Freddy Finglas, the left handed fiddle player from Finglas.

I was thinking, looking at Paul McCartney playing his guitar left handed, and the fact that one of my grandsons plays it that way too, that the guitar must be the only ambidextrous instrument that exists – well I suppose you could play a harmonica upside down having treble on the left side, but you couldn't turn a piano upside down.

I was wondering why there are no left hand violinists in any of the orchestras I've been to see – and listen to – and the fact is left handed people have to hold it the right handed way, and that goes with all classical bow instruments. It would look silly in any case with one violinist holding it the other way.

Now this got me thinking of a fella I knew in Dublin called Freddy Finglas; now Finglas is a place just north of Dublin and I remember it as fields and trees, rivers and streams but Freddy Finglas wasn't his real name – I always called him Freddy Finglas because that was where he was from.

When he was a boy, Freddy was walking along the Royal Canal in Dublin and in a pile of garbage, that some eejit had dropped there, he saw a violin lying there with the old cans and pillow cases, bits of paper and old fag packets.

He could see it was an old violin and it seemed in good order. Freddy had listened to fiddle players in the streets of Dublin and he could hear them whenever he stood outside the pub waiting for his Da to come out. He never knew which Da would come out of that pub; it could be the nice and lovely Da or it could be the drunk. When it was the drunk, Freddy knew well to stay clear of him and sometimes he would get a crack on the back of the head from him for looking at him funny – or anything else trivial. 'who are you looking at?' came the cry from the old spunker and smack on the back of Freddy's head. There were times when you could hear the clatter. People would pass by them in the street and see that Freddy was getting a crack and wouldn't mind it, thinking that the little fella must have done something wrong to deserve such a crack. Well there is never any reason for a child to be hit like that and it would have served his Da right if someone had come along and knocked the shite out of him. That's what it was like in those days and what it amounted to was bullying and booze – the striking of a child is now against the law and it should be.

Freddy took the violin home and cleaned it up. He bought some strings from a shop in O'Connell Street and the fella in the shop gave him a tuning fork so he could make it sound right and a how to book so he could make something of it.

It didn't take long before Freddy could get a tune out of his instrument, not much of a tune as he didn't have a bow. He was aware he needed a bow but he tuned it to within an inch of the violin's life.

There is such a thing called absolute pitch, or AP, which sometimes gets called perfect pitch and this is when someone could drop a piece of cutlery onto the floor, for example, and a person with the gift can tell which note it plays.

Jack Benny, the comedian, could play a violin to a very high standard but he couldn't join any orchestra as he didn't have the gift of AP.

You can look at a violin, or any of the bow instruments, and you will see that there are no frets on the neck of them.

Freddy eventually obtained a bow and with a lot of work he taught himself how to stroke the bow across the violin and bring it back and forth, modulating the volume by applying pressure or gently stroking it lovingly across the strings.

His father would accompany Freddie with loud snores emanating from their living room as he slept in his daily stupors.

His Da worked as a postman so would finish work at midday, or so, and Freddy would have to wait for him to emerge from the pub to be let in at home. His father always let Freddy know that he had killed his mother as she had died in childbirth so the poor child existed in the state of guilt and confusion.

When children play a violin sometimes, it sounds like a cat crying in the night and when they play, the children that is, the cats can usually hear the screech and join in. Not with Freddy as he never wanted to wake his Da which is why he played so softly and gently even when he learned some jigs and reels. If ever he heard his father stir, the violin would go under his bed. Then he would hear “give us a cup of tea, will ya, for god's sake, me mouth is like a fuckin' drain!”

Well there we go and we know what might have happened if little Freddy didn't give him his tea or if it was cold; that would usually happen because the old fella would fall back to sleep but it didn't prevent the larruping little Freddie would get. He would also have to get up in the mornings and light the fire, after bringing in the coal, in all weathers.

But these things didn't worry Freddie that much as he didn't know any different.

One day he took his violin with him to school and the teacher asked him to play in front of the class and the kids loved it – so did the teacher and she told him about a teacher in Dublin who might help out with some music lessons but Freddy had no way to get into Dublin as he knew his father would never hear of such a thing.

After school that day he went straight to the pub to meet his father and wrapped the violin in a big piece of cloth as he didn't have time to hide it anywhere else so when his father popped his head out of the pub, to see if Freddy was there, he wanted to know what was in the bag by demanding Freddie to open it – which he did.

'Where did you get that?'

'I found it.' said Freddie.

'Found it, you're a bleedin' liar' said his Da 'where did you get it?'

'I found it in a bag of rubbish down by the canal.'

'Found it' said his father 'can you play it?'

'Yes' said Freddy.

'You bleedin' liar – you just robbed it.'

'No I didn't Da; honest I didn't'

'Let me hear you play it then.'

There was a tear in little Freddy's eye as he knew if his father got hold of it he would destroy it.

'Play it' he said again.

Freddy took the instrument out of the home made bag and showed it to his father; 'where did you get this, you bleedin' liar?'

'I found it, I said.'

'What do you mean you said?' said the Da 'are you defying me?'

'No' said Freddy 'no!'

His father held the violin out at arm's length and said to Freddy 'play it.'

Very nervously Freddy played the violin; a little tentatively at first and then with more confidence. He played a slow lament right to the very end of the air.

His father looked very seriously at him; he didn't know what to think or even say; Freddy hung on to his beloved violin and looked at his Da who said 'right – wait for me out here and I'll soon see about your fiddle when I get out – in the meantime stay here and play it and if I hear it stop I'll be out to you.'

When he went back into the pub, Freddy stayed there and played his whole repertoire.

The bag, which was really a blanket, was laying on the floor next to him and as people passed by they would put coins into it – Freddy would notice this and thanked those people who left money.

By the time his Da came out of the pub, in one of the worst moods little Freddy had seen, there was quite a lot of money on the blanket.

'What's this?' said his Da, and started picking the money up and cupped it into his hands; 'ah it's not a fiddle you have there; it's a golden goose' and with that he put the money into his coat pocket.

'Now' he said 'give me that fiddle.'

Freddy wouldn't let it go and stared at his dad.

'Defying me are you, you little bastard – Give it here' he shouted and made a grab for the violin.

'No – no' shouted Freddy and held on to it with all his might.

His father pulled one way and Freddy pulled the other. It seemed that Freddy had mustered up strength from the centre of the earth which he could feel surging through his body and no matter how hard his father pulled the harder Freddy held on; but Freddy's father was drunk and not steady on his feet and after one huge pull his hand slipped from the violin and he teetered backwards and hit his head on a drainpipe knocking him unconscious. As he fell the money fell from his pocket and spilled back on to the blanket.

Freddie looked at his father spark out next to the pub wall. There was nobody about and nobody he could turn to for help so he went up to his dad and could see no movement.

'I've killed my Da' he sobbed 'I've killed him.'

He didn't know what to do; he shook his father but there was no movement. He looked down and saw the money on the blanket – he looked around; nobody.

He wrapped the violin in the blanket and put the money in his school bag and disappeared.

Nobody knew where he went or what happened to him. His father had been knocked unconscious and then fell into a drunken stupor. He had a headache for a few days so, who knows, he might have suffered some kind of concussion but he never even looked for Freddy. He had rid himself of his burden – his shiralee.

Many years later I was in Mayfair in London. A very select area with million pound houses when the rich were buying their houses for, maybe £200,000. There was a little street market near some select restaurants and bars and as I walked towards the little market I heard the sound of some Irish music. It consisted of some great banjo playing accompanied by a fiddle player. When I reached the market the music had stopped and the buskers had gone away. I heard someone say 'those two are really good and that little bloke on the fiddle is something else.'

I hadn't thought about Freddie for years but the words the little bloke on the fiddle put me in mind of that little left handed fiddle player all those years ago.

'Where did they go?' I asked.

'Every day they go to Green Park after here' was the reply so that's where I headed.

The music came to me first and I could see in the distance that the fiddle player was left handed.

A closer look and it was, indeed, Freddy Finglas the left handed fiddle player from Finglas.