Jack Basham /Vera Johnson

Jack Basham was brought up in Holt, North Norfolk in 1882 and worked as a carpenter, as did his father and brother. After a brief spell living in Nottingham around the turn of the century, he was back in Norfolk by 1907. In the 1930s he lived on Cromer Road, Sheringham and in later years on Wyndham Street, Sheringham, North Norfolk. He performed in a group which played in local pubs and clubs which sometimes involved dressing up in costume. There is photo of him playing guitar, and he made and played this dulcimer in c.1920s.

His daughter, Vera Johnson, married another carpenter, Walter Johnson, and continued to play her father’s dulcimer. The photo above shows her playing at a Christmas party in 1985.

Her repertoire included popular song tunes and this list of tunes was in the dulcimer case when it was donated to Sheringham Museum in 2005 by Joyce Rowe (Jack Basham's grand-daughter and Vera Johnson’s daughter), who lived just along the coast in Weybourne until her death in 2013.