One Chance

by Paul Potts

  “Sorry, sir,” Chris said. “It won’t happen again.”

  “Don’t make me keep you behind. Not when there’s choir practice later on.” He looked at me with a friendly wink.

  The school choir was the one steadfast thing amongst the chaos and heartache I went through. At times, it was the only thing that kept me going. Mr. Weaver worked us hard, and we had practice twice a week: Wednesday at lunchtime and Friday after school.

  We had a varied repertoire and a packed diary of performances. Our main responsibility was to be the choir at the end and start of term services, house eucharists (“Eucharist” was the name for communion, which the school gave as a religious service at the start of every term), and special occasions like Ascension Day and the Colston Day service.

  The latter was named after the Bristol benefactor Edward Colston, who cofounded the school in 1709. Colston Day was a celebration of the founding of Temple Colston School, which subsequently merged with the even older St. Mary Redcliffe School that went as far back as 1571. It was quite a privilege for us to be in the choir, because seats for the Colston service were allocated to three per tutor group across the school.

  The Colston Day service had many advantages, and getting out of afternoon school and going home early was just one of them. There were two very traditional elements to the service. Each pupil was given a ten-pence piece and a Colston bun, which was a sticky bun with currants and sugar streusel pieces; the tradition went back to much earlier times when the gift was two shillings and a bun. The pastries were very popular, and there was an active trade amongst those who wanted an extra bun in exchange for the ten-pence piece.

  The choir’s busiest period was the approach to Christmas. We visited local elderly people’s clubs and hospitals, singing carols and Christmas songs, and these events were always well received. I got to sing many more of the descants—higher melodies that acted as counterpoint to the main melody—that I had so loved performing at Christ Church. So much so that when I eventually started singing tenor in the choir towards the end of my school days, I carried on singing the descants, much to the consternation of the sopranos in front of me, who were used to taking that role themselves.

  Singing liberated me. It didn’t just make me feel happy; it made me feel complete. Whatever happened around me, at school or elsewhere, my singing made me feel like I made a difference. It seemed to make people smile. At special services and performances, the whole of my family would come to watch. This helped me feel important at a time when I felt irrelevant.

  In the run-up to Christmas, we also performed at Temple Meads, the entrance of the main railway station in Bristol. We raised money for local charities, amongst them St. Peter’s Hospice and the homeless shelters. Here we received a more mixed response, ranging from generosity to rudeness: some commuters complained that we were “a bloody nuisance” standing in the way, and that they were going to miss their train.

  The choir also performed at weddings and the occasional funeral. In my second year at Redcliffe, I was summoned to the headmaster’s office. Thinking I was in trouble, I was worried as I was stood outside waiting for the light to turn green to enter. Instead, Mr. Eachus wanted to speak to me about an unusual proposition. He had been approached by an African group living in Bristol to find someone to sing at its prince’s funeral. I was delighted and flattered that Mr. Eachus had thought of me. It was at a church in the Bedminster district of Bristol, and I was to sing the Samuel Sebastian Wesley anthem “Lead Me, Lord.” It was a short service, and I got paid £20 for doing it. I put the money in with my savings from the paper round towards spending money for our next holiday.

  As well as the Christmas bookings, one of the other main features of being in the choir was that we went on a number of special trips. Over my time at the school, I travelled with the choir all round mainland Britain.

  In my first year we travelled by train to Winchester in Hampshire, where we were the guest choir at Winchester Cathedral. We left fairly early in the day and went straight to the cathedral for rehearsal. We were told that rehearsal would be finished by one in the afternoon, and that our parents should wait for us. It was here that I learned to take schedules with a pinch of salt. Musicians can be perfectionists, and Mr. Weaver kept us until nearly two o’clock. There was barely enough time for us to have lunch before we were due back to sing evening prayer, let alone have a wander round the city.

  The medieval cathedral was a beautiful venue to sing in, and you could hear our voices reverberating round the church, which made me feel very proud. It was a grand building in keeping with Winchester’s status as the capital of England in Saxon times. It had huge windows and a very long nave; in fact, we were informed by the verger that it was the largest nave in any cathedral in Europe. Yet I couldn’t help feeling that we just didn’t have enough time to see the sights and explore the city. After that, Mr. Weaver made a decision that we would no longer do a day trip for performances. In future, we would go away for a week to perform at cathedrals and local churches, as well as see quite a bit of the surrounding area. He felt that much of the day was wasted in travelling, and it would limit where we could perform if that had to be close by.

  Our first tour took us to the pretty town of Skipton, in the scenic Yorkshire Dales, a four hours’ drive north of Bristol. In order to go, I had to save up money from my paper round to pay for the trip, and Mum and Dad helped top it up. I was looking forward to the opportunity to sing in different venues and large cathedrals, and also to see the country.

  Of course, on these tours there were no hotels. In fact, there weren’t even beds! As well as a rucksack or suitcase, each choir member brought his own sleeping bag, and we slept on church floors. Many of the choir would also bring airbeds, and the sounds of snoring and the movement on rubber mattresses punctuated the night. My own sleeping bag went directly on the hard church floor.

  We would travel together as a group on the train from Temple Meads, and Mr. Weaver had an ingenious way of keeping the cost of the trips down. He asked parents who had rail cards (cards that gave a 33 percent discount to adults, and up to four children free per adult) to give them to us, which greatly reduced our rail fare. We sat together and sang through our whole repertoire on the train, usually getting a lot of appreciation from the travelling public.

  Most of our meals were eaten in the church we were staying in, but sometimes we would be given £1 for supper, and we’d take this to the local fish and chip shop get some chips, a drink, and perhaps a sausage. A pound went much further in 1984 than it does now! Everything we did, we did together; the washing up was done in turns by groups of students, and rotas were devised for sandwich-making duties. There were endless choices of sandwiches, from corned beef to tuna mayo, egg, or cheese.

  There was a strong sense of community in the choir, which was a world apart from what I experienced outside it. In it, and especially on tour, I felt like I could be someone, rather than just something to ridicule. It was the perfect respite from the playground and all the horrors it held for me.

  That first choir tour was an absolute revelation. I forged many friendships, several of which endure today. At one point, two friends, Ilena Bailey and Ruth Mould, sneaked into the boys’ area in one of the halls to see two of the choirboys. In fact, Ruth is now married to the boy she sneaked in to see—one of my colleagues at Christ Church, Tim Day. Some of my longest-running friendships started on that tour.

  It was a fun week, and we performed in Skipton Parish Church and also led evening prayer at beautiful York Minster. A few months after we had performed there, the south transept was struck by lightning and a huge fire destroyed the roof, including the many beautiful bosses, or wooden protrusions. We had been in that very transept waiting for our procession into the choir stalls only three months prior. Mr. Weaver took us on several day trips: one to Scarborough, and on another day, we also had a full day’s walk in the wilds of the Yorkshire Dales. We also got a ride on the Settle and Carlisle ste
am train.

  The following year, the choir tour took us to Margate, where I developed my first proper crush on a girl, Ilena Bailey, one of the girls who had snuck in to see the boys as I described earlier. Slim but not skinny, with long blonde hair, to me Ilena was the perfect girl. This made it all the more difficult for me to do anything about it. I was hopeless in situations like this, as I had no experience, and I always assumed that any girl I asked out would just say no. My shyness got in the way. Ilena made various comments that were very strong hints that I didn’t act on. I fancied Ilena all the way through my time at Redcliffe, but never did anything about it. We were great friends throughout our school careers, however, so all was not lost.

  The following year, the choir went to the beautiful Cornish resort of St. Ives, which has long been popular with artists, and for good reason. The scenery is stunning, and St. Ives has to be one of the best places in the world for a sunset. The tour was the first that my younger brother, Tony, participated in. On the first night, after a quick rehearsal, it was time to go to bed. The piano in the hall, which had seen better days and was horrendously out of tune, was on top of Tony’s sleeping bag. Somehow it had been pushed there after our first rehearsal in the hall.

  We tried to push it off, to no avail—or so we thought! Tony gave his sleeping bag a big haul and to his horror, the piano came away and went crashing to the floor with an almighty bang. Tony was shocked and upset, thinking he was going to get into trouble. But when Mr. Weaver walked in, he became red faced with laughter. As it turned out, the piano’s fall did it a lot of good. It played much closer to being in tune, so perhaps Tony had done it a favour.

  Our tour to North Wales was also a memorable one. We spent time in the town of Llandudno, again sleeping on the floor of the parish church. Supervision was fairly relaxed, and a huge group of us were walking along the Llandudno seafront singing at the top of our voices. It must have been strange to those in the hotels and guest houses to hear us singing Godspell as we strolled along. We had pooled our chip money, and one of the sixth formers went to get some beer. It wasn’t exactly rock and roll; we didn’t drink more than a can each, and were careful to dispose of our empties in the bin. Then we went back to singing “Day by Day” at full volume.

  The tours were a rare experience for me. On tour I was surrounded by people I seemed to belong with. They didn’t all like me, but at least they didn’t all hate me. I could talk, laugh, and joke in this company. The choir and the tours in particular were the only times this happened.

  We visited many other wonderful places on tour, including Oban on the west coast of Scotland. From there we went on to sing in the tranquil abbey on the island of Iona, in the Inner Hebrides. With its white sands, Iona was like a Caribbean desert island, if it weren’t for the brisk cold April wind. On this trip our pound bought us battered haggis and chips, something I had every night. It was here in Scotland that I first developed a love of taking scenic photographs. There was something special about the land.

  The last trip I went on with the choir was to the Lake District. Here we stayed not on floors in sleeping bags, but in the youth hostel in Hawkshead. My passion for hill walking started in earnest here as well as my love of the area. I climbed the Old Man of Coniston in pretty terrible conditions, but I knew how to read a map and the clouds parted on the way up. It was inspiring and tiring all at once. My calves were on fire from walking quickly, but the climb was worth it. The Lake District is one of the most beautiful places on earth, and I have been visiting there for over fifteen years. The stillness of the area, and the views of the lakes and valleys, gave me some peace with myself, and helped me to like my own company.

  Being on tour was infectious and good for my soul. We always got plenty of fresh air, and I loved the walks we went on. With my compact 35 mm camera I could capture a moment in time. Not only that, but I could capture a favourite view. That view can be the same place, but on a different day it will always be different. Photography has taught me that perspective changes everything. The same view can change in so many ways—just like life.

  I sometimes think that the only reason I survived school was the choir. Not only did it mean I was able to avoid the bullies on Wednesday lunchtimes and Friday evenings, but it gave me a sense of belonging that I didn’t have anywhere else. The other children in the choir seemed to put up with me without too many issues, perhaps because they weren’t the most popular kids, either. I always found that when I was singing, all my problems melted away and I lost myself in the music. Whenever I sang I was appreciated, except in the assembly hall at school, where even fellow members of the school choir kept quiet when I was picked on.

  Overall, I seemed to be welcomed when I sang. It was the only time that I truly believed I belonged. I couldn’t put my finger on why I felt this way, but I suspected that if I understood the mystery of how singing made me feel, it would disappear. Singing came naturally to me and was something I didn’t have to think about. It was the one good thing that stayed constant in my life at this time. My voice was my friend, and at times I felt as though it was my only one. Singing was the only thing I did that seemed to have universal appeal. The more I sang, the more I wanted to sing professionally. It was my life’s dream, but I didn’t know how to achieve it, especially when my exam results didn’t go my way.

  The fifth year at Redcliffe was when academics got serious. As I was in the top stream, this meant I was expected to do mostly GCE (general certificate of education) O-levels. Not all the teachers had complete faith in me, however; although I had improved, I still wasn’t putting in the amount of effort they thought I should. As a consequence, I was told that for German I would be sitting the lower-standard CSE (certificate of secondary education) examination, unless I wanted to pay for the O-level examination myself.

  I used my newspaper round to pay for the private sitting of the German O-level, as I felt confident that I could prove the teachers wrong. And prove them wrong I did. I passed my O-level German, which left me with a feeling of satisfaction. My other results were mixed: I did well at religious studies and passed both history and English literature; but I sat my English language early and did less well than expected. I also only got a mediocre CSE grade 3 in both mathematics and physics. As I mentioned earlier, at one point I’d considered becoming an artificer, but now an engineering career was not possible: in the UK, certain grades were needed to train for some professions.

  My biggest disappointment, however, was my music O-level. I did okay on the basic theory, but struggled a little at the advanced level. For all my love of music, I lacked compositional skills. In fact, my compositions were truly terrible. Not only that, but I was injured when it came to performing them. I’d lost my temper with a boy at school who was hitting me, and thumped him; but I was so unused to actually hitting back that I’d kept my thumb inside my fist and broke my thumb. I am right handed, but could only use my left hand—with predictable results.

  In the end, I got an A for performance, recording “The Heavens Are Telling” from The Creation by Joseph Haydn. I sang all four parts: soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. My voice had changed, but it hadn’t broken in the usual sense. My compositional skills (or rather the lack of them) held me back though, so that my final grade was a lowly E (the lowest grade you could get without failing). I was very disappointed, as was Mr. Weaver. He felt that I could have done better on the theory part of the exam, although he did agree with my view that I wasn’t a composer.

  I felt at the time that failing my music O-level was a big stumbling block to becoming a professional singer. It meant that I couldn’t study music at A-level, and to my naïve eyes, I thought that was the only route to having a singing career. I also worried whether I was cut out to sing professionally, anyway. To open myself up to perform professionally would be to risk criticism, and I wasn’t sure how I might take that. I wasn’t confident that I was strong enough to put myself in the firing line of such scrutiny. My parents were very supportive
, but I never raised with them the idea of singing professionally. I had come to the conclusion that my singing was mine, and mine alone.

  I went back to performing at local competitions, gaining success at the Bristol Eisteddfod, and winning the Musical Theatre and Gilbert and Sullivan classes, performing “Maria” from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story and “Free from His Fetters Grim” from Yeoman of the Guard. These wins were very satisfying because, as a treble, I had never won a class at Bristol Eisteddfod. Despite that, I was still nervous about criticism, and I dreaded being told I was not good enough at the one thing I thought I was any use at.

  Rather than considering it a career option, I decided to continue my singing as a hobby. I didn’t think I would ever sing full time as a profession. I wasn’t sad or even disappointed with this conclusion. It just felt inevitable. Singing was my private consolation for what I had gone through. I didn’t want to share it more than I was comfortable with. It was mine and no one else’s. In terms of a vocation, I set my sights on other things.

  Although I had only got an E in music, I had done sufficiently well overall to proceed to sixth form. I chose to take the more advanced A-levels in religious studies and history, and the new GCSE (general certificate of secondary education) exam in American studies. Religious studies and history were both very strong subjects for me. For a while I thought about being a vicar again, just like I had at the age of seven. But choosing it just because I could sing as part of the job wasn’t the right motivation. Being a vicar was a vocation, not a job, and so I ruled this out.

  All my subjects required plenty of reading, which suited me down to the ground. On top of which, there were only two of us in the religious studies class in my year, so we got very good one-on-one attention. The standard of my work was generally quite high, especially in the first year. I found the study of American history and culture fascinating, including studying the Amish, looking at the root causes of the War of Independence, and how the Boston Tea Party had been an important precursor for the troubles ahead.