Hitler was a fan of the concertina ....

[Ex Libris]

This week in my local paper, the Nottingham Evening Post (2/9/09), there was an article about Viona and Raymond Lane, who were former managers of Nottingham Theatre Royal. The couple are credited with saving the ailing theatre from destruction during their management in the early 1960's.

 

Viona Lane was one of The Musical Elliotts and the article tells of her life in variety theatre and her father, the concertina virtuoso Tommy Elliott. Viola describes how, since the age of two, Tommy had pestered his father for a concertina. Having no money to spare, he put his hat on the floor of the Marine Grotto in South Shields, the town where they lived, and played songs until he had collected enough money to buy his son an instrument.

 

After the Elliott's had performed in Berlin in 1935, Tommy was summoned by a man who had been sitting in the front of the stalls with his girlfriend. A large car arrived and two men in black leather coats took him to a secret location to perform one of Eva Braun’s favourite songs - "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes".

 

The full article can be accessed here:

 

http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/news/Byg...il/article.html

 

Viona is well and living in West Sussex.

 

Jeremy

[michael sam wild]

This week in my local paper, the Nottingham Evening Post (2/9/09), there was an article about Viona and Raymond Lane, who were former managers of Nottingham Theatre Royal. The couple are credited with saving the ailing theatre from destruction during their management in the early 1960's.

 

Viona Lane was one of The Musical Elliotts and the article tells of her life in variety theatre and her father, the concertina virtuoso Tommy Elliott. Viola describes how, since the age of two, Tommy had pestered his father for a concertina. Having no money to spare, he put his hat on the floor of the Marine Grotto in South Shields, the town where they lived, and played songs until he had collected enough money to buy his son an instrument.

 

After the Elliott's had performed in Berlin in 1935, Tommy was summoned by a man who had been sitting in the front of the stalls with his girlfriend. A large car arrived and two men in black leather coats took him to a secret location to perform one of Eva Braun’s favourite songs - "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes".

 

The full article can be accessed here:

 

http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/news/Byg...il/article.html

 

Viona is well and living in West Sussex.

 

Jeremy

 

 

Good article on the family in last issue of PICA (Papers of International Concertina Association)

Edited September 7, 2009 by michael sam wild

[Dowright]

For the full story, see Viona Elliott, Randall Merris, and Chris Algar, 'Tommy Elliott and the Musical Elliotts', Papers of the International Concertina Association 5 (2008), pp. 16-49; available in the PICA section of the ICA website at www.concertina.org.

[Daniel Hersh]

And here's a link to that article.

 

For the full story, see Viona Elliott, Randall Merris, and Chris Algar, 'Tommy Elliott and the Musical Elliotts', Papers of the International Concertina Association 5 (2008), pp. 16-49; available in the PICA section of the ICA website at www.concertina.org.