Starting from Victoria

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

8

text excerpt

[Leonard Ellisdon was the eldest of eight children. His mother ran a tobacconist shop in Ferndale Road until 1895 when the family moved from Brixton to Stockwell. He records that ‘when I was 18 I developed a falsetto voice’, p. 53] 

Whilst on the subject of my poor mother’s deafness, the following incident will I hope amuse you. In later years she had a tube through which one had to shout, and I mean shout! On this particular visit to her I took two male friends, and what with four sisters and an aunt, we were quite a goodly company. During the evening my mother asked me to sing and after some persuasion I agreed, but the difficulty was to get the tube into a position where it was not bent, so that my “beautiful falsetto” voice could be clearly heard. I eventually had to forego any piano accompaniment—I was the only one present who could play—and kneel on the floor and bellow through the tube, “Sweet Genevieve”. I felt an awful fool but stuck to my guns and finished on a plaintive wail, that had on occasions reduced old ladies to tears. I stood up with a satisfied smirk and my dear mother nodded her head approvingly and said “Very nice, very nice indeed, but will you now sing 'Sweet Genevieve' ". 

excerpt from 'Starting from Victoria' pp. 8 (232 words)

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1532083630942