Why Glyndebourne’s George Christie always cut his own hair

One curious fact about Sir George Christie, who died last week, aged 79, was that he always cut his own hair, a notoriously difficult thing to do. He did it with a three-way mirror and, according to his wife Mary, did it very badly. His reason, apparently, was a reluctance to waste money on a barber. For while George was very well-off (and the epitome of generosity when it came to others), he hated to spend anything on himself. For example, he never took a taxi — he would always travel in London by Tube or bus, even to such an event as the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee service in St Paul’s Cathedral — and he had his suits made by the wardrobe department of the Glyndebourne opera company rather than pay a London tailor. His thrift, however, didn’t extend to wine, which he loved as much as he hated water, and of which he possessed an excellent cellar. When he was weakened by his final illness, his main complaint was that he was no longer capable of walking off his hangover.

George was in one sense a conventional example of an old-fashioned country gentleman. The heir to great estates in both Devon and Sussex, he loved the country and its traditional pursuits, shooting and fishing. But he was also mischievous, irreverent, open-minded and devoid of snobbery. And luckily, for a man who inherited an opera house, he was not only an art lover but also a lover of music. At school he was taught the violin by Sir Neville Marriner (no less), who said, however, that George was the worst pupil he had ever had. His father, John Christie, who, with his wife, the soprano Audrey Mildmay, had used his inherited wealth to build a little opera theatre as an annex to their Sussex home and put on their first season there in 1934, sent her and their two children to Canada for the duration of the second world war.