Audio File
Hilda Collens, Irene Wilde, Constance Kay, Michael Baron
Northern School Of Music (NSM)
2020

Michael remembers some of the school's teachers.

Michael: So they were very sort of nurturing people and very kind, I think it was either Ms Kay, Constance Kay, might have been, or it might have been Ms Wilde, that had a thing in the… when my mother first came in the 47’, biros were getting, you know, they were coming in and she had a biro. But my mother said when she was writing the ink would used to sort of bobble. You know, like you would get sort of bobbly biro sometimes and she just used to do this with it. And one day they went in and my mother was in a terrible state because her arm had swollen massively. And it turned out that it was the biro ink. That was— that had got into the bloodstream and had given her septicaemia which was sepsis, isn’t it yeah? You know, blood poisoning. And they rushed her into um… into the Royal and they tried to find out what it was that she might have been doing and either Hilda Collens or somebody had to get on— find out who manufactured these pens and she actually got them to disclose what was in the ink. And they said, ‘Oh we can’t tell you that, it’s a company secret’. And I don’t know what she said but she jolly well made them, you know, stand to say what was what and, you know, it saved her. I don’t think anybody like that— I think she has an enormous amounts of resources, this woman. Of all kinds and knew when to use, when she actually had to.

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