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Editor’s View

Welcome to the latest edition of Sharp Notes and my first since rashly agreeing to take

over. I am sure we would all like to thank Andy for all the hard work he has put into

making each issue both informative and enjoyable. Hopefully I can bring a new set of eyes

to things and I welcome any ideas you may have.

Kevin has agreed to provide a piece for each issue where he can expand on a subject that

perhaps we don’t have time for in rehearsals. I am sure he would welcome any ideas for a

theme.

Ryland’s World is a new feature which will hopefully bring a smile to everyone’s faces.

All the usual news and stories will appear. I have now been with the choir for 16 months

and am looking forward to 2018 and a time when I can finally work out what that guy

waving his arms about at the front is doing!

John

Issue 104– Feb 2018

SharpNotes#

The Official Newsletter of

Hart Male Voice Choir

1975 - 2018

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Hart Male Voice Choir

President: Alan Titchmarsh MBE DL

Musical Directors: Kevin Jacot (assisted by Margaret Brackenborough & Mike Morgan)

Accompanist: Judith Morgan GTCL, LTCL LRSM Accs.

Deputy Musical Director: Dai Ogborne

Choir Committee 2016 – 2017

Chairman: Eamonn O'Rourke

Treasurer: Eamonn O’Rourke

Secretary: Richard Nightingale

Librarian: John Wilson

Stage Manager: Mike Morgan

Concert Secretary: John Evans

Social Secretary: Richard Bothams

Public Relations: David Bowden-Smith

Webmaster: David Gaen

Sharp Notes # Editor: John Ford

Associate Membership Coordinator:

Mike Morgan 01252 663674; mikemorgan9@ntlworld.com

www.hartmvc.org.uk

SharpNotes# Editor: John Ford

8 Argente Close, Fleet, Hampshire, GU51 2XY

Telephone: 01252 677972 or 07553 498498 E-mail: johnpatrickford@hotmail.co.uk

Top Tenors

Lawrence Anscombe

Peter Attwater

Norman Bartlett

Gilbert Black

Roger Head

Gordon Hyland

Roy Kirby

Brian Moody

Keith Owen

John Wise

Basses

John Brackenborough

John Craig

John Crayford

Ewart Dalton

David Gaen

Les Knipe

Richard Miles

Danny Mulhern

Peter Newman

Eamonn O'Rourke

Keith Reynolds

Jack Salway

Jeff Smith

David Willis

John Wilson

Second Tenors

Simon Cole

John Crane

John Ford

Jeremy Gray

Keith Hayward

Mark Honour

Bob Jury

Patrick Kelly

Graham Leach

Kevin Matthews

Andy McLaren

Mike Morgan

Gordon Peake

Sugi Sugunasingha

John Walters

Ted Wood

Baritones

Graham Ball

Richard Berry

Richard Bothams

David Bowden-Smith

Mike Cockhead

Jim Codling

Richard Collie

Mike Darling

Richard Earnshaw

John Evans

David Fitzpatrick

Derrick Gray

Alan Knight

Ryland Lee

Kerry Mann

Richard Nightingale

Hugh Nisbet

Les Parker

Martin Rickards

Martin Rogers

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Chairman's Report

Dear Hart Male Voice Choir,

Firstly, I want to thank you for your support this year and to give a special vote of thanks

to the Committee who have worked so tirelessly on all of the choir activities and have

already achieved so much. Also, to the many choir officers who perform the numerous

jobs essential to the smooth running of the choir. So, a big thank you for doing this work

quietly, in the back ground and largely unsung, it is very much appreciated. There is a

Chinese curse along the lines “May you live in interesting times”, well 2017 was certainly

never dull with Brexit, Donald Trump, North Korea and the NHS trying to keep up with

yet another annual winter flu epidemic. To name but a few. But who wants to live in

uninteresting times anyway? Living on the edge it may not be, but in its own way HMVC

has had an interesting year.

We had the sad news of John Wise, the enforced retirement of Margaret as MD and the

setup of a largely new Committee. We had the appointment of Kevin Jacot as our new

MD. We also have added a trial event of singing to Care Homes, which is a great idea as it

is so appreciated by the audiences. It will need reviewing and may need some tweaking,

but nothing ventured….. I would like to thank Margaret so much for all of her

achievements with the choir, fortunately she remains as our assistant MD. She is a hard act

to follow and Kevin Jacot is getting up to speed and has already brought in new songs and

arrangements.

The Christmas repertoire being a good example of this. He has also provided training aids

for some new songs for the 2018 workshop. 2017 was a good year for the choir and we

performed some memorable concerts. The Salesian College concert was excellent, as was

the Christmas concert in All Saints (certainly lessons to be learnt though). Our concert at

Christmas with Treloars was very special and we all improved our sign language

tremendously. It was good to sing with the Basingstoke Hospital Choir and our friend Dai

Ogborne.

Membership

Chairman's Update

Christmas Carols at

Farnborough Business Park

An Invitation…….

More Moments We Remember

More Hart Male Voice Choir History

Jokes Page

Advertisement

The Day Gardeners’ World

Filmed our Garden

Keep on Truckin’

The Singing Beekeeper Reports

Why I Joined The Choir (No. 2)

HMVC Technology update

(Website & Facebook page)

Three Choirs Raise £3,500 1

at Nepal Earthquake Appeal Concert

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We had a wonderful tour of Scotland with some great concerts there too, and helped our

charity customers raise funds for their good causes. This year saw the resurrection of “Hart

at Home”, a fantastic evening enjoyed by all. We also raised (helped with gift aid) £450.00

for Crisis at Christmas, just by not sending cards amongst the choir but instead donating

the cash equivalent. What a result. In fact the only real disappointment was the YSC

postponement due to lack of available effort to run this event at this time. Change can be a

good thing as it allows new ideas to come in and be tried and I think this Committee has

persevered to see what could be improved to help the choir. Some of these are small things

like the publishing of the Committee minutes via email. Others are major like the proposed

Constitution, the new members handbook and the EGM on Charity status. The Committee

also wanted to encourage more involvement in running the choir, and to help achieve this

goal MUSCOM and CONCOM sub groups were created to respectively assist the new

appointees with the music repertoire and concert programme/venues/feedback. 2018 is

going to be a really exciting time for the choir with a great deal to look forward to.

We have already had the EGM in January, where everyone cast their vote on the Charity

Status proposal which past with 92.5% majority in favour; we have the full day workshop

in February to help us improve our singing; A visit to Highgrove is planned in early

summer and in September we have a significant social event in the diary to go to the WW1

battles fields and to remember those who fought for us 100 years ago. We hope to stage a

mini concert in the village where we are staying and also to sing at the Menin Gate in

Ypres; we are reviewing existing social events to see if changes would freshen these up

and encourage better attendance; we also already have a number of concerts lined up, as

well as the return joint concert with the Basingstoke Hospital choir, which we will be

organising.

Of course, next year (as always) is not going to be without its challenges. The postponed

YSC, what is the best practical option - Is this what is wanted by schools, is this what we

want, do we have the volunteer support in the choir to run it, are there other ways we can

support singing in the community? These are questions to be thought through, and your

input on them is welcome. Everything is getting more expensive and we are not immune.

So we must review our costs to ensure the membership subscriptions remain good value

for money. We have the continual issue of recruitment and we have a push planned for

early spring to get our message across that singing is good for you and we are a great

choir, where being a member is something of real value and great fun. Lastly we want to

make more use of our website and add a secure members’ area where we can store all of

the things such as training aids, handbook, Constitution, Sharp Notes, Committee minutes

etc. This could also allow an associate members’ section which would be of benefit to our

loyal supporters. So, there is much to do.

Thanks to HMVC, the Committee and our excellent Professionals (Judith, Margaret and

Kevin) for their energy and commitment in making 2017 such a success. I am sure 2018 is

going to be an even better year for the choir, and all we have to do is to make it happen.

Yes, we truly do live in interesting (but exciting) times, but would we want it any

different?

Mark

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Kevin’s Korner

Welcome to my first contribution to Sharp Notes. I thought I would take this opportunity

to give you some background about myself, some thoughts about the repertoire and some

ideas on singing.

My first solo was the part of The Boy in Elijah when I was six years old. I remember

sitting in the front row of the audience, next to another child. When I got up out of my seat

to sing my couple of lines, the child next to me was somewhat concerned.

As a family, we spent two years out in Kenya where my father worked as an Agronomist. I

had lots of opportunity for singing and remember, aged 7, standing in for Oliver for the

rehearsals – and feeling a little disappointed not to be singing in the shows.

On returning to the UK I was put in for an audition at Kings College Cambridge and was

interviewed by David Willcocks. Although he liked what he heard, I was already too old at

9 to become a chorister at Kings. So he recommended St Michael’s Tenbury, where he

was a governor, as a suitable place for my musical education.

St Michaels was founded by an eccentric Victorian by the name of Sir Frederick Arthur

Gore Ousley. He had noticed that the standard of choral singing in the country was

lamentable and so, in the middle of the Hereford countryside, he built a choir school to

train future organists and singers. Sir John Stainer was a pupil there.

Ousley was also an avid collector of manuscripts and, held in the bomb-proof strong room

were manuscripts of choral music by Byrd, Tallis and many more. If you look in the front

of a Watkins Shaw edition of the Messiah, you will find a reference to the conducting

score that Handel used which was also part of the collection

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As a chorister, once a year, all these manuscripts were brought out, laid on the snooker

table for us to study. What joy it gave me to see the original hand of all those church

anthems I knew so well.

The New Repertoire

Amazing Grace

Bridge Over Troubled Water

Calon Lan in Welsh

Divine Brahma, from The Pearlfishers

Eli Jenkins Prayer

Finlandia

Jacob's Ladder Judith M’s arrangement

Kalinka

Llanfair

Let it Be Me

Pilgrim Chorus

Rest in Peace

Sloop John B

Song Of The Jolly Roger

Star of County Down

Swing Low and When the Saints

Take me Home Country Road

Working Man

This is the list of songs that will be new to 2018. Many will be new to me, but are a

selection of those put forward by you to be included in the repertoire for this year. Some,

of course, most of you will have sung before.

I would like to do a couple of pieces in their original language – “Speed Your Journey.”

This would only involve coming to grips with the Italian, as we already know the music.

“Calon Lan” – I think you would do this justice sung partly in Welsh and I will do an

arrangement for the choir at some point. “Amazing Grace” and “Swing Low & When The

Saints” have both been written for the training day in February. I hope you like them.

I was hoping to do Ashokan Farewell but, although this sounds like a traditional folk song,

it was written for a film in 1984 and there isn’t a TTBB version available. If you like this

piece and a talented poet would like to supply some words in a similar vein, I would be

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happy to write the music for a Hart Farewell. This could be sung around the audience – see

Holy, Holy, Holy (Schubert) - Messiah College Concert Choir - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C40foCNHulE

Kevin Jacot

Ryland’s World

Each issue, we will take a peek inside the mind of the genius that is.. Ryland Lee.

“Mrs Mary Salter rendered

three vocal solos and a

return to orchestral music

was greatly appreciated.”

Misprints

“Before Miss Jenkinson

concluded the concert by

singing” I’ll Walk Beside You”

she was prevented with a

bouquet of red roses.”

“A heavy pall of lust covered

two thirds of London last night

and was expected to drift

south east by morning.”

“The ladies of the Helping

Hands Society enjoyed a swap

social on Friday evening.

Everybody brought something

they didn’t need. Many of the

ladies were accompanied by

their husbands”

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Fond Memories of

Scotland –

from a proud Scot

Following the choir’s successful trip to Ireland in June 2016, I foolishly quipped to

Eamonn that the next tour could be to Scotland – so an adventure north of the border

beckoned in September.

Some background as to how it all came about:

I was born at Bridge of Allan in Airthrey Castle nursing home; in the 1970s this was

converted to an administration block for the new greenfield site of Stirling University built

in the shadow of the imposing edifice that is the Wallace Monument. Co-incidentally,

Kate Webb who joined us on tour was also born here and it was her first re-visit – there’s a

few years between us. It is a glorious location; I remember climbing the monument in my

relative youth and catching a glimpse of both coasts west and east. The university was

visited by Queen Elizabeth not long after it opened; I recall being ashamed of the

disrespectful attitude of some ‘rebellious’ students during her visit that was widely

reported in the press. Not all culprits were from north of the border!

Anyway I spent the first six years of my life living in a 1930s bungalow aptly known as

‘Windyridge’ at Cambusbarron, a village annexed to the town of Stirling. As its name

suggests, the property stood on a ridge with glorious uninterrupted views to the north with

Stirling Castle and the Wallace Monument to the east proudly mounted on their respective

crags; the backdrop beyond featured the Grampians with snow covered peaks in winter. It

was a view to savour but of course I knew nothing else at that age.

A lesson in geology – glaciers split when encountering the relatively hard volcanic crags

that stand above the flat ‘carse’ of Stirling, which at one time was sea bed. Hence ‘tails’ to

the east of the town resulting in upward slope to the castle.

Stirling Castle as viewed from the

Carse

Wallace Monument

In 1959 the McLaren family moved to the Kings Park area of Stirling that was developed

in the 1800s to accommodate merchants and the like, many of whom would have travelled

through to Edinburgh and Glasgow on the excellent train service. We lived in a

substantial semi-detached stone built villa with 13 rooms plus basement in Victoria Square

overlooking the rectangular lawn that was at that time surrounded by railings and gated

with each resident having a key to the lock. The railings have since disappeared and the

area blighted by parked cars with associated ‘street furniture’. Street lighting comprised

ornate wrought iron gas lamps; I recall the day a JCB excavator was summoned to

carelessly knock over (destroy) the original lamps that were subsequently replaced with

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precast concrete posts – ah progress! In the 1960s residents were not permitted to park in

the street overnight – again I recall the local bobby knocking at the door late one night

asking our visitor to put his car away. As an aside, the visitor was my father’s cousin who

flew reconnaissance Spitfires taking photographs over enemy territory – but that’s another

story…

Both mum and dad were from farming stock. Sadly for us three boys, although the eldest

of five sons, dad decided not to take up farming in the depressed times between the wars.

However my elder brother John was totally focused on farming as a way of life and was

driving tractors at five years of age; I was a relatively late developer and did not take to the

wheel until seven.

Known as the ‘Gateway to the Highlands’, Stirling was a graceful market town with a

main street adorned with many traditional family run stores. I recall droving cattle and

sheep along the main street to market – but can’t remember any bull finding a china shop!

The town witnessed considerable development in the 1970s including the large Thistle

‘shopping centre’ which inevitably had a severe impact on older more peripheral parts of

the town that suffered badly; many original shops eventually closed as a result. The traffic

system was‘re-managed’ and some of you staying at the Golden Lion experienced the

tortuous route of finding a way from the front of the hotel to the car park at the rear!

This rambling is an introduction as to why Stirling was selected as our ‘base’ for the choir

tour. Its central location, good communication links and enhanced by history made it an

ideal choice.

Organisation was launched in January. Jane & I went round the larger hotels in Stirling

and met enthusiastic ‘group bookings consultants’. Despite assurances not one came back

to me with a quote for twenty rooms or more. I don’t begin to understand the logic but

they seem happier relying on bookings through intermediaries on the web and paying in

the order of 20% for the privilege. Anyway, despite all the shenanigans, the Golden Lion

was selected as HQ, and I hope those of you who stayed were reasonably happy with the

choice. Our group meetings and the Saturday night ceilidh all went well (certainly from

my perspective).

The aim was to have two good concerts with one ideally in Stirling. I met with David

Yorke of Stirling MVC who was very enthusiastic and had recently experienced a pre-

Christmas joint concert with West of Scotland Military Wives Choir in a local church.

The initial thought was to engage both choirs to have a major fund-raising concert. My

preference was the Stirling Albert Hall. David reckoned if the local Strathcarron Hospice

was involved (similar to Phyllis Tuckwell) we could fill the hall. The hospice gave a

positive response and agreed to handle marketing and ticket sales. Time marched on until

early May when I was informed due to ‘change of policy’ the hospice no longer supported

fund-raising events of this nature but would be pleased to receive the donation. Oh dear!

To cut a very long story short, David Yorke put me in touch with Kate Gow who runs a

fundraising organisation ‘Opening More Doors’ supporting elected charities of her choice.

The result we experienced on the Sunday afternoon with Stirling MVC and Hillfoots

Youth Orchestra (substituted for Military Wives - that’s another story!).

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Albert Hall, Stirling St Michaels Church, Linlithgow

St Michaels Church in Linlithgow was an obvious choice for the concert on the Friday

evening. I was extremely lucky to become acquainted with Chris Thomas of Linlithgow

Rugby Club Choir who headed up all publicity and ticket sales. Chris, born in Scunthorpe,

had been a member of the official Lions choir tour to NZ. The concert would never have

been the success it proved without his help for which I am deeply indebted. We were

lucky to also share the stage with Toccata Ladies Choir, most ably managed by Eleanor

Howet, sister of Nessie Black (wife to Gilbert Top Tenor). I visited their rehearsal on the

Tuesday preceding the tour and realised then we would be in for a very special treat.

Away from the main concerts, we had a fairly action-packed itinerary that included a trip

to Glasgow followed by a cruise on Loch Katrine in the picturesque Trossachs less than an

hour’s drive north of the metropolis. Loch Katrine became the main water source to the

industrial heartland in Victorian times enabled by an engineering feat of tunnels and

bridges.

Most took a trip to the Falkirk Wheel before our Linlithgow concert – I gather some were

surprised to experience the ‘lift’ from one canal to the other – again a truly marvellous feat

of relatively modern engineering.

Sir Walter Scott on Loch Katrine Falkirk Wheel

The coach trip to Pitlochry and House of Bruar was another busy day followed by the

Edinburgh experience including tour of the Royal Yacht and the Royal Mile.

In all honesty organising the trip was a major logistical exercise but ultimately enjoyable

and educational experience. The happy and appreciative audiences and general good

humour amongst the assembled company embellished by raising over £5,000 for the less

fortunate of the community made it all worthwhile – mission accomplished.

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I am grateful to all those who assisted before and during the tour. Making a list will

inevitably result in omissions to cause offence. Anyway – you know who you are – thank

you!

Andy McLaren

A look back at 2017

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If you have photos, please do send them to me for inclusion