Our greatest problem was to find a way to make our winter evenings pleasant, for we lived in semi-darkness during the day, having only the light from a tallow candle, and it could be dark on the surface after we had had a meal, and made ourselves clean; and there were five more hours before bed-time […] There were special treats occasionally when the round-a-bouts came for a week, or a menagerie or circus. Even so, we did not have much cash to spend on such things. There was pleasure however in watching others having fun, and the mechanical music stimulated our life not a little. Dancing was considered immoral and to be shunned. Thus we sought to make our own music, and commenced with a pipe which was made from a stick. Then we went on to play tin whistles, mouth organs, the concertina, and melodian [sic] but while I could play tunes, I could never master the technique of them.