Thereby Hangs A Tale

Thereby Hangs A Tale

I collected up all my old records, CDs and tapes and took them to Black Noise, a store downtown that sells and buys recordings — but not CDs, I discovered. They said they would appraise my other offerings and contact me tomorrow.

In my teens traditional jazz and skiffle groups were popular. Anybody remember Lonnie Donegan? If you do must be really old, but at least your memory is working well!

The Chris Barber records brought back a few memories. I had somehow managed to scrape together enough money to go to one of the band’s concerts in Cardiff. That was a big adventure for me. I stayed on after the performance to get autographs on my program and made a dash to the train station, but the train had gone. I was faced with a long wait for the early morning “milk train”. I had no way to contact my parents — we didn’t have a phone back then — so I went to the nearest police station and explained my predicament. The officer called our village police and a constable was dispatched on foot to my house. Dad was not amused at having to answer the doorbell in his nightshirt — the constable might have been. I was in the dog house for quite a while after that.

Not long after, I went to Birmingham for an admission interview at the university. One of the interviewers asked me what my interests were, and we got around to talking about music. When I mentioned that I liked trad jazz, he asked me if I knew who Ottilie Patterson was. I said, “Yes, she’s the singer with Chris Barber’s Band”. He smiled and informed that she was his sister! I wonder if that bumped me up in the ratings?