Rosemary Lyons Friday 15/1/21

Friday 15/1/21
​I’m delighted that I have been invited to share my 5 favourite Desert Island Discs with you all which I trust you will enjoy.

ROSEMARY LYONS

1. Cliff Richard singing LIVING DOLL.  This takes me back to about the age of 10 when I was taken to the Glasgow Empire with a few chums to see the great star of the time decked in black gear, white tie and pink jacket! I swooned (was never a screamer) enjoyed every word, terrific and still is to this day! CLICK HERE


2. Again as a wee girl with my Mum and Dad and my four elder siblings ( 2boys and 2girls)  would sit round the fireplace listening to Dad’s radiogram. For Dad it was all the great tenors of the day, for my mum, Ivor Novello, for my sisters, Nelson Eddie and Janette MacDonald. My brothers and I had to enjoy the “grown up choices” Dad, at one stage, sang in The City of Glasgow Police Choir and fancied himself as a bit of a Mario Lanza! Dad would not know Foster and Allan but “ Silver Threads Among the Gold” would have been his style.  CLICK HERE


3. Number three is from 1967, Glasgow Fair Friday, rain pouring down, I’m bridesmaid for my friend Shirley’s wedding to a Norwegian Merchant Navy Captain at South Shawlands  Parish Church. The hymn “Eternal Father, Strong to Save”( Navy Hymn) CLICK HERE


4. By now I’m working in a large firm of Architects in Glasgow and have given up my music lessons for a number of years but am persuaded by my mother to start again with a wonderful teacher (Miss Cunningham) and chosen to play in a concert in front of a big audience. The choice of piece frightens me and I have to practice very seriously. The end result is success and the concert raises a major sum to help purchase an electric wheelchair for a young boy. The piece was: Chopin’s Etude Op 10 No 12 Study(Valentina Lisitsa 19 Dec 2008) CLICK HERE
5. This memory takes me back to the time when I worked in Kennington in London in the 1960s and I witnessed and heard a cavalcade of Police Cars and a Black Maria taking The Cray Twins to court! My boss extolling that I was watching history in the making! I was particularly homesick at this time and as luck would have it that evening I watched on television Kenneth McKellar singing “Keep Right on to the End of the Road  CLICK HERE

My luxury item would have to be MY PIANO  together with an endless supply of Maltesers suitably protected from the sun and heat!

My favourite book would be forsaken for an endless volume of sheet music!