The 1993 edition of the Lichfield Cathedral School magazine printed the following account of Christmas Day for the 24 choristers in Lichfield in 1942. It was an edited version of the original, which had been written for, and published in, the Jersey Evening Post in December 1992.
Christmas morning dawned sharp and bitterly cold - but then winter mornings were always cold in those days, for efficient central heating and double glazing were unknown. Jack Frost had painted his beautiful crystal patterns on the huge windows of the dormitory, and putting ones bare feet on the cold bare boards was like a mediaeval torture.
But that was nothing to the shock of taking off one's pyjama top, queuing to go into the bathroom and there bending over a bath of cold water to have a saucepanful poured over your head and shoulders. This morning ritual was considered good for both body and soul! Scrambling frantically into grey shorts, shirts, socks and pullovers and sturdy black shoes, our internal central heating was fired up when we then all had to run around the Cathedral Close in a clockwise direction until our blood pounded through our bodies.
Minutes later 24 pink-cheeked little faces queued up in the dining room for a bowl of porridge followed by bread and jam and mugs of scalding hot tea from a large and very shiny urn.
After breakfast it was out into the cold and a race down to the choir practice room. We never walked in those days - running was one way of keeping warm. There, sitting at his piano, was the Organist and Choirmaster, a plump, forbidding little man whose beady eye, enlarged by his small but thick-lensed glasses, could chill the heart of the most ebullient small boy.
Scales, scales and more scales were followed by the hymns, psalms and responses which would be part of the day's services, and then we went through the carols for the morrow. There were no lessons on Christmas Day, but after a brief break we were all in the Cathedral choir room donning red cassocks and white surplices for Matins. After nearly a year of seven services a week, we were now old hands at the game and to a nine-year old veteran, the responses came naturally and almost without thought.
During sermons we were allowed to draw or read. Hidden, as we were behind shoulder-high choir stalls, we played 'battleships' or read the Magnet or Beano while some doddery old Prebendary droned on and on from the pulpit on the after-life and how to go to the right place. After matins we had some free time to race around the classroom and play with what toys our parents had managed to find for us, before filing in for Christmas dinner (not lunch as it is today), which was as good as cook and the school staff could manage in those hard times.
The evening of Christmas Day was special because we had a conjurer. Looking back on it, he was not a very good conjurer and smelled of stale cigarettes and ale, but he tried hard despite the fact that his lighter would not work when he wanted to bring a lighted candle from under his jacket. When at last it did, as I recall, he set fire to the lining of his jacket. But he did have a real live rabbit which he produced from a top hat.
Yet even in this hour of joy we were still choristers. We were not allowed to shout or cheer because of our precious throats. Apparently a year or so previously, a conjurer had encouraged the children to shout back when he called out "Is everybody happy?" He made them shout louder and louder and the next day none of them could sing a note. So, at seven o'clock, 24 tired little choirboys went up to the dorms.
The 1991 edition of the Lichfield Cathedral School magazine includes the following report by a chorister then in the fourth form (or Year 6 in modern parlance).
Day 1: Wednesday, 19 December, 1990
At about 7.00 we watching a video called 'Christmas Vacation'.
Day 2: Thursday, 20 December, 1990
We went to sing to the postal staff at Wolverhampton. It took an hour to get there and we saw quite a bit of snow. When we got there, the bus couldn't get in (of course, it was only two centimetres too big). We went up about seven floors, until we came to someone's office. We got changed, then went downstairs, until we came to the sorting office. We sang a few carols, and we spied a chart with all the street names in Wolverhampton. One was 'The Dingle'. We changed back into uniform and had lunch (turkey, as you probably guessed). Then we had a tour of the place, and had a go at sorting post. When it was time to leave, we were given a book of mint stamps, a status of Rowland Hill, a bookmark (and millions of elastic bands!).
Day 3: Friday, 21 December, 1991
We got up early and went to Matins. Then we went to St Thomas's Dole.
Day 4: Saturday, 22 December, 1991
Was a usual, boring Saturday.
Day 5: Sunday, 23 December, 1991
It was a normal Sunday until we went to the Bishop's House, and he bought 120 mince pies for us!
Day 6: Monday, 24 December, 1991 (Christmas Eve)
We had a party at the Deanery and played a few games. At the end, we were given a Christmas present each off the Dean and the Precentor.
Day 7: Tuesday, 25 December, 1991 (Christmas Day)
The rain was atrocious. We were desperately waiting by the tree. When the Headteacher shouted "GO!", there was a flurry of ripping and wrapping flew everywhere. We had lunch late, and in the afternoon we watched E.T. We had a very long afternoon.
Day 8: Wednesday, 26 December, 1991 (Boxing Day)
The Carol Service was brilliant, and home was even more brilliant!
Herbert Parker was a Bass Lay Vicar at Lichfield Cathedral from the age of 29 until his death in 1956, 52 years later. I was recently sent a 78 record which he had recorded during his career; unfortunately, there is no date recorded on the disc, but having been recorded in Birmingham it is presumably from some point in his five decades in Lichfield.
The following video is a transcription of the recording which consists of The Wanderer and Awake Beloved. Below the recording are two articles from the Lichfield Mercury which celebrate his fifty years at Lichfield, and then mark his death two years later, respectively.
from The Lichfield Mercury, Friday, 9 July, 1954
Fifty Years Vicar Choral
Cathedral veteran who has sung 'Elijah' more than 300 times
His very wide circle of friends and admirers in Lichfield and throughout the Midlands will, we are confident, wish to be associated with the Mercury in extending hearty congratulations to Mr Herbert Parker, on the completion on Thursday next of fifty years' service as vicar choral of Lichfield Cathedral. Appointed out of 120 applications, Mr Parker was installed as bass vicar choral on July 15, 1904, when the late Mr J B Lott was Cathedral Organist, the Very Revered H M Luckock was Dean, and the Right Reverend Augustus Legge was Bishop of Lichfield.
Mr Herbert Parker was the youngest of a musical family, and from an early age was nurtured in the tradition of good music and good singing. In his teens, he began his training as a singer by taking lessons from his eldest brother who was then studying under an Italian master and was a tenor in Leeds Parish Church choir.
Herbert also began to study the bass solos in the great oratorios, and by the time he was 21 he had mastered most of the bass numbers in Messiah, Elijah, Creation, etc.
About that time, he was sent by his firm to take up a position in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and, having already been a member of the Leeds Philharmonic Society and also the Leeds Choral Union, he at once applied for member of the Newcastle and Gateshead Choral Union. He was tested by the secretary of the Society, who was also the Organist and Choirmaster at a Presbyterian Church, and was, by him, invited to join his choir which he did. There he met the lady whom we now know as Mrs Parker, who was Mayor of Lichfield in 1951, and it also gave him what might be called his start as a professional singing. It happened that the bass singer, David Hughes, who had been engaged to sing the solos in Messiah for the Choral Union, sent a telegram to say he was unable to sing that evening, and the secretary, without hesitation went to Herbert's place of business and asked him to deputise for Mr Hughes. It was something of an ordeal for a young singer to undertake at such short notice, but at the rehearsal, the conductor expressed himself as satisfied and at the concert in the evening, he had a great reception from both audience and chorus, and subsequently received several letters advising him to take up singing as his profession.
Shortly after this event, a vacancy for a bass soloist occurred in Leeds Parish Church choir, for which Mr Parker successfully applied. He went back to Leeds with his mind made up to be a singer. In Newcastle he had continued his training and he now became a pupil of Mr Alfred Benton, organist of Leeds Parish Church and conductor of the Choral Union. This was the hey day of choral singing, when every town and even village had its choral society and engagements came freely. In fact, Mr Parkers remembers one date for which he booked Messiah and had to refuse eight requests for the same date.
His next more was to Lichfield in 1904. He saw the advertisement for a bass vicar choral in Lichfield Cathedral and applied for the post. He was one of 120 applicants, 20 of whom were selected for trial. In this event he was the successful candidate and was installed as vicar choral on July 15.
Before he left Leeds, he had been engaged to sing the part of Beckmesser from Der Meistersingers at the forthcoming Leeds Music Festival in October of that year, and also the understudy new works to be sung at the Festival, including Walford Davies' Everyman and Stanford's Songs of the Sea. This meant many journeys to and from Leeds, but it was a more heartening experience for a young singer at the beginning of his career.
He continued his studies at Lichfield and learned many parts consequent upon his engagements, which took him during the course of years to the Channel Islands in the South, to Inverness in the North, to Jull in the East and to Ireland. He also continued his training in voice production and went to London weekly as a pupil of Mr John Acton who trained many famous singers, such as Norman Allin, Robert Radford and Agnes Nicholls.
As a teacher himself, Mr Parker was, and is, well-known in the Midlands, and several of his pupils are now cathedral singers.
With the coming of radio, a new outlet was opened for singers, and Mr Parker had the pleasure of singing many times from Savoy Hill, Birmingham and Newcastle.
Sometimes he has been asked what his favourite role is, and finds is difficult to make a choice. The most popular successes seem to have been Elijah, which he has sung more than three hundred times, and Messiah, almost as many. Amongst other works he has greatly enjoyed singing are Verdi's Requiem, Elgar's The Apostles and Caractacus, Walford Davies' Everyman, and the St Matthew and St John Passions of Bach.
He has had the privilege of singing under the batons of Sir Charles Stanford, Sir Hubert Parry, Sir Edward Elgar, and other famour English conductors, and with such orchestras as the Halle, Queens Hall, Scottish, Leeds Symphony, etc.
In his early career, Mr Parker met and sang with many famous singers of the day, including Dolores, Ravogli, Agnes Nicholls, Ben Davies, Parry Jones, Marie Brema and Else Suddaby.
Perhaps now he likes best of all singing in the Cathedral the fine bass solos in the anthems written by the great masters of the past.
the Mercury reported on his funeral Friday 27 July 1956
Funeral of Mr Herbert Parker
Large attendance at Cathedral
In an atmosphere of solemnity and respect, the funeral service of the late Mr Herbert Parker, for 52 years a Vicar Choral of Lichfield Cathedral, took place at the Cathedral on Monday.
The service was fully choral and the opening prayers were read by the Precentor (Canon S G B Exham). The Dean (Very Rev W S Macpherson) read the lesson and the committal was taken by the Bishop of Lichfield (Dr A S Reeve). Other robed clergy were Canon A T Jenkins, Preb E E F Walter (officiating as the Bishop's Chaplain), Rev H H Follis and Rev L E H Caller.
During the service, the choir sang the 23rd psalm, a special hymn and the anthem If we believe (Goss). Mr A P Porter was at the organ.
At the graveside, Mr Parker's fellow Freemasons placed sprigs of acacia on the coffin, whilst after the service headed by the Provincial Worshipful Brother J Whyld they assembled at the Lodge Room where eulogies were expressed to Past Worshipful Brother Parker and the toast of 'Departed Merit' was drunk. Sympathy to the relatives was expressed by the Worshipful Master.
[following a long list of the great and good of Lichfield who were in attendance, there is then a tribute by the Dean, the Very Reverend W S Macpherson:]
"I am going to ask you to pause for a moment and remember with thankfulness to Almighty God the long and faithful service of His servant Herbert Parker, who passed to his rest last Thursday after completing fifty-two years as a Lay Vicar of this Cathedral.
"As a singer, nurtured in the tradition of good music and good singing from an early age, Herbert Parker excelled.
"He is still remembered with affection and respect in Leeds Parish Church, that stronghold of sound Church Music, though he left there over half a century ago.
"But though he attained fame as a bass soloist and was in demand literally throughout the length and breadth of this land and sang with some of the greatest singers of his time, he would, I think, have agreed that it was here in this Cathedral that his heart really found its home, and where his greatest work was done. For Herbert Parker was not just a singer, though few could equal him in the power, the accuracy and the quality of his voice even at the age of eighty.
"He was much more than that. The gift he possessed in such rich measure he treasured and trained as being a gift from God; and through all the many years he sang in this Cathedral - and how regular and punctual he was - it was to the Glory of God that he sang.
"His singing was never an end in itself, but always the vehicle through which he strove to help others to glimpse something of the ineffable beauty of God.
"A man who combined a natural humility with his native Yorkshire forthrightness of speech - faithful Churchman and regular Communicant who was helped and supported for over fifty years by a devoted wife, Herbert Parker has left a name and an example which will long be cherished here in the City of adoption, and more especially in this Cathedral which he loved so well, and served so faithfully."
Songs of Praise was broadcast from Lichfield in September 1990 (having been recorded four months previously) to mark HRH the Duchess of Kent taking on the role of patron of the Choir Schools' Association. The service involved choristers from all over the north of England.
Although there has been a recording available on YouTube for some time, I have recently been sent a better (and complete) copy of the original VHS which has now been added to YouTube.
To accompany the broadcast, I have also found two accounts from the Lichfield Cathedral School Magazine which marked the event:
As always, it is interesting when people get in touch to share a Lichfield connection. I recently received an email from a lady in Canada who understands that her grandmother's brother was a chorister at the Lichfield.
Jack Read was born on 24 January 1916, and the staged photograph she sent reproduced below is dated May 1930. The photograph (presented as a postcard) was taken by Lichfield photographers Edgar Bates of Bore Street, who owned three shops, now demolished.
Jack was born at 61 Wade Street, in Lichfield and later attended St. Mary's Infants School. He was the only boy and had five older sisters. After his time singing, he became a motor driver, and he began army training in 1935. During the war, he served with the North Staffords in Italy, and on 9 December 1939 married Gladys Mary Smith. He died of complications after a routine gall-bladder operation in 1994.
Last year, I was contacted by someone researching their family history, as they discovered that they were related to John Bennett who was a Lay Vicar at Lichfield. I was able to provide some information about Bennett's time in Lichfield which forms part of the research that the original enquirer, Humphrey Palmer, incorporated into biography of Bennett. Bennett's biography is reproduced here from Palmer's research in an edited form.
John Bennett was baptised on 19 January 1771 at the Parish Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Southwell, Nottinghamshire; he was the son of William Bennett and Mary Johnson. John was the fourth of nine children. By 1781 he was singing in the choir of St Mary the Virgin, Southwell, and he left when his voice broke on 21 July 1785. At least five of the children of William and Mary died before the age of 10. At the age of 22, John married Ann Nattrass at St Michael's Church, Hoveringham, on the 21 May 1793; she was 20 years old.
John and Ann had five sons and three daughters: George, born 1793; Cornelius buried 1795; Matthew born 1796, died 1797; Mary, born 5 September 1798; Matthew, born 1801; Ann, born 1803, died early 1804; Ann, born 1804; Cornelius, born 1806. Only three of the sons survived into adulthood. All the children were born at Southwell, and baptised at St Mary the Virgin, the Minster Church, Southwell.
Bennett became a probationer at the Southwell School, and appears in a list of singing men at the beginning of 1799; he was admitted to the Southwell Collegiate Church as a singing man in the category of a Bass singer on 17 April 1800 at the age of 29. He would have been under the Organist Thomas Spofforth whilst at Southwell, and he may have come into contact with the Reverend John Thomas Becher who commissioned and built the Workhouse at Southwell (this was, in principle, the layout for most of the Workhouses throughout Great Britain).
Bennett remained at Southwell for nearly seven years, and at the age of 36 he was appointed as a Lay Clerk at Worcester Cathedral. Bennett's youngest son, Corneluis, would have only been about 1 year old when Bennett was appointed, and it seems that the whole family moved to Worcester in 1807. During his time in the choir at Worcester, Bennett would have been singing in the annual Three Choirs Festival.
Whilst at Worcester, John and Ann had another son, William Brough Bennett, baptised at St Peter's Church on 13 October 1808, and the other boys joined the choir at Worcester Cathedral. Matthew was in the choir from 1808 to 1817; he was also a King's Scholar. Cornelius was in the choir from 1813 to 1818, and William from the age of 8 until 1818, when the Bennetts left Worcester.
George Bennett, John's eldest son, had moved to Worcester with the family in 1807, but he seems to have moved to Durham sometime after 1808. He became a member of the Cathedral Choir, and married Sarah Bird at the end of 1819 at the church of St Giles in Durham; they had two girls and two boys, but both the girls died young.
Bennett remained at Worcester until the middle of 1818, when the position of Vicar Choral belonging to the Prebend of Bishophull in the Cathedral Church at Lichfield became vacant on the death of Thomas Birch who had served for 45 years since 1773 in that role. At this time, there were a total of seven vicars choral at Lichfield Cathedral. Samuel Spofforth, the nephew of Thomas Spofforth, was the Organist at Lichfield from 1807 to 1864. (Spofforth was buried in the same year as Matthew Bennett, who never married and was a Dancing Master at Lichfield and lived in The Close Lichfield.)
Bennett was elected to the Lay Vicarship having the majority of the vicars in his favour and the Dean and Chapter being satisfied as to his life from the Dean and Chapter of Worcester. His daughter, Mary, stayed in Worcester and married George Vaughan Palmer on 12 July 1821; they had a daughter Jemima prior to their marriage in 1820 who may have been John's first grandchild. John's wife, Ann, must have visited Worcester on many occasions, as she died and was buried at St Peter's, Worcester in September 1827, where George and Mary's three boys were baptised.
Bennett is recorded in The History and Gazetteer of Staffordshire in the years 1833 and 1834 as a Vicar Choral in the Prebend of Bishop's Hull with an annual salary of between £80 and £100 exclusive of his residence in The Close, Lichfield. His occupation and residence is confirmed by the 1841 census, which also reveals him to be a widower, with his daughter Ann recorded as housekeeper, and living with him at The Close, as was Mary, his daughter, who was also widowed and two of her children Alfred and Edgar. The census indicates that William Machin and James Matthews both Lay Vicars also lived at the same property. The Close contained about 62 houses, which were available for members of the Cathedral, but some of the houses were in a poor condition and many clergyman,vergers and Lay Vicars lived outside the Close; at this time about 250 people lived in the Close.
During 1847 a complaint from the Lay Vicar of Longdon, Mr Samuel Pearsall, about the repairs of the property owned by John Bennett indicates there was some dispute about how he had treated his property when Pearsall took it on. However, the Dean and Chapter ruled that because of the time lapsed since Mr Pearsall had taken over the property in 1844, no action was taken against John Bennett.
The 1851 census reveals Bennett living in the Close with his daughters Mary and Ann; however, Jemima, his granddaughter (now aged 29), and her husband Joseph (age 34) where also living in the close with and Maria (9), John (7), Arthur (5), and Anne (4). Mary Palmer died, aged 58, in April 1859 and was buried in The Close. The Lay Vicars were freeholders, and held their post until their death (unless they left or were dismissed). This meant that they continued to receive the income from the Corporation's property, but as they got older many stopped singing and engaged a deputy to sing on their behalf. There is no record of John Bennett securing a deputy's services specifically, but there are several deputies singing at the Cathedral during this time, and at a meeting 7 June 1859 to discuss the Corporation's business, John Bennett was listed as one of three Lay Vicars absent as reported in the Chapter Act Books.
At the age of 90, John was still living at The Close with his daughter Ann and was employing a servant to live in, and his great-granddaughter, Anne Preston, (13) was registered at the same address in the 1861 census. Matthew Bennett, his son, was also living in The Close, and his neighbours were the Prestons (Joseph, Jemima, John and 7 month old Ada).
John died on 23 February 1862, and was buried in the Cathedral Close four days later.
The 1995 edition of Lichfield Cathedral School's magazine includes the following photograph of some of the choristers with the then presenter of BBC's Top Gear, Quentin Wilson outside Lichfield Cathedral School.
In the Organist and Master of the Choristers' annual report within the magazine, Andrew Lumsden writes
[The choristers] also appeared in the BBC 2 car programme Top Gear, when they had to sing a few ditties and then, with some other hardy folk of all shapes and sizes, clamber over a brand new red BMW Compact! Some were even interviewed by Quentin Wilson. [...] The programme obviously has a large following, because when we were at Keele University a few days after it was broadcast, when I mentioned that some of the audience might recognise one or two of the front row, a large number of heads nodded in agreement.
I have tried, in vain, to find a copy of this edition of Top Gear: if anyone can help, please email.
