Sedbergh Town Twinning
Sedbergh Singers sing Slovenia, April 2005

“It is a Sunday and the rustic community is slowly gathering for the morning service. Take your seat in that comfortless pew with the hard bench - no, there are no cushions or hassocks, and the floor is of stone; there is no stove or heating gear, the building is cold.”

“But there will be warmth and life in the gallery behind you. You will hear a band of keen rural singers, burning, and sometimes nearly bursting, with whole-hearted zeal for one of their chief delights in life.”

“They are the church gallery minstrels. They are not robed in cassocks or surplices. Simple and homely, rough-shod and heavy-handed, but zealous beyond words, and very proud of their performance.”

Although this is a description of an 18th century English west gallery country choir in Canon MacDermott's book “The Old Church Gallery Minstrels,” it could equally well describe the village choir that the Cautley Carollers sang with in Skomarje, near Zreče, in April.

The gallery is approached by a ladder at the rear of the building, and looks out over the beautiful and ornate Catholic church in this hilltop village. Including us, there are about 20 singers in the tiny gallery, some with their children, and having mentioned to the choir master Jose Kovse - who was also our host at Medved, the guest house where we stayed - that Roger Bush was one of Sedbergh's finest organ players, he was given the honour of playing for the service.

The great American folk singer Woody Guthrie once said “Any fool can be complicated, but it takes genius to achieve simplicity.” And the harmonies we sang together were rich with this genius - slow, and sure, and wholesome in their accessibility, rooted in the ancient traditions of the land.

After the service we performed a concert from the front of the church. Andreja Ponikvar, who had visited Sedbergh earlier in the year to teach us all basic Slovene, had kindly done translations for the introductions to our songs. For our audience, who were perhaps more concerned with the need to attend to their farm work than to our English folk harmonies, it is possible that our attempts at speaking Slovene provided the greatest entertainment!

After the concert we again ascended into the gallery for a party with wine and cake (like Cowgill at Christmas) and toasts and speeches in praise of our mutual friendship.

Our other concerts included the town church in Zreče, after which we gathered in their community room for more informal singing, with toasting songs and songs celebrating the joys of living in this lovely area. As always it was wonderful to hear how the Slovenes have such a large common repertoire of songs which they can - and do - sing at any moment.

The Cautley Carollers

For our last concert in Slovenska Konjice we walked the four miles down from Skomarje in glorious sunshine through forests and past waterfalls - our stage clothes brought down by our road manager Dudley Carruthers on the bus, a trip which cost him 40 tollers (about 10p.)

The pope had just died, and feeling both respect for his passing and the low temperature in the church, we did some last minute pruning to our programme. But such was the acoustic in the church that the merest whisper was transformed into the most angelic music. We like to think that we went some way towards laying to rest the dreadful insult given to Sedbergh by the BBC, which portrayed our town as populated by tone deaf singers sneered at by drunken music masters.

Our final night together was a party back at Medved where we were honoured by local dignitaries including the mayor of Zreče, the president of Union, and the chairman of the Skomarje - and all the many friends we had met and sung with while we were there. And more speeches, providing a fitting context for the drinking, and singing rich in conviviality.

There is so much about Zreče which makes me feel how grateful I am to live in a community which had the good sense to choose such a good place to be our twin - the beautiful landscape, the kindness and welcome of the people, the appreciation of song. But something happened for me after the others in our group had returned to England which made me realise what attracts me so much about Slovenia.

I travelled into Ljubljana and visited the ethnographic museum in search of sheet music for Slovenian folk songs. I was introduced to their musical curator Igor Cvetko, who in reply to my questions about songs from the Zreče area, not only told me he had written a book about them - but gave me the book and a CD of Zreče musicians singing them.

I was then left to leaf through their collection of other music while he photocopied a stack of songs for choirs for me. The only other library where I've experienced such trust and generosity is Sedbergh. At the county archives in Carlisle you have to leave your bag at reception. Most libraries in Britain require you to pass through detectors to make sure you haven't stolen the books. And that's just the libraries. You don't realise what it does to you living in a society based on distrust until you go somewhere where trust is still seemingly valued by everyone.

In Ljubljana a friend told me a story. Thieves had broken into most of the cars on her street, breaking the windows and removing the car radios. With the exception of one car, where the owner had left the doors unlocked. When he came to drive off in the morning he found the keys still in the ignition, his radio still in the dashboard, and a note on the window saying: “Thank you for your trust.”

David Burbidge