I had during the war another novel but most interesting experience. A
certain well-known West End church has been celebrated for over fifty
years for the beauty and exquisite finish of its musical Services. As
1915 gave place to 1916, one by one the professional choir-men got
called up for military service, and finally came the turn of the
organist and choirmaster himself, he being just inside the limit of
age. The organist, besides being a splendid musician, happened to be a
skilled mechanic, so he was not sent abroad, but was given a
commission, and sent down to Aldershot to superintend the assembling
of aircraft engines. By getting up at 5 a.m. on Sundays, he was able
to be in London in time to take the organ and conduct the choir of his
church. Meeting the organist in the street one day, he told me that he
was in despair, for all the men of the choir but two had been called
up, and the results of ten years' patient labour seemed crumbling
away. He meant, though, to carry on somehow, all the same, and begged
me to find him a bass for the Cantoris side. I have hardly any voice
at all myself, but I had been used to singing in a choir, and can read
a part easily at sight, so I volunteered as a bass, and for two years
marched in twice, and occasionally three times, every Sunday into the
church in cassock and surplice with the choir.
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