Music making in Kiev Hotel Libyed - Tony Cunnane's Life and Times

Later that afternoon after the cultural tour, most of us had, at last, an opportunity for doing some shopping. Sadly, there was depressingly little to buy apart from the inevitable matrioshki, the famous wooden Russian dolls with other smaller dolls inside. THe sellets ofd those did a roaring trade. Two of the Red Arrows ground crew bought accordions – not that they could play them but they seemed too cheap to ignore! Later Red 5, Flight Lieutenant Dom Riley, not to be outdone, bought a cello for £12, while others bought trumpets, bugles and cymbals at knock-down prices. Later still, fortified by some beer, there was an impromptu musical concert on the 15th floor of the hotel in a lobby close to our rooms. Unfortunately, although everyone played with great gusto and enthusiasm, not a single person knew how to play the instruments they were clutching so the appalling noise can be imagined. What the Ukrainians thought of it I cannot imagine: they probably thought it was decadent western music.

Dom Riley’s cello stood, most inconveniently, in the toilet compartment at the back of the BAe 125 during the flights back to Scampton, the only place Dom deemed safe enough for his prize!

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