On Tuesday 26 May 2026, we assembled to hear two more members describing their choices of music if they were castaway on a desert island.
We started with John who described how he had grown up in North West London, and his first choice of record reminded him of his father telling to wake up and get up in the morning, as sung by the Everly Brothers. The brothers theme continued with Joe Brown. However John found it difficult to wake up and his next choice was The Sandman as sung by Roy Orbison. His selection continued with Del Shannon’s Little Town Flirt. John claimed his love life had been slow, and we had Long John Bawdry sing Let the Heart Aches Begin. We then heard the Seekers, Frank Ifield, Boney ‘M’, Johnny Horton and Roger Miller all singing the songs that they were famous for in the 1960s and 1970x. John finished with a comedy song, “Beep Beep”.
We then turned to Dick whose early life included Handel’s “Zadok the Priest and Nathan the Prophet” as heard in June 1953. From the coronation, we had a piece from South Africa, Jikele Maweni which had been part of Wait a Minim at the Fortune Theatre. Dick had had aspirations as an opera singer and had appeared in several operas at the John Lewis store in Oxford Street. We heard the overture to Bluebeard by Offenbach, then we heard his audition piece – the Prologue to Pagliacci – and that was followed by Chabrier’s L’etoile and the song of the Green Chartreuse. The section finished with the Grand Inquisitors confession from The Gondoliers by Gilbert and Sullivan. We heard how he had contemplated joining his brother in Canada but returned to England and got married. James Taylor with Carol King gave us a stateside interlude. Both his sons have musical talent, and he described how one had played in a backing big band to Dave Brubeck in 1995. The other son currently runs the Steve Nathan Big Band, operating in Kent. We finished with Dick’s choice of phone ring tone – the Doop Doop song, fitting his interest in all things IT.
Such a wide range of music had something for everyone, and was much enjoyed. Our next selection will be introduced on 23 June 2026 at 2pm by Diana and Joe.