On the weekend of 5th/6th March we paid our first visit to the Welsh Society, Bridgenorth, who were having a St. David’s Day dinner to celebrate their 21st anniversary year. We gave a full concert on the Saturday night and stayed over at the Falcon Hotel where we were to discover, in the early hours of the morning, Gerald East’s considerable hidden talents on the pianoforte.

On Thursday 14th April, we gave a short concert at the Brangwyn for the Swansea/Mannheim Twinning Association. Our Annual Concert this year was held on Thursday 26th May at Bethlehem Chapel, Cadle, when our guest soloist was Doreen O’Neill. Chairman for the evening was Trevor Lewis – “of course”.

This year also saw the start of our entertaining conferences at the university.

I remember vividly the concert at St. Peter’s Church, Cockett, on Wednesday 5th October – we had 3 top tenors in attendance – have times really changed that much? Alan Fewster stepped in as accompanist that evening as Clive was unavailable.

At the AGM on 9th February, Ken Hutin concluded his term of office as Chairman and Phil Gittoes, who had recently returned from living in Hong Kong, was elected Chairman for the 2nd time. In a closely fought contest he beat Vernon Simons by 1 vote – lucky escape for Vernon! At this meeting the choir agreed in principle to consider the competitive field although this did not actually materialise for some 15 months.

The subject of reserved seats at annual concerts for wives/friends caused a bit of a fracas. Islwyn Bennett, now living in Australia [sic – Islwyn actually moved to Vancouver BC in Canada], had had a bit of a problem over this matter at the last annual concert.

At an EGM held on 4th May, it was decided to introduce Honorary Life Membership to the choir to be given for outstanding services to the choir.

Three proposals were made immediately:-

  Name                         Result

  Della Binnig                YES

  Ambrose Miles               NO

  Remaining Founder Members   NO

So Della Binnig became the choir’s first Honorary Life Member.

The subject of recruitment, especially tenors, was still a burning issue.

A highlight of the year was the recording of our 2nd LP (the 1st commercial one) on the Cambrian Label with the title “The Magic of their Singing”. For such a small choir it really was a lovely record and was very successful. The unique front sleeve featuring a picture of a piece of Swansea China was, and is, considered to be very tasteful and up-market.”

  Top Attendances 1977 – Dill Williams   – 100%

                         Gerson Williams – 98%

                         Tony Wright     – 98%

                         Mal Herbert     – 97%

                         Viv Williams    – 97%

Also of note

• Mr P. Gittoes, the new chairman, identified that the choir had given 16 concerts during the year including the Annual Concert, Bridgenorth and the usual Carol Concert. 4 new members had joined and progress was well underway for the second recording.
• The choir debated the rule that restricted the membership to 30 and it was generally agreed that the numbers could exceed 30 provided they were top tenors only! After more discussion it was finally agreed the membership should be “approximately 30”.
• The need to improve the repertoire with lighter musical items was stressed and the Musical Director issued a document where the current repertoire was classified as: “Heavy” (14 pieces), “Middle of the Road” (23 pieces) and “Light” (11 pieces).