No time soon I hear you say with a chuckle and a measure of hope.
But for me and others this heat is a nightmare. I have to hide in the shade, which primarily means staying indoors and even then it's difficult to keep cool. Yesterday I walked into the village and back which is around two miles. I got back drenched in sweat. It makes going out a nightmare.
On Sunday I did a little bit of tidying up in the garden and that resulted in the usual drippy mess. I only have to look at the sun (that's just a saying because looking at the sun would be stupid) to overheat. Yesterday there was plenty of cloud cover around. It just never covered the sun!
Bring on the Autumn when I can function again. This current heat has played havoc with my walking marathon. I'm still on target to complete my 1,500 miles for the year in aid of the East Anglian Air Ambulance and can afford to take it reasonably easy in August as long as I pick up over four miles a day from the beginning of September. There is no way I will fail in my efforts. Once I set my mind to something, failure isn't an option.
But I was on target to complete the 1,500 miles by the beginning or mid December. Now it looks like being the end of the year and it might all go to the wire. I really must pick up the distances once this hot spell goes away.
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Today I'm going to start a regular part of my blog discussing my music. You will know that three of the primary things in my life (in no particular order) are family, music and sport.
I have for a long while wanted to put all my musings on music together in a series of articles and what better way to do that than through this blog. So we will start with part one - The beginnings or Youthful Stirrings.
I can't specifically remember how or where I first got into music. I can't remember whether my parents ever played music, although my father was forever going on about Slim Whitman and Miki and Griff - both of which I thought were made up. But he never seemed to play them. It was only years later that I realised that they were country artists, although my father didn't seem to have any great interest in country music.
My paternal grandfather was always singing (The Rose of Tralee was one of his particular favourites) and I believe that he was in some kind of Army band when he served in the First World War. I never had this confirmed and I never remember him playing any instrument.
My maternal grandfather, who died from a heart attack before I was born, was a keen musician and may also have been in an army band, although once again I have no idea whether he played an instrument.
So I guess that it was something of a surprise when my parents decided to send me for piano lessons. I don't remember being asked whether I would like to go to lessons but, ultimately, I was glad I did, although they didn't go according to plan.
My first teacher was an old lady (well she seemed old to me) in Overbury Road in Hellesdon. That was about half a mile from where I lived. I have no idea how old I was at the time but seem to remember either walking or cycling there on my own. This woman basically did very little teaching. In fact I remember very little about those lessons apart from being made to play Mozart and Bach. It's a wonder that I later developed a love of Classical Music but I did.
I don't remember why I stopped going to Overbury Road but I suspect the woman gave up teaching or maybe she keeled over. The result was I went to a new teacher in Buxton Road which was a couple of miles further towards Norwich. I seem to remember getting the bus there and back to be taught by this elderly Spinster who lived with her sister whom I never saw. Lessons overlapped. So if you were 10 minutes early you just sat in the lounge listening to the previous boy or girl (it was always youngsters) being taught.
And once again I use the word taught loosely. In fact there was very little teaching going on. I played the pieces (making huge numbers of mistakes) while she listened and then I took the book home and did some practising and some theory homework.
Problem was I didn't really practice. I was far too busy playing football and cricket. But every week I caught the bus for a half hour lesson. I played, the elderly spinster seemed to talk to herself, chuntering under her breath. I can still remember the musty smell of that front room.
Then one day the elderly spinster died and I went to lessons no more which allowed me to concentrate on my studies (well actually no because I was as lazy at doing school homework as I was at practising the piano). It must have all had an affect (or should that be effect on me, I never know) because for years after I had this semi nightmare that it was a Tuesday and I had missed my bus and my lesson.
I did do some practice. This was first of all in the greengrocer's shop that we owned (in the lounge of course and not in the shop itself). The piano was against the wall shared by the lounge and the shop and of course customers coming in would hear all my duff notes (and there were plenty of them - still is for that matter). Then we moved to a bungalow about half a mile away. I obviously continued playing the piano but have no recollection of where it was situated although it must have been in the lounge again. Perhaps in the area that eventually played host to one of those old fashioned record players known as radiograms as they also included a wireless and space to keep LPs. These are the kind things you can still pick up for about £20 if you want to go retro. I remember this thing having what my mother called knick-knacks on it. I never remember it being use to play music. When my father died we tried to give it away but ended up having the break it up and have it taken away.
When we owned the shop, we lived opposite my paternal grandfather and grandmother. My grandfather would give me sixpence if I played The Rose of Tralee for him. I learnt that piece perfectly (my first steps and only steps to becoming an entrepreneur) and always played it when he was around. I suspect he probably got fed up with me playing it, but he was a kind man and was looking for ways to give me money whilst making me think I had earnt (or earned) it.
Paul McCartney can't read music. So that's one thing I have over the legend. The sad thing is I have to play by music. I can't learn anything by ear apart from MacArthur Park (just don't ask).
My maternal grandfather apparently had a real ear for music and, according to my grandmother, could play anything after hearing it just once. Once again she never said on what and I never saw any evidence of musical instruments in her house. In fact she never once mentioned her husband (my grandfather) to me. Neither did my mother. How strange is that? Somebody so important in all our lives and not a word about them. I have no idea what my grandfather on that side of the family looked like, how he talked, what he did for a living etc etc.
So what happened to that piano - a John Spencer and Co of London upright? Well as I write this it's about 10 yards away and today playing it is no longer a chore but a pleasure and something I find incredibly relaxing. Now when I play the piano my mind concentrates 100% on the music. I search through charity shops for sheet music of all kinds.
A few years ago I found a serial number inside the piano and, with the help of the internet, found that it was well over 100 years old. Now it will be even older. Spencer and Co was a renowned maker of pianos. Now assuming my piano is 110 years old it would have been made around 1910. My mother was born in 1921 and My maternal grandfather was born in 1890 and died in 1947. So it is extremely likely that the piano belonged to him from when he was in his early 20s. That would explain his love of and ability to play an instrument which was almost certainly that piano which was probably bought for him by his parents or maybe that's all too much guesswork..
When he died, my mother would have been about 26 and married. That's probably when my mother and father were given the piano as my grandmother would have had no more use for it and it possibly brought her too many memories of a dead husband. Strangely my mother never spoke about her father or the piano - it was just something that was there from as early as I can remember. Perhaps my grandmother had given it to her on the agreement that any children she had would learn to play it.
Whatever went on, I was given the piano when I got married and it has moved with us ever since. I well remember my grandmother who regularly bought me sheet music (often pop stuff I didn't like but it was always an acceptable gift along with the cheese bites she used to provide). I still have much of that sheet music - songs like It's Almost Tomorrow by Mark Wynter, Hello Dolly by Louis Armstrong and The Wedding by Julie Rogers - and still play them.
I distinctly remember my grandmother before she died asking if I wanted to sell the piano and telling me that if I did she would buy me a keyboard. Thankfully I turned the offer down. I subsequently did buy a keyboard and now I have both.
Looking back I firmly believe that the lack of practice was due to a dislike of the music that was being chosen for me. This was done by the elderly spinster and would always be Haydn or Mozart or Handel or Bach and never anything approaching modern. I still play some classical music but on my own terms and not because it's being thrust down my throat. I would describe my favourite music today as being Classically inspired progressive rock music. So something must have rubbed off on me.
In the greengrocer's shop we had an old fashioned conservatory which was all glass and got intolerably hot in the summer (it's that theme again). In this conservatory was a few pieces of furniture and an old fashioned wind-up gramophone that played 78 rpm discs which were made of Shellac and which were easily smashed. Drop one of those and it would shatter. There was a small tin full of needles which you had to change regularly and, before each play, you had to wind the machine up by turning a handle (that's handle as opposed to Handel).
I have no idea where this came from, it just seemed to appear along with a number of discs which I seem to remember included Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance Marches (Land of Hope and Glory) and a couple of discs by Little Richard which I have mentioned before.
One was Good Golly Miss Molly and the other Hey Hey Hey. I had never heard anything like it. I would like to say that it was a musical light bulb moment and got me into rock n roll but it didn't. It had tremendous curiosity value for me but I couldn't understand what it was all about. My grandmother thought it was terrible, the spawn of the devil. Which of course meant that I played it whenever she was around just to annoy her.
She honestly thought that the music was so bad that it would destroy the gramophone, as if the machine had a mind of its own. But then she had a lot of prejudices including believing that black people needed to wash the colour of their skins off with soap and water. I loved her dearly but she was a product of less enlightening times.
I have no idea what happened to the gramophone or the 78s. I presume they were eventually thrown away.
And so ends part one of my musical journey. Part two coming soon to a blog near you.