'There is no ‘elitism’ in sacred church music'

There is no ‘elitism’ in sacred church music.

In 1951, as a child of a working class family on the fringes of ‘posh’ Nether Edge, at the persuasion of a friend on our street, I became a chorister at the much-missed St Andrew’s Parish Church.

No-one at St Andrew’s ever questioned my place in the choir stalls.

When I was persuaded to accept Confirmation - a reluctant decision since I came from a family of devout Methodists - I felt obliged to wear my mother’s shoes because my own had holes in the soles which would have been seen by the congregation when I knelt at the communion rail.

Fortunately my mother, a latter day buffer girl, wore what would now be called unisex shoes.

While in the choir, I rejoiced in singing hymns and anthems from Bach to Stainer, Verdi to Vaughan Williams.

I recall singing “Jerusalem” at the City Hall for the local Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance and I’m proud to be seen in a Sheffield Telegraph photograph used in the anniversary exhibition at the City Hall a couple of years ago.

Many years later, I became the producer of The Festival of Remembrance at The Royal Albert Hall and, at Christmas, the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols on BBC Radio, a programme that has the largest audience of any radio programme in the world.

The late Sir Stephen Cleobury accepted my authenticity without question.

I owed my sacred music knowledge to Anglican Church music in Sheffield.

But I also became a jazz musician playing vibraphone, sometimes in Sheffield pubs and clubs.

Music is actually much bigger than the small-minded and sanctimonious rule-makers of Sheffield’s premier place of worship.

There is a place for all shades and styles in churches of all faiths and elsewhere but the evolution must be natural and gradual.

I can only bring to mind the words of my favourite hymn, Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, forgive our foolish ways.

Now, bell ringing is something else. We never see their faces. Does that matter? Of course it doesn’t! I only know we are all worse off for the absence of church bell ringing due to Covid.

Is that going to happen to sacred choral music too?

David France

Old Whittington