A founder-member of the Ambrosians in 1948 and of the Accademia Monteverdiana in 1961
A founder-member of the Ambrosians (in 1948) and of the Accademia Monteverdiana (in 1961; a chamber music consort), he explored all the known areas of music, besides introducing the modernistic harmonies of Gesualdo's mature madrigals and the later style of Pomponio Nenna and Sigismondo d'India.Gastronomically as well as musically he was often drawn to the Abbey of Le Thoronet in Provence, or to the charms of Bellagio, Lugano, or Schloss Elmau. He helped to put Vicentino, Giaches de Wert and Cipriano de Rore firmly on the map of pre-classical vocal music, often performing a freshly prepared edition for the scholar who had transcribed it.In 1957 he took part in the first stereo recording in London of English church music (Thomas Tomkins), the experiment being so far in advance of its time that the record had to be issued in New York on open- reel tapes. He also sang in the first English recording to use a Dolby noise-reduction unit (August 1966) in The Art of Ornamentation and Embellishment which I edited.A reliable and inspiring chorus master, as his years with the ENO proved, he combined good discipline with authority and knew how to bring out the best in his men and women. His transatlantic and local "fixing" was little short of a miracle, for he could assemble at short notice a magnificent team of singers and players for film recordings, Promenade concerts, and foreign festivals. In matters of performance and ornamentation, I largely left him to his own excellent devices, so that the textbook flourishes of Conforto, Bovicelli and Bassano disappeared behind a cascade of notes of which Fleet alone knew the secret.Fleet was a well-built, cheerful man whose abundant sense of humour never left him. His expertise in the plainchant he loved and cultivated from boyhood onwards gave him something unique and special which was acknowledged by all who worked with him. His personal qualities were marked by kindness, loyalty and consideration for others, his musical ones by a rock-steady reliability no matter what the circumstances.Denis StevensEdgar Augustus Fleet, singer and choral director: born London 13 June 1931; married 1955 Jean Allister (one son); died London 10 April 1999..
REGULATION 29 (2) of the Income Support (General) Regulations 1987 was a deeming provision permitted by section 136(5) of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 which prescribed circumstances in which a person was treated as possessing income he did not in fact possess. The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal of Shane Vincent Owen against the decision of the Social Security Commissioners that his claim for income support had been rightly refused. The appellant was diagnosed as suffering from a terminal illness and was advised not to return to work. His employment was terminated on 31 October 1996, when he was paid his last month's contractual and statutory sick pay, which amounted to half his normal wages, in arrears. On the following day he claimed income support for the period 1 to 27 November 1996.On 14 November the Adjudication Officer rejected his claim on the ground that the Income Support (General) Regulations 1987 required the sick pay received by the appellant to be taken into account for the first four weeks less one day of his claim for income support, even though the sick pay had been paid in arrears. Benefit was, in consequence, only awarded to the appellant with effect from 28 November.The appellant's appeal to the Social Security Appeal Tribunal was dismissed. The tribunal held that the Adjudication Officer had correctly applied the 1987 Regulations, and rejected the appellant's contention that regulation 29 was ultra vires section 136 of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992.The appellant's appeal to the Social Security Commissioners was dismissed on the ground that the tribunal's decision was not wrong in law, since the effect of the Regulations was that the appellant was treated as having a continuous income for another four weeks after 31 October 1996, and those Regulations fell squarely within the empowering provisions of section 136(5) of the 1992 Act.The appellant appealed to the Court of Appeal on the grounds (i) that regulation 29 was ultra vires the Act; and (ii) that even if regulation 29 was intra vires, the closing words of regulation 29(2) should be struck down as being irrational.P. Stagg (Andrew Buchanan-Smith, Speakeasy Advice Centre, Cardiff) for the appellant; Richard McManus (Solicitor to the Department of Social Security) for the respondent.Lord Justice Mummery said that regulation 29(2) of the1987 Regulations was intra vires section 136(5)(a) of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992: it was a deeming provision prescribing circumstances in which a person was treated as possessing income he did not possess.
A person might be treated as possessing income in a later period even though it had been paid in respect of an earlier period and even though he had already spent all the income that he had in fact possessed at the earlier period.Section 136(5) permitted deeming provisions to be made in respect of the possessing of income. Deeming provisions by their very nature had the effect of treating a fact or a state of affairs as existing for a stated purpose when that fact or state of affairs did not in truth exist. Those enabling terms were framed widely enough to authorise a provision spreading or apportioning income possessed by a claimant over a stated period by treating it as possessed by the claimant in a period in which he did not in fact possess it.The fact that a regulation produced a hard case or an anomaly did not necessarily make it irrational. Rules apportioning income received over a period were not intrinsically irrational or unfair. It had to be shown that no reasonable Secretary of State, properly directing himself, could have made such a regulation giving different treatment to earnings and to sick pay, and that had not been demonstrated. The situation would, however, appear to unsatisfactory and would justify a review of the Regulations by the Secretary of State.Kate O'HanlonBarrister. HARRY WILSON, according to his friend Sir Eddie Kulukundis, that great benefactor of British athletic talent, was "a gentleman who ate and dreamed athletics non-stop.
His sole interest in life was athletics." Wilson's own talent as a runner was a moderate one, despite a remarkable versatility which enabled him, at the age of 29, to switch from being a sprinter to a long-distance runner. At one time or another he covered every flat distance from 100 yards to the marathon, for which he had a best time of 2hr 35min. But it is as an innovative coach, and as Steve Ovett's coach, that he will be best remembered. Ovett first met Wilson as a 16-year-old trialist at Crystal Palace. Having been originally selected for the 400m training group, it was only because there were too many quarter-milers that Ovett came under Wilson's guidance. It was the beginning of a relationship that endured through countless world records for Ovett as well as the 1980 Olympic 800m gold medal, right up to the time of Wilson's sudden death at his home in Hertfordshire last week, following an evening out with his former protege.Although he represented Wales, the country of his mother's birth, as a cross-country runner, and was Welsh six-miles champion in 1958, Wilson hailed from Bishop Auckland in the north-east of England, and later moved south to Welwyn Garden City.
There he played football in the Air Training Corps and became a sprinter, joining the St Albans Athletic Club. "It was decided that as I'd played on the wing at football I should be a sprinter, and that as I wasn't big enough to be a real 100m sprinter, I should do 200m and 400m," he wrote later in his book Running Dialogue (1982).After the death of his father, a civil servant, at a relatively young age Wilson became responsible for his aunt as well as his mother, with whom he lived while employed as a marketing executive for the Engineering Industry Training Board at Watford, working long hours during the winter in order to have time off for his coaching in the summer.He never earned money from coaching, which he took up in his early thirties and carried on throughout his life. As recently as Monday last week he was making arrangements with Kulukundis to travel to Gothenburg for the European Under-23 Championships this July to be with one of his runners, Kelly Caffel, who earlier in the day he had witnessed winning the British University 1,500m title.Wilson's early inspiration was the former British National Coach, Geoff Dyson, and later he studied the writing of the world's leading authorities of the time such as Franz Stampfl, who coached the famous Oxford trio of Bannister, Brasher and Chataway, and Percy Cerutty, the 1960 Olympic 1,500m champion Herb Elliott's coach, whom he had first met at the 1958 Commonwealth Games in Cardiff.Wilson soon developed his own ideas and, as Dyson had been, was often critical of coaching methods favoured in Britain, as well as selection procedure. His contention was that technique and training should be adapted to the individual, and not vice versa, as had usually been the case. "The coach's job is to make the most of the material he has to work with, whether it is a rough diamond or a huge lump of granite," he said.In 1961 Dyson invited Wilson to become National Middle Distance Coach and he went on to work with international athletes of the calibre of Ian Stewart and Tony Simmons before Ovett came along, and more recently he has been involved with Julian Goater, Lesley Kiernan, Christine Benning, Kirsty Wade and Mark Sesay, currently the British No 2 over 800m.