Eleanor Shimmin

A conversation with Eleanor Shimmin BEM about her long life involved in music in the Isle of Man.

Now in her early 90s, Mrs Shimmin speaks about her early life in Pulrose and Douglas, hampered by a life-threatening combination of double pneumonia, pleurisy and whooping cough.

Despite these health issues, young Eleanor Clarke’s musical gifts soon emerged and the family invested in piano lessons and a second-hand piano, leading to her winning the Baume Scholarship in 1951 to study singing and piano at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Eleanor's teachers included Miss Bell, Emily Christian and George Tootell.

Upon graduating, she returned to the Isle of Man to build up her musical teaching practice. Over the course of the rest of her working life she taught many of the Isle of Man’s leading Manx singers and musicians.

She also led choirs, including Aeg Threshlyn, who occupied an important place in the history of Manx music, through their early adoption of Manx Gaelic song into their repertoire, and their representation of the Isle of Man at the enormous Festival Interceltique de Lorient in Brittany.

Mrs Shimmin also led a highly successful performing career, with three Cleveland medals to her name, won in 1965, 67 and 69.

Interviewed by her former piano and singing pupil, Dr Chloe Woolley, this conversation is full of happy memories of so many people and events spanning nearly a century of music making in the Isle of Man.

Interviews

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• Eleanor Shimmin interviewed by Dr Chloë Woolley (20 November 2024)