While our Mom, Sheila, had formal piano training and encouraged me to pursue music, our Dad, Douglas, was more about the feeling of music.

Recently, I came across some childhood memories Dad had recorded on cassette tape, later converted to CD by my sister Louise.

Douglas Kinross portrait by Klaas Hart based on Dad’s 1950s passport photo.

When he was a child in the 1920s, his parents had hired a handyman, a retired valet. Mr. Bartram would visit the Kinross family home in Harpenden each week to clean the silver, carry on an intelligent conversation about world events, and fix whatever needed fixing. More importantly, he occasionally took Dad and his siblings to the movies.

Live music at the movies

“The films were silent in those days,” Dad recalled. “After the first part of the film, the auditorium would go dark and quiet. Then with a burst of noise, an enormous organ would erupt and emerge from the depths of the stage, with its organist bowing, waving and then playing — it was terrifying!”

“Words would appear on the movie screen, and we would sing along. Then the man and his organ would disappear into the depths, and the second part of the film would begin.”

Dad was known for his cricket and rugby skills and did not consider himself a musician, but sang in choir at his school, St. Georges. In the chapel there, students practiced and performed hymns, anthems and readings.

We visited his school on vacation 20 years ago and stood in that same chapel and got a sense of the music magic he must have felt there as a young boy.

Throughout his life, Dad had a beautiful tenor voice, true pitch and wide vocal range. We only heard him singing during a Christmas carol or church hymn, although he sometimes hummed to himself.

“It felt like home”

Dad did not share a lot about his World War 2 experience, but one story involved music.

The story is just a memory fragment to me but it goes something like this: He and some fellow soldiers had become holed up in an abandoned farmhouse, possibly in France. The group was stuck in a no man’s land and at risk from both the enemy as well as “friendly” fire.

I will quote my Dad as best as I can remember:

“There was a quiet fellow, Payton. The house had a piano in the parlour, and he could play beautifully.  He cheered us up — it felt like home.”

Dad had no home for the duration of the war after signing up with the British 8th army. With its signals division, he served in Egypt, Sicily, France, Belgium and Germany.

On July 1, 2020, Dad would be 100.  He passed away in 2009.

When I listened to his memories tape recently, recorded with help from our mom years ago, there was music in his voice.

Dad reading to Ali, 1990s.