Arrivals and Departures
This is where we like to welcome new members, whether singing members, music team or anyone else.
From time to time a choirman or musician will leave the choir for one reason or another, and this page keeps a record of those people to ensure they aren't forgotten.
Les Bond
Les with Sean & Maurice in Cornwall, 2007.
Is this the coast-to-coast walk?
The shorts had to appear somewhere!
Les Bond passed away in August 2009, and will be much missed by all the choir. The funeral
service was held at Eyam church on 24 August. Brian Marshall gave an address,
and we can do no better than to reproduce it here:
Laid-Back Les
About 10 years ago I [Brian] joined Tideswell choir and sang on the back row next to Les, and we hit it off instantly; it wasn't hard – everyone liked Les. After practice most of us would go for a pint and a song at the Tideswell Club until it was forced to close.
Les and Marilyn had recently taken over the Bull's Head [at Foolow] and this became the unofficial HQ with choir memorabilia all round the place.
Many enjoyable nights were spent at the Bull with some good singing (early on) and often after a bit of cajoling Les would be persuaded to sing his favourite piece: Bring Him Home.
Les was full of surprises. For example, we would be singing a love song, concentrating on the conductor, and at the most romantic point in the song he would take hold of your hand, still looking the picture of innocence. Just you try keeping a straight face!
In the restaurant as he passed your table he'd make some wry or derogatory remark, usually aimed at himself, and disappear into the kitchen. I might say "the chicken was good," and he'd reply "you must have been lucky tonight!"
He would tell you some tale with such intensity and conviction – you believed it all, until he grinned and you knew it was a wind-up. As Marilyn says, "he would get an honours degree in bull****ology."
Who but Les could walk up to a group of young ladies getting ready to go surfing on Fistral Beach and ask if he could help them zip up their wetsuits?
In Cornwall where we shared a room he was always up for a laugh, announcing on the second morning that he and I were "coming out" and wished all the choir to know! A few of us persuaded him to join us walking the coast path. Despite his initial worries about going too fast or too far he enjoyed himself, but he was constantly telling us not to photograph his legs – which he said were spindly. Hence nearly all photos included his legs! A lasting, vivid image is of his sombrero hat and big grin.
Les collected things. Anything – from his old-fashioned valve-driven radiogram which provided the music in his garage, to bits of wood panelling from the back of a wardrobe which might make a shelf. The radiogram was a 1960s Swedish job, but sounded great. When asked why it was left playing he said it kept the valves warm and his cats liked it. Marilyn never knew what would arrive next.
Last year we were loading some rockery stone from his field on Tideswell Moor and Les selected a goo dbig rock as the base for a birdbath. As you would expect with Les, there happened to be a railway sleeper nearby to use as a ramp. So with a four-hundredweight rock half-way up this ramp – two heart-attack-prone, struggling old blokes looked across at each other and cracked out laughing – silly old buggers!
That rock and birdbath is in my garden and is a constant reminder of a very good friend.
Right up to the end he tried to carry on as normal, supervising the digging out of the drive at Stoney Middleton, and even two days before he died attempting to sing his song Bring Him Home.
I feel privileged to have known such a genuine, good-natured man – what you saw is what you got.
Updated 28 August 2009