The Banjo.

Rainy days are spent in his bedroom listening to 78s. Delta blues from Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and Big Bill Broonzy. Sad music sung by slaves. Trad Jazz is more fun. Kid Ory, Ken Colyer, Acker Bilk. He sees the banjo in a second hand shop in Croydon. No strings attached, couple of pegs missing, battered case. They are asking 4 pounds for it. He’s been saving his pocket money and there's the pound he got from Gran on his birthday. He buys it.

Back in his room, after tea, he tunes to the BBC Light Program. The Goon Show is on. Downstairs his parent’s are arguing about something. His mother is making some kind of point. His father obviously disagrees. Fragments of conversation drift up the stairs...

‘What in God’s name does he want a banjo for? And look at his hair! What will the neighbours think?’
‘Better than a trumpet I suppose.’
‘We’re the ones who have to listen to the twanging and banging...’
‘Oh let him have one if he wants one, he’ll soon lose interest...’
His mother is right as usual. He can’t get the rhythm. He can’t even tune the damn thing tuned properly and there is nobody to ask for help. He just gets more and more frustrated, hating his own negativity. Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan seem to empathize. In one skit Major Dennis Bloodnock frantically empties dustbins in the heat of battle; an episode which subsequently gets the BBC in trouble with the War Ministry.

He tries playing along with Chris Barber’s band. Wanting badly to be part of something. He listens carefully to the Monty Sunshine breaks, but it’s no good. His ears and hands won’t cooperate. He goes deeper into himself. One day in a magazine he sees an article about Israel. There are pictures of radiant young kibbutzniks driving tractors. It looks wonderful. The sun shines all day. Maybe he should go there. You can live and work on a kibbutz the article says. Maybe they let you help happy smiling girls pick oranges. But he takes the job at the bank and joins the umbrella parade across London Bridge every morning, debits, credits, standing orders, monthly statements. The banjo sits forgotten in the back of a cupboard until one day he marries one of the typists and his mother gives it to a church jumble sale.