1980; AUTUMN

joemasonspage

Oct 1

SEPTEMBER 1ST; the month began with ploughing the field behind our house in Poringland.

I had been busy for months making recorders, descant, treble and tenor. They were turned in the lathe (which was fairly straight forward, once I had worked out how to make the hollow and tapering wind pipe) but the drilling of the finger holes was something else; they had to be in just the right position, although you had a bit of leeway in making the holes larger. "I got on with making a recorder; I was unable to produce the upper harmonics. Also the pitch is consistent, but a semi-tone flat. I later discovered that the thickness of the wall affects the pitch. I was making a written record of my findings."

This was a very intricate project, and an absorbing one, but a complete waste of valuable time! It was not going to result in me selling any recorders, and was never intended to. I believe I still have the resulting instruments somewhere. I had a man come into my workshop with a different sort of instrument - a broken saxophone! I wasn't inclined to take this on, but relented. One of the keys needed soldering; this didn't take me long, but he also wanted it adjusted, which took me most of the afternoon. I talked to him about recorders, and he was able to put me in touch with a man at Newcastle University who had further information about recorders. I should have been concentrating on making magnifiers, the job that actually paid me; not that I neglected my real work, I was just very busy. I was occupied at the beginning of the month in glazing a dozen magnifier that I had made up last week. My sister was busy organising the Alpington Girl Guides.

This was the month that I crashed my estate car. I was driving home from How Hill, where I had been attending a recorder course (playing them this time, not making them). The road was both twisty and misty, and I must have been going too fast. At a sharp bend I left the road and hit the bank. I carried on to Ludham bridge, but decided it was not safe to continue and returned to How Hill. Luckily Janet Willy was still there, playing her instrument, and she agreed to give me a lift; in fact she was glad to have a companion to look out, as the mist was so bad. I got the car sorted out by the garage at Blue Boar Lane but it took them till the middle of November, and it was never the same again. I had to get rid of it.

On Thursday October the 2nd I went to the Old Greshamians Club meeting at the Norfolk Club. Mrs Borough was there, the wife of my handicraft teacher "Scruffy" Borough. I remember learning the violin with her son Peter; he had very big ears. He went on to read mathematics and French at university, and was then a computer expert living in Montreal. I also heard more of Duncan Hill, formerly of Gresham's and Norwich School, and now working as a teaching at Rossall. Andrew Bell was there with a Norwich girl who plays the recorder! There was lots to drink but no food. The next day we bought a chicken from Mr Zak on Norwich market for Sunday lunch.

With all this talk of recorders, you might think I had given up on the double bass, but you would be wrong; I was still going to concerts, this month there was one at Doughty's Hospital with the Dennis Orchestra. I was also playing my bass with the Thorpe group. The guitar and the piano also got look in, though I was never very good at the last mentioned instrument.

There was still a tripe stall on Yarmouth market, and on Saturday the 18th of October my sister and I treated ourselves to a lunch of tripe and chips. We bought some shoe laces, Russet apples and lemons too. We went to Tesco for dog meat and cheese, and finished off our lunch with a piece of apple pie in the car. We walked the dogs on the North Denes and at the harbour mouth saw a fishing boat come in, and the pilot go out to a rig supply vessel (the Anglian Shore). We came home via Loddon where we stopped to do little more shopping.

NOVEMBER. We were having a fire alarm put in at our property in Norwich; this was a great expense to buy and I had to fit it myself. This was in addition to all the fire doors I had to have made and altered. All money out and for no return! On the 5th of November I dropped my sister off in Tombland so that she could attend Andrew's fireworks party, but I did not join her; I wonder why not? On Sunday the16th we drove to a show in the midlands to sell my model railway goods and magnifiers. We took nearly £100, so I was please with the day; it doesn't sound much in 2023, but that was in 1980 when money went much further.

JOSEPH MASON

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