JANUARY 1955 THE CHRISTMAS DINNER AND FESTIVAL ...

9.He was examiner, lecturer and teacher at the Toronto (now Royal) Conservatoryof Music, and devoted his spare time to his hobby of building model railwayequipment.To his family, Mrs. Crawford, William and Thomas, Jane and Barbara, weextend the sincere sympathy of the Club."TOMMY CRAWFORD"by Napier MooreThe news of Tommy Crawford's death has just reached me -- here in hisnative land. I am sadly distressed at the passing of one who was not only a stalwartof the Club, but who, over a long period of years, was my valued musicalcollaborator and genial friend in the production of the old Arts and Letters Revues.It was early in the progress of the revues that Tonmmy and I joined forces,he writing the music to my lyrics, some of which would have driven many a composerto distraction. It was a harmonious and gleeful partnership. Working with Tommywas fun. He was, of course, an accomplished musician, an outstanding organist andchoirmaster. But all his life he relished excursions into lighter fields, and itwas with enormous zest that he would turn out Arts and Letters scores.Our method of working was congenial. I would write a lyric, take it up* to Tommy's house, give him an idea of the act as I visualized it. There were goodsingers in the cast for solo items, but for concerted numbers the range of the musichad to be within the capacity of unauthorized baritones. Tommy would quickly "draft"a tune. Then, when it was down on paper, weld get together, changing words to betterfit the music; altering a bar to give more punch to the words. Sometimes weld meetin his studio at the Conservatory, and on those occasions we must have shatteredthe decorum of that institution. For its corridors would echo to the strains of"If I Were an M.P.", "Its Only a Question of Time", "Abie, and Maurice, and Mitch","Nelson and Brock", or the rmost ambitious production number we ever did - "TheFathers of Confederation".During the years when Thomas J. Crqwford was musical director of theEaton Operatic Society, we often talked of doing a full length musical comedy orlight opera. Somehow we never seemed to be able to find the time.It was in the last revue I produced that Tommy and I made our only appearancetogether on the Club stage, playing and singing -- if you could call itsinging -- a medley of the numbers we had written for more than a dozen shows. Eachnight the warmth of the reception given us was such that it wasn't too easy to getgoing. Both of us were, well, sort of choked up.Today, for the same reason, I find it difficult to meet Horace Corner'srequest that for the Monthly Letter I write something in remembrance of Tommy.I'm just sort of choked up.