As told to Patrick Allen

In 1972 I was living in Osney Lane, Oxford with two friends. I was having fun playing in bands and doing odd jobs. Work was easy to get at that time. I was about to go to London in 1973 to do a music degree at the Institute of Education. 

Jamie Gough was my next door neighbour in Osney Lane. He was a piano player like me. Jamie had quite extravagant people calling round, he was a great cook and good company so we became friends and things took off from there. It was a lively social scene. Through Jamie I met Sacha Craddock and often went to her house at St Frideswides in North Oxford. 

When I came to London I needed somewhere to live. For a while I lived in the basement of a Nash terrace in Regents Park. Then in 1975, Jamie and Sacha invited me to move into number 12 Tolmers Square, sharing the house with them, Colin, Cora and Pedro.

I was studying pretty hard and doing teaching practice in Limehouse and Mile End. I used to hang out with Colin who was a medical student at that time at Barts Hospital. We were students with a fairly heavy workload but hanging out and enjoying the ambience of Tolmers Square.

I was involved in the music at the carnivals in the Square. 

There was a piano at number 12 which Jamie played a lot – we sang Cole Porter songs round the piano after dinner. Jamie was an excellent Elvis Presley impersonator and sang a memorable ‘All shook up’.

 I accompanied Patrick Allen (who lived next door at no 11 ) on the flute. We played Bach and Handel flute sonatas. We  made trips to Fenton House, Hampstead where there was a harpsichord collection and were allowed to play while visitors wandered around us.

In 1977 I was working like mad for my BA honours when I had the offer of an MPhil in Oxford from the education department in Norham Gardens and an MA at Kings College to study mediaeval education.

I decided against both! Instead I went on a ‘teaching English as a foreign language ‘ course so I could travel the world. The only other option was teaching music in the state school system which I didn’t fancy.

In 1979, when I had my qualification, I went abroad, initially to Kuwait, then Spain, Sweden, France and Portugal. My best experience was in Spain which was like a paradise for me. I lived in Madrid, then Seville and Granada.

I met Blanca in Spain where we married and had two children. We travelled to Paraguay, then to Canada as a result of a project that Blanca was doing with the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organisation, ending up in Toronto in 1999.

Since then, I’ve been back to Europe several times, mainly to Spain where I walk the Camino de Santiago pilgrim trail. I visited Great Russell Street in the 1980s, catching up with Jamie and Sacha.

I now live in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, a university town and a lovely place. I examine the English abilities of foreign students for St Mary’s University in Halifax and I grow vegetables. The Annapolis Valley, where I live, is extremely fertile and has its own temperate micro-climate. It is particularly famous for its apples and there are many vineyards producing excellent white wine. 

I still do some work for the British Council as an educational consultant travelling all over Canada giving presentations and training workshops. 

My son Harold and his best friend have a farm on Cape Breton, although they’re not doing any farming… They have a cabin with no running water. Harold is finishing a physics degree at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

Charlotte is completing a science degree at Western University in London, Ontario, and has managed to get an internship with the Canadian Space Agency.

I’ve kept up with music and do an enormous amount of hiking – Nova Scotia is very conducive to hiking. I still play the piano and have just finished a novel, a murder mystery set in Oxford in 1929.

My musical interests suddenly took a vocal turn recently when I took an introductory singing lesson from a well-known teacher and operatic soprano.

I hope that as soon as I can get over to England we can all get together round a piano, make music, and relive those wonderful old times at 12 Tolmers Square, singing Cole Porter songs.

Read more about the author Rod Smith