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His own appearance on stage was delayed for several years by Mam. Learning from her husband’s attempt to sabotage Ivor’s scholarship at Magdalen, she intercepted a letter from Daly’s Theatre, to which Ivor had applied for a role as chorus boy. She wanted him to be a great composer; he had already had work published and performed, and clearly had an ear for a good tune, so why throw away a dignified and lucrative career for the dubious benefits of a bit part in musical theatre? Her son should be conducting a chorus, not joining one.

It took some time for Ivor to realize what had happened. At first he thought there was a delay in the theatre replying. Eventually he decided to ask them directly, only to hear that he had been invited to an audition but, as he had failed to turn up, he had lost the chance of the part. Furious, he confronted his mother in a classic teenage vs. parent row that was all the louder and more hysterical because of the intense, and somewhat self-consciously theatrical relationship between them.

Ivor Novello, A Portrait of a Star by Paul Webb
Ch. 2: Adolescence, pg. 23-24

Ivor’s choral career came to an abrupt, but suitably cinematic, end in 1909, when he was sixteen. For some time it had been fashionable to go to Magdalen on a Sunday evening to hear the dark-haired chorister with the sweet, soaring voice. The chapel is still, as then, open to the public for evensong and Sunday services. In Ivor’s time the organist and man in charge of the choir was a larger than life character, Varley Roberts, who was sufficiently admired in his own right to be caricatured in a ‘Spy’ cartoon. Ivor’s attractions were of a different nature, and his last performance, of 'O, For the Wings of a Dove’, was rapturously received by his lady and gentlemen admirers in the congregation. It was to prove a high note on which to end his career, for his voice broke the next morning. It was an inevitable blow, but a bitter one, nonetheless.

Ivor Novello, A Portrait of a Star by Paul Webb
Ch. 2: Adolescence, pg. 19-20

From 1903 to 1909 he was able to wallow in his enjoyment of Oxford life. A letter home combined his enjoyment of the music he performed with a childish interest in less rarefied pleasures: and a false taste for theatrical terms of endearment that was to become more pronounced as he grew older.

My Darling Mam,
I am singing two very big solos on Sunday night next. You must - Dr Roberts says you can - come up  in the organ pew with him. He is awfully pleased with me. I have sung two solos and one verse part ‘As Pants the Hart’ (Spohr), 'Lord God of Heaven and Earth’ (Spohr’s 'Last Judgment’) and a verse from Garret.

I want some grub badly - will you send me a big hamper with plenty of fruit and sweets, chocolate, cakes, shortbread biscuits, potted meat and jams?

Goodbye,
   Beauty,
      Popsy,
         Darling,
            Love,
               Ivor.
 
Ivor Novello, A Portrait of a Star by Paul Webb
Ch. 2: Adolescence, pg. 19

Mam completed his informal cultural experiences with musical lessons at Gloucester, but if he were to become a great composer, he would need the best education available. Accordingly, she decided to enter him for a choral scholarship at Magdalen College Choir School. In the only known occasion during their entire married life in which he defied her, David [father] hid the entry form from Mam in a chest of drawers.
 
Mam only discovered the subterfuge when it was, technically, too late. Not letting mere formalities get in the way of Ivor’s career, and with an audacity that puts Mrs Coward - and even Mrs Garland - to shame, she hurtled up to Oxford with Ivor in his best clothes, and demanded that the rules be waived for a child of such obvious talent. The bemused board at Magdalen agreed, and even re-arranged the audition schedule to fit in with Mam’s. Ivor auditioned - and won the scholarship. Although only ten, his professional career had begun.

Ivor Novello, A Portrait of a Star by Paul Webb
Ch. 1: A Larger than Life Mother, pg. 17

A childish taste for wearing his mother’s clothes was a reflection not only of his love of dressing up for its own sake, and a youthful penchant for drag - there is a striking photograph of him dressed as an Edwardian pin-up girl when he was in his early teens - but of the fact that this was an age when colour and glamour belonged almost exclusively to women. In addition to the already overpowering presence of his mother, larger than life and than her dressmaker would have liked, there were a stream of beautiful and talented women through the Davies household, of whom Clara Butt was perhaps the best known, and one of young Ivor’s closest friends and admirers.

Ivor was a page boy at Clara Butt’s wedding to Kennerly Rumford, and years later he recalled the event in a newspaper interview:

‘Dressed in a white satin frock, I made myself thoroughly ill with strawberry ices ten minutes before the ceremony. Outside the church someone said, “Look at that darling angel!”. At that precise moment I was trying to check an irresistible urge to be horribly sick.’

Ivor Novello, A Portrait of a Star by Paul Webb
Ch. 1: A Larger than Life Mother, pg. 15

Jimmy Stewart on the set of Winchester ‘73, via Vanguard of Hollywood.

Odile Rodin, via https://www.thetimes.co.uk