Walter Jeary (1901-1981)
Walter Jeary was born in 1901 in Bodham and in 1918 the family moved to Gunthorpe, where his father (also Walter) took on the licence of the Cross Keys pub, where he stayed as landlord until 1951. Walter senior played the concertina and stepdanced and encouraged Walter and his brothers Herbert and Ernest to do likewise. It is believed that Walter senior had a dulcimer but didn’t play it – Walter junior’s first steps on the dulcimer were taken when the family were still in Bodham, from a blind musician, and the social life of the Cross Keys gave him the opportunity to play in public. It was probably this musician (who might have been Herbert Burgess, a blind dulcimer player from Briston) who inspired Walter’s party trick of playing blindfolded.
Walter’s son, Jimmy, recalled that his father used to carry the dulcimer on the crossbar of his bike to the King William pub in Docking, where they lived when he (Jimmy) was young, in the 1930s: ‘He’d play in there on Christmas Eve. He’d bring home enough pennies and that home to see us right through Christmas. If he got a bit of silver in with that, he was pleased!’ It would be interesting to know if this was the same pub in Docking that welcomed Billy Cooper in the 1950s and 60s.
Later the family moved to Northrepps and Walter continued playing, often in the Foundry Arms, through the 1940s. Following an injury when kicked in the face by a horse, Walter lost sight in one eye and was also partially deaf, but it didn’t spoil his enthusiasm for playing music. He was never keen to teach any of his children to play, although his son Jimmy would often accompany him on the bones. He and Jimmy travelled to pubs such as the Vernon Arms in Southrepps and the Albion in Cromer, where there was always stepdancing, music and singing. Walter sang comic songs in the pubs, but never played for dancing in village halls, considering that to be the preserve of bigger bands. Several recordings were made in these areas in the 1950s, and in 1958 Russell Wortley recorded Walter’s playing several stepdance tunes and some song tunes.
In the 1970s, Walter was visited by David Kettlewell for his dulcimer research. Kettlewell described Walter’s style as ‘very personal’, with ‘a constant crotchet rhythm, whatever the rhythm of the original tune.’ This insistent rhythm may in part have been due to his keen involvement in stepdancing: in the late 1970s Ann-Marie Hulme and Peter Clifton met him while researching stepping and greatly admired his neat, light style even at the age of 76 and wearing carpet slippers!
Walter died in 1981.
Recordings of Walter Jeary
In 1958/59 Russell Wortley recorded Walter Jeary in Northrepps, Norfolk and his original recordings are now housed in the British Library’s Sound Archive. His surname is given as Geary but from all other evidence it is Jeary. All recordings are copyright: Diana Hillman.
Following a cyber attack, the British Library Sound Archive recordings are not available online, but the tunes recorded were:
1958
C777/5 S1 C2 [unidentified tune]
C777/5 S1 C3 Covered wagon
C777/5 S1 C4 Knees up mother Brown
C777/5 S1 C5 Old Faithful
C777/5 S1 C6 Sweet violets
C777/5 S1 C7 Sailors hornpipe
C777/5 S1 C8 Cock of the North
C777/5 S1 C9 Manchester (Ricketts) hornpipe
C777/5 S1 C10 Manchester (Ricketts) hornpipe
C777/5 S1 C11 Yarmouth breakdown
C777/5 S1 C12 Road to the Isles
C777/5 S1 C13 Genevieve
C777/5 S1 C14 Farmer’s boy
1959
C777/8 S1 C13 Cock of the North
C777/8 S1 C14 Heel and toe polka
C777/8 S1 C15 Let the rest of the world go by / After the ball was over / Waltz from the Merry Widow / Daisy / [unidentified tune]
C777/8 S1 C16 [unidentified polka]
C777/8 S1 C17 Sheringham breakdown
C777/8 S1 C18 Hundred pipers (Rory O’More)
C777/8 S1 C19 Yarmouth breakdown
C777/8 S1 C20 They’re all idle fellows that follow the plough [Man all tattered and torn]
C777/8 S2 C1 They’re all idle fellows that follow the plough [Man all tattered and torn]
C777/8 S2 C2 Mary Ellen
C777/8 S2 C3 Barley Mow
Four of these recordings are available on the CD album ‘I thought I was the only one’, dulcimer playing in East Anglia (2015) VTDC12CD which can be bought as a physical CD or streamed via the Veteran label.
Track: 7. Sheringham Breakdown
Track: 8. Sailor’s Hompipe
Track: 9. Heel and Toe Polka
Track: 10. Yarmouth Hornpipe
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