| |
Hoffnung and his tuba
• ALAN Stafford’s play Afternoon Drawn To Music, on Radio 4 on Monday afternoon commemorating the 50th anniversary of the death of the musical genius Gerard Hoffnung brought back memories of him in the 1950s when he lived with his wife Annette and two children in Pilgrims Lane, Hampstead.
He used to come to his front door every morning stark naked to collect his mail from an (at first) amazed, postman.
I wasn’t surprised when he blasted his way through a junior version of The Critics I was taking part in on BBC Radio, playing the tuba as loudly as he could throughout. He was in love with his tuba. They were inseparable. He couldn’t tell where he ended or his tuba began, or vice versa. He was a much loved man, perhaps a musical reincarnation of Edward Lear.
John Horder
West End Lane, NW6
|
 |
|
|
|
| |
| |
