Harcourt Harmer (1872-1959)
Harcourt Murrell Harmer lived in and around the small villages of Stalham and Ingham, on the northern fringes of the Norfolk Broads. He started out working as a marshman on the Broads, but then worked on farms and had a spell working as an estate carpenter at Ingham Old Hall.
He was known as ‘Whistler’ because of his musical abilities on the tin whistle, harmonium, brass, piano accordion as well as the dulcimer. As well as playing at home, he is known to have played in the Swan in Ingham, and 50 years after it had last been played, the dulcimer still had the beer stains on to prove it!
The dulcimer was passed first to Whistler’s daughter Margaret Page and then to her daughter, Florence Warnes. In 2005 Florence’s husband, Herbert, showed us the dulcimer and told us about Whistler. Our notes made at the time state that the instrument was a shop-bought model, in a disastrous state of disrepair and so riddled with wood worm and rot, that it was sadly deemed to be beyond salvaging.
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