A community choir in Bury have spoken about how they are spreading the joy of singing across the borough.

Bury Veterans Choir has been running for more than 40 years after originally forming in Heywood as a male only choir.

However, due to age and issues with Covid-19, the number of choir members diminished, and a decision was made to invite women to join as they were struggling and needed voices.

They have now amassed five women and nine men in total.

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Bury Veterans secretary Patricia Stokes said: “We have a wonderful musical director and pianist Carol Kenyon and without her the choir couldn't happen. 

“My husband Geoff Stokes is sub pianist if Carol is ever off and shares solo playing at concerts.

“We continue to grow- we would like another bass in the choir, but we can’t get much bigger as when we go into nursing homes we’re restricted with space.

“We’re good together and we sing a very wide selection of music from old war singalongs to things from shows.

“We have members who sing solos and duets and we’re very well liked when we go out and about.

“We work so hard to go into nursing homes and they love it, and they do ask us to go back.”

The choir meets every Friday afternoon at Seedfield Methodist Church Hall on Linton Avenue.

They have concerts most weeks on a Tuesday and mainly perform at nursing homes but also perform at churches, community venues and independent living complexes.

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Patricia added: “The choir is open to all but is likely to suit people of retirement age as we do commit ourselves to rehearsals every Friday and have concerts every week so it’s quite a commitment from us.

“We’re a good choir and we like to be together, and we have fun.

“It’s good fun in the nursing homes too, we make them feel very special and sing things that we think they will know. We sing a very wide range of music for them.”

During the pandemic the choir struggled, but they are slowly getting back to normal.

The choir purely relies on donations to keep going and at the moment they are managing to get by.

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However, they are open to donations and are currently hoping to buy a new keyboard as their current one is old and heavy to transport.

Patricia said: “If someone was going to kindly donate something to us like a keyboard, we’d appreciate it if they ask us what we would like as it has to be for our use.”

The group all thoroughly enjoy being part of the choir and they say it greatly enhances their lives and everybody they perform for.

To donate to the choir email buryvets.choir@gmail.com.