Tower and Town, August 2018

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Marlborough Community Choir

I joined the choir when it started in November 2010. I played guitar and thought joining the choir would be a good way to meet others with a similar interest. I thought it would be only short term but, nearly eight years later, I'm still singing.

It's like any workout, the more you do it the better you get and I found after a while I could reach notes that had only been possible in my youth. Much of this was down to Vanessa Lafaye, the choir’s founder. She was a natural voice practitioner and with her guidance and enthusiasm she brought together a bunch of people, with varying degrees of singing confidence, and turned them into a successful choir. Her belief was "If you can talk, you can sing" and it should be fun. She convinced my wife Shirley, who had been told at school that she couldn't sing, to join the choir - and she loves it.

We've made many friends and there is a great atmosphere when we all get together to sing on a Wednesday evening. Although we are not a performance choir, we have sung several times at the Jazz Festival, the Christmas Lights switch-on and many other events in and around the town. There’s a sense of pride when we start singing and the audience realises that we are surprisingly good. A highlight for choir members and for me personally, is singing for care home residents at Christmas.

Sadly, we lost Vanessa to cancer in March but she was still conducting the choir a few days before she died and our last performance, at the Civic Dinner, was one of our best; a fitting tribute. However, Vicky Sweeney, a great friend of Vanessa, has taken on the task of leading the choir. We hope to carry on singing and performing in Marlborough (see marlboroughcommunitychoir.org). We are always pleased to welcome people (especially men) to the choir, even if you think you can't sing; there’s no need to read music.

Alan Pryor