One Chance by Paul Potts Read Free Book Online Page B

cut my losses, as I knew I would never be a great pianist.
    I can say one thing: I am very happy that Miss Wilcox didn’t use the same tactics to correct my mistakes in singing! I didpractise more and made fewer errors, but my singing was always more natural, and at times completely effortless. If I hadn’t been doing well, I know she would have told me. My younger brother, Tony, was put off from having lessons with her, as she constantly told him off for sounding like he was chewing gum while he was singing. Miss Wilcox certainly didn’t hold back!
    My first crush was on one of Miss Wilcox’s pupils. Her name was Angela Huggins, and she was everything a pre-pubescent boy wanted in a girl: tall (which I most definitely wasn’t), pretty with wavy curls of blonde hair, and she lived in a fairly well-to-do area. I tried to sing like her, which got her to giggle at me.
    What was to end any hope of a relationship with Angela (apart from her being a few years older than me) was my pretending we had got engaged (at my tender age of ten, this would have been a little extreme). Alex, my friend at school, and I went off for the day without telling our parents where we were going.
    Alex had told his mum we were going to meet up with Angela, when in fact we did nothing of the sort. We were away from home much longer than I had told my mum. Worried, Mum phoned Angela’s mum to find out where we were, and our cover was blown. I was too embarrassed to even speak to Angela after that.
    I made good progress with my singing and was selected to represent the class at local music competitions. I performed with some success at Staple Hill Eisteddfod, Longwell Green Festival, and Kingswood, as well as taking part once or twice at the Bristol Eisteddfod, which was seen as the pinnacle of local competition. These competitions were cold, calculated affairs, and I didn’talways enjoy them. The audience was usually made up of your competitors and their families, and there was a panel of three people who would listen and tell you what they thought. It was sterile and difficult, not to mention nerve inducing.
    Mum would always come with me to the competitions to give me her support, and often Jane and Tony would come, too. Tony also tried a few competitions but found nerves difficult to deal with. Dad was rarely available to watch me perform, although he would come when he could. He made a point of watching me at the prize-giving concerts that followed the competitions. He would make up for missing these competitions in years to come.
    I struggled to get anywhere at the Bristol Eisteddfod, usually scoring enough to get honours, but the best I ever did was to finish third. I generally did better at Staple Hill, where I won a couple of medals. At one eisteddfod there, I caught the eye of the master of choristers for the Bristol Cathedral, who told my mum and me that he was very keen to have me in the choir.
    To be a chorister at Bristol Cathedral you had to go to the cathedral school. In fact, I had taken the entrance examination for the chorister’s scholarship the year before, but it required me to go into secondary school a year early. I did reasonably well in all subjects, particularly English (as reflected from my advanced reading comprehension), but was not quite good enough at mathematics, so I wasn’t selected. I was offered the opportunity to progress if my parents paid my fees, but since we didn’t have the money for this, it was not to be. The master of choristers expressed his disappointment that I would be unable to join. I was disappointed, too. Singing at your local cathedral was the pinnacle for any chorister.
    As much as I enjoyed singing, I hated competing. The competitive element made me feel terrible. Usually, I was fine until it was my turn to be called forward. At these sorts of events, you didn’t have a waiting room. Instead, you were just called from the audience, watching every other