The night before

The Sydney Male Choir (SMC) have been singing at the Anzac Day Dawn Service at the Cenotaph in Martin Place, Sydney, since almost the inception of that ceremony. This year, however, most of them, with their director, Houston Dunleavy, are overseas on a tour to celebrate their 100th anniversary, including singing at the 95th Dawn Service at Villers-Bretonneux in France. So they asked members of the Ku-Ring-Gai Male Choir to join with the remaining members of SMC to make up the numbers in Sydney, and I was honoured to be asked to conduct them.

This meant a very early start, rising at 2.30am to be there in time, so the choir kindly put me and Mr M up in a city hotel the night before. Arriving there after an evening rehearsing another choir, with only about 3 hours to sleep, and both of us ravenously hungry, Mr M popped out to the local Coles to get us some supplies. But we both forgot to check for cutlery in the room, which turned out to be just 2 teaspoons, so here is our improvised solution.