"During the Munich crisis in 1939," famed opera impresario Rudolf Bing once recalled, "Edwards had volunteered Glyndebourne as an evacuation center for London children in the event of war. The day after Nina and I returned to Glyndebourne, the buses arrived from London; and some three hundred children and seventy-two adults from south London -- the children ranging in age from upper-nursery-school down to ten days -- were dumped on the Glyndebourne lawn.

"There were not enough rooms for so many, of course -- and nowhere near enough bathrooms. I raced to Woolworth's in Lewes, and asked the shop assistant, 'Do you keep chamber pots?' She said the store did have chamber pots available, and I said, 'Give me six dozens, please.' It made quite a sensation."

["One morning at Glyndebourne," Bing recalled on another occasion, "some guests and a number of county people, one of them a general, were sitting about at breakfast when Childs, the butler, came in and said, 'I am sorry to disturb you, sir, but the cook is dead.' There was a moment's uncomfortable silence, broken by the general who said, 'Under the circumstances do you think I could have another sausage?'"]