Douglas,
I first met Dr Ashfield as a young organ scholar who had taken on conducting the now defunct Chatham Dockyard Choral Society.
Dr Ashfield was patron of the society then. -A true gentlemen, he attended every concert I directed and gave me valuable advice...
One fond memory I have (was during the interval of a concert of Haydn works), he gave me a lesson on baton gripping for the faster movements of Handel's Messiah! -having jokingly admitted he frequently lost his whilst in front of the Rochester Choral Society!
Another occasion, I happened to mention that I also directed