Miles & Me by Noel De Jongh

Noel de Jongh, 77, taught Miles Kington the piano and the trombone at Glenalmond College in Perthshire, Scotland, from 1954

I first met Miles when he was 13 years old and I was an assistant music master. He was very musical, and very intelligent – even at that age, he had a mind of his own. He had positive ideas, and was not afraid to say what he thought.

I christened him "Smiler" when I taught him, because he was such a smiley character – very friendly and pleasant to deal with, as well as being an intellectual. Like a lot of intelligent people who are also musical, he learnt music very quickly.

Although Miles was interested in jazz, it wasn't encouraged by the authorities. First he learnt the piano; I think he passed Grade VI. Then he learnt the trombone, and played in a brass group. The trombone is a lovely instrument – I took it up when I was 24 and learnt it in three weeks, and I think Miles learnt it with the same speed at school, although I don't think either of us would have made soloists.

I used to meet Miles in the holidays because he and his father (who I believe was manager of Border Breweries in Wrexham) would come over to where my family lived in North Wales. By the time he left school in the late 1950s, I knew him very well and we kept in touch.

He got in to Oxford, of course, and his jazz playing took off there, and he learnt the double bass. Much later – I think in the 1970s – he played bass in the cabaret quartet Instant Sunshine (see pictures), and I would always see him at the Edinburgh Fringe. Once, when he introduced the band, he said: "It's lovely to be back in Edinburgh again. And to know that nothing has changed. And the traffic lights at Toll Croft [in central Edinburgh] are still red." It brought the house down. His offerings were always brilliant, whether spoken or written.

I also remember once talking to Miles about Elvis Presley, and him saying how people became obsessed by Elvis, and would collect a piece of his T-shirt, etc. I replied to him, in my best music- teacher manner, that this was nothing. Franz Liszt's admirers, including old ladies, would collect his old cigar stubs and wear them in their corsages!

Listen to Miles play with his former band, Instant Sunshine:

"Los Peckham Ryos"

"Who Mowed the Lawns of Eden?"

From Instant Sunshine Comes of Age

© Merlin Classics

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