body and soul

As I sat across the street I heard a familiar chord sequence and then I put together the fragments of melody. He was playing ‘Body and Soul’. He was just a mendicant guitarist in Cornmarket Street, but he played ‘Body and Soul’ and I haven’t heard that since it became almost my signature tune.

I don’t expect the name to mean anything to you. You might have sung along while he was playing ‘As Time Goes By’, but that’s been in a film. A black and white classic.

‘Body and Soul’ never was in no film. Just the tinkle of its tune brings back such poignant memories, the memories of my first professional tour. I was ‘the 16 year old boy wonder pianist’ with an ENSA concert party. The Solid Eight. The year was 1944. Flying bombs were dropping on London. V2 rockets were just appearing. The great battle for Europe had yet to be won. We played to Canadian troops in camps all over England. They were ready for action wherever they were needed.

That tour did so much for me. I had to learn to play unfamiliar idioms : boogie-woogie, rumba, the special kind of accompaniment that goes (went?) with an Old Tyme comic’s patter. A life changing experience. The thrill of playing to packed houses in Garrison Theatres and NAAFI canteens. The camaraderie of our tiny touring company.

Olive was a dancer. Wrapped up in her work. Introvert, almost. ‘Body and Soul’ was her point number.

Pamela Cundell was another of the Eight. She’s still around. Must be that much older than me! It’s not so long since I saw her on television one evening. Still as inimitable as ever.

Then there was Teddy Driver, the Top of the Bill star of our little troupe. He was part of Music Hall. I saw him, once, in a film. An Ealing Comedy. And once, when I was working for the LCC, there he was. Teddy Driver standing watching one of our concert parties in the parks. In those few short years before television put an end to all that.

And the years fall away.

I can never again be the boy I was when I was 16 but often it feels to me that dates on birth certificates are not to be taken too seriously. I’ve not yet reached the stage where I feel I really ought to act my age.

© francis cameron, oxford, 3 july 2009