1 The schism between Perott and Appleby by Jan de Kloe, March 2014, updated July 20, 2015 The parties involved:  The B.B.C. (British Broadcasting Company)  The F.I.G. (Fretted Instrument Guild) of which Perott was Vice‐President  Boris Perott, president of the P.S.G. (Philharmonic Society of Guitarists)  Wilfrid Appleby, editor of the Bulletin of the P.S.G.  Vahdah Olcott Bickford, a Californian guitarist here identified as VOB. On November 18, 1950, the B.B.C had broadcast a programme under the title Britain’s First Guitar Festival. It had been advertised in the Radio Times that music by Bach and Haydn would be included as well as – what Appleby called – novelty variants of the guitar such as Hawaiian and plectrum guitars. Actually, no classical guitar is included in that programme and Appleby gets on his soap box. That Appleby was against any ‘revisionism’ when it came to guitar was already evident from the Rules and Regulations of the Cheltenham Guitar Circle of which he was secretary: 1 ‘Cheltenham guitar circle was formed to promote the study of the six‐stringed, finger played classic Spanish guitar’. Appleby explains with disgust what happened and quotes: 2 Structurally the classic Spanish guitar is a fretted instrument, but it has little aesthetic relation to other fretted instruments with the exception of the lute which it has virtually superseded. Is it really in good musical taste to group it with jazz and electric guitars? Apparently, Perott was not pleased that Appleby had written this without his approval but in the next issue the editor goes on: 3 I regret to say that there are actually some members of P.S.G. who do not consider that a protest is necessary when the real guitar is misrepresented and omitted from the broadcast of what was supposed to be a “Guitar Festival.” I am proud to take full responsibility for the views expressed in my name (in full) in the last issue of P.S.G. Bulletin. I wish to thank the members and readers who wrote to me supporting my action; also York B.M.G. Club which protested to the B.B.C Immediately after hearing that misleading broadcast. The only letters received disagreeing with my protest were (in reply to mine) from two of the organisers of the “Festival” and one who took part in it! At the next meeting Appleby was re‐elected as editor but immediately after that meeting he resigned from the P.S.G. The Bulletin gets a new name but issue 34 of what is now the Journal of the Philharmonic Society of Guitarists does not mention an editor. Appleby was also a contributor to BMG and runs into trouble because of the same disagreement. He breaks off his relationship with the old magazine 4 and starts his own guitar society and his own magazine Guitar News. That also causes a problem for BMG, losing a major contributor. The function was taken over by Terry Usher. Appleby gives his point of view in BMG and the editor adds his opinion: 5 To emphasise my protest at the action of the Fretted Instrument Guild in organising a “Guitar” Festival consisting mainly of novelty variants of the guitar, combined with its misleading interview in the “Radio Times” and the broadcast which virtually excluded the real guitar from what was supposed to be a GUITAR Festival – 1 Quoted from Stuart Button’s article in Classical Guitar, December 1989, p14‐19. 2 A regrettable broadcast, BPSG, No. 32, November‐December 1950 p5. 3 That misleading broadcast, BPSG, No. 33, January‐February, 1951 p4‐5. 4 See Button Op. cit, p136. In a letter of March 11, 1951 Appleby wrote to A.P. Sharpe: … I shall be reluctantly compelled to have nothing more to do with BMG, the Clifford Essex Music Co. and the firms represented on FIG. 5 BMG, May 1951 p174.