North Tour Summer 2024

Wednesday 10th July - St Mary's Church, Kirkby Lonsdale 

Day 1 North Tour Blog from Paul: North tour began where it always does: in the car park a few moments west of our beloved chapel. Here, we acquainted ourselves with the sleek Peugeot that’s been rented for the duration of our six-day long road trip, and were pleasantly surprised to find that it was furnished with air conditioning, ample leg-room, and seatbelts. The King’s Men have learned not to take such luxuries for granted, so commenced the four-hour drive to Kirkby Lonsdale in high spirits. Pausing for burgers at a service station just outside Birmingham, here we also purchased a frisbee and throwable foam torpedo, hoping for a chance to hone our considerable collective sporting prowess later in the week. The final leg of our first journey was passed with the customary bickering, while I carefully considered how I’d managed to empty the entire contents of my water bottle into my rucksack. Having reached the town and grappled valiantly with a confusing one-way street system, we explored the beautiful cottage in which we would stay for the night, and wandered thirty seconds across the back garden to find our concert venue. After a rehearsal in the church (which we later discovered was a college living of Trinity, one of our neighbours back in Cambridge), we tucked into a light supper and changed into our concert dress, a panicked ordeal which involved the usual screamed petitions ‘can someone tie my bow tie?!’. The concert was a great success, and we were particularly pleased that the audience enjoyed our sensitive new arrangement of the African-American spiritual ‘Swing low, sweet chariot’. After performing, we caught the explosive last minutes of the semi-final, and found that our first gig had served as a useful warm-up for the extensive shouted celebrations which soon occurred. The evening ended with one of our sleepy countertenors - who had selected a bed above the room in which we were playing a spirited game of cards - complaining that he felt as though he was being expected to sleep during the Treaty of Versailles.

Thursday 11th July - St Swithun's Church, Retford 

North Tour Blog Day 2: Greetings from Retford! It’s your favourite Jacob from the King’s Men who isn’t an alto, here to update you all on our misadventures around the North of England yesterday 11th July.
8am, in our hosts’ beautiful home in Kirkby Lonsdale, we were roused by the raucous combination of seven different people’s alarms. If you’ve never heard a klaxon horn mixed with the theme tune to Monsters Inc, don’t worry, it sounds exactly like you’d expect. After a quick breakfast and frisbee training session, we were off.
Before heading to Retford for our next gig, we took a quick stop in Ingleton for a scenic walk around the waterfall trail there. The walk was advertised as 2.5 to 4 hours long but, paragons of physical fitness that we are, we were back in 1h 45 mins, even while stopping to admire the many stunning views.
One gruelling stop-and-start journey later (gruelling for our drivers, anyway – I slept through most of it) we were greeted in Retford by a lovely church, some very welcoming hosts, and a fabulously enthusiastic audience. It was an absolute joy singing there, and we wish them the very best as we continue on.

Saturday 13th July - Beverley Minster, Beverley 

Hello! Harry here to take you through day 4 of North Tour.
After waking in the gorgeous Kirkburton, we quickly set off to our next destination of Beverley. The journey saw us winding through the endless beautiful villages of East Yorkshire, before the majestic Beverley Minster came into view.
We spent a while exploring our amazing venue, before taking to the charming, albeit wet, streets of Beverley. Jacob and Tom decided that the stresses of tour had become too overwhelming, and so ventured off to find Yorkshire’s finest Thai massage, an experience they both described as ‘painful.’ Meanwhile Paul, Jacob, Tad and I rifled through the local charity shops to add to The King’s Men’s impressive collection of ugly jumpers.
After rehearsing in the flattering acoustic of the Minster, we were treated to a dinner of lasagna and cheesecake which reduced our lactose-intolerant second tenor to a Michelin Man lookalike.
Singing a concert in such an exquisite space was surely a highlight of my KM experiences so far, and was so well received by another infinitely friendly Yorkshire audience! The day drew to a close with a much-needed pint at a nearby pub. Hope everyone’s having a lovely summer, and see you tomorrow for more!

Sunday 14th July - St Andrew's Church, Penrith 

Tom here to give a brief overview of day 5.
The day began back at last night’s concert venue, where we led a 2 hour workshop with some of the Beverley Minster choristers. A very enjoyable couple of hours was had by all, and the workshop ended with Paul teaching the choristers a beautiful 3 part arrangement ‘The Parting Glass’, which also served as last night’s encore. Thank you so much to Robert and the team at Beverley Minster for this opportunity - we hope to be able to return soon!
After the workshop, our drivers Jacob and Tad embarked on the trek across the Yorkshire Dales to Penrith, stopping for a lovely Sunday roast en route (which also meant Tom and Jacob could tune into the Wimbledon final).
Upon arrival at St Andrew’s Church, a brief rehearsal was followed by a communal nap in the vestry, only made slightly tricky by Alex deciding to try out playing Bach Partitas on the electric keyboard with the beat-box mode on.
Reenergised, we very much enjoyed our concert in St Andrews, and it was lovely to meet and chat to lots of the Penrith audience during the interval and after the concert. Especially grateful for such a good turnout given that I gather there was some football match going on? Thank you as ever for all our host families who put us up afterwards, without which these tours and concerts would not be possible. 

Monday 15th July - St Peter's Church, Stockton-on-Tees 

North Tour Blog Final Day: Penrith to Stockton
Hello! Alex here with one last North Tour dispatch. Having indulged in the cereals, pastries and Full Englishes kindly supplied by our Penrith hosts, the group set off to the Lake District for a delightful walk and wade in Ullswater. Though some had the foresight to pack trunks, with Tom swimming a fantastic distance in his fundraising effort for MacMillan Cancer Support (https://swimit.macmillan.org.uk/.../toms-macmillan-swim...), yours truly was left paddling meekly in only undies and a white concert shirt. Having found a new sense of freedom and lust for life, we folded ourselves right back into our cars for a scenic drive across the North Pennines to Stockton-on-Tees, our final concert location. Greeted with a warm acoustic and packed-out pews, it was a lovely send-off for our first alto, Jacob. An excellent singer and colleague with an irrepressible sense of humour (no matter how hard Paul has tried), he’ll be sorely missed. With our hosts, we were kindly invited back to the home of George, Sue and their adorable cat Sheba for a delicious supper, our post-concert adrenaline extinguished in waves of luxurious lasagne. With that, we slumped into bed, eager to catch a wink before the road back to Cambridge the next day. Thank you very much for following our tour, we’ll be back in late August with a jaunt around some of the North’s most glorious cathedrals!