For living and teaching purposes my mother found me some rooms, which looked promising enough but did not prove so in the end […] One stipulation we made was that no piano was to be played in the house unless I was out, for I could not possibly compose against musical noises […] And yet, so much for promises!  No sooner had a few months elapsed than my landlady, a dismal, sallow woman, took in a foreigner en famille, who proceeded to play the piano in the very next room whenever he felt inclined.  To add to my troubles I was tormented by barrel-organs, the grinders of which, when I angrily shouted at them to depart, would merely smile ingratiatingly and refuse to budge, or simply move a few paces further off but not out of earshot.  Obviously Canning Street was no place for a composer, nor as far as I could see was any street in benighted Liverpool!