If the then very shy to the point of angst Yorkshire UK born, albeit mainly Lancashire raised early teen that was me, now so many years ago, had been advised by whomever that I would one day find my adult self eight thousand kilometers to the west and living in Vancouver, British Columbia Canada having emigrated from Britain in 1967, I would have thought them nuts. Further, that I would routinely be singing tenor with various local SATB * orchestral choirs, soloing with a local Welsh mens choir (I am part Welsh, part Irish, part Lancastrian English, part Yorkist and part goodness knows what else) and also with the Vancouver Bach Choir singing tenor chorus in the opera Aida initially in Vancouver then in Tokyo Japan, Toronto Canada, Birmingham England, London England, Oxford England et al, I would have thought they were ‘off their rockers’ so to speak and advised them to that effect! This did not happen overnight of course nor did it happen without considerable individual and much more to the point, communal effort.
For the record, I was introduced to singing at a very early age by my vocalist centric maternal grandmother whom I called Nana ** an acceptable and fairly common identity in the era. She became my guardian angel in many more ways than one. This very early on in my life when I was barely a step beyond the crying baby stage. Also Yorkshire born and raised, my Nana was later, when I was barely into my teens, to buy me my first piano and pay for lessons.
In the presence of a midwife, a common berthing practice at the time, I was born in the front living room of my grandparent’s house in Northallerton, Yorkshire UK on March 5th 1942. This of course during world war two *** which had started September 1st 1939 the UK and France having declared war on Germany. Fortunately our house did not get bombed at any time however the houses of a number of geographically close neighbors literally just a few doors away did. We took the precaution of hiding under the stairs, gas masks to hand, any time we heard a German bomber which was several times daily for some very considerable time. Fortunately non of them landed a bomb on us however many of our neighbors were hit and killed in their own homes just a few doors away.
Engaging what turned out to be something of a farce, after the war and still in the services as a full time regular army soldier, my father would have it that we move to his place of birth Barrow-in-Furness Lancashire, a coastal town one county over as it were from Northallerton all be it about 100 miles away. Thus I grew up there quickly falling in love with the omnipresent North Atlantic ocean all be it locally the very cold Irish sea part of it. Many years later the said ocean was in part to carry my wife and I to Canada aboard a Russian passenger liner the Alexander Pushkin. We had just married in Barrow and boarded the ship the following day after a three hundred plus mile drive to London in our brand new British designed and built Austin 1100. (No comment. You get the picture yes?)
Moored in central London’s river Thames, with no drive on/off capability on the ship, the car was hence lifted aboard by crane from the dock and very firmly lashed down on the foredeck just short of the bow. Nine days later the by then heavily salt encrusted Austin was carefully deposited by crane on to Canadian soil in Montreal. We disembarked keen to start our 4,555 kms five week mostly pup tent camping journey to Vancouver where we were going to live and work (hopefully!) as legal new immigrants. This we did after first visiting Expo 67 in Montreal, a world class exposition which we happened upon more or less by chance and good fortune immediately after departing our ship.
* Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Base.
** A UK child’s word for a grandmother.
*** Initial European response: The UK and France declared war on Germany on September 1st 1939.
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Richard III (1452–85) was the last Yorkist king of England, whose death at the battle of Bosworth in 1485 signified the end of the Wars of the Roses and marked the start of the Tudor age. Who knew?
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World War II aka the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world’s countries participated in one way or another, with many nations mobilizing all their resources in pursuit of total war. (Wikipedia).