“As will be widely known, John Newton (author of Amazing Grace) was a former slaveship captain whose life was indeed ‘saved’ and profoundly changed after he let out an almost involuntary prayer during a serious shipwreck,” Ian said.
Ian is a direct descendant of one William Miles (1728-1803, of Ledbury) who went via Bristol to Jamaica and back as a sugar merchant and large-scale venture-financier, becoming Mayor of Bristol in 1780 — much the same era, indeed, as Amazing Grace was penned.
“William’s son Philip was the city’s first millionaire, and William himself had no fewer than three ships named in his memory in the 19th century, at least two of which were used on colonist and/or convict runs to New Zealand and elsewhere.”
On Ian and Alison’s first visit to Gisborne in December 2007 an earthquake happened on their very first evening south of the Equator.
They also visited a Christchurch genealogist whose own direct ancestors had met in a shipboard romance in the 1860s on such a voyage aboard the William Miles, and been married just a fortnight after landing.
Ian said he was ambivalent about his seafaring ancestry, though his grandfather was a distinguished (twice-knighted) Admiral and military diplomat, and his father, as a 21-year-old newly-qualified submarine commander 100 years ago — escorted convoys across the embattled mid-WW2 North Atlantic, with the lives of six dozen crewmates in his hands.
As a church musician Ian said he had a deep respect for the Spirituals tradition, doing his best to include at least one such item in any programme he could.
In his days (2000-2006) directing the Oxford Welsh Male Choir, for instance, he would usually introduce a Spiritual arrangement with an apologetic, expiatory nod to his 18th-century ancestry.
“Thus in last Wednesday’s turn-of-the-year concert at St Andrew’s I included David Machell’s ‘theatrical’, yet deeply respectful, organ arrangement of Deep River.
“But to be (probably) the first organist on the planet to strike-up Amazing Grace, that iconic hymn of faith of the reformed slaver, on New Year’s morning just 250 years on is something that will stay with me for the rest of my life.”
Ian is a keen organist, shown by his continued performance during the Covid pandemic in the UK.
In the (European) ‘lockdown’ summer of 2020, he set up a YouTube channel ‘Ian’s Interludes’ using his home electronic organ across a range of styles and idioms, including some items (eg the Schubert Octet Scherzo, Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore overture and Deep River) that he has now also played in Gisborne.
His original profession of four decades is as a teacher, originally of modern European languages, though latterly he has spread his wings as more of a generalist. However, 2022 has been dominated by the arrival of many Ukrainians in his home village, where he has set up regular English language lessons three times a week with a nucleus of adult students, ably assisted by other volunteer colleagues.
This is Ian and Alison’s seventh visit, as stepson Matthew (Smith) has married locally and is raising children now aged 11 and nine.
Back in 2007 he had yet to begin a decade of parish organistship at home, but found himself playing a more-or-less New Year service impromptu and at pointblank notice at Hanmer Springs while touring there.
He said the experience of sitting down in shorts, sandals and short sleeves and playing carols about snowbound sheep
in the midsummer Kiwi sun was a bit “strange”.
Since then, he has developed a “cordial creative contact” with Catherine Macdonald and Gavin Maclean, and given lunchtime concerts with them each time family ties bring him and Alison to Gisborne.
On this visit his repertoire included stirring marches, attractive music in varying moods from the Home Nations, Commonwealth, Europe and ‘New World’, and a variety of pieces by women composers — including a delightful lullaby by Venezuelan Teresa Carreño.
The main feature last Wednesday, though, in duet with Catherine and Gavin’s daughter Belinda Behle, was Ian’s Carolcade medley: a ‘four-hander’ piano novelty (originally written back in 1982 for him to play with his brother!) in which a few dozen seasonal tunes get ‘played-with’ and intermingled over five minutes or so.
