Audio File
Royal Northern College Of Music (RNCM)
2019

Howard Bamforth describes how his friends Joan and Gerald Harrop became huge opera fans.

Howard: They told me it was Joan who was the opera fan mainly by listening to shellac recordings of arias she got interested in opera. I don’t think Gerald was all that interested in opera but Joan was. I believe Gerald was in the RAF? I think he was in Jerusalem for a time. I’m not quite sure how long he was in the RAF but it was during the second world war. When Gerald came back Joan persuaded Gerald to start going to concerts and going to opera and they both became mad on opera. I think Gerald was a train spotter and he collected train numbers but then he started collecting opera singers.

Ref: JGH