John with sisters and worldy-wise Uncle Thomas who warned about the growing power of America in the Pacific.
John Ashe was born in Sydney on September 4, l907, the day the Norwegian nationalist composer Edvard Grieg died . As a result , Ashe was wont to say he was Grieg’s reincarnation . Ashe’s father , a clerk with the Bank of Australasia, left the family behind and went to Western Australia to explore the possibility of improving his lot by farming with some brothers who lived there.
John, only five, remembered seeing his father off on the ship to WA. Within a short time of his arrival out west , his father dived into a shallow dam and was found floating , dead. His grief - stricken widow , accompanied by her mother , four children , two boys and two girls, ranging from nine months to seven years, returned in l913 to Townsville , where she had met and married her husband.
(By Peter Simon)
The house in which they eventually lived with elderly relatives was a wooden miner’s cottage transported to Townsville from the goldmining town of Charters Towers ; additional rooms were added to accommodate all the occupants. It was a musical household filled with lively people , including , on the maternal side, great uncle Thomas Eykyn.
Uncle Tom, aristocratic in bearing and manner, was brought up in England by a relative who had been an MP for Eton and Windsor , married to a daughter of the sixth Lord Vaux. Through the MP, Uncle Tom met British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and described him as having a yellow and crinkled face.
Attracted to the cloth , Uncle Tom trained at the Salisbury Theological College, was versed in Latin and Ancient Greek, and became an ordained Church of England minister . In midlife he gave up the church and travelled widely in the Pacific , calling on Queensland relatives along the way. During his travels he became concerned about the growing influence of America , saying he had been in Hawaii before “ the blasted Yanks owned it. ”
There he met the last reigning monarch of the Hawaiian islands, Queen Liliuokalani , who was forced to give up her throne when the country was annexed by the US . During his time there he had been taken to a cave in which he was told were buried the bones of Captain Cook . This claim , he said , was highly dubious as had been the people who acted as his guides .
His interest in the Pacific inspired him to write a Polynesian mass , Missa Pacifica , which included an Hawaiian melody , a copy of which is in the National Library of Australia. As a result of his observations , he wrote a book , Parts of the Pacific by a Peripatetic Parson. Uncle Tom wrote several other books , one being John Bull Awake , which warned the British Empire was being taken over by America . His attitude to America obviously rubbed off on his nephew.
In l922, at the age of 67, Uncle Tom had moved in with the Ashe family in Townsville , bringing with him an extensive library , including an l864 edition of the poetical works of Thomas Moore , which young John found inspiring. Ashe’s interest in literature was heightened when in l923 he was awarded Palgrave’s Golden Treasury as a maths prize at Townsville Grammar School .
Ashe put mathematics to great use-musically . He wrote that he discovered the piano was a mathematical instrument and located all the main chords by arithmetic . Playing about with the piano , he was soon composing small pieces and also setting poems to music as songs. In those early days Ashe said Schubert had been his “God” because he had been the first man to know you must NOT play on the piano what you are singing …it must be something different to the melody , but with it harmonise.
Uncle Tom had a vast repertoire of songs , some of them quaint old English airs , and taught John to sing in French, Spanish and Italian . Uncle was a master of the King’s English and deplored the way Australians spoke “ beastly Cockney.”Ashe’s first job was as a copyholder to a proofreader at the Townsville Daily Bulletin. Then he went to the State Government Insurance office and later worked for public accountant C. T. Leach .
A 1936 newspaper item reported that an old English music song play , “Come Lassies and Lads,” had been produced at St Anne’s Girls’ School. During the interval , Miss Mariette Ashe sang two numbers- “When Maidens Love” and “Just a Song At Twilight” . Mr “ Jack Ashe “ sang the “Miller’s Daughter”and” The Minstrel.”
In l938 he became the North Queensland representative of the Blennerhofosett Institute of Accountancy , a coaching firm . Ashe sang some of his early songs over the Townsville radio station 4TO ; just before World War 11 he was a radio announcer for three months . People who remembered his time as a DJ said he always tried to inject humour into the show . Subsequently, he explained that radio announcers each day had to play mass produced , run of the mill , uninspiring “bullsh” about loving you until the stars fall out of the sky , and crying your heart out , interspersed with moronic hillbillies .
As Uncle Tom lay dying in l940 , he anxiously asked how the Battle of Britain was going and if the Mother Country was winning the war. During his life he had written many letters to prominent people in Britain, including Royalty, Winston Churchill , Field Marshall Lord Roberts and the writer Marie Corelli . The letters he received in reply were kept in a box in a cabinet and on it being sold after his death to a secondhand dealer were thrown into a bin and burnt.
Ten days after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour on December 7, l941, Ashe was employed as an accountant with the US Army Finance Office in Townsville until l945. During this time he saw vast amounts of money being paid out to US servicemen from a large table in what was part of the Commonwealth Bank . His sister, Mariette, a North Queensland Eisteddford prize winning contralto with a striking voice, was given the unusual job of censoring letters American servicemen sent home and was shocked by some of the things she read .
It was suggested Ashe should write a war song , which he did – Swing Boys Sing – his first pop song in print. Copies were sent to all military bands throughout Australia . It was reported to be “ all the rage ” at the Ingleburn Army Camp , near Sydney. Another wartime song he wrote was Australia For Me . Unable to get a publisher for the tune , he paid for 500 copies of sheet music himself and sent them off to many artists. The internationally acclaimed Australian baritone Peter Dawson responded warmly. With an autographed photograph came the encouraging Dawson message : “ A good song, and when the occasion arises I will sing it . I admire your love of country , and hope you will give us much more . Worthwhile songs are scarce.” Dawson’s frequent singing of Waltzing Matilda during the war made it popular overseas and in Australia.
In a special wartime tribute to America , Ashe wrote Aint It Grand To Have A Rich Uncle Sam , the sheet music of which was decorated with the flags of both countries . A patriotic tune he composed was Australia ( Home Sweet Home ) which was sung by Alan Light with the National Military Band and the Sydney Singers over the ABC national programme; it was also recorded by the Ivan Rixon singers on the Prestophone label.
Ashe often took American servicemen home where they mainly listened to classical records. One of the Americans was Gabriel Jacoby , possibly a colonel, who had worked for the New York music publishers , Leo Feist Inc . In l942 Jacoby was sent to see Ashe after he told a Townsville music shop proprietor he had a song in his head that he wanted to put down on paper. From a jungle in New Guinea Jacoby sent Ashe lyrics for Memory Hill which he turned into a catchy, slow foxtrot. The song was sung to troops in New Guinea by Lanny Ross with the backing of a band . Ashe and Jacoby collaborated to produce other songs – Dream In Your Heart and Convicted and Sentenced.
Jacoby , who lived in Alabama, corresponded with Ashe after the war and tried to get American record companies interested in his Australian friend’s songs. From New York came a “ nice ” letter from Jacoby’s old boss , Mr Vocco, then a partner in music publishers Bregman Vocco and Conn, about a waltz John had written called Love’s Island.
While commenting favourably on the song , the publisher said the firm was so involved with Fox Films they could not handle it for him . In a l956 letter to Jacoby , Ashe voiced his frustration at being a battling songwriter in Australia . “ I have been promised so much in this country that never comes off , I am now convinced we are a lot of no –hopers here !” There had been a promise to record some songs in Melbourne , but nothing had been heard from the company for 10 months …“ Could drive you crazy !” NEXT: Inspiration from the bush and marriage .
