The Chilbury Ladies' Choir(32)

“Music takes us out of ourselves, away from our worries and tragedies, helps us look into a different world, a bigger picture. All those cadences and beautiful chord changes, every one of them makes you feel a different splendor of life.”

“I wish I had your enthusiasm for something,” I murmured.

“But you do, Mrs. Tilling. You do. Not for music but for other things. You only need to stand back and see.”

“I don’t know how to do that,” I said glumly.

“Well, let’s start by cheering you up with a little singing.”

She took my arm and led me to the front. Standing me in the middle of the altar, she went back and plumped herself down on one of the front row seats.

“Now sing, Mrs. Tilling. Open your heart and sing. Just pick your favorite hymn.”

“Well, that’s ‘I Vow to Thee My Country,’?” I said, the thought of this powerful hymn making me warm to the idea. “But I can’t just sing, here on my own.”

“There’s no one here except me. It doesn’t matter if you do it wrong.”

I imagined the organ introduction and softly began humming it, until I opened my mouth and began to sing the first poignant words, sending them echoing clearly through the apse.

I vow to Thee, my country, all earthly things above,

Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love.



The hymn was sung at my father’s funeral, as it was for so many of those men who died in the Great War. And then we sang it again at my mother’s funeral, and then at Harold’s. As I was singing it out alone in the church, it took on a new horror. I realized that I have been trapped by those deaths, that I had let them take over.

And I now see that it is time to let them go.





Saturday, 18th May, 1940





The Choir Competition


What an extraordinary evening! I am completely exhausted, dear diary, but I simply have to stay awake and write down everything, right from the very beginning.

We were on tenterhooks as our small huddle gathered on the green watching for the bus, which was late. Hardly noticing the first few bulging raindrops plunging around us, we worried whether we’d even make it on time, let alone sing well.

“We’ll be humiliated in front of the whole of Kent,” Mrs. B. kept saying, unable to get over the brass-bones fact that we’re a women’s-only choir now.

“But we’d be a women’s-only choir whether we wanted to be or not,” Mrs. Quail snapped. “There’s no men left. Or would you rather have no choir at all?”

“We are a group of upstanding ladies, Mrs. Quail. Not an unruly singing spectacle,” snapped Mrs. B., barging past her to be first in line as the bus swung dangerously around the square. “Lady Worthing will have plenty to say about it, not to mention the Archbishop.”

“Then why are you bothering to come?” Mrs. Quail climbed on the bus after her.

Mrs. B. swung around. “Someone has to witness the catastrophe.”

Mrs. Tilling looked like she was about to have her fingernails pulled out. “We simply haven’t practiced enough. I don’t know what the Litchfield Times will say about a ladies’ choir, but surely it would help if we were exceptionally good.”

“Better to give it a try, though,” I said, trying to rally everyone, but all I got was fraught faces and scoffs. Silvie sat glued to my side, whispering to me, “It will be fine,” in a very unconvincing way. She loves the choir as much as I do, and has been helping with my solo by being an appreciative, and only sporadically critical, audience. Only Venetia looked unaffected. She’s been in a world of her own since Mr. Slater came on the scene. She’s only doing the competition because the choirs have their photographs in the papers.

We finally arrived. Litchfield Cathedral is like a magical fairyland castle, with its dwindling spires and ornate buttresses, and is surrounded by roses of the palest of pinks and yellows, incredibly grand yet impossibly romantic. The architect must have been in love. It’s where Henry and I are to be married, I have decided.

Today, however, the roses hung loosely as the rain battered down on us, and we joined the throng of people rushing in for the competition. Mrs. B. battled her way through the crowded vestibule to see the list that had been pinned to a noticeboard.

“We’re going last,” she announced when she huffed back to the group.

“That’s good,” Mrs. Quail said cheerily. “We can watch the competition and see who we have to beat.”

“Nothing of the sort,” Mrs. B. snapped. “Our voices will be quite ruined by that time of night. It’s becoming more of a disaster with every turn.”

Prim’s theatrical voice rang out. “We’ll end the evening on a high note.”

We took our seats in the old stone interior. The lovely stained-glass windows had been covered with blackout material, making us feel enveloped in a massive underground burrow.

As the place became full, the gnome-like Bishop of Litchfield walked to the front and asked for quiet in strong nasal tones, making me think that his wire spectacles were too tight. He quickly presented the puffed-up Mayor, complete in full red robes, who pompously began a lengthy speech about the joys of song in the horrors of war, and the terms “uplifting the spirit,” “heralding a new tomorrow,” and “striving onward” were all trotted out. Ever since Mr. Churchill has started broadcasting wonderful speeches, everyone else is trying it out.