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Alf Edwards Recordings Sold On Ebay


Richard Carlin

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so its something I'm likely to discover on my next photocopying trip.

Wes,

 

I just found my folder of ICA Newsletters, and there it was. Look out for Newsletter No.211, September 1973, page 2 (of 2, there wasn't much to the Newsletter in those days, no wonder they published it !) :

 

How I accidentally joined the I.C.A.

 

At nearly midday one Sunday I walked across Chelsea Bridge with a concertina box in each hand. A large alsation bore down on me, followed by a man whose triumphant cry of "concertinas ?" was the beginning of a new friendship. I had just met Jim Harvey.

 

I was invited to an I.C.A. meeting the following week, to Jim's house (where I was played many fine tapes, particularly of Maurice's playing), and taken to Alf Edwards' home, where I heard the masterly Kensington Group practise the piece I was to hear them play to win their class in the Festival they had been practising for. My stay in London proved most rewarding - but quite by chance.

 

My thanks to all the I.C.A. members I met for their friendliness, help and encouragement, especially Jim Harvey and Arthur Austin of Heywood (near Manchester - where I am to be found in term-time) who is giving me lessons.

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Stuart:

Alf Edwards died 24th March, 1985 at St Bernard's Nursing Home, Worthing.

The ICA newsletter for July 1985 carried this (extract):

 

Frank Butler writes......

Not many of the present ICA generation will have met Alf Edwards. His likeness on

the cover of his Tutor for the English Concertina is a good one of him in about 1955.

 

I have only hearsay to guide me when I say that he came from circus forebears and that both he and his wife, Jeannie, were of Scottish descent. He never spoke of his musical training but his ability as a performer was backed by sound musicianship. Although with a world-wide reputation as a Concertina player - most deservedly so - writing music and playing the trombone probably provided the backbone of his living. Around the New Year he was much in demand in London hotels to play bagpipes, a distinguished figure in the kilt.....

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