About the Military Wives Choirs Foundation
Supporting the women who support our troops
The Military Wives Choirs Foundation is a network of choirs that reaches across the whole military community. It has been established to provide support, guidance and funding for individual choirs, but first and foremost to bring women closer together through singing.
Following the phenomenal success of ‘Wherever You Are’, which raised more than half a million pounds for military charities, those involved set out to create a wider network that could support wives, partners and women serving in the forces, and would leave a lasting legacy. In particular, the women from the first choirs wanted to share the enjoyment and pride that they had already experienced through their own choirs. The Military Wives Choirs Foundation has enabled them to do just this.
Through its growing network, the Foundation is building something that brightens lives, strengthens military communities and enables hundreds of women to experience the enjoyment and friendship that comes from being part of a Military Wives Choir. The Foundation is now a registered subsidiary of SSAFA Forces Help.
Registered Charity Number 1148302. Established 2012.
We felt the poppy petals settling on our hair, our faces, our new black dresses. A large screen showed a roll call of men lost in war during the past 12 months, some of them men we knew as friends of our husbands, men who never made it to the homecoming, men who would never see their children grow up.
Ahead of us, and right in our eyeline, stood the war widows, the brave contingent of women who had taken part in the Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall to celebrate the lives of their lost husbands. These women were living our worst nightmare; they had heard the knock on the door that we all dread. If they could keep strong, so could we; if they didn’t break down, neither would we. We battled to hold our tears back.
But it was a very long two minutes.
This, we thought, was what it was all about. Our choir, the Military Wives Choir, had borne us up and carried us through the long, gruelling seven-month tour our men had just completed in Afghanistan. It had given us a focus, it had broken down barriers, it had formed us into a tight and supportive community.
And now we had made the world know of our existence. Earlier in the evening we had sung our beautiful song, written especially for us from the words of the letters and messages we share with our men when their lives are in danger. And as we poured out the song, we told everyone that there is another branch of the armed forces: the military wives who stay behind, adding our quiet strength to our men’s courage.
‘Wherever you are, my love will keep you safe,’ we sang, and every one of us thought of the man in our life, and our gratitude that once again a tour was over, and he was back. We knew, from the reception there at the Royal Albert Hall, that our song touched the hearts of others, reaching out beyond our own private relief and pride.
What we did not know, at that moment, was how it would also touch the hearts of an entire nation, and how our lives would be transformed by the whirlwind of fame that was to come.
But we did know that music and singing are such powerful drugs that our choir would live on, even after the television cameras were gone and after Gareth Malone, our inspirational choirmaster, had kissed us all goodbye. And, perhaps, today, despite everything else that has happened, our greatest achievement is that we have helped spread the healing, bonding and uplifting spirit of the choir to military bases all across the land, and in Germany and Cyprus.
From now on, military wives everywhere will find each other in choirs, and will form there the sort of friendships that will last a lifetime, and carry them through the anxiety and fear we all share when our men are away from home.
We are proud of so many of the things we have done, but this ranks at the top – above the number one single, the hit album, the trip to Downing Street and singing at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee concert, as well as all the other celebrity moments.
We are thrilled and delighted, too, that the public have taken us to their hearts: we have never asked for sympathy, just support in our lives which are dedicated, in turn, to supporting the men who keep Britain safe.
WORDS WE USE
We use words and phrases that we pick up from our men – military terms and slang that you may not understand. Here’s an explanation of the ones in this book:
Afghan A shortened version of Afghanistan
BFBS British Forces Broadcasting Service
Blueys Letters on special thin airmail blue paper
CO Commanding Officer
Comms Communications, covering everything – phone calls, emails, letters
Comms are down is a phrase we dread: it means that something serious, a death or serious injury, has happened
Contact Enemy fire
E-blueys Email version of blueys, sent to a central email reception and then forwarded on
FOB Forward Operating Base: a secured position away from the main base
Headley Court The Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre, where many of the most serious military casualties go after they leave hospital to continue their recovery
Hive The welfare and information centre for wives and families on a military base
March in/out The takeover or handover inspection of married quarters when we arrive or leave
MERT Medical Emergency Response Team
NAAFI Navy Army and Air Force Institute
Patch Name given to any military housing estate
POTL Post Operation Tour Leave: the time off the men get when they return from a tour
Pre-Op The months of preparation before an operation, or tour
PTI Physical Training Instructor
R & R Rest and recreation: the break, usually two weeks, the men get in order to come home in the middle of a long tour
REME Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers
SAR Search and Rescue