Barbershop
in Bolton began in 1979, when four men from the local
church choir decided to 'give it a go!' Their names
were: George Denton, (Bass); Terry Smith, (Baritone);
Walter Marriner, (Lead) and Brian Turner, (Tenor). Together,
they were known as The Four Strops. The quartet sang
mainly for their own amusement and entertainment, occasionally
getting invitations to sing-outs. They sang in old folk's
homes, church halls, in fact, wherever they were asked
to perform, they'd be there.
Soon after their formation, other church members became
interested. Soon, from the quartet, came the foundations
of a chorus. For one reason or another, Walter and Brian
left the group. Terry stayed on as founding Chorus Director,
George as founding Chairman. They decided on the chorus
name at an early meeting; proud of their Northern roots.
The Cottontown Chorus soon grew in numbers and in November
1980 took their first steps onto the contest stage;
albeit as mike-warmers at the Northern Preliminary Competition,
held that year at the University of Manchester Institute
of Science and Technology. (UMIST)
The chorus continued to flourish and, following the
next five years of contest, and none qualification,
they finally made it to Convention in 1986. A proud
moment for Terry Smith, who's dream had just been realised.
Further qualification followed until, in 1992, Bolton
BHC broke into the top 10. It was at this point Terry
decided to hang up his pitchpipe, which was taken over
by Simon Wilson, a chorus member. Simon led us on our
first trip 'over-the-pond', to Boston, Massachusetts,
where we spent a week singing to our 'American cousins'.
Hopefully the first trip of many to come! Simon maintained
our position at contest and then decided his family
commitments were getting too great for him to do justice
to the chorus.
Enter Mick Dargan, a chorus member since the early days
and long time deputy CD to both Simon and Terry. Taking
over in February 1998, he had just three months to teach
two new songs for Convention. (He didn't want to just
go and wave his arms in time with the chorus!) Their
previous placing was maintained. Mick was now looking
forwards to the next contest, which would be 'up here
in t' North', Blackpool in fact. The contest was an
open competition. No qualification was needed. There
were forty competing choruses that day! Singing 'I'll
Be Seeing You' and 'The Old Piano Roll Blues', the chorus
came in 6th. The highest placing ever.
The next Convention was at Brighton. The Chorus came
4th. The following year was in Glasgow, where the Chorus
missed out on the Gold Medal by TWO POINTS! (But we
didn't half enjoy the thrill of coming in the top three
for the first time!)
The
following year saw The Cottontown Chorus compete at
Bournemouth where we again took Silver. The next two
conventions would see us on ‘home turf’
at Harrogate. We saw a drop down the rankings to third
place in 2003 and then reclaimed our second place slot
twelve months later. Always the bridesmaid, never the
bride! Actually, Mick Dargan often had the opinion that
if he could spend the next ten years only ever picking
up the second place trophy he would be happy. Not because
he didn't want to win but because it would show a degree
of consistency. It was not to work out that way however.
During
2005 we travelled to Brighton having spent quite some
time in the company of Doug Harrington, John Grant and
Sandra Lea-Hunter. We were ready to sing; and dance;
our way to the British Championship. Singing 'Mississippi
Mud' and 'When Day is Done', we finally took the Gold
Medals! Who said Bolton men can’t dance?
Five weeks later we competed at Llangollen Eisteddfod.
From the moment we went on stage, with our 'cotton-slave'
costumes on, we had both the judges and audience members
spellbound. Winning the Barbershop Class, we then waited
for 12 hours in the baking North Wales sunshine trying
to avoid the bars and food halls, all so we could do
it all again during the evening’s 'Choir of the
World' contest. Unfortunately, we were pipped to the
post by a Welsh youth choir. It was nice to hear the
many comments, all along the lines of 'Had the judges
been listening to the audience to gauge the winners,
we would have walked it!'
The chorus made a decision at the 2005 Annual General
Meeting that, having sampled the delights of Canon Slade
School Chapel as their temporary rehearsal venue for
the run-up to their first BABS Championship, they would
like to return there on a more permanent basis. Formalities
and discussion over, the majority of the chorus voted
to accept the change. Many of those voting against the
proposal stayed at the original venue. In effect, The
Cottontown Chorus had split and was going to have to
build up from a much smaller chorus from the one which
had won the Championship only four months earlier. In
actual fact, both parts of the split still thrive within
the town. The Cottontown chorus still maintains their
future commitments of ensuring they are the best they
can be and the newly formed Phoenix Knights of Harmony
still enjoy singing together but in a much-less driven
way.
We were still determined to attend our first International
Convention, to be held in July 2006 in Indianapolis.
With grit and determination and a lot of fund raising,
we managed to get there. Severely depleted in numbers,
we more than made up for that by altering our learning
ethos. We realised that singing well is more fun than
singing not so well. Our fun was suddenly being gained
by singing better than we had ever done before. Ok,
our placing at international wasn’t quite as high
as we’d have hoped but to be there sharing a stage
with choruses and quartets who were our barbershop heroes
was a blast!
Once back
home we set off on the next big adventure. Singing 'South
Rampart Street Parade' and 'The Sunshine of Your Smile',
we took the 2007 Championship in a new venue for BABS
- Scarborough. A decision was made not to accept the
invitation to the 2008 International. Many members were
still paying for the previous trip!
At the 2008 BABS Convention in Cheltenham, Mick Dargan
announced his retirement as Chorus Director. A post
he’d proudly filled for the last ten years, he
decided that he’d achieved all he set out to achieve
way back in 1998. A Bronze, three Silvers and two Gold
Medals was quite a haul and Mick had led the Chorus
to beyond what they could have dreamed of ten years
earlier. 2001 Quartet Gold Medalist, (with Matrix) Neil
Firth, had been Mick’s deputy for a number of
years and was asked to fill the void left by Mick’s
retirement. He took the reins in May 2008. Work was
immediately started on two new songs for the next Convention.
'Red Head' and 'You Don’t Know Me' were chosen
as the songs to take us on to the next level, and take
us there they did! Lot’s more dancing lessons
from Sandra Lea-Riley (Note the name change following
her marriage to Chorus member, Tony Riley) and singing
tuition from Royce Ferguson. (International Quartet
Champion, 1998 with Revival)
Singing
at Llandudno in 2009, The Cottontown Chorus again took
top spot. As in previous years, the chorus were invited
to travel to USA to represent BABS at the International
Convention. Philadelphia was the destination in the
summer of 2010. Singing the songs that had gained their
third domestic Gold, the chorus worked harder than they
had ever previously done. Weekend rehearsals were determined
by the music team to be the most valuable use of time
in the run up to this contest. Time, which later proved
to be a small price to pay for the club’s result
at International. We were placed 14th overall with 9th
in Singing and 10th in Music producing an overall average
score of 83.5%* so the Chorus were particularly thrilled
with their efforts.
*Footnote:
The 80% mark is the line between a B+ level score and
an A level score.
And so the work starts on songs for our attempt at gaining
our 4th British Championship. All we can say is watch
this space!
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