled Quorn: a name redolent of the shires, as was the congealed gravy on the overcooked lamb the previous night, but inadequate for the immensities of the Willochra Plain, magnified by the winter light and punctuated by the stumpy teeth of the Flinders Range – ‘zu Raum wird hier die Zeit’. Melrose was prettily sleepy and closely shuttered: the possibilities of both Zeit and Raum senza cappuccino loomed. A shriek from the back seat alerted us to a curl of smoke rising from the low roof of the Old Bakery, Wirrabara, and we ground our long-suffering Mitsubishi to a halt.

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