Reminiscences of the Menston Parish Church Choir 

It was in about 1954 that I was appointed head boy of the Menston Parish Choir. That was quite an honour, since the Menston choir was regarded by many as one of the best parish church choirs in England. The Royal School of Church Music used to hold conventions up and down the country and when the convention was held in the Bradford Diocese representatives of the Menston choir were always treated with respect and almost awe.

The high standard of the choir was largely due to the inspired work of Hugh Gadsby who was organist and choirmaster until 1958, when he moved to Huddersfield and continued his work there. His replacement was Keith Rhodes, another giant in the world of choral music, and the man who taught me the rudiments of music and singing when I was a probationer in the Bradford Cathedral choir in the late 1940s.

Hugh Gadsby was a short, stocky man with a rubbery face and thick lips. By day he was a bank clerk, but in his spare time he became a fine musician. He was an Associate or a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists, which meant he had passed rigorous tests of his playing and his musicality. One of the tests for the qualification was to improvise a fugue in the style of J S Bach. The theme for the fugue was given to the organist in a sealed envelope about five minutes before he had to begin the complex improvisation. Anyone who had the letters ARCO or FRCO after his name was certain to be an accomplished organist and musician.

There were two sung services every week: either Matins or Communion on a Sunday morning, and Evensong every Sunday evening. The boys rehearsed Tuesday and Thursday evenings and the men joined them on Thursdays. The rehearsals were serious and intense as Hugh went through every musical item and insisted on the high standards that the choir was known for. He always sang along with the choir as he played the organ, and often he became quite excited and started to spray the organ mirror with spittle. It grew to be so stained that it was almost useless as a mirror, and nobody dared to clean it.

One peculiarity of the Menston choir was in the style of chanting the Psalms. Each verse is in two parts, and the style of the Menston choir was to pause for a good two seconds between the two parts of the verse. I think this was the invention of Hugh Gadsby, but it was known in the church choral world as `The Menston `Ush’. Visitors to the church from other parish choirs were often embarrassed by starting the second half of the verse too early and singing an unintentional solo.

The great performance of the year, though, was the Easter Passion. I remember performing the Back St Matthew Passion twice (once in conjunction with Bingley Parish Church choir) and the St Mark Passion by Charles Wood. With the Bach Passion, we used an orchestra as well as the organ. They were crowded between the choir stalls, on the steps and below the steps in the nave. In a church that size it was a wonder that we managed an audience at all, but we did.

But it was in the regular Sunday services that we sang through a repertoire of excellent music. Each Sunday there were two anthems performed, and they were chosen for their musical excellence. Preference was given to English composers such as William Bird, S S Wesley, Charles Stanford, Edward Bairstow and Henry Purcell. The congregations were truly privileged to hear such beautiful music so well performed in a tiny Parish Church in a small village.

I was privileged, too, to be exposed to such wonderful music and the painstaking work of Hugh Gadsby. I have spent my life subsequently as a professional musician, and rarely has a day gone by when I have not remembered my time as a choirboy in that quaint church with its lovely little organ and the driven and driving organist who made it talk.

I hope the standard of excellence and originality still exists in the Parish Choir, and that congregations are still being delighted by the sweet and accurate singing of the wonderful music of the organists and composers who have built a superb repertoire of anthems, hymns and service settings over the last 800 years.

Gordon Gribbin, once Head Chorister
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