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I blame my mother.  When I was four and I asked her if I could play a cello she should have mentioned the many attributes of the piccolo.  It was left to my teacher, the great Pierre Fournier – who had spent an entire lifetime on the road with his cello – to warn me of the perils in store. But by then it was too late, for my adventures with the wretchedly bulky instrument were already well underway. 

Travelling with a cello is a nightmare.  For as long as I can remember I have been surrounded by remarks like: ‘Give us a tune mate.’, ‘Bet you can’t get that under your chin’, and ‘Do you know you’ve got a machine gun?’ (answer, “you hum it and I’ll play it”).  But my first real taste of the travel problem came while I was still a student.

It was a ‘musical evening’ in rural England, and, when the concert was over, I was presented – for reasons best known to the organisers – with two large, but decidedly dead, pheasants.  These I placed on the backseat of my car alongside the cello.  On the journey home I was stopped by the police.

‘Are you aware, sir, that your left-side rear light is failing to function, which is an offence under regulation…?’

‘No, it must have just gone out – it was definitely working when I set off.’

‘And what, sir, are you carrying in the back?’  he continued , peering through the window at the shadowy forms on the rear seat.

‘Two pheasants and a cello’ I replied innocently.

‘May I remind you’ the policeman continued in considerably sterner tones, ‘that it is an offence to obstruct a police officer in the course of his duty.  I will ask you once again,’ he crescendoed, ‘what are you carrying in the back?’

At which point I got out and let the aggressive officer discover the truth for himself.

In theory, a train should be a cellist’s least worrying form of transport although, even here, things are not what they used to be with many railway companies now demanding an extra passenger fare if they discover a cello occupying a seat.  But the real trouble starts when travelling by plane. 

Basically the problem is this: if a cellist wants to take his instrument into the cabin he must pay an additional full passenger fare.  It doesn’t matter how empty a plane is, the cello must be put with all the other baggage, regardless of its value and the fact that it can be safely strapped onto a seat.  Of course, once the instrument is in the hold the airlines accept no responsibility if it gets smashed to pieces – for the obvious reason that this is extremely likely. 

But at least all those extra cello seats must be eligible for air miles?  Forget it.  I tried filling in the form once: 

Name: (no problem) Barjansky Stradivarius

Sex: (um, alright) Female

Place of birth: (looking good) Cremona, Italy

Date of birth: (game’s up) 1690

In the good old days, airlines were pleased to welcome a cellist on board their flights.  Now any passenger with a remotely out-of-the-ordinary request constitutes a severe disruption of the well-oiled ‘take the money and run’ machinery.

Looking back, some of my many battles with airline officials seem farcical but at the time, invariably under the watchful gaze of all the other passengers, they can be acutely embarrassing.  I will never forget my arrival, late and breathless, for a flight back to London from Amsterdam’s Schipol Airport.

‘You can’t bring that banjo here,’ said the stewardess, pointing rudely at my cello.  ‘If we let you bring that on, the next passenger will want to bring a grand piano.’

‘But,’ I protested, ‘a grand piano can’t quite fit on a seat the same way.’ As everyone craned their necks to get a better view of the row, the stewardess delivered her crushing punch-line:  ‘Oh yes it can – there’s a new kind you can get now that folds up.’ 

The security staff at New York’s Kennedy airport are a law unto themselves.  Once, after purchasing a seat for my cello on a flight from JFK to Heathrow I was stopped at the gate by ‘security’. “You’re not going past here with that”, the official insisted, pointing rudely at my cello.

“But I bought a seat for it”

“That’s got nothing to do with me.  I’m Security. Either check it in as baggage or stay behind.  NEXT PASSENGER”, he bawled, and everyone started pushing past me.  Incensed, I started down the ramp myself.  Evidently unused to such blatant disregard of his authority, Mr Security made a grab for my cello.  I jerked free and rushed towards the plane.

“Freeze!” he yelled, giving a passable impression of Dirty Harry.  Still walking, I glanced over my shoulder and was alarmed to see him waving a gun at me.  Rashly calculating that he wouldn’t dare shoot, I continued my increasingly shaky descent towards the (for once) welcome sight of the cabin crew.  Explaining that I was a bit worried about getting a bullet in my back the captain reassured me:  “Oh, that’s just Mike – you don’t want to worry.