www.albiestales.co.uk part one

ALBERT, SENIOR – like his young son – loved music and, on occasions, was often out and about with his band of Wandering Minstrels, entertaining the Sheringham Old Folk in the local church halls. Rather proud of his piano-accordion, with its smart mother-of-pearl finish and ivory and black keys, he practised most evenings after work if there was nothing much on the wireless, that is. This, of course, did not go down too well with his next door neighbours, who would hammer their ‘appreciation’ of his music on the dividing wall of the house. The Minstrels, wandered about, performing quite a few numbers, including We’ll gather Lilacs in the Spring again and Roses are blooming in Picardy, and others of a flowery nature which the ‘old dears’ always seemed to enjoy!

LIKE FATHER – LIKE SON, and Albie also enjoyed music, especially listening to records on his old wind-up Gramophone. It had been given him by his grandfather, Elijah, who was profoundly deaf and had no further use for it. With it went his collection of old 78s, some chipped, some cracked, but all made of wax and extremely fragile! Nevertheless, his grandson thought the world of that archaic gramophone, with its little tins of needles and wooden doors and handle on the side to crank up the spring!

Then there were the records, some with colourful labels, one with a little dog sitting in front of an even older-looking gramophone – His Master’s Voice! Albie was the first to admit the records were of a very limited choice, but he enjoyed them just the same. He would play The Laughing Policeman until the tears ran down his cheeks and gallop around the living room to the strains of Horsey Keep Your Tail Up – until his parents could stand it no more!

Then, one day, the spring broke.

It happened, all of a sudden, with an almighty ‘twang’, right in the middle of The Hall of the Mountain King – and left Albie in the ‘dog house’. What could he do, he wondered?

Was this to be the end of Albie’s gramophone? Were his long-suffering parents about to enjoy some peace and quiet at last?

But, no! Albie, always the master of improvisation, simply turned the maroon felt-covered turntable with his finger, in a clockwise direction – but it wasn’t the same of course!

One day during the half-term school holidays, Albie tired of playing his gramophone by hand and decided to ‘have a go’ on his father’s accordion instead. In the quietness of his bedroom, he strapped on the accordion and began to pump some wind into the bellows.

“Now, what shall I play?” he said to himself. What indeed?

ALBIE, THE PIANO-ACCORDIONIST

Albie then remembered a tune he had heard at the Paston School a week or two earlier – John Peel.

Their music master, Norman Cutting, known to all the boys as ‘Kiffy’, had given up trying to teach Albie, and the rest of his form, the technicalities of music with all its crochets and quavers. So, he decided they would have singing lessons instead, with the first song to be attempted being: D’Ye Ken John Peel.

“John Peel,” Albie said to himself, trying to find a suitable note on the keyboard, “tha’a a good ’un to start with, but, how did it go?”

After an hour or so’s practise, making very slow progress and, at times, hitting a great many wrong notes, the almost passable sounds of John Peel began filtering out of his bedroom window. His mother, clad in her turban and Monday washday pinny, was out in the backyard, pegging out the week’s washing on the line.

“...fur the sound of his horn wook me frum my bed..,” she sang, through a mouthful of wooden clothes pegs, “an’ the fox frum his lair in the mornin’...”

Then, opening the back door she called up the stairs: “Tha’s a jaunty little tune, Albie! D’you know anymore?”

The lad had to confess he did not, as that was his first and only ‘number’ in his repertoire, but, having mastered the tune he was eager to learn more, as he quite fancied the idea of becoming a piano-accordionist just like his dad!

As time went on, Albie’s parents began to realise their son was a ‘natural’ and had an ear for music. Soon, he was able to play any tune after hearing it just the once!

“Perhaps you ought to have pianoforte lessons,” suggested his father to the lad one day. “I’m sure Miss Phillips would be able to teach you, besides, it’ll be much better if you could read music...”

“No-oo,” replied Albie, cutting his father short, “I can’t do with all that there music an ’ stuff, those crochets make me quaver!”

The lad continued to extend his repertoire to include Men of Harlech and Down by the Ash Grove – then some hymns and carols, with The First Nowell proving quite easy! But, all too soon, he began to tire of being a ‘piano-accordionist’ and looked to the challenge of other musical instruments.

His grandmother’s violin was to be the first, but quickly returned to his grandma as the constant screeching and wailing upset the neighbours. A mouth-organ was next, but, after much sucking and blowing, dribbling and slathering, it too was confined to the darkness of a kitchen cupboard drawer. But, what next, Albie wondered?

In Hunts’ Electrical shop, on Station Road, Sheringham, they sold radios, televisions and other electrical appliances. Cycling past one day, Albie paused for a while to peer through the shop window, with its higgledy-piggledy display of torches, batteries and Pifco hairdryers, and noticed a little sign that read: ‘Jews’ Harps – three and sixpence’.

THE TWANGS THE THANG!

“Wow, great,” Albie exclaimed to himself, “I must have one o’ them!” so he opened the door and went inside.

Delving into the depths of his trouser pocket, the lad found a couple of florins – his pocket money for the past two weeks – and was soon the proud owner of a brand-new musical instrument: a Jews’ Harp, plus sixpence change!

“For God’s sake, Albie!” protested his mother when he got home, “will ya stop all that twangin’ racket, tha’s drivin’ me up the wall!” Albie had to admit he hadn’t quite mastered that musical instrument and took it back the very next day.

“It don’t work,” Albie complained to the shopkeeper, “this here Jews’ Harp. I can’t git a tune outta it!” Little did the lad realise there was a certain knack to it that he just didn’t possess!

“Sorry about that,” apologised the man behind the counter, glancing over his glasses at Albie,“but you can’t hev ya money back as it’s bin used – but I can let you hev a credit note!”

Just as the lad was leaving Hunts’ Electrical, there in a dark and dusty corner he saw a guitar for sale! Now that would be a real challenge, he told himself, and for the next few days he could think of nothing else, continuing to pester his long-suffering parents to buy it for him.

“You en’t hevin’ that,” his father told him, “an’ tha’s final – besides, you’re allus kickin’ up a racket with that there accordion o’ mine. So you’ll hatta be satisfied with that!”

However, his mother was a bit more sympathetic, besides she thought a guitar would create less of a din than the accordion.

“Oh, I dunno, Albert,” she said to her husband, after their son had gone to bed in a ‘huff’, “tha’s only a few weeks to Albie’s birthday, let’s think about it agin, if he’s a good boy?”

ANGEL VOICES EVER SINGING

As he quite liked singing, at home and at school, Albie was ‘persuaded’ to join his local Primitive Methodist chapel choir. Mr Rix, the Company Secretary of the Sheringham Co-op, who just happened to be the choirmaster at the chapel, thought it would be ‘good for the boy’, although he had to admit that the lad’s inability to read music was a bit of a drawback!

Albie was in good company in the chapel choir. As well as Mr Rix there was Roy Craske, another Pastonian, and his father, Stanley Craske, a well-known Sheringham man and leading member of the Beeston Road Methodist chapel. Then there was Brenda Wright, whose brother Michael had also been at the Paston School.

Brenda, however, was the first to admit that she couldn’t really sing, but, as a teenager and having outgrown Sunday School, being in the choir was one way of her parents knowing where she was on Sundays!

Also known to Albie was Brenda Crowe, who lived on the corner of Salisbury Road and Cremer Street, who was also in the choir. So, all in all, the lad found himself amongst friends.

One Friday night at choir practise in the back room of the chapel, Mr Rix abruptly interrupted the singing of Angel Voices Ever Singing.

“Albie,” he said, quite harshly, “come along now, hold your hymn book up in front of you, an’ project your voice forwards, will you? – not down to your feet! I require absolute perfection from you on Sunday!”

That Sunday, at the start of the service, the choir processed into the chapel from the back room, singing the first hymn as they went. Albie was allowed to lead the way and sat on the front row of the choir-stalls facing the pulpit and preacher – with all eyes upon him!

After several hymns and prayers, the Preacher – known locally as ‘Bible-thumper’ Bishop – began his lengthy sermon! To start with it was so quiet you could hear a hat-pin drop, but then someone in the congregation began unwrapping a sweet, followed by another... and another... and...

BANG thumped the Preacher’s fist on the Bible.

“The good Lord givest,” he shouted, raising one hand to the Heavens, “an’ tearkest away. An’ if yar got enny more a them there coshies, kin we orl hev one, please? If not, forever hold ya peace!”

Silence prevailed throughout the rest of his sermon.

ALBIE BEGINS TO ROCK

Albie then began to daydream– nothing new to that of course, as he’d always been a dreamer. He imagined himself as an entertainer like Bill Haley, who he’d heard on the radio. He even imagined himself sporting a ‘kiss-curl’ to match, and silently began mouthing some lyrics to himself.

“One, two, three o’clock, four o’clock, rock,
Five, six seven o’clock, eight o’clock, rock,
Nine, ten, eleven o’clock, twelve o’clock, rock,
We’re gonna rock around the clock tonight.”

Then he began clicking his fingers and tapping his feet in time to the music floating around in his head!

Mr Rix, the choirmaster, had noticed the boy’s antics of course and wasn’t best pleased.

“What on earth were you thinking about, Albie?” the choirmaster asked him after the service. “All that there jiffling about in your seat?”

“And another thing,” Mr Rix continued, “your singin’ leaves a lot to be desired these days, you’re not hittin’ the high notes anymore!”

Albie had been worried about his voice for some time; he noticed a certain roughness to it, although put it down to a touch of tonsillitis coming on, but it seemed to be worsening and he was getting rather concerned. The truth of the matter, however,was a simple one – his voice was beginning to break and his condition was exacerbated by his love of singing, less-than-melodious, pop songs!

ALBIE IS ‘ALL SHOOK UP’

By the start of 1956, Albie’s hoarseness had become more pronounced and, reluctantly he resigned from the Beeston Road Methodist chapel choir– or at least that was how he put it!

Soon, with his new ‘voice’, he really could sing like a pop star, however, by then, Bill Haley had been demoted to the rank of ‘has-been’, with Elvis the Pelvis well-and-truly in the limelight.

Albie carefully nurtured his voice to get the King’s Southern drawl just right. He practised the surly lip and the pelvic twirl – enough to make the girls swoon. But there was something missing.

Then he remembered the day, many weeks before, seeing the little guitar in Hunts’ Electrical shop, confined to a dark and dusty corner. Would it still be for sale, he wondered?

Quickly, Albie cycled up Station Road to the shop and there, languishing in the corner, was the guitar – still looking for an owner.

With his birthday only a few days away and some pocket money saved up, he enquired the price of the guitar.

“Four pounds, nineteen and six,” replied the shopkeeper, “but tha’s a good ’un for a beginner, as it’s unbreakable wood-grain plastic – besides, tha’s got buttons to help you play!”

Buttons? thought Albie, what on earth were they for? Then he noticed, at the top of the guitar neck, a little brown plastic box with letters, and numbers: ‘E’, ‘A’ and ‘D7’, and above each was a little white plastic button.

“When you press a button, say D7,” explained the man, handing the guitar to Albie, “an’ strum the strings, that play a ‘chord’ for ya – couldn’t be simpler, could it?”

Albie thought it quite amazing, what would they think of next? But then he had to admit to being a little bit ‘short’ that week and couldn’t quite afford it.

“Never mind,” laughed the shopkeeper, picking up the little guitar and placing it under the counter, “if you want it, tha’s yours an’ I’ll keep it for ya!”

“Wow, yes, please,” gasped an excited Albie, hardly able to contain himself, “I’ll be back next week, I promise – when I have my birthday money, that is.”

HAVE GUITAR – WILL TRAVEL

On his birthday, Albie again mentioned the guitar to his parents and how much he’d like to buy it with all the birthday money he’d been given.

“Oh, I’m not at all sure about that, Albie,” said his dad, “you should be savin’ for the future – besides, we mustn’t upset the neighbours, must we?” The lad took this remark to be an emphatic ‘No’.

“Don’t tease the lad, Albert!” scolded Albie’s mother and turning to their son said: “Of course you can have it!” Then she gave him an extra ten shillings out of her week’s housekeeping money!

Albie raced up to the shop in Station Road and, with trembling hands, handed the money to the shopkeeper: three very crumpled and screwed-up £1 notes came out of the lad’s pocket, together with his credit note for three shillings and sixpence. Then, from another pocket he produced a pristine ten-shilling note.

“I've come for me guitar,” he said, tipping the rest of his money, all in loose change – silver and coppers – in a pile on the counter. “Four Pound, nineteen an’ six, tha’s all there!” he said proudly – and it was too!

“Here you are then, Albie,” said the shopkeeper, handing the gleaming, plastic guitar over the counter. “Have guitar – will travel!” he laughed.

In the shop doorway, Albie turned, strummed his guitar, struck a pose and replied: “Elvis Presley – eat your heart out!”

NEXT: Albie eats too many Easter eggs, but discovers his hidden talent!

SOME OF ALBIE’S FAVOURITE WEBSITES A Norfolk Entertainer A Moment in Time Enjoy North Norfolk Enjoy Norwich Flint Holiday Cottages Norfolk Churches Norfolk Dialect Norfolk Village Signs Norwich City Hall and the Lions Picture Norfolk Remember Norfolk Sculthorpe Spyplanes

Please sign Albie’s guestbook as I would love to hear your comments –
or email: