We had a fantastic music teacher, Mr. Gilbert who ran the Choir and Recorder Group. We went to the Cheltenham Music Festival in 1973 and won loads of cups! As a treat, Mr. Gilbert took us on a train ride to the Malvern Hills and we walked to the top where he said you can see seven counties. I remember that day so vividly.

We even made a record in the recording studio under Russell and Dorrell’s department store near the Cathedral in Worcester - we had arrived in style!

St. John’s School, Worcester

Manor High School. Oadby

I started at Manor High in 1977 and had Clarinet lessons but wasn’t good enough to be in the Orchestra so was in the Military Band, 9th desk of Clarinets, 4th along!!! We didn’t get to play many tunes, just the ‘pah’ of ‘oom-pah’. Mr. Bottle, Science teacher, ran the Band and had a talent for losing his grip on his conducting stick/baton, and it would go flying back into the audience, much to everyone’s amusement. Cunning plan… he had a pack of them on his conducting stand and would just take another one out and carry on.

We played quite a few concerts, at local fetes and one hot Summer in Abbey Park, Leicester in 1976 when a sudden gust of wind below lots of the music across the grass (we forgot to use pegs).

I would say that the greatest achievement of the Military Band was to play a ‘European Tour’ of the four mental hospitals in Leicestershire: Stretton Hall, The Towers, Groby Road and one more I’ve forgotten. (I’ve added links so you can see if they’re still there or not.) Mr. Bottle knew that I played Scott Joplin’s Ragtime pieces on the Piano so every concert I would play a solo about halfway through the programme. What struck me was that, in spite of me and the Band not playing very well, the patients absolutely loved it, clapping and cheering, which made me realise the true power of music. In fact, what Mr. Bottle made us do was a really early form of music therapy, way ahead of its time. Thank you, Mr. Bottle!!

Beauchamp College, Oadby

In addition to playing Clarinet and Sax in the jazz Band, my most memorable times were as pianist for the school Drama productions, incredible shows like ‘O What A Lovely War,’ ‘Sweeney Todd’ and ‘What Wouldja Like For Breakfast?’ I learned then how much I enjoyed playing for shows when you need to busk to get them on stage and off stage and vamp the intros to songs as they’re not ready…. this was something I could really do.. and enjoy!!

In 1981, I went on the last school cruise on the S. S. Uganda before the Falklands War requisitioned it as a hospital ship. Where does music come into this you may ask? Well, two ways….

  1. I was 18 on the cruise and as a pressie they let me play my favourite song over the tannoy… so the whole ship had to listen to ‘Antmusic’ by Adam and the Ants. I have some pics of me in an Antmusic T-shirt but I’m NOT going to show those, of course.

  2. I was the only pianist on the ship so they asked me to play Piano for the Sunday morning service in the theatre. I had no music manuscript so improvised by writing out The National Anthem on a sick bag. Another issue was that we were travelling from Sicily across the Med to Egypt and hit a force 8 gale. So the piano was roped to the stage to stop it flying around… issue was that there was some slack in the rope so I had to keep chasing the piano as it swung around with the ship… made all the sailors laugh so that was something! For more photos of the ‘81 cruise, please click on the ship!