April 2025. Tonbridge. Kent.
Credit where it’s due, I’m not sure I’d have fancied a 300 mile round trip and a lost weekend to see my Grandad sing Messiah when I was 25/23, and James and Matt (losing a day’s pay) did it voluntarily.
Not even a posh hotel either side, just the satisfaction of making an 87 year old happy, and a Chinese takeaway for lunch from Meow’s, whose lovely owner treats me as a regular.
That was barely an hour after those breakfast bagels, AND they’d sneaked a posh brownie from Southborough’s artisanal street market.
Michael, who’s sung under Solti and at the Proms, has been in “training” for Messiah but was let off final practise, so I gave cousin Paul a lift in to posh Tonbridge School through atrocious roadworks on Saturday.
Three (3) hours final rehearsal, long enough to pop in the nearest Spoons for unlimited black coffee,
which really wasn’t coping with the volume of trade (mainly Madri).
St Augustine, burnt down in 1988 but spectacularly rebuilt,
is a gem of a concert hall.
I don’t think my lads had ever been to a classical concert before,
or seen soloists who looked like this;
But they sat quietly, stood up during the Hallelujah chorus (why ?), and didn’t ask what the Tipex in the pews was for.
But at half-time the interval Matt made a dash for the bar.
There WAS no bar. We should have gone over the Ivy House for a pint of Harvey’s and a pee,
and I can only apologise to Matt that we didn’t.
And those “in-corr-upt-ible trumpets” may haunt them forever.
retiredmartin 
For some reason, I always thought Handel’s Messiah was a Christmas piece, but obviously not.
Over the course of 40 years living in Tonbridge, I’ve never set foot in the town’s prestigious school. A couple of Eileen’s friends, one now retired and the other moved away from the area, were employed there, in the bursar’s office – whatever bursars do, but neither of us have visited Tonbridge School’s chapel, either. The concert hall certainly looks spectacular, having been rebuilt after that fire – we were on holiday when it happened, so it wasn’t us, and amazingly that was three years before our Matthew was born.
Full marks to your Matt and his brother, James, for giving up their weekend to hear their grandfather sing, and congratulations to the man himself, for being able to sing a piece like the Messiah, and for doing so at such a prestigious venue.
ps. The roadworks have been bad recently, and they’re still continuing!
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King George II was so moved by the Hallelujah chorus that he stood up in respect. Because nobody was supposed to remain seated if the monarch was standing, the whole audience stood, and this became a common feature of performances even when no monarch was leading the way. I didn’t realise it was still a thing.
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I researched that legend extensively, alternative versions say he was woken up with a jolt at the sudden explosion of noise in the chorus.
Audiences in other countries don’t tend to stand up, but the good folk of Tonbridge are very conservative and will always follow tradition.
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Has that got anything to do with standing up for the National Anthem before leaving last time I went to a cinema ?
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