Chamber Choir at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, May 2008

Thirty-five boys, eight staff and twelve parents embarked on the journey to Windsor Castle.  The Chamber Choir had been offered the chance to sing for the Castle’s regular daily service of evensong in the Chapel of the Most Noble and Honourable Order of the Garter, as their own, world-famous choir was not singing that day.  The weather was as perfect as it could have been, and on arrival in Windsor we were welcomed by the policeman at the Henry VIII Gate and then escorted into the Dungeon (yes, the Dungeon) where we would be able to leave our things (securely!) whilst we took time to tour the State Apartments.

We were all really impressed by the friendliness of all the staff, especially considering that the Castle is a world-famous tourist attraction and security was very tight.  In fact, on the way in to the Castle, Mr. Lawson was asked by the police to check that everyone coming in with us actually was a member of our party.  He obviously didn’t look quite hard enough, because once we were in the Dungeon, we discovered that there was a nice Japanese lady who had somehow become attached.  She was escorted away by armed police.

Having had our fill of world-famous art, ice-cream and more gilt and chandeliers than you can shake a stick at, we had a short rehearsal in the Dungeon, before moving into the Chapel itself.  The Chapel is a pretty amazing place, filled as it is with royal tombs and the heraldry of the Garter Knights.  We took our place in those amazing mediaeval stalls, each covered with the personal shields of the knights who had sat in them for six and a half centuries, and went through our music.  Playing the organ for us was the Castle Organ Scholar, John Challenger, who is actually from Hereford and known to a number of those with us.  After the rehearsal, having asked very nicely indeed, we were allowed to have a photo taken at the top of the Sovereign’s Stairs, the great flight of stone stairs at the west end of the Chapel, on which the Queen and members of her family are often photographed after services.  We were given strict instructions that no-one was to walk down the stairs, and our photographer had to take a long, round-about route from us to get to the bottom to take the photo.

And so to the service itself.  As the choir processed in to the stalls, many boys were pretty surprised to see the large number of people present.  There were many parents, besides those who had come with us in the bus, and with members of the public there will have been about two hundred in the congregation.  The music included George Dyson’s noisy, but magnificent, setting of the canticles in D, and Vaughan Williams’ setting of O How Amiable which we had sung previously for the Archbishop of Canterbury, plus some Bruckner and Williams Smith’s responses.  It was all pretty splendid, and the boys did themselves proud in the way they sang and in the calm and dignified manner in which they conducted themselves.

A day later, Mr. Lawson received an email from a gentleman who described himself as a regular member of the congregation of St. George’s.  He said ‘Very well sung! Your choir had a difficult act to follow and did it extremely well.’  It was an amazing privilege to be part of day-today life in such an historic place, even if it was for only a few hours.