Little Cudzo sings in the school choir. He enjoys it and actually has a good voice (he gets the first from me, the second from his mother!). Last week he came home with a leaflet:
Enjoy singing? Are you a boy aged 8-13? Why not join a city church choir... and earn more than on a paper round ~ just by singing?
It goes on to explain they pay £170 a term, in return for which boys must attend practice every Thursday evening and sing at two services each Sunday. Someone from the church had been in to their school choir.
Now this strikes me as really odd. Firstly, surely most church choirs are taken from the congregation of that church, not recruited from outside (an exception might be cathedrals, which have their own choir school - but they're still very much associated with that church)? Secondly, why are they paid? Thirdly, why do they want only boys, particularly at this age when boys and girls have pretty much the same voices? I had a look at their website and it mentions "Most of our Sunday services are sung, when a choir of boys and men lead our worship, other than during the school summer holidays, when they are also on holiday." I know this church, it's a rather beautiful building right in the city centre. It's Church of England, rather high church, and I think that's what puzzles and disturbs me most, in a strange way - if it was some bizarre cult I'd just write it off as a rather cackhanded way of getting more followers.
Anyway, he's not doing it, because the Thursday practices are too late (finish 9pm - he'd never get up in time the next morning) - and because it all seems a bit odd. But has anybody come across anything like this before?