The power of a song

This morning I went to my usual exercise class. We are a group of ladies with a teacher leading, who do a variety of stretches and exercises in a(vain) hope of keeping fit and even losing weight!

The exercises are to music supplied by the teacher, some of her music is more modern but occasionally she adds some very old time songs. Today she played this song, an oldtime tune released during the first world war I think.

As I listened I was absolutely carried back to when I was a young child. My father had been a soldier in the second world war, serving in the middle east and mediterranean, and had a huge repertoire of songs from that era. Some had been altered to include their own army version.

He would rise in the mornings at around 5am, make himself a cup of tea and toast, and then head off down to the milking shed to milk the herd of cows. My bedroom was right next to the kitchen and I would wake to his singing as he waited for the water to boil and then get ready to begin his days work. He had a beautiful singing voice and, as I mentioned, sometimes a slightly different version of the song.

I stood there in the hall with all the ladies around me, trying to hold back the tears. Nobody noticed, they were all too busy trying to keep up with our teacher.

My dad died nearly 40 years ago at a relatively young age. I would walk over hot coals to be able to hear his voice singing again.