SILVER CUP MARKS NEW PEAK OF ACHIEVEMENT

The cup was presented by Geoff Lester, Chair of Winster History Group

The magnificent ‘Northern Requiem’, written to commemorate the Miners’ Strike of 1984/5 and previously staged in Chesterfield and Sheffield, was recently given its third and final performance in Durham Cathedral.

Composed and conducted by Jonathan Francis, founder and director of Chesterfield’s Rose Hill Arts Centre, it featured a collaboration of choral singing, solo singers and instrumentalists, a brass band, parades of banners, and many impassioned contributions by men and women of the local mining community. It was a moving and memorable performance and tears were shed.

A group from Winster, where Jonathan was born and brought up, went to Durham to see it. They took with them a silver cup that had originated with the Winster Harmonic Society in 1931 but been repurposed for other musical highlights at later dates. Inscribed on the base of the cup was ‘1998 Jonathan Francis’, marking the time when the 17-year-old had been judged the best act in the village carnival’s ‘Winster Night’. On that occasion he had shown his remarkable talent by singing and playing the intricate comic songs of Victoria Wood.

The cup, which had gone the rounds in the intervening years, was informally re-presented to Jonathan following the Durham Cathedral performance to mark this new peak in his distinguished career. Jonathan was suitably touched.