David joined the choir in September 2001 after hearing the choir perform in June of that year at St Columba’s URC in Billingham where he plays the organ. He joined as a second tenor, but can join with the baritones when the balance of the choir needs to be addressed.

He sang a couple of the songs written by Donald Swann and Michael Flanders at one of the choir’s social evenings at the Masonic Hall in Stockton – this led to him performing several of their songs at later concerts as a lighter contrast to some of the more serious choral items. He has also sung in the Gendarmes duet with Tom Ferguson (bass) who also attends St Columba’s.

David was trained by Yamaha to be a teacher of the electric organ with Williams in their Thornaby studio in his spare time from working with ICI Agricultural Division where he worked in the area of fertiliser technical developments. Although he could read music to play he had not done any singing for many years until he joined the choir where he found invaluable help from the other choir members.

His son, Gary, also joined the choir making them the only current father/son pair in the present choir.

After the death of the previous Secretary, David took over the role. As well as the conventional role, he has worked on the history of the choir and has pulled together all written documentation into a computer archive containing scanned copies of concert programmes, photographs and the like – copies are available on request. If any reader has early documents then David would appreciate them for inclusion in the archive – please contact him through the Web Site address.

LIST OF SOLOS

All Flanders/Swann

The Gas Man Cometh
The Rhinoceros
The Warthog
The Sloth
Song of the Weather
Philological Waltz (Tonga)
Song of Patriotic Prejudice
(and is willing to try any others!)

Duet with Tom Ferguson - The Bold Gendarmes