At the entrance to Marylebone railway station is an old piano that anyone can play. Unfortunately, whoever had this sweet idea can’t be bothered to fix the broken notes. Even so, about once a fortnight, on my way back from visiting my mother in Gerrards Cross, I put down my shopping bag and bash out Chopin’s Waltz in C-sharp minor.
As I do, I invariably think about Mrs Irene Oates, the first proper eccentric I met. She was my only piano teacher and I’m grateful to her. On the other hand I’m not very good, even by amateur standards, and she’s partly to blame.
When I was 11, my mother told me that she’d spoken on the telephone to a lady who was going to teach my sister and me the piano. ‘She’s a real talker,’ she added, slightly apprehensively. My parents weren’t voluble people.
The apprehension was justified.
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