It is Christmas 2020 and I am now 70 years of age and looking back on my life with an ever growing sense of confusion. I have been so fortunate, I have done some amazing things but I have also made some very bad mistakes. Many years ago a wise man told me that fortune and disappointment balance out as you live. When things are good you should foresee a down turn and when things get bad a brighter dawn awaits. Mr Topalian was so very right.
As I have written before my school was an amazing place. A highly selective academic entrance requirement and a staff who were all chosen for their excellence in their subject and all linked to a sporting tradition of excellence. Olympic athletes, International Rugby players and countless masters with First Class degrees from Oxbridge guided my life from 11 to 18. It was a strange oppressive place that took but one benchmark as standard. That of ‘excellence’.
I acted in Shakespearian plays, played sport for some of the best schoolboy teams in the country and rubbed shoulders with countless people who would become Professors, Captains of Industry and the media. However one experience stands out for me as being beyond special.
I was a member of the chapel choir. ‘Head Treble’ in fact so I got to wear a red ribbon around my neck to compliment my blue surplice and stiffly starched white cassock and ruff. The choir was 45 strong and was organised and led by the music master of the school who was quite mad. He looked mad with jam jar bottomed spectacles he acted wholly irrationally and he was called Lawford. His nickname was of course ‘Loonie Lawford’. He was a brilliant organist himself and was passionate about all things music as you might expect. The choir was just exceptional. We appeared on local radio and frequently gave concerts. Loonie had taken us all to watch the Vienna Boys Choir in a concert in Liverpool and he had become infatuated with the sound the boy trebles made. Instead of singing in the ‘head’, that high squeaky sound that is familiar with many cathedral choirs, the boy trebles sang in their chests. The out put was rounder and much fuller and Loonie decided that we would adopt this approach. The results were just spectacular.
Team work is something I love and working in teams has been a hallmark of my life. To sing in a top choir represents the very epitome of teamwork. Fours or even six part harmony creates a wonderful sound when the individual ‘parts’ are put together. On their own they diverge and challenge the singer. Done well a choir singing in harmony is like a wonderful living organism. The bass, tenor alto and treble creating a wonderful noise. Backed up by an organ vibrating the very building you are standing in, the effect is just amazing to both create and listen too.
At this time of year I could choose many carols to represent this time of my life. Our soloist, a boy called Peter Zacharias, went on to get a scholarship to Cambridge to read music. His voice, a tenor of remarkable depth would often lead us in the candle lit church of St Saviours in Oxton Village next to our school when all parents would attend as the school chapel was too small. I remember well leading the choir into the church and reading the first lesson as the candles flickered. No electric lights just hundreds of candles. I also remember singing my Mums favourite carol. ‘Oh Little Town of Bethlehem’. We sang without accompaniment resulting in a sort of eerie silence punctuating the sound we made doing gaps in the verses . The first verse was sung by we trebles only it was just awesome. Somewhere in the congregation I knew my Mum would be sitting and the tears would be rolling down her cheeks. Thanks Mum for everything you did for me.xx
You can find the carol on tube in many versions. It is lovely.
Tales of a Life Well Lived 