Sidney on the Broadwood Back to Sidney Index
In the 1940s it was hard work making ends meet. In addition to everything else we entertained visiting professors and musicians at our own home. I soon learnt that the best way was to treat them just like one of the family and we made many long term friends. Sidney badly needed a piano, and a clarinet enthusiast who was an opthalmological surgeon found a patient, an elderly lady in a country house, who wanted to get rid of her Broadwood piano. Some how or other he managed to organise things so that Sidney could acquire it. Once a year when he put on a week of Lieder, often with the singer Bruce Boyce, the piano was moved to the Reid School. It took seven men to get it down the stairs. So I used to take the children out for a walk while it happened! Now a days it lives at Christ Church, Nailsworth.

Photograph by his son Francis.