Janette’s life ended in January 2025 at 66 years of age. A glioblastoma multiforme was diagnosed in May 2020. This event is a celebration of Janettes’s love of music and song and to express our thanks for all that the lovely Janette meant to us.
Janette was accepted into Newton Park , Bath college of Higher education in 1976 to study for a B.Ed.with the major academic subject being music. This event was the culmination of a great deal of hard work and dedication to her instruments of piano and voice for over a decade. Those years started with Sunday School seasonal performances and progressed to music festivals of piano and voice in her native N northern Ireland, Janette played clarinet in the school orchestra, not forgetting the guitar.
Her tutors at Bath were very complimentary about her expression and feeling for the piano, and the clarity of her voice. Success was achieved with her college choir at the Llangollen International Music Eisteddford in 1977 and 1978 where they came first in their classification. Quite an accolade.
Janette completed her time at Bath and began Primary school teaching soon afterwards. She taught until her cancer diagnosis, and was enormously loved and appreciated wherever she worked. There were many highlights and memorable moments during her career. Four years in Mombassa in the 1990’s was achance for janette to show her ‘mettle’. Singing solo for the Nyali singers and playing piano for various musicals with The Little Theatre Club and an unaccompanied performance of Riverdance’s ‘The Heart’s Cry’ at the beginning of a charity ceilidh in the ruins of Fort Jesus in Mombassa was extra special. A magical moment when out of the darkness of the clear still night lit by a single light, Janette emerged and sang most beautifully.
Her time in Whitley Bay began in 1999 and not too long afterwards Janette was teaching at Church High School in Jesmond. She was very much at home there, bringing her talents to the fore there as a musician and educator.
Janette sang in several choirs, notably with the Royal Northern Symphonia and Inspiration at the former Sage in Gateshead. A very gifted and precise sight reader was Janette. The brain tumour robbed her of those skills quite quickly and she was utterly devastated. Her ability to process information was severely hampered and another joy of her life, reading novels, faded away. She tried to relearn the piano with no success. Janette said she wasn’t a ‘party animal’ that could sit and rattle out a tune without music. She continued to sing with a local choir, Whitley Women Community Choir, until that, too, ended in 2024 as byb now Janette was having difficulty recognising words. Her joy was, however, unmeasurable with the arrival of first Emily then Sadie, two beautiful grandchildren. It would melt your heart to see her singing nursery rhymes to them and playing on the floor, something she thought would happen when first diagnosed.Her tremendous talent was matched by her modesty- she was her own worst critic, a common trait of those more gifted than the rest of us, always downplaying her talents. She’d say to neighbours how awful it must be to have to listen to her practising next door. On the contrary, the neighbours said that when they moved in and heard the piano on their first Sunday evening that they sat at the bottom of their stairs and had a wee cry- they knew they’d moved to the right address.
But her friends knew she was extremely accomplished, played piano beautifully and sang confidently. More than anything, Janette was such a wonderful lady, proud mum and granny and a thoroughly good person.
And Janette was certainly good enough! ‘Agile and accurate..fluent with a sense of performance’ and ‘She has found her way to the heart of the words…her words move us deeply and we see the love in her face’ are not comments given to a seventeen year old who isn’t top class.
And Janette WAS a party animal. She had some of the best lists of party music, she wasn’t all about classical. The dance floor on a Saturday night would be given the same gusto and attention as piano and voice practice on a Sunday evening.
Keeping her alive with the music…”Keep ‘er lit”…
