FAMILY HISTORY ... cont.
The Phillips family were nearly all musical. Nana Polly was always singing little music hall ditties like:
Sarah, Sarah, sitting in the fried fish shop,
The more she sits the more she knits,
The more she knits the more she sits,
Sarah, sitting in the fried fish shop.
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Then she would sing:
She sells seashells down by the seaside
Down by the seaside she sells shells.
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Polly's eldest son, Uncle Mossy (my mother's brother), married a Brandon and grandpa Len Brandon was once a pianist in the London silent movies. He played loads of old tunes and songs from that era and also from the music hall. I wish I had tape-recorded some of those sessions. I did manage to tape a few sessions with Uncle Moss including one where he sang 'The Tattooed Lady' - a song I have been singing for years, Dad and Moss were there when I had returned from a collecting trip up north and, as usual, I played them some of the tapes. One of the songs was a version of the 'Les Darcy' ballad, which is set to the tune of 'My Home In Tennessee'. Both Dad and Moss immediately said - "We know that song but to different words". Here's what they sang:
I paid a franc to see, a fair tattooed lady,
And right across her jaw, were the words 'Great Anzac Corp'
And on her chest was a possum, and a great big kangaroo,
And on her back was a Union Jack, painted red, white and blue.
A map of Germany was where I'd never been, and up and down her hips,
Was a line of battleships, and on her kidney, and on her kidney,
Was a bird's eye view of Sydney, and 'round the corner, round the corner,
Was my home in Woolloomooloo.
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This ditty, obviously from WW1, seems to be related to that other extraordinary tattooed lady that Groucho Marx sang about; 'Lydia, Lydia, that encyclopedia, Lydia the tattooed lady'”
early photograph where I look like Peter Sellers on a bad day - note I have a full head of hair!
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Mossy played the ukulele and sang a whole repertoire of popular songs, mostly from the 1920s and 30s while his younger brother, Charlie, always saw himself as an Al Jolson impersonator. Brother Clive was an amazing self-taught boogie-woogie player who could play any tune he'd just heard recently. Fats Waller tunes were always a favourite and Polly liked to belt out the old Sophie Tucker vamp songs
My mother, the only daughter, had a lot of competition to get at the piano and when she did learn she eventually gained her diploma in classical studies. Mom would play the standard classical pieces but was more comfortable with 1940s tunes like 'Ida, sweet as apple cider' and 'When the red. Red robin, comes bob, bob, bobbing along'. Parties at the Fahey household had the piano belting out all sorts of songs all night. I can still picture and hear those parties as we all, young and old, squeezed to get close to the piano as if it was a loud speaker. The singing was boisterous and often glorious. |
 
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