When I was I think about five or six, I had a notion that I would like to learn to play the piano and made it known to all and sundry on the off chance that one day, a piano might miraculously somehow appear in our lower working class north of England home in Barrow-in-Furness Lancashire * our home erring shall I say, on the poorer side of humble. One day a brand new upright piano ** was delivered, it turned out courtesy of my maternal grandmother, my Nana *** as I called her in the British language usage of the day and to whom I had been extremely attached essentially from my birth which occurred literally and by intent in her living room and to whom I was of course infinitely grateful for the piano. She and my grandfather along with their two middle aged never married sons, except married to beer that is which they certainly were, lived about a hundred miles away in Northallerton North Yorkshire in the terraced, aka row house, in which as stated I was born at 25 South Parade. The house bore a name inset in to one of the ubiquitous red bricks of which it and the vast majority of British houses were and still are built. It was positioned immediately above the front door. The house was named Leyburn House.**** Leyburn is a small country town about twenty miles from Northallerton in Wensleydale, the Yorkshire Dales National Park country.
Attended by a midwife the routine home birth delivery practice of the day, I was born at 11am on March 5, 1942 destined to my eventual dismay, to be an only child. ***** I grew up thinking and I still do, that it ought to be illegal to raise only one child. An adopted additional child would have been more than fine by me. Imagine a puppy being born solo. A lonely litter of one! No other puppies to play with. Oh and yes there was a war going on. Of course World War 11, at that point in time roughly at half time so to speak.
A regular army career soldier as opposed to a conscript and a private in the British army’s Royal Signal Corps, my father was abroad stationed in Palestine. Given the current middle eastern events, the originally French expression c’est plus ca change, etc ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same’ comes to mind. Three years in at that point, World War 11 was to last another three years. Blackout curtains i.e. heavy duty black drapes (I can visualize them even now) were hung and accurately positioned over the quite large kitchen window every night and any lights there and elsewhere in the house were either turned off or dimmed to almost non-existence. Periodically we would hide under the stairs just off the kitchen the adults likely thinking and often times no doubt hearing, that German bombers were close by en route to bombing Royal Air Force airfields twenty-five of which no less were in North Yorkshire, several within ten to twenty miles of Northallerton. I’m not sure that under the stairs would have offered much protection in the event of a bomb striking the house, arguably just the opposite. We did have gas masks provided by the UK government, of course mine a child size with Mickey Mouse, who was relatively new on the scene at the time, emblazoned all over it. (He is currently 95!) I can remember wearing it when we were huddled under the stairs. Fortunately the masks were never actually needed. The Germans did not drop any poison gas bombs nor fortuitously did any conventional bombs land on our house. That said, some did land on houses not far away from us including some in our row and yes inevitably, people were killed.
Just recently here in BC Canada, triggered by memories of Covid 19 and the laissez-faire attitudes of some selfish, careless and non-team-oriented people to resist common sense precautions, including refusing to wear medical masks in crowded public places go figure, I wondered if there were people in the UK during WW 11 who refused to hang up blackout curtains. On researching the question, I found that yes indeed, outrageously there were. I wonder how many houses were bombed and how many people were killed because of those idiotic self-serving attitudes.
Some considerable time after the arrival of my piano, one deep mid-winter’s day I was sitting very close to and staring into our living room fireplace’s roaring coal fire, coal being the only source of heat in the entire and by UK standards, reasonably large sized house other than the odd small portable electric radiator here and there. Most of the heat from the then ubiquitous coal fires of course went up the chimneys pleasing more than a few wintering over birds: except no doubt the seagull that fell down our chimney one day fortunately with no fire burning at the time. It did however bring a huge amount of soot with it to spread around the living room!
Apparently out of the blue and in all seriousness, I at some point said to my mother, who was also inches from the fire and like me trying and failing to keep warm, that I could see my Nana’s face in the flames! This event, I learned after the fact, to no surprise spooked and seriously upset my mother. She thought that conceivably, it might be a somehow transmitted sign of something being seriously wrong with her mother of course my beloved Nana. Fortunately for me, she did not share this concern with me at the time. Like most all working class people of the era, we could not afford a phone and for that matter, neither could my grandparents also working class if at least one notch up from us. Make that two maybe three.
My mother immediately mailed a letter to Nana. In response a few days later came a letter from her. She was fine she wrote. However barely a year or so thereafter, sadly to say the least, it turned out cancer was to take her away from us all much too soon. Was that simply coincidental to my ‘seeing’ Nana’s face in the fire, or was that ‘vision’ a legitimate etherial message? Who knows? I was I think about eight or nine at the time and utterly devastated. Sadly, and not easy to admit, Nana meant more to me than did my parents although I did love my mother dearly. Not remotely so, my heavy drinking, compulsive gambling, good-for-nothing deadbeat father. That said, although gone so very long ago, Nana was and continues even in her long earthly absence to this latter day, to be my driving force and saving grace. Long story. Let’s say I had a difficult childhood thanks primarily to my cheapest of the cheap Woodbine cigarettes chain smoking, copious and then some beer drinking, gambling addicted, money-stealing from me father. ****** That said and to no surprise, I was very close to my mother.
Still in high school, I had a morning paper round in my early teens making a few shillings (20 shillings equals one pound) a week saving most of it in order to buy a used motorcycle when I became sixteen and thus eligible for a licence hence acquiring an unlimited sense of freedom beyond my cycling range. It was around that time that my father stole some of my saved money to place a bet on a horse. If it were to win, he would have presumably, maybe yes maybe no, put my money back from where he found and stole it and I would never have known until perhaps, the next time. The horse as it turned out failed to win the race hence he lost the bet. Caught red handed after I told my mother that some of my paltry savings were missing, she called him out big time and fortunately was able to retrieve the missing sum no doubt from his beer money. He was a postal worker in the Barrow main post office’s mail sorting department. He was also quite soon to be fired along with some of his equally crooked post office cronies. ******* As a group they had conspired and ultimately failed to defraud by somehow back dating the post office’s official date stamp on an envelope in which they had then mailed a bet to a football pools betting, company. That is, they did this after the football (i.e. soccer) results were publicly known! If that mailing had been legitimately delayed in the postal system, which was the ruse they were trying to pull off, football pool betting companies of which there were several in the UK and surprisingly to me, honoured such after the fact bets. Good my father and his cronies were caught out by the post office. For the record, almost from my birth, for reasons unknown, my father hated me and fairly early on made a point of telling me so. A some time professional boxer, albeit fly weight, I very quickly and unsurprisingly learned to despise him. An all around losing as in no winners situation if ever there was one. He had the audacity to tell me that if it somehow might be made legal, his dream was to beat the living daylight out of me in a boxing ring! Gee thanks ‘dad’. I have no doubt whatsoever that he would have gotten more than he bargained for – a lot more. I can be very aggressive when riled especially when being threatened. I never once called him dad and I have no recollection of him ever calling me Barry or for that matter anything else. I saw him once in the street years later some distance away and walking towards me. I crossed the street.
For years after the arrival of the piano from my Nana and having taken weekly lessons for some time, “Music will open doors for you” was a mantra that was visited upon me ad infinitum by well meaning, aunts, uncles, both my grandmothers, my mother, both of my grandfathers the one a Kirby the other of course a Devonald, the retired latter being rarely allowed out of the house by my other grandmother on account of his excessive drinking. I am not making this up. That grandmother incidentally gave me a harmonica one Christmas. Thanks to that, to this day I have played harmonica ever since all be it about as well as I play the piano, the guitar and the George Formby centric banjo ukulele i.e. not very. Alright I will concede fair to middling on a good day. However, in the kingdom of the blind as the saying goes, the one-eyed man is king and I am eternally grateful to both grandmothers for setting me off on my now very long if modest musical journey.
On looking through our open windows and seeing the child that was me playing the piano in summer, passers by would sometimes shout out as encouragement the surprisingly well used and universal mantra then and now, ‘music will open doors for you’. Were they ever right! It turned out that most all of those well-meaning people, quite likely underestimated just how many doors would to this latter day, continue to be opened for me via music in general and via singing in particular. The latter both as a soloist – click on the link on page one of this site to hear my self recorded dubious attempt at “Bring Him Home” from Les Miserables. On second thoughts, maybe you shouldn’t. I think I can do better. Perhaps you can? Give it a go by singing along.
As a member at different times, of several local SATB ********* choirs/choruses, I believe I am more capable as a vocalist than I am as an instrumentalist all be it, I play piano et al to this day. Yes indeed, musical skills of any genre will open doors for you! Guaranteed. If it works for you go for it.
I have been a singer of sorts from very early childhood. My maternal grandmother sang to me and attempted to teach me to sing amongst others a popular song of the time, ‘A Bicycle Made For Two’, this not long after I learned to talk let alone sing, albeit then in a broad Yorkshire accent. Not that there is anything wrong with that. The accent is still there in principle just not quite so broad. My piano lessons resulted best case in an ability to play at the early intermediate level, that being all I can claim to this latter day. That is not very far on the road as it were, however as an adult I also took singing lessons via which I was trained as and declared to be a reasonably viable lyric tenor thanks at different times, to two very patient and skilled vocal coaches. That enabled me to join, by audition each and every of the 28 years I was a member, the Vancouver Bach Choir. Subsequently myriad and then some doors have indeed been opened wide for me thanks primarily to my singing. Incidentally that said, being a tenor is not all beer and skittles. In musical comedy stage shows for example, it is typically the baritone who, while the likes of me the hapless tenor is busy preening and promoting himself and he believes, his beautiful tenor voice, yes you probably know, the baritone most times gets the girl!
Thanks to music in general and choral music in particular, fortuitously very many doors have indeed been opened for me and continue to be, for which I shall always be very grateful. From local community theatre performances to a twenty-eight-year stint with the then, close to one hundred member Vancouver Bach Choir routinely performing as the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra’s preferred large SATB choir, think for example Handel’s Messiah et al, to performing with world class vocal soloists and conductors of the day in Vancouver and in many other locations. For example, during my tenure the VBC performed in London UK along also in the UK in Oxford and Birmingham (Sir Simon Rattle conducting the latter’s symphony orchestra) Calgary and Edmonton Alberta, Toronto Ontario and of course routinely Vancouver BC. The Vancouver Bach Choir was the chorus for the opera Aida performed on a grand scale in sold out multiple performances in very large (60,000 seat) indoor sports stadiums in both Vancouver and Tokyo Japan with for the latter, all expenses paid including for the very long flight, money for daily meals and free accommodation in a four-star hotel for the two weeks we were there. Make no mistake, if you are so inclined music will open doors for you at all levels of both instrumental and vocal musical accomplishments.
Music as it is well said to be, truly is the ‘Speech of Angels’.
RIP Nana.
* Now known as Cumbria.
** An upright as opposed to a grand piano. My long time owned current piano is a Japanese Kawaii baby grand. I dislike uprights because one generally plays to the wall against which they are typically placed with, if there is one, one’s back to the audience. Even without an audience, I am not wild about playing to a blank wall.
*** Nana is a British term of endearment for one’s grandmother. As well as a piano, which had been my mother’s growing up, my maternal grandmother had a ‘pianola’. A pianola is the same as any other piano except it is also fitted with a pneumatic player action operated by foot pedals and which plays the appropriate keys triggered via punched holes in paper rolls, which the pedaling causes to unroll. No musical skills required! I loved ‘playing’ it as a kid. Land of Hope and Glory was my favorite. The words were in correct sequence with the instrumentation as they went by while one operated the pedals. I generally sang along, an early indication it turned out, of myriad songs I would eventually get to sing. Brand new, that pianola would have been worth over a hundred British pounds. A lot of money in those days. (And now!) It belonged to the neighbours next door to my Yorkshire grand parents. My Nana bought it still in new condition at auction for 15 pounds!
**** Named Leyburn House, the words being etched into a standard red brick inset just above the front door of my grandparent’s terraced house at 25 South Parade, Northallerton, Yorkshire. These days British Prime Minister Riche Sunak territory. His ‘just’ a two million pounds North Yorkshire Georgian manor house being a very few miles away from Northallerton. A very big step up from our Leyburn House. He is apparently routinely sanctioned for flying from London at great public expense rather than taking the train to Northallerton which is very close to his manor. No doubt this to avoid the proletariate and settle down in first class with the bourgeoisie. OK. Given the chance I would probably do the same. Leyburn incidentally is a very attractive small market town about thirty kilometres from Northallerton.
***** I thought then and still think, raising an only child should be discouraged if not made illegal! I rest my case that it is cruel and unusual punishment of the child. (Think puppies again).
****** My father’s extensive gambling, heavy drinking and chain smoking having more than a little, much more to do with it.
******* Not to mention his attempted theft from a football pools company.
******** SATB is Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass.
********* In 1938, the British government gave everyone, including very young children, gas masks to protect them in case the Germans dropped poison gas bombs on Britain. The government had planned for tens of thousands of deaths in London alone. Fortunately the Germans did not drop any poison gas bombs.
The word “nana” meaning originally “children’s nurse” from 1795, is a child’s word for “grandmother” or, sometimes, “nurse”. Also in 1844, from the widespread child’s word for “female” adult other than mother”, later called familiarly “nanny”.
Terraced housing is a row of uniform homes built in a continuous line and a terraced house is one property within that row. Often given their American moniker townhouses, terraced houses are one of the most popular forms of housing in the UK.
Below are some more of the ‘doors’ that music has opened for me in particular during the twenty eight years I was with the Vancouver Bach Choir. These days I sing tenor with Chorisma a Vancouver B.C. 20 or so member SATB choral group singing, primarily but not exclusively, vocal jazz and other ‘American song book’ et al standards. Significant prior sight reading experience is a ‘must have’ requirement.
Some of the Vancouver Bach choir’s significant past performance locations when I was a member have been:
Birmingham’s Symphony Hall – Sir Simon Rattle conducting.
Sir Simon Denis Rattle OM CBE (born 19 January 1955) is a British[1] conductor. He rose to international prominence during the 1980s and 1990s, while music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (1980–1998). Rattle was principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic from 2002 to 2018. He has been the music director of the London Symphony Orchestra since September 2017. Among the world’s leading conductors, in a 2015 Bachtrack poll, he was ranked by music critics as one of the world’s best living conductors.[2]
BC Place Stadium Vancouver. BC. Aida – with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Capacity 54,500. Three performances sold out.
Tokyo Stadium Japan. Aida – with the Queensland Australia (Brisbane) symphony orchestra. Capacity 70,000. Three performances sold out.
London UK. Various venues.
Toronto, Ontario. Roy Thompson Hall. With the Toronto symphony.
Oxford UK Sheldonian Theatre. Built from 1664 to 1669! Designed by Christopher Wren for the University of Oxford.
Calgary, Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta
FYI as an aside and because I have run out of ideas, at least for now, you may or may not like to know that the uncommon name Devonald is a French surname. Brought to the UK apparently by a Devonald enrolled with William the first, usually known as William the conqueror who was of course a Norman. He managed to conquer both Normandy and England. OK he had some help, very likely I will wager, especially from more than a few Devonalds. He was the first Norman king of England. He reigned from 1066 until his death in 1087.
I have been a member of North Vancouver Community Players since 1976, a community theatre performance group. Plays, musical comedy, cabarets, etc. The musical comedy being often of the Monty Python and similar ilk variety.
Piano. Banjo-Ukelele. Harmonica. Guitar. Singing. A very modest ‘competence’ with all these musicalities became plausible because of that first ‘NANA’ piano. If you have the slightest interest, don’t hesitate to buy a piano or other musical instrument for yourself or for a deserving friend, relative, child or adult. Either way it is likely you will have no regrets.