[Originally published in "The Spire", The Parish Magazine of All Saints' Church, St Ives]
I was born in Cambridge in 1955 and was called David, because I was due on St David’s day, but upset the plan by appearing two days early. I was baptized in All Saints’ church by the Vicar of the day, Fr Lawson. My parents lived in St Ives, where I spent the first five years of my life. After that, we moved to a new house in Hemingford Grey, and I attended school in Hemingford Abbots, where my maternal grandmother was headmistress and my mother the infant teacher. The close family bonds and the sheltered village life were deemed to be not in my best interests, and so I was sent to the Perse Prep School in Cambridge when I was nine. Being one of only four new boys made the first term tough, but I soon adapted to the new environment and settled into the routine of long journeys to and from Cambridge, either with my father, who taught Quantity Surveying at what is now Anglia Polytechnic University, or on the wonderful old railway line from St Ives. My best friend at school was one of the sons of the Professor of Italian at Cambridge, and through frequent visits to their house, I gained an insight into academic life from an early age, with an ambition to study at Cambridge and one day maybe to be an academic myself.
We moved to Hemingford Abbots, when I was a junior boy at the Perse Upper School and mostly attended Hemingford Abbots church, with which I still have a strong affinity. I sang in Miss Unwin’s choir there as a boy and used to take the solo in Once in Royal David’s City at the annual carol service before Christmas, an experience that I found nerve-wracking! However, it gave me a good grounding in church music and was partly responsible for my lifelong love of the Anglican Church. I was also an occasional worshipper at All Saints, where my favourite service was the Easter Vigil, with the lighting of the Paschal Candle. I was confirmed by the Bishop of Ely in 1970 and became a regular communicant after that, serving at Hemingford Abbots for the early Holy Communion, as well as singing in the choir for the later services (BCP Matins and Evensong).
At school, I was always good at languages, and opted to do German in the third form at the Perse. My German teacher was a graduate of Jesus College Cambridge, so it seemed the natural place for me to apply to, after ‘A’ Levels. As a boy, I had learned the violin as my main instrument and became leader of the school orchestra (by default rather than by special talent!), but I had always had a great passion for the organ and had an old reed organ at home, on which I spent many happy hours.
After spending six months working in Cologne, I went up to Jesus in 1974 and spent three happy years as an undergraduate, reading German and French, and singing in the Chapel Choir. I stayed on to do research into medieval German and obtained my PhD in 1982. As a choral scholar, I had to sing four services a week, most of which included a full choral setting of Evensong, together with an anthem and choral responses. I had singing lessons with Nigel Wickens and also sang regularly as a cantor in the Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge, which developed my love of Latin liturgy.
In 1983, I was married to Manuela, in Germany, according to the rites of the German state and the American Episcopal church (on consecutive days, so we have two wedding anniversaries!). Manuela and I had met while I taught briefly at a language school in Cambridge, after graduating in 1977. Our son Nicholas was born in 1991, when we lived in Godmanchester, having moved back to the Huntingdon area, after living for a while in Eltham, South-East London.
It was not until 1994/95, after a gap of some twenty years, that I took up organ playing seriously again, having now moved back to Hemingford Abbots in 1992. I first helped out at Hemingford Abbots, then at St Ives, and latterly also at Brampton. My debut at St Ives was when the organist scheduled did not turn up, so I volunteered to play the hymns, and Nicholas, who was three or four, sat beside me on the organ bench! I was fortunate enough to find a cheap secondhand electronic instrument with a full pedalboard for practice, which I bought appropriately enough on All Saints’ Day 1995. A little while later, I upgraded to a new digital organ with sampled sound. I am very pleased and privileged to be able to share in the music-making at All Saints and in the surrounding district, and have recently been appointed to the Ely Royal School of Church Music Committee, which oversees the music of the Diocese and parishes.
Music, then, is my chief ‘recreation’, but I also enjoy gardening, particularly mowing the lawn, cycling with Nicholas, trout fishing, and cruising on the Ouse. For the past few years we have gone, as a family, to Spain, which has become another passion in my life, especially the language, in which I gained an AS level in 2000.
For my professional life see the King's College London website.