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Sometimes I wonder if doctors imagine that most people are ill and police officers believe that everyone is a criminal. Certainly we could be forgiven for thinking that the world is a very dangerous place for the travelling Cellist and Bass player because we hear of many incidents when repairing battle-scarred cases. For instance there was:-

• The Bass player who watched his case being carefully manoeuvred to the edge of the plane's cargo hold, and then dropped to the tarmac below. When asked about it afterwards the cargo handler said he was waiting for his mate to arrive with the luggage vehicle.
• The Bass case which made it on to the conveyor belt in the luggage building but, even on it's side, was just too wide for the opening into the next room. After trying to push it through, a member of the airport staff called for a colleague to lend a hand, still to no avail. Eventually 6 people managed to compress the case sufficiently to force it through rather than lift it off and wheel it through the adjacent door. Fortunately the Bass was undamaged.
• The Bass case which attracted the attention of the Customs because it was padlocked (very suspicious!) After jemmying the lid of the case open the official opened the Bass too. Perhaps they had been told there was a bar inside!

These are all stories told to us by players in the process of buying new cases or having repairs and refitting done so we are not mentioning names and places as we can't personally vouch for their authenticity. So far it would seem that it is Bass cases which fare the worst so to even the score here are some Cello case tales:

• A cellist, sitting on the plane waiting to disembark, turned to glance out of the window and saw her cello case in mid air between the hold and the luggage vehicle. She had finished her flight but her cello hadn't!
• A cellist who was lucky enough to be having a new case and a new kitchen at the same time. The combination proved fatal however when the kitchen fitters dropped the sink on the case.
• A cellist who suffered a rear end shunt in a Volvo Estate and found the case had been pushed through the seat back as the rear apartment crumpled Both the case and the cello were undamaged.