Snapshot: Dad and Grandad with Don, the trench hero

The little boy in the pram is my father, Bernard Templeman Farr, born 1919, the gentleman is his father, Walter James Templeman Farr. The dog is Don. They are outside Farr’s, a dancing academy in Kings Road, Chelsea, London, where they also lived. Walter Farr and his wife, Gladys, were keen Temperance movement supporters and would not countenance alcohol on the premises, but were famed for the quality of their freshly ground coffee. The front of the shop sold soft drinks, sweets and chocolates. In the basement was a large hall (once a shooting gallery), where a band played. The dance schools were popular with girls who worked in service as dance was seen as a safe and acceptable social activity.

If you couldn’t dance, professional tuition was available, either in a group for 1/6d, or a private lesson for 3/-. Some of the professionals were immigrants, including the fabulously named Fermo Apollo Garganico, known to everyone as Bob. Walter’s stepfamily were master signwriters but not good scholars, which you can see from the spelling of “beginers” in the photograph.

Walter was born in 1874, so was quite an old dad when Bernard came along, number four in what became a family of eight children and two stepchildren. The dance schools were the main source of earnings for the expanding tribe. Over the years, the Farrs opened at least six academies across London and Kent; the last one, in Marylebone, was sold in the early 60s.

Although Walter was too old to serve in the war (he was a special constable), Don the dog was in the trenches, serving with the Royal Garrison Artillery. I was told he had suffered injury in a gas attack. Allegedly, he had a glamorous postscript and was the model for the Battersea Dogs Home pavement-mounted collection boxes.

Stephen Farr

Playlist: A sunburst of bliss for me and my dad

Rondo from Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 1 in C major

It’s early morning one weekend in about 1968, give or take, and my dad’s in the bathroom with the kitchen transistor radio, which is red, a thin vinyl-like covering over a wooden cabinet. When he comes out, with the volume turned right up, he’s excited, and I find out why almost immediately

“Listen to this,” he says, his face lit up. “Isn’t it lovely? I heard it once before, but never knew what it was.”

I listened, and soon realise I’ve never heard anything quite like it. The most joyful, dancy, funny piece of classical music I can imagine. A fast, repeated, descending figure on a major scale, dum diddy dum dum, dum diddy dum dum – just a sunburst of optimism and good humour, and then, pushed notes, syncopations, and an eruption of what sounds pretty close to swing.

“What an amazing piece,” says my dad and, for that moment, or pretty much any moment since, I don’t think we could possibly have been more closely in agreement.

What is it about the sudden appearance of what you could call a third element between two people – watching a kitten, or a squirrel, or a landscape, or a cormorant fishing, or a shooting star – that brings such a blissful, close feeling? Maybe it’s that, as with trying to describe the music, the extraordinarily jazzy, catchy Rondo from Beethoven’s first piano concerto, we struggle to say how we feel, or exactly what we’re thinking; to convey, convincingly, what it’s like to be us. Because to do so properly would be to be inside the other person’s head. So to share something completely, in the moment, as my dad and I did then, well, that feels or felt like a touching, an experience of something like telepathy. It was a pure gift.

I was in my early teens and we were in my parents’ bedroom, a year before my parents split up. Looking back, it really was a great moment to have shared. Our enthusiasms coincided, so when Dad bought the LP on his way home from work that same week, we were both as pleased as punch.

I’ve just listened to a couple of dozen versions online, trying to find one with the right verve, pace and blistering good humour. It’s spinning round my head, and bringing back that rare moment, like being in a bubble in time.

Neil Stuart

We love to eat: My mother-in-law’s perfect pavlova

Ingredients
4 egg whites
8oz sugar
1 heaped tbsp cornflour
1 tsp white vinegar
1 tsp vanilla essence
For the topping:
Whipping cream
2 tbsp icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
Raspberries (or other fruits) or Jubes (Fruit Pastilles will do as a substitute) and a crumbled Cadbury’s flake

Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks, then slowly add the sugar while continuing to whisk. Add the cornflour, vinegar and the vanilla essence and mix some more. Spread the mixture on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Bake for two hours at 120C – no peeking. Whip the cream, icing sugar and vanilla essence together and spread over the meringue. Add toppings.

There was mild panic late one Christmas morning when my mother-in-law Pat’s pavlova recipe vanished when my faithful old Nokia mobile phone finally gave up the ghost. What with the 12-hour time difference between the UK and New Zealand, where she lives, there was just about time to call her again and get the recipe, now safely written down on the back of a snowman Christmas gift tag – what could go wrong?

This is wheeled out on special occasions and is always scarfed down in quick time. In the unlikely event that some is left over, it tastes even better the next day, especially if it retains the chewiness that comes from not overcooking it. I usually put two small heart-shaped dollops of meringue next to the main one for my daughters to have a small pav of their own. It’s pretty much foolproof – the only time it failed was because I used malt vinegar and the meringue turned a nasty brown, though it tasted fine – as it always does. Thanks, Pat!

CH

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