Wednesday afternoons at Guernsey Grammar School for Boys were set aside for ‘hobbies’, it seemed; and when the Head asked me if I would like to take over the Chess Club I explained that I knew the moves but was absolutely hopeless when it came to strategy. “But what I could do”, I said, ”is set up a band with the boys”.

I soon discovered that, among the sixth formers, we had the makings of a band already: a drummer, pianist and bass guitarist. But what I really wanted to do was get as many of the lads involved as possible; so, instead of going for a pop group, I explained on the following Wednesday that we could have a go at Latin American music. That was because I could easily train complete beginners to play simple percussion instruments, such as maracas, claves and a scraper (or ‘guiro’)

      

       

        

  

The maracas and scraper could, at first, be played on each beat, with variations included once the lads had the hang of things; the standard claves beat was more irregular, usually going

        ONE (pause) one two (pause) ONE TWO (pause)

   

        ONE (pause) one two (pause) ONE TWO (pause)

Nowadays, of course, you would just google ‘playing latin percussion’ and come up with dozens of YouTube tutorials. And the same if you wanted standard songs, including words and chord sequences.

Luckily, it turned out that one of the English teachers, Warren Barrett, was a pianist and bass player who, when he heard of my plan, was able to lend me a whole stack of Latin standards, including

Besame Mucho, La Bamba, Perfidia, and Quizas, Quizas, Quizas.

So we were off and running.

The problem was that, although I was a pretty good drummer (later playing dance music in a trio with Warren) I knew little about chords and harmony. And rather than studying these in isolation I decided to get down to learning an instrument; and the most accessible was the guitar.

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Asking around, I was told that the only person teaching guitar was someone known as Santy, full name Domenico Santangelo, who was best known for composing the island’s national anthem, ‘Sarnia Cherie”.

He was born in Italy in 1882, learned the violin from his elder brother, Michele, then went on to study at the Conservatoire Royale in Liege, Belgium.  He played violin in a trio at the old Russell Hotel, on Russell Square in London, before heading to Jersey then, in 1906, to Guernsey, where he stayed for the rest of his life, dying in 1970, five years after I left the island.

At some time during the first world war he formed the Santangelo Orchestra, providing musical accompaniment for visiting artists, as well as the silent films of the time. But when sound films arrived, in 1929, he disbanded the orchestra and lived by teaching any stringed instrument going.

I never actually heard him play guitar, but I was aware that he had perfect pitch.  He lived about 10 minutes walk from me and, every Friday evening at 6.30, I would knock on his door, hear no answer, then walk in, down the hallway into the kitchen where he would be drinking a glass of white wine. He would blink a couple of times, notice my guitar case and say “Ah, you’ve come for a lesson, I see”, then send me upstairs to tune up.  This I would spend maybe five or ten minutes doing until he finally made his way upstairs, take the guitar from me and finish the tuning up in a matter of seconds. 

My lesson lasted an hour, and when I set off I would usually meet Peter Carey, a Guernsey man working for the biggest firm of fruit and vegetable growers, arriving for his own lesson.  He soon became good friends with Christou and me and, in the next posting, I will be writing about how the two of us, the following summer, took the boat heading for France, then set off south, me driving my Lambretta, him on the passenger seat, all the way down to Alicante and back.