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Jeremy Kempston III was a major who served in the British Army during the second world war.  He was a soldier before the war.  It was, he considered, his calling.  It was honourable and expected of him.  He rose to the challenge.  His father had been a soldier as was his grandfather – losing his life in the Great War.  The war to end all wars.

 

Except it didn’t.

 

It wasn’t the end by any means.

 

Many men did not return, many men did – entire or in part, and never spoke of their experiences.  It was a thing never to be referred to.  Jeremy Kingston III never spoke of anything else.  It was as if it was the pinnacle of his life.  Casualties were inevitable. That was his diagnosis of the way.

 

For the better good.

 

War brings suffering but Jeremy Kempston III did not suffer.  If truth be known, he enjoyed it.

 

It was the pinnacle of his life.

 

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It should have been romantic, the reconciliation, the return.  It should have been romantic after all the distance between them, after all the years away.  After all the different experiences there was a distance between them.  It was a different war and a different battleground but, as in the war, Jeremy Kempston III knew what was right and what was his right.

 

He knew who would be the victor.

 

Nine months later Harriet gave birth.

 

In those days you were not told about the sex of a child.  It was inconceivable.  Jeremy Kempston III wanted a boy, someone to bear his name and carry on the tradition, the military tradition. 

 

It was a boy.  Born on 23 September 1946, Jeremy Louis Kempston IV.  There was no discussion about his name.

 

Secretly in her head, Harriet had wanted a girl.  She was going to call her Lucy, after her grandmother, after her own family, a family that had brought money to the marriage but had been ignored ever since.  In her heart Harriet was a Webster.  A piece of paper had not changed that.  Love might have, but she soon found out that that was not an option. 

 

Her son was not to be a Webster.  It was not to be.  Harriet’s line was terminated.

 

He was just another Kempston.

 

Jeremy Louis Kempston IV.

 

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Formative Years

 

 

 

For nine years, Jeremy Kempston IV was an ordinary boy, enjoying the company of other children, enjoying outdoor activities.  Things his father was proud of.  Although he did not totally approve, his father tolerated his wife’s night-time stories which she read to her son.  That was Jeremy Kempston III’s only concession to his upbringing.  In all other matters in the raising of their son, he was in control.

 

It was those bedtime experiences, those sharing of stories, that Harriet enjoyed the most in their lives.  His father never partook, so it became their time alone – mother and son.  Young Jeremy soaked up the tales, the stories, the worlds created and imagined.  Together they were transported to varying lands and cultures – belief and make belief.

 

Whatever.

 

They shared.

 

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Solitary Confinement

 

 

 

It started with a sore throat.  A week later a fever developed.  His father had decided that a bout of outdoor activities was needed.  After all father knows best.  Jeremy Kempston III declared that it would be the making of his son, it was the making of a man.  Jeremy Kempston IV was cold and tired.  His head aches but he continues on the rambles and runs his father has organised.  They are too much for him.  His father dismisses his pleas and re-emphasises his logic.  It will make a man of him.

 

Jeremy Kempston IV is only eight.

 

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On Jeremy Kempston’s ninth birthday, he started the day with vomiting, like he had done for the last few months.  He was just so tired.  His arms and legs were so tired.  Jeremy Kempston IV did not have the strength to open his presents.  His father was agitated, impatient and annoyed.  If Jeremy did not have the strength that day, his mother Harriet did.

 

At last, she found strength.  She embraced her child, her son, and took him to the doctor.

 

The doctor said that she should have done that a year ago.  That was a hard sentence to deliver to a loving mother.  She had previously pleaded for someone to examine her son but his father would not concede to any weaknesses in the family.

 

His word was law.

 

Because Harriet was weak, her son would never be strong.

 

On Jeremy Kempston’s ninth birthday he was admitted into hospital.

 

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He did not leave until he was sixteen.

 

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At that point, he had not seen his father for four years.

 

 

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Jeremy Kempston IV was left in isolation in the hospital.  His only companion was a radio left behind.  Presumably there was a reason that it had not been taken.  Whoever had his room before him had left the radio dial in the same place.  It is classical music.  Jeremy Kempston IV has never really listened to music before, let alone classical.  His father had never approved, considering music a frivolity.  Sometimes during his father’s absences his mother sang tunes to herself and to him.  It was another of those rare moments when he had felt happy and secure. 

 

Jeremy Kempston IV did not have the strength or reach to turn off the radio.  It plays incessantly.  He just got used to it. 

 

Then he enjoyed it.

 

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Silent Retreat

 

 

 

If it was a battle then you would say that Jeremy Kempston III had retreated.  The weekly trips and overnight stays at his London club became more frequent than weekly.  Then there were also social events to attend.  If truth be known, Jeremy Kempston III was seldom at home, because he did not want to be at home.  He did not want to be at home and look at his son.

 

His son that was a failure.

 

His son that would never be a soldier.

 

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Because his son could not walk.

 

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The disease had taken hold of him as had done to many of the nation.  At the time the country could fight enemies but not the illness that struck Jeremy Kempston IV down.

 

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Polio

 

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Coming home filled him with trepidation.  He could barely remember it being home and it was an empty home.  His father was seldom there and when he was he barely acknowledged his son.  His father looked upon him with disappointment and disdain.  His mother fussed and fussed to the point of annoyance.

 

Jeremy Kempston IV had got used to his independence at the hospital.  Now he was treated at home by his mother as the nine-year-old he was when he left.

 

The worst thing of the situation was that he was bored.

 

Bored rigid.

 

As rigid as his legs.

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The only companion he had was the radio – and he tuned it into the same channel that he had listened to in hospital.

 

It was all he knew.

 

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Instrumental

 

 

 

There was a distant memory in his mind of a visitor to their house.  He was blind and needed to be guided into the parlour.  Jeremy Kempston IV remembered wondering how anyone could deal with a disability.  A thought he now laughed at – the irony of it.  The visitor, however, worked wonders.  He transformed the neglected instrument in the corner into something magical.  The boy had listened in awe, when after the tuning, the visitor played a piece of music to his young ears.  He said it was by Bach.  Jeremy Kempston IV had no idea who he was talking about but he remembered the day and the music vividly.

 

The piano had been neglected for many years and Jeremy Kempston IV could only barely find the treble notes.  The bass notes were beyond him.  He did, however persevere.  He didn’t have anything else to do.  No matter how he strived he could not remember all the tune.

 

One morning a visitor arrived.  He was not blind.  He sat on the piano stool that Jeremey Kempston IV did not need to use, and from a briefcase, brought out a musical score.  He played the piece.  It was a piece by Bach.

 

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It was his piece by Bach.

 

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His mother did not know how to talk to her son but she knew how to listen.  She knew how to listen to the struggling notes and how her son was struggling.  So, she gave him a gift.  It turned out to be a lifeline.

 

It was not like the gifts on his ninth birthday which he could not enjoy.  It was not something that he had to unwrap.

 

His mother had bought him a piano teacher.

 

Playing keys that would unlock his life.

 

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Control

 

 

 

They had to build a special ramp for him to go on the stage and a special platform was built for him to be seen.  He needed to be seen.

 

His father was not in attendance which was a shame but shame was something that Jeremy Kempston IV had got used to.

 

It was a shame.

 

In the audience his mother wept before the performance even began.  She had witnessed her son’s illness, his insecurities, his strengths, his love, his determination.  Harriet had witnessed the practise, the hours of devotion.  Harriet had witnessed the years of study, the hard work, the application.

 

The making of a man.

 

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It was a shame that his father did not attend.  For Jeremy Kempston IV had become what his father always wanted him to be.

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 A leader of men.

 

A soldier.

 

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Pushing his wheels up the ramp, all eyes were on him as they needed to be.  He was in charge.

 

A leader of men.

 

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Tapping the baton, they followed his commands.

 

It was his first battle and one which he won.  He won hearts, not pity.

 

At the end there was a standing ovation for Jeremy Kempston IV. 

 

He was the only one not standing.

 

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Jeremy Kempston IV was the first disabled conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

 

The audience did not care about his disability.

 

They only cared about the music.

 

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Programmes were taken home by many, most discarded or put in a collective pile rarely visited.

 

Only Harriet took note of the Conductor’s name.

 

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Louis Webster.

 

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Her son.

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