1957 – 64, Years after my return to England

When Lilian Clarke came home to Hatch End on ‘furlough’ in 1957, she brought me with her, this time I was able to sail through the Suez Canal and back to England through the Straits of Gibraltar, but unlike a previous occasion, my owner didn’t meet any musicians on board ship!

Lilian told her mother Maud and her sister Renie that she felt I could be put to ‘better use’ here in England, rather than in East Africa!  Renie immediately came to my rescue. At the nearby boy’s public school – John Lyon’s, Harrow, in the shadow of the famous Harrow School – where Leslie Richardson had been a pupil (from 1914-18), and where Roger (his elder son) was in his final year, and where Harvey (later to be my most immediate owner) was due to start in September, the newly appointed Music Teacher, Michael Rose, was keen to have more instruments for the school orchestra. 

‘What about trying that?’ asked Renie.

So when Roger Richardson called in at Maud & Renie’s on his way home from school, as was his habit from time to time, Lilian asked him to take me (along with my certificate of authenticity from W E Hill & Son) to Michael Rose to become available to young players in the John Lyon School orchestra.  It reminded me of the time, in the 1830s, I had been assigned to John Ella, for many prominent visiting violinists to make use of me.

Interestingly, Renie, Lilian’s sister, had a fund of information about the Richardson ancestors, and all the musical connections to John, Isaac & Mary Ann Richardson were well-known to her; and how interesting too that Michael Rose became Harvey Richardson’s first violin teacher from 1958 until 1962, yet, however, not with me.  Harvey was introduced to a very wide range of musical ideas and knowledge, and he ‘loved’ playing the violin, especially in the school orchestra.  Harvey progressed through the Associated Board’s eight-graded exams with Michael Rose’s tutelage and encouragement, but with an instrument other than me.

On one day, I think it was in 1960, when the school presented Benjamin Britten’s new work ‘Noye’s Fludde’ in St Mary’s Church, Harrow-on-the-Hill, Margaret Macdonald (a professional violinist and wife of the composer Malcolm Macdonald, who lived near the school, and who led the school orchestra on special occasions) told Michael Rose that I was far too ‘good’ an instrument!  She suggested that I should be taken back to William E Hill & Son (along with my authenticating certificate), so that I could be used and played in a more productive environment!

So, off I was taken to New Bond Street again. and William E Hill’s were delighted to see me, giving the school £30.00 in exchange for me.

I was given the ‘once over’ by one of the specialists at their shop, and all this reminded me so vividly of my birthing days with Thomas Kennedy, just around the corner in Princes Street, back in 1810.  And there I stayed, in Hill’s basement once again for 3 long years.  No-one wanted me, no-one touched me, no-one even came to check on me!

But one comment – isn’t it interesting that, even in hibernation, and apparent abandonment, sounds can somehow reach us?  How can this be? But I was aware, even then, that Harvey, in body and mind, was absorbing some remarkable resonances while being exposed to many things.  His new teacher at the Watford School of Music, Hilda Parry, was exploring new and demanding techniques in his fiddle playing, and preparing him for the Royal Academy entrance exam, and also – in tandem – modern theology in the Bishop of Woolwich’s new and revolutionary ‘Honest to God’ was being introduced by his headmaster at John Lyon’s, Mr Boyd Campbell.

The resurrection which eventually came about from Hill’s basement this time in 1964 opens up the most dramatic and exciting part of my life………………………………….