Way Smarter than me

One of the fun things in teaching is knowing that in every class you have a bunch of kids who are smarter than you are. They just have bigger brains, more exotic talents. Some of them will go on to amazing achievement, whether as artists, actors, mathematicians, doctors, engineers, musicians. For me it was always a buzz to feel that here was one small step on the way to some huge unseen destination

When Megan played her flute to my class, aged maybe 9 or 10, or when she played in assembly, nobody had to call for quiet. Megan was average size, but when she had a flute in her hands she had a huge commanding presence. You could feel it. Even when she was warming the instrument, whizzing up and down a couple of scales it was musical, not random. When she began to play, children were hushed, leaning forward, chins on hands. She had an aura that you could almost reach out and touch. She was special.

At the time, I played some guitar/ flute duets with Megan and even recorded a couple with her on some ancient reel-to-reel machine the size of a bus.

I left the school. Megan left. The future became a forgetful present.

Unlike Megan, my wife was always averse to practising a musical instrument, but could only tolerate musicianship in the near environment of perfection. Not a happy combination. As a kid, she had trogged home instrument after miserable instrument from double basses to recorders to violins to guitars to brass, abandoning all after only perfunctory skirmishes with actual practice.

But a few years ago now, suddenly enraptured by the sound of a busker's sax, she conceived a new career as a horn player. She bought a horn, and was getting very slightly discouraged as practice reared its familiar head.

One cold day, we were waiting on the platform at Chesterfield Station, saying goodbye to our son and daughter-in-law on the first step of their weary journey back to San Francisco. He had a cast on his arm. The wind was ripping through the station. The train was inexplicably late. We were sort of moving from foot to foot to keep alive. Just a normal day at Chesterfield Station.

Then came the voice. 

Mr Hepworth ?

It had a sort of rising inflexion and was definitely tentative. I turned to see a tall blond woman clutching a small case, and was happy to admit immediately that I was me. I had no idea who she was. It was Megan, some 29 years since I had last seen her. She was on her way to gig with one of her students. In the case was her flute. She had become a professional musician, a teacher, a player of notes and note.

The train arrived inconveniently in the middle of the unsatisfactorily brief encounter, but I managed to track Megan down through a school she had mentioned.

For three years or so Megan has been my wife's sax teacher, encouraging her to play music nobody ever thought possible, real music. Megan has inspired her, fed her passion for the sax, been endlessly supportive and innovative, been a terrific teacher. She is the brilliant and inspiring musician I dreamed she might become, and is a phenomenal teacher, a-brim with infectious enthusiasm.

I was lucky enough to see the first bit of her journey, and luckier still to hear how her story unfolded. 

Sometimes things work out well.