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John Cottam Holliday was born in London in 1887 and studied
at the Guildhall School. He was pianist (touring England,
America and Canada as Albert Chevalier’s accompanist
– Holliday’s wife was née Ivy Chevalier –
and also as a solo pianist), chorus master for many years
at Drury Lane and composer. He served in both World Wars,
in the Honourable Artillery Company in 1914-1918 and in the
Observer Corps between 1940 and1944.
His portfolio of compositions affords considerable
variety, not least in its song content although must are light
hearted in character. Some were written for concert parties
like the Co-optimists and Five O’Clock Follies. One fancies
Turn Again Whittington figured in pantomime. Others
were ballad like in character, like The Bells of Home,
The End of the Road, Here to You, A Morning
Prayer, Likes and Dislikes, The Old Home
and When All the Children Pray; Sealights, a
sequence of three songs explore differing maritime themes.
Chumleigh Fair and The Town Crier were lively
numbers; The Missus and I suggests the music hall,
while When Noah Went Sailing and another sequence,
of six brief songs, Odds and Ends, were suitable for
children.
Much of Holliday’s output was indeed
aimed at children. Many of his orchestral items were arranged
by others. Arthur Wood of Barwick Green fame, did the
honours for the "danse fantastique" Punchinello,
the children’s march Tom Tiddler (recently I heard
that a scratch orchestra near Newbury was reviving this),
the dances Dodman Rock and Dickon O’Devon
and possibly also the Morris Dance Skipton Rig (which
could almost have found a place in Arthur Wood’s My
Native Heath). H M Higgs orchestrated the children’s
dances May Day at Helston, Zennor and Keltic
Dance; others helped out with Hampstead Heath (Easter
Monday), Greeze Dance (Old Cornish Custom)
and Frontier March. Cap and Bells, a Children’s
Suite, made up of arrangements of the five nursery rhymes
Boys and Girls, London Bridge, Sing a Song
of Sixpence, Little Bo-Peep and Pop Goes the
Weasel was given orchestral form by Frank Tapp.
Philip Scowcroft
This biography first appeared in ‘Journal
Into Melody’, December 2010.
Three compositions by John Holliday are available on Guild
Music’s ‘Golden Age of Light Music’ CDs:
GLCD5107 Frontier March
GLCD5107 May Day At Helston
GLCD5118 Dickon O’Devon
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