Berberis' World

Sunday, 1st March, 2015.

It’s exactly three years since the email arrived telling me I’d been chosen for the Lewisham Hospital choir. Along with three others workplace choirs, our progress – from nervous auditions in front of a couple of dozen people to confident performers on stage in front of thousands – would be filmed for 20/20’s ‘Sing While You Work’ series to be broadcast later in the year.

It came at the right time; I was over the trauma of being kicked out of the LPC, but still had no confidence in my singing ability. Now, at last, someone did. Whatever the agenda – and I’m in no doubt that they had an agenda – it was an opportunity to prove myself to myself.

At the start, there were 29 of us. We had one fewer bass than the three other choirs – partly a result of there being more women than men working in the Trust – and the soprano section had its mandatory divas. There were a few people with whom I hit it off straight away, and they know who they are. There were also a few with whom I was never going to hit it off. I don’t care if they know who they are.

The first time we all got together was in the Lessof, from which we piled into a bus and were taken to Greenwich. Here, we were put on a boat, plied with drink and taken up river. It was already obvious that there were cliques; doctors with doctors, physios with physios, porters with porters, etc. This didn’t help my mood, which had already dipped with my belief that most of the other women in the choir had better voices than I did.

[This turned out to not be true. However, when a respected choir master tells you that you can’t sing, you are inclined to believe them above someone off the telly.]

Still, back on the boat, and we were – at one point – motoring under London Bridge singing ‘London’s Burning’ as a round. I found out that two of the sopranos had, like me, been members of the LPC, although not at the same time. One of the altos had been in a punk band, one of the tenors had been in an orchestra, and one of the basses was in a barbershop quartet.

Rehearsals were usually filmed, and the oft-repeated instruction to ‘ignore the cameras’ was actually quite easy to do. The few who kept complaining about the presence of a film crew were usually reminded that they’d not been forced to audition so, for the sake of everyone else, please shut up.

To begin with, the songs were simple. I’m used to learning difficult pieces in a short time and it did get a bit frustrating when we were progressing at one bar a minute. It’s like being behind a learner driver when you’re in a hurry to get somewhere; you have to remind yourself that you were also once a beginner.

When we were told we had to dance as well as sing, I was less than enthusiastic. I’d attended a couple of sessions with the Rock Choir in Blackheath and dance ‘moves’ were (pardon the pun) routine with them. Happy to dance. Happy to sing. Not happy to do both at the same time, and even less happy when we were told we had to work out the routine ourselves. At this point, the choir members who liked the sound of their own voices took charge and it became something of a battle of wills. My contribution was mainly to say what I wouldn’t do. I’ll admit that this wasn’t as helpful as suggesting what I would, and there was much flouncing and drama and tantrums. The end result was acceptable. It got us through to the final, anyway.

The semi-final was at the Colston Hall in Bristol. I’d been there twice – once on stage, playing the recorder, and once in the audience at a Gerry Rafferty concert – so going back to sing on stage, even if it was to a silent audience, was pretty special, even though it’s embarrassing to now remember just how often I mentioned this fact. There’s a huge extension, with public areas, office space, rehearsal rooms, and bars, but the old Hall didn’t look much different to how I remembered. Smaller, obviously. Much of the journey there was spent rehearsing the song we were going to sing (before the film crew told us to stop) or warming up. When we weren’t doing this, I’m sure some of us thought about what they’d say or do when we got back, having not made it through to the final.

The journey back was spent drinking and singing as we celebrated the fact that we had.

The day of the final started with an accident.

The coach which was meant to take us to Llangollen was involved in one even before it got to us, and some people saw that as a good omen. It was raining, which was less an omen than a pain in the arse. Pete announced that we would be going by train and we were taken by taxi to Euston to board the 11.15am to Crewe. We even managed to get a 1st class carriage, probably to the irritation of the people who’d paid to be there. We were pretty well-behaved; the table behind me started a discussion about sex (doctors, most of them) and I used the time and the space to let out the seams of my dress.

Once at Crewe, we were taken by taxi to Llangollen. The weather as we got into Wales was nice and warm, and we started to think that it might last. It didn’t. We’d only been there about half an hour and it started drizzling – within the hour, the ground was soaked and the mud was oozing through whatever it was they’d put on the grass to protect it. Those who hadn’t brought wellies with them bought them pretty quickly.

There then began the seemingly endless process of being dragged here and there and back again to simply stand around. We’d been told we’d have a run through and 2 sound checks. What we found out at the very last minute was that the riser we had to stand on to perform was narrow and very unstable. This meant that the routine we’d rehearsed over and over for the final song was far too “big” for the area available. I don’t know whether this led to the feelings of having been stitched up, and the subsequent below-par performance, but it didn’t help.

It was whilst waiting in the wings to go on for the sound-check that my suspicions that the whole thing WAS a fix became conviction. RM sang ‘Don’t Stop’ by Fleetwood Mac, we sang ‘For Once In My Life’ by Stevie Wonder, and STW sang ‘Feeling Good’. Listen to all three, imagine having to dance to them on a postage stamp and you’ll get the idea.

There was more waiting around, and we were now getting very tired (we’d travelled further than anyone else) and hungry (the only things provided were massively carb-heavy) and the novelty of wading through mud was wearing thin. Eventually, the time for the performance came around and we traipsed off through the mud again to the pavilion. The three choirs all had their Hakka moments, and ours was this:

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

“Citizenship in a Republic”: Theodore Roosevelt at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

Eddie finished by saying that it had been read at the funerals of the men with whom he’d served, and it would be read at his own. Suzanne cried, and I shed a few tears as well.

RM were first on, with STW second and us third. It was even more obvious this time that STW were going to win, but we went on smiling and gave it our all.

This was at about 8.15pm. We then got a proper meal, and some of us (RM as well) found the beer tent and had a pint, until we were summoned back to the catering tent to wait around again.

It was whilst wandering around this tent that I found, on a table, what looked like a running order for the crew. If it had been left there accidentally they were extremely lucky that no-one else but me appeared to have read it. If it was deliberate, then shame on them. What it said was that, after the whole thing wrapped, STW were to be taken to a different hotel to us and RM.

This was final, and incontrovertible, proof that the whole thing had been fixed, and probably from the outset. When we were finally shepherded onto the stage again at the time of the judges’ announcement – at gone 1am – it was obvious to me that STW were going to win.

I’ll be frank. RM had far more than its fair share of plain people. We had our fair share of plain people. STW had far less than its fair share of plain people. Their line-up included half a dozen tall, pretty, busty young women, who are clearly going to look better on TV.

This and the separate hotel were not the only clues. It turned out that GM had spent the week leading up to the final with them, and a lot of this with their soloist. It showed. With better looking people, better coaching, and a better song, the outcome would very likely have been decided as soon as the auditions were over.

A number of our number were very upset. I was surprised to realise that I wasn’t one of them. Being almost certain that it was a set-up actually softened the blow to the point of it hardly registering at all. This was helped by the copious amount of alcohol that was consumed in the bar of the Wrexham Ramada hotel, where the staff were extremely tolerant, and the RM were hugely supportive and very (in some cases, too) friendly.

The resulting hangover lasted about 48 hours.

Despite all of the little niggles, problems, and outright annoyances, I’m pleased I took part, but I’d think twice about doing anything like it again.