Here Comes the Weekend

 As a child I remember looking forwards to the weekends, but thinking back now, they weren’t the best times. Age eleven, I was miserable in my secondary school and Friday teatimes were wonderful. No school for two whole days. Saturday morning and I would will my parents to forget about my piano lesson. If it wasn’t mentioned, it didn’t exist. It didn’t work. The fated hour would be nearly upon me and I would be transported by my dad’s car to the home of the horrible man, subject of nightmares. I would sit rigid and hit the keys hard in a display of my anger. I hated every moment and each week I promised myself I would speak out and it would be my last. I never did. Sundays were bath, hair wash, Sunday School then the rest of the day would be family time. We would either be visiting or having visitors. It was always good and remained so until after tea. That was when the worry started. The sinking feeling of dreading school tomorrow, remembering the piece of unfinished homework, the maths I hadn't understood, the poem I forgot to learn by heart, the items for cookery I didn't ask for. I don't know why I looked forward to weekends at all.

In adult life, weekends offered a mix of welcome rest time after a hard week at work and being out and about socialising. A day out or sometimes a whole weekend away would be a good way to relax and enjoy something or somewhere different.

Becoming parents changed the way we planned weekends. Activities for the children were a priority even if it was just a play on the park and an ice cream. Junior football became my pet hate. I love the game, I always have, but some awful parents I encountered made my blood boil. It would upset me to witness five and six year old little lads having fun running with the ball, being seriously shouted at because they haven’t yet developed the skills some parents expected them to be born with. I would dread the times I had to take our little lad on my own. I would stand watching, keeping to myself.

Since retirement, the days are much the same and weekends disappear almost completely. We know it is Saturday when there’s a home match on and we’re in our places at Bloomfield Road. My husband is once again on the touchline at grassroots level, taking our football playing middle grandson to his matches. We’re starting to plan a few short breaks away with our caravan, but we tend to go midweek when places are quieter, so I suppose that becomes a kind of ‘weekend’ for us.

I remember Mackintosh’s Weekend, a boxed collection of mixed chocolates and posh sweets. They would be my mum’s and rarely shared. It’s the first thing I thought of when I saw the theme for this blog, so I had to mention it.

No poem today. Instead I share an excerpt of lyrics from ‘Here Comes the Weekend’, a Moody Blues song written by John Lodge,

Somewhere in the night
There’s a heart that beats so fast
I can feel the heat
Of the fire in your eyes,
Burning like a naked flame,
Waiting for the ice to break,
Counting down the days,
Waiting for the weekend.
Lonely is the night.
Silence is a friend to walk with,
With no one else to talk to.
Somewhere in the heat
There’s a heart that beats so fast
I can hear your voice,
Talk to me tonight.

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Music - Sounds of my Life

 

“If music be the food of love, play on;”  from Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare.

“Music was my first love and it will be my last…”  John Miles.

Throughout my life music has always been there, in various forms, and always been important. I grew up with my mother’s radio, or maybe I should call it ‘the wireless’ and I think we listened to ‘The Light Programme’. I still have my mother’s records, the singles and LPs that we spent many hours singing and dancing to in my childhood and our pubs always had the sounds of the jukebox filtering upstairs, or someone belting out a tune on a piano. My love of piano music remains. I don’t play very much now as poor sight comes between me and the sheet music, but it’s nice to have the occasional plonk about when there’s no one to hear. A familiar song or piece of music can transport me to times past in a second and fill me with joy and remind me of how far I’ve come.

 I love lots of music, not just symphonic or progressive rock. Live music is the best but I won’t bore you with all of the concerts I’ve been to. Music soothes the soul, calms the spirit, or makes us want to dance, so what I might listen to depends on what suits at any given time. Rolling Stones, Oasis, The Smiths, Mozart, Chopin, Prokofiev (especially Troika), gospel choirs, Gregory Porter, Simply Red and many more are amongst my favourites. When they were living with us, I enjoyed listening to my son playing guitar or bass; and my daughter’s wonderful singing, both of them talented. They entertain their own families now.

If you know me personally, or through my blogs, you might have noticed me mention that the music of The Moody Blues is the main soundtrack to my life. This month I have had their album ‘December’ permanently on the CD player. The track ‘December Snow’ has a wonderful piano solo in the middle and I really wish I could play that myself. I’ve lost count of how many MBs concerts I’ve attended over the years, many tours, many cities, each one a breath-taking experience. Those days are gone, the band is depleted and I’m glad I was able to be there at the time. I look forward to seeing John Lodge again, on his solo tour next year.

Here’s an old poem of mine, an attempt at capturing the essence of a magical Moody Blues concert,

The Concert.

 

The lights are lowered, silence fills the arena

As the minstrels move through darkness on to the stage.

This is the moment, breathless anticipation,

Travelling eternity road has been an age.

 

Then a flute’s haunting melody rises above

Twin guitar riffs to take lead of the symphony.

Slow, bass drum, and applause reaches a crescendo,

Orchestral rock and voices singing harmony.

 

On the threshold of ecstasy, keeping the faith,

We’ve made this pilgrimage so many times before,

To be rewarded with autographs and handshakes

After waiting patiently outside the stage door.

 

PMW  2010

 

 Very best wishes for 2025. May your dreams come true.

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Radio - Solid State Binatone

 As a young child I was a little housewife.  Wearing an apron to keep my dress clean, I played with the toy sink unit that I could have real water in to wash my tea set. I often got wet but I didn’t mind. I had an iron and ironing board, a cooker that my dad made for me and a dolls bed, also made by Dad, for all my babies. I had lots of babies and spent my days caring for them while listening to Mrs Dale’s Diary, Womans’ Hour, The Navy Lark and everything else that came out of the huge, wooden wireless that we called The Radio. Sometimes my mum had music programmes on, like The Billy Cotton Band Show. This was where I developed my love for piano, hearing Russ Conway. Years later, living in Blackpool, my mum took me to a variety show that Russ was in. The surprise was wonderfully overwhelming. I longed to play the piano like him. A decade of lessons and lots, well, perhaps not lots, of practice – I can play, but not like him. I grew up with whatever was on the radio, Light Programme, Home Service, even the Shipping Forecast. If the radio wasn’t on, it was because my mum was playing her records. I was familiar with those, too.

A little older and I remember being really unhappy at school. Sometimes we would have family friends and extended family over on a Sunday afternoon. I wished those carefree afternoons could last forever. I would dread them leaving, knowing I was a step closer to going to bed and school in the morning. It was the same if we went visiting anyone. Travelling home in the car with Sing Something Simple on the radio gave me that awful sinking feeling. It still does, but these days I can give a nostalgic smile.

My 13th birthday, November, 1968. School wasn’t any better but I was coping. My mum had been in hospital and we were happy she was home. She was sitting up in bed, smiling and wishing me a happy birthday. She passed me my wrapped present and said, “We didn’t know what to get you, so it’s just chocolates for now.” I thanked her, more than happy with chocolates, just glad to have my mum home. She laughed as I unwrapped the gift to reveal a box containing a pocket transistor radio, with an ear-piece and a cover. It was a Solid State Binatone something or other, very like the photo. I was thrilled. Tony Blackburn became my morning hero, brightening my day, making me laugh. In later days, with my mum up and about we listened to the Top Twenty together, usually in the kitchen making tea. I would set the table and butter bread. We sang along to Lily the Pink, Blackberry Way, Bend It, Ob-La Di Ob La Da, I’m the Urban Spaceman. I’m sure these songs weren’t all in the same pop chart, but these are the ones that come to mind. Happy times. I don’t know what happened to that little transistor, but I wish I still had it.

Radio is still my main day time choice rather than a silent house. I got fed up with Radio 2 when the powers that be decided to stop playing music from the ‘50s and ‘60s. I only listen to Johnnie Walker’s Sounds of the Seventies. When Ken Bruce moved to Greatest Hits Radio, so did I

My Haiku, just to capture a moment or two,

Setting the table
List’ning to the Top Twenty,
Just Mummy and me.

Buttering the bread,
Laughing at Lily the Pink.
Cold meat and salad.

Sing Something Simple,
The end to Sunday tea-time.
Thoughts of dreadful school.

PMW 2024

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Scales - Tweak That Metronome

 No amount of practising simplified Mozart pieces or running up and down major and minor scales would impress the piano teacher. I stopped trying.

In the pubs I grew up in, there was always a piano, sometimes more than one, and before the juke-box ruled the roost, there was always someone to play it. As a young child it was a skill I longed to learn. I listened to my mother’s Russ Conway records and loved him. I plonked about, wishing a proper tune would come out. It never did. I was enthralled by Sparky’s Magic Piano which we had as a set of 78 rpm records, so badly scratched that they hissed and crackled.  I was about seven and a half when my hands could just about stretch an octave, the required size for piano lessons. A teacher was found.

At first, it was okay. I suppose it was the novelty of actually learning to play the piano properly and it wasn’t all nursery rhyme tunes. It was harder than I had imagined but I soon moved on to simplified versions of the classic composers works which I enjoyed. As I got a bit older, my problem was the teacher and I would dread Saturday mornings so much I would keep a low profile, hoping my dad might forget to take me. He never did. The lessons took place in a small upstairs room at the teacher’s house. The house is close to where I live now and still makes me shudder, though he is long dead and I’m sure his house is a lovely home to someone else. I used to wait in a dim sitting room full of dark furniture with the deep tick-tock of a huge grandfather clock and the piano sounds of the person finishing off their lesson. Then it would be my turn. A whole hour in the little room, foggy and stinking with his cigar smoke that gave me a headache and I would feel tense if he left his desk by the window to stand behind me, always too close. The lesson would begin with a run through the scales and broken chords to warm up then he’d find me a piece of sight-reading that he would complain about. Nothing was good enough. I didn’t play to the correct speed, so he fiddled with the metronome and made me keep time with it over and over until I had it to his satisfaction or I’d given up, fighting tears.

My pleas to stop the lessons fell on deaf ears at home. I was at secondary school with homework and all manner of other things. I’d passed some grades, it must be time for a break. I tried to explain what made me feel uncomfortable and wary of the teacher, a hand on my shoulder, a hand on my thigh, just standing too close to me. I couldn’t say it.  Eventually, the teacher sent my father a letter to say that he was discontinuing my lessons in favour of more promising pupils. Good. I hope they push his podgy hands away.

I’m glad I learnt to play the piano. I’m glad of the enjoyment I get from having the occasional blast, satisfied that I can still do it.  I’m not in any way a talented musician – in the family that title belongs to my son and one of my nephews.

My Haiku poem, inspired by the scales:

“Play me C Major
Now with both hands together
No! No! Start again.

“Just play the right hand
Keep up with the metronome!
No! No! Start again!

“What are you doing?
Did I say play G Major?
No! Don’t touch F sharp!”

On my own piano,
Happy and loving music
Without him shouting.

Running through the scales,
Smooth and shiny piano keys
And my eyes closed, tight.

He made me wary,
He was a scary monster.
He made me silent.

When I found my voice,
There was no one to listen.

PMW 2022

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Misty - Play Misty for Me

There’s something mesmerising about watching Ailsa Craig emerging from the mist. The island isn’t moving at all, but the constantly changing cloud gives the illusion of her creeping forwards. Trips to this bit of Scotland always include a visit to Ballentrae and further along, Girvan. I could stay on this stretch of the Ayrshire coast all day, in all weathers. In fog, in misty rain, in low cloud, I’m comforted to know Ailsa Craig is there, exactly where she belongs.  Eventually I’ll witness how she looks in the perfect sunset of a clear day. I don’t mind waiting, fortunately.

Music has always figured in my life. I grew up with the beat of a juke box resonating from the pub downstairs, the radio, or wireless as it used to be when we listened to the Light Programme, and my mum’s records. We would set them up together, six or eight, I can’t remember exactly, but they sat at the top, held in place until it was time to drop on to the turntable. I knew all these 45s. Before I could read I could recognise each record and decide which order we would play them from Billy Fury, Anthony Newley, Cliff Richard and many more. Tommy Steele’s Little White Bull would be put back on for Singing Time on the flip side. A favourite was Misty, Johnny Mathis.

Years pass. My mum passed, too. I have my own place, my own records and with some reluctance, I learnt to play piano in my childhood and in a strange way, an hour or two playing Chopin or Mozart can bring comfort. There’s a film out called ‘Play Misty for Me’ with Clint Eastwood. I loved it and wished my mum could have seen it, for the song and to see how well Rowdy Yates was doing.

Many more years pass. We’re into CDs – not moved into MP3s or whatever – anyway, the radio is always on keeping music in the air. There’s a box of records in the attic. I still have my mum’s 45s. Some are older than me, or pretty close, and Misty will be in there. Cherished.

Look at me
I’m as helpless as a kitten up a tree
And I feel like I’m clinging to a cloud
I can’t understand,
I get misty, just holding your hand.

Walk my way,
And a thousand violins begin to play
Or it might be the sound of your hello
That music I hear,
I get misty the moment you’re near.

You can say that you’re leading me on
But it’s just what I want you to do,
Don’t you notice how hopelessly I’m lost
That’s why I’m following you.

On my own,
Would I wander through this wonderland alone
Never knowing my right foot from my left,
My hat from my glove,
I’m too misty, and too much in love.

Lyrics by Johnny Burke
Music by Errol Garner

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Playing in the Band - Let's Rock

I wish I had a talent for music. A proper talent, not just the piano grades that my father’s expense and my reluctance to learn got me. That piano teacher was a horrid man. I spent years trying to wriggle out of going to his gloomy, unwelcoming house. I feigned illness on Saturday mornings, or stayed quiet and hoped my twelve o’clock lesson would be forgotten about but my ploys never worked and I would have to endure a miserable hour with the creep. And for all that, I still can’t play Fur Elise at the correct speed or Chopin’s lovely waltzes without constantly checking my finger positions. No confidence and certainly no natural talent, unlike some others in the family.

My son plays by ear. I was trying to get to grips with a Mozart piece on the piano in my usual slow, clumpy way. He just comes along and plays it, as easily as you like, because he knows the tune. I used to love hearing his electric guitar or bass coming down from his attic room. One day, he was belting out the intro to the Moody Blues ‘Story in Your Eyes’ and I nearly burst into tears at how perfect it was. His college was doing an entertainments evening and we, his parents, were invited to attend. We knew he was taking part, but didn’t know what he would be doing. I was unwell, full of a cold and full of appropriate medication to get me through the evening. I was not going to miss this event. He took to the stage. He was on bass, playing with a band. I recognised something he’d been practising at home.  They were excellent, well-rehearsed and ‘gelled’ together. I was relaxed into ‘Proud Mum’ mode when the scene changed and the spotlight was now on my son. The voice, I realised, was his, rocking 'Johnny B Goode' like a professional and making the stage his own. He was amazing. I don’t think I’d heard him sing since he was about seven. Here was a twenty-ish year old rock star making me tear-up like his first nativity. The things you miss when they grow up leave home and have kids. I think he’s still musical.

Our daughter is or was blessed with a wonderful, powerful singing voice. She reduced me to tears with a soulful rendition of Katie Melua’s ‘Closest Thing to Crazy’ in the car one day, just out of the blue. She had the same effect on her music teacher. She sang at home, so I heard her all the time and helped her to choose songs suited to the strength of her voice. Seeing and hearing her on stage held no surprises for me. I was ‘Proud Mum’ always, with lots of support. I’m sure I glowed with pride when others told me how her performance had blown them away. My response was always to say thank you and that everyone taking part was brilliant. She went on to do performing arts at college. These days, that fabulous voice is used for calling her children in from the garden or shouting for them to wait when they run ahead of her. I must ask her if she does much singing these days. What I’d give for her voice and a band to accompany me!

My wish came true, except it was my voice and I wouldn’t describe myself as a singer. I had a posh party for my sixtieth birthday a few years ago. As it was the ‘party to end all parties’ it was held at one of Blackpool’s finest hotels, I had live music from a local band and a nephew who is a professional musician. I wasn’t expecting to join the band on stage, but with some gentle persuasion (dragged up, no choice) and a compulsory funny hat, I found myself making a guest appearance. I think I was trying to sing ‘Rock the Casbah’ with the help of The Rattlers. I hope they were playing the same song. Someone somewhere has a video that I’ve never seen. Destroy it, please.

My own poem,

The Ballad of a Lady Jazz Singer

Jazz tempo piano and a bluesy guitar

It’s two a.m. in the Ritzy Bar.

Lorna sips gin through a long, curly straw

As she sits and waits, one eye on the door.

He said he’d be along to see her set

But he’d promised before – never made it yet.

Perched on a bar stool, cigarette in hand,

Minutes away from her spot with the band,

She leans a bit further back in her seat

And her red stiletto taps out the beat.

She’s laughing and swaying, about to begin,

Adrenaline rush, or too much pink gin.

She’s out of her mind, but not really crazy.

Her vision is soft-focus, smoky and hazy.

Tight black dress, short, strapless and low,

Only put on for this kind of show.

She clutches the mic stand, there’s a hint of a smile

Then she bangs out a song in her Joplin-esque style.

Heat and smoke hit hard on her throat

But she stays on key and keeps the right note.

Much clapping and cheering, the Ritzy’s alive

Lorna kept singing ‘til quarter to five

Then staggered out happy in the dawning new day

With her new bass playing lover leading the way.

 Pamela Winning  2014

Thanks for reading, keep safe and well, Pam x

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Music - Saved by the Music

“If music be the food of love, play on…” Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare.

 

Lots of us have an ‘Our Song’ or a piece of music which is meaningful and special, above and beyond all others. I find it uplifting when something significant comes on the radio and transports me back in time. If that particular time was happy, it’s nice to re-live that fond memory. If it belongs to a dark time, it’s good to reflect on how we coped and what changed. Challenges and experiences make us who we are.

I love music. I grew up with Sing Something Simple on Sundays long before the contents of the pub juke-box became important to me. My mother listened to the wireless Light Programme or played records, so I was effectively drip-fed her favourites. Tommy Steele’s Little White Bull, Acker Bilk’s Stranger on the Shore, Anthony Newley, Billy Fury, Neil Sedaka, Dusty Springfield, Joe Loss and his Orchestra, Elvis, and of course Russ Conway, amongst others. This was before The Beatles. She was young and trendy, my mum. I still have her record collection and just looking at them brings back childhood memories. There are lots of Russ Conway, singles and a couple of LPs. I don’t know if they were called albums in the 1950s. I think I’ve mentioned before that Russ Conway was responsible for me longing to learn to play the piano. I wanted to lift the lid on the old upright in the concert room and make music come out of it, not the out of tune honky tonk sound that someone knocked out of it on a Saturday night. What a blessing a juke-box was in later years.

I had years of classical training but I do not have musical talent. Occasionally I play on our electric piano, a cast off from a very talented nephew with a music degree. Our son can play piano, keyboard, guitar and bass, all perfectly well by ear. He’s amazing at that. Our daughter has a beautiful singing voice.

The first album I bought was The Rolling Stones, Through the Past, Darkly. The second was The Moody Blues, A Question of Balance followed quickly by In Search of the Lost Chord as I discovered there was MBs stuff I needed to catch up with.

The pub juke-box and The Moody Blues was and is the soundtrack to my life, as it constantly grows. No juke-box now, but the radio is always on, or a CD, YouTube or MP3. Music will always surround me, in any form.

When I was fortunate to meet Moody Blues bassist, singer, song-writer, John Lodge, I took the opportunity to tell him how glad I was that he had included ‘Saved by the Music’ in his solo tour. It is a song that means so much.

Hymns have their place amongst my favourites. As a child I was more than happy to sing in church. As an adult, I enjoyed teaching my Sunday School class new songs or hymns. It was a small group but they were enthusiastic and we had lots of fun.

 

When I started to write this poem, it seemed to grow legs and run off taking with it all the thoughts that were buzzing round my head. As a result, it is more personal than I intended, but what it is, is me.

 

 

My Music

 Music, my music, my loud surround sound,

I smiled and sang as my nemesis frowned.

Her eyes swept my room, not an inch unexplored,

But for now, my feelings were carefully stored.

I’m with The Moodies In Search of the Lost Chord.

 

I made that room spotlessly clean and sparkly

While the Stones carried on, Through the Past, Darkly;

Then busied myself with the next task to hand

And wasted no effort to understand

Her jealous resentment or what might be planned.

 

I’d given up wond’ring what she even means

As I sewed fabric flowers on my old jeans.

And Stevie belted out For Once in my Life

And I join in fully, like he knows my strife.

We could have slashed the atmosphere with a knife.

 

All I was saying was Give Peace a Chance.

I’m off at the weekend to spend time in France,

Away from that border-line aggression

When she hits the drinks in rapid succession

Attempting to cover her sick obsession.

 

Music, my music, my means of survival

And sanity, with her hasty arrival.

Bad mem’ries and nightmares, too much have amassed,

But those times are now long since gone, in the past,

And I’m Saved by the Music, myself, at last.

 

PMW 2019

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Clocks - Piano Lessons

I longed to be able to play the piano like Russ Conway, or like my father’s friend, Joe who often played the old upright at the far end of the vault in the pub we had at the time. I pestered long and hard, until at around age seven I could just about stretch my hand to nearly an octave which meant that I was ready to have lessons. Learning didn’t come easy. I disliked the teacher, for one thing, and the smells in what I eventually called that house of horrors. Escape came in the form of a house move, well, pub move, to a tiny place near Glossop, Derbyshire. My piano lessons continued with a local teacher. He made it fun, we got along and I did well. Then came another move. Back to Blackpool, different pub, on the promenade this time and it was wonderful. Dad thought I’d be pleased that he’d arranged my piano lessons with my first teacher.

I began to dread Saturday mornings. My lesson was at twelve o’clock. I never mentioned it in the hope that my parents would forget and it would be too late to go, but that didn’t happen. I was at secondary school by now. I had tried to suggest that I gave it up, but I was never able to fully explain why I wanted to and my pleas landed on deaf ears.

I don’t know whether my father took me to my lessons too early, or if the teacher was running late with the pupil before me, but I spent a lot of time waiting in the horrible sitting room with the hideous grandfather clock. The room was dingy, crammed with dark furniture and smelled of polish mixed with whatever was cooking for dinner wafting through from the kitchen. The clock had a deep, hollow tick-tock and mechanical whirring sound just before a loud chime every quarter of an hour. It was huge and took up the whole corner of the room, like it had been squashed in next to the ancient bookcase. There were some strange books in there. Sometimes I’d look at the fascinating drawings of the human reproductive organs I’d found in a medical dictionary. I would rush to stuff it back in the right place when the silence of the upstairs piano signified the end of the lesson before mine.

It would leave the noisy rhythm of the grandfather clock and climb the creaky staircase to the small room at the front of the house. There was a desk in the window where the teacher would sit, barking out orders and sending out puffs of stinking cigar smoke that filled the air and sometimes made me feel dizzy. I would place myself on the piano stool in front of the upright piano, set my music out, sit up straight and wait to be told to start. I hoped he would stay at his desk but he didn’t. He would lean over me to scribble a direction on my music and I would hold my breath. I didn’t want to breathe in his horrid cigar smoke and I was bracing myself for his fat hand on my shoulder.

Every tick and tock in that old-fashioned sitting room filled me with immense dread of going upstairs. I was never able to share my worries. I thought my parents would think I was imagining things or exaggerating.

In Haworth Parsonage there is a beautiful grandfather clock on the half-landing.  I can’t bring myself to take much notice of it, except to wonder if it is the same one that Rev. Patrick Bronte used to wind up every day.

I found this Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem,

The Old Clock on the Stairs

 

Somewhat back from the village street

Stands the old-fashioned country-seat.

Across its antique portico

Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw;

And from its station in the hall

An ancient timepiece says to all, —

      "Forever — never!

      Never — forever!"

 

Half-way up the stairs it stands,

And points and beckons with its hands

From its case of massive oak,

Like a monk, who, under his cloak,

Crosses himself, and sighs, alas!

With sorrowful voice to all who pass, —

      "Forever — never!

      Never — forever!"

 

By day its voice is low and light;

But in the silent dead of night,

Distinct as a passing footstep's fall,

It echoes along the vacant hall,

Along the ceiling, along the floor,

And seems to say, at each chamber-door, —

      "Forever — never!

      Never — forever!"

 

Through days of sorrow and of mirth,

Through days of death and days of birth,

Through every swift vicissitude

Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood,

And as if, like God, it all things saw,

It calmly repeats those words of awe, —

      "Forever — never!

      Never — forever!"

 

In that mansion used to be

Free-hearted Hospitality;

His great fires up the chimney roared;

The stranger feasted at his board;

But, like the skeleton at the feast,

That warning timepiece never ceased, —

      "Forever — never!

      Never — forever!"

 

There groups of merry children played,

There youths and maidens dreaming strayed;

O precious hours! O golden prime,

And affluence of love and time!

Even as a miser counts his gold,

Those hours the ancient timepiece told, —

      "Forever — never!

      Never — forever!"

 

From that chamber, clothed in white,

The bride came forth on her wedding night;

There, in that silent room below,

The dead lay in his shroud of snow;

And in the hush that followed the prayer,

Was heard the old clock on the stair, —

      "Forever — never!

      Never — forever!"

 

All are scattered now and fled,

Some are married, some are dead;

And when I ask, with throbs of pain,

"Ah! when shall they all meet again?"

As in the days long since gone by,

The ancient timepiece makes reply, —

      "Forever — never!

      Never — forever!"

 

Never here, forever there,

Where all parting, pain, and care,

And death, and time shall disappear, —

Forever there, but never here!

The horologe of Eternity

Sayeth this incessantly, —

      "Forever — never!

      Never — forever!"

 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow  1807-1882

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

 

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The Great Masters

The Great Masters - Art or Music?

I chose music.

As a child I hated going to piano lessons. It was my dread for years between the ages of ten to fourteen, when I convinced my father that I really needed to concentrate on my ‘O’ levels and leave classical music out for a while. The problem was the teacher. A horrid, fat man with a tobacco stained moustache who taught his pupils in a small, stuffy, upstairs room in his unwelcoming house. Looking back, he reminds me of a Stephen King character, from Needful Things, I think. The air was always thick with his constant cigar smoke. I didn’t like his podgy fingers putting mine on the right keys and I didn’t like him leaning over me to scribble instructions on my music with his thick pencil. I never read them and got told off every week for ignoring his notes. I was constantly in trouble for not practising enough and not doing my theory homework. I managed to get a few grades, somehow.

Russ Conway started it. I loved hearing him on the radio playing favourites like Side Saddle and China Tea. There was always a piano in our pubs and I wanted to play like Russ. I was delighted when at age seven my hands could just about span an octave, which meant I was ready to learn. At first it was good and I soon played short melodies and nursery rhyme tunes. By the time I was ten, I’d had enough, but wasn’t allowed to leave. I would try anything to get out of going. At this time my lesson was on a Saturday morning and I wouldn’t mention it, in the hope that both my parents would forget and no one would take me. It never happened. Pleas to pack it in were dismissed as I was told I would regret it if I didn’t carry on. They weren’t sitting at an upright piano in that smelly, foggy room for an hour. I was running out of excuses for not doing the music prep as set out. The teacher and I had a mutual dislike of each other. Escape finally came when I entered fourth year at school and the focus was on GCE exams and in some subjects, CSE projects. I rejoiced in being free from the dreadful man and played the piano even more for my own enjoyment.

Fast forward about three years. I began lessons again. I found a music teacher I could get on with. My piano world became filled with the music of the great masters, Chopin, Beethoven and my favourite, Mozart. I liked to play contemporary composers, too, Scott Joplin and George Gershwin.

I still have a piano, although I don’t play it very often. I’ve always encouraged my children and will do the same with my grandchildren. I’m thankful for the music skills that piano lessons gave me. Even those hours with the horrid man weren’t entirely wasted. I am well taught but certainly not musically talented. I just wish I could play Russ Conway stuff – it still eludes me.

And appropriately, just days away from Mozart's birthday, I found this poem, written by the very talented Garrison Keillor.

 

Birthday Poem for Mozart

 When Mozart was three, he began to play the clavier;

      When he was five, he began to compose;
      When he was ten, already launched on his career,
      He began to worry about his hair and clothes.
     “Am I cool?” he wondered. “Is this the wig I should be wearing
      Or should I have gotten the brunette?
      Are these kneebritches baggy? Why is everyone staring?
      I wonder if they’ll like my new quartet.”
     Even a genius is full of doubts
      About his looks and the future and whether the third movement should’ve been rhythm,
      And though the audience stands and claps and shouts
      Bravo, he wonders if anyone would like to go have a drink with him?

He and his wife Constanza were not so astute

      When it came to money. No, not them.
      So after he’d finished writing The Magic Flute
      He had to get busy on the Requiem.
      He had to pay for their extravagances
      So his work was never done.
      Serenades and German Dances
      And the Piano Concerto No. 21
      To pay for clothes and wine and gelati
      And the expense of yet one more infant he
      Composed the Exsultate Jubilate
      And the Jupiter Symphony.
      Had he and Mrs. Mozart avoided going in debt
      And been cautious and frugal,
      He might’ve written on small motet
      And maybe a concerto for bugle.

 Thank you, Mozart, for being so prolific

      And by the way your hair looks terrific.  
    
                                           Garrison Keillor    


Thanks for reading, Pam xhday Poem for Mozart

When Mozart was three, he began to play the clavier;
When he was five, he began to compose;
When he was ten, already launched on his career,
He began to worry about his hair and clothes.
“Am I cool?” he wondered. “Is this the wig I should be wearing
Or should I have gotten the brunette?
Are these kneebritches baggy? Why is everyone staring?
I wonder if they’ll like my new quartet.”
Even a genius is full of doubts
About his looks and the future and whether the third movement should’ve been rhythm,
And though the audience stands and claps and shouts
Bravo, he wonders if anyone would like to go have a drink with him? He and his wife Constanza were not so astute
When it came to money. No, not them.
So after he’d finished writing The Magic Flute
He had to get busy on the Requiem.
He had to pay for their extravagances
So his work was never done.
Serenades and German Dances
And the Piano Concerto No. 21
To pay for clothes and wine and gelati
And the expense of yet one more infant he
Composed the Exsultate Jubilate
And the Jupiter Symphony.
Had he and Mrs. Mozart avoided going in debt
And been cautious and frugal,
He might’ve written on small motet
And maybe a concerto for bugle. Thank you, Mozart, for being so prolific
And by the way you

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