Singing Through The Years (27 August 1976)
It is now a full 30 years, if not a little longer, since the Bletchley Community Centre Ladies Choir began their so far unbroken run of music-making. This makes then the oldest secular musical organisation in Bletchley, and possible in North Bucks.
The centre – formerly the Temperance Hall – in George Street was organised during the last world war for the reception and entertainment of war workers and in that respect it served a very useful purpose. At that time it was under the aegis of the Ministry of Works, who no longer wanted it when the war was over.
But so many local people had enjoyed the activities that the Ministry of Education were persuaded to take it over, after being assured that those activities were educational as well as social.
The ladies’ choir were formed before that take-over actually occurred and in May 1946, they celebrated by winning first place in their class at the revived Buckingham Musical Festival – a success which they repeated the following year.
Ever since then they have given concerts in and around the district and have added the Bedford Eisteddfod and other events to their laurels including, of course, the Milton Keynes Festival.
The original conductor was Mr Fred Bates. Other conductors have included Mr Ray Holdom and latterly Mr Peter Stevens.
I have not heard them very often, but I have always enjoyed – and have been much impressed by – what I have heard.
One member still happily singing is Mrs Mavis Silcock, who a month or two ago reached the final of a national competition between elderly entertainers.
It is a long time since I heard her sing solo, but I remember that her voice did not suffer in quality even on the highest notes – a sure sign that they were well within her compass.
Fairly recently I asked whether she felt her voice was deteriorating with advancing years. She told me she could still hold top D flat, which is three full tones higher than the highest note in the Hallelujah Chorus, and that in her prime she could hold the G flat above that. Quite a voice!
How women love to sing. And with what pleasure they look back on their singing days when they are over.
Like Mrs Mabel Smith, of Church Street, Fenny Stratford, who sang with the old Feny(sic) Stratford Musical Society over 60 years ago. She still has the souvenir programmes for 1911 (Spohr’s Last Judgement), 1912 (Hiawatha) and 1913 (Handel’s Jeptha). And she still treasures the pale blue silken sash which the sopranos wore from the shoulder, the contraltos wearing a similar sash of another colour.
Other works performed over the years included Gaul’s Holy City, Mendelsohn’s Elijah, Handel’s Israel in Egypt, Haydn’s Creation, Handel’s Judas Maccabeus, and, of course, The Messiah.
All the works were accompanied by an orchestra of local players.
The society formed in about 1890. An early conductor, possible the first, was a Mr Langley, who was headmaster of Bow Brickhill School. He taught his schoolchildren tonic sol-fa – does anybody use that most useful notation today? – so thoroughly that it is said they could sing a new piece on sight. Among those children was Hedley J Clarke, whose voice was heard in many very different directions in Bletchley in subsequent decades.
The society attracted singers from the surrounding area, notably from Aspley Guise and reached their zenith under the long and able directorship of Lt Col W J Levi, who lived at Woughton House, where Gen H Blount was to live later.
Beside the oratorios, two other concerts were held each year.
All took place at the old Fenny Stratford Town Hall, where rehearsals were also held weekly for about nine months of the year.
I cannot say exactly how long the society remained in being, but they must have been well worth hearing when they were at their peak.
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