h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Frank
It's funny how the odd word sets up flashes of memory.
With reference to 'the old Joanna', you and I have something in common.
When I was a kid we always had a piano in our 'front room'.
As a consequence I have always been able to play by ear and when I was called up into HM Forces I found this proved to be a surprising advantage.
Throughout my travels the routine was always the same.
If we found ourselves in a bar/canteen or even an abandoned house if there was a piano present the cry would go up ' Give us a tune Goldy'. In a bar, as each sucessive round was bought, a free drink was placed on the top of the piano. Every so often I was forced to 'catch up' with the obvious result that by the end of the evening I could be well under the weather.
Fortunately for me, protocol required that as a different unit came into the bar they would be allowed to provide their own pianist and I was allowed to get back to a more leisurely drinking pace.
Ron

Ron,
Snap, been there done that but being a north easterner had a good head for alcohol. On being shoved up to the Sergeants mess though with its dont close until the last one is out cold on the carpet attitude, many of those drinks helped to oil the strings. The result was a very mellow pianist playing on a very mellow piano and every one singing Lily Marlene when I was playing White cliffs of Dover. Great times pity about the bit in between when we were not in the mess or singing the rafters loose in some local hostelry.
A piano with a pianist who can play roughly what the men are singing, or they are singing what they think the pianist is playing can raise the spirits at the worst of times so Ron I reckon we earned those drinks the hard way. We were the Counsellors and Therapists of the time running a close tie with the drink.
Get working on Mick lets have some action, play to him if you have too but we want those stories.
Regards Frank.