Last Friday night we attended a wonderful performance by a local choir whose story I believe would make the subject for a great film – the PSNI Ladies Choir. The choir was formed by policewomen back in 1973 during The Troubles and the members are today retired policewomen, wives of policemen, daughters, grand-daughters…it was the first time I had heard them perform and to be honest I thought we were in for a run-of-the-mill evening listening to some dears singing a few church songs – how wrong I was!

We turned up at Christ Church, the little church on the hill just outside the village of Carrowdore in County Down, on a very dark and chilly night. These ladies were a revelation in every sense of the word. Beautiful voices, lush harmonies and all so beautifully balanced – no they didn’t sing ‘church songs’ – they gave us traditional and some folk music, Sacred and Broadway songs. Their performances of Fields of Gold and You Raise Me Up had me wiping tears from my eyes – but they don’t just sing, there were moments of wonderful humour with some members telling very funny stories and they had the audience in fits of laughter. It was truly a fantastic evening of real entertainment and I recommend highly catching one of their concerts.

To think that this choir was formed during the bleakest years of Northern Ireland’s history by women who, I would say, each have a story to tell about those sad times – and that they continue to spread their message of hope and beauty through the glorious medium of song is a marvellous thing. There are many jewels of Northern Ireland – the PSNI Ladies Choir has to be crowning glory.