Children. Singing.

Wow. Has it really been four months since I last updated this blog? And there’s been so much Sentinel-related news! Actually, there hasn’t, of course, but that’s no excuse to not write entries more frequently. Having said that, I’ve not really found much in the way of interesting Sentinel LPs of late, so here’s a bit about the first album I owned on the label. And one on which I actually appear...

I guess it must have been July 1976, which means I was 10 years old. Just before we broke up for the long summer holiday, our primary school teacher Mrs Ellery told us an exciting piece of news: Brenda Wootton was going to be recording an LP with various children’s choirs in west Cornwall, and our school choir had been chosen as one of the participants. Teach then played a tape of a couple of the songs Brenda had demoed, and may have handed out Banda-duplicated lyric sheets too, but I don’t really remember. It didn’t really matter: we were going to be on a record! How thrilling!

So when we all returned after the summer holiday, suitably scorched from too many long days on Perran beach, the record was quite a hot topic, and we spent many Friday afternoons with Mrs Ellery, honing our craft. Or did we? It doesn’t really sound like it, judging from the rather under-arranged performances I’m listening to now. But that’s beside the point: it’s not supposed to be Bohemian Rhapsody. The five songs on which we appear were recorded in Sentinel’s Newlyn studio one Sunday morning: we were all done by lunchtime. I think we recorded no more than three takes of anything. One of us sneezed during “Thunder & Lightning”, a song celebrating clotted cream & pasties, wouldn’t you know? The sneeze is there on the LP, unedited. Some of the other recordings on the LP were made in the music room of Ludgvan School, rather than the studio, lending an even more rustic air to the album’s ambience.

Anyway, it was an unforgettable experience. I remember peeking into the studio control room and thinking, “well, this would be a fine way to earn a living”.... though actually it was probably more “wow look at all the buttons & knobs”.  Both Brenda & Richard Gendall (who wrote most of the numbers too) were welcoming, helpful & funny, and the guitarist on the album – Al Fenn – was a member of west country folk-rockers Decameron, my mum’s favourite band at the time. She was dead impressed. I don’t remember seeing much of Job. I really should have been paying more attention.

As for the record itself (Children Singing; SENS 1036), it plays the charm card quite heavily as you’d expect, but is all wonderfully evocative (that word again!), at least for me. And – I’d imagine – it would probably conjure up a few memories from some of my fellow “choristers” too. So: is anyone out there? Luke Shirley? Zora Trapp? Would love to hear from you.      

Here's "Opie, Davy, Foote, Trevithick & Bone", the opening number on the album, and a paean to five Cornish heroes.