Old members may be aware that our Cathedral School supplies singers not only for the Cathedral choir, but also for the chapel choirs at Worcester and Pembroke Colleges. We were honoured to take our Worcester choristers to Normandy this month, as part of their choir’s participation in commemorations for the 81st anniversary of D-Day. The Worcester boys come from backgrounds as far apart as Malaysia, Italy, China and Germany, blending in with local families to help sustain Oxford’s renowned choral tradition. This meant that conversations about D-Day had a global starting point, and we carefully studied the context beforehand to build empathy for events that could seem remote. The excitement over maps, flags and machinery was balanced by individual stories of ordinary people dropped into cold water on a foreign beach (many just a few years older than the choristers themselves).

On the ferry the choir sang for a moving ceremony as a wreath was cast into the Channel. The sights over the following days were unforgettable, with many broadcast locally and on Sky and ITV in the UK. We sang alongside the British Army Band Tidworth, processed to the electrifying sound of Jedburgh Pipe Band, watched a re-enactment by the Dutch army at Arromanches, and performed for both the UK ambassador and US Secretary of State for Defence. It was a common reflection from adults present that – as many of us grew up listening to our grandparents’ stories of conflict – we have a unique responsibility to be a bridge for younger generations. Many French school-children were included in events, and our choristers were able to meet centenarian veterans as well as villagers eager to share memories of occupation and liberation. 

Having heard about life in 1940s Europe and witnessed the range of nationalities being commemorated, the trip became a platform for conversations around freedom, sacrifice, and making a stand for fairness even when it might not be to your immediate personal benefit. Whilst studying music from the period, two lines from ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’ (written in 1914 but popular decades later) had captured the choristers’ imagination:

For no gallant son of Freedom to a tyrant’s yoke should bend

And a noble heart must answer to the sacred call of “Friend”

I have never been prouder of any pupils than at the ceremony in Bayeux Cemetery, where we sang unflinching in the open air through alternations of blistering sun and torrential downpours... just yards from the British Secretary of State for Defence (safely sheltered by an umbrella!). Being a chorister is seriously hard work, and I often find myself discussing the non-musical benefits of joining a choir with parents. The discipline, empathy and cultural literacy demonstrated in Normandy by the Worcester boys – referred to by organisers as representatives of the University, the city and the nation - seem as good an example as any that could be imagined. The school and college can be very proud of them.