A man with many strings to his bow

An accomplished and talented violinist, he has played the "fiddle" for six decades since the age of nine and is still entertaining audiences today as he fast approaches his 70th birthday.

Arthur has been in the orchestra for a vast array of amateur and professional shows at such venues as the Hippodrome and Alexandra theatres in Birmingham, the Grand at Wolverhampton, the Theatre Royal and Swan Theatre at Worcester, Malvern Festival Theatre and the Nell Gwynne at Hereford.

He was "second fiddle" and then Leader of the Worcester Operatic and Dramatic Society Orchestra for 40 years and Leader for 20 years of the Philomusica of Gloucestershire and Worcestershire.

Arthur has played on many classical concert platforms and in churches around the country down the years, most notably in Tetbury Church for a concert in honour of the Prince and Princess of Wales not long after their marriage when they were living at nearby Highgrove.

And nowadays, he not only passes on his talents to youngsters through violin lessons but also entertains at social events around the region as half of the Arthur Bancroft Duo, alongside accordion player Alan Roden.

"I've had lots of fun with music, here, there and everywhere," stressed Arthur when I went to interview him at his family home of the past 36 years - the appropriately named Fiddlers Nook at Suckley.

He says he's a Yorkshireman by birth, having been born in Oakworth near Keithley - the place where the film The Railway Children was shot.

Oakworth was the home of generations of Bancrofts, but Arthur moved to Worcester when he was just three months old. This was in 1932 when his father got a job with Metal Box at its Perry Wood factory, and the family set up home in Foxwell Street.

It was clearly from his father, Hebdon Colburn Bancroft that Arthur inherited his passion for music and, more particularly, for the violin. Hebdon was a highly skilled tool-maker by profession but, quite remarkably, became a completely self-taught violin maker as a hobby.

In a garden shed at Foxwell Street, he hand-made his first three superbly-crafted instruments in the mid-1930s and produced another four violins and two violas in the 1940s.

Arthur explains that his father was a good pianist and a fairly accomplished cello player but only "dabbled" with the violin. It was strange therefore that he should have chosen this particular instrument to make first in the 1930s. He did eventually produce plans for his first cello but died before he could make it. For many years too, Hebdon busied himself repairing violins for local people.

Arthur's proud possessions today include the two violas and five of the seven violins made by his father. He acquired one of these back from a family friend in only recent times, and of the remaining two violins, one is with his sister Mary in Australia and the other with a family friend, violinist Reg Lloyd.

Baptism into music-making for Arthur had as its font, so to speak, one of his father's violins, made in 1936 but not full-sized. "Dad placed it in a bedroom cabinet and told me as a small boy that when I could reach it and hold it without having to stretch my arm, I could play it and have lessons.

"Thus it was that at age nine I played that violin for the first time, and throughout my life of music-making ever since, I have always played on another violin made by my father in 1946."

Arthur went for his first violin lessons to Miss Bridget Monahan at Britannia Square and later played in her Salon Arts Orchestra for some years, together with his cellist father. In fact, Arthur made first public appearance with this orchestra at only 14.

"We were on a fairly dirty open coal barge, one of a variety of vessels in an illuminated procession on the Severn as part of either VE-Day or VJ-Day celebrations in Worcester. I have enduring memories of us playing Handel's Water Music as we passed under Worcester Bridge which was all lit-up and packed with people."

Happy boyhood years for Arthur were spent in Foxwell Street, Worcester with his parents, Hebdon and Olive Gertrude Bancroft. "Mine was a lovely childhood and Foxwell Street was a wonderful place with marvellous neighbours. I went first to Red Hill School and then Stanley Road.

"Most Sunday evenings, my father and I would be joined Reg Lloyd, an Austrian lady and a Sergeant Ribbon from Norton Barracks in music-making at our home, and I know that our neighbours used to turn down their radios so they could listen to us and enjoy the sounds."

Arthur's prowess on violin brought a coveted first prize at age 16 in the Leamington Spa Music Festival and also earned him a County Major Scholarship to study at the Royal School of Music in London.

However, on leaving this prestigious academy, Arthur decided against a career as a professional musician, considering it then "too precarious" a way of making a living. He chose instead to go into engineering at Worcester, though, as we know, he was always to be extremely busy musically outside his normal working hours!

The year 1949 saw his debut in the Worcester Operatic and Dramatic Society Orchestra. He was just 17, and the production was Romberg's New Moon. He still has the souvenir programme.

Even so, his first few years in the WODS Orchestra were slightly marred by "a miserable old timer," also in the strings. "I must have been tapping my foot while playing, and I suddenly felt this sharp pain when the chap put his foot on mine and pressed down heavily, giving me an evil look at the same time."

Nevertheless, Arthur was to go on to enjoy "very good times" with the WODS Orchestra over a period of 40 years until the late 1980s, mostly as Leader under Musical Director Walter Wilson, for whom he had great respect.

As a young man, Arthur not only played with his father in the Salon Arts and Worcester Brotherhood orchestras but also in bands for old time dancing at the YWCA in Sansome Walk under Bill Ewers and for ballroom dance sessions at Bill Stew's Academy in Silver Street.

There was an hilarious incident too as father and son returned home from one of these evening engagements.

"I had not long had my first motor-cycle, a Royal Enfield 350 cc, and Dad was riding pillion with his cello strapped across his back while I had my violin strapped to my back. As I was driving slowly along Sidbury and had reached a point opposite Hamilton's fish shop, a drunk suddenly staggered into the road in front of me, and wherever I tried to swerve, he veered towards me. The inevitable result was that my handlebar struck him, and my father and I were propelled from the machine.

"Luckily no-one was injured but we must have presented a very funny sight, my father lying on top of his crushed cello looking a bit like a helpless and upturned turtle!"

Arthur began his engineering career with Heenan and Froude and served his apprenticeship at Metal Box before spending two years National Service in the Army as a driving instructor with REME.

He returned to Metal Box for some years afterwards and taught in its Training School where, he says, the standard of work by the young people was "second-to-none." Then in 1968, he began 14 years as a lecturer in engineering at the Technical College (now Worcester College of Technology) in Deansway.

Even there, his musical abilities did not go to waste. Students were able to choose "elective studies" on Wednesday afternoons, and he ran music classes for those interested. His music groups from these sessions played at the college's carol services in the Cathedral each Christmas.

Arthur took early retirement at 50 to devote himself entirely to professional music making and violin teaching though, of course, he had spent most of his leisure-time, evenings and weekends for many years up until then, playing in orchestras.

Not only did he lead the WODS Orchestra but also played in orchestras for other amateur operatic and Gilbert and Sullivan societies such as those at Hereford, Alcester, Pershore, Bromyard and Tenbury Wells.

Regularly too, he was booked to take a place in the orchestra pit for professional shows, particularly at the Birmingham Hip and Alex, at Wolverhampton's Grand, and at Malvern Festival Theatre. He backed stars such as Des O'Connor and Mike and Bernie Winters at Birmingham, and remembers going for a convivial after-show pint several nights with Engelbert Humperdinck when the singer was on a bill at Malvern, then as Gerry Dorsey.

Two incidents at pantomimes also stick in Arthur's mind. He was struck on the back of the neck by a run-away unicycle which spun into the orchestra pit at Malvern Festival Theatre and, perhaps more dramatically, had to turn his hand to emergency fire-fighting during a performance at the Hereford Nell Gwynne Theatre of Aladdin, starring comedian Cardew Robinson.

"He used to throw out wads of song sheets to the audience, and we placed a piece of netting over the piano so they did not clog up the works. One night, however, a lot of these song sheets piled up on the piano netting and were set ablaze by sparks from the fireworks which erupted whenever Aladdin's lamp was rubbed.

"I struggled to beat out the flames as the pianist courageously played on!"

Going from the ridiculous to the sublime, however, was another of Arthur's engagements - this time during his 20 years as Leader of the Gloucestershire and Worcestershire Philomusica.

It was a Royal concert in Tetbury Church for the then recently married Prince Charles and Princess Diana. "I remember looking down from the platform and noticing how shy the princess was at that time.

"Afterwards, I placed my violin on a table, not knowing it would stand obtrusively next to a book to be signed by Prince Charles. He turned and asked me: 'Is that a Stradavarius?' When I replied: 'No, a Bancroft," he said; "I've never heard of that maker.' I explained that the instrument had been lovingly made by my father in a garden shed, and we went on to have a 20-minute chat about violins. I also asked the prince if he still played his cello but was told he had given it away to a university or college."

Other bookings have seen Arthur in music groups serenading race-goers at Cheltenham and at Ascot on Ladies Day, inspiring crowds on the dockside at Portsmouth when the QEII made its first voyage after troop-carrying service in the Falklands War, and, most recently, enchanting French folk during a 2001 summertime tour of the Dordogne by the Jaguar Drivers' Club.

As a novelty, Arthur has occasionally played a musical saw and was once photographed playing it with the famous tenor Peter Pears in the background.

Arthur now travels locally and around the Midlands as half of the Arthur Bancroft Duo, his violin electronically amplified and with a radio transmitter so he can stroll among his audiences serenading them at a variety of social events. He also does charity work, his favoured organisation being the County Air Ambulance. During the 1990s too he put together an orchestra for New Year's Day concerts in Worcester's Huntingdon Hall.

However, these concerts and his professional music-making came to an abrupt halt about a year ago due to severe heart trouble which necessitated a by-pass operation. He had stays each side of last Christmas in the Hereford County and Birmingham Queen Elizabeth hospitals, in both of which he given the affectionate nickname "The Fiddler" by staff and patients.

He got from his bed to play at hospital Sunday services and carol concerts and was asked by a consultant to play in the intensive care ward for a patient not making a good recovery. "The chap told me afterwards how much it had helped him." Arthur also composed a cheery melody, Temperature Rising, inspired by the tuneful bleeps of the heart monitoring machine as it went round the ward at the QE.

"Whenever I played the tune, the doctors, nurses and patients would sing along to it and trip around if they were able."

However, his heart by-pass operation was such a trauma that Arthur feared he might never be able to play his violin again. "One day I held it for nearly two hours before plucking up the courage to play it."

Since then, he has fully taken up the reins again as a musical "pro" and hopes to play at the Hereford County Hospital and the QE for their carol services this Christmas. "I certainly owe them that!"

Arthur and his Evesham-born wife June have a daughter, Sonia and son, Kevin and two grandchildren. The couple lived first at Checketts Lane, Worcester, and then Christine Avenue, Rushwick, before moving to Suckley.

June (maiden name Dring) spent most of her childhood with her uncle and aunt, Bert and Blanche Munn, Steward and Stewardess of the Severn Motor Yacht Club.

In the elevated summer house in his garden, commanding fine views over the surrounding hilly countryside, Arthur told me of his firm philosophy: "Music must be enjoyed. If you don't enjoy making it, then it's not worth doing." He always tells this to his violin pupils but adds that he has "tremendous fun with the kids."