ABSTRACT
Eric Coates was no longer the carefree, Peter-Pan-like figure, who produced an endless stream of tuneful works that he had been in the 1920s. It was a period of increasing self-doubt, conflict and struggle to continue writing music. Coates spent more time in the recording studio during the 1940s, often recording his latest compositions almost immediately after he had completed them. Coates participation on the PRS Board and the various committees was usually executed with diligence and humour even when proceedings were dull, as he remembered in his obituary for Arnold Bax. During 1940, with his recent elevation to the Board of the PRS, Coates felt in a position to air his disgust at the BBCs attitudes towards light music. In September 1940, on hearing that his old friend Kenneth Wright had been appointed as the BBCs Director of Overseas Music, an appointment which was to be short-lived, Coates sent him a letter of congratulations.
