Between March 2020 and August 2021, there were various incarnations of lockdown and isolation, which meant that no choirs could meet together as a whole at all. The Bridge Singers kept on singing throughout this entire time, individually, over Zoom, in small groups, spread out, outdoors (whatever the regulations allowed), and kept together as a group in other ways too. Here are some of the things we managed to achieve in that difficult time:

March 17th 2020 – News 1
When I wrote this email. it was just “News” but then the next day with “News 2”, this one became “News 1” and I continued to write an email to the choir every day until “News 491”. These emails contained actual news about the choir, music to listen to, jokes, stories, anything that occurred to me during the day, really. On 100, 200, 300 I wrote “100 positive things from today” which were mammoth efforts, but a pretty spirit-raising thing …once done!

“Good morning everyone! I was going to write about what a stinging pang of grief I’m feeling at the abrupt ending of our choiry activities for the time being, and how I have a plan which I’m working on in my head and will send word when it’s formed itself more fully, and if any of you need anything do let me know, or if you want a chat phone me, or if you want me to send cheery emails on a daily basis I will do so. And I was also going to mention that at present the wedding on Saturday is still going ahead as far as I (or Rev. James) am aware and was wondering out loud whether any of those of us in the “not at risk” groups could still go and sing for them.

But all of this has been temporarily superseded by the arrival on the back of a lorry of the bridge. The old railings of the bridge, that is. They have seemingly been spruced up to an appropriate standard (oh how they’re gleaming in the sunlight) and are being put back in place. In fairness the men arrived yesterday and were making an almighty din with their machinery drilling holes in concrete and the like. And there are traffic lights – three way traffic lights!!! Oh the thrill of it! I had to move our car yesterday so that chiplets of concrete cause it no harm – one of the men came and rang the doorbell. I recognized him from the railing removal days. He was the one in the tight-fitting top with his muscly arms sticking out. He has a rather cheery smile too, I might add – but none of that is why I immediately moved the car. He’s sporting a hoody-with-orange-high-viz these days what with the more temperate weather conditions. His hugely-bearded friend and the one with the permanent cigarette in the corner of his mouth (I’m sure I wrote of these two before) were here too and how lovely to see their familiar faces again. Today we have them plus some council workers in their full-body highvizzes attending to cones and temporary railings. The ones who work for the restoration company are more blasé about the health and safety regulations. Muscly Arms was doing concrete drilling yesterday without even goggles to protect his smiley eyes!!!
Anyway, more anon. I’ll take more pictures and keep you filled in.
Lots of love to you all,
Cheryl xx
By the way, if you’ve joined the choir in the last 18 months you’ll be wondering about this email. But you’ll get the hang of it – you missed the entire treat of the blow-by-blow resurfacing of 2018!

March/April/August 2020 – New Lockdown Arrangements
We started making videos with members of the choir recording themselves individually at home and sending their results to me for editing together. This was a traumatic process. People are in choirs to sing together, not to sing on their own into machines, but still…even though the results are not as polished as we might like, they kept us together and in touch with each other.
The Black Velvet Band. All choristers’ individual recordings were in to me by the end of March, so we were properly on the ball –  and you can see all the traumas about the recording they outlined in their comments to me. These videos have not only been a way of keeping singing, but also of keeping in touch, so even those who were unable to record have contributed with their photos, stories and comments. You can hear and watch “The Black Velvet Band” video here!
Australia – our second effort a month later. They were asked to send in images of what they’d been up to since we last met up in person. You can hear and watch “Australia” video here!
Teo Torriatte – A few months down the line, in August, and we had now done a few more of these videos including ones that included some live recordings of groups of six, as well as lots of individual ones too.

Because the river was so low, we were able to meet up in the evening and record in our sixes, underneath the arches of the bridges – quite a resonant space, albeit inhabited by roosting pigeons and jackdaws, and with the added advantage that choir members awaiting their turn could observe from above and have a well-spread-out chat with each other. This recording of a Queen song written by Brian May has the added thrill of us all singing together afterwards – very emotional… and difficult to record because we had to be so spread out – everyone had stayed after their recording session because our Chairman had organized for our customary end-of-year speeches and gift-giving  I spent a lot of the first part of the year getting permission to make this choir arrangement and then making the arrangement, so we didn’t start learning it until July time. I think you can hear on the recording the improvement in their singing from March even though this was our trickiest of our lockdown lockdown choir arrangements so far. You can hear and watch the “Teo Torriatte” video here!

Skydancer: Ghost Of The Moors
This was a huge project for us and for a national audience too. Read all about it here!

October 19th 2020
I was asked by a friend  in January 2020 to compose a song dedicated to her husband who was retiring from the RAF in 2020…and to write it without his knowledge! Because of the lockdowns, it was tricky to meet up and chat about this, so in order to get some ideas, I asked the whole choir and him included, as one of our choir fans and as an actual former flying person, to send me some memories of flight. The pretence was that I was writing a general song about memories of flight! The memories were so inspiring that I ended up with a third song of flight (the first being Skydancer: Ghost Of The Moors, and the second being the actual song for my friend) inspired by their memories of flight. I called it “Earthbound” on account of the feeling of currently being stranded wherever we are because of the lockdowns, and actually being unable to fly at all. The memories are of flights around mountains including the Himalayas, of seeing circular rainbows below, of seeing both night and day during the same flight, of the flight of birds…and more! You can hear the song, Earthbound, here!

December 24th 2020 – Christmas Lockdown Videos
The Bridge Singers continued to make lockdown videos right through 2020. Some of these videos used new soundtracks edited together from individual recordings, and some used old recordings from previous performances. Here are some more videos we made of Christmas songs in December 2020:

Magical Glass. This song was actually chosen by The Bridge Singers themselves. I asked them at the beginning of November which songs they’d like us to have a go singing during December, bearing in mind that there are no rehearsals and no concerts. This was one we’ve sung a few times before, and received the most votes out of any, which makes me very happy, of course! This new video uses a recording from 2016, photos of the places mentioned, but also some photos of us “gathering round” both in 2016 at our glass house party and also during 2020 in the varied ways we’ve managed that. I’ve kept the intro, applause and laughter as that seemed important this year. You can listen to and watch the video of Magical Glass here! 

Tiny, Flickering Flame. This is a recording from 2019’s Christmas concert. We sang it in the semi-darkness and some of the choir lit candles and placed them on the window ledges of the church – rather atmospheric. Click here for the video of Tiny, Flickering Flame performed by The Bridge Singers (Actually, I think this recording was from a rehearsal because there is no applause and no clattering about of candle lighters and no audience wintry spluttering!)

Chantry Chapel Carol. We recorded the song in November and later in December, this was combined with some of the pictures of our Christmas run-up this year – quite different to usual! The Chantry Chapel in question is the one in Wakefield that is overlooked by the Hepworth Gallery there.  You can hear and watch the video of “Chantry Chapel Carol” here! 

Also December 2020
We had an advent calendar of musical events during the entire month, focussing on a different Christmas song every day. The whole thing is outlined in its own write-up here!

January 25th 2021 – Burns Night By Zoom
In 2020 we started Zoom rehearsals, which are traumatic for several reasons but they were good for us to see each other and we developed strategies for making it work happily.
Undaunted by all the zoomfoibles, we attempted some challenging and ultimately rewarding events along with our weekly rehearsals. One of these was our Burns Night Singalong on 25^th January. We had previously voted for our favourite Burns songs from the repertoire of our two previous Burns Night Concerts, so I gathered together recordings of all of these and basically we sang along with them in our own homes and made each other smile and laugh. We were joined by our friends from Kirkcaldy, Richard and Morag Michael who had been here in person at our 2020 event, and once again Richard played us some wonderful improvisations from his zoomed-up piano studio. What an absolute honour to have this amazing musician do this for us. You can see highlights of the evening here: The Bridge Singers’ Burns Night Singalong 2021 – Cheryl Camm – Composer . If you don’t want to listen to the whole lot, then I recommend “7. It Was In Sweet Senegal”, which was a recording Jamie and I put together that week with original soloist Connor taking the lead – in 2018 he sang it with piano accompaniment, and in 2020 with choir.

After this night, the choir sent in recordings of our favourite (as voted for in the poll), The Birks Of Aberfeldy, for me to make into a video as before, along with photos of “waterfalls and things that make us happy”. We shared this resulting video at the beginning of February. You can hear the video of The Birks Of Aberfeldy here! 

February 14th 2021 – Top Ten Singalong
The choir voted for their favourite five songs that we’d ever sung and the ones with the most votes (well, ten of them) were sung on Valentine’s Day. I hunted out recordings of us for us to sing along to – we discovered that singing along to ourselves was the closest we could come to replicating singing live. Our top 10 were:

1. Bogoroditse Devo.
2. Abendlied
3. Lullaby Of Silences
4. Northumberland
5. 59^th Street Bridge Song
6. Hallelujah (Cohen)
7. If Ye Love Me
8. Skydancer: Ghost Of The Moors
9. Locus Iste
10. The Peanut Vendor
11. The Parting Glass

A wide variety of styles, I think you’ll agree. I was pleased at this result as this has always been my aim for the choir – that we cater to the wide variety of styles that people enjoy. Also pleased that two of mine were on there!!! And yes, I know…that’s 11. There’s a good reason. Lots of people said that Lullaby Of Silences would have been on their list, but it’s too sad for a celebratory event intended to cheer us up, so they left it off the list. I decided that there were so many comments like this, that we wouldn’t sing it that night. We replaced it with one of our 11^th place song, The Parting Glass – I think this is a warm-hearted end-of-a night-in-a pub song, so perfect for our singalong!

If you want to sing along yourselves, here are all the links on this blog. The Bridge Singers’ Top 10 Singalong – Cheryl Camm – Composer

March 31st 2021 – Zoom Concert
Zoom rehearsals for The Bridge Singers continued until mid-May 2021. It really is not the best way to sing together, mostly because of the delay as I’ve described before, but also because “it” only lets through so many voices at any one time, so those with the loudest voices, or those who have better microphones or those who sit closest to their microphones always cut through. So we always started our Zoom rehearsals with an “all mics open” sing of something that was musically disastrous, but cheered us up no end with the ridiculousness of it. Then it was “mute all” except me. They would learn stuff from me singing and playing, then they’d sing along to a finished recording that Jamie and I would have put together, then it would be “un-mute all” and we’d have a merry chat as everyone slowly departed. Our last big Zoom event was at the end of March when we had a live Zoom concert to launch what so far has been our last lockdown video, The Way Old Friends Do by ABBA. The entire story of the evening is here: The Bridge Singers’ Video Launch Live “Concert” March 29th 2021 – Cheryl Camm – Composer

If you just want to watch the new video, it’s here, but having just had another look at all the clips from the Zoom concert on the blog above, they really do give a fuller idea of what it was like during those Zoom months. Of course, all that may yet return, and I dare say we’ll tackle it in the same positive spirit as before. If you want to watch and hear our “The Way Old Friends Do” video, you can do so here!

June 21st 2021 – Summer Solstice Singalong
This video gives you a flavour of what The Bridge Singers did in May and June 2021 once we were allowed to meet up again in person outside in groups of up to 30. The Government had said that June 21^st would be the date when this “up to 30” restriction would be removed, so we planned to meet up on the beach – all 45 of us – and sing to celebrate the Summer Solstice and also our reunification, with local friends and family in attendance. Well, the regulations carried on for another month as it turned out, but we managed to be in a group of less than 30 singers, with various sub-groups of listeners dotted about the beach, but within earshot, sort of in the same place and sort of not! Here’s the story of those two months. The Bridge Singers’ Summer Solstice On The Beach  

July 20th 2021 – News 491
Good morning! Another glorious day to wallow in – indoors looking out for me and outdoors looking out for others!!! We’ve had a window man in already today to change a few – condensation between the two bits of glass in the double glazing units, and the breeze has been pleasantly wafting through…we’ve had to tidy up a bit too, to allow access…so a double bonus!
Thanks for a splendid rehearsal last night. I was so happy that there were more than 30 of us so we could head into this next phase of our choral roller-coaster ride, taking advantage of the grand loosening! Ann Lings and Jamie took photos and I recorded quite a few snippets. As ever the machine was closer to some than others, but I’ve picked a good bit to put with some of their photos. I meant to say last night that Belle Mamma was one of Jenny E’s favourite warm-ups – the b and m sounds open things up – she’d have a more helpful, detailed and professional way of explaining it, of course. It’s a song she used with some of her patients, I remember her telling me.
For those of you who weren’t there or those who were and want to follow up, we sang Belle Mamma in the warm up, then re-learnt and freshly-learnt some bits of Fallen Leaf Runes. Then we sang through some of your requests, (buffing up with musical polish as we went), Bogoroditse Devo, If Ye Love Me, And So It Goes, Bonny At Morn and The Way Old Friends Do. We (re-)discovered that it’s hard to hear each other outside, so the best way to keep in time with each other is to watch the conductor. We also had a go at mixing ourselves up to sing the first page of And So It Goes…and The Way Old Friends Do – the sound was so much better, and most of you found that you can cope with, and indeed rather enjoy, being surrounded by the other parts…others of you were less happy, but we all discovered something to work on, I dare say!

Well, it was always my intention to write these emails every day until we could meet together again all together in person. That should have been our Summer Solstice Singalong on June 21^st, but of course the regulations changed, so that “everyone together” moment was last night in the field with the trees and the sheep and the setting sun. I know not all of you came along, but that was because of your own good reasons and not because of preventative regulations. So this is the last daily “News” email for now. I always used to write one on a Tuesday after rehearsals and will continue to do that, and if there’s any news about repertoire or performances and other choir business, I will of course write to you all, but they won’t be called “News #?” any more.
I started the daily messages to keep all our spirits up when things were a bit alarming and some of you were truly isolated. I’ve tried to always be relentlessly positive in my ramblings, and come up with as many activities and strategies as we’ve been permitted to during these last 491 days to keep the choir together as a sociable group and together singing by whatever means we can. Of course, things are still not completely back to normal and we will continue to take care of each other with rehearsals outdoors for the remainder of the summer.
I know these emails have been a bit of a lifeline to some of you sometimes, occasionally a bit of a nuisance for others and a bit of entertainment for most – all of the above could be applied to myself as well: from time to time, all three in one day! Anyway, I know I’ve said that they do not need replying to – and I meant it – but thanks anyway, to those of you who have now and then sent word back and joined in with your own stories.
Anyway, it’s only the daily emails that will stop. Choir goes on, and we have performances, rehearsals and a singing morning lined up in the next few weeks before we take our Autumn Break. No doubt many of you have lots of fun summer stuff lined up too.
Also, I really don’t want to get to 500!
Bye for now, and lots of love to you all,
Cheryl xxx

Lockdown videos
We produced a lot of videos during the lockdowns to help keep us together. Some are old recordings, Some are new recordings. Some are described in more detail above. Here is a full list. If you click on any of them, a link will take you to the video on YouTube.
March 25th 2020 –She’s Fair And Fause
March 27th 2020 – Northumberland
April 3rd 2020 – The Black Velvet Band
April 7th 2020 – The Lea Rig
April 12th 2020 – Amazing Grace
April 18th 2020 – Australia
May 4th 2020 – The Parting Glass
May 10th 2020 – Bogoroditse Devo
May 24th 2020 – Factum Est Silentium (Anerio)
June 19th 2020 – Autumn Sea
July 10th 2020 – Reynold The Fox
July 19th 2020 – If Ye Love Me
August 2nd 2020 – Jerusalem
August 8th 2020 – Skydancer: Ghost Of The Moors
August 28th 2020 – Teo Torriatte
September 4th 2020 – The Bridge Singers’ Review Of The Year 2019-20
September 6th 2020 – Now Westlin Winds
October 6th 2020 – Water Of Tyne
October 27th 2020 – Bonny At Morn
November 6th 2020 – When I Am Laid In Earth
December 1st 2020 – Magical Glass
December 2nd 2020 – There Is No Rose
December 5th 2020 – In The Bleak Midwinter
December 7th 2020 – We Three Kings
December 8th 2020 – Sweet Bells
December 10th 2020 – O Little Town Of Bethlehem
December 15th 2020 – Tiny, Flickering Flame
December 23rd 2020 – Chantry Chapel Carol
December 29th 2020 – Hush My Dear
February 5th 2021 – The Birks Of Aberfeldy
March 1st 2021 – Factum Est Silentium (Dering)
March 29th 2021 – The Way Old Friends Do
June 27th 2021 – Summer Solstice Singalong