BANKRUPT MUSICIAN

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19199, 16 December 1936, Page 18

BANKRUPT MUSICIAN

J. H. SQUIRE & HIS DEBTS TRYING FOR COME-BACK £25 TO £2OOO A YEAR LONDON, Nov. 2. .1. li. Squire, musician and leader of the Celeste Octet, appeared for public examination in bankruptcy at Hastings yesterday. The Official Receiver said to him : You appear to have staled publicly that you propose to hold a dinner at the Savoy for your creditors and to each guest- you will hand an envelope containing the amount of the debt, plus 5 per '■ent. Would not that be a foolish thing to do 7 Squire : well, Frank Curzon did it. Official Receiver: Do you know that if there is any dividend for your creditors, it is entirely my business to pay them? -Squire: No. When I gel a better engagement than I have to-day I shall begin to pay off my debts. Squire added: “I am trying hard to come back, but it is difficult. When 1 was at my peak they used to come to me. Now if I write 500 letters and get -isnq PooS qi .lopisifoo j quauiaSnffiia auo ness. Official Receiver: If people in your position had more propensity for. saving during good times they would be happier when they got older. CHANGES IN TASTE Squire replied that he had had extensive medical treatment at heavy cost. Squire stated that he served in the Navy from 1896 for 10 years, earning Is 4d a day. For the first seven years after leaving the Navy his average income from music was £IGOO a year. In 1913 he gave up playing himself, and organised the 'C-eleste Octet. Until 1923 Ins income was from £IOOO to £2OOO a year, and he was music director for six West End theatres. He attributed his failure to eight years of protracted illness, to losses on a fancy goods business, which he established for his daughters, and to the loss of an action in the High C-ourt. He still had an interest in the Octet, lie said, but it did little work now owing to the change in public taste for music and the preponderance of the jazz baud. At present he was engaged in a Hastings restaurant with a promising trio, for which he was receiving eight guineas weeldv.

The hearing was adjourned until Dec