How shall I keep from singing?

Time for one more service before our long journey north: was the anthem, ‘Lord give me faith’ by Robson, a sign of things to come?
Several long traffic-jams later, we arrived at Lancaster. It was very relaxing to sit and listen to the men and boys in the morning, and the men and girls in the evening, and hardly have to open our mouths at all. It was Bible Sunday, apparently, so we heard two sermons on this theme – although I was sorry to miss the Trafalgar Day evensong which we would have been singing at home.
After a detour via St. Andrews, Edinburgh and Lampeter (don’t ask) we finally arrived home to the bombshell that our vicar is deserting us to become an Archdeacon. A great pity as he’s been a wonderful vicar, with a great sense of humour and very supportive of the choir (even when we do sing a wrong note on occasion), but great news for him and his family. I do hope he isn’t replaced by a choir-hater – they don’t always announce their devious intentions until firmly in post, by which time it is too late. Please excuse me for being cynical.

Hail Glorious Spirits, by Tye, was sung with gusto – rather too much gusto I feel, but we had the largest choir we’ve had for months so it was rather hard to pipe down. Perhaps the vicar should have told us before the anthem that he planned to abscond – then it would have been sung in rather more muted fashion.

The evening service was not the normal Evensong, but a Civic Service with hymns, readings and prayers. The methodist minister amazed us all by preaching a short-ish sermon and we sang ‘O thou the central Orb’ by Wood to a packed church. The prayers were interspersed with a short Taize chant (O Lord hear my prayer) and the curate showed off her French to those visiting from our twinned town, Pontivy. Bucks Fizz, Coffee and biscuits followed in the Town Hall as usual. The vicar looked exhausted – I suppose you can only respond to ‘we’re sorry you’re leaving’ so many times before sounding like a stuck record. But he’ll have to put up with us until after Christmas.

This year was a harvest of babies rather than crops – with a baptism and a visit from a young niece just before her first birthday. We enjoyed a good, loud sing with, ‘The Heavens are Telling’ by Haydn, and ‘We plough the fields and scatter (the good seed on the land)’, with a harvest lunch in between the modern Eucharist and the traditional evensong. Evensong had to be early this week because the Antiques Roadshow was being broadcast (from our town) and there would have been nobody in church at 6 o’clock. The little wardrobe organ was broken (as well!) so we had to sing accompanied by the piano. Which sounded great at the front of the church, but the people at the back could hardly hear it. The youngest of the top line (16 and under) sang the Haydn trio, with a 17 year old bass and his father singing tenor. It sounded good.

The following Sunday almost saw the most unfortunate spoonerism ever heard in our church – the ‘wedding banquet’ during the Gospel reading; fortunately only half of the unfortunate phrase emerged, and the day was saved…… ‘O for a closer walk with God’, by Stanford fortunately had a strong top line, and a strong tenor line as well thanks to our new recruit (new to our choir, not new to singing). And thence to the parish centre, to make our part in the town mosaic – the church, understandably enough, providing a fish motif.