The Old Accordion player - me. Mummy told me something...We shall not be moved... The Emperor Napoleon......

[Jo]

Right from the beginning, 1964, Riverstone, I did not like taking those ABC Broadcasts for teaching songs.
All the kids have sung to the accompaniment of the squeeze-box.
Started with Morningtown Ride, Pebbles and Bam Bam Song (Mommy told me somethin a little kid should know), Let Everyone Clap hands like me. We shall overcome. We shall not be moved. (In Riverstone, 1966: The Little White Cloud that Cried. Remember that?)
A month or so back, I wrote in RedBubble:
I've just come home from spending half an hour or so with Mrs Else Brandman

Turns out that she lives around the corner from where I have my paintings framed and opposite the park where my son and daughter and I have often sat and eaten very tasty fish and chips.

Mrs Brandman taught me to play the piano-accordion, soon after we arrived in Australia, until, one day, she said to me something like: That's it. I cannot teach you any more.
Meaning that that was as skilled at playing the instrument as I was ever going to get. And that was excellent advice.

At that stage, I was attending Teachers College, down, in Wollongong, carrying my (heavy) accordion case there on the train, to use it for the singing and music that I had to learn to teach.
I bought her accordion, at that stage and really did not see her again, until today.
She is still as in control, as she was then and as she pointed out to the other lady present, when I visited her today. _That was 50 years ago!_

Would you believe - _Well it's really not *that* surprising!_ - that, when I got back in my car and turned on the music, Conny Frances was singing away, on my CD player and I was back _in Maroubra, in the fifties, when life was: Maroubra Bay High School, Maroubra Beach - north end; Maroubra Junction and Bob Potters Dance Studio and going to another lesson, with Mrs Brandman, feeling guilty about not having practised enough._

As happened a lot, lately, she pointed out to me that I remembered so many details from so long ago. But then, when I reminded her that _Georgina Cook_ used to have the half an hour before me and how seeing her used *distract* ! me no end, (_I doubt that Georgina will remember me!_) Mrs Brandman remembered exactly where Georgina used to live.
(I did too, because it was near my high school.)

What strikes me about today's catching-up is that music has been like something that has flowed through us to our children.
I hope that some of the kids that I taught still remember jumping on desks to sing: Let Everyone jump up like me, etc..

Her son:and daughter are both producing music as mine both have that interest and talent and, hopefully, they all make this world a better place.
....
My son has often been performing only two blocks away (_Northies Hotel_) from where she lives, in recent years.
...

I'll admit that only a day or so ago, I picked up the accordion and went through them all again. Songs like: Down by the riverside were sung by the first class I ever had, in Riverstone, in 1964 and the kids, in Jannali were still singing that in 2001!! :)