Excerpts from the memoirs of Bert Gidley (1917-1997) transcribed in 1982 and provided by his daughter Karen Campbell
"I started high school at South Collegiate (ca 1930). My only claim to fame there was playing in the band. I was playing piano quite well at that time, having been taking lessons for 7 years. I had fallen in love with the sax and could play it well enough to get in the band. At that time there was no music taught in the schools and you had to have your own instrument. I guess I should relate how I got a sax. The Wenige family were in the real estate business and had bought a rooming house on Dundas St. just east of Waterloo on the north side. Times were getting a little tough about this time, so they sold their home on Erie Ave. and moved into an apartment at the back end of the rooming house. Next door to the apartment was a Supertest gas station so, when I was visiting with my friend Buck Wenige we spent a lot of time over there. One of the mechanics – Al Skingby played sax in a dance band and he used to bring it to work and practice at noon hour. That’s when I got hooked and persuaded my Dad to buy me one. He bought me a new Conn alto from a friend of Ab’s who sold instruments. So I took lessons from Ab for about 6 months. I used to get up at 6 o’clock in the morning to practice.
Acquiring this instrument really was a turning point in my life. I didn’t realize it then, but I do now. It wasn’t long until I was approached by a Wilmer Martin who had a small group playing around town. This was my introduction to the music world. We were playing in some pretty tough joints in London and I remember my Dad was quite concerned about the influence it would have on me - for a while he would come to pick me up right after the dances so I would come right home. I wasn’t 16 yrs old at the time!
We used to play on the radio a couple of times a week usually for 15 minutes, and sometimes a half-hour. London’s radio (station) was called CJGS. Radio was pretty primitive - this would have been about 1932. We didn’t get paid, but got a lot of free advertising (and got a lot of jobs from this). I was now in my 3rd year at South and was playing quite a few jobs with the band. Soon my schoolwork began to suffer and I quit, compared to my contemporaries I was quite rich. We were playing maybe 3 times a week and getting a couple of dollars a night, places like St. George’s hall, Moose Lodge, Hyman Hall and other legion halls. Out of town we played in Komoka, Woodstock, it seemed like easy money for me - some people in the depression worked all day long for a few dollars.
In the summer of 1934, the event that changed my whole life was the sale of my Dad’s butcher shop in London to move to the farm in London Township. He bought it lock, stock and barrel, it was his dream of a lifetime but to me it seemed like living in the middle of nowhere from a city home with all the conveniences to one in the sticks with no hydro, no running water, no bathroom. It was like the end of the world. However, time went on, we persevered and became quite good farmers. But we had little money and lots of work. About 1935 I started playing piano with a small group called Shipley’s orchestra (Jack and Harry). I could earn two dollars for playing from 9pm till 2 am. This was much easier than threshing all day, but we had to do both. Shortly after I started with Shipley, I had the chance to play sax with a group from Lakeside. Soon the jobs were conflicting, so I let my brother Edward play the piano for jobs with Harry Shipley. This worked out fine for both of us.
It must have been the summer of 1935 or 1936 that I got a call from Wilmer Martin, whom I had played with previously. He was forming a big band and wanted me to play sax. I remember it was hard to get a ride to London to practice. One time I rode my bike with my sax across the handlebars - Highbury Ave. wasn’t paved then, so it was hard.
Through my connections with the Weniges we auditioned for a job at Port Stanley. Mr. Wenige was mayor of London again that year and the city had just constructed an open-air dance hall with a terrazzo floor. We got a contract there for about six weeks. I boarded with my grandparents on Byron Ave and had a free pass on the London & Port Stanley Railroad. I went back and forth every day, quite an experience. I forget how much we were paid, maybe $20 per week. Shortly after this, I rehearsed with Tim Freeborn’s band. He had about a 12 piece band. We played a benefit dance at Birr Winter Gardens for the 1937 flood victims. I also remember a Friday-Saturday night job we did in Orillia; it was an audition for a summer job, but we didn’t get it.
In the spring of 1937 I worked as a farm hand for George Stewart (of London township). I met a young girl working there to help with the house work and I was soon bitten by the love bug. We started dating that summer and from then on, there was no one else for me. I left that job when they wanted to cut my wages back to 15.00 per month for the winter. I was playing for Jared Vining two or three nights per week through the winter months and made about $5.00 per job. It was much better than working on the farm. I still played with different groups as needed until the fall of 1938. At this time George Nangle came to see me about playing sax in a group he was organizing. George’s wife was Rose Doyle who lived across the street from us in London. Her younger brother Jack and I were boyhood chums. In fact, we had formed a little group and used to practice at his home. He played the violin; I played sax, my brother Edward on piano and a neighbour Bill O’Loughlin on drums. George started taking jobs for the band in the winter of 1938. We had 3 saxes, 1 trumpet, drums, bass and piano. It was a pretty crummy outfit at the start but did improve somewhat as the winter progressed. We played quite a few jobs that winter and on into the spring. In early summer 1939, George got an offer to play at Sauble Beach for 7 weeks. He offered us $20.00 per week and a free cottage. Now at this time Rose was playing piano and raising a family, so they couldn’t go to Sauble. That’s when we got my brother to play piano for us. Also, Art and Clarence Haskett were in the band. Their father had a funeral home and furniture store in Lucan, so they both couldn’t go at the same time. A young chap staying on their uncle’s farm named Chuck Seewald played tenor sax so George got him to come and take Art’s place for most of the summer. This turned out to be one of the best summers I ever had and the only drawback was that the one I had grown to love very much was many miles away working in London. I certainly missed her but it was that summer I saved up enough money to buy her an engagement ring. I know we would have married sooner, but I didn’t have enough steady income.
After the Sauble Beach engagement, Chuck went back to his home in Detroit, so we needed another sax player. I knew a sax player Adam Brock over at Thorndale, as I had played a couple of times with him at Lakeside. So Bill Dewan and I went over to see him and talked him into coming to play with us. We had become disillusioned with George Nangle that summer as we found out he was trying to “gyp” us out of some of our pay. So the fellows decided to ditch him and we persuaded Adam Brock to put the band in his name. This was to be a co-op band sharing the wealth equally (Adam Brock and his Columbians). We played a lot of jobs that year. Because of the war, it was very hard to get musicians, so we disbanded. Eleanor and I decided to get married in April of 1941. We sure didn’t have much money, but it was time."
Bert Gidley's memoirs about his playing days ends here but daughter Karen goes on to say:
Bert and Edward played locally with Clayt Steeper’s Orchestra for a couple of years during the war. After the war to 1953, Bert played in Adam Brock’s reformed orchestra, again known as ‘Adam Brock and His Columbians’. They would play for dances around southwestern Ontario, in communities like Clinton, Ipperwash, Lakeside, Hyde Park, Parkhill and Lucan – held usually on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights. As advertised, the orchestra could be heard on CFPL radio Tuesday nights from 6 to 6:30 pm. Sometimes in the winter months, Bert would have to walk to Birr, saxophone in hand, from his farm on the 13th concession to get a ride to the dances, because the road often had not been plowed. Adam Brock and His Columbians, disbanded in 1953.
