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Boys, girls and men choir tour to Normandy, 2006

The whole choir (boys, girls and men) have recently returned from a week-long tour to Normandy. Based in Caen, we also sang concerts at Mont St Michel, Rennes and Argentan.

Here follows a diary of the tour.

Friday 20 October

The tour party outside the Abbey at Mont St Michel It was cold, wet and very dark as we all gathered at Sheffield Cathedral at 3.30 am… the inordinately early start caused by a ferry cancellation a few days beforehand. Nevertheless, despite the lack of sleep, most were in good spirits as we boarded the coach which was to become very familiar over the coming week! So the tour party of 9 boys, 13 girls, 8 songmen, Neil Taylor, Anthony Gowing, Jonathan Eyre, Canon Howard Such & a handful of adult helpers (mainly parents) set off on their great Norman adventure.

The first day consisted mostly of travel, and in total 13 hours were spent on the coach or ferry, arriving in Caen at about 6 p.m. local time (a diet of sleep and films ensuring that it passed fairly quickly). Our hotel - the Étap hotel opposite Caen railway station - was exactly what we needed & expected, and we all ate together on the first night in the restaurant next door, before retiring for some much needed sleep!

Saturday 21 October

Ted Harvey celebrating his birthday in unfamiliar surroundings... A nice antidote to the previous day - one with virtually no travel at all! In fact, we had a free morning to explore the city of Caen, which surprised a few of us with its pleasant, quiet feel and splendid architecture. One of the more impressive sights was the church where we were to sing - the Abbaye-aux-Hommes, which despite not being a Cathedral certainly felt like one in stature. It is also the final resting place of William the Conqueror - who was to feature a few times on the tour, in different ways!

We rehearsed in the Abbaye in the afternoon - not only for the Sunday morning service, but also for the concerts later in the week, as we did not know how much rehearsal time we would get elsewhere. It also gave us a chance to enjoy the fantastic acoustics within the church: making unaccompanied music (in particular) highly enjoyable to sing.

Following the rehearsal, the boys and a few songmen headed off to a local park to burn off some energy in a fiercely competitive game of football; meanwhile later in the afternoon some other members of the party were treated to a demonstration of the fantastic Abbaye organ by the titulaire, Alain Bouvet. A chance to sample the delights of Caen followed that evening; Mr Harvey (right) can be seen obviously enjoying his birthday at a “theme” night in one local bar!

Sunday 22 October

The West Front of the Abbaye-aux-Hommes, Caen Back to serious business today. Our main engagement was to sing motets at Mass at the Abbaye-aux-Hommes (left). One surprise about this was that we were performing “in the round” - members of the congregation close on all sides, far more so than is ever the case in England! Nevertheless, we acquitted ourselves well, and the Abbaye choir (who sang the liturgical sections of the service) seemed impressed - to the extent that they asked us to sing an extra motet just before the voluntary (Sortie)! The Sortie itself was another highlight, not least for Anthony Gowing, who was invited to play it by M. Bouvet - a great honour, and one which he took with aplomb.

After lunch at a bustling local market, we headed off to the Caen Museum of Peace. Despite its title, most of the content related to the terrors of war - predominantly the Second World War (in particular D-Day and the Battle of Normandy), but it also included sections about the Cold War and the current “war against terror” - four fragments from the wreckage of the World Trade Center in New York were particularly poignant. Fortunately we were able to spend the entire afternoon there taking it all in, at the end of which we gave in impromptu performance of Bairstow’s “Let all mortal flesh keep silence” for the museum staff.

Monday 23 October

Mont St Michel, Normandy Today was spent mostly at the Mont St Michel, a 90 minute coach journey from Caen. Like its smaller Cornish cousin (St Michael’s Mount), the Mont St Michel (right) is practically an island, separated from the mainland by a small strip of land which is sometimes covered by the tide, but one which looks mightily impressive from near or far. We gave a lunchtime concert at l’Église St Pierre, which is a small church towards the foot of the island; an audience made up mostly of passing tourists certainly appreciated our efforts! Particularly of note in this performance were the sheer volume created by the choir in such a small church (particularly in the Kyrie of Widor’s mass), and a tremendous effort by Anthony Gowing to cope with an electronic organ which had him yearning for even the worst organ he had ever played in England!

After the concert we ascended to the top of the Mont, and visited the impressive Abbey. The acoustics were so wonderful inside that the Songmen spontaneously (!) gave a rendition of Duruflé’s Notre Père, and were about to follow it up with some Tallis when we were given a stern lecture by a disapproving French guide about not singing “sans authorisation”. So we moved on to view the rest of the Abbey in comparative silence!

Before our journey back we ate en masse at a nearby restaurant which seemed very happy to feed 46 hungry English mouths, and even provided some of the adults with some free Calvados as a thank you!

Tuesday 24 October

Performing at l'Église St Etienne, Rennes Another change of scenery - this time venturing outside Normandy into Rennes, the capital of neighbouring Bretagne. Thanks to some decidedly poor communication from our French colleague in Rennes, there was a mix-up over the venue for our performance, and a distinct lack of publicity, which led to one of the more bizarre experiences of the tour…

Nevertheless, after lunch and a quick look round Rennes, we rehearsed at l’Église St Etienne, which was a fine place to sing (with another superb acoustic). The only real problem here was that the organ (the only one of three organs in the church to work) was situated immediately behind the altar, facing East, leaving Mr Gowing with no way of seeing the conductor! A hastily arranged plan, involving the organ scholar relaying Mr Taylor’s beat, was devised to ensure that organ and choir stayed together. I am pleased to report that this worked well!

After a leisurely tour of the shops, squares & cafés of Rennes, we came to the evening’s performance (left)… only to find the smallest audience imaginable. Strictly speaking, it consisted of one person plus tour party members, although one other person did witness part of the concert! The lack of publicity had led to what could best be described as a personal performance for Régis Hovelaque, the sacrist of the church. Despite this, we gave a fine recital, and were even rewarded with a standing ovation at one point! We would sincerely like to thank M. Hovelaque for his kind assistance with the concert & rehearsal, and salute him for doing his utmost to uphold the good name of the city of Rennes!

Because of the tradition of late concert times in France (8.30 pm), it was around midnight when we arrived back in Caen, slightly sleepy, and hoping for a larger audience the next day…

Wednesday 25 October

L'Église St Germain, Argentan - venue for our final concert on the tour After two longer trips on the previous two days, today’s travelling was relatively light. First we went to visit Falaise – known principally for two historical reasons, being the location of William the Conqueror’s main French castle, and being the last Norman hold-out of the Nazis in 1944 before the Allied Forces besieged them. We took a tour of the castle – the only remaining Norman castle with its internal structure largely intact – which was well geared to tourists, with interesting audio guides and excellent displays. After some lunch we headed south to the town of Argentan.

Our final performance of the tour was a concert at L’Église St Germain in Argentan (right), a church which had suffered severe damage due to World War II bombing, but has been restored splendidly. Having effectively had a dress rehearsal for the concert the previous night, the main purpose of our rehearsal was to get used to performing with the organ, which was at the back of the church, causing Mr Gowing to have to anticipate the beat by what seemed like several seconds! After a few teething problems this worked well, and we headed off across the town for a civic reception hosted by the Mayor of Argentan. We were very privileged to be welcomed in this way, and would like to thank both the church and the town for the greeting, and the food and drink provided!

Fortunately it transpired that we had a very good audience for our final concert – many thanks indeed to Pierre Sillière for arranging this. More standing ovations, and encores, followed the concert… and a request for us to return there in the future! Thus the musical part of the tour ended on a very high note (not literally – a bottom E for the basses!), and we headed back to Caen.

On behalf of several of the adult members of the tour, I would like to recognise the extraordinary generosity of one local bar owner (several gifts including bottles of wine, CDs, food, and other things were bestowed upon us that evening), and apologise for my karaoke efforts…

Thursday 26 October

The Canadian tank pulled from the water off Juno Beach 27 years after D-Day This morning we made the short trip to Bayeux… famous, of course, for its 70m tapestry depicting the Battle of Hastings and events leading up to it. We were all awestruck by the tapestry, but some of us just as much by the majestic Cathedral (for which the tapestry was originally intended), especially the crypt.

In the afternoon the party split into two: most of the girls, and some of the adults remained in Bayeux for further sightseeing and shopping; the rest of the party ventured to Arromanches, in the heart of the D-Day landings beaches, where we watched a 360° cinematic depiction of the landings themselves. Poignant though this was, it was surpassed by a visit to Juno beach, where Canadian troops had landed on June 6, 1944 and prevailed despite heavy losses. Plenty of intact physical reminders – including a bunker on the beach, a large piece of German coastal defence artillery, and a Canadian tank (left) that had been pulled from the sea in 1971 – began to bring home the enormity and reality of what really happened 62 years ago.

Our last evening in Caen involved a meal all together at a restaurant adjacent to our hotel, at the end of which prizes & presents were dished out… not only to the choristers and organists, but to the various adult helpers who had worked so hard throughout the week! Our thanks go to Corryne Osborne, Sarah Lester, Yolande & Malcolm Quickfall, Jim Shore, Laura Jellinek, and Carolyn Jones for this.

Friday 27 October

The boy choristers (plus special guest) paying tribute to our French hosts! As with the previous Friday, the vast majority of this day was spent on the coach back to Sheffield… one aspect of the trip back deserves special mention, however. We would like to congratulate Yolande Quickfall on putting together a fantastic picture quiz that kept everyone on their toes… and after some health competition at the back of the bus, I must report that team “That’s Numberwang” defeated “ACP3O” by the narrow margin of 45-44½ … sorry guys! We eventually arrived back in Sheffield just before 10pm, exhausted but thankful for a weekend to recover before school or work.

As a final note I would like to say four more “thank you”s – to Paul, our coach driver (from Andrew’s of Tideswell) who went above and beyond the call of duty to help us have a successful tour; to Louis Romegoux, who acted as translator not only throughout the tour but also in the planning over the past few months; to Neil Taylor for his hard work and flawless direction (both musical and otherwise); and to Anthony Gowing – not only for planning the tour from the start, but also for coping with some of the most difficult organs of his playing career!

Story by Jeremy Dawson