CHAPTER 4: Dulcimers in the British Isles since 1800 > Dulcimers in East Anglia

People - 7 of 13

Of players who are remembered but no longer alive:

- an old chap who made his living busking, remembered by Dick Hewitt, Biston;

- George Willmot Lawrence, father of Herbert, whose 14^v instrument is in the Cambridge Folk Museum;

- the grandfather of Joan Goreham of Dereham, a carpenter who played only with hammers, and always ended his recitals with the Sailor's Hornpipe;

- her uncle, who was "extremely deaf";

- William Sampson, whose instrument is in the Stranger's Hall Museum, Norwich (currently [1976] in the exhibition at Lynn);

- Peter Harvard, Ipswich, written about by John Leach (1968/9);

- the father of Walter Clabburn, who made and played in Norwich at the end of the last century;

- Walter Clabburn, himself, b.1886, played one of his father's instruments until the mid-1930s, having left Norwich for London as a young man, popular tunes of the time, by ear; strung IV or V, using hammers of split cane, curled and bound with wool;

- Frank Rice, Newton Flotman, a trades and crafts Training Officer who, having an instrument which his grandfather had owned c.1910, took lessons from Billy Bennington in his retirement to brush up his forgotten skills, and played Country and Western music, hymns and Noel Coward songs, using only hammers: his dulcimer was in my collection for a long while, is now owned by Roger Frood; and

- Mr. Rutland, described by John Youngman as "a good old player in the pubs", whose instrument 'Billy Hingham' used to tune, and whose daughter, Molly Whitaker, is playing today; they had a family concert party, and he was always most strict about not letting Molly touch the strings with her fingers, because the moisture in the skin would cause them to rust.