My mother-in-law had been trying to get rid of her upright piano for years, so I knew that Bill would arrive at our first home with a piano. Finally, his mother could rearrange her front room!
I loved the fact that he could play the instrument, and we had many an evening of music whilst we lived in Wokingham. The piano came with us to the Cotswolds and continued to be much used. (Sadly, I am not musical, and my children insist that I mime and weddings and funerals.)
Travel forward quite a few years and some unexpected work brought in some cash that wasn’t already spoken for. I decided that my lovely husband needed a baby grand piano – ok, it was me that needed it to look lovely in the room.
I visited a place called Basoop Pianos near Evesham and, with the old upright thrown in, the deal was sorted. The little grand piano was called Challen and had at some of its previous life at the Beeb. It had a new sound board and was just gorgeous!
When the piano arrived at our little cottage and was brought through the door on its side, I nearly passed out. It looked enormous and I wondered if I had gone too far this time. Thankfully Bill was absolutely thrilled, and it seemed I had chosen well – it had a lovely light action, and he found it a much nicer piano to play.
Travel forward again and our piano tuner warned me that the old piano was starting to present issues and could no longer be kept in tune. Frank and meaningful discussions took place that evening and an appointment was made to visit Coach House Pianos in Swansea with a view to buying a second-hand instrument. After nearly three hours of trying out all sorts of pianos, Bill selected a very scruffy ginger machine which apparently sounded marvellous. I had to intervene. I asked our lovely salesman Jerry to go away and sharpen his pencil to consider a new ebony and bird’s eye maple piano that Bill loved but had dismissed because of the price. A deal was struck with Bill huffing and puffing all the while. It meant dipping into our pension pot, but we have never regretted it.
