Going for Golden Oldies (From The Argus)

Going for Golden Oldies

7:36pm Monday 14th September 2009 in Blogs By Alice Wright - Reluctant Housewife

SINGSTARS: Your Housewife is somewhere at the back...

This weekend saw me singing with the choir at a local old folks home in Hove. Perhaps not the first thing you think of doing on a sunny Sunday afternoon when everyone you know is knocking back red wine and a roast dinner but I’m glad that I did.

As a community choir the nearly 60 strong Brighton City Singers regularly try to get out and about and sing for local groups and we are always considering new projects and fundraising ideas. It means that our singing isn’t just kept to ourselves (good thing or bad thing?) and that we get to meet others in the community.

So this Sunday about 25 choristers crammed into the tiny residents lounge of a retirement home and reeled off a few upbeat numbers from our repertoire – including show tunes, swing, American spiritual and classical – to a much smaller audience. I was happy to see how receptive the residents were, most were smiling and laughing and were glad to join in with any hand movements, encouraged by our fun and all-embracing director MJ.

Many were singing along to the words which really surprised me at the time. When I started learning these songs I hadn’t heard of most of them and for some reason I assumed they would be slightly obscure for everyone else too? This is an assumption it seems we regularly make about the elderly. Just because I hadn’t heard of the songs before it didn’t mean they hadn’t! Their long histories had included a love of music and it had informed their lives, of course I was not the first to discover these songs.

Talking to one of the ladies at the end she revealed that she and her husband had regularly danced and sung to some of the pieces and was happy to be reminded of them. How wonderful for us as a choir to know that: keeping songs alive keeps memories alive too.

Now I know I have blogged about the choir before but I will just take this opportunity to say that if you have any slight feeling that you might like to sing out loud or have been inspired by the amazing Gareth Malone on the BBC2 show The Choir then you should definitely try it! There will be a choir locally for you. The Brighton City Singers would be more than happy to see you – especially if you are a guy because we could always do with more of those, we’ll make you feel wanted and special I promise. And we have a fantastic fund-raising concert for The Samaritans of Brighton & Hove on 17th October you could be part of!

And I have blogged about volunteering and charity work before too so won’t do it again here but why not get in touch with your local residential home and find out what events they have got coming up? If they don’t have any why not think of one for them! You could even book the Brighton City Singers. I promise it will make you feel better than a Sunday roast now and again.