Save the Children patron HRH The Princess Royal comes to Sherborne – Jenny Devitt speaks to organiser Anne Dearle about her 30th concert
Friday 13th is not usually considered an auspicious date, but this September it turned out to be the best of days for Anne Dearle and her Save the Children volunteer colleagues. By special invitation, the Princess Royal visited – her third engagement in a busy day – to hear a concert of beautiful choral music performed by the Gentlemen of St John’s College, Cambridge in Sherborne’s Cheap Street Church. The occasion? To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the annual concert organised by Anne Dearle to raise funds for Save the Children.
This year’s concert raised more than £11,000 – more than any of the previous concerts, helping Save the Children to respond within hours of emergencies, whenever and wherever disaster strikes.
Dorset’s new Lord Lieutenant Michael Dooley greeted Princess Anne outside Sherborne Boys’ School and presented her to High Sheriff Anthony Woodhouse (dressed in the eye-catching traditional Court Dress worn by all High Sheriffs since the mid-1700s), then to Dorset Council’s chair, Councillor Stella Jones, Sherborne Mayor Robin Legg and his fiancée (now Mrs. Legg – they married the next day!), West Dorset MP Edward Morello and Anne Dearle. The Princess Royal then joined a packed Cheap Street Church congregation, who were treated to a concert of choral music ranging from Orlando Gibbons to traditional folk songs and barber shop melodies. Pupils from Leweston School accompanied the first piece, after an afternoon workshop with the choir of St John’s.
A final chorus
This was not just the 30th Sherborne concert for Save the Children, it was also the last Anne Dearle organised. A former Hanford School teacher, Anne remembers the chance invitation to a Save the Children concert at Port Regis School that marked the beginning of her involvement. In 1994 the singers came from world-famous King’s College, Cambridge, and Anne was told by the charity’s Shaftesbury branch that the cost meant it would be a one-off. She suggested it could be held at Hanford School, and organised by the relatively new Blandford branch of Save the Children. A year later the event moved to Bryanston School and word spread about the quality of the concert and singers. It soon became an eagerly anticipated annual event at Bryanston, even after Anne retired and moved to Sherborne in 2006.
“Her” singers now came not from King’s, but the equally-excellent Cambridge choir of St. John’s, which has built up an affectionate relationship with their Dorset host.
As so often happens in recent years, COVID changed everything. Anne says: ‘It was obvious that a new plan was necessary. Reluctantly, we rejected the idea of commandeering a coach (to ferry Sherborne’s music lovers to Bryanston) and so we had to leave the generous hospitality of Bryanston. Instead, we decided to hold the concert at Cheap Street Church in Sherborne, where we have been since 2021, with the enthusiastic support of Leweston School.
‘I had no idea, 30 years ago, that the modest £124 we raised that first evening would be the start of three decades of successful fundraising – and of immense pleasure for appreciative audiences.
‘Miracles do happen.’
The attendance of Princess Anne, former president and now patron of Save the Children, was a fitting end for the hard-working former teacher who has organised the concerts for three decades.
