1999-2005  Fifth Station – ‘Parson’s Noyse’ and Family History

Harvey was appointed ‘Chairman of the London SE District’ and moved from Haywards Heath to Bromley, Kent.

For me there were two significant events during these Bromley days:

1. Parson’s Noyse

Harvey joined with two other ordained ministers in forming a Piano Trio, and one of their friends came up with the name – ‘Parson’s Noyse’.

We met regularly in various London locations including Westminster Central Hall and Wesley’s Chapel, City Road, and over a period of 8 years, we gave many concerts around the London and South-East region.

We played trios by Mozart, Shostakovich, Debussy, Faure, Beethoven, Haydn, Arensky, Schumann, and a wide range of popular pieces, specially arranged for piano trio.

(The Wheeling Playfulness of the Trinity)

It was wonderful to play and be played in such dedicated company. However, Harvey’s technical skills and his sense of ‘tuning’ were often less than they should have been.  With that aside, I was aware that all three players were exploring ‘perichoresis’ (lit. dancing together), a Greek concept associated with the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, and discovering in their playing an intimate resonance sounding between Music and Theology.  Our bodies, instruments and players together, were active participants, theologising with a ‘tuning fork’/’hammer’, and finding great joy and fulfilment in so doing.

• Family History

During these Bromley years, Harvey became very interested in family history.  There was a strange bodily connection here for me, especially when Harvey discovered for himself details about ancestors who I had known intimately, and who had played me, many years ago – e.g. Isaac and John Richardson in Norfolk.  I could tell that it moved Harvey greatly when he learned that his great-grandfather John was a Wesleyan Local Preacher who, with me(!) accompanied hymn-singing in Circuit chapels around north Norfolk in the 1840s.

And there was Isaac & Esther and all my involvements with Mary Ann Richardson.  What a mysterious feeling it was to resonate with Harvey as he discovered my old dear friends!

Not only that!

(Evergreen Cemetery, Los Angeles)

In 2004, Harvey took me with him when he visited California, and discovered the grave of John Richardson’s son-and-heir Arthur in the Evergreen Cemetery in Los Angeles.  This is the same Arthur, whose wife Hannah befriended Halfdan Jebe, and me (!), when I was being played across the States at the end of the 19^th century.  My body is still reverberating in remarkable ways as I recount how Harvey learned about Arthur building a Methodist Church in Prospect Park (now Sunset Boulevard), and his baby daughter Eleanor Beatrice who had been buried in the same Evergreen Cemetery seven years before him!  And many other family stories.

I feel that my body is a sounding memory bank which resonates with living memories of many generations, always ready and waiting to be played and heard.