Tony Cunnane's Early Years 1935-53

Long before I was gifted the violin I had been able to read music but I cannot remember how that came about. I certainly never had any lessons. From the age of about six when I attended Morning Prayer at our local St James' Church, as I did every Sunday without fail, I sang from the music version of the Ancient and Modern Hymn Book and I recall that I was more interested in the harmony than the words. Automatically I learned the names of the tunes and their composers without any apparent effort on my part but I found it much more difficult to learn the words. This was a bit of a nuisance because when we sang hymns in school at Morning Assembly we were required to sing the words from memory.

There was in our house a copy of Novello's Edition of Haydn's Creation published in 1929. I still have it and still follow this score when listening to CDs of the oratorio. There was also a much earlier copy of Handel's Messiah published around the turn of the century but that was lost long ago and I now have other versions. When I reached my 11th birthday someone suggested to my Head Teacher at St James, Mr Paterson, that I ought to compete for a Choral Scholarship. This would have meant continuing my education as a choral scholar at the Wakefield Cathedral School and it was deemed to be a great honour. Mr Paterson came to our house one evening to talk it over with my parents and together the three of them then sounded me out on this prospect. Mum was desperately keen for me to go to the Cathedral School; Dad, as I recall it, was rather ambivalent. For some reason, which I still don’t understand, I was stubbornly opposed to the idea and, indeed, I remember refusing to countenance it. I probably stamped my feet!

My Mum was both aghast and dismayed that I had no interest in going to the Cathedral School but I have always suspected that Mr Paterson agreed with my decision although he never said so in my presence. In the end the idea was dropped but for many years afterwards Mum used to say to friends, with a wistful look towards me, “Tony could have gone to the Cathedral School, you know.”