‘The songwriters of the past have inspired my love of music today’

I was born into a non-musical household, except for the occasional bits of music played on the old ‘steam’ radio; neither Mum nor Dad were interested in music, and we owned nothing like a piano or any other ‘do-it-yourself’ instrument, music was just not a part of the family’s life. My lack of knowledge wasn’t eased much by my years at Fairfield Grammar School in Bristol; in the four years I was there we had one music teacher, whose interest in the subject approached zero. I spent many dreary hours in his classroom, doing nothing but going up and down the scales — “do, re, mi …”, no instruction on how to read music, no creation of a lusty choir to entertain parents on speech day, and of course none of us were taught how to play one of the many, many instruments that could be purchased in any music shop. Don’t forget, this was in the mid-1940s, way before the days of television, pop concerts and iPods; a time when self-made music was a major form of entertainment, as it had been from Victorian days and earlier.

For those who couldn’t play there were record shops of course, selling 10- and 12-inch, 78 revs per minute, highly breakable records, but most of the stuff they sold tended to be either classical or tunes from the musicals; stuff like heavy metal, rap and grunge were literally decades away in the future. The only other form of musical entertainment as far as I can recall, was the Sunday evening concerts at the Colston Hall in Bristol, not exactly Woodstock of course — everyone sat in theatre seats and clapped politely at the end of each piece, but these shows were put on by the big bands of the day, who toured the country, bands like Ted Heath, Harry Gold and Stan Kenton, names that I doubt many people would recall now, but they were the biggest entertainment to be had just after the war!

My real epiphany as far as music was concerned (because until then, due to the above conditions, I had never had any great interest), came when I heard Glenn Millers’ Band, playing ‘In the Mood’ on the radio. His style was quite unique at that time, heavy on the brass instruments, but played in a much more melodious way that really got to me. Until then I had only bought one or two records, just to be in tune with my peers (excuse the pun), I remember one of them was ‘The Harry Lime Theme’ played by Anton Karas on a zither, from the film The Third Man — that’s how exciting my choices were in those days!

But Glenn Miller made me realise there was more to music than ‘do, re, mi’ and I began to take an interest, starting with a collection of his records and culminating in the film of his life story, The Glen Miller Story, starring Jimmy Stewart as the great musician and arranger. Ever since I have been a fan of what I suppose would be called ‘ballad music’, with a healthy spattering of traditional jazz. I liked Johnnie Ray, Frank Sinatra, Frankie Laine and others of that era, and later on Tom Jones and Eartha Kitt. In the world of jazz, as I said, I prefer traditional, like John Dankworth, Chris Barber and Ottilie Patterson. I’m not so keen on modern jazz, except for Dave Brubeck, whose music is reminiscent to me of the Glen Miller style of music, melodious and not too noisy!

My wife, Jacqui, and I go to an open mic session every month, at one of our local motels, which has a large function room, ideal for this type of entertainment. Much of the local talent appears there, and surprisingly there is plenty of it, considering what a small country town ours is, ranging from individuals playing harmonicas, to bands with five or six musicians blasting out heavy rock. It’s all good fun and very popular too — Jackie and I are by no means the only ones who attend, and it has the added advantage that it’s free, apart from any refreshments we should wish to buy.

We always enjoy a very pleasant afternoon there and always meet a lot of friends — for an old couple like us, who could ask for more.

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