Ten-week race to form prostate cancer choir
BBCA male voice choir in Staffordshire is hoping a charity concert will inject some new blood while raising money for a good cause.
The Daleian Singers were set up in 1957, but in recent years numbers have dwindled to just 28.
That all changed, however, with a 10-week project to put on a performance under the Staffordshire Men Sing name in aid of Prostate Cancer UK.
Inundated with 300 applications, they ran auditions to whittle those down and there are now 65 new singers, who will be bolstered by Daleian and other choirs.
The project is the brainchild of Steve Bristo who felt the Daleian Singers' current membership was also starting to "get a little old" - with the average age in the 70s.
"We just can't believe the amount of work these guys are putting in to learn the words and the music - the sound they are making is just absolutely brilliant," he said.
One of the new joiners is 24-year-old James Tomkinson, who spotted an advert in the pub he was working in.
"It sounded a really good idea, for a good cause, and I decided I'm going to throw my hat in the ring," he said.
"I was always part of my school choir and when I left school I never really found a choir to be part of, until I saw this.
"From the very start I heard it and thought this is going to be something special, because from the very first week you could hear how good people were, even if they didn't realise it then - you could hear how good we started, and to now it's a spectacular noise."
Fellow new joiner Edward Smith has sung before and was encouraged by friends to take part after his mother went into a hospice.
She has since died, but he had cared for her the past four years and struggled to fit in other activities.
"It's really good, it's really helped me getting out of myself," he said.
"On one level it was better to come here than to sit at home and mope.
"The support from the guys I didn't know before since September time has been so good - everybody is so supportive we are a choir working together.
Adrian Knapper is hoping joining a choir can help his voice, after his vocal cords were left paralysed following an operation.
He had gone to the doctor with flu-like symptoms, but a scan revealed he had a lump in his chest the size of a tennis ball.
It turned out to be a cyst, but an operation to remove it also resulted in nerve damage affecting his voice, and he has been left with a higher, softer tone.
"For the last six years I've been able to talk clear, but when I talk for a length of time it starts dying out," he said.
Joining the choir comes with the approval of his consultant.
"It's about singing from your diaphragm and strengthening my vocal cords," Adrian said.
The choir's conductor Harriet "Hatty" Johnson knows something about this
In her day job she is a voice specialist, specifically working with people who have injured voices.
She said the warming up exercises and practice sessions all help with "vocal health, stamina and improve strength and flexibility of the voice".
"It's great not only for our respiratory system but also our mental health," she added.
"There is so much evidence around signing together communally does for mental health and it's brilliant."
However, audience members are also in for a treat.
Hatty said the Men Sing choir were sounding "really special" and did not know "how brilliant they actually are".
Paul Barlow is part of both the Daelians and the Cor Bach choir, which will perform alongside the Men Sing cast.
He said listening to rehearsals had left him with a big smile.
As part of the rehearsals at Christmas, the groups have been encouraged to go for a drink at a local pub afterwards which Paul said was a big part of the "social value for male voice signing".
Follow BBC Stoke & Staffordshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
