Much-loved pianist Tony Ireland to celebrate 90th birthday

Join me in a round of applause for Mr Tony Ireland who will be 90 years old later this week.

The piano-playing music master. The kind of teacher you never forget. A man who inspired generations of boys and girls to get the most out of life.

And then he would be off to play music with many different bands and groups across Norfolk and Suffolk as people danced the night away.

The original “Tony and Friends (Image: Ireland Family Collection)

Tony and his colleagues were always a class act playing a huge range of music and often raising large amounts of money for many different charities.

Born in Harvey Lane, Norwich, in 1933 Anthony was christened at St Matthew’s Church, Thorpe Hamlet.

“I remember watching a swarthy Italian with his barrel organ play. I had never heard music like it and was entranced by the sound which seemed to radiate happiness,” he said.

His father bought a piano. He started having lessons on how to play from Miss Warmoll at Maud Street and a young pianist emerged.

Tony gained a scholarship to Norwich School in 1945, became the Sunday School pianist at Holy Trinity Church and went to Elm Hill dancing studio run by Eileen Page.

<6> The Remon Quartet pictured at the studio of Alex Forbes Wright photographed around 1958 (Image: Ireland Family Collection)

On trips to Gorleston he loved to listen to the one and only blind organist Eddie Gates – more about Eddie in the coming weeks.

Tony’s first dance band was called The Maxinas, along with Richard Brown, Roger Hook and Chris Spalding and their first date was a wedding reception at Roxley Hall at Thorpe. They arrived on their bikes – and brought the house down being paid several times at the end of the night!

Playing with so many different bands and singers, serving his country by doing National Service, and returning to Norwich he become a teacher at Thorpe Hamlet Junior School.

<5> All that jazz with the Thorpe Hamlet School Jazz Band (Image: Ireland Family Photos)

So many former pupils have told me over the years that Mr Ireland was a brilliant teacher and when he wasn’t at school he was playing with many different bands and groups..

There were so many – remember Brian Green and the Dixielanders? they were great.

He inspired the pupils at Thorpe Hamlet to take an interest in music, singing and the arts and they put on some excellent shows and performances.

The opening chorus from Tony’s Double Dutch show at Thorpe Hamlet School in 1958 (Image: Ireland Family Collection)

Tony retired from teaching in 1989 and said: “It was something to look back on and say: ‘It was music to my ears’ and ‘Music, music all the way’”

He was a musician people loved with a passion and became the pianist at the Sandringham Hotel in Great Yarmouth.

Then there was the time he was part of the Norfolk TA band at Britannia Barrack playing the clarinet, and wore ill-fitting uniform to play for the Queen when she opened County Hall.

Because of the way he looked, and as he was out of step with the others in the band, he was placed out of sight behind a pillar and joined in after the march, so not to embarrass the whole company in front of the Queen!

Buster Keaton film show pianists Tony Ireland and Barry Bryan at Cinema City in Norwich, January 2003 (Image: Newsquest Archive)

Tony and his friends later turned into The Old Codgers, a class act helping many good causes across Norfolk. People loved them.

And the music continued when he and his wife Miriam moved to Cromer and then Overstrand. First came the Community Choir, the Cromer Society and then he was one of The Bats in the Belfry.

And so much more…

Master of Music, Tony Ireland, pictured last year. He will be 90 this week (Image: Ireland Family Collection)

Thanks for the memories Tony and a very happy birthday.

Look out for his books S’Wonderful (A Symphony of Musical Memories) and S’Wonderful (More Musical Memories) published  more than 20 years ago but available on line via Bittern Books. They are brilliant.