What a sight for saw eyes
READER Gill Glossop spotted a story here recently (‘Discovering the circular history of musical saw,’ Nostalgia, August 4) and it struck a note with her.
Gill writes: “I thought you may be interested to see the attached photograph. It was taken locally in the 1930s and shows my father Ernie Coldrick on guitar and Harold Cole playing a musical saw. They were well-known local amateur musicians.”
“If you read the article, you may recall it concerned my Dad’s venerable old handsaw, which I dug out to make a dreadful job of pruning the plum tree in our garden.
“The saw was made in the USA by the firm of Disston, which was founded by Henry Disston, who came from Tewkesbury.
“Dad bought the saw from A Freeman and Co’s tool shop in Gloucester, and at family gatherings my Uncle Harold played it with a violin bow. ‘Oh Danny Boy’ was his party piece.”
To judge from Gill Glossop’s photo, Harold Cole was a most accomplished player of the saw. And the instrument to his right in the picture looks a splendidly eye-catching affair, like a cross between a guitar fretboard and a klaxon horn. What a shame we can’t hear the picture.
Musical, or singing saws, as they’re called, are still played today and produce an ethereal sound like that of the theremin. (Think ‘Good Vibrations’ by the Beach Boys.)
But the heyday of the musical saw was the 1930s. German film star Marlene Dietrich popularised the instrument and made a few records playing it.
More locally, a comedian named Chick Fowler, who hailed from the Forest of Dean, achieved celebrity in the same decade.
He appeared in variety shows in theatres and on the BBC Light wireless programme as a character named Gloucestershire George, who declaimed funny stories in a broad Forest accent.
In between these monologues, Gloucestershire George played the singing saw. Along with being a performer, Chick Fowler also ran an entertainment agency based in Gloucester and produced entertainments that showcased the artistes on his books.
Many of riper years will recall Cyril Fletcher, who recited his Odd Odes on TV programmes such as ‘That’s Life.’ He was rather like Chick Fowler, but with a plummy voice. Cyril Fletcher and his wife Betty Estelle produced ‘Jack and the Beanstalk,’ which was the panto at the Everyman Theatre in 1968.
This brings us to the photo you see here of young people dressed in period costume riding on the back of a lorry.
It was sent by reader Tim Willis, who lived in Cheltenham before emigrating to Victoria, Canada some 50 years ago. That’s him on the far right to the front of the picture.
He writes: “A group of us from the grammar school worked as stage hands at the pantomime, which starred Peter Goodright, who was a well-known impressionist in the 1960s.
“We all donned fancy dress and appeared on the Everyman’s float in the Cheltenham carnival, which was in
August, to promote the Christmas show.”
It would be a mistake, when on the subject of unusual musical instruments, not to mention Gloucester-born Sir Charles Wheatstone. A celebrated scientist, he invented various devices that forwarded the development of physics, including the Wheatstone bridge.
If you took O-level physics, you may recall this as an important breakthrough, which had something to do with electrical resistance. I didn’t do O-level physics, so can’t help you much, I’m afraid.
But as well as all the scientific breakthroughs, and far more interestingly in my view, Wheatstone also invented the concertina. Mention of that word probably makes you think of the theme tune to Captain Pugwash being played on a little squeeze box.
Well Wheatstone certainly invented the little squeeze box, but he was also responsible for concertinas of such size they had to be transported on horsedrawn carts and needed a number of burly men pumping vast bellows in unison to provide the puff for the monster concertina.
No doubt the sound was formidable, but the fact that you don’t ever see someone playing a concertina the size of a small bungalow today suggests this invention didn’t really catch on.
One more musical novelty to mention is the Billy Thomas Gloucester Accordion Band, which performed at venues in and around the county between the wars.
There they are in the photo, a dozen chaps, one woman, all smartly turned out and smiling. At a guess, they didn’t need any amplification to be heard from some distance.