1976 USA TOUR
7 February 2013SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE
Essential to any tour are the carers who volunteer their time to look after the boys while they are away from home. (Constance) Mary Legge, the ‘matron’, for the Tasmanian branch of the Choir’s tour around Tasmania in June 1955 kept a diary of the trip. A foreword to the diary describes the role of the ‘matron’:
When the Choir is on tour, the most hard-working, and at the same time most retiring member of the party is the Matron. Seldom off duty, when the boys are about she is constantly in demand. When the boys are absent she has costumes and robes and shirts to be laundered ready for the next performance, usually in a matter of hours.
She must be mother to a family of 25 in sickness and in health. She must supervise back-stage arrangements, fit costumes, apply make-up, cope with temperamental musicians and even turn stage electrician as occasion demands. In short, she must be a “Jill-of-all-trades.” Upon her temperament, tact, forethought, experience, and ingenuity, may depend the success of a concert tour.
Mary Legge managed to do all of that and keep a diary! It is a beautifully written account of all that the group experienced on their trip. She writes evocative descriptions of the Tasmanian landscape, particularly the rugged and remote landscape of South West Tasmania. She has many wonderful entries about the adventures the boys had – the excitement of a chance encounter with a group of wallabies, the awe of visiting a large hydroelectric power station and mine sites, riding on a steam train, laughing on the ‘silver sand’ on the beach at Burnie, and sing-a-longs on the bus.
Mary’s diary was written nearly 60 years ago so many things have changed since that time: tour buses are more comfortable, there is more flexibility in the roles of men and women in caring for the boys, the technology at venues has become much more sophisticated, and tour uniforms are easier to wash and dry. But some things stay the same: the commitment to caring for each boy while away from home, the camaraderie that develops on tour, the unique opportunity to visit places and connect with local communities, the commitment to making first class music, and the joy of hearing young voices soar as one.
