LETTER: Bring back the pub piano

MUSIC plays a big part in our lives, whether it be in the past or here in the present day.

It is all around us in one form or another.

It’s in the shopping malls, on the car radio, in discos, ring tones on our smartphones, shouting out from our televisions with endless adverts selling us one thing or another from a settee to a fruit yoghurt.

We get it from street buskers strumming on their guitars and screaming down microphones.

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We don't have to search for musical entertainment because it's all around us.

But back in the 60s and 70s it was different, people would seek out music in dance halls, theatres, clubs and shows containing audience sing-a-longs.

There was nothing like a good old sing song for lifting the spirit. Especially in the local pub where men and women used to gather on a Saturday night around the piano with a drink in one hand, bag of crisps in the other as the pianist rattled out well known songs, and the room would be filled with voices singing along in rhythm, but usually off key, all with happy faces and waving glasses, turning the pub into one big community for the evening.

Friends were made, beer was spilt, but what a night it would be.

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Difficult to imagine today, with pubs closing down every week, and others turning into restaurants with people sitting there sending texts or tweeting on their smartphones, oblivious of the people they are sitting with, (who may have gone home already).

To see pubs with shutters over their windows, standing in darkness and forgotten, is a sad reflection of how the days of taking part at our local has faded away.

So I say, bring back the pub piano and let’s all get together and a have a good old sign song!

You never know, it could catch on again?

D Titmuss, Tickhill

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