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Piano Tuner

R

Rod

Guest
Does anyone remember the piano tuners that would come around the Schools? We had a guy who was visually impaired, he had a guide dog. He would sit at the piano with a key, and play note after note, turning the key which made subtle differences to the tone of the piano.
 
Mr Richards, piano tuner

I remember from the 1930s and 40s a Mr Richards, who was nearly blind but got around amazingly well. He tuned our piano in the Erdington 23 (later 22C and now B44) postal district, and my gran's in Grasmere Road Handsworth.
He was looked at as a friend of the family, always very organised, well spoken, and I think did a lot of school work. As a kid I always found him easy to talk to and very responsive. I'm not sure when he retired, but I don't think it was before I left Brum in 1959.
 
Rod we had a piano tuner come to our house in the 40's, he was blind and worked for Scotchers at Six Ways. He was quite a young chap, and so nice. He always played for us when he had finished tuning.

He came on Sauturday morning, and I would walk with him to the number 11 bus at Witton Circle, going towards Perry Barr.
 
My Dad...

:D My dad know almost all the 'Piano Tuners' in Birmingham and a lot from outside brum too. Blind and Partial blind men used to go to a place in Torquay to learn trades and piano tunning was one of them. Dad learned how to do lots of things there also at a place in Letchworth. It was finding a job after that was the problem , you can only have so many 'Tuners' before you have too many and other trades laid these men of first in they were over staffed. Dad did it as a fall back job when he was out of work from nigh time Capstain operating jobs. He said there were guys who needed the full time jobs more than he did 'cause they were unable to do other things like himself.
I have put a photo (c1954 ish) of some of them on 'The Photo' link. You may see someone you know. Dad is in the middle of the Row (Just behind the two nurses) He's the one who has the glasses and dark hair. :D
 
We had a blind piano tuner visit our school and each week it was one of the pupils turn to escort him back to the bus stop.This was junior school so we would have been 8 year olds.

It was my turn one day and I duly walked him towards the bustop with him hold onto my elbow .
Now to get to the busptop you could go round the pavement or cut across a grassy area as a short cut .
Seeing the area was a bit uneven or maybe even muddy I started to round the pathway and he stopped and said where are we going .I told to the bus stop and he said no take the short cut. We did and I got him the bus ok . But I had to convince myself that he couldn,t see cus iwa s convionced he could.
And would you believe it I ran back to school.
 
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