Charles Roberts
(chorister 1962-1967)
‘A little short’ – Memories of the 1960s
by Charles Roberts
Charles Roberts - “Mighty Mouse” – second on the left
It’s funny how nicknames stick. Once established they tend to stay with you. Hence my reputation as ‘Mighty Mouse’, a name coined in 1962, but which remained with me throughout my Choir School career. But I am ahead of myself.
It was 1960 and the question posed for my parents was what to do with a child of apparently poor academic prospects whose only talent it seemed was to be able to reproduce tunes accurately on demand. With various house moves, I had already attended four schools in a little over two years, and so it was decided to audition for Exeter. I was seven years old, three foot six inches tall, and I remember the audition process clearly.
Lionel Dakers sat at a piano in the dining room, greeting me warmly, and inviting me to sing what I had rehearsed a hundred times with my mother, that old favourite Psalm 23. It seemed to go quite well. We then did some exercises, picking out notes from chords, identifying intervals - Lionel seemed satisfied, I was relieved. But then disaster! Nobody had mentioned there would be some sums to do, or an English test. This had failure written all over it. And yes, I did fail spectacularly anything that required a pencil in hand, but lucky for me, my voice carried me through. There was just one condition to starting the following September. I needed to GROW!
Almost a year later, September 1961 I arrived at school, still three feet six inches! The school in 1961 was stable after a somewhat rocky few years, with a caring Head (Tom Evans) and an equally caring Matron (Miss Ward – no honestly!). The boarding school housed around 26 boys, but day boys had recently been introduced and the school had expanded to 60. I settled into the routine quickly, with choir practices before the school day began, and again after lunch before afternoon lessons. Piano practice sessions were timetabled after school, before supper, and the daily Evensong. The teaching staff as I remember them was a mixture of terrifying and almost too gentle. Mr Downs, English, was far too gentle and an obvious target for little boys’ mischief. I don’t think he ever understood why we rarely paid attention, but he didn’t deserve our farewell gift to him, a tortoiseshell comb for his bald pate!
Mr Edwards, Latin, on the other hand I found truly scarey; a firebrand Welsh clergyman who flung exercise books across the classroom with gay abandon. Miss Van der Kiste (newly qualified) reasonable, Miss Davis, Maths, intimidating, Mr Pocock, Geography, nutcase who got his comeuppance one day playing for Plymouth Argyle where he got a bit trampled on! Much rejoicing in the common room. But with Tom Evans at the helm, a kindly Matron, and music staff who seemed very caring, it was a decent place to be.
As already mentioned my height had been an issue, and not least at Christmas and Easter. It was on these occasions that the Bishop attended the main Cathedral service and ‘blessed the choristers’. Bishop Mortimer would solemnly move down the row of choristers intoning “the Lord bless you and keep you” over each one, until he came to me. Sometimes I think he thought there was just a gap, but there I was, and he would make an extra effort to reach down and manage to touch my head for the blessing. I always appreciated his efforts.
Like any small organisation there was a pecking order, and as we all went through the school, so our levels of seniority progressed. I never had the voice that would make me a Head Chorister (I left that to the Pikes of this world) but I managed to get to the place of one below – an ‘end’ on Cantoris. I had been through the ‘hacking’ process during practices – that system of learning whereby your immediate senior would give you a kick if you didn’t immediately acknowledge your mistake with a raised hand, thereby letting the Choir Master know it was ‘you’, and allowing the practice to continue uninterrupted. And with a daily Evensong, and the three services on Sundays, our ability to read music off the page became rather remarkable. And I suspect for most of us, we can still do that quite well.
I was promoted to a Prefect, but that was more about recognising my advancing age than my stature. Sometime around 1965 an article appeared in the local newspaper, and it concerned two choir members. One of them was a long-standing Bass Lay Clerk, and the other was me, so the article was headed, ‘Exeter Cathedral’s longest serving Lay Clerk, and shortest Chorister’! Even after four years at the school my height remained a challenge. Hence ‘Mighty Mouse.’
I left the Choir School in 1967 having experienced one of the best musical groundings I think we can ever receive. Lionel Dakers and his deputy Chris Gower were still there, as was Tom Evans, and my memories are universally happy ones. It is true I generally kept myself out of trouble, I was one of those ‘reliable boys’.
While it took me time to find my academic edge (or something!) the school gave me a remarkable background that served me well in my later musical career as a professional Bass player. Probably the most unlikely instrument to choose, but then I wasn’t called ‘mouse’, back then I was ‘Mighty Mouse’!!
Charles was President of ECOCA, 2004-2024.
(From the ECOCA Newsletter, February 2012)