MUSIC IN THE CLOUDS

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLXI, Issue 15235, 28 December 1942, Page 4

MUSIC IN THE CLOUDS

FLYING- OFFICER-COMPOSER Flying Officer Alan Nichols, who makes the musieal arrangements for th© 8.8.C.’s '‘Boomerang Club” programme sent out every Monday in the Pacific Service, never leaves music grounded. He joined the Air Force early in 1940. Since then he’s flown 'Spitfires and Hurricanes, done a bit of night fighting in Beau fighters, and is training for heavy bombers. He takes manuscript paper with him on all his flights and works out those striking orchestrations for Billy Mayerl’s concert orchestra which are such a feature of the “Boomerang” broadcast.

On bis last leave he presented the producer—Alick Hayes—with a new treatment of “Waltzing in the Clouds.” “If it isn’t the most realistic treatment of this song ever written it ought to be,” he said, “because when I roughed it out I really was waltzing in—or rather above—the clouds. At about twenty thousand feet.” Alan w r as fourteen when he decided to study music. Even if he could have afforded the money to study at college, he couldn’t afford the time, because he was spending his days at an art school. Having a will of his own, however, he found a way. He started to teach himself at home by means of books he borrowed fiom the local public library. Four years later, when he sat for a scholarship, the board of examinees found it hard to believe that anyone could attain such a standard under those conditions. Shortlv after that Nichols joined a London dance band. He played “tenor sax’ and made the musical arrangements. In between times he sketched everything in sight. And, what’s more, he wrote a good deal of serious music.