Flashback: Musical Interludes.

Whatever the weather, on Saturday mornings, Dad made a tour of every antique and junk shop in the town.
An avid collector of old brass, coins and hand blown glass, he also loved to discover musical instruments, although they were usually battered and sadly in need of TLC by the time he could afford them.
When he came home with his latest find and sat in the living room admiring it, mum would stalk out to the scullery and crash saucepans around while she muttered things like…That would buy four loaves of bread - and - sees him coming!

During the great depression of the nineteen thirties, while he was growing up, all he normally found in his sock on Christmas morning was a shiny penny and an orange. Then, one year to his absolute joy, it disgorged a penny whistle, and another year, a Jews harp. Those two cheap instruments fostered a life long ambition to play a musical instrument properly, but music lessons were way beyond his family’s means and sadly he lacked the ability to play competently by ear.
Undaunted he would sneak into his grandmothers bedroom at the top of the house where, bedridden with arthritis and too weak to shout loudly enough for his mother to take him away, granny Ann Elderfield, trapped in her high brass bed, was obliged to be the audience as he played away to his hearts content.

As a teenager he joined the Territorial Army purely because they would teach him to play the side drums and he spent many hours marching with the band.
The drum, which belonged to the army, had to be left behind when he enlisted in the Navy just before the outbreak of war, but he never lost the habit of tapping rhythms on any flat surface he could find, especially when he was thinking.
Mum found it really irritating at mealtimes when he beat out fast marches using two forks on anything metal that happened to be on the table at the time; pickle jars being a particular favourite

Sometimes when it was dark and wet outside and we were a captive audience, he gave us an impromptu performance on the spoons. Explaining that he should really be using two smooth, specially cut bones, his favourite song as he enthusiastically rapped two of mum’s dessert spoons up and down his body and legs, was Way down upon the Swanee River.
And then one day he came home with a zither. With rusted and missing strings and little jagged holes where mother of pearl insets had once gleamed, it still rang out sweetly when dad strummed it.
He gave us a lecture on its origins, and as he ran his fingers lovingly over it I pictured Heidi like girls, snow capped mountains and cows with large bells clanging musically around their necks.
He spent weeks replacing the missing mother of pearl inlay and polishing it until it looked like glass, and then Christmas was looming and we were always hard up, so he sold it to another antique shop and gave mum the money.

When he brought an electric steel guitar home, we had a lesson on the Hawaiian Islands, grass skirts, and hula girls. Dad said his ambition was to learn the romantic Hawaiian Wedding Song and serenade mum. But even though he was an electrician by trade, he never managed to get it working properly and mum certainly wasn’t in the mood for romantic love songs after half an hour of hazardous buzzing and wrong chords, so dad swopped it for a Victorian brass candlestick.

His next find was an acoustic guitar. It was in good condition compared to the zither and steel guitar and when mum crashed about in the kitchen he followed her out there. We could hear him protesting it had been dead cheap and was a bargain, but wise to his ways, the more he protested the less mum believed him and every time he tried to tune it and began to strum and sing, she would shut herself in the scullery.

Dad liked cowboy songs. Every night after he’d eaten his tea, he would pick up the guitar and give us a couple of verses of Home, Home on the Range, which was one of his favourites and the only song he knew all the words to.
If there had been a spare room it wouldn’t have mattered so much, but there wasn’t. Our little two bedroomed terrace house was bursting at the seams with Gran using the small front room as a bed sitting room.

Mum said he was too heavy handed, and one day when she had a headache her temper finally snapped and she told him to put a sock in it – or words to that effect. Whereupon, dad stormed out into the garden and shouting up the back bricks that he hoped she was satisfied, threw the guitar down onto the path, and stamped on it!
He left it on the path as a stark reminder every time mum had to walk past it to reach the clothes line, but she was just as stubborn as he, and pointedly ignored it on her countless journeys up and down the garden path. But then, one day he sneaked the guitar back indoors and with the aid of a couple of wood clamps and a large quantity of extra strong glue, stuck the neck of the guitar back on.
Mum swore he’d deliberately broken it so that it could easily be repaired and shouted that she couldn’t stand any more of it – mind you, it never sounded the same after he’d glued it up – so that time he took it outside and reduced it to matchwood.

One day he came in from work and announced he’d bought a piano. That too was a bargain!
My sister and I were thrilled to bits. We’d play it and put on musical shows for mum and gran. It was a timely arrival because we were down to our last 78. The few other records we’d owned had been broken or melted down in hot water to make fruit bowls and by now we were all sick of the The Bluebells of Scotland.
For once we tried not to look at the expression on mum’s face, which was enough to make the bravest person quake in their shoes. Dad as usual, when he came up with a new idea or craze became deaf and blind and told her it was too late, he’d paid for it, and it was on its way.

Mum had to re-arrange the furniture in our living room to make way for the piano, because once it was through the front door it was obviously far too big for the tiny room. The only place it would fit was up against the party wall, but Mum said he couldn’t leave it there, it would disturb the neighbours.
Dad said sod ‘em. They turned their radio up full blast to cover the racket when they rowed and chucked things at each other, especially on peaceful Sunday afternoons, now it was their turn to suffer.

Our enthusiasm didn’t last for long. Unable to knock out even a simple tune after a few weeks, and far too impatient to take lessons, Elaine and I quickly lost interest, but dad swore that coming home from work every night to play a tune or three, helped him unwind

It was unfortunate that he only seemed to bang out sombre, doom laden tunes like the Death March with his foot firmly on the loud pedal. Even Home on the Range would have been better - but he was never quick to catch on to the mechanics of leading a quiet life.
And then one fateful day, mum looked very concerned when she told him the piano had to go. She’d been giving it a polish and discovered it had woodworm.
Dad didn’t believe her and said he’d checked before he bought it, but she pulled it out and showed him loads of little holes in the frame at the back.
The piano was disposed of the next day, donated I believe to a boys club, although dad didn’t mention the woodworm.

When we were older and less likely to give her away, mum revealed she’d spent a whole morning making realistic woodworm holes with a drawing pin.
She reckoned it was either that or murder, although she swore she’d have got off on a plea of self defence if the jury had ever heard our dad play.