This time last week I said a fond farewell to Margaret, my Aunt. Having met with the rest of the family many memories of my childhood were revisited and I found myself reminiscing with them.
It is quite extraordinary how I can recall memories from 40 years ago and yet I can't remember where I put my bloody glasses 40 seconds ago!!
It is at times like these that I realise how privileged those of us are that have had such an abundance of interesting, supportive and friendly extended family members. Margaret was one such Aunt, married into my mother's side of the family, a professional oboe player, she became a smashing mother to two of my cousins. I remember going to see them as new born babies when I was but a child myself, I had not encountered babies in the family before as I was the youngest up to that point. I remember Margaret was very relaxed and despite trying to encourage me to come and say hello to Sally (my baby cousin) I stayed a safe distance away on the big squishy couch.
Once, when I was about 11 years old, Margaret called me over to the big black Grand Piano that sat comfortably in their large London townhouse living room. "Right" she said, "lets see if you can sing...." She struck a note on the piano a c or perhaps an f sharp, "Repeat that note", she asked. I did as instructed but even I could tell that it was not anything like that which she had struck. Bless her she tried again with a g or a d or something. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" I repeated in vain. She looked a little saddened this time and after a further 3 or 4 attempts she had to graciously give in and diagnose a condition of complete and utter tone deafness.
You might think awe that's a bit mean, but in fairness I knew that I could hear when music was out of tune, after all I could tell that the notes I was singing were definitely out of tune. However my problem was trying to mimic notes and for that she was spot on, I was indeed crap. However this diagnosis then made it all become clear as to why in my junior school I was the only kid in the so called Orchestra (2 cellos, 6 violins, 2 drums, Sir on the Piano and 35 squeaky recorders) that was NOT allowed to sing in the choir. Instead I was told that I had the important job of working the reel to reel tape deck, playing the music for the choir to sing along to. The only skill this required was the ability to see Sirs head nod and to be able to use the index finger to press stop or play as appropriate.
I couldn't understand why I wasn't allowed to sing with the rest of the choir (I think the music teacher tried to sell it to me as a really, really, reeeeeally important job). It didn't work as I thought he just didn't like me, ahhhh. So being diagnosed as 'tone deaf' actually started me off on my long list of ailments that I would slowly incur over the many, many following years see my blog of 10th January 2011.
I am told that Margaret was an avid reader of this blog, a bond that I did not know we had and a demonstration of how she kept an interest in what I (and my family) were up to from a long distance away. That was Margaret allover.
Good bye Margaret, You will be missed.
x
No comments:
Post a Comment