Charles Hill
Charles Hill was born in 1890 and was some 10 years older than Agnes on marriage. He died in 1970 having thoroughly enjoyed himself after Agnes died visiting family regularly and often.
Go to Agnes’ page, or to Ian their son.
Uncle Charles was recorded onto 78 RPM (revolutions per minute) on a circular disc of probably Shellac. Early microphones were of limited range, and where orchestras were involved, they had to capture a wide field of sound. For those who would like to learn more about this era and 78’s in particular, follow this link.
You can listen to Charles singing by clicking on the links below. As you do just think that they are ninety years old or so!
As you will see from the comments below, the first two are not Uncle Charles, I was suspicious of the the titles, let alone the sound. I’ve left them here as the singer is a contemporary of his, and is evocative of the era and style.
Ian Writes:
A Prayer to my Father
Dear Dad
Do you remember young Harry, mother’s sister’s little boy? He says he remembers you singing your songs to him. He sent me a version of some of them, copied from your old records that you must have made about 85 years ago, then in a brand new technology, onto another technology years later that I don’t think you would remember, now copied again in a system you certainly wouldn’t understand.
One of them is not yours, but I do remember hearing it on the radio. You will, too, from about those days: “Cigareets and Whisky and Wild, Wild Women.”
Now I remember when you did smoke cigarettes; I remember persuading you to give it up, to help your asthma, and I never smoked. You never drank whisky, never had alcohol in any form, but I confess I do have a drop now and then. But do you think – in strict confidence, of course – that you might help right now, for a little while, for me to engage with just one Wild, Wild Woman?
Your still loving
Ian
Ian writes:
“Your transfer of the recordings was a delightful surprise: I’ve only tried the first one before writing to thank you – “Just let a Smile be Your Umbrella”. I remember him singing that, and as I write this there is a lump in my throat and tears are on the way. I think your collection has more records than I remember. Aunty Gladys had more than we did… but, then, we had him.
I have forwarded your email to Geoff, who was too young to remember my mother, but does remember his grandad, who died when Geoff was 7.
My father has always been a model that I have tried to emulate. With Geoff it is running in the family”.
I tried the last one as it contained Carolina in the title and I bought a crib for my Grandson yesterday. I struggled to determine which one was uncle Charlie!!
I remember him singing to Pat on her 21st birthday at a party at Farcroft Grove.
I also remember walking home from school one day when a car came around a corner, mounted the curb showering my friend and I with sod and mud. When I arrived at home I relayed the incident to my mother (Dorothy) what happened and she explained that it was uncle Charley who was sitting in the front room and not to say anything. She later explained that aunt Agnes always drove their car but she had died recently so uncle was driving. She went on to day that while he had a drivers license it was issued before a test was required and he had not driven for decades
Graham
Many thanks for doing all that.
The first two are not my father – the others are.
I can tell first of all by the voice production, timbre and pitch (too low for my Dad) and was not my father’s tonal characteristic. And his musicianship. In his own, as you comment, his diction is obvious, with his ooos and rrrrs very prominent. I remember his talking about voice production and diction; I haven’t got his voice, but I still use his diction when I record pieces for the blind in Cambridge Talking Newspaper – another bit of volunteering.
Lonesome Lonesome and No Rest for the Weary are two I don’t remember, but they are definitely Dad – and the piano accompaniment.
The uneasy relationship between business and ethics was no better then than it is now: one of his records has my father singing, but the label says it’s Conrad Simpson: no such vocalist ever existed, but for proof check the identical product number moulded into the disc. Whether this happened the other way round he never said – could it be that his name was given to somebody else’s recording?
I was waiting for your comment, Ian!
I didn’t think it was him, but as they were of the batch that I gave to you, I had no means of checking. Interesting theory about the label switching, who knows, and these days we call them “celbridies”, and who knows what mysterious goings on occur in record production!
My father used to tell me that Christopher Stone played his records on early BBC. From Wikipedia: “Stone … was the first disk jockey in the UK. … he approached the BBC himself with the idea for a record programme … and on 7 July 1927 he started playing records on air. His relaxed, conversational style was exceptional at a time when most of the BBC’s presentation was extremely formal, and his programmes became highly popular as a result.”
The Family may think that that was Dad’s music. His real musicianship showed in doing the tenor solos in Oratorios, but the records and singing to Silent Movies were his and his fellow musicians’ bread-and-butter. All that came to an end with talkies and the Great Depression, when he went back to his trade as a maintenance engineer.
My fondest memory is being put to bed by my mother, and listening while drifting to sleep to their practising for his next concert – he still did odd engagements in evenings when he could. He was singing in his sixties.
Charles Hill – when?
The “when” questions:
(You asked for it! Forgive my torrent of memories, but I had to do some reconstructions to arrive at some dates)
He was a soldier in WW1 as a Staff-Sergeant in the Ordnance Corps, repairing big guns before they backfired on the busy gunners at the front. Most soldiers were demobbed in 1919.
He worked at Cadbury’s in Bournville, Birmingham, as an engineer, but whether he worked there after the war or went straight back to singing I don’t know.
Agnes Raybould also worked at Cadbury’s. One of her friends was Nellie Hill. They used to go for country walks.
One day Nellie brought her brother Charles, when Agnes discovered that Charles was colour-blind. Charles didn’t realise till then that he couldn’t tell red poppies in a field from green grass.
Charles Hill married Agnes Raybould in March 1921.
My father once told me that his foreman had told him, in effect, “Charlie, you got to make up your mind whether to be an engineer or a musician,” because he was taking too much time off. I don’t know when he made the decision, either pre- or post-war. I was born in 1928, and my father’s occupation on my birth certificate is given as “Vocalist.”
I have old photos of me as a toddler in Blackpool – it would be mid-1930 and I’d be about 18 months, while he was there performing on a pier in the holiday season. My mother was with us. We were staying at a lodging-house, where they knew my dad from previous seasons. (It was run by 3 sisters; No 1 was related in no way to No 3, but both were sisters of No 2. My mother explained how – can you?)
Then the combination of the Great Depression, when nobody could afford to pay for entertainment, and there were no more silent movies when musicians used to earn a few bob accompanying the films, like my Dad. He got a job at the Labour Exchange; when one came along in engineering he took the job, making moulds to press out the curved front mudguards on cars of those days. It was very short: when he helped finishing the last batch he got the sack. He then found a job as the maintenance workshop foreman at Southalls.
The distance from home on his bike to get to work by 0730 caused us to move nearer to the factory in Saltley, which we did about 1936. He still took singing jobs in the evenings when he could, which topped up his earnings.
84 Yardley Green Road had been our great-auntie Annie’s house – Granny Raybould’s sister – when she married in 1908. Dad bought it when she married for the third time and moved to her new husband’s house nearby.
(An odd comparison between 2 orphans: Emily Brown married once and produced 10 babies, who produced 10 children including 2 adoptions. Her sister Annie married 3 times and had no children)
I have my father’s gold wrist watch. It is inscribed on the back:
CHARLES HILL
From
friends at
SOUTHALL’S
May 1955
Which he said was a 25th anniversary present, the date making his big break back from being a full-time musician to be 1929 or 1930.
The gramophone records I have are by Zonophone. They carry code numbers but no dates. I know some of them were played on the early BBC, and he used to be on air with Christopher Stone, an early disc-jockey. I have seen early Radio Timeses with his name and picture. More information is with Birmingham Records (or Archives), because when he died I gave them all of his papers, which also included programmes and those of earlier army concerts in France from WW1 when the soldiers were all given occasional relief leaves before they were sent back to be shot at again.
The 1950 date of one of the theatre performances puzzles me – are we sure of the date? He was 60 at the time, while I was still, er, serving my country in Egypt as a Royal Engineer conscript and knew nothing about it. I still had another year to go full-time plus another 3½ years as a Territorial. Surely my mother would have mentioned it in our exchange of letters? I know he did a modern opera a few years earlier, and I remember his hard work in learning and remembering it. It was called, ”The Partisans” by Inglis Gundry, and I remember one of the modern musical phrases he had trouble with. Well, I never.
You once sent me some of his gramophone recordings you copied… I played one, and it made me cry; I daren’t try again. I still remember his voice in my head. I have some other of his discs but no record-player.
I remember sometimes he would come home in the evening in his working clothes, go upstairs and come out looking like a well-dressed aristocrat, evening dress, white tie and standing straight. He would have his evening meal back home after the concert.
One memory I still have: as a child – what – 7 or 8, my mother would tuck me and my sister in our beds, kiss us and wish us “Good night”; Marguerite and I would stay awake for a space, till Mom and Dad assumed we were asleep and then they practiced his songs, Mom at the piano (she had been taking piano lessons for just this) for an up-coming concert. Then I fell asleep. A delightful memory. I have been very lucky.
These I have – Records by Zonophone
7” 78rpm
Ev’ry Minute, Ev’ry Hour of Ev’ry Day / So Tired with piano
Leonora / You Went Away Too Far(4) with Orchestra
There’s a Cradle in Caroline / Let a Smile be Your Umbrella(3) with piano
Why Am I Blue / Roam On, My Little Gipsy Sweetheart (3) with Cinema Organ
When I Met Sally / Easy Streetwith piano
I’m Tired Of Waiting For You / The Angelus Was Ringing with piano
When The New Year Bells Are Ringing / Ah! Sweet Mystery Of Life with Cinema Organ
12” 78rpm
Afton Water / Annie Lauriewith piano
Ev’ry Minute, Ev’ry Hour of Ev’ry Day / Why Am I Blue Bearing the label Ariel and the false name of Conrad Simpson