The Church Parables were the only Britten operas the English Opera Group performed in 1968. Britten's health continued to be a problem. He spent most of January in Venice, composing The Prodigal Son, the last of the Parables, but within weeks of returning home was back in hospital – this time with the first signs of the heart issues that were to shorten his life. After severe flu symptoms, he was diagnosed with endocarditis and filled with enormous quantities of penicillin.

Ever the pragmatist, with the Church Parables Britten had found a way of writing new operatic works for the English Opera Group that required neither large resources to mount them, nor difficult opera houses in which to produce them. Best of all, being conductorless, he could spare himself the agony of having to perform them. It was a brilliant solution not only to the perpetual financial worries of the EOG, but also to his problem with nerves.

MY MOTHER TOLD ME once, when Ben was downing some whisky before going on to conduct a performance, she had asked him, ‘Ben, why do you do that?’ He said, ‘Darling, if I didn't do that, I’d never get up the stairs!’

He was a conductor who approached everything from the music. There was never any egotistical nonsense that you so frequently get – conductors wanting to show themselves off in the right sort of shirt or the right sort of gesture, or rehearsing their gestures in front of a mirror or something ridiculous. Everything was entirely music-orientated, and he endeavoured to get an orchestra to phrase the same way as if he was playing it on the piano. So his movements reflected this, and musicians – first-class musicians, which of course were those that he worked with – were able to pick up on this even if they didn't quite know how. I certainly didn't see quite how that worked. But it did and he was able to get some of the most remarkable performances, even though I couldn't totally understand how it worked. But all I did know was that it did work. That's one way, I suppose, of saying that from a professional conductor's point of view his technique was – how can I put it? – unorthodox. But nonetheless it worked and it worked for him.