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Once I sang on the stage at the Albert Hall. I was chosen to sing in my class choir on Empire Day. I felt so proud and my brother's jibes about me being chosen because I had a voice like a foghorn didn't bring me down. Aunt Alice made me a dress out of lace trimmings. The bodice was lined with material from one of her worn out petticoats and the skirt was layer upon layer of frills.

All went well until we stood up and Clarice Smith trod on the bottom of my dress. The bottom frill tore away revealing my navy knickers. They blamed me for the fight that followed.

At my next school our music lessons seemed to consist of teacher seated at a piano and playing odd notes and asking 'sharp or flat?' I dreaded her asking me and when she did I crossed my fingers, held my breath and took a wild guess. I never got it right so it was almost a relief when I had to ask permission to go my foot remedial session.

'Oh yes', she said, 'take your flat voice and your flat feet out of my class room.'

The class titters followed me as I walked down the quadrangle.

I once had a boy friend my cousin referred to as 'chip shop doors'. I can't recall his name but he used to sing a song called 'yours'. Vera Lynn made the song popular during the war but I was ribbed so much about it that just to hear it made me squirm.

My late husband in our courting days sang, 'the girl that I marry' It contained the lines 'a girl I can carry. The girl that I marry must be.' This caused my family much hilarity. Although he did manage the over the threshold bit when we returned from our honeymoon.

I went to a church service with my son. I had to promise not to try to sing.

The only success I ever had in singing was lullabies with my own children and my grandchildren. My son said the babies went to sleep to escape the noise.

There is a poem, which begins 'softly to the brain asleep music comes.' I don't know where the poet's music came from but when I fall asleep listening to the radio, music comes loud and discordant to wake me.

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