Music was my first love and it will be my last

Music was my first love and it will be my last.

I'm sharing with you a different kind of newsletter this week and I feel slightly nervous about it.

It's not about continuous improvement or business, its about something else that I'm passionate about, and that subject is music.

A few weeks ago, I was interviewed on a podcast by a lady called Ann Diment who runs a business called ‘Work Safe and Well’.

?Ann has joined me both in person, and remotely on separate occasions on a couple of my weekly Facebook live sessions and she was reciprocating.

?We realised in our early conversations that we were both lovers of music and we were both in bands.

?Our style of music is quite different to each other but the love of music that we both shared was really quite special.

?I come from quite a musical family. When my grandma was young she played piano at her primary school whilst the students marched into assembly in line. She also performed in amateur theatre during her younger life.

My dad also played piano, and I remember very vividly, as a child, all of the adults, including my grandma and my mum, singing along to a piece my dad was playing at my grandma’s house.

My dad and my grandma were very fond of a song from the Moulin Rouge, which Percy Faith made famous, called “Where is your heart”.

What is it about music that whilst I’m writing this, there is a wave of emotion taking over? Sadness that my mum, dad and grandma are no longer with us, but such joy that I remember the wonderful feeling of everyone coming together to sing.

As I grew older, one of my brothers, Steve, taught himself guitar. Now, he was much older than me (I say ‘was’ as he is also sadly not with us now) and he started off in a band when he was sixteen, so was very young when he started rehearsing and gigging.

As I got older I used to go and listen to him and his band in the local working mens clubs. I used to look in awe at my brother playing guitar and singing on stage.

Then when I was fifteen I went for an interview with a band who wanted a lead singer. I had a fairly decent voice so I went with my brother as back up and he played guitar.

I think I sang something by ABBA but I can’t quite remember which one, possibly ‘Gimme Gimme Gimme’ or something like that.

Anyway, they offered me the job but I then found out they were going on a cruise ship to be the resident band. I’d not yet taken my ‘O’ Level’s (yes I’m that old and one of them was ‘O’ Level Music) so I decided against it.

Years later when I moved down to the south east, I started working at a company and someone put an advert out for a lead singer in a new band they were setting up.

Well, it went from there. We never really played many gigs but that wasn’t really the point because as far as we were concerned we just loved playing music.

In fact, when the bass player left that’s when I met my husband Richard.

The last time we played together was three years ago for a very special birthday of mine and the fun we had in the run up to it and on the night itself was fabulous.

We’ve also passed on our musical genes and passion to our son James who plays piano and is just about to take his Music GCSE.

It’s not often that we see him not looking like some kind of robot with his wireless headphones in or ‘gaming’ but I’ve told him already that whatever else interests him, music will be with him for the rest of his life.

Let me know if you have something like music is to me, whether that is theatre, cooking or books, that you are passionate about and stays with you no matter what else goes on in your life .

Just as an aside, I posted a video on Friday 6th May (you can find it in the top featured section of my profile) about our Continuous Improvement Training Programme called "Initiate".

We don't offer "chalk and talk" training, ours is all about learning useful tools that provide you and your team with the ability to increase efficiency, implement sustainable processes and save money. We provide you with an innovative and interactive programme, that you will really enjoy whilst you're on it and be able to use the tools that you've learned in years to come.

The programme will enable you to recognise who your improvement champions are, how to develop them and move your improvements forward, using our “Learn, Do, Implement” process.

Here is a link to the programme details on our website or you can send me a message if you are interested in learning more about it.

We also have a free Facebook community, where there is a weekly live session sharing continuous improvement methods, as well as supporting you in your CI?journey.

Have a great week.

Liz