St Nicholas Day and the RSCM

To St Anne's Wandsworth for the Council Christian fellowship carol service. The preacher was good but wore a suit and pink tie. The Swaffield junior school choir sang 3 items unaccompanied and there were some growlers! They did not sing the congregational carols as nobody had given them the words! The Mayor read a lesson. Saw Sandra MacNiven and Neville Squires who is now church warden at St Mary Merton. His beard is quite gray!
To Wandsworth Museum and had a long chat to Pat about the closure and her redundancy. Saw Barrie Temple's watercolours (Dawn was there - she volunteers at the library for the Englsih conversation group). Had a last look round the collection before it goes into store for at least a year.
To Trafalgar Square where the tree is up but not yet lit. Such a queue in the Post Office I just bunged stamps on Ann's cards and posted them! To Westminster Abbey for 5 p.m. evensong. On Dec 6 1927 Sydney Nicholson founded the Royal School of Church music there. We sang there on the 60th anniversary with Michael Fleming. The sang "God be in my head" by Nicholson but the rest of the music was pretty dtraightforward - Gibbons second service and Brahms "Wie lieblich". John Harper read the second lesson and one prayer was said. The council had met that day and I went to the reception at Mary Sumner House where I spoke to people from Norwich, Durham and Guildford. Peter Wright, David Ogden, David Price and Teresa Brown were there.
To chorus rehearsal with Philip Sutherland on the Elgar and Vivaldi. Very wet night.