will never forget. Agatha and I then had to
sing the winners’ duet with Apollo 5 which
was The Lord Bless you and Keep you by John
Rutter himself! We had to do an interview
and had lots of pictures taken and there
was a reception afterwards – it was all very
good fun. Mr Burden and Mr Archer and
lots of other Quirister parents had come
to support Tom and me, as well as my
parents and grandparents, and they were
all very proud.
At Christmas Agatha and I sang for the
Imperial Cancer Research Charity at The
Royal Hospital in London. We sang Once in
Royal David’s City and In the Bleak Midwinter
and then joined their professional choir for
the rest of the service which was a brilliant
experience. My mum and Agatha’s mum
enjoyed meeting the celebrity readers,
including Charles Dance and Dominic West.
I sang In the Bleak Midwinter again with a
quartet including the countertenor Michael
Chance when I did a fundraising event for the
New Grange Festival near Alresford.
We drove home and I went back to school
the next day. The BBC had told me not to tell
anyone I had won until the programme went
out on the radio ten days later. It was very
difficult as people kept asking me how I had
got on so I was very relieved once everyone
was finally allowed to know!
Since then I have sung in Broadcasting House
in London when we did a live Daily Service
for Radio 4 and recorded At the Foot of the
Cross for Radio 2. Agatha and I also sang
for another Songs of Praise in Liverpool
As a result of the competition,
I was then asked to do lots of
other singing. The first thing was
recording three duets with Agatha
for Songs of Praise on BBC 1. We
did this in a church near Warwick. I
have never been on television before
and found it very interesting. We
recorded the sound first; then they
took away the microphones and
we mimed to our sound recording
whilst they recorded the pictures,
which was easier to do than I thought
it would be. (One of our duets is on
the Songs of Praise website, to be
found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/
programmes/p037zfpm)
Then I was asked to sing Walking in
the Air from The Snowman with the
Fairey Brass Band, for Sky Arts, for
their Christmas Special which was
called ‘A Brass Band Wonderland’
and was recorded in the Peak Cavern
in Derbyshire. It was freezing in the
cave, which was huge, and there was
water trickling down from the roof
and amazing lighting. They had a
camera on a track which sped round
the audience.
Angus Benton outside the BBC
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