Audio File
Ida Carroll, Beatrice Rollins, Irene Wilde, Doris Euerby, Neville Duckworth, Michael Baron
Northern School Of Music (NSM)
2020

Michael remembers the weird old building of the NSM.

Michael: Go back to the library there was like a door, I think they knocked through a wall through the next building. So now you were in 99 Oxford Road was where Ms Euerby, Ms Rollins, Ms Wilde’s, Mr Duckworth’s, and Ms Carroll’s was and then you went through, as it were, a wall but you didn’t know and that was to 97 Oxford Road and now after the library you went into 95 Oxford Road which you just went through an ordinary room doorway. And there was a little room with a piano on the right and there were other rooms on the left fronting Oxford Road and immediately after this room with the piano you were in the old part of the building and it was very, very dark. It was—the walls were white, everything was brown stained, you know, they used to use a thing years ago called Van Dyck Crystals for painting, floors and woodwork. Van Dyck Crystals they came out sort of almost black and newel posts were done in Van Dyck Crystals and the bannisters and everything, Van Dyck Crystals, the floor was Van Dyck Crystals, the doors Van Dyck Crystals. Just awful. And ever— The lights were on but they had no effect, you know. They huge braided cables used to come down and the lights were on so long in the Northern that you could see in the top of the shades they’d gone yellow with being burnt. You know, they were so hot these bulbs. And they were always in your eyes, walking around with Cs, you know, in the back of your eye.

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