Laurie Horam always considered himself unmusical. But when his son gave him a harmonica, the retired civil servant discovered a natural talent – and a new way to express his emotions
Laurie Horam never thought of himself as musical. At home, his dad never listened to music, while one of his boarding school teachers labelled him tone deaf. But last month he started to busk. And while he accompanies on harmonica his guitar-playing friend Alan Eaton – and people clap, dance and throw coins into Alan’s guitar case for the local food bank – Horam catches himself thinking: “How, at the age of 79¾, do I come to be playing music to people on the streets of Bradford?”
The question preoccupies him, because, some years ago at a family gathering, one of his children said: “‘You know what, Dad? It can’t be coincidental. We must have got our musical abilities from you.’” He has three sons, two daughters and a stepson from two marriages; between them, they cover a range of instruments and genres from techno to rock. Horam was floored. “I said: ‘There can’t be music in me, because I can’t play!’”
