A History of the Barnburgh Village Singers
by Julia Bullars M.D. (April 2009)
In the spring of 2002, I put a notice in our local church magazine, inviting anyone who was interested, to come to my house on a Wednesday evening and do a bit of part singing, with a view to doing some carol singing in the village at Christmas to raise money for charity. About eight ladies turned up to our first meeting and we made a tentative start at learning to sing some pieces in harmony. I was impressed right from the beginning with the sound that we made. At the end of our sing, we usually shared a bottle or two of wine!
With each passing week, more and more ladies came knocking on my door and we soon had a choir of about eighteen singers. That first Christmas, I remember we sang at the local WI Christmas party and took part in the church Carol Services at High Melton and Barnburgh. Shortly after that, we shared a concert at The Lamp Room Theatre at Barnsley with the Houghton Main Male Voice Choir.
Eventually, we had to move to the village hall meeting room for practices, but then outgrew that and moved to the concert room at the village club, where we managed to persuade our pianist Jonathan Storer to join us. Due to recent renovations at the club causing problems with the acoustics and singing space, we have now moved to the Church Hall, where we still practice on Wednesday evenings from 8pm to 9.30pm.
During our time together, we have performed in most churches in our area, as well as village halls and church halls, raising money for churches and charities – including the Robert Ogden School at Thurnscoe, the Yorkshire Air Ambulance, Neighbourhood Watch and different cancer charities.
We have hosted two visits from the internationally renowned Donaghadee Male Voice Choir in Northern Ireland, (their conductor, Robert Wilson, was a close friend of my late husband Michael). We have also been over to visit them on two occasions and we have shared indescribably happy times in their company.
But we also have a good rapport with our local male voice choirs, and have shared the stage with Houghton Main Male Voice Choir, Thurnscoe Harmonic Male Voice Choir, Barnburgh Male Voice Choir and Mexborough Male Voice Choir. I would like to thank all these choirs for welcoming us, relative newcomers, into the ‘choral fold’.
Meanwhile, our membership now stands at 36, including me and our pianist. We have sung in Bolton Castle in North Yorkshire, at Leeds Town Hall with the Russian White Army Ensemble and at Methodist Churches in Bridlington and Retford. We have sung at many weddings and recently, did our first funeral.
In December we are always kept busy with concerts and carol services and we have founded the Barnburgh ‘Carols on the Green’ event, which many villagers attend and enjoy an hour of outdoor carol singing, with mulled wine and mince pies!
If you are looking for a choir to do a charity concert or sing at a wedding or other function – contact us and, diary permitting, we will try to oblige!
