The Choir, and ‘Halfway House Ladies Choir’ were born out of the Halfway House Variety Club, formed by local parents in the 1970s for families.

Initially our leader was David Fisher, combining piano with conducting for the first few years. David moved on and we were to welcome Jean Beddows as our musical director along with Geoff Bright as accompanist. They took the choir to new heights of hard work, challenging songs, more concerts and new members.

Geoff was then followed by Joyce Cook, who also brought husband, Jack, along. Joyce proved to be a great asset, standing in as director admirably whenever Jean was unable to attend. Our next musical director, Olwen Williams, in line with now accepted tradition, brought along husband, Arthur to join the tenors and, of course, some new music.

The choir was now about 18 to 20 strong, looking and sounding good.

When Olwen moved on after a couple of years, Joyce invited Brian Goodwin to take over. He had been involved with both the ladies’ and men’s choirs from the outset, often contributing solos to our performances.

Brian helped to open up new vistas for the choir, new members, 2-3 concerts per month, ‘gigs’ at weddings and more besides.

Sadly, now being well into their 80s, Joyce retired as accompanist and Jack retired from singing. Joyce was replaced for a time by Elyned Sherrin and the newly created gap in the tenors was filled by her husband, Hywell, who also contributed several solos, some of which were in Welsh.

Our great fortune was then to find Sarah Morris, our current accompanist, and of course, as dictated by precedent, she brought along husband, Dave, to join the tenor section! Dave’s membership of Glyn Ceiriog MVC also helped add a few more members.

Time marched on, as it does, and our numbers began to dwindle with members moving away or succumbing to natural mortality. We nevertheless carried on with Brian leading and Sarah playing.

Then – COVID!

Once we were ‘allowed out’ again, the choir gathered together once more, albeit on a greatly reduced basis with around 12 regular members. Brian retired and we spent some time ‘in the doldrums, unable to find the right way forward.

One of our long-standing members, Bill Rowell, then stepped up to take on the challenge of waving his arms about along with Sarah, still blasting out the tunes on the piano.

We are now moving forward again and look forward to raising our profile once more in the local area. It is also worth mentioning that not far from our rehearsal venue, The Old Hand and Diamond Inn can be found, and it is possible to find some of our members in there on a Sunday evening after practice!