So I’ve been looking of a piano for a while as I wanted to get the girls more interested in playing and also wanted keys for myself that don’t require a “on” switch. The search was taking its time as I had no real money and didn’t want any of the nightmares that I grew up practicing on.
Then a friend of mine(who would confess herself to having a history of mental issues)phone’s up and says she’s moving out of her posh flat in Central London and would off to Italy. I’d noticed her piano before - tidy, modern but completely out of tune. Now she’s offering it to me for what ever I can afford which is nothing immediately but moving it for her was going to make her life a lot easier.
I arrived at her flat with a transit van and a couple of mates in tow. The first shock was that it was the heaviest piano I’ve had ever lifted and everyone else agreed. By some miracle we got it onto the van without crippling ourselves though we did slide it on its side down the corridor taking off some of the veneer. I drove it the 20 miles or so to my home, dumped it and then went back to London for my friend’s leaving do which was in a bar.
I arrived to find a whole pile of well-wishers around my friend. She looked at me in horror. Next to her was an elegant gentleman whom she introduced to me as her old flat mate. At this point she confesses that she had forgotten one small point…the piano wasn’t hers. The elegant gentleman had purchased it to practice on some years before.
He now had another piano and wanted no payment for his old one. He was just glad to see it go to a new home. Especially as it was still worth about FIFTEEN THOUSAND POUNDS! I nearly fainted (especially remembering how much veneer we’d scrapped off the side).
So that’s how I ended up with an August and Forster Piano in my house. Apparently their in the same league as Steinways and Bosendorfs. It needed double tuning(no- never heard of that before either) but now it’s heaven to play and the girls love it.
Now THAT usually happens to someone else. 
