Annie talks about her introduction to jazz improvisation through courses at Wensum Lodge, a hobby which led her into a new career as a music therapist after retiring from teaching. She also discusses the aspirations of the Jewish community to save Jurnet’s House.
My name is Annie, and I have been in Norwich for nearly 30 years. having been a teacher for most of my working life. I am currently a music therapist, having participated in courses at Wensum Lodge which sowed the seed for this new career.
I have been Chair of the Norwich Progressive Liberal Jewish community for seven of the last ten years and therefore have an interest in Jurnet’s House and went for a tour with the old caretaker and our rabbi last year, 2024.
For many years, beginning in the 2000s I attended a jazz improvisation class in the large hall at Wensum Lodge and we always had our break in Jurnet’s Bar.
I was working full time as a teacher. My children were 12 and 14 years old and were at an age where I was able to go out in the evenings and my other half and I decided that we would each do something creative, away from work. He chose an MA at the art school, and I chose two courses, Jazz Improvisation and Samba.
The samba band originally met at Waterloo Park in the pavilion and then moved to the John Innes as they had a very good room to meet in.
Jazz Improvisation class
The Jazz Improvisation class met at Wensum Lodge, in the big room, which could have been the Crown Room. Even back then it was quite shabby really; it was a big room with wooden floors, but the acoustics were very good and as a musician that was all that mattered.
I was a classical musician, so the jazz and samba really helped me, it was all about rhythm. There were no exams, and we didn’t get any qualifications. Some people, like me, were musically trained and had a classical background – knew our harmonics – some couldn’t read music, so it was a real mix.
The course was run by a guy called Peter Hayes who is a member of the band Red Shadow, who are still doing jazz gigs. We were a group of people, multi – instrumentalists, some pianists, some sax players, clarinet and trumpeters, all looking to work on our improvisation skills, particularly, or on jazz improv.
This continued to until around 2010, which coincided with me stopping teaching full time. Peter taught that course for probably 15 or 20 years and I came in right at the tail end.
I still know a couple of the eclectic bunch of people. Even though I am a classical pianist I already knew jazz riffs as I have always loved jazz. I would say on an average week there would be 12 of us but a few of us got on really well and we would jam.
Peter did some recording, and we listened back to it, but of course the noughties weren’t a time when you’d send a recording on your phone.
The clarinet player was a doctor at a local surgery so we used to meet there in a nice attic space, where no one could hear us, and have sessions jamming there. Another member lived south of Diss, and she used to invite some of us to have impro sessions on a Sunday morning.
Jurnet’s Bar
Our sessions started at 7pm; we’d do an hour and then head to Jurnet’s Bar at 8pm for half an hour and then we’d do 8.30 – 9pm. Sometimes we’d spend more than half an hour in Jurnet’s!
I think that we all liked that time the best. It got towards eight o’clock and, ‘Oh, time for the bar!’ It was really warm and cosy, the low ceilings and the drinks were really cheap; in my memory the drinks were subsidised. It was always quite full, and I think that the bar made quite a lot of money.
The bar held music events, and we used to go to the jazz nights on Friday and that must have been in the 2010s, Friday night was jazz night, there were always posters up for it.
Music and career after Wensum Lodge, music therapy
I was coming to the end of my time teaching; I was head hunted to a primary school in South Norfolk and then in 2012 I attended my son’s graduation. He went across with the photography graduates and behind them were the music therapy graduates, and I said to my other half, ‘I want to do that’ and four months later I interviewed and the rest is history.
When I interviewed for the course, it was a whole day and there was a lot of improvisation so not only had the class sown the seed, but it also really helped me. It got me away from reading the dots and I much prefer improvising to reading music now, that’s the way I’ve gone in my twilight years!
I was 62 when I started the course, everyone else was under 30 and everyone used to call me Granny Annie. I was the only one on the course who didn’t have an emotional breakdown. I am not an academic at all, but I got 68% which was two marks off a Distinction, so I was quite pleased with myself.
There are very few music therapists in Norfolk. My first supervisor works at Priscilla Bacon and someone else works at a children’s hospice in Framlingham Pigot, and apart from that there are no permanent jobs, everyone else is freelance. You had to really push yourself but I was in quite a good position because I was known as being a senior teacher so I could have as much or as little work as I wanted. I also have the safety net of my pensions which makes it easier.
You can never put the clock back, but I do think that being at Wensum Lodge was an influence on this next stage of my career.
I am still really involved with the music scene in Norwich. I don’t really like performing but I don’t mind performing in a group and I do push myself. There’s a piano group that meets every month and I perhaps go every other month. I do practise up a piece to play because I think that it’s good for me to have to master a piece that I read. We meet at Anteros and there is a lovely grand piano there and anyone can come and perform.
I am also part of an impro group, not just made up of musicians, therapists too. We thought that as we work with people in groups, we wanted to experience what it was like to be a group member, and that’s why we really started it. We started meeting at the White House in Finkelgate and then moved to The Orchard, which is a creative therapy centre, which then closed. We now meet in each other’s houses or gardens; in Covid we met in gardens and responded to the bird song.
Now that Wensum Lodge is no more there really isn’t anything like that in Norwich, that’s why we created this group, we just like making music together, and we like not having any rules. When you’re classically trained there are all these rules and it’s really nice to get rid of those. I still love playing duets and I am very happy to accompany people for exams and I still do learn new pieces and revisit old pieces, but my preference is improvising. I can improvise on my own, if I am in a dark place, I’ll go and sit at the piano and improvise.
Jurnet’s House and its importance within the Jewish community
Jurnet’s House is an important building. It was the home of the Jurnets, I think in the 13th century and at that time the Jews were money lenders, who had been able to lend the then Bishop of Norwich the money to build Norwich Cathedral. Then at some point the Jews were wiped out in Norwich in the blood libel. I’m not very good at the history but in medieval times there were quite a few Jews in Norwich. They have gradually come back to the city.
As I mentioned at the start, I went round Wensum Lodge in February 2024 and it is in a terrible state, very damp. The internal decoration’s pretty awful too, but you can do something about that.
The City Council thought that it was not suitable to use, too much of a risk, not fit for purpose. And so rather than do it up themselves (which would have cost an arm and a leg} they decided to give it to the two Jewish communities.
Hopes for the Future of Jurnet’s House
The thing is being managed by Oren Margolis who is a member of the Jewish synagogue on Earlham Road. He is a Professor at the UEA and is trying it get grants and things, trying to get money.
We had a major meeting over a year ago now (2024), and interest groups were set up. But, apparently just having a survey would cost tens of thousands of pounds, you know it’s a very old building, none of the walls are straight.
I think what the City Council would love is for the Jewish community to raise and throw money at it, make it a Jewish heritage centre.
However, the Orthodox community have just had to raise the money to make their building more fit for purpose and they’ve really run out of fundraising options. I think that the appetite has rather gone after they worked so hard to obtain the large amount they needed to convert their community room.
They are looking to raise funds through the university because it is thought that it would be quite good for historic Norwich to have this Jewish cultural centre. It has stalled though, it’s currently with the two departments at the UEA, Renaissance History and Civics, who are interested but as you know universities are having a hard time with funding cuts.
One of our really rather important members taught politics and philosophy at UEA and he decided to go before he was shunted. He’s in Glasgow now, I mean they took huge swathes of departments out, ones that didn’t attract most students.
It would be hugely in Norwich’s interests, it could be an interfaith centre, it doesn’t have to be exclusively Jewish. It could be about the history of Jews in Norwich, which would be at the core and you know there’d be stuff about the blood libel, the Jurnet family, Jewish migration over time and how that looks. It could be all of that but it could also have rooms for interfaith study and for other groups too.
It could be fascinating, and I think that it would fit with a civic offer very well, the question is though, money.
It was an exceptional place; it was a really interesting building and it had a very nice vibe to it. I think that vibes of places are very interesting. In my own work, you know, a lot of freelance therapists have to hire spaces. I don’t because I work either in a child’s home, in a school or in my own home and they all say that ‘It’s so nice to come into your home and be with your dog’.
It’s a very honest vibe when they come here, not clinical and that’s what Wensum Lodge had and that’s why people liked going there.
Annie Henriques (b. 1951) talking to Susan Steward in Norwich on 4th December 2024. © 2025 WISEArchive. All Rights Reserved.
