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01/23/2019 07:30 AMVictorian novelist Charles Dickens, who created such memorable fictional orphans as Oliver Twist and David Copperfield, could have written the story about the early years of Bob Johnson’s life. But Bob’s story is not fiction. It is, instead the real account of a life that started with difficult prospects as an orphan in England but now continues in Essex as a success story of work, family, friends, and, through it all, music.
Bob plays trombone in the New Horizons Band of the Community Music School, which will be part of an upcoming adult recital in the common room at Essex Place, the affordable housing complex off Route 154 in Centerbrook, on Thursday, Jan. 24 at 6:30 p.m. New Horizons is a nationwide organization of bands, orchestras, and choruses for mature adults who want to return to playing an instrument or even to start playing one with no prior experience.
Bob also sings in a barbershop quartet, the Hilltop Four, and with Cappella Cantorum as well as in the choir of First Congregation Church in Essex. Bob started singing in the church choir in 1965, the year he emigrated to the United States, and he has sung in it ever since. Now, at 87, he’s the longest serving member of the group.
Bob first played in a band at the orphanage near Newcastle upon Tyne in northern England where he was sent as a child. A bandmaster came to the orphanage to work with the young residents. Bob can’t remember precisely how old he was when he entered the facility, but believes he was around seven.
Bob never knew his parents; at first, he lived with his grandparents, but when his grandfather died, he was sent to the orphanage.
“I guess the authorities thought my grandmother couldn’t take care of me,” he says.
Some boys at the facility had relatives who would visit them on weekends, but Bob says in all the time he was there, his grandmother came only once.
“It wasn’t a happy boyhood,” Bob remembers. “There wasn’t a lot of love in the orphanage. There was a foster mother, but not a lot of cuddles; a lot of whacks, though.”
He recalls what he had for breakfast every day, porridge cooked the night before and kept warm until the boys ate it in the morning. One morning, the porridge was so burnt that Bob couldn’t finish his, but the foster mother told him he had to eat it all or he would get nothing else that day. He choked it down and ran outside where all the porridge came right back up.
School ended when Bob was 14 and he began to learn a trade, carpentry. At 15, he moved from the orphanage into a hostel for older boys and then at 18 into a boarding house on his own. One day, washing up dishes at the boarding house, Bob saw a pretty young girl come in. He got so flustered he ran out of the room but later asked the boarding house owner who she was. It was the owner’s niece and she arranged an introduction. That young girl, Sybil, became Bob’s wife and they remained married for 60 years until she died in 2012.
At 18, Bob was officially apprenticed as a carpenter, signing a deed of apprenticeship with four pages of rules and regulations. He still keeps the deed, with its big red seal at the bottom, which he showed a recent visitor.
“If I had done anything wrong, they could have kicked me out, but I was a good boy,” he says.
Bob had also joined the Naval Reserve, learning to be a wireless operator, and he served on active duty in the Royal Navy for two years in the mid-l950s in the Mediterranean. He was called up to serve just three weeks after he and Sybil had gotten married.
He recalls all the wireless codebooks were lead-lined so if the ship were captured or sunk, the codes would sink to the bottom rather than being captured.
His military days were long ago, but one part of his training remains. Bob’s shoes are as smartly polished as if he were still in the Navy.
Bob learned from a newspaper advertisement about an American recruiter coming to Newcastle looking for skilled craftsmen who wanted to work in the United States. After meeting with the recruiter, Bob decided to make the move. At first, he came alone, working for a building company that was part of the Clark Group, but soon Sybil and their three children joined him.
“I’m delighted that Bob came here and happy to see all the success he has had in this country,” Herb Clark of the Clark Group said.
He and the family all became American citizens. Bob’s children, now grown, still live in this area, and there are not only grandchildren, but great-grandchildren—three, with a fourth expected this spring.
Not too long after arriving, Bob walked past the First Congregational Church in Essex, heard singing, and decided on the spot to join the choir, then led by Barry Asch. Bob, still a strong tenor, has always loved to sing.
“We sang all the time in England, even at work; I never had any training,” he says.
He used to listen to American crooners, Bing Crosby and Perry Como in particular, and memorize the words of their songs. Once, many years later, Perry Como was performing in Wallingford, and Bob went to hear him.
“I loved his voice, like velvet. When he was walking off the stage, I shook his hand. I’ll never forget that,” he says.
The barbershop quartet, with which Bob now sings, originally grew from members of the Essex Congregational Church, thus its name, the Hilltop Four, for the church’s location atop Methodist Hill. Through Asch, who founded Cappella Cantorum, Bob began singing with that group and also in productions staged by the Nutmeg Players, an amateur group that has since disbanded but performed for many years in this area.
Every year the Nutmeg Players did a cabaret and Bob formed a trio, the Tyneside singers, performing Geordie songs. Geordie refers to the people and also the dialect of the area around Newcastle Upon Tyne where Bob grew up.
“There are dozens and dozens of those songs,” Bob says and by way of illustration, began singing one to a listener.
Bob believes it was through Asch or Tony Carrano, now a member of the Hilltop Four, that he first heard about the New Horizons Band. Carrano plays the baritone horn in the group. Bob hadn’t played the trombone in some 50 years, but was ready to start again and became one of the band’s earliest members.
“Bob has been an enthusiastic band member and supporter of the Community Music School,” says New Horizons Band Director Patricia Hurley, adding that he’s also used his carpentry skills to make repairs around the building.
Bob, retired for the last 17 years, is resolved not to retire from music.
“Music is my life. I dread not being able to sing and play,” he says. “If I had to give up music, I don’t know what I would do. It keeps my brain going.”
For more information on the New Horizons Band and the Community Music School, visit cmsct.org.