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.

Thursday, 1st March 2012.

Congratulations on being chosen by Gareth for the Lewisham Hospital choir!

We are emailing your line manager with all your rehearsal dates – on the condition they are happy to release you for these, you’re in the choir! If you don’t hear back from us, then please assume everything is OK.

FIRST REHEARSAL
The first choir rehearsal is taking place tomorrow, Friday 2^nd March, 12:00 – 14:30 in the Lessof Auditorium. This is located in the Education Centre at the main Lewisham Hospital site. There will be a 30 minute break in which you can go and grab lunch half way through the rehearsal.

Gareth also has something planned for the choir in the evening and you will need to be available 17:30 – 22:00. You will be given more information about this during tomorrow’s rehearsal. It would be a good idea to have something to eat before your evening with Gareth begins – for those who can make it, there will be sandwiches available at 17:00 in The Lewis Club (at the main hospital site).

REHEARSAL SCHEDULE
Attached is a rehearsal schedule with a few tweaks to the dates. We’ve added the weekly Tuesday rehearsals to this schedule, so these are now all the dates you’ll need to be available for. Please note that most of the Tuesday rehearsals will take place 16:00-18:00. Please have a look and, if you haven’t let us know already, please let us know ASAP if you think you’ll have any problems attending any of these dates/times.

Finally, Gareth has asked if you could come to the rehearsal with the names of some songs that you would like to sing in the choir. These could be anything from personal songs that mean a lot to you, to songs that you think might be appropriate for you to sing as a group.

Many thanks and we look forward to seeing you tomorrow.

Congratulations once again
The Twenty Twenty Team

Tuesday, 28th February 2012.

So, an audition. For a choir. If you’ve been following this blog, you’ll be aware that the last audition I had went very badly, and resulted in me having to leave a choir with whom I had (largely) hugely enjoyed singing.

I say ‘largely’ because there were times when I felt wholly inadequate and thoroughly isolated. There was even one occasion when I allowed myself to be bullied by a couple of stuck-up, sarcastic women who thought they were a cut above the vast majority of the rest of the choir, who were at least polite and friendly.

It was the end of 2008, and we were rehearsing Brahms’ Deutsches Requiem for a concert the following April. Due to ongoing building work at Bishopsgate, we were at Henry Wood Hall, just off Borough High Street, and I’d decided to sit in the front row. Not sure why, but it was probably because I was expecting Steph to turn up and we’d have a giggle. But she didn’t – I don’t remember why – and I ended up next to two people I normally avoided.

I threw myself into the rehearsal, using the glorious music to express the maelstrom of emotion I’d been bottling up since my mum’s death a few months earlier, as well as the unexpectedly hurtful things my brothers had said to me in the months before she’d died. After one particularly loud and cathartic section – Tod, wo ist dein Stachel? Holle, wo ist dein Sieg? – I overheard one of these women say to the other that I was “a bit loud”, in a tone which made it clear she wished I wasn’t. The second said to the first to keep her voice down in case she was overheard.

Instead of responding with a “too late for that”, which might have shut them up, I kept quiet. Unfortunately, in doing so, all my energy disappeared… along with my voice. To add insult to injury, the second woman then quipped that the first’s comment had at least had the desired effect. After the break, feeling thoroughly deflated and even more isolated without my singing partner-in-crime, I returned to my seat (and to this day I still don’t know why the hell I didn’t move to the back of the hall where there were plenty of empty chairs) and left the rehearsal depressed, and angry at myself that I’d allowed someone to make me feel that way.

The point of this tangent is not only to tell what happened but also to try to give some indication of how much my singing and my overall mental health are linked (and I’ll accept that this is a link I may have embroidered since a GP suggested singing as therapy). If I can’t sing, I feel anxious. However, the converse is also true, and it’s that that affects me at auditions… which is why I try to avoid them.

But this particular audition couldn’t be avoided. Given that most people I work with knew I was in both LCS and the LPC, it was assumed by pretty much everyone that I’d apply to be in the hospital choir. Rowena, one of the nurses on the children’s ward, gave my name to the Comms office even before the all users email had gone out and three of the 20/20 film crew were in the office within about an hour. I was going to have to audition or spend the rest of my life trying to explain – mainly to myself – why I’d chickened out. I did manage to convince 20/20 (well, Pete and Charlotte) that there was absolutely no chance of me singing on camera in the seminar room but I knew I’d have to do it eventually. I tried to push the thought to the back of my mind – being incredibly busy helped – but it was going to happen no matter how I felt.

And the day duly dawned. We were auditioned in groups of about 20, and there were 10 groups. My group was the second up and we all gathered in the former Children’s Surgical Ward just before 10am. There were obviously departments where more than one person had been chosen, but I couldn’t see anyone I knew. We were called in and I trailed in at the end, taking a seat at the end of the front row.

Gareth introduced himself and the film crew, and we all did likewise. We warmed up our voices and then were invited to sing the refrain from ‘A Spoonful of Sugar’. Helps the medicine go down. Hospital choir. We all laughed, albeit nervously, and sang along. Then Gareth said for the back two rows only to sing, then the front two rows, the left hand side, right hand side, you four… you two… you.

Which meant me. He decided to start with me simply because I was on the right hand end of the front row. So I had to stand up and sing. In front of 19 other volunteers and a film crew. And Gareth Malone. My knees felt as though they were made of water, and I was sweating and shaking. Having sung the refrain once, and not very confidently, I had to sing it again and again – first quieter, then louder, now in a lower register, now a higher register – as he made notes. Then I had to sing one particular note in a three-note chord. By the time I sat down, I felt as though I’d run a marathon.

And that was that. The rest of the process was a bit of a blur. I remember two people particularly: a consultant sitting in the back row who turned out to be tone-deaf and someone who said “I can’t sing that because I’ve got laryngitis” before launching into ‘Girl from Ipanema’, her laryngitis clearly not a problem with that particular arrangement of words and music.

As to whether or not I was successful in my first audition since being rejected by Neville Creed 372 days – one year and one week – ago, I won’t know until the end of the week.

Thursday, 23th February 2012.

“Do one thing every day that scares you.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

“…if possible, please also send an audio/video clip of yourself singing.”

No. It isn’t. Thus I managed to avoided doing the one thing last Thursday that scared me. There wasn’t much I could do to avoid this…

“To Michelle,
GARETH MALONE

SING WHILE YOU WORK

CONGRATULATIONS!

We have had a huge response from people right across the Lewisham Healthcare NHS Trust who want to be part of the workplace choir with Gareth Malone, and we are pleased to invite you to an audition on: Tuesday 28^th February at 10.30am.

Your audition will take place in the former Children’s Surgical Ward, on the second floor of the Women’s and Children’s Wing (Green Zone), University Hospital Lewisham.

You will be auditioned as part of a larger group and the audition session will last around 1 hour. Please arrive 30mins before your time slot to register (i.e. you should arrive at 10.00am for 10.30am audition).

To confirm that you are available to attend your audition time please email lewisham.auditions@twentytwenty.tv by 2pm on Friday 24th February, 2012.”

I did, Eleanor. And it bloody did.

Tuesday, 14th February 2012.

This turned up in my inbox at work today.

All staff: exciting opportunity to sing in new Gareth Malone BBC series

Do you love singing? Have you ever wanted to be in a choir? Whether you just sing in the shower or in public, here’s a chance for you to show off your singing talent and get to know your work colleagues better too, in a new BBC documentary series…

Gareth Malone from the hit series The Choir: Military Wives is filming a new documentary series for BBC2 about choirs in the workplace. We are excited that Lewisham Healthcare NHS Trust is one of four organisations who will feature in the series, being made by Twenty Twenty Television.

The idea is to bring a bit of fun to the work place, give you a chance to get to know colleagues from different parts of the organisation and improve your singing too…

Gareth will be creating a choir from scratch inside Lewisham Healthcare over the next few months and he’s looking for anyone who enjoys singing. You don’t have to have any previous experience; you just need a voice and a love of singing. So, whether you’ve been on stage or just sing in the shower; whether you’re a natural performer or have always felt too shy to perform on your own, Gareth wants to hear from you.

To be considered, all you have to do is fill in the attached application form and send it via email/fax to Twenty Twenty Television no later than Monday 20^th February 2012. If you don’t have access to email or fax, feel free to contact the Trust’s Communications team for help. All the information you provide on this form will be strictly confidential and will not be shared with Lewisham Healthcare without your consent.

Gareth Malone / Twenty Twenty Television will notify all those who have been selected for an audition. Auditions will take place on Monday 27^th February or Tuesday 28^th February. These will take about an hour each.

The formation, rehearsals and performances of the choir will be filmed over the next 3-4 months. You would need to be available for each and every session of a weekly choir rehearsal from around the end of February through to July. (Please note that there will be two rehearsals during the Easter holidays – on 12^th and 13^th April). And, if you’re selected for the choir, you will end up representing Lewisham Healthcare in a contest against three other company choirs from all over Britain, to find out which is the best choir.

The Trust will support all staff who wish to audition and will provide flexible working arrangements to allow all those selected to take part.

We have agreed not to publicise this externally, and it is very important that we keep this information confidential. Please don’t forward this application form internally or externally. No information regarding this series can be made public. This includes chat rooms, online postings, blogs, forums, internal networks and social networking sites including Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.

Good luck!”