'Rule, Britannia, 2011!' 

For several years now, St Mary's Church has played host to 'The Last Night of the Proms'.
This event features the building strung with flags and patriotic banners, and inhabited by an audience
    likewise equipped with flags (mostly British, but this year there was a large Scottish flag!)
and bringing with them trumpets, squeakers and other means of making noise as seen
(and heard) annually at the Royal Albert Hall a week or so earlier.

The musical format invariably features Fr Neil on the church organ, and one or two vocal performers.
This year we welcomed back soprano Sarah Helsby Hughes, and welcomed, for the first
(but certainly, we hope, not the last) time, Welsh tenor Huw Rhys-Evans.

After a first hour of stirring organ pieces and splendid solos and duets from the world of opera and musicals,
we sang, as ever, 'Jerusalem', then enjoyed a glass of complimentary 'bubbly' in the adjacent Church Hall.

The second half featured more solos (increasingly light-hearted and romantic in the main),
then ended with the traditional singing of 'Rule Britannia' and 'Land of Hope and Glory', with
more than a little hearty singing, waving, tooting and general patriotic fervour.

The pictures tell the story, including recording the presence of three guests from Sierra Leone,
officials of the Waterloo Partnership, which our two churches actively support.






















Pictures: Chris Price
 

Have a look at last year's junketings!

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