Catherine Rogan

Just Sing

Eight or nine years ago, my son announced he wanted to use his birthday money to buy a ukulele. This was something of a surprise to me, as we’d never exposed him to the films of George Formby nor to any music not from my extensive collection or 90s indie rock. His school had started a ukulele club, and he wanted to join. We bought one. I helped him out tuning it, and strummed a few chords. “This is fun,” I thought to myself, and ordered myself a cheap uke (this is how ukuleles spread, like a cheerful disease). I found a local pub jam, Ukejam, where I would take him for the first half (it was always on a school night, so we had to get home early). Ukejam is a large amount of people sitting in a pub, strumming ukuleles and singing to popular songs. I would sit there mouthing the words.