St Bartholomew’s Church choir have in recent times been singing less and less regularly at services and rehearsals became unviable quite a while ago.  The reality of the situation is that we have struggled for quite some time now to get enough voices together at the same time for various reasons, and we now only have one remaining man – that being our head boy and longest serving member Denis Armstong.

There was a consensus among most choir members that it is now no longer feasible to continue as a choir and that we should now hang up our robes and officially draw down the curtain on this wonderful chapter of our history here at St Bartholomew’s.  Whilst this is a sad and reluctant decision, we felt that the time was right rather than to just let things drag on with no real purpose as they have for the past 12 months or so.  

We do however have a lot to be thankful for; we’ve been very fortunate to be able to continue all these years with such a strong choir when many churches lost their choirs maybe more than 30 years ago.  Much of this is down to the dedication and long service of individual members.

We will mark the occasion officially and the choir will sing together one last time at the morning service on Sunday 14th December at 10am where as a church we can celebrate and give thanks for the wonderful years of service from all choir members past and present, and hopefully sign off with a good sing.  We hope that maybe some previous members will be able to join us for this also.

Many people in Meltham have had an association with the choir at some point in their lives, and will no doubt have their own memories – whether that’s being a past member, or hearing them singing around the village at Christmas. Maybe the choir sang at your wedding or a family funeral. Everyone is welcome to come along and share in the occasion with us. It really is the end or an era here in Meltham 🙁