I was one of ten children — eight girls and two boys. My mother had a shop and my grandmother lived next door. My brother Jimmy used to play the piano and had a good tenor voice — I remember us singing around the piano on Sundays, mainly hymns.

Music info: Manchester Children’s Choir on the original Columbia 78rpm recording circa 1929/30. Features The Halle Orchestra conducted by Sir Hamilton Harty, Choir Mistress Gertrude Riall. Recorded in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester.

I had piano lessons but they didn’t come to much and I preferred singing: we went as a choir to a picture house to sing and I still have the photograph. The choir was run by a lovely old man and we sang things like Nymphs and Shepherds and Wheree’r you walk.

Music info: Where’er you Walk sung by Kenneth McKellar from Semele, by Handel. The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House conducted by Sir Adrian Boult