A trip to London one hot July afternoon, to play for that high art form, the service of Choral Evensong, with Wyndcliffe Voices and Philip Drew. St John, Holland Road was the destination, invited by the church's organist, Paul Joslin. I had visited the church about 30 years ago and knew it as the last stone-vaulted building to be built in London. Built from 1885 to 1910 the website is worth a look, and explains some interesting little oddities, like the floor-level. Walking in, the immediate impression is "wow". We arrived after another service had finished and incense was still lingering. In the history of this church, that was nothing new! An estate agent's blurb about a flat for sale next door: " Holland Road is close to the green open spaces of Holland Park and the Shepherd's Bush's Westfield shopping centre " which made me smile. The organ has no case, and is almost unphotographable, being 50' above floor-level. The origina...
Completely off topic. But this is my page, so I can relax the rules if I wish. Here's the eulogy I wrote for Dad's funeral service : On joining the RAF To the nurses, to the care-workers, he was Edward. To family, to friends, and everyone, he was Ted. To the charities he volunteered for, he was Ted. RNLI, Cats Protection, RSPB, he helped or donated with equal enthusiasm, he was Ted. Ted came from a working-class family in the east end of London. Born in (officially) Shoreditch, his father was an upholsterer and his mother died not long after he was born. Leaving Elementary school, he started work and was called up when WWII started. In the RAF in Algeria, he told stories of the camp commander selling the food for the troops to local people and pocketing the money, leaving them with fresh fruit and figs to eat. The searchlights, which used silver ingots to provide the arc, remained unlit for reasons not entirely clear… After the war, he took advantage of ...
Well, I wandered again. Not far, St Botolph's, Heene, in Worthing, but it was a booking. An event nowadays. Sung eucharist, an anthem (Goss O Saviour of the World ) and some music before and after The choir was as good as ever, the sermon a bit "miserable sinner", intincted wafers, and the pipe organ ciphering on middle E on the Great, which rendered that manual unusable. So I played the hymns and voluntaries on the electronic. That had tenor E flat not working at all on the pedals, so I chose pieces which were in C major and E major (slightly modal E, leading note flattened every time it occurred in the pedal). The main thing is that, after such a long break from having to be responsible for leading the music in a service other than St Mary's Kemptown, the feelings I had of slight panic have returned after a good couple of decades absence. Probably all to the good, keeps me on my toes, and all that sort of thing. After lunch I decided I would like to go to choral eve...
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