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.

Christmas Trivia.

[a]Is the scary sight of Victoria Bekham's skinny, leather clad legs and wildly gyrating buttocks going to make me chaff at the bit to do my Christmas shopping at Tesco?
[b]If you had her sort of money would you really be spending it in Tesco?
[c]She doesn’t really walk like that - does she?

And;
[1]When cooking the turkey, how many of us have:
(a) Forgotten to remove the giblets in their sturdy plastic bag.
(b) Not allowed enough time to defrost it.
(c) Undercooked it.
(d) Overcooked it.
(e) Forgotten to stuff it.
[2]Spent Christmas day constantly dressing and undressing Action Man or a doll,
because the manufacturers made the ends of the sleeves too small to go over the
stupid things hands.
[3]Listened to howls of frustration for the whole of Christmas morning because
side clips on a pram cover, or a catch on a bag was too stiff for her little
fingers and she wanted to do it HERSELF!
[4]How many of you have:
(a) Discovered a leak in a water pipe as you’re about to eat Christmas dinner.
(b) Had a row about a water leak.
(c) Chucked the Christmas dinner in the bin.
(d) Torn down the decorations.
(e) Retired to bed for the rest of the day.
[5]Spent Boxing Day propping up a ceiling that’s collapsed due to a water leak.
[6]Spent the afternoon and a chunk of Boxing Day evening in Casualty waiting for
all the nuts, fruit, chocolate, lunch plus pudding your off spring has tucked
away to digest, because he fell off his new roller skates and needs an
anaesthetic to set his fractured arm.

At this time of year the keyboard smokes as my daughter and I fling emails back and forth exchanging recipes as we try to organise some English food to see her over another Christmas in the USA.
Normally I send her a parcel from an ex-pat site, but this year since she moved to New England, she's found a shop a few hours away from where she lives that sells some English food.
She's tucked the goodies away in the bottom of a cupboard, but allowed her new husband to sample the delights of Walkers cheese and onion crisps and some Twiglets... Thank goodness he loved them.

Her ex used to pull a face at English food, but then he didn't like anything about us, which is probably why he's her ex!

We've also stumbled on the site below that is based in Plymouth MA. It's near enough in American terms for her to drive there and shop.
Don't you love what it says...Quite brought a lump up in my throat.

http://www.britishsupplies.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=BS&Category_Code=ctmi

POEM: For Rememberance Sunday.

Old men they
Who, past their prime, with faded eyes,
Gaze through time to the killing fields
Covered now with tidy graves in regimented rows.

Old men they
Who, weeping over absent years, resurrect the life
Of friends and comrades lost,
Remembering the names indelibly engraved in heart and stone.

Old men they
Who, now that greed and self smothers all the
Old beliefs of country, King and home,
Wonder who will know - or care - when they are gone.

(c)D.Rayburn.

That's it for another Year.

So that’s it for another year! Busier than last, but I didn’t run out of bags thank goodness, although we blew out the candle in the pumpkin at eight as the tinies have made the rounds by then.
I didn’t dare help myself to the few bags of treats that were left. I had to promise Isabella that if any were left we’d share them out today, because as she was leaving at seven thirty, she peered into the bowl which was standing on the hall table and did a mental count!

We heard one loud bang from a firework and that was it, so it was by far the quietest Halloween yet. The costumes of the sixteen children who called at the house were impressive, but every single outfit was store bought, so I guess there are some manufacturers who are rubbing their hands in glee this morning.

OPINION: A Quiet Halloween?

So, Hannah has happily disembowelled one of the pumpkins we grew over the summer. It’s had a lopsided, cheerful smile carved into its firm yellow skin by Granddad, and the candle is sitting by its side waiting for our yearly carrying it into the garden after dark and lighting it, ceremony.
Having forgotten she’d happily ended up plastered in pumpkin last year, Isabella looked aghast when she realised what she had to do. Now rising five and a veteran of full time school, she refused to get her hands sticky and instead took charge of picking out a couple of dozen seeds to be dried, wrapped in foil and put aside for growing next year.

While they were here we packed twenty one bags of treats – would have been twenty four, but we had to check they were tasty enough!
I doubt we’ll need that many; Halloween and Guy Fawkes Night feel eerily low key due to an absence of fireworks being let off prematurely.
Don't get me wrong. I like firework night and have many happy memories of it, but that's all it used to be; one night of fun. And way back then we didn't know about Halloween in our neck of the woods, which was probably a good thing, because our parent's pockets wouldn't have stretched to two events in the same week.
These days the run up to both is an absolute pain in the neck and a misery for pet owners.

Miraculously we didn't have any pre-Halloween parties at the weekend, with well oiled adults standing in their gardens late at night shouting their heads off and letting off rockets. [And what is it with grown-ups and rockets?]
The reason it's been so quiet is because local police have clamped down on youngsters getting hold of fireworks or shops selling them before a certain date. They are also warning shopkeepers not to sell eggs or flour to under eighteens, and posters are being distributed by our local churches saying Please Don’t Call Here for householders who don't wish to participate.

Four years ago I ran out of treat bags. We’d moved into another neighbourhood so as well as new children calling, the boys from my old address trekked across town and came to our door in various states of disguise.
The lit pumpkin in my front garden signals friendly intentions I suppose, but these days I only get a few tinies carefully guarded by their parents.

Rather than increasing in popularity as Halloween has done in the USA where it’s a multi-million dollar industry and second only to Christmas for sales, over here, at least where I live, Halloween as manufacturers would like us to celebrate it, appears to be dying on its feet - and I’m not surprised.
With fireworks or tickets to firework displays to buy and then Christmas hot on its heels, another cynically hyped up celebration and one that gives some youngsters a good excuse to run amok and vandalise cars and properties, isn’t what most hard pressed families need.

Although I love to see the little ones at the door and thoroughly enjoy pretending to be scared by their costumes, if the evening turns out as quiet as anticipated I shan’t be downhearted.
As I sit through another round of television adverts, I’ll break into a bag of left-over treats smug in the knowledge that in our area at least, Halloween has been a smack in the chops for the advertising Johnnies. And if you knew me, you'd know just how happy that makes me feel.