LETTER: My mum ‘The Pianist’

He told her he’s never had a pupil who could sight read so quickly and accurately and she should be encouraged to make something out of it.

Instead, she married my dad Mr Leslie Bell, one of the stonemason family (Clifton Memorial etc). They had five children.

She played the piano every day until her mid-eighties when we nursed her at home through a stroke and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

When she died I wrote this poem which I’ve just come across while sorting out some paperwork.

The Pianist

She site at the piano amongst her magic dots

No matter in the kitchen if the sink is full of pots.

All earthly chores discarded now she opens up the keys

and loving fingers dart around the black and white with ease.

She’s going on a journey to somewhere far beyond

what we plain mortals here on earth can barely understand.

Where will she go today? I thought. Maybe some distant place

Perhaps she’d be transported to a land in outer space!

The echoes hit the ceiling as the melodies unfurled

and anyone could see that she was in another world,

a dedicated pianist, a mother and a wife

yet one who couldn’t quite accept domesticated life.

A mood no-one could capture as the sun lit up the room

and in a state of rapture she played on — all afternoon.

She chased the dots all up and down as if they’d run away

The dots ran out — her concert ends — no more for her to play.

Dedicated to my mum, Daisy Bell, which is the title of the song everyone knows as “Daisy daisy”.

Mrs P Cook