RSCM Courses and Events

This page explains our involvement with the Royal School of Church Music (RSCM).

When I became choirmaster in 1981, most churches had choirs, and most belonged to the RSCM. This worldwide organisation offered choirs a variety of amazing opportunities - from training courses for organists, conductors, singers - and even clergy!

Help and advice was available on every aspect of music and liturgy in church services.

Up until 1981 our contact with the RSCM had been almost non-existent. When I contacted the RSCM, Martin How came to Spalding to hear the choir, and to discuss how the RSCM could be of help to us in Spalding.

Then followed several visits by Martin over the coming years. I went on RSCM courses at Addington Palace in Croydon, and the choir became involved in many aspects of the RSCM - which are detailed separately below.

RSCM Training Scheme

The RSCM had developed a scheme of awards - which consisted of medals, worn with different coloured ribbons. Higher level awards were the Dean's Award, the Bishop's Award, and the St. Nicholas Award. (These three were later to be replaced with Bronze, Silver and Gold).

We adopted this system of awards, which remained in use until about 2015. In 2015 we took the decision to leave membership of the RSCM, as we did not feel that it was value for money, and no longer had much relevance to what we were doing at Spalding. At this time we developed our own system of awards (based on the RSCM system) and we had medals made bearing our own church logo. The RSCM examinations had been moving towards a more academic bias, and I felt that boys should receive medals for what they actually do during a service - singing well, leading the said parts, watching the conductor, helping others and being part of a team. The RSCM emphasis for the higher level awards was more on technicalities in the music which were verging on A level music. Whilst knowledge of complex harmonies and modulations is useful for those becoming musicians, it is not that relevant to the average 12 or 13 year old boy singing in our choir!

Having our own award system meant that examinations could now be tailored to our precise needs, rather than teaching boys things that they actually didn't put into practice during normal practices and services. It also gave me the opportunity to train some of our older boys to become the 'examiners' - and for the last 4 years this system has worked extremely well.

Award presentations at various RSCM Festvals

RSCM Cathedral Singers Events

The RSCM ran an annual programme of visits to various Cathedrals around the country to sing Choral Evensong. There were different areas in the country, and we fitted into 'The Southern Cathedral Singers' area, at that time led by Martin How, and later by John Wardle. Boys had to audition to belong and, if successful, were invited to the events for the year. (Some events were for boys and men; others for girls and men, and some for everyone.)

Music had to be learnt prior to the event, and then, on the day, rehearsals would be held - prior to Evensong. This gave a great number of our boys the opportunity to learn some different music, and also gave them the opportunity to sing with other singers from around the country - in different Cathedrals.

Feeling sick .. again?

One particular journey remains in my mind for all the wrong reasons. Whilst travelling to one of these events one boy sitting behind me, in the back of my car, suddenly announced that he was going to be sick. All he could find was a very small thin plastic bag that had held his sandwiches. As we were on a dual carriageway there was nothing I could do to help. He used the bag, but it leaked all over him, so all I could think of was to tell him to throw it out of the window - something which I wouldn't normally recommend. He opened the car window and threw the bag out. Most unfortunately - at that precise moment a car was overtaking us in the right-hand lane ... The bag, complete with contents, splattered all down the side of their car. Luckily they didn't stop. I can only imagine what they must have thought at the time .... It was the kind of event that would probably result in road-rage these days. Since then we have always carried plastic ice cream containers in cars - just in case!

These are the places that some of the boys from our choir visited over the years:-

• Canterbury

• Rochester

• Southwark

• Harwich Parish Church

• Lincoln

• Peterborough

• Leicester

• Norwich

• Portsmouth

• Bury St Edmunds

• Chelmsford

• Coventry

• Guildford

• Westminster Abbey

• St Paul's

• St Albans

• Kingsthorpe St John Baptist Church

• Rothwell Parish Church

• Ely

• St Mary le Tower, Ipswich

• Winchester

As the number of choirs with boy singers declined over the years, the number of Cathedral events for boys and men also declined - until it was no longer viable. I owe a great deal to Martin How and John Wardle, and these events - as they gave us all a standard of excellence to strive for.

Special thanks to David Jones - and to all parents - who helped in transporting boys to these events - some of which were a very long way away from Spalding ...

Royal Albert Hall

In 1987 a group of our choirmembers were invited to take part in the RSCM Diamond Jubilee Service at the Royal Albert Hall.

I have found this clip which shows a part of the service. Our choir members sat on the right hand side of the Organ, and wore our usual blue robes. Those who were there might just be able to recognise themselves!

Residential Courses at Haileybury College

The RSCM organised various residential courses for singers, and Martin How suggested that our boys would benefit from taking part in the Easter Holiday course at Haileybury College. A number of boys took part in these courses over several years, and for two of these occasions I was proud to have been invited by Martin How to be a Housemaster at Haileybury. This gave me a great deal of experience, and helped develop my skills as a choir trainer and my conducting. The courses at Haileybury were very structured, and great emphasis was given to standards - of singing, attention, processing, tidiness - (all standards that I still try to maintain to this day ..). A chart was displayed in the dining room with everyone's name on, grouped into the various houses (name after composers - Byrd, Tallis etc.) Housemasters were asked to give points to boys during rehearsals, and for particular achievements, and these were added to the chart each day. Individual, and House winners were announced daily and at the end of the course.

Below are some photos taken at Haileybury in April 1983

...and here from the archives is a short cine film clip of the RSCM residential Course at Haileybury in 1983. The boys from Spalding are wearing blue cassocks...

Local RSCM events

Local church choirs were invited to hold singing events, and at Spalding we organised several RSCM days which involved some singing, some leisure activities, and a service in the church. The Spalding events became extremely popular, and were attended by well over 100 singers.

These photos were taken at various RSCM events at Spalding. They were not taken at the same event.

Cathedral Residential Courses

The RSCM also arranged Cathedral Courses - often during the summer holidays at various Cathedrals around the country. A few of our boys attended courses at York Minster, King's College Cambridge and one or two other venues

RSCM Annual Choirs' Festivals

The Lincoln Area organised an annual festival for choirs to attend from throughout the Diocese. These were held bi-annually at Lincoln Cathedral, and alternate years were held at various large Parish Churches. As the years went by, the decline in the number of boys involved with choirs became more and more apparent - and by 2015 there were only a couple of choirs being represented that still had boys.

Over the years we attended events at:-

• Lincoln Cathedral

• Newark

• Grantham

• Boston

• Louth

Local Choir Events

I thought it would be good to meet up with other local church choirs, and in Spalding we held our own 'Three Choirs' Festivals' for a couple of years - with singers from St. Paul's Church Fulney, and St. John's Church Spalding.

I also arranged for our choir to meet with choirs from St. George's Stamford, and with Louth and Boston choirs.

We met at one of the churches and rehearsed the music we were singing, then had some leisure time - normally culminating in a football match between the two choirs. The day ended with refreshments and then Evensong. We took it in turns to host these inter-choir events.

Trouble at St. George's Stamford ...

After a few years of meeting up with the Choir from St. George's Church Stamford, and their Director of Music, Leslie Thistleton, we were all shocked to hear that a new regime at their church had decided (almost overnight) that they no longer required a robed choir. Within a week the choir had been disbanded, and the services of their Director was no longer required. That was a sudden end to one of our precious church choirs - something that unfortunately has occurred at many other churches around the country. Here at Spalding we are fortunate to have been saved from extinction by our much more sympathetic clergy ...

Two memorable occasions come to mind...

On one of the visits to Louth, one of the cars transporting boys did not arrive .. With no mobile phones we all waited anxiously, wondering what had happened - until eventually we heard the news that the driver (Rex, my dad) had been taken ill on the journey and was in Spilsby hospital. It turned out he had suffered a stroke. The police had stopped him after he was spotted driving erratically - and after clipping a wing mirror or two. The boys in his car never did make it to Louth - but I expect they remembered that day for all the wrong reasons. Luckily no-one had been injured.

The other memorable event was also at Louth Parish Church. As hosts, they provided refreshments for us all, and at one point we noticed a small group of the boys taking small cakes outside. On investigation we found that three of the boys were having a competition to see how many cakes they could throw up onto the church roof ... Our boys today would probably have preferred to have eaten the cakes ...

The East Midlands Choirs' Trust

In the 1990s our choir received an invitation to join this group which involved only churches in the area which had boys and men - no girls. Initially I thought this was quite a good idea, although I didn't want to get too involved. As far as I remember our choir only sang at two of the combined choirs' events - In 1995 at Newark Parish Church, and in 1997, when the festival was hosted in Spalding. Recordings of Evensong - and the evening concert on the same day (6th July 1997) are in the 'Miscellaneous Recordings' section. After a while members of the Trust began to promote their opinion that choirs with just boys and men were in some ways superior to mixed choirs - and I decided at that point to sever our connection with this group. I did not agree with this point of view - I do think that there is a difference between the sound of boys' voices and girls' voices - but only that they are different - not that one is in any way better than the other.

Campaign for the Defence of the Traditional Cathedral Choir

A few years ago we recieved a letter from this group commending us on continuing the tradition of having a 'Cathedral' type of choir in our Parish Church. This organisation was promoting choirs similar to ours and wanted to run a competition - which was supposed to encourage other boys to join us ... Their idea was to offer a cup and substantial monetary prize to the best singer, with other cash prizes to the boys who came 2nd and 3rd. Boys who wanted to compete could prepare an anthem to sing, and the committee would be the judges. They initially arranged for four of their committee to visit us one Wednesday so that they could 'see us in action'. I felt this would be useful for them - to see the boys at choir club, and also sit in during a rehearsal. On arrival I could tell almost instantly that they did not approve of the choir club activities - something which was beneath them. One of the committee asked for a coffee - but with goat's milk, please....

Sitting in the Maples Room to discuss their proposed competition, I was quite shocked to find that no other choirs had entered any boys, and that the competition would, in fact, be between boys from Spalding. That to me went against everything that we stood for as a team, so I tried to persuade the committee that if they really wanted to 'support and encourage' our choir (as their literature stated) then it would be better if the choir as a whole sang for the committee, and if they felt it was worthy of encouragement, to give a prize to the whole choir. The committee did not like this idea at all, and in the end nothing materialised - which was probably for the best...