Special Memories … shared with Friends!

The above photo was taken 18 years ago … in mid-December 2003! You likely do not recognize all of the faces, and you may not even know any of them.

Yes, I am in the picture on the right with my dear wife, Alicia. The gentleman on the left is renowned English conductor, composer, arranger John Fox and his wife Joy. This photo, and all of the images I’m sharing here, were taken during a week we spent with the Foxes at their home in the village of Banstead, situated more or less south of London in Surrey County. Sadly, of the four, I am the only one still living.

I recently came across this collection of pictures, as they were in an album that I thought contained only photos from another trip Alicia and I had taken and couldn’t think of a better time to share them.

I first met the Foxes in the early 1980s when my company, Bonneville Broadcast Consultants, contracted with John to create and then record orchestral arrangements of pop hit songs for use in our radio programming. When ready for a recording session, I would go over to London, take along a check, sit in the control room as the songs were recorded, and give my approval to each one, then bring the completed master tapes back to America. You can find more on this story here.

I initially got to know Joy better, as she always went along with John to all of his recording sessions and would sit in the control room, as did I. In the earlier trips –– there was one, sometimes two sessions a year through the 1980s –– I would stay at a hotel in London, and they’d pick me up. However, in later years, as we got to know each other better and they had come to America for the marriage of Joy’s daughter Marion, during which time they stayed at our home in New Jersey, I was invited to stay at their Banstead home. With that background, we return to the 2003 trip.

One thing you should know about John is he loved dogs! I do not remember which one is Johns’ dog as there were usually at least two dogs in the house. One of these dogs was owned by a neighbor who frequently traveled. From what I could tell, it loved being with John and Joy and his “friend” better than being at home, so it mostly lived with the Foxes. A regular habit of John’s when time permitted was to take the dogs out to a nearby park for a good run. This day I went along so we could talk music.

Whenever we’d chat by telly across “the pond,” the question always asked was, “do the people in American still like my music?” While he never addressed it openly, I know it deeply bothered him that he never quite achieved the fame and acclaim of his peers, such as Frank Chacksfield and Percy Faith.

They took us on a delightful ride through the English countryside on a nice day. Before returning to the house, we stopped at a pub for lunch. After eating, John disappeared and was soon spotted sitting at the piano, beginning to play. After several minutes of a variety of tunes, he got around to “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.” Being that was a song my wife Alicia loved to sing, she quickly jumped up to sing along.

Another day, they suggested Alicia and I take the train into London another day, which we happily did. It was an easy ride from a nearby village named Croydon. To help people avoid getting their foot caught between the edge of the platform and the train doors, signs reading “Mind the Gap” were in many English train stations. I’ve seen “Watch the Gap” signs here in the U. S. in recent years, but not as prevalent as in London.

Alicia and I had both been to London previously, and we had a good idea of what we wanted to see. High on Alicia’s list was Harrod’s Department Store, which at the time displayed a tribute to the late Princess Diana. We also needed to get a good look at Buckingham Palace and visit Westminster Abbey. We lunched at a pub across from the Abbey, where I was shocked not to be able to have a cup of tea –– I was advised that you don’t drink tea until 4 P. M., that’s “tea time.”

On Sunday evening, they took us to a Christmastime musical performance at a historic church in the nearby community of Reigate –– what made this church unique was not only that it supposedly was built around the year 1100, it still had a dirt floor! Alicia took no pictures that evening, and I’ve found nothing in her notes providing any details, except for a telephone number which is no longer valid. I’ve researched, including talking to people in Reigate but have not come up with any information about the church. I can’t believe it would have been destroyed. My memory tells me it was in the central part of the village, as afterward, we walked down the street to visit friends of John and Joy.

I can’t resist including these two photos of Joy, a Scottish lass born in Edinburgh but had moved to London to marry and give birth to her three children, one of whom –– Marion –– lives here in America. Joy was also a singer in her own right, known professionally as Joy Devon … which is how she and John met.

As you can see here, Joy appeared quite healthy and bright in spirit with plenty of energy. Sadly, not far into the new year, cancer had returned, and surgery was required if there was to be hope. Yet, following the surgery, she regained sufficient strength to pull together a huge celebration to honor John on his 80th birthday on April 30 of 2004!

In the weeks between then and mid-August, it was painful to receive updates, as each one mainly reported another setback, as Joy moved between hospitals, nursing homes, her own home, and, finally, hospice. I needed to know, as there was some “spiritual” connection between Joy and me that I can’t explain. To that end, I awoke early on Saturday, August 14, 2004 –– the only thing on my mind was to call the hospice facility in England to check on Joy’s condition. With that timeline and location, we pick up with a short few sentences from John’s autobiography, My Musical World:

” … there were nine of us around Joy’s bed when the telephone rang and a nurse said, ‘There is a telephone call for you, Mr. Fox. It is from the United States. Would you like to take it?’

Weakly I whispered, ‘Yes,’ even though I had no idea who it could be. It was my publisher* in Washington, D. C., Marlin Taylor. He was so very fond of Joy and being a religious man with a firm belief in God, he said a sermon over the phone. It was a wonderful spiritual message to Joy and I noticed she briefly raised her eyebrows. A few minutes later, she passed away peacefully.”

I need to add a couple of notes related to John’s statements…

First, my company, Surrey House Music, came into being when John asked me, as a favor, to set up an ASCAP publishing entity. An American company wanted to use a couple of his arrangements, and he wanted his recordings to have an official U. S. publisher. The name “Surrey House” is because (as stated earlier) the Foxes home was in the village just south of London in Surrey County. Today our company’s primary activity is as a “record company,” not a publishing entity.

And second, what John describes as my “saying a sermon,” I have no clue. It likely was a form of prayer, at which I’ve never been very good.

Finally, if you’d like to read John’s life story, it’s available from Amazon.

Before I wrap up, here’s a couple of photos from the business center of Banstead, which was just a short walk from John and Joy’s home:

By the way, John passed away in February 2015, just shy of his 91^st birthday. I would lose my dear Alicia in February 2019. Though they are no longer with us, they have left beautiful legacies for us to enjoy and treasure.

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