“I never had any lessons in music. I’ve done it all out of my own head. Before I had a concertina, I used to go about amusing myself with a penny tin whistle. I could play it pretty well, not to say all tunes, but all such as I knew I could play very well on it. The ‘Red, White, and Blue’ was my favourite tune.
“I have a brother, who is younger than I am, and he, before he was ten, was put out to a master to learn the violin. Father’s a labourer, and does something of anything he can get to do; but bricklaying generally. He paid so much a quarter for having my brother Henry taught. I think it was about 16s. a-quarter. It was a great expense for father at first; but afterwards, when we was hard up, Henry could always fly to the fiddle to earn a crust. Henry never took to music, not to say well. I can play more out of my own head than he can by notes. He’s a very good player now.
“I was about getting on for twelve when father first bought me a concertina. That instrument was very fashionable then, and everybody had it nearly. I had an accordion before; but it was only a 1s. 6d. one, and I didn’t take a fancy to it somehow, although I could play a few tunes on it. I used to see boys about my own height carrying concertinas about the streets, and humming them. I always wanted one. There was a little boy I knew, he got one, and then I wanted one worse. He used to come to our house, and play all sorts of tunes, for he played very well. I liked the concertina, because it’s like a full band. It’s like having the fiddle and the harp together. I used to ask this little boy to lend me his instrument, and I’d work the keys about a little, but I couldn’t do any airs.
“I play entirely out of my own head, for I never had any lessons at all. I learn the tunes from hearing other people playing of them. If I hear a street band, such as a fiddle and harp and cornopean playing a tune, I follow them and catch the air; and if it’s any sort of a easy tune at all, I can pick it up after them, for I never want to hear it more than twice played on an instrument.
“At last, after bothering father a long time, he bought me a half-crown concertina. I was in bed when he brought it into my room, and he put it on the bed; when I woke up I see it. I instantly set to work, and before I had got up I had learnt ‘Pop goes the Weasel.’ I was just pleased. I was up and dressed, and playing it all day long. I never used to let anybody touch, not even my own father hardly, for fear he should break it. I did break it once, and then I was regular dull, for fear I should lose my tunes.
“It took me six months before I could play it well, and then I could play a’most any tune I heard. The fingers had learnt the keys, and knew where the notes was, so that I could play in the dark. My brother could play the fiddle well, long before I could do any tunes. We used to play together duets, such as ‘A Boat, a Boat unto the Ferry.’ We never hardly went out together in the streets and play together, only once or twice, because a fiddle and a concertina don’t sound well together unless a harp’s with it, and then it’s beautiful.
“How I came to get on the steamboats was this: father went to take a trip up to Kew one day, so I wanted to go, and he said if I could earn my fare I might go. So I thought I’d take my concertina and try. So I went, and I earned that day about 9s., all in halfpence and 4d. bits. That was only by going up to Kew and coming back again. It was on a Whitsun-Monday. Then I thought I’d do it again the next day, and I think I took about the same. Then I kept on them all together. I didn’t keep to the Kew boats, because they had got their regular musicians, and they complained to the superintendent, and he forbid me going. Then I went to the Woolwich boats, and I used to earn a heap of money, as much as 10s. every day, and I was at it all the week for the season.
“I usen’t to pay any fare, but I got a free pass. It was mostly the crew. When I got out at the pier, I used to tell them I’d been playing, and they would let me pass. Now I know near every man that is on the river, and they let me go on any boat I like. They consider I draw customers, and amuse them during the trip. They won’t let some hardly play on board only me, because I’ve been on them such a long time—these three years. I know all the pier-masters, too, and they are all very kind to me. Sometimes, when I’m waiting for a boat to go up anywhere, I play on the piers, and I always do pretty fair.
“In winter I go on the boats all the same, and I play down in the cabin. Some of the passengers will object to it if they are reading, and then I have to leave off, or I should put my own self in a hobble, for they would go and tell the captain; and if he wouldn’t say anything, then they would tell the superintendent. In winter and wet weather is my worst time; but even then I mostly take my 3s. In the winter time, my best time is between three o’clock and six, when the gentlemen are coming home from office; and I never hardly come out before two o’clock. In summer its good from twelve till eight o’clock. The passengers come to go to the Crystal Palace in the morning part. Those that are going out for pleasure are my best customers. In the summer I always take at the rate of about 6s. a-day. Pleasure-people mostly ask me for dancing tunes; and the gentlemen coming from business prefer song tunes. I have got a good many regular gentlemen, who always give me something when they are coming from business. There are some who give me 6d. every day I see them; but sometimes they go up by a different boat to what I’m in. There’s one always gives me 6d., whether I’m playing or not; and it’s about four o’clock or half-past that I mostly see him.
“In winter my hands gets very cold indeed, so that I can scarcely feel the keys. Sometimes I can’t move them, and I have to leave off, and go down below and warm my hands at the cabin fire.