Press Release
Caldicot Male Voice Choir made its way on a frosty Saturday 17th November evening to Bishop’s Cleeve, a picturesque, medieval Cotswold town, near Cheltenham racecourse, to continue its’ ethos of helping to raise money for worthy charities, locally, nationally and internationally. We were delighted to put on a concert, wonderfully supported by the Winchcombe Community Singers to raise over £1300 in aid of Stella’s School Scheme. This hard working charity, inaugurated by the late Dr Stella Brewer-Marsden OBE after seeing for herself the educational poverty of children in The Gambia, West Africa, aims to provide much needed educational supplies and support to this very poor region. More details can be found by visiting the web site www.sssgambia.co.uk
Conducted by Siân Hatton throughout and accompanied by Stephen Berry and John Nicholson, opening with the rousing Welsh hymn Llanfair, the choir continued to provide under the beautiful, stone arched supported roof of the 13th century church of St Michael and All Saints an eclectic, varied mix of old and new favourites including The Lost Chord, Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, romantic modern Welsh love song, Lleucu Llwyd, written by Dewi Morris and arranged by Stephen Berry, dreamy An Evening’s Pastoral and finishing the first part with the lively, foot tapping Alexander’s Ragtime Band.
The interval was framed by the varied and enchanting unaccompanied performances of the Winchcombe Community Singers, a mixed, forty strong choir which specialises in folk songs from all around the world. Saturday’s performance included songs from Macedonia, Samoa, Nigeria, America and medieval Slovakia. Their penultimate piece, the South African National Anthem N’kosi Sikeleli Afrika sung in Xhosa, Zulu and Tswana, particularly delighted the packed church. Caldicot MVC were delighted to join Winchcombe CS, suitably attired in sea-faring costume, to provide the chorus to the Maori Whaling Sea Shanty, John Kanakanaka.
Caldicot Male Voice Choir’s performance continued, to a welcoming and enthusiastic audience with a Cole Porter Medley, Siân Hatton incredibly taking the solo parts in both Can You Feel the Love Tonight and Freddy Mercury’s, Somebody to Love while simultaneously conducting the choir. Continuing on with the fabulous Welsh hymn Tydi a Roddaist, the hopeful Yfory and the pretty, popular light hymn, He, the evening completed to rapturous applause with the ever popular hymn, written by Isaac Watts, Morte Criste (When I Survey the Wond’rous Cross). We were delighted that five members of Gloucester Police Choir accepted our invitation to fill our ranks for this glorious hymn.
The Choir, together with members of the audience, local residents and members of the Winchcome Community Singers repaired to the Royal Oak pub for welcome refreshments and patrons were enthralled and delighted by our impromptu ‘Afterglow’ concert that they didn’t want us to go, following cries of ‘On the bus! On the bus! at 11-30pm. Following up soon after were cries of ‘Bus is broke! Bus is broke!’ as we all returned to the warm, welcoming atmosphere of the Royal Oak and to the delight of remaining patrons and staff.
The staff of Landlord Chris Broome, landlady Sheila Jackson, red headed barmaid Emily Baker and ‘I wanna be Welsh’ Beth Reed (See those two houses over there. Well, I live in the middle one. Follow me, I’m right behind you. I left my bike in my Nan’s back passage!) – obviously a Gavin and Stacey fan, were absolutely amazing as they kept us warm, comfortable, well fed and watered with free and ample supplies of tea, coffee and crisps. Well done and many thanks on behalf of the choir.
Also many thanks to Nina Isley and chorister Spike Hughes for arranging such a welcoming venue for our after concert entertainment.
At around 2-30 am the relief coach arrived and we all wearily, but happily got on board. So did the girls from the Royal Oak, but sorry we couldn’t take you with us – you’d be too much of a handful and our wives might object!
One footnote: We arrived at the Church Hall at about 6-30 pm to be warmly greeted by a group of enthusiastic, welcoming ladies offering tea, coffee and biscuits. It was only 10 minutues later that we realised we’d gate-crashed another concert. So we tip-toed silently backwards to the door and made a hasty retreat across the road to hide in the furthest recesses of the church until the hue and cry had died down! Apologies to all concerned, the tea was delicious.
Lyn
Photos by Lyn, Nina Isley, and Russell Harris
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