1897 – Halfdan Jebe and ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’

Our story now leaps ahead 10 years to January 1897, when Fritz Delius returned to America from Europe to settle some outstanding matters at his orange plantation in Florida. Annabelle was delighted to see him again, but surprised to discover he was accompanied by Halfdan Jebe, whose first words were: ‘Well, so you’re the lovely Annabelle!  I expect you know that Fritz has come to find his long-lost son and his lover, who he left behind back in ‘85!’. 

In spite of this rather inauspicious greeting, Annabelle and Halfdan got on like a ‘house on fire’!  Annabelle took Fritz and Halfdan back to her flat in Harlem, and when Halfdan saw me, he was smitten.  ‘What beautiful tone! What richness, especially in the lower register! I bet your fiddle could tell a few stories!  Where did you get her from?’

I could feel from the way he handled me, that here was a very special and talented violinist. And he was a bit of a ‘wild’ character too!  After he had played with me one of Fritz’s latest compositions, Halfdan said, ‘I need this fiddle; how much do you want for it?’

There followed lengthy negotiations between Annabelle and my legitimate owner, August Manns in London, and an agreement was eventually reached.  Herr Manns knew Halfdan Jebe and his eccentric ways, but he admired his skilful playing. He suggested to Annabelle that Jebe could have me on loan, provided that I must be returned to Annabelle whenever she required me!

As the years have gone by, I have had a vast and varied company of players, from many backgrounds and cultures. It reminds me of the importance for the Christian Church of the great company of diverse believers who have spanned the ages performing the faith, all making an indelible mark on their particular instrument, the Body of Christ, in the same way my many players have made permanent impressions on my body.

So off I went on another wild adventure, this time with a crazy violinist, a kind of Norwegian ‘Paganini’, touring most of the States of North America ending up as the leader of the Band in Barnum and Bailey’s ‘Greatest Show on Earth’.  I played a vast range of music on these tours – standard classical, military marches by the popular John Philip Sousa, waltzes by the Strauss family, rag-time, folk tunes, and much more – and Jebe managed to draw on all those earlier embedded experiences which made my body sing with great feeling and emotion.  We had a great time.

On one occasion, when travelling from Los Angeles to New York, Halfdan Jebe and some friends, struck up a conversation with a young widow, Hannah Richardson. She was returning to London, following her husband’s recent death from TB.  She had had to leave Arthur’s body in the Evergreen Cemetery in Los Angeles, along with the body of their baby daughter Eleanor, who had died in 1870.  This grieving Hannah noticed me with Halfdan and mentioned that some relatives back in England were keen ‘fiddlers’, as she put it.  Her father-in-law, John Richardson, had often played the violin to his young son Arthur, and he had said how much he missed it nowadays.  He had told Hannah the violin had been taken to America – and of course, when Halfdan took me out of my case to play me, Hannah’s eyes were opened and she immediately recognised me!  I was overwhelmed to be resonate with my friend John Richardson through his grieving daughter-in-law on the rail road to Chicago!  (Does this remind you of ‘the road to Emmaus’?)

She was overjoyed to find me, and she asked the circus secretary, Harvey Watkins, if he would keep in touch with her, and update her about my whereabouts from time to time – mainly, I think, because John Richardson was still secretly hoping he could be reunited with me again one day.

It so happened that Harvey Watkins was arranging a four-year-long tour of Europe with ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’, and this, of course, meant that I would now be travelling back across the Atlantic with Haldan Jebe.  Harvey had already informed Hannah about my probable movements, but imagine the surprise for us all when we discovered that we were traveling on the very same ship ‘SS New York’ en route to Southampton from New York!  And Harvey & Edith Watkins were in the cabin right next door to Hannah!

During the crossing, as before, I got drawn in to a lot of music making, and two of the highlights for me were the ‘Dumky’ Piano Trio and the ‘American’ String Quartet written by the Bohemian composer, Antonin Dvorak.  The people on board loved this music, written by the man who had come to America in 1891 to teach at the National Music Conservatory in New York City and to learn about national American styles of music-making.  From my own experience, a few years back, with Annabelle Lightfoot, Fritz Delius and Halfdan Jebe in Georgia and Florida, I have to say that Dvorak’s music didn’t really capture the unique African-American spirit – rather, its beauty was inescapably rooted in the contrasting European tradition with which, of course, I was equally familiar.

I just need to say that, with all this excitement going on, I felt that there were also ‘dark times’ ahead in the world.  There was something in the air that seemed to be threatening the great empires and their hold on certainties, traditions, and their insatiable acquisition of power across the globe…….

On our arrival back in England, we were able to keep in close contact with Hannah because our ‘Greatest Show on Earth’ opened its European Tour at Olympia in London, about 12 miles from the de la Bertauche family home in Finchley, north London.   Hannah’s return to England prompted various members of the Richardson family to come to our shows at Olympia, to ‘check on me’, including my erstwhile John Richardson, along with another of his sons, Percy, with his fiancee Chrissie Lighbody.

It’s interesting how music (and in my case, a violin) can bring people together and forge strong relationships. Over the next few years, Chrissie & Percy became great friends with Harvey Watkins’ wife Edith – and I have more to tell about that later.