大象传媒

The 大象传媒 had dispersed many of its operations around the country after the debacle of Dunkirk and my school hall became one of a number of recording studios. A large microphone hung from the pitch pine beams 90 feet up in the roof. My grandparent鈥檚 home, where I spent my childhood, was shared with the family of the principal oboe of the 大象传媒 Symphony Orchestra who were billeted on us 鈥渇or the duration鈥�.

The surrounding region of the East Midlands and East Anglia is very flat. Ideal for airfields which were constructed in hundreds. As soon as I owned a bicycle I started to range forth and explored the countryside, often finding airfields, camps full of soldiers and airmen and also for prisoners, both German and Italian, who worked on local farms. At first they seemed threatening with their dark uniforms and distinctive huge markings. Of course they were mostly boys less then ten years older than myself and I did manage to speak to a few from whom I picked up some words of their languages which have never left my memory.

One of the airfields was among the rising ground to the north of the town. With plenty of trees, the airbase was called 鈥淭winwoods鈥� 鈥� I tasted lifesavers and chewing gum in long strips when I met some of the inhabitants, thousands of miles from home for the first time in their lives. It was from that airfield that Colonel (then Major) Glenn Miller left in the famous Norseman, never to be seen again.

I knew the music of Glenn Miller from an early age. My mother鈥檚 brother and his wife were jazz fans from the late 1920s. My mother had tried to make a career as an opera singer but came up with me instead. Between them I was able to appreciate Mozart, Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller. I was also familiar with 鈥淚n the Mood鈥� and the 鈥淲oodchoppers鈥� Ball鈥�, pop tunes of their day and could differentiate between the sounds of Joe Loss and Glenn Miller鈥檚 bands when playing either melody. My uncle went off to join the 8th Army but left some of his 鈥渄iscs鈥� with my mother so the music became a childhood feature on my wind-up gramophone as well as the wireless.

The rumour mill in a school of 1,000 boys is pretty efficient. Most were aware that Glenn Miller and his orchestra of American musicians were to play for the 大象传媒 in the Great Hall at least a week before it was announced. I am sure I boasted my appreciation of dance music and jazz to the great annoyance of family and school friends until they were bored. But I knew I had to be there. Whatever it took, even immaculate behaviour and attention to schoolwork, I would fulfil everyone鈥檚 requirements. I would put no foot wrong. If you have ever read and enjoyed Richmal Crompton鈥檚 famous books you may have some idea of just how excruciatingly polite and considerate I became; I needed to impress my mother and grandparents as well as schoolmasters so as to ensure my attendance was not impeded in any way.

It is odd that a childhood incident recalled so easily does not include any fragment of the programme. But it is quite possible that I abandoned listening to the tunes I knew so well in favour of looking at the technology. I do have a clear memory of watching a man in shirt sleeves carefully brushing debris away from the cutting head as it traversed a rack above the spinning disc. I also saw that the cutting head seemed massive with thick wires attached. On reflection I suppose this was some sort of heating system to ease the path of the stylus into the coated disc. These memories seem to suggest I must have left the gallery to cheek my way into the 大象传媒 recording van outside.

But the music lives on into the 21st century with as much vigour as Mozart and Puccini. The magic sounds of the harmonising reeds as they lead the brass cannot nowadays convey the original surprise of such an orchestration, but it does bring back a faint echo of the testosterone hormones as they hit home and brought the doorway of manhood into full frontal sharp focus. The oddly sensuous odours of the teenage dances may well have revolted the grownups as crowds of less than clinically clean teenagers struggled round the diningroom in front of the radio-gram but those faint resonances can still stir the memory.

A few years later any true memory of Glenn Miller on the school platform were effaced by the face and stooping figure of Jim Stewart. It is remarkable how actors can displace the memories of the very people they seek to immortalise. The Fox brothers have become more real than King Edward VIII and who can think of Fred Forsyth鈥檚 Jackal with any other face? By that time I had fallen in love with June Allyson, that eternal American student, and envied Stewart in his role as Glenn Miller.

Can it be that the efforts of Bruce Forsyth in 2004 could possibly bring back the magic of those distant days of primitive tummy rubbing to the sounds of a strict tempo dance orchestra?

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