Happy Daze

The genetic traits and gifts that I have inherited from my Grandparents and Parents are many and varied and all of them invaluable in defining who I am. I just hope that my own children feel they can say the same about my contribution to their lives and outlook.

I come from that most fortunate of generations, the so called Baby-Boomers, who retained strong links with their Grandparents and so benefitted from the wisdom, discipline, moral compass and frugality of those who had seen momentous times in social, economic and world history.

Perhaps using the word "seen" is a bit disrespectful as my Grandparents were not casual passengers to fate but actual participants in global conflicts, political and financial crises and all of these as a turbulent background to making their own way in the world.

My generation may have been the last to enjoy regular contact with the role models and solid citizens of my Grandparents era before the well catalogued decline in the family network which was inevitable under the pressures and stresses of modern society. I count myself as blessed in having had a conventional family tree with just the two traditional sets of Grandparents and the same Mother and Father on a continuous basis.

Many of my contemporaries saw a schism and fracture of their own family framework through divorce, absenteeism, bereavement and other forces at play which could inflict irreparable damage on relationships. I am not preaching or engaging in self congratulation because the human spirit is strong and resilient and people just get on with their lives and make the best of their situations.

Well, that is the heavy stuff covered.

I inherited from my maternal grandparents and through my Mother a musical, creative and artistic gene. It is there for sure although it has taken quite a bit of effort to squeeze anything remotely representative out of my body.

My Grandfather played in a brass band and I followed him into that great institution in playing the trumpet at school and then a cornet in the town silver band. I sat at the back of the brass section for a good few years with no real ambitions to progress beyond 3rd cornet. I regret my laziness as even that small town band travelled the length and breadth of the country playing in competitions and giving concerts to the public enjoying some success and acclaim.

I played at the de Montfort Hall in Leicester, in various Social Clubs and venues in the Nottinghamshire coalfield heartlands and at the end of Cleethorpes Pier. It was a good time.

I cannot think that today there would many opportunities to find such a wide and diverse range of individuals with the same age, social background, gender and skills profile as those who, on a weekly basis, occupied an upstairs backroom at a pub and belted out hymns, anthems, brass band classics and crowd-pleasers for the sheer enjoyment of it.

I must have been a bit of a waste of space on that back row and perhaps I may have been asked to leave as there was a flow of new , younger talent who were rapidly promoted above my lowly position and through the ranks, obviously with their ultimate goal being the prestigious 1st cornet seat. As it was my family moved out of the area and I could hand in my resignation saving some face and a semblance of pride.

The memories of my brass band years remain very strong.

I have very little by way of memento's of that period apart from a faded, once plush black dickie bow tie which formed part of the band uniform and an occasional persistent, raking cough. I put this down, nostalgically, to the extremely heavy cigarette smoke that had to be squinted through in order to see the Band Conductor at the likes of the Edwinstowe Miners Welfare Hall in the 1970's. Happy Daze.