The Choir

I then went to work for an accountant and was invited to a party at the house of his young nephew. There I met and went-out with his friend fo about 18 months.

During this time I met his Aunt, who got me an audition with the choirmaster of the Liverpool Philharmonic Choir. My sight-reading was not very good, but I mentioned the name of my singing teacher, who was known to him, and I was in...!

That Christmas the choir was singing The Messiah at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool. We went by coach and I sat on the back seat with the new friends I had made, who sat with me in the second sopranos.


Sitting in front of me was a young man - at the back of whose neck I shot tangerine pips! So started the relationship that resulted in our getting married in 1952...!

I do remember with great pleasure the years spent in singing with the choir. We covered a wide range of choral works by Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Mozart, Elgar, Mendellsohn, Honneger, Kodaly, Vaughan Williams, Britten, Walton, etc.

I will never forget the occasion we sang Belshazar's Feast by William Walton, when he conducted it himself. What a farce! Had we and the orchestra not been so thoroughly drilled, it would have been a disaster. He had not the slightest idea of what he was doing; he was certainly no conductor.


He kept signalling for people to sing when they were not supposed to - we just ignored him and ploughed on. The audience clapped enthusiastically at the end, so it must have been alright. We certainly deserved the applause after such a strain.


One particular performance sticks in my mind. We sang Verdi's Requiem in Liverpool Cathedral. What a thrilling performance that was, it certainly wowed the audience - the trumpets and percussion were almost overwhelming in this large space. What an experience.


I cannot remember who conducted that performance, but we came under the baton of many famous conductors while I was in the choir. Sargent, Boult, Karachan, Guillini, Rignold, Groves, Norman del Mar, Reginald Jaques to name but a few. It was a rich and wonderful experience (Brian was not in the choir for the last three years, because of his National Service in the Air Force).

Whilst Brian was still at Manchester, he was approached by the School of Spanish Studies in Liverpool to train a group of Spanish students to sing in a choir, to accompany Spanish dancers and singers and to play solo Spanish music – all in the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall. I too was roped into the choir and it was very enjoyable.