Tongue Trouble
From the time he began to talk little Gordon Moyes had trouble with his tongue. It wagged as loudly and as long as any of his peers but it refused to pronounce certain sounds. Gordon could not say “Miss Perry” which was the form of address his mother insisted he use to the kindly maiden lady in their employ.
Instead, little Gordon called her “Miss Peppi.” In good-natured mimicry the other workers in the bakehouse began referring to her as “Peppi,” and soon the nickname spread throughout the community and to the church that she attended. The minister was even heard to say;
“Oh, I am sure that Peppi will take care of that for us.”
So while Gordon gave Jean Perry a new name, she gave him a new tongue. Often as she worked in the shop she kept the little boy at her side teaching him to pronounce words clearly. `Chimney’ was one of Gordon’s problems and hundreds of times Jean made him repeat after her; “Chim-nee, chim-nee. The wolf climbed down the chim-nee.”
Peppi taught him part of the twenty-third Psalm and had him repeat again and again:
“The lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures,
He leadeth me beside the still waters,
He restoreth my soul….”
For someone who could not pronounce “th” all those old English verb endings nearly sent Gordon’s tongue into spasms, so for a change Miss Perry taught him tongue twisters such as: “She sells sea shells beside the sea shore.”
He hissed like a steam engine as he struggled through that one. When “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,” he craftily tried to sidetrack the lessons by demanding to know how much was a `peck’ and what were `pickled peppers’? Peppi refused to deviate from her task. She answered his questions and then went straight back to the lessons.
“Now Gordon, repeat after me—”
Despite Peppi’s help when Gordon began school the other children laughed at his babyish speech and many afternoons he came home shedding anguished tears.
At the annual Sunday School Concert his impediment went unnoticed in the combined choral items but he could not recite alone or take a speaking part in a play. However, when he was about eight his teacher felt sure it would give him confidence if he recited Psalm 23 in public.
May was dubious but when Peppi heard about it she enthusiastically offered to train him. “He already knows part of that Psalm. He’ll do it well. I know he will.”
Each afternoon after school Miss Perry carefully coached him. Again and again he repeated:
“The lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures,
He leadeth me beside the still waters,
He restoreth my soul:
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me,
Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
The concert proceeded without hitch and when Gordon’s turn came he marched to the front of the platform, faced the audience and spoke into the microphone as rehearsed. This was his big test and to Peppi’s and his parents’ delight he excelled.
After this Miss Perry re-doubled her efforts. Gordon’s speech greatly improved but he still had trouble enunciating certain words so she decided that singing might help.
Week by week, after the cake shop closed for the day she stood him beside the piano in her immaculate house and initiated him into the mysteries of tone and tune.
Her efforts paid off. A few years later when he was in grade four Gordon won a place in the Australian Boys’ Choir.
The Australian Boys’ Choir, which was a year younger than Gordon himself, resulted from a chance remark made by Sir Richard Terry, who was well-known for his work with boys’ choirs in the U k.
“Australian boys have sunshine in their voices,” he said.
Vincent Kelly, DMSV, and two of his friends pondered this remark and eventually formed the Australian Boys’ Choir. Membership was not easily attained. A boy needed to be at least ten years old and undergo a probationary training period, but once he became a member he could remain until two years after his voice changed. The director felt that a mixture of voices improved usually accepted treble of boys’ choirs.
In February 1949 Gordon successfully auditioned and a year later went to Tasmania with one of the annual January tours. In 1952 the Choir shone with reflected glory when they sang in South Melbourne Town Hall on the same programme as Gladys Moncrief and Peter Dawson.
Even at that tender age ambition devoured Gordon, he couldn’t rest until he became a soloist. In 1955 he sang two solos at the 15th annual Students’ Concert of the Trinity College of Music Diploma Club, held in Nicholas Hall in Lonsdale Street, Melbourne.
Singing was not his only venture onto the stage. Box Hill High School students performed an annual concert or play to which almost everyone in the district lent strong support. In this era there was a strong bent toward Gilbert and Sullivan and a tattered programme from the time reveals that in June 1952, Gordon played one of the nobles in The Mikado. Never content to be at the bottom of the pile, next year’s presentation, `The Gondoliers,’ lists him and schoolmate Robert Hall sharing the leading role.
Young Gordon took to the stress of opening nights like a duck takes to water. He felt completely at ease on stage. The hundreds of staring nameless faces, glaring floodlights and the microphone’s shrieking static added to the heady excitement of being in the show; and the final thunderous applause, shrill whistles and catcalls from his schoolmates sounded as sweet music to his ears.
As well as Miss Perry’s efforts to help Gordon’s speech defects, his mother took him into Melbourne once a week for speech lessons at the Royal Children’s Hospital. May found it extremely inconvenient to leave the shop, so when Miss Appsley told her there was no need to go to the city because she, a teacher of drama, deportment and elocution, could teach him just as well, the two women made a deal.Miss Appsley, an ex-beauty queen, actress and photographic model, now `resting’ between roles, would give Gordon two lessons a week in lieu of paying rent for a `studio,’ the studio being one of the empty rooms above the bakery shop.
Each in her own way the two women were battling to make a living in the post-war period of the 1950’s, so the arrangement suited them well. Gordon had no say in the matter. He was introduced to Miss Appsley only after all the details had been worked out.
He stood open-mouthed. To his twelve-year old eyes Miss Appsley was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her thick auburn hair fell to her shoulders in luxuriant natural waves. Her lips were full and red and she wore blue eye-shadow. He had never seen anyone wearing eye-shadow.
Daily Miss Appsley went to and from her studio, using the bakery stairs so that everyone in the shop felt the full impact of her presence. She wore flimsy, flouncy dresses that swirled about her buxom figure as she minced along on stilt-heeled shoes. Even if he wasn’t watching at the door Gordon always knew when Miss Appsley arrived, he smelled her cloying perfume.
Miss Appsley had once appeared in a film and she never let anyone forget it. “I expect the film company to call me again,” she said, “as soon as they find a suitable part.”
While she waited, as a favour to the community at large, she advertised that she would “teach drama, deportment and elocution.” She didn’t get many pupils. In the aftermath of war people were too poor for luxuries like that.
At his mother’s insistence Gordon climbed the stairs twice a week for his lessons with Miss Appsley. Her studio contained a closet full of frilly dresses; a table and a couple of chairs so that students could learn to sit and stand gracefully; and a framed full- length mirror which tilted back and forth so they could watch themselves.
The lessons began with demonstration. First Miss Appsley stood very erect, head and shoulders back, chin up; one foot extended slightly forward to give a better balance; then taking a deep breath and looking herself straight in her mirrored eyes she would declaim in cultured tones, “The Bush Christening.”
Then Gordon had to copy her. Head up, shoulders back, one foot forward, breathe deeply, now— Doing his best to imitate her dulcet tones he gazed at his reflection in the mirror and recited a verse from “The Man From Snowy River.”
He learned gesture also. She specialised in gesture. Her lily white arms moved in graceful arcs and circles and her slender fingers wagged in mock admonition or pointed in horror at some imaginary foe.
Gordon faithfully copied it all. He batted his eyelashes and smiled in a wide grimace that revealed both rows of teeth. He teetered on one foot while he carefully placed the other in correct position. He drew in deep breaths and intoned “Jack, Jack, Jack,” in rising crescendo.
With suitable gestures he recited painstakingly memorized poetry and verbal exercises such as the one about Thora who “picked six thick thistle-sticks,” though he did not know what use the exercises were—apart from making his tongue trip over the words.
Perhaps at the tender age of twelve Gordon couldn’t put into words his feelings for Miss Appsley. The heady scent of her perfume and the occasional fleeting touch of her hand as she flexed his fingers into a less rigid gesture: the reflection of her auburn hair and blue-lidded eyes looking over his shoulder in the long mirror gave rise to hitherto unknown emotions. He had probably never heard of `puppy love’ but he suffered a severe attack of it when he took speech lessons from Miss Appsley.
Nor could he have verbalized what being forced to watch himself in the mirror did for his self-confidence. For the first few lessons he was far too embarrassed to watch the little boy in the mirror making foolish faces as he enunciated with exaggerated clarity, “aye, ee, eye, oh, you.”
Gradually he lost his nervousness and mastered the art of looking the audience in the eyes, an art that was to stand him in good stead for the remainder of his life.
