Ivor Slaney

Ivor Ernst Slaney (born 27 May 1921 in West Bromwich, died 20 March 1998 in Southampton) was a British composer and conductor, notable for his work in film, television and radio. Slaney's father Ernst Wallace Slaney was the principal cellist in the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra in the 1920s and 1930s under Sir Dan Godfrey. His mother was Grace Elizabeth Arney (born 22 April 1893, died July 1988). She married Ernst in Bristol in 1920. As a youngster Ivor joined the choir of St Stephen's Church, Bournemouth where he was also taught by Percy Whitlock, the church's Director of Music and a colleague of Ernst Slaney at the Bournemouth Pavilion. According to Whitlock's diary, Ivor was known as 'Tiny'. In 1935, aged 14, Ivor entered the Royal Artillery in Woolwich and gained a scholarship to the Royal College of Music, where he studied oboe with Léon Goossens and made friends with Malcolm Arnold. During the war he joined up as a musician in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, and afterwards worked for a time as an orchestral player with the London Philharmonic, the Covent Garden Opera House Orchestra and the Boyd Neel Orchestra. He married pianist Mary D. Ludlow (known by her stage name Dolores Ventura) in 1948, divorcing her in 1969 and remarrying in 1974. In later life Ivor Slaney lived in Milford on Sea, Hampshire. His son Adrian E. Slaney, a lawyer specialising in healthcare, was born in 1950. A daughter was born in 1979.