Audio File
Ida Carroll
Northern School Of Music (NSM)
2020

Fae Jones chats about the impact and legacy of Ida Carroll, principal of the Northern School of Music, on Manchester's musical offering.

Fae: I realised later, funnily enough, in life there was somebody in the Hallé choir who… I used to talk about Ida Carroll and… she—her father was involved in the admin at the Royal Manchester College—Er no, the Manchester College— Yes, it was the Royal Manchester College, wasn’t it, in Devas Street, and she said... ‘I see her in a different light’, you know, ‘she used to cause a bit of trouble’. But I realised now where any trouble that Ida Carroll caused was because she wanted the Northern to live on.
Heather: Yeah.
F: She wanted that legacy. I mean, I know for a fact reading books and… history of both colleges that… she really stuck for—stuck out for what she wanted. And, you know, good on her really. Because they’d created their unique school of music, I think, it was quirky, it was very different and… I personally feel it deserves to be remembered. I can’t tell you the joy when I came to Pilgrim’s Progress— And incidentally I went to the performance where the stage caught fire, or whatever it was, and we had to go out in the interval *laughs*. And that was when I was talking to Joyce and I said ‘Where is the Ida Carroll picture?’ Because it should be more prominent which, you know, I would say. And she said… I said ‘You know, not enough is remembered about the legacy of Ida Carroll’. And then we just let it drop. And then I couldn’t believe my luck when you got all this archive stuff going because I don’t think you will find many people that hated their time at the Northern. I think they all loved it, basically. You know.
H: Yeah. Hope so *laughs*.
F: Well, I think so.

Part of the #NSM2020 project "A 20/20 Legacy: the centenary of the Northern School of Music" supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.