The rise and fall of my singing career

It all began the summer of 1965. Baldwin’s Mills had a new Student minister named Betty Falconer. She came from Ontario, and was young, pretty (as much a 10 year old boy knows what pretty was) and reminded me of Mary Poppins. She rode a bicycle with a basket, loved kids, and decided to start a choir. My older sister was 12 and my younger sister was 8, and they both sang well. I decided to join too. I was used to singing at campfires so I thought it would be fun. Besides, any time spent with Miss Falconer was bound to be great.

The first few practices were a bit strange. I liked singing and she tried to help us with correct breathing until we sounded pretty good. I don’t have a good ear for music but I was enthusiastic. Her only advice to me was not to sing too loud. I knew I wasn’t great, but it was fun to be in a choir, and I really liked Miss Falconer. We learned the hymns for Sunday each week, and after a few practices we even did a few anthems. We got to sit up at the front and all the adults thought we were cute. Soon summer was over and so was the choir.

In the winter we worshipped at Sisco Memorial United Church in Coaticook. When they heard we had sung in a choir during the summer they decided that children could join their choir too. This was quite the experience. There were 10 adults in the choir, and 3 men who were excellent singers, Stan Beerworth, Stan Cromwell, and Jack Turnbull. All I had to do was sit with them, sing what they sang and I couldn’t go wrong. Our organist, Madeline, was a quiet French Catholic lady who was extremely nervous but a great musician. She made the pipe organ sound wonderful, but she always seemed uncertain about herself. She let Jack pick the anthems, and he often told her what tunes to play.

The choir loft at Sisco Memorial United Church was high up behind the pulpit. No one could see us until we stood up to sing. This meant that we could fidget and no one would notice. I was never very good at sitting still. Jack would give us all mints to suck on. On ordinary Sundays we missed singing the anthem because after the children’s story we left for Sunday School. At Christmas and Easter though, we stayed for the whole hour and sang the anthems.

I was in the choir for just a few years but I still remember the highlight of my musical career. An important lady from the church had died, and the service was to be on a Friday afternoon. The family wanted the choir to sing at the funeral, so we had permission to take the afternoon off from elementary school and sing an anthem. There were five of us children that day; after all, who could resist an afternoon playing hookey, with parent’s permission no less. When the service was over we even had tea and sweets. I remember that afternoon quite clearly, though I have no idea what the name of the lady who died was.

How was I to know that this would be my last good memory of choir. The end began innocuously. We were part of a five point pastoral charge, and the powers that be decided to form a combined choir with Way’s Mills and Ayer’s Cliff for a special service at Easter. One Thursday night at Beulah United Church we gathered for the first practice. Claire Shipway was the choir director, a very scary lady. You see, her real job was school nurse. She was the one who gave us all those nasty needles whenever we needed a vaccination. She never smiled. I had a feeling of forboding, a sense that the fun was over.

We practiced a few hymns and then started on the special anthem. That’s when it happened. She noticed that the sound wasn’t right. Sing that verse again, she said. Once again she grimaced. Okay, how about if just the Coaticook choir sings. I started to get worried. Okay she said, just the men. Now I was terrified. When we finished, she looked right down at me. “Mead”, she said, “give me a middle C”. The jig was up. I tried my best, but I’m sure I was no where near a C let alone middle C. We were a volunteer choir, so she couldn’t kick me out. Just mouth the words, she said.

The rest of the practice went by like a flash, and that was the last night I ever sang with the choir. I was too embarrassed. I never even went to the combined service to hear my sisters sing. It had been fun while it lasted, but that was the end of my brief singing career. Oh, I still sing in the shower, in the car while driving, and at summer camp, but my choir days are over forever.