The urbane musical awareness of the composer Stephen Dodgson informed everything he undertook: not for him the extremes of serialism or minimilism. Anybody walking past the double-fronted house on Barnes common, London, shared with his wife Jane would see a Dutch scene: she at her harpsichord in one window; he at his desk in the other, composing in longhand. He took the term "quill-pen composer" as a compliment and prided himself on limpidly elegant scores of perfect legibility. He graduated to a typewriter for scripting, but never adopted the computer. Indeed, the couple were the amusement of all their friends for never owning a television.
Stephen had a sharp eye for the ridiculous. It didn't matter if you'd heard a tale before, because he made it seem completely fresh each time.