This Keighley drummer-boy’s musical father christened him Elvey Dewhirst, after Sir George Elvey, a Victorian composer of hymns and oratorios.
He would soon be playing drums at bazaars and garden parties in his father’s orchestral band, before graduating to the Keighley and District Orchestral Society.
He also taught himself to play the xylophone while it was still rather a novel instrument.
Elvey Dewhirst left school to serve an apprenticeship with Messrs Laycock and Bannister, organ builders of Cross Hills. Riding his motorcycle on the firm’s business in 1925, he hit a lorry at North End, Cowling, and died two days later without regaining consciousness. He was 23.
The Knowle Park Congregational Miss-ion – where he had sung in operettas, taught at the Sunday School and played in the cricket team – had regarded him as “one of our most brilliant young men”.
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