Music

If you’re a professional orchestral or jazz bassist taking your own instrument to play in a public concert, you face problems. A double bass is fragile despite its size, so it requires ensconcing within a hard shell. Such a  case is around 7 ft in height and weighs a ton.

Problem 1: You won’t find many taxis that can transport you plus that bass to the airport.  Problem 2: You need the paperwork required for outsize luggage. Problem 3: There is no guarantee that the instrument will travel with you on your flight.

One Friday afternoon Andrew was travelling to Cork on Aer Arann to play in their weekend jazz festival. Outsize luggage at the airport readily accepted his double bass in its hard case, and Andrew settled down to enjoy the short hop across the Irish Sea. On arrival in Cork the instrument was nowhere to be seen. On enquiry he was told, “Sorry Mr Robb, but your big guitar didn’t fit in the hold along with everyone else’s luggage, so we despatched it on a larger aircraft Aer Lingus.  It’s bound for Dublin, but don’t worry, we’ll get it from there to Cork by road.” Needless to say, Andrew was obliged to borrow a basic school bass for the gig.  On Sunday morning, just before leaving the hotel to return home, a coach arrived at the hotel and delivered his bass just in time for Andrew’s return flight!

Another time Andrew took his bass to Jersey on easyJet.  The outward journey encountered no problems, but the return leg was a different story. After the bass got checked in and the passengers had boarded and were  waiting for take-off, a member of the ground crew summoned Andrew off the flight because the regional airport had no hydraulic lifts and the bass case was heavier than the legal limit each baggage handler was allowed lift. Andrew was given the choice of flying home without it, or disembarking and taking it home by ferry. In any case the flight was not going to fly with his bass. After an altercation creating more delays the exasperated pilot left the flight deck to remonstrate with the baggage handlers. “We’re not leaving this gentleman’s livelihood here on the tarmac. Since you’re each allowed to lift 32 kg and the instrument weighs 37 kg, several of you lifting together will get it into the hold without breaking any Health and Safety rules!”

Nice pilot. Job done, but Andrew’s nerves were a tad frayed.

This is a photo of my husband James and the WIFE. The initials w.i.f.e. are clearly visible on the Cessna’s tail – always referred to in radio comms as whiskey-india-foxtrot-echo. It’s a running joke that the four pilots who are members of its syndicate say they are “taking out the WIFE” whenever they fly it.  Personally I’m not keen on heights and I don’t enjoy riding aloft in a biscuit tin strapped with a lawnmower engine, so I can’t compete with WIFE.

James loves nothing more than exploring small remote Hebridean islands by air, landing on beaches edged with the splendid machair, and discovering abandoned WW2 landing strips where there are only doe-eyed sheep for company.

Love should be generous enough to allow one’s spouse the freedom to pursue interests that one may not share. In the earlier years of our marriage James was quite restrained in such sorties, partly because I am hyper-aware of the risks, and he certainly had no wish to leave behind a widow and orphans (gulp!)  But now that our four have grown and flown the nest, I have set him free to do what he loves most – to take to the skies with the beloved WIFE.  I just pray that he’ll stay safe at all times, and always come home to me.

Teenagers’ perceptions of a calamity can sometimes be endearingly innocent.

On one occasion when our son Andrew was the peripatetic instrumental bass teacher in a local school, this is the scenario he faced on entering his classroom.  The pupil who uttered these words was quite oblivious of the catastrophic injury that had befallen the poor double bass.