Tim Walton
From the age of 8, I was a choirboy at St Anne’s Moseley, before transferring, in 1959, to St Martin’s in the Bullring where I sang for 10 years (the last 5 as a Baritone). I also sang in the Birmingham Choral Union and the City Choir in numerous concerts in Birmingham Town Hall.
On leaving School in 1966, I worked for W H Smith for 18 years until 1984. Firstly in Moseley, Birmingham, I then moved to Great Malvern in 1968 where I sang in the Malvern Choral Society and the Worcester Festival Choral Society where we performed in Worcester Cathedral under Christopher Robinson. In 1971, I moved to Pembroke Dock as manager, where I sang in ‘Cor Meibion Penfro’ (Pembroke Male Voice Choir) for four years. From 1975 – 78, whilst working for WHS in Windsor, I sang in Slough Parish Church Choir, Windsor and Eton Choral Society and The Windsor Festival Chorus. Concerts either took place at Eton School Hall or St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. Whilst in Windsor I also sang in concert performances of two operas – Magic Flute and Fidelio. On moving to work in central London (Sloane Square) in 1978 I had to give up my choral singing due to lack of time and work pressure.
I returned to the Birmingham area in 1985, after leaving WHS, to help look after my Father. I worked in various locations in accounts management before being made redundant in 2009 and taking early Retirement. For two years, until I had to give up through work commitments, I sang with the first-year students at the Conservatoire in concerts in the Adrian Boult Hall – They needed help back then!
Music has been central to family life since my childhood and before my parents met. My father, pre-WW2, was a cellist in a family quartet, taking lessons from Johan C. Hock (Concertgebouw Orchestra cellist pre-1900 – Hock was the cellist in the famous Catterall Quartet and also taught cello at the School of Music from the Turn of the Century to the 1930s). My mother was a violinist from a young age and, during WW2, played with staff and students at the School of Music until her marriage in 1946. Mum was taught by T Henry Smith, a Fellow of the BSM. She played in an amateur orchestra, after my Brother, Sister & I started school, until she was in her mid-70s.
The first concert I know I attended was in the Town Hall in 1963 (I still have the programme), and since then I have attended over 800 concerts in the Town Hall, over 2,600 in Symphony Hall, over 1,150 at the Old Conservatoire and almost 800 in the new conservatoire building. I have a passion for Opera, having attended Covent Garden over 460 times and have so far seen 379 different operas live, in various locations. Overall, I have been to over 7,900 performances of concerts and operas since 1963. Now that I have retired, I particularly enjoy the concerts at the Conservatoire, watching the students progress through their time there. I also have a collection of signed photographs of performers, which now numbers around 2,500.
Other than music, my main hobbies are watching Cricket at Edgbaston, Rail Travel – particularly in Scandinavia (My sister has lived in Sweden for 47 years) and Genealogy, having traced my family back over 1,000 years. My biggest shock was a few years ago finding that I was 18th Cousin to the Earl of Wessex (Now Duke of Edinburgh) the Conservatoire Royal Patron, although it would be difficult to find any blue blood, even under a microscope!
Tim Walton