(Begun 30.10.2015 at 20.52 hrs): This is the story of my much-loved Brinsmead upright piano, which I’ve had and loved almost all my married life. I will provide a link (click here) in due course to one or more photos in the Penfold photo album, showing the dear thing.
Not that I can claim any particular competence in piano-playing. But maybe that doesn’t matter.
The story begins in the 1920s. My mother, Gwen Penfold, unmarried, very musical, living with her parents, Rosa and Frank Penfold is promised a new piano to replace (and by implication, improve upon) their long-standing Kirkwood upright piano. They are all living in one of the many Penfold rented residences (I will work out which in due course and insert the details). Frank Penfold has heard that Brinsmead are closing their piano factory and selling-off their stock. Never having been generous to his daughter Gwen to support her musical actiivities, this seems like a long-awaited answer to a prayer, so far as Gwen is concerned.
But, when the piano arrives and Gwen plays it, new though it is, the tone and touch and general sound quality are not at all what she had been expecting and she is bitterly disappointed. No doubt her father was equally disappointed, But it seems there was no way back, and the piano remained a family possession even though it was, to Gwen, clearly not as good as the Kirkman.
(Continuing 31.10.15 at 21.36hrs): Perhaps a simple timelne for the events in the piano’s life might be a good idea at this stage:
1. Acquired by Frank Penfold, auctioneer and estate agent, my maternal grandfather, in, I believe, the 1920s, at a ‘factory clearance sale’ (or some such event) for his daughter Gwen, born 1909 (so she was in her teens, but a seriously competent piano-player, despite indifferent teaching); but
2. Found by Gwen, sadly, to be less suitable for her purposes than their existing Kirkman piano. Whether or not the latter had been disposed-of, I do not know - I think I have always assumed not, but there cannot really have been room for both in their rented home, so it may have been the case that Gwen was thereby obliged to use the Brinsmead for quite some time, perhaps until good fortune brought a Bechsteian boudoir-grand into her possession;
3. Gwen then passed the Brinsmead on to her elder brother Vincent for the use of his daughters, Thelma and Margaret (Penfold). They however were not particularly musical, and the Brismead ended up at a local public house for use, no doubt for the usual sing-songs on a Friday night!
4. Of which terrible fate Gwen was unaware until, I believe, Vincent happened to mention it to her on the phone, whereupon she ‘rescued it’ from the total oblivion towards which it was obviously heading. This occurred in the 1960s, and in that same decade, towards the end or 1969/70 she had the piano re-furbished by her Oxford piano-tuner, and it was given to me, her son Philip, then living at 52 Hemlingford Road, Walmley, Sutton Coldfield. And it spent several years there, first in the cool, north-facing front-lounge overlooking Hemlingford Road, and then in the newly-created sunny (perhaps too sunny and hot) sun-lounge room on the south-facing rear of the house, before we moved to Balsall Common in 1974;
5. The Brinsmead has come onwards with us to South Luffenham, and then here at ‘Somersday’ in Rutland, so it is about 45 years (since 1970) that it’s been with us, and it is 90 years since it may have been made in 1925, so that’s half its life.
6. And I love it. For all its joyful brightness and the fact that it was Gwen’s once. Even though it was not good enough for her. It is plenty good enough for me. And just right for me. It has put up with all my loud playing and my perhaps not always musical playing…. and so on. I shall find out more about it and record it here in due course.
To be continued.