I hate the Triangle. I should have been a drummer.
My dislike for the triangle goes back to events that happened over a hundred years ago. But I am going to start the story when I was about or ten years old and at primary school.
This school had an orchestra, and once a week the senior classes were required to attend practice lessons. To ensure there wasn’t a disorderly rush to get to the hall, we were called in alphabetical order. Now this may sound a very fair and democratic way of selection. Of course, it isn’t.
Those with names high up the list, the Browns, Carters etc. always got the best instruments. By the time my name, Robinson, was called, the drums had been taken. (What boy doesn’t want to play the drums?) The only instrument left was the triangle.
The triangle is, in my opinion, is the most useless musical instruments ever devised.
A puny piece of metal you hold up on a piece of string and strike it with another piece of metal. And that only happens about once in any piece of music.
I am aware that there are classical percussionists who sometimes get to hit the thing (no one plays a triangle). When I see them do this at a concert, I laugh and guess that their names are probably Smith, Truman or Robinson.
And this is the real reason I hate the triangle.
I have no biological connection with anyone called Robinson.
In the early days of the last century, my paternal grandmother married* an Edward Robinson. At some time in these years, Mr. Robinson went to prison, leaving my grandmother to bring up their two children alone. Benefits were not as generous as they are today, so she took a job in a coffeehouse run by her half- sister.
It was in this coffee house she met my grandfather. He was a successful businessman, and they started an affair. The only problem was my grandfather was married with a son. This did not stop them. He set my grandmother up in a flat and he led a double life. Spending time with his wife and time with my grandmother. They went onto have six children, one of them being my dad.
This is where it gets complicated.
For a reason we have never discovered, my grandmother registered all her children in the name of Robinson.
My grandfather’s name was Samuel Austin.
With the name Austin, I would have been among the first in the rush for the best instruments.
I could have been a drummer. 😎
* There is a twist to this tail. It transpired my grandmother was never married to Edward Robinson. These days, single mothers often register their children with their name and not the father. My grandmother’s maiden name was Scott.
As a Scott, I would have been further down the pecking order. No triangle. Just told to clap or hum. 🙄
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