Introduction

I have written this story in poem form to celebrate the memory of my dear Grandfather, Harry, who confided in me this intriguing story of his French aristocratic father.

     One has to remember that for hundreds of years England and France had been enemies, and the very mention of anything French would stir up old hatreds. My grandmother, Alice, would not discuss their Grandfather, Jeane Baptiste, with her three children. This has always been a mystery to me and leads me to me suspect that she had an intense dislike for the French, even though she married my Grandfather, who was half French. She was of truly English parentage, who remembered the conflicts between their two countries. I also suspect that fear of reprisals was always at the back of her mind. 

     It was not until I was ten years of age and had began writing music, that she got a picture of her father in law out of her dressing table draw and told me he was a very clever man and came to England with two fortunes. My grandfather did the same shortly afterwards, but showed me a hand written piece of music and and told me his father had written it. He warned me not to discuss the story with any one, especially my Grandmother who would tear it up.        So young was I to be given a glimpse of the past and not allowed to discuss it - not even with my parents. It was not until I married and my Grandfather told my musician school teacher husband the same story, that true thought began to provoke me into investigating. My husband was dancing Tra-ra-ra Boom-de-ay outside my grandparent's bedroom door, at their maisonette in Debden, when my poor 86 year old grandfather jumped out of his chair and shouted for all the family to hear; "You've been to my bedroom and been to my cupboard beside my bed!" which he must have kept locked. When he died the following year, aged 87, I never thought to ask my grandmother to let me have the piece of paper. I suppose I must have thought she had destroyed it.

     After my grandmother's death some years later at the age of 93 my mother said that My father's brother  who was the eldest out of the four children, had this piece of hand written tune in his hand when the family went to sort out the contents of the maisonette. She regrets that she did not ask for the piece of music for me. I expect my uncle, not realising the importance of the piece of paper to his late father, destroyed it. I often wonder why there was no curiosity shown about the piece of hand written music. I would have loved to have owned it, and would like to believe I would have treasured it as a heirloom momentum to my families ancestry.   Henry, my uncle and father's brother, denied all knowledge of it and said when I eventually told them the story my grandfather related to me a while "Can Can", so he wrote it."  

     When I was ten years old, I heard the "Can Can" being played on the radio and pressed my ear to the speaker and afterwards the commentator said: "We don't know who wrote 'Tra ra ra ra Boom-de-ay', wish we did! It was not Henry J Sayer." I thought: Well, I do, but I mustn't say anything!

    I am telling the story now to set the record straight.