Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Musician who started piano at five, gave a BBC recital at nine, and became a professional clarinetist despite gender prejudice.
On the island
Eight records
Identified from the transcript at [37] where the guest recalls playing it: 'It was, um, in a Persian market.'
The keepsakes
No book or luxury recorded for this episode.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:08What part of the country do you come from?
I'm Yorkshire, I was born in Leeds.
Presenter asks
0:21What was your first musical activity? When did you start taking lessons?
Well, my father taught me the piano when I was five. And uh I did my first piano for it. Recital on the BBC in Children's Hour when I was nine.
Presenter asks
0:36Do you remember what you played [at age nine]?
Oh god, yes. It was, um, in a Persian market.
Presenter asks
0:43When you left school, did you start straight away as a professional musician?
No, I didn't have any money. I couldn't buy any instruments. So I took a job in a shoe department and then I went into a clothing factory. And then I was able to pay my little weekly instalments on my first clarinet. That was my first instrument.
“I had a nervous breakdown and I had to give up the factory.”
“I starved. I couldn't get a job. I I finished up with a trio, not mine, it belonged to somebody else, in a very sleazy nightclub in Piccadilly.”
“I was rather appalled at the terrible jobs girl musicians were getting and the appalling pay they were getting. And uh I decided to do something about it.”
“I thoroughly enjoyed that [entertaining the troops]. It's a part of my life I wouldn't have missed at all. No money in it. I just got a basic ten pounds like every other artist that went out.”