February 2014 | nautilusint.org | telegraph | 33
MEMBERS AT WORK
Harmony in the workplace team and we get in there and do the job. That’s what our industry’s about.’ ‘They were very keen,’ agrees singing coach Hilary Campbell, who worked with P&O in the classical round. ‘Their success was a testament to their attitude and determination to improve. They committed to every aspect of the piece, including the words. The Lacrimosa was a fine performance because they really meant it. I also liked the way they got on with each other, and how they were so responsive — a small direction from me would instantly have an effect on their sound.’ The P&O choir clicked so well with Hilary that they invited her back to be their permanent musical director after the competition was over. Yes, the choir is still going, and the singers are very pleased that the company has committed to hiring Hilary and an accompanist for the foreseeable future. And just as Gareth Malone hoped, the P&O singers did enjoy meeting colleagues from other parts of the business, and lasting friendships have been made. ‘The whole thing has been a blast,’ smiles Phil.
Can choral singing really make for better industrial relations? P&O Cross-Channel Ferries thought it was worth a try, hears SARAH ROBINSON
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Towards the end of last year, some rather strong words could be heard echoing around P&O Channel House in Dover: ‘Sinnerman, where you gonna run to?’ And they were coming from Nautilus liaison officer Phil Lees. Steady on, Phil, don’t get too personal with the management! Oh, I see — he was singing at the time. So people sing now in pay review meetings, do they? Well, they’re not quite at that point yet, but at P&O Cross-Channel Ferries, many staff do sing together on a regular basis, and it looks like it’s been quite a morale-booster for the firm. It started early last year when TV production company TwentyTwenty approached P&O on behalf of the BBC to take part in the second annual workplace choir competition Sing While You Work. The show is fronted by popular choirmaster Gareth Malone, whose mission is to raise spirits and bring communities together through choral singing, and who founded the well-known Military Wives choirs found on British army bases. ‘Once P&O had agreed to be in the Sing While You Work competition,’ says Phil, ‘the production team came onboard all the ships and round the P&O offices looking for people to audition. We’d always enjoyed a bit of a singsong in the engineroom, and some of my colleagues on the Spirit of France were keen to try out, but I said at first that I had too much on, what with work, Union business and home stuff. My colleagues coerced me into it, though…’ In the end, Phil was the only engineer officer to make it through the televised auditions, in which some 300 P&O staff members were whittled down to a choir of 23. One of the aims of the process was to ensure many different types of employee were represented in the choir, and the final line-up included a shipmaster, a deck officer, a quartermaster, an onboard chef, stewards, warehouse staff and office workers. Some of the singers had prior experience — Phil, for example, had sung in his
The all-conquering P&O Ferries choir, with Nautilus liaison officer Phil Lees (front centre) next to choirmaster Gareth Malone (bow tie). While taking part in the Sing While You Work competition, choir members often sang wearing their uniforms or usual work clothes Picture: Shed Media
school and church choirs as a child, and in folk and rock groups as a teenager — but most could not read music, and for some, this was the first time their singing voices had been heard outside the walls of their bathroom. Nina Simone’s Sinnerman was the song the P&O choir went on to perform in the gospel round of the competition. Other rounds featured a song appropriate to the singers’ field of work (Beyond the Sea for P&O), a well-known classical piece (Lacrimosa for P&O, from Mozart’s Requiem), and a new choral work by composer and competition judge Paul Mealor. The other organisations taking part were Sainsbury’s supermarkets, Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service, Citi bank and Birmingham City Council, but two of the choirs were sent home as the rounds progressed, so only the firefighters, the bankers and — hooray — the seafarers made it through to the final in Ely Cathedral. The competition lasted about six months in all, and it was quite a commitment for the singers. ‘The lads on the ship were pleased that I’d got into the choir, and very supportive,’ says Phil. ‘My chief engineer helped get cover for when I needed to be off the ship, and the com-
pany were supportive too — they made sure we all had time and a place to rehearse.’ And rehearse they did. ‘It’s in your head all the time,’ stresses Phil. ‘You get
Phil Lees shows off the ‘Best Workplace Choir’ trophy
off the ship, go to rehearsal, back to the ship, back to rehearsal. Sometimes it was possible to do it in working time, but often it was in your free time.’ The classical round was the toughest, he reckons. The choirs were taken up to the Royal Academy of Music in London, and each had to learn a piece of music, in four-part harmony and in a foreign language, in two days. P&O threw themselves into the Latin Lacrimosa, working with language, music and performance coaches at the Royal Academy to come up with a highly musical and touching rendition of Mozart’s beautiful work. But their finest hour was arguably the gospel round, in which Sinnerman electrified an audience of gospel church members, and the P&O singers amazed the judges with the progress they had made since their tentative early performances. Following this, there was no stopping the P&O choir, and in the final round, televised on 22 December, they emerged as winners of the whole competition — the Best Workplace Choir of 2013. How did they reach such a high standard in just a few months? Phil thinks the culture of the maritime workplace might have had something to do with it: ‘We work hard, we play hard, we work as a
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As the Telegraph went to press, the singers and P&O management were starting to tackle the question of where the choir would go next. They have put on one performance outside the TV show — a Christmas concert at Channel House — and appeared on the local news singing a carol, but if they are to remain a going concern, they will need to find a regular performance venue and promote their own concerts in Kent or perhaps London, notes Hilary. They have also had numerous invitations to perform for local organisations, and will need to decide which to take up. Meanwhile, rehearsals continue in Dover, on a two-weeks-on, two-weeksoff shift pattern, and there’s one thing the choir members are sure of: they want to continue with the wide range of musical styles they encountered in the BBC competition, even the more ambitious classical pieces. ‘They’re still applying themselves now the cameras are off,’ confirms Hilary, ‘and they’ve told me they want to perform music with emotional content.’ Could anything really be more emotional than winning a big pay rise for colleagues…? Even dedicated trade unionist Phil has to admit that singing on stage brings something to the working experience that industrial relations can’t touch: ‘When you’re performing, you’re concentrating so hard that when it all erupts at the end, it’s all “Woah!”’ Maritime employers, take note.
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