From the Winter 2009 Newsletter
Dear Friends,
Please give a warm welcome to
our new musical director, John Lloyd, who after many
years with the choir and as deputy, has accepted the
challenge and moved up into the top spot.
As a Welshman, John has music
coursing through his veins. He displays an empathy with
music and song that comes with his heritage. We all
hear people singing the praises of other Welsh performers
and conductors, well now it’s our turn to shout
it from the rooftops of our pride in having such a good
man at the helm.
We are in great demand already for next year. With concert
bookings nearly in double figures, 2010 looks like being
as busy as ever for us all.
The choir, along with some friends of the Dalesmen,
two coach loads in all, enjoyed a super trip to Cornwall
in September. The weather was first class, along with
the hospitality.
An afterglow of Cornish pasties
and beer, although unusual, went down a treat. Our hosts
made us most welcome and the proceeds from our two evening
concerts helped support the local air ambulance.
Sadly, Trish and I missed the
chance to be at the Eden Project event but from all
the feedback we have received it was a unique experience
enjoyed by all. (Too hot I heard one or two say). The
downside of singing in a greenhouse I suppose!!
We look forward to seeing everyone at our big Christmas
Concert at St. Peters Church in Belper, on Saturday
December 19th. There will be a wide variety of entertainment
on offer. It will be an evening to put everyone in the
right Christmas mood.
Take care and best wishes,
Paul Sheward.
OUR PRESIDENT
- From March 2009 - An Extract from Rev. Reg Dean's
Memoirs including his "Recipe for a Long Life"
I have been to Eucharist
this morning at St. Mary's (5 April 2007). There I feel
that my old sense of recompense is right. In the Eucharist
is an answer to all things. There is an answer to this
mystery that has long exercised my mind. Some people
call it Divine Guidance. I have always had a feeling
of unworthiness when I have been thinking about these
things. Why should God guide me and not everyone else
besides? I can only say, "Lift up your hearts", as we
said it in the Eucharist.
Thinking of ingredients recalls to mind a question that
is so often put to me: What is your recipe for a long
life? There is an easy answer, of course; I was born
with a sound constitution. But that is not all. There
is a whimsical answer. Many years ago, when I was living
in Bombay (I was about 40 years old) I gave hospitality
to an Indian doctor. My guest came for one night and
stayed a week. On the day before he left, he said to
me, "I have invented an elixir for a long life - would
you like to take it?" I am naïve and find it hard to
refuse, so I accepted his offer. It was a rather daunting
offer, being a dark brown liquid in a large drinking
glass. I drank it and here I am - over 60 years afterwards,
having survived several threats of death. I still tell
the story as a joke; but as I often remark, 'One never
knows'. But one thing I do know and can hardly find
an answer to it. I sometimes say I will write it on
a postcard - my recipe that is - and send it to whoever
asks for it, for the consideration of a 20-pence piece.
But to be serious about a pretty serious matter, I will
select a few ingredients out of a number of possibilities.
Here is ingredient No. 1 - The love of friends.
Rupert Brooke wrote: From quiet homes and small beginnings
Out to the undiscovered ends There's nothing worth the
wear of winning Like laughter and the love of friends.
There was a period in my life when I found myself abandoned
in the wilderness. It was during my sixth decade. I
have described it in my memoirs and have no wish to
go into the misery of explaining it here. It was by
my own decision that I was excluded from the Ministry
of the Congregational Church. It was through Phyllis
Webber and George Ducker, Head of Herbert Strutt School,
that I came to start on a ten years teaching course
at the Grammar School in Belper - a period that could
do more than anything else to fulfil the expectations
of the elixir taken 40 years before. The love of friends
was becoming a vital influence in my life and has continued
so ever since. Those ten years were the happiest in
my whole florid existence, multiplying friendship in
a way, which I have enjoyed even beyond the warp and
weft of living. Since those days my friends have increased
in numbers through Rotary and Probus and the Dalesmen
Male Voice Choir and especially the Church. There are
friends whose names are not written in this book but
whose names are known in Heaven. I suppose I should
not have done so many things rashly and without reason;
but we cannot do everything right and I must bear the
blame.
Here is ingredient No. 2 - Do things for joy and
not for prize. I am writing on the 150th anniversary
of Edward Elgar's birthday. After his eventful and troubled
life he was awarded the Order of Merit, so was Thomas
Hardy for his great contribution to English literature
- and that makes me think of Charles Dickens, who, after
his unparalleled contribution to the literary grandeur
of our language, was awarded nothing. In my bedroom
is one of the limited editions of a picture of Charles
Dickens, sitting at his desk at Gads Hill, surrounded
by a host of the characters he created. Dickens was
no competitor; he was unique. Do all things for joy,
not for prize is my second ingredient for a long life.
I know I am open to controversy. Not all people think
as I do, about the competitive spirit. I recall the
words of Charles Hamilton Sorley, whose father was a
theologian - I met his work whilst I was at College.
In his poem "Song of the Ungirt Runners" he writes:
We run because we must We do not run for prize We run
because we like it Through the broad, bright land. Whether
I was living in town or village, I would leave my house
and run where the corncrakes croaked and the skylark
soared. And I ran because I liked it. It is all a question
of value after all. The price of restoring York Minster
to its former glory over the period of ten years is
about equal to the price of maintaining one footballer
over the same period.
Ingredient No. 3 - Have a religion you can trust.
I don't intend to suggest that it is third in the order
of merit; but that it should be the centre of things.
But for Jesus and the Gospel I would be an agnostic.
As it is, I am a firm believer. Wednesday's Eucharist
and Sunday's Choral Evensong are the highlights of my
week. They say everything, always remembering that Jesus
is above the heads of his reporters, but we can't have
everything right in this world. There are some who say
that Christianity have been tried and found wanting.
That is rubbish. I say, with G. K. Chesterton, that
Christianity has been found to be difficult and not
tried! To put it theologically, in Christ the sufferings
of mankind have been taken up into the Godhead and redeemed
in the Resurrection. This is saying it in theological
language and I love theological language. I remember
reading a sonnet by Bishop King of Lincoln about his
love of theology and I share his experience.
Ingredient No. 4 - Look for the best in people -
not the worst. You have only to be in the company
of some people to hear the faults of a neighbour related
as though they were characteristic features of a disagreeable
person. I find that distressing. The evil that men do
lives after them; the good is oft interred with their
bones. So be it within Caesar; but Mark Antony would
not have it so. Neither would I - it was a wise and
percipient oration. I remember a joke that Teresa Hooley,
the Derbyshire poet, told against herself. Introducing
her to an audience, the Chairman said he was chosen
because he was the only person they could find who had
anything good to say about the person he was introducing!
Poor man, he was a clumsy speaker, but it amused Teresa
and we all knew of course, what it all meant! So I have
chosen my fourth ingredient - when talking about people,
to look for the best, not the worst. Eli Jenkins' prayer
says it delightfully: We are not wholly bad, nor good
Who live our lives under Milk Wood But thou, I know,
wilt be the first To see our best side - not our worst.
Ingredient No. 5 - Become a vegetarian. There
are jokes and philosophical bits about old age that
I enjoy. One is: If I get there before you do, I'll
did a hole and pull you through In philosophical language
old age, like winter, has its own gifts to offer. In
a speech I made on my 103rd birthday, in the language
of the Potteries, where I was born: "I am an old crock
- the spout is chipped, the lid is cracked; but the
handle stays firm". One of Dickens' Christmas books
is called "The Haunted Man". It has always appealed
to me because of its academic setting. Paul Redlaw is
the tutor at the college. He is alone in his room. The
students have all gone down and the rest of the staff
is on Christmas vacation. Only the cook and a serving
man remain and to them Dickens' inventive genius has
given the unique name of Sweidger. As he sits at his
supper one night, Redlaw is haunted by the sorrows,
wrongs and troubles in his life, but with disastrous
consequence. I am a haunted man, haunted by the sorrows
for things I have done to other people, wrongs that
people have done to me and troubles that I have fallen
into through my own fault and under the contrivances
of my accusers. Life's tangled skein will never be unravelled.
Life, as G. K. Chesterton once said, is half a dozen
detective stories mixed up with a spoon. Whatever has
been unravelled makes up an inscrutable pattern, but
a thread of gold runs through it. I have a religion
that I can trust. I must forget the ghostly bargain
and learn to live with my sorrows, wrongs and trouble.
