Harry & Fiona

19 December 2023

Harry, 94, was born in Paddington but now lives in Glasgow. Harry started playing the piano because he had a natural talent but when his dad gave him an accordion, this took over. He found the piano again, playing for his wife who had dementia. He recently completed a PHD, in communication within construction, this has taken him 8 years to complete.

Fiona, 61, lives in Berkshire and is a carer for her husband who has MS. At the age of 14, she was awarded a scholarship to study piano and music theory at the Royal Welsh Music and Drama where she gained her LTCL performer’s diploma at the age of 17.  After graduating, she moved to London and worked as a professional pianist, singer, songwriter, composer, and bandleader.

How does it feel coming back to play for The Piano Christmas Special?
Harry: It feels great, I enjoyed the first series very much indeed. It’s a nice thing to be asked back… I must have done something right!
Fiona: I was absolutely thrilled to receive the phone call. It’s lovely to see everybody again, to have the opportunity to play my part again and I absolutely love Christmas. And I’m happy to team up with Harry again, the lovely ninety-four years young gentleman!

You both started playing the piano when you were four years old. Tell me about your introduction to the instrument.
Harry: I started playing the piano when I was four. Because every house that I went in to had a piano, at that age I just thought that you learnt to read, to write and to play the piano. I just thought it was one of those things that everybody did. Mum and dad were going out shopping one Saturday and I wouldn’t go. As soon as they went out the door, I took the key for the piano out of the vase and opened the piano up. When they came back, which must have been about half an hour, I was playing The Skater’s Waltz. I wasn’t playing it very well but it was recognisable and they could hear the tune. I knew that I could play it because, even at four years old, I just knew the positions of the sounds on the piano. I got frustrated with the piano gradually because I couldn't play the sounds that I could hear on the radio… I wanted to play them but with little, tiny hands at four years old, you can’t do that! In 1939, just before the war, I gave up and became an accordion player. I've been playing the accordion since 1943. It wasn’t until a few years ago, that I was travelling from Glasgow, backwards and forwards to Newcastle University and there was a piano in Glasgow Central Station and there was also a piano at Newcastle station so whilst waiting for trains, I tinkled about on the piano again. I then got friendly with a man in a piano shop.
Fiona: My dad was a BBC sound recording engineer who would have loved to play the piano but he came from a very difficult background in Dublin in the 1930s and 40s so he never had the opportunity to learn. When I was four, we had a piano in our house and I used to tinkle away, standing up at the keys. My dad took me to a piano teacher and in some ways, it was just something I was learning along with everything else so it never seemed like a big deal to me. I'm always hugely impressed with people taking on the piano in their later years and adult years because it is much harder. Music has always been a part of my life and it's all I've ever wanted to do.

How would you describe your style?
Harry: If I thought of myself as a pianist, I would like to think myself as a jazz player! But I'm not really a pianist, in the true sense of the word because I only play by ear and I can only play in one key… I can’t get out of playing F sharp, like I did when I was four years old!
Fiona: For many years, I used to play Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn and all the great composers. But in 2011 I started writing these little pieces for the piano, and my younger son Zachary, who is on the autistic spectrum, was going to sleep one night and he said, “Mummy, can you play the piano for me when I'm going to sleep?” So between 2011 - 2014 I actually composed, recorded and produced two albums worth of my own original music. I don't get a lot of time to play these days because my husband has got MS so it was really nice to be able to sing on The Piano Christmas Special with Harry playing for me. It was really lovely because you can sing very much more freely when somebody accompanies you, so I really enjoyed that.

What memories do you have of music and Christmas coming together?
Harry: Granny had a big family, she had seven children and then several of them got married and had families of their own, so we all got together at Christmas time. We all lived in the same area, the Kilburn area, and in those days your social life was bound up with the family and what the family were doing. At Christmas, it was traditional to go to Granny's and have a real, good booze up and sing along!
Fiona: I am also a very keen choral singer and I have sung with many choirs over the years. The Christmas concerts are always so special because we always include lots of Christmas music. If the family comes over at Christmas, I'm able to get on the piano for them, to play some of their favourites. Christmas is magical for me, I love it. I get my favourite CD out, it's called A Classic Christmas and its symphonic versions of everything you can imagine; lots of sleighbells, lots of French horns.

What did you enjoy about the first series that you hope is here in the Christmas special?
Harry: I wasn’t really expecting anything from the Christmas special, other than I just went to enjoy myself, which I did. The first series put me in touch with a lot of people that I wouldn’t have met otherwise and that’s a lovely thing.
Fiona: Harry, definitely! When I met Harry, he was sitting playing the piano and I thought, “Oh, I know that tune.” I went over introduced myself and it transpired that Harry and I had a pretty good repertoire between us so I was delighted that Harry was in the Christmas special. And it was fabulous to see Claudia, Mika and Lang Lang again, that was really, really special.

Was there anything that you learnt from series one that you use in your performance for the Christmas special?
Fiona: It was amazing how many people who watched the first series were touched by the people who took part and by their stories. The Piano isn't necessarily about showcasing brilliantly technically adept pianists, it's about featuring people who have a fascinating, interesting, or even sad story. And the fact that they play the piano is an add on to that.
Harry: I don’t dare watch myself back to be honest! Watching yourself back when you know what your shortcomings is a nightmare! But I did enjoy watching the first series back because my wife was on it as well so that was nice.
Fiona: I remember Harry saying in the first series when his wife was very poorly that playing the piano was almost like going on holiday because his wife had dementia. Playing the piano, you can take yourself away from everything.

What Christmas song or piece of music represents Christmas to you?
Fiona: Christmas music is so many different styles. My favourite carol is In The Bleak Midwinter. As soon as I hear that softly sung by a choir, I get goosebumps. It’s the most beautiful song and you can feel the snow falling, you can see the stars in the sky; it’s really special to me. My favourite Christmas pop song is Shakin’ Stevens Merry Christmas Everyone because it just makes me want to get on the dancefloor and shake my sleighbells. And I think classically, probably Bach - Christmas Oratorio but there’s just so much to choose from.
Harry: I don’t think there is any single one that does but I like the Christmas song Fiona and I performed on the programme, The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire) by Nat King Cole, it’s a lovely song. There’s so many other, I like the old carol, Ding Dong Merrily On High.

How were you and your fellow pianist ahead of performing at the Christmas Special?
Fiona: It was really nice to sit down and have a coffee and a good old chat and find out more about each other.
Harry: It was lovely to meet up with people again, it was absolutely splendid. They are a lovely group and when you take a number of people with a common interest and they enjoy doing what they're doing, of course they going to enjoy each other's company and what each other is doing even though their styles are different! You can’t imagine there’d be wars if everybody was a pianist!

Fiona sang while Harry played the piano to The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire). What was it like performing together?
Harry: Fiona and I hadn’t had any rehearsals or anything because we live five hundred miles apart so it was a matter of trying things out and see if it worked and it did!
Fiona: It was lovely because I knew that somewhere along the way, Harry and I, together as a team, had touched people’s hearts. There was a lovely hush and then everybody applauded so I think we really touched them with that. I'm in my sixties and Harry's in his nineties so we were two of the older people that took part and I think we touched people’s hearts because they saw this wonderful gentleman at the age of ninety-four playing the piano. I think people were very surprised to see two people create something so lovely - the classic Nat King Cole Christmas song.
Harry: All I do is play and I’m either satisfied with what I've done, or I’m not satisfied with what I’ve done and I wish I could go hide! Fiona approached it with the attitude of a professional performer, and I hope I did too, I just did my best. You can't do more than that, can you?

Nat King Cole’s song is such a popular Christmas tune, did that add to the pressure of performing it because it’s so well-known?
Fiona: When it comes to Christmas music, the most important thing to me is that I'm putting it across as best I can and the people who are listening, feel the magic, the wonder and that Christmas feeling.
Harry: The challenge with playing Christmas music is that everybody knows it so if you make the slightest mistake, everybody notices it but you shouldn’t be afraid of making mistakes. I don't really get nervous anymore... I'm too old for nerves, I have enough trouble standing up, let alone performing! No, I don’t really have any nerves, I’ve been doing it for an awful long time, I’ve been playing for ninety years.
Fiona: It’s never been something that worries me because I just love to perform Christmas music and I enjoy it so much that I give it my best.

Can you share your favourite moment from the Christmas special?
Harry: The choir was remarkably good, absolutely beautiful. It was a knockout, so much so that I felt I had to go up and congratulate the conductor of the choir because they were so good.
Fiona: I didn't know that Mika and Lang Lang were upstairs in the window at King’s Cross Station so that was fabulous because they knew who Harry and I were, and you can't imagine how that feels. The wonderful pop artist Mika and one of the greatest classical pianists on earth, Lang Lang, knew who we were and opened the window and were blowing kisses and waving at us so that was fantastic. I really enjoyed that moment. Another very special moment was to hear Lucy play again. We are all hugely proud of Lucy, and like Lang Lang, I am absolutely stunned by how she plays and how she learns.

Why is music so important at Christmas time?
Harry: Music is important at any time! I think that music and being able to communicate with music is a very powerful force.
Fiona: I think music is important all the time because music is an international language. Once you start playing music together, you have something that binds you, that joins you, that unites you so music is the international language because anybody can understand it. At Christmas time, what would Christmas be without music? If there's no music at Christmas, it wouldn't be Christmas. The carols, the choirs, the orchestras, and the brass bands just give me the Christmas feeling because music is part of the magic of Christmas.

Being involved in The Piano - has that made you a different person?
Fiona: Emotionally, I feel slightly differently because I was so in awe of all the talented people that I met; people who hadn’t necessarily had the kind of training background in music or the long history in music that I’d had. I met people who had taught themselves to play the piano and I find that incredible and I think it's phenomenal. It changed me as I felt quite humbled because I felt overawed by the talented people I met.

Have you been recognised in the street since the first series?
Fiona: I was in the local paper after being on The Piano and even though being on the telly was a fleeting moment, it's great that people always want to know about it and how you got on with everybody. It was lovely and I certainly enjoyed it.
Harry: Half of the fun has been people recognising me. People will say, “You’re that bloke off the programme,” and they will half know what it was. It’s nice.

Do you think The Piano series will encourage more people to learn to play the piano?
Harry: I hope so, the fact that you can see pianos in public places and that anyone can go up and play on them, whatever standard they are at, that’s enjoyable in itself. On the way back from filming the Christmas Special, I went into Euston station and had a little tinkle on the piano there. There was a group of people that gathered round, and all wanted to chat.  
Fiona: The piano is an orchestra in one instrument. My Irish grandmother used to say to me, “If you play the piano, you'll be invited to all the best parties,” and that used to make me laugh because you don’t go to a party these days and expect somebody to be playing the piano but in her era you did. My dad always used to say to me, “If you can play the piano, you’ll never starve,” which is a really good point because as soon as you mentioned to anybody that you play the piano, they want you to come and accompany their Choral Society or play for their ballet classes… being a pianist makes you very, very popular.

What advice would you give to any budding pianists?
Harry: Just get on and do it! Play to amuse yourself and to enjoy the tunes. And the social side is half of it, and if you can entertain people at the end of it, that’s more than success, that’s a triumph! But mainly do it to enjoy it!