[The Planned Environment Therapy Trust Archive and Study Centre is the
only archive/museum/research library devoted to therapeutic community.
In 2009 it will celebrate its 20th birthday. This is the fourth in a
series of mini-celebrations from the Archive blog, leading up to the
anniversary]
Mini-celebration 4. Objects and the transformation of meaning through
the Internet
Many years ago, pre-Internet, I closed down a therapeutic community for
children - I went in after it closed down to pick up its archives - and
among the things left behind to be thrown away was a well-used bass
drum, with a taped-up hole in one drum-head, and the name of a band I'd
never heard of on the other. There's a certain magic to objects which
have words on them, which I find attractive; and as I could see my own
children's noise-making years coming up over the horizon, and as it
looked sound enough to stand up to the wild abandon of childhood but old
and cast-off enough not to matter if it didn't, I took it home.
Last weekend I came across it while clearing out a shed. It had been put
away, and had weathered the anticipated rough-house of multiple
childhoods entirely unscathed, through careful storage and parental
forgetting; and though a neighbouring blanket and a box of rag tag
children's books had both been partially recycled by mice, the drum
itself was whole, untouched, and clean. Nevertheless, it was only saved
from a black bin bag by the fascination of words, and the power of the
Internet.
As search terms, "Charlie Galbraith" and "Barry Howton" together don't
throw up any hits on the Internet. "Charlie Galbraith" throws up a
well-known British trombonist and band-leader, who formed his first band
in 1950. According to the third edition of the Rough Guide to Jazz, his
"All Stars" ran from 1960-1962. "Barry Howton" throws up the drummer on
Alexis Korner's 1964 "Red Hot in Alex" album - "Whether by design or by
default, frequent changes to personnel were always a major element of
the Blues Incorporated modus operandi which was certainly in overdrive
during the months leading up to the "Red Hot From Alex" sessions.
Shortly before they took place, Alexis completely changed his rhythm
section – the "engine room" of any band – by enlisting the services of
Danny Thompson on string bass and Barry Howton on drums to replace
Vernon Bown and Ronnie Dunn..."
Alexis Korner was "the 'father' of British blues", in the words of David
Kennard's 2001 article, "Alexis Korner's Therapeutic Community and the
Birth of British Blues" in the journal Therapeutic Communities 22:1, pp.
19-27. Korner himself had lived for two years in Finchden Manor, the
pioneering therapeutic community for boys created by George Lyward, and
Kennard says that in the early 1960s "Korner created around himself
something which I want to suggest was a kind of therapeutic community
for musicians, comprising his band with its frequent changes of
personnel...and the family flat in Bayswater..."
So, assuming it is authentic, my throw-away drum is no longer just a
drum. Currently safe in the Archive and Study Centre, it has been
transformed by the power of the Internet from a simple object used by
disturbed children at play in a therapeutic community which is now gone,
into a unique archival record of an otherwise unattested association of
Barry Howton with Charlie Galbraith and his band: - A missing piece of
British musical history, at the very least. But more than that, it is a
suggestive bridge. What is the connection of this unassuming, battered
drum to the torn down school? How did the bass drum of someone who later
became a member for a time of the therapeutic community of young
musicians which surrounded Alexis Korner - how did that drum wind up in
another therapeutic community, for children? And how was that connection
forgotten?
[blog entry with photo of the drum: http://news.pettarchiv.org.uk/blog ]
Craig
--
Dr. Craig Fees, RMSA
Archivist
Planned Environment Therapy Trust Archive and Study Centre
Hon. Director, Institute for the History and Work of Therapeutic Environments (a research and study centre of the University of Birmingham)
Church Lane
Toddington near Cheltenham
Glos. GL54 5DQ
United Kingdom
01242 620125
http://www.pettarchiv.org.uk
Keep up to date with Archive News, Events and Recent Accessions: The Archive and study Centre blog at http://news.pettarchiv.org.uk/
|