Novel 3.

 

Chapter 3

                                    Genevieve.

Two films were released in Birmingham around this time – in other cities too – they were 'Genevieve' and 'The Dam Busters.' Genevieve, in particular, heavily influenced Finbar.

It was about two couples who, between them, drove their classic motor car, Genevieve, in the London to Brighton Classic Car Run.

Not a race, more a course to see if those beauties could make it through the Surrey and Sussex countryside, finishing on the Brighton sea front; sixty miles all together.

The cars had to be manufactured before 1905, so how many of the starters, were expected to finish is anybody's guess.

The speed limit was 20 miles per hour, starting at Hyde Park Corner, and if they made it to the beach before 4.30pm, they got a medal.

The big thing about the movie, for Finbar, was the music. It was played on a harmonica by the renowned American harmonica player, musician and composer, Larry Adler.

Larry Adler added to the movie's publicity, and appeared on television programmes for children, where he demonstrated various techniques, on how to play the harmonica, which he called a mouth organ.

The Dam Busters film came later, but Finbar was enamoured with Genevieve. He just loved that music.

On Christmas day that year, Finbar found a harmonica in his Christmas stocking. It was a chromatic, with a button to pitch the notes a semi tone higher. He loved it and practised more than the piano and, eventually, learned to play the theme from Genevieve.

In the Larry Adler Programmes on TV the great man had to apologise to some children because they developed some kind of irritation or sores on their lip.

Finbar could never figure this out and could only deduce that they must have been trying to swallow the thing.

One day little Finbar was sitting in class wanting a pee; the teacher said it was OK for him to go and off he went.

On that day, Raymond Simmonds, a class mate, was playing the wag from school; playing the wag being the vernacular for playing truant, although playing truant is usually knocking time off from school without your parents' permission.

In Raymond's case his mother kept him from school that time.

So when Finbar came out of the boys' lavatory – there was Raymond Simmonds sitting on the school steps.

The first thing said was “The King is dead.”

They knew, even at the tender age of eight, that the king had been ill and in fact he had died in his sleep that morning.

There was one thing Finbar knew about the King: is that he looked like Gary Cooper, in Finbar's mind he did.

Finbar knew that the teacher didn't know about the king's death, nor the rest of the class or any of the other teachers.

If he went in to class and said something about the king he might be asked how he knew and that would get Raymond Simmonds into trouble as he would have to tell – so he kept it to him self for a while.

Sitting in front of him was Carol Balmond and next to her was Winifred Ecclestone; he was deeply in love with both of them. They turned around to chat and he flirted every day in his little baby ways and eventually, he had to tell one of them about the King.

When he did, she told the other and the other answered back “Now Princess Elizabeth will be Queen.”

Finbar went home for lunch and of course it was all true.

Everything seemed safe and at eight years of age Finbar walked home by himself, maybe with other kids, and maybe a half mile walk, after he dropped them off, where they lived, and sometimes even raining - or in the snow.

His mother, Carmel, was at home to feed and love him and the fifties never seemed dismal or in black and white.

On that day mothers outside the school told their children the bad news; the King is dead. Some kids cried; some of them didn't even know who the King was as they were too young but the grown ups certainly did.

Before breaking for lunch, as Finbar was sitting in the class with his big secret, it might have been the only time in his life when he was the smartest guy in the room?

Chapter 4

Piano Lessons 2