First published 2006
I came late to singing and almost by accident as I looked for past times in a new community having had a late career move south!
In common with a lot of choir members there is a lot of pleasure in working with an entirely new subject and I am sure we all find it quite therapeutic.
Music was not part of my early life and the nearest would be a few hymns at Sunday school. We were brought up in South Africa where my father lectured in theology and languages at the University of Fort Hare. South Africa was almost idyllic then with total freedom in and around the small town where we stayed at the foot of the Winterburg mountains. Our house was next door to the college hostel where the African students lived and my brother and I spent hours in their company – being taught to ride a bicycle, fish and use an air rifle . There was an amazing feeling of freedom and we never ever wore shoes after school ! In these pre apartheid days there were few pressures on us although the students, even then, were restricted in the town centre. Any angst was with the Afrikaans boys from whom we were segregated by language, but we did meet in the school playground!!. Still no music not even jungle drums!!
With some sadness we left SA and arrived in Kingston, Jamaica – what a contrast – nothing like the feeling of Africa but a truly multi-racial society ( African, Indian, Chinese and European and all possible combinations ) and everybody seemed to be trying to make music by hitting something. Looking back it was a noisy place and we probably witnessed the birth of reggae. We did most of our secondary education in Kingston until the day when, shortly before qualifying as a beach comber, I was commanded to Scotland to receive some worthwhile education. Two and a half years in the highlands with bagpipe and fiddle for company saw me off to Glasgow and, of necessity, in employment as a student apprentice with Dunlop Various positions in manufacturing and quality management saw me wending my way south and finding music at last.
Everything else is history !!!
