Today was the high spot of my Chorister Christmas with Ryesingers Carol Concert at East Guldeford Church at 2.30 pm followed by a rush across the county to Icklesham Parish Church for their Carol Service at 4 pm. Elspeth and I arrived at Icklesham church door just as the choir were processing past so we sidled into the assembled ranks. For my first two years with Ryesingers Betty Paine sat next to me in the Tenor Row…though she has abandoned us for the altos. After the East Guldeford Concert she told me that she had never heard the men sing better. High praise indeed.
It took me two decades to call myself a Writer and a Journalist. But after two years with Ryesingers I felt ready to call myself a Journeyman Tenor. Now I tell people I am a Writer and a Singer…and don’t get paid for either of them. But I have an extensive musical pedigree that began as a Carol Singer in Eltham Park in the early 1950s. I never got paid then either so nothing changes. We would go round door-to-door in the two weeks before Christmas singing our carols and collecting for Dr Barnardos Children’s Homes. Not a penny went to ourselves. I had a beautiful treble voice back then…as did my young brother Clifford who now sings with a Male Voice Choir in Oldham.
In the 1950s my parents’ next door neighbours at 122 Crookston Road were the Taylors…Catholics who emigrated to London from Liverpool. Noel Taylor played the organ at the Catholic Church in Dunvegan Road at the top of Westmount Road. My mother had a piano at home and played herself. When I was seven my mother arranged for Mr. Taylor to give me piano lessons. I still remember Mr Taylor’s front room and the scales and arpeggios I had to learn. One of my strengths as a Singer is my ability to sight read. Others have expressed envy at my talent but unlike my sense of pitch which I would class as a talent my ability to read music has been learnt…and Mr Taylor started me off.
By the time I was nine I was singing in St Luke’s Church Choir, singing the Treble Solo for Once In Royal David’s City…although Clifford’s rendition for the same choir a few years later was better than mine…and getting paid 2/6 for weddings on Saturdays…the only time in my life I have been paid to sing. Ryesingers get contributions but We Singers are not deemed to be Charitable Objects so the money is given away in its turn to other charities.
Musical Life at my Secondary School was…and is…nothing short of awesome. The Christ’s Hospital School Band is world-famous and once a year the Chapel Choir sings for the school’s benefactors in the City of London. I was a member of the Chapel Choir and the smaller Madrigal Choir throughout my time at CH…first as a Treble, then as an Alto and finally as a Tenor. My finest hour came one Christmas when I was the school’s Top Alto and had the honour of singing with Stuart Holland…the best Tenor Voice I have ever heard. In Who’s Who one year the former Treasury Secretary in the Labour Government…and top aide to Tony Benn…lists Singing in the Bath as his hobby.
CH School Fees were means tested but despite this my schooling costs were still a big burden…on my brothers. Bringing up four boys doesn’t come cheap either now or then. I am conscious of the extent to which I have been privileged…and God willing intend to repay my debts. But money would not stretch to Music Lessons. I was given a scholarship for the piano…and then studied the organ as well. The violin was free as a School Orchestra was getting under way. But by my third year I was starting to make the grade in Rugby and Cricket where I won my School Colours…and was to become Captain and Vice-Captain respectively…and also played Soccer, Hockey, Basketball and Boxing for the school. By the third year something had to give so I dropped the Violin…and never did take up the Clarinet which I could have learnt free as no one had to pay for music lessons for the CH Band.
At university I sang with the Cambridge Gilbert & Sullivan Society which with good republican sensitivities I had joined because they were the only Cambridge Society to welcome Town & Gown as members. I had a one-line solo part in The Gondoliers in 1966 at the Cambridge Arts Theatre and sang in the chorus of Ruddigore in 1967. Since then 35 years have passed without Organised Music in my life until I joined Ryesingers the year after Connie died to give myself a Social Life…and because I was conscious of my long musical heritage and my wasting musical talents.
