6 May 2024

‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.’ John 14:27

Baaaaad craaaaaaash…

Don’t like it…. not one little bit…

I’m struggling to type, but the alternative (lying there doing nothing) is worse. It’s crazy how the crash suddenly kicks in. I was able to give it the cold shoulder when it made its first threats on Saturday morning, cracking on to enjoy the wonderful sunshine and time together with everyone- lots of us are down at Cloud 9 this weekend. Lydia and Connor headed out early to do a local park run: I’m so touched that our 3 big children and their partners will be running the Bournemouth Half Marathon in October to raise money for Bowel Cancer UK. While his parents were out, we took little Jasper with us to town to buy Isaac some shoes and a jumper, both of which I had somehow neglected to pack… Jasper was on top form, trotting along with his arms outstretched: ‘I flying! I flying!’. That’s my grandson, full of joy and a natural-born Plane-Theorist…

Sat sheltered behind a groyne on Southbourne beach in the afternoon munching ice-creams, it felt like summer. Isaac braved the sea, soaking his clothes. Jasper dug in the sand and toddled back and forth to the sea with whoever he could persuade to fetch him yet another bucket of water.

And then the crash hit. Just like that. I had walked down to the beach from Mum’s house, an easy five minutes, but getting back would be a different matter. I clung to Steve as we ascended the ramp, but still couldn’t manage the 20 yards or so to the top without stopping to sit on benches.

That was Saturday afternoon and I’ve been useless ever since… to me it feels worse than previous crashes, particularly since some new symptoms rocked up at the party this time: a fetching swollen face with bright red cheeks, and a cough accompanied by a dull ache in my chest. A spot of googling confirms that I need to keep an eye on this as my chemo cocktail can result in lung damage. Yay.

But it’s great to have an extra day here today due to the bank holiday, which also happens to be Lydia’s birthday. After pastries and presents, everyone except me headed off for a morning at the Oceanarium, a lovely little aquarium next to Bournemouth pier. I’m used to not being able to do things now and don’t get so upset about it. As long as I’m kept updated with photos I can feel like I’m there (ok, cut the violins playing- I genuinely mean that!). When everyone got back it was lovely to sit out on the balcony before the rain made an appearance. More treats followed: canapes in Cloud 9 whilst Jasper napped, a delicious late lunch at the Brewhouse and Kitchen in Southbourne, birthday cake and merriment with even more of the family back at Cloud 9.

And suddenly it’s all over; most people this evening will be feeling the safe, familiar dread of going back to school or work after the bank holiday, but give me that any day over thoughts of the CT scan that awaits me tomorrow… But I shall be strong. And instead of dwelling on what is to come, I shall continue the story: I believe that we have reached the year 2000…

We were well aware that when baby no.3 arrived we would only be able to accommodate her for as long as she was small enough to fit in a moses basket: there was not an inch of spare space anywhere in our little 2-bed house for an extra cot. So we found ourselves navigating the housing market for a second time with me heavily pregnant, further complicated by severe varicose veins that rendered me almost immobile, and two tiny children to care for that were anything but immobile…

Somehow though, in May 2000, with a 4 year-old, 2 year-old and newborn in tow, we moved into a 4-bedroom house just a couple of streets away from our first home. I wasn’t fully in love with the house, being put off by both the slightly scruffy road and embossed wallpaper fetish of the previous owners, but Steve said it had ‘huge potential’. He was right, of course. Over the last 24 years the house has grown up with us, being gradually redesigned and expanded to fit our family and lifestyle exactly. The embossed wallpaper went. We converted the garage into a music room. We remodelled the downstairs to make an open-plan kitchen/diner and cosy lounge. We swapped bathrooms with bedrooms and created an airline-style ensuite in a wardrobe. We had the entire roof lifted to create a second floor for the girls when Isaac arrived. The professionals did the basic stuff, but Steve did the rest: for many years it was the norm for him to return home from work and spend half the night drilling, tiling, plumbing or connecting electrics.

The result is a house that would probably be pretty useless to anyone else but that has suited us perfectly. It isn’t anything special, and is certainly not located in one of Knebworth’s premier roads- but then again there have to be some advantages in having known burglars and drug dealers in your street, and there has been some top class late-night entertainment over the years (the highlight being a police stake-out with people hiding in bushes and everything).

Moving house with three children under 5, one only a few weeks old, was certainly a challenge. We kept losing Ariane amongst the boxes, only being reminded of her whereabouts when she began to make noises asking for a feed. I had always felt totally in control in our old house, taking pride in the fact that I could clean it top to bottom in an hour and did so every Monday morning. In our new house it was all I could do to keep vague track of children and possessions, and I never seemed to be able to tidy and clean more than a couple of rooms at a time. So there was some adjusting, but we muddled through and despite the exhaustion loved our busy, crazy family life.

Things changed dramatically that Autumn, however, as Michael was handed over to Knebworth Primary School so that he could torment the teachers instead of me. He was a bright boy, though, who started school reading quite well, thanks to my constant efforts to occupy his mind. Steve and I naively went along to his first ever parents’ evening with some anticipation of a pat on the back.

‘And this is the desk where Michael sits by himself,’ his teacher related, motioning to a single desk at the front of the Reception class. Talk about shattering all of your aspirations and hopes for your child in one fell swoop! And that was before we found out about the biting incident involving a child that dared to touch his Mobilo model…

But the days spent at home with two little girls were easy and idyllic. Lydia and Ariane were so sweet together and became very close as they grew, spending hours playing with dolls or dressing up in princess costumes and fairy wings.

Lydia started nursery which gave a full structure to the day: two school runs and two nursery runs, all on foot to the village and back with me pushing our huge tandem double pram with buggyboard attachment for Michael. I had muscles on my muscles, which are still there now depsite everything- just ask me to show you my biceps…

I loved raising the children, but my creative mind started going into overdrive when Ariane was a toddler and ideas were forming. I hadn’t started any kind of a career at that point of course; I had originally planned to do a PGCE and go into Primary teaching, but Michael coming along while I was still at Uni put a stop to that. I’m so glad: I would have been rubbish at the red tape part of being a classrooom teacher, wanting instead to go with the flow of educational passions that have always possessed me.

But there was something I could do… I had three small children, who had lots of little friends. What about starting up music classes for their age? I was excited at the idea and very ambitious. It had to be good. It had to push the boundaries of what is normally taught to that age group. It had to be original.

In the Autumn of 2001, Crescendo Music Workshops was born. I had designed a bespoke curriculum which not only included singing, listening, composition and piano skills, but which taught rhythm-reading to children as young as 3 through what I considered to be a revolutionary new system featuring memorable characters: there was Chris the Crotchet Creature, Montie Minim, Sloth the Semibreve Snail and Braver and Waver the Pair of Quavers. I wrote a song for each character entirely using their note value, and there were further characters and songs to depict the corresponding rests. Before long, small children were confidently and accurately reading rhythms from my giant homemade fuzzy felt board. Sewing wizard and mother-in-law Christine made me soft toys of the characters plus tabards for the children to wear, and Bridesmaid Becca’s lovely artist brother Mark came up with incredible illustrations that captured my vision exactly. I wrote stories about the characters and little plays which the children acted out. In later years I used the system in schools and it was just as loved; I’m told that there are huge numbers of people out there who find themselves humming ‘Braver and Waver, the pair of quavers’ at random times.

I kicked things off by running an after-school music class for ages 5-7, to which Michael would come along, and two daytime pre-school age classes for Lydia and her friends; if Ariane wasn’t napping at the time she would join in with gusto, holding her own with the older ones as she always has.

It became apparent after a term that the Pre-school classes were the way forward. They were a delight to teach and hugely popular. Word got around the village and further afield, and a third weekly session was soon added. The after-school sessions for older children had proved a good experiment but it was one that I decided not to continue; it was a difficult time of day for the the young children to concentrate on musical learning plus Michael and his small colleagues were in the class. Say no more.

7 May 2024

A little pause while we return to the present; it’s Tuesday now, Scan Day, and at 10.45 I’m still trying to finish my breakfast smoothie before starting on the necessary pre-scan 11.15 lunch (you can’t eat for 4 hours beforehand). I was supposed to be going into London for the CT, but discovered at the end of last week that due to industrial action no trains whatsoever would be running today.

‘So sorry,’ I related in an email to SuperProf’s lovely secretary Jenny, ‘I’m going to have to cancel the scan- but it’s fine, my tummy pain has gone now, maybe I could have it next week instead, or the week after?’

Good try. But no.

‘I’ve spoken to the Professor,’ Jenny emailed back, ‘And he definitely doesn’t want it postponed… I’ll see if I can get you a local scan.’

Ah. Jenny pulled out all the stops and managed to get me an appointment at my old haunt Harpenden Spire for Tuesday afternoon. There was no getting out of it… Buck up, scaredy-cat!

Crescendo…. Yes, that’s a nicer thing to think of. I held termly concerts for the children to showcase their learning. I took them to perform at festivals and fetes. I wrote more and more music for the children- songs to portray the elements and features of music (‘The Ballard of Diminuendo Dog’) and ambitious instrumental pieces featuring simple percussion parts for the little ones. I made up ‘sad’ versions of nursery rhymes to teach the concept of major and minor keys. ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star/ How I wonder where you are/ I can’t see you up so high/ Through this dark and cloudy sky’: the children would wave ‘magic wands’ to turn the music from the major to minor keys and back again. I’d be sat at the piano playing with gusto, happy to be sharing something I loved so much with a captive audience, even if they were all 4 years old.

But the 4 year-olds grew. They started school. ‘Do you offer piano lessons?’ I was constantly asked. This seemed a natural progression in so many ways, both for the children and myself, and my teaching practice was born. What I lacked in formal instrumental training was made up for in bucketloads by my passion, care, attention to musical detail and high standards. Children did well in their exams and parents loved the constant concerts and events that I put on. I did not rest on my laurels though and was always striving to give my pupils better, studying different teaching methods and re-learning to play myself in order to give children a solid technical foundation.

I added some literal new strings to my bow when I started the violin at the grand old age of 28, learning alongside 4 year-old Lydia. I’d heard about the Suzuki method, where very young children learn to play by ear and from memory, focusing on technique and musicality without the distraction of music reading. Parental involvement was key, and even better if the parent was willing to learn to play too.

Lydia was a 4 year-old little girl, albeit a creative and musical one, and I was a music teacher with Grade 8 piano… it’s not surprising that after a few weeks our violin teacher, Jean, recommended that I should have my own lessons.

I gave it everything, falling in love with the violin and progressing rapidly. I threw myself under the bus of a couple of grade exams, which let’s just say are MUCH more stressful as an adult. I achieved Distinctions but decided to progress further without any formal assessment. It wasn’t long, however, before parents were asking for violin lessons for their offspring.

‘We want our children to play like Lydia!’ they insisted. ‘Surely you can teach them!’

Lydia was playing beautifully and the benefits of the Suzuki method were obvious. But I was definitely under-qualified, and related this to Jean. Her reaction surprised me:

‘You’re a good musician, of course you can do it. I’ll help you.’

I reluctantly agreed, such was the encouragement from all directions, and started a little Saturday morning group violin class at home, the proviso being that I wouldn’t accept a penny for the lessons as it was JUST AN EXPERIMENT.

But the children learnt, and they learnt well, and the ‘just an experiment’ turned into something rather bigger. Jean came along to the first ever holiday workshop I ran, in which a large group of local children demonstrated their violin posture, tone and musicality through Suzuki repertoire and an original piece that I had written for the occasion.

‘What you are doing is out of this world,’ declared Jean at the end of the workshop.

Oh! Maybe I could do this after all! I studied the violin with more earnest than ever, and witnessed the advantages that the learning process itself can bring to teaching: I could understand the difficulties experienced by pupils so much more deeply and sympathetically.

Thus followed many years of teaching both piano and violin, punctuated by numerous, concerts, workshops and events that worked together to build a strong and vibrant local musical community. I am still in touch with many of those first Crescendo pupils and their parents now and they will always be more than special to me.

I’m smiling as I think of all of the wonderful times that my job has given rise to across the years. It is a privilege to see your own children grow up, but I have had that privilege with a much greater number of children, all part of my musical family. I have so enjoyed the naturally-changing relationships as pupils grow from shy five year-olds to thoughtful, chatty teenagers who see their music lessons as a safe and happy place.

‘Now, I know your A-level exams are approaching,’ I told 18 year-old Tilly at the start of her summer term one year, ‘So it’s fine to miss any lessons at all and we can catch up afterwards.’ Tilly had been one of the original Crescendo cohort; her musical journey had started when she wasn’t quite 3 years old.

Tilly looked at me. ‘But I find piano lessons so relaxing,’ she told me. ‘It’s like an escape. I’d love to come to every lesson.’

That was me told- and job done. These days the few remaining pupils I have are medicine to me as much as I am to them, their lessons being one of the only times I can put everything else out of my mind and focus on these wonderful young people and their music.

2.50 p.m. It’s time to go. Come on, Irene, time for the scan. Be brave.

The best thing I can do before setting off is to read this verse, and it comforts me entirely:

‘God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.’ Psalm 46:1-3