A catholic music taste - part 2

Despite (or because of) the gentle persuasion of our school teachers to steer us away from the “perils” of rock ‘n roll, I liked the “devil’s music” (although my mother wasn't happy about that - I suspect today's mothers feel the same)! At the same time, I was still enjoying choral music at church, and slowly graduating from light classical to more serious stuff with a special affection for the music of two of the B's - Beethoven and Brahms.

The late fifties and early sixties saw a revolution in popular music and my father decided to purchase a radiogram. Despite my enthusiasm, I think it was because one of his customers had given him a large collection of 78s that really persuaded him. It was a grand piece of furniture, finished in walnut veneer with a large central speaker and manufactured by Pye. I was about 13, just in time for me to start spending my hard-earned wages (I had three jobs whilst still at school) on 45s. Can anyone reading this remember the first record they bought? Mine was Duane Eddy’s “Rebel Rouser” – not exactly a musical masterpiece, but it appealed to me at the time. My early rock ‘n roll favorites were popular English rockers Billy Fury and Marty Wilde and of course, the King, Elvis Presley.

By the time I left Great Yarmouth College to start on my five-year apprenticeship in the printing trade I had purchased a Dansette “portable” record player — state of the art, 3-speed with auto changer of which over one million were sold in the 1950s and 1960s. I could now play my music to my heart’s content in my own room – something of a novelty in the early sixties. Apart from rock ‘n roll, there developed another musical craze in England around this time – Trad-Jazz! It was based on traditional Dixieland jazz and there sprouted a multitude of bands across the country. Consisting of a standard line-up of trumpet, trombone and clarinet and backed by drums, base and banjo and sometimes piano. Three of the best known and most successful happen to be still going strong – Chris Barber, Kenny Ball and Acker Bilk. Needless to say, I soon got hooked. This gave me a taste of many traditional ragtime tunes and this coupled with my admiration of Glenn Miller gradually pulled me away from 60s pop and more and more into jazz, blues and swing.

Johannes Brahms - isn't this a geat portrait?

A work colleague was a great classical devotee and during one of our many lunch break discussions invited me to travel to London’s Festival Hall with him and his wife. The program included Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique and Brahms: Variations on a Theme of Haydn, both still favorites. Hooked again! I lost no time in subscribing to “The Gramophone” magazine and soon was ordering LPs (as we called them then) of more and more classical music. The music of the greats soon boomed from my Dansette. I say boomed because at that time I loved the more “stirring” orchestral stuff, obviously a legacy of the brass band concerts, and I didn’t yet appreciate the subtleties of piano sonatas, chamber music and the like. That was to come with age!

To be continued . . . . . . . . . . .

Differences in Store

My main reason for creating this blog was to describe my experiences of the differing ways of life between North Carolina and England. I will later probably compare our life on the Costa del Sol, but that's another story. I have already deviated from my main theme in the previous post and I'm sure I will deviate more later, but for now, let me keep to the plot.

A great American pastime is shopping. I know it's fun(?) for many in England, but here it's more than fun, it's a passion. It is also a different experience believe me. I shall translate the terminology of shopping into British English in parenthesis. It was made very noticeable on our last visit to England (in 2005). English sales associates (assistants), although in general polite and helpful, cannot compete with their American counterparts who immediately greet you as you walk into any store (shop), frequently ask if you need help in finding things ("Please don't hesitate to ask - it's no trouble") and upon leaving wish you such a pleasant day, evening or weekend, that you wonder why you even came shopping. They truly are wonderful although it can be overpowering at first, but like a dripping faucet (tap), you get used to it! Politeness is still evident - doors are almost always held open for you - if you return the compliment you are thanked. If someone accidentally clips you with a shopping cart (trolley) an immediate "excuse me, I'm so sorry" is said (and more importantly,meant). Even when a fellow shopper walks between you and the display you are viewing at the grocery store (supermarket) he/she will say "excuse me". Of course, there are exceptions, there are rude, inconsiderate people in all parts of the world. A neighbor told us, "This is The South, don't expect the same courtesy in New York or the Mid-West".

Then there are "the sales". I'm sure there are many more now in England, although not too many years ago they seemed to only occur following the Christmas holiday and perhaps an "End of Season Sale" at the conclusion of the winter and/or summer seasons. Here, there's hardly a weekend when there isn't one - any excuse for a sale (President's Day, Valentines, Labor Day, etc., etc.). The real big one is "Black Friday", that's the day after Thanksgiving (for which there's already been a sale of course), when all that turkey and pumpkin pie is worked off by chasing around the sales. Let's face it, when it's busy like this, you may have to park the car at least twenty yards from the store entrance, and for many this is great exercise! To summarize, no one pays the ticket price for anything - just wait a couple of days for the next sale!

Coupons and store loyalty cards are big here. Most Americans (us included) have a key-ring full of loyalty fobs. They are freely given at the store (okay, you "pay" by letting the store know your shopping habits) and hardly anyone would go shopping without them. If you realize you've left yours at home when reaching the register, some kind soul in the line (queue) will lend you theirs - heaven forbid that you should miss out on the discounts. We, as seniors, even do our grocery shopping on a Tuesday so as to gain a "senior discount" of 5% on top of all the other discounts gained by the card and the multitude of coupons. Every penny (yes, the 1 cent coin is called a penny here, not that dreadful "pee") counts.

Another shock to the European shopping here for the first time is that the price you see is not the price you pay! There is no V.A.T. in the US, but on reaching the register (till or check-out) you will be required, in most but not all States, to pay a sales tax. In North Carolina it's an add-on of 6¾% (2% on food).

You may have noticed I used earlier, the linear measurement of yards. Measurements here are not metric and that's something I am grateful for. Call me old-fashioned by all means but I can actually visualize what a piece of 2x4 looks like as opposed to a piece of 5.1x10.2cm before I visit the Home Depot to purchase my lumber (timber). Well . . . nearly. A 2x4 is in fact actually planed to 1¾x3¾. I can remember calling this a 4x2 in England, here it's called a 2x4. Confused? So you should be.

A catholic music taste - part 1

I've often been asked why I describe my musical tastes as "catholic"? I use the term in it's "all-embracing" or "broad-minded" sense, as defined in the OED, not in a religious sense, although as an Episcopalian I do regularly state my belief "in one holy catholic and apostolic Church".

It's a term I supposed I inherited from my father who, like me, played no musical instrument, but just loved music of all kinds. As a young boy I can remember my father singing whilst working in his dairy and when delivering milk. We were keen listeners to "the wireless" and we attended weekly brass-band concerts at the (then) wonderful Winter Gardens in our home town of Great Yarmouth. The concerts, usually on a Sunday evening when we rushed from Evensong to the sea-front, were given by a different town or village band mainly from Norfolk or north Suffolk and it is without doubt because of the variety of music played that I developed my wide taste in musical genres. Military marches, overtures from opera, light classical and Broadway melodies were always featured in the program and I tended to remember tunes quite well.

My mother's love of "Hymns: Ancient and Modern" and her total recall of virtually every hymn included, inspired me to join the choir at our local church of which we were already members. That was the delightful little church of St. Andrew (known locally as the "Wherryman's Church" - a wherry was a local, unique type of shallow-draft sailing craft, used to transport cargo to and from the coast along the rivers of the Norfolk Broads). The church had an infant school attached which I attended from age five through seven. Sadly, the church and the school were demolished in the 1960s and is now the site of retail stores - serving the modern god of consumerism.

A Norfolk wherry in full sail. Photograph by Kevin Rowe

Later, at my junior school (Priory Boys', another church school and whose main hall was originally the priory of the adjacent St. Nicholas Parish Church, pictured below, and over 900 years old), we had some wonderful teachers, who encouraged our listening to classical, traditional and jazz even. Anything, I think in retrospect, to discourage us from the evils of the emerging "rock 'n roll"!

The Church of St. Nicholas, Great Yarmouth, England's largest parish church.

. . . . . . to be continued.

Yard visitors

An early morning visitor to our yard (garden) is pictured here. Although we often get these delightful creatures passing through,they don't usually hang about long enough for me to get my camera. This little "dear" obliged today.

We are lucky to be visited by much more wildlife that we ever were when living in England (and that was in a country village). In the early eighties, when we moved from the city we were visited by many garden, farmland and hedgerow birds, but by the time we left for Spain in 2001, we no longer saw wrens, chaffinches or hardly a robin.

Here we are visited by a great many colorful varieties, including the wonderful NC State bird, the Cardinal. Summers see humming birds hovering over flowers and the nectar feeding bottle we hang up. We usually have a pair of morning doves picking up seeds dropped on our porch by the fussy finches and chickadees. One morning this summer I heard a crash against our study window and was amazed to see a red-tailed hawk carry off one the doves among a flurry of feathers! I really felt sorry for the dove's mate. American robins are at least twice the size of an English robin (I can almost hear my English friends saying "well, they would be!) and are not solitary but flock onto our grass to feed on the insects and grubs.

Squirrels are plentiful and we usually have a few chipmunks and rabbits scurrying about. There has been evidence of the cheeky raccoon but unfortunately we only have seen these as corpses on the highway, victims of the automobile.

Reptiles are more prevalent than we have been used to. Salamanders, toads and several varieties of snakes are often seen. The Black Racer snake is well named - they are fast!

Now, as we really get into the Fall (autumn), visitors arrive in their thousands. What are they? . . . . . . . . LEAVES! My better half enjoys raking leaves . . . . . I thank Heaven she does!

Our Americanization?

Since posting my first blog I have a couple of comments from English friends who, quite understandably, think I should anglicize my postings. One didn't like me using sidewalk or cellphone as opposed to pavement or mobile phone. I have explained that our American friends know the pavement as the actual "paved" roadway, so to them it would make no sense and at least the English are familiar with sidewalk through American literature, movies, TV shows, etc.
As for cell phone versus mobile phone, I happen to think that the former describes it perfectly - a phone which works by using a cellular transmission system, whereas the latter describes any phone that is mobile. Even my land line phone is in fact mobile.
I have two main reasons for using American terms:
(1) We have American friends as well as English who will likely read this blog.
(2) We live here now and although we are English born, we do try to fit in (the main English opposition to immigrants in England is that "they don't fit in") and are proud to, so I suppose we are becoming Americanized.
Mind you, as much as we love Southern cooking (I love grits, iced tea and biscuits) we do miss some very English culinary delights. For example, a friend recently brought us some Sainsbury's battenburg cake from a trip to London and this very morning I purchased Birds Custard Powder and some Marmite at the international section of our grocery store (they even stock Branston Pickle) and even though we drink plenty of coffee (not instant) we still enjoy our Tetley British Blend cuppas.
For all the things our great nations have in common, it IS different here and thank the Lord for that.

A walk to the bank

This morning was great North Carolina fall weather. Clear blue skies but with a slight touch of overnight frost still evident at 8.30am.
We try to get a least one decent walk in every day, usually within our neighborhood, but this morning whilst lying in bed, thanking God for another day in which to live life, I suggested to my wife that as we had to go to our bank today we might walk rather than use up that precious resource, gasoline.
Anything for an easy life, she agreed, with some hint of enthusiasm.
Let's get this straight. We are used to walking. Since taking early retirement we walked miles every day in our country of birth, England. After moving to Spain we continued our daily walks, including up (and down) some very steep hills. Since moving to our new home here in North Carolina our walks have mainly been restricted to our quiet neighborhood. We were not ready for the American culture of the automobile, where it seems as a 100 yard trip means getting in the car.
Our 45 minute walk today included a length of narrow (by US standards) two-lane road which lacked sidewalks. We quickly realized that Americans in general are not only not used to walking, but also not used to others walking whilst they are driving. We had several close encounters with vehicles, usually whilst their drivers were busy chatting on their cell phones or drinking coffee and seem totally oblivious to us pedestrians.
On reaching the bank, we had to cross a busy intersection, controlled by traffic signals and even on the crosswalk had another encounter with a vehicle turning right on red, perfectly legal, but the driver did not expect anyone to be using the crosswalk.
We took a somewhat safer, if longer, route home only to discover that I had left my checkbook at the bank or, my worst fear, having dropped it on the way home. Bang went the "save the planet" scheme as we jumped into our car and drove the bank where fortunately our friendly teller had the "missing" checkbook ready for us (she would have mailed it to us on completion of her shift).
The moral of this story - best leave the bright ideas to my better half!
Take care when walking and when driving, watch out for those pedestrians, they do exist.