Moore’s real star quality
QUESTION Was the TV astronomer Patrick Moore a trained musician?
As with astronomy, sir Patrick Moore was a self-taught musician. he began playing the piano as a child, switching to the xylophone aged 13. his favourite musical genres included 19th- century Viennese waltzes and marches, but he also enjoyed playing ragtime and polkas.
Moore was famous as the presenter of the sky At Night for 55 years. he was one of the great tV communicators and a true eccentric, known for wearing a monocle and for his dishevelled and idiosyncratic persona.
As a lad, he spent his sixpence-a-week pocket money on the pools, his mother filling in the form. he won £87, which was more than enough money in the 1930s to take his family on a fortnight’s holiday to Belgium, Ypres and Bruges. he was left with £7. Moore recalled his mother saying: ‘You’ve spent your winnings on all of us, what you have left you must spend entirely on yourself.’ with it he bought a little xylophone.
Aged ten, Moore composed his first piano piece, a Viennese waltz. he claimed in his autobiography that he had perfect pitch and perfect time.
Aged 14, he gave his first xylophone performance, a solo at a charity concert in the whitehall theatre, East Grinstead, west sussex. he didn’t suffer from stage
fright, saying: ‘i have about as many nerves as a rhinoceros.’
Moore played in orchestras conducted by sir Ron Goodwin and sir Edward heath, including the xylophone solo in saint-saens’ Carnival Of the Animals.
he performed at the Royal Command Performances in 1981 in front of the Queen and in 1989, accompanied by Roy Castle on trumpet.
he composed Moore Music, an album of light music including marches and waltzes, played by the Royal scottish National Orchestra. highlights are the tone poem Phaethon’s Ride, which gives the orchestra a real workout, the charming woodland suite, with musical portraits of hedgehogs and worms, and sir Patrick playing the xylophone in Penguin Parade and hurricane. the last piece of music he wrote was March Out Of the sky for the Parachute Regiment.
QUESTION Why are Oxbridge students ‘sent down’ following a misdemeanour?
sENt down is 19th- century slang for being suspended from university. it replaced the original term ‘rusticate’, which refers to being sent back home to the countryside.
the origins of ‘sent down’ tie in with an ancient view about the direction from superior authority to inferior. A communication from God, King or Parliament was sent down to the commoners.
it also ties in with the Oxbridge terminology that no matter where you live, you ‘come up’ at the start of term and ‘go down’ at the end of term, denoting the exalted status of Oxford and Cambridge.
Despite conventional historical usage, the earliest entry in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1853, in the Adventures Of Mr Verdant Green, by Cuthbert Bede: ‘he won’t. . . Gate and chapel you. . . or send you down.’
Charles McCoy, Ascot, Berks.
QUESTION In a court of law, has anyone claimed demonic possession?
this happened in the notorious 1974 case of Michael taylor, 31, who, allegedly possessed by demons, killed his wife following a failed exorcism.
taylor, of Ossett, west Yorks, had joined a Christian fellowship group led by lay preacher Marie Robinson, 22. Meetings involving speaking in tongues. During the trial it was alleged by the prosecution that taylor had become ‘involved in witchcraft’, that he was afraid of the full moon and its influence on Robinson, and that he was possessed.
statements made by taylor and Robinson indicated that there was sexual tension. taylor interpreted his feelings for Robinson as ‘the evil within me’.
the relationship deteriorated and this once gentle father of five threatened to kill Robinson. he was taken to see the Rev Peter Vincent at the Church of saint thomas in Gawber, south Yorks, who concluded that he was possessed.
On October 5, 1974, Vincent began an exorcism of taylor, aided by Rev Raymond smith, a Methodist preacher from Barnsley. the ritual lasted more than seven hours. the clerics claimed to have expelled 40 demons from taylor, but in light of what followed, admitted ‘at least three demons — insanity, murder and violence — were still left in him.’
Returning to his home in a profoundly disturbed state of mind, taylor murdered his wife Christine and mutilated her body. he also killed the family’s pet poodle. he was found by police wandering the street, naked and covered in blood.
At his trial, taylor was declared criminally insane and confined to an asylum. he was released just three years later. the prosecution was scathing of the exorcists, stating: ‘we submit. . .[they] should be with him now in this building and each day he is incarcerated in Broadmoor.’
the murder sparked huge controversy. in the Church of England, before an exorcism can take place, it must be referred to a panel including a medical psychiatrist. the taylor exorcism remains the last acknowledged instance in an Anglican church.
in the U.s., Arne Cheyenne Johnson pleaded demonic possession for killing his landlord with a penknife in a fit of rage in 1981. he had undergone an exorcism aged 11 and enlisted the help of demonologists Ed and Lorraine warren. his plea of not guilty by virtue of possession was rejected by the judge. he was found guilty of murder but served only five years in prison.
the case is the subject of the 2021 film the Conjuring: the Devil Made Me Do it.
Karen Elliot, Birmingham.
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