
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


Grace Dent tells the story of Deborah, a dynamic barbershop singer, in the lead up to the biggest competition of the year.
Deborah loves her family, her dog and, possibly most of all, barbershop singing.
She would drive hundreds of miles each week to sing in the best choruses in southern England. Now living in Christchurch, she sings with Wessex Harmony and music runs through the fabric of the house; her husband directs her current chorus, her daughter sings in her barbershop quartet and her desk drawers are stuffed with singing medals.
Once a year the Ladies Association of British Barbershop Singers holds a convention to find the country's most talented chorus. Over two thousand women in sparkling outfits and identical makeup and jewellery, are pitted against each other. And Deborah starts to plan for this wonderful weekend a year ahead.
But in May she finds a lump on her breast. It is cancer.
Grace follows her through the year, looking at what Deborah is prepared to do to compete, the risks she wants to take, the sacrifices the family are prepared to make and asks what happens if she doesn't get there.
Producer: Sarah Bowen.
By BBC Radio 44.7
2727 ratings
Grace Dent tells the story of Deborah, a dynamic barbershop singer, in the lead up to the biggest competition of the year.
Deborah loves her family, her dog and, possibly most of all, barbershop singing.
She would drive hundreds of miles each week to sing in the best choruses in southern England. Now living in Christchurch, she sings with Wessex Harmony and music runs through the fabric of the house; her husband directs her current chorus, her daughter sings in her barbershop quartet and her desk drawers are stuffed with singing medals.
Once a year the Ladies Association of British Barbershop Singers holds a convention to find the country's most talented chorus. Over two thousand women in sparkling outfits and identical makeup and jewellery, are pitted against each other. And Deborah starts to plan for this wonderful weekend a year ahead.
But in May she finds a lump on her breast. It is cancer.
Grace follows her through the year, looking at what Deborah is prepared to do to compete, the risks she wants to take, the sacrifices the family are prepared to make and asks what happens if she doesn't get there.
Producer: Sarah Bowen.

7,865 Listeners

1,078 Listeners

5,514 Listeners

1,806 Listeners

1,881 Listeners

1,056 Listeners

721 Listeners

1 Listeners

13 Listeners

29 Listeners

3,226 Listeners

776 Listeners

0 Listeners

1,601 Listeners

21 Listeners