Last updated 05:32, Friday, 29 August 2008

FOR 74 years Barrie Moses’ playing gave great pleasure to thousands. Yet this master of the piano accordion never had a lesson in his life. He was entirely self-taught – and he could not read a note of music.

Invitation to the dance: Barrie pictured on the cover of his CD of dance music. His day job was as schools transport officer for Cumbria

He had an instinctive feel for the complex instrument which he played at dances and social functions over a very wide area.

Even when his eyesight began to fail about four years ago he continued to play in public, while at home he carried on playing the keyboards he had taught himself to master.

Born at The Banks, Lanercost, in July 1928, he began to play the accordion when he was just six years old and eight years later was good enough to join the family band, “The Bright Stars”, playing with his violinist father, two cousins and a friend.

His parents had wanted him to become a organist but they could not afford the tuition fees and so Barrie took up the accordion.

His education was at the village school in Low Row and at the White House Grammar School, in Brampton after which he began army service with the 2nd Battalion The Durham Light Infantry. Training in Scotland was followed by postings in Burma and Malaya before he was demobbed in 1948.

Back in civilian life he began work in the Cumberland County Council’s education department, gaining experience in several sections and eventually being appointed the schools’ transport officer. As such he was the chief administrator responsible for home/school travel for up to 1,500 children.

He retired in 1985 and this gave him much more time to devote to his music, which included playing for ballroom and sequence dancing in venues over a wide area, from Kilmarnock to Appleby.

Even during his army days he had never ceased to play and in the years that followed he was a firm favourite at dances in the Crown and Mitre Hotel, in Carlisle. He was equally popular in the nearby Tithe Barn where, after he retired, he and his wife ran weekly dances from 1985 until this year. He also freely gave of his time to play at many charity functions.

He met Stella Bright, the woman who became his wife, at a dance in Greenhead and they married in 1950, at the village Methodist church. For three years they lived with her parents before moving to Scotby, Carlisle, where they lived for all the years since.

When he formed his own band, The Barrie Sound, she became a part of it, as its vocalist.

When he wasn’t playing, he painted in water colours and became something of an expert in marquetry.

Mr Moses was 80 when he died, leaving his wife, son and sister.

Private cremation in Carlisle was followed by a service in St Cuthbert’s Church, in the city, with tea in the nearby Tithe Barn.

Eden Valley Funerals, Lazonby, made the arrangements.