Introduction to Dr Malcolm Love.
Robert Malcolm Love, usually called “Malcolm”, was born in
West Derby, an affluent suburb of Liverpool, on 30th March 1927 to
Richard Archibald Love, a corn broker, and his wife. Malcolm was their only son. His paternal grandfather was a vicar, and the
Loves were a religious family. By 1939,
but probably much earlier, Malcolm had become a pupil at the Terra Nova preparatory
school which had just relocated in that year to a new site in extensive grounds
on the edge of Congleton, Cheshire. It
is likely that Malcolm Love moved on from Terra Nova in about 1940 when he
reached the age of 13. His new place of
education was the School of English Church Music, which had been established by
Sir Sydney Nicholson in 1929 at Buller’s Wood, Chislehurst. Here Malcolm said, “he learned the rudiments
of choir training”. In 1945 the SECM
became the Royal School of Church Music and relocated to Canterbury
Cathedral. Dr Love also said that he
attended the RSCM, so possibly he was a pupil in 1945 after the change of name
and the move to the ecclesiastical capital of the world-wide Anglican
community. No detail has been uncovered
about Malcolm Love’s academic education, though after secondary school he is
presumed to have attended university and to have studied either chemistry or
biochemistry, possibly the former, since he would later describe his scientific
research work as lying in the realm of “chemical biology”. With such a school education, it is not
surprising that Malcolm Love would, in his adult life wish to continue with his
involvement in the most sophisticated and traditional Anglican musical genre,
as well as pursuing a career in science.
In July 1951, when Malcolm was 24, he married Edith Muriel
Hodson the only daughter of Mr and Mrs Frank Hodson of Aintree, a suburb of
Liverpool. The marriage took place at
Brook Road Methodist Church, Urmston, near Manchester. By the following year, the Loves had moved to
Aberdeen, and it is likely that Malcolm had been employed by the Torry Research
Station, where he would remain for the rest of his professional life. This institute had been established in 1929
and was concerned with the storage and preservation of caught fish, and the
promotion of unwanted species for use in the human diet. Malcolm’s scientific career was clearly a
successful one. In 1968 he was one of 38
Government scientists who received a merit promotion to a grade equivalent to a
professor or reader in a university. He
authored many scientific papers and was awarded the degree of DSc (Doctor of
Science) for his published work. Malcolm
Love was also the author of several books, including “The Chemical Biology of Fishes”,
which was published in 1970. When
conferences of experts on food preservation were sponsored in Aberdeen by the
research station, Malcolm Love was an inevitable speaker. One foreign mark of scientific recognition awarded
to Dr Love was his appointment as a foreign member of the National Academy of
Sciences of Ukraine (Hydrobiology).
Thus, Malcolm Love was both an expert on the chemistry of
fish storage and preservation and an expert on church music in the high Anglican
tradition. After his relocation to Aberdeen,
he immediately became involved in the city’s active classical music scene and
came under the influence of Mr Willan Swainson.
Swainson had arrived in Aberdeen in 1916 as organist and choirmaster at
Queen’s Cross Church. In 1925 he was
appointed as part-time lecturer in music in the university, having played a
prominent civic role as a conductor, organist and choir master. Swainson was later appointed director of music
at the university and remained in that post until 1956. Although the dates are not known, Malcolm
Love studied voice production under the prolific Swainson.
Willan Swainson.
The Love family initially lived at Chattan Place in the city
but by 1954 when their first son was born, they had moved to 117 Craigton Road,
Braeside on the western edge of Aberdeen.
By 1976, the family had moved further out from the city along the same
road to East Silverburn, Kingswells.
Initially, Malcolm Love appears to have worshipped at St Andrew’s Episcopal
Cathedral in King Street and there, in 1965, he met Richard Weddel. Both were then members of the St Andrew’s
choir and would later work together, Richard as the organist and Malcolm as the
choirmaster, at St Devenick’s church in Bieldside.
Saint Devenick's Church, Bieldside.
St Devenick, after whom the Bieldside church is named, was a
rather obscure saint but a friend of the more famous St Machar, an Irish priest
who arrived at Iona with St Columba and who later preached to the Picts of
Aberdeenshire. The congregation first
met in a loft at Bieldside Farm in 1880 but by 1902 sufficient funds had been
raised to construct the present church building. Kenneth Davidson Gordon was born in Edinburgh
in 1935. His secondary education was at
George Heriot’s School, followed by a degree at Edinburgh University from where
he graduated in 1957. Subsequently, he
trained for the Anglican ministry and after a number of junior positions in
England and Scotland, Kenneth was appointed rector of St Devenick’s church,
Bieldside in 1971, moving to the manse at 2 Bailieswells Road with his wife
Edith Jessica. The couple had married in
England in 1964. He was further
appointed as a canon of St Andrew’s Cathedral, Aberdeen in 1981. Gordon’s ministry in Bieldside ended in 2001. Thus, the arrival of the two main players in
the drama which is about to be revealed may well have arrived at St Devenick’s
church at about the same time.
The St Devenick’s church choir.
The original St
Devenick’s church choir was not the creation of Malcolm Love, though he was
conducting the choir at St Devenick's by at least summer 1973. The choir
had existed since at least December 1972, when it performed at the St Nicholas
Festival in Aberdeen, though it does not appear to have been very active
outside the confines of services at its home place of worship. In 1973,
according to the memory of one 10-year-old recruit, the choir had between 20
and 30 members, including a few adults. According to the sleeve notes on
the LP record by the Choir of St Devenicks, published in September 1981,
"The decision to try to create a working Anglican choir from very small
beginnings was taken at the end of 1975, as a gesture of defiance at the trend
towards emptying churches and vanishing choirs. Everyone warned that
choirboys were now almost impossible to recruit, and that men who could both
sing and read music had almost disappeared from the scene". It
is presumed that Malcolm Love, given his traditional education in church music,
was the moving influence in this development. But, as the record sleeve
notes further state, St Devenick’s, Bieldside, had a number of disadvantages
for developing the grand project gestating inside Malcolm Love’s head.
The church had no choir school (there were 40 in England but only one in
Scotland) to recruit and train new choristers, there was no regular income and
there were no endowments to nourish the start-up and meet the recurrent costs
of an ambitious choir. Further, the church only accommodated 260
worshippers, it had deadening acoustics, and the organ was small and
limited. But these impediments did not dampen the enthusiasm of the
charismatic Malcolm Love.
Malcolm Love later
admitted that in 1975 the choir could not sing properly, and it lacked
men. Initially the only three adult male
members were Richard Weddle, Mr Chew the organist and Malcolm Love himself. Also at the beginning, Malcolm struggled to
recruit and retain boy trebles. But his
ambition (he said that in 1975 his goal was to make the choir famous) and
unbounded enthusiasm overcame these early impediments. Choirboys were paid a small stipend, though
this stopped in 1983. Malcolm Love
always sought to make choir practice and trips away from Bieldside fun for the
boys with activities other than singing. By mid-1980, the local Aberdeen
newspapers were starting to notice the existence of the St Devenick’s choir and
their performances both in the Aberdeen area and further afield. In July
of that year The Scotsman noted that the programme for St Giles Cathedral
summer recitals included, “Wed 9th July 1980 3pm. Choir of St Devenick’s
Aberdeen. Music by Byrd, Handel, Stanford, Vaughan Williams”.
Although he was not mentioned by name, Malcolm Love surely was both the author
and the conductor of this programme? Further prominence for the choir
came from an appearance on Grampian TV in December of the same year when a
programme called “Four Faces of Christ” appeared with illustrations of its
themes provided by the St Devenick’s choir “conducted by Dr Malcolm Love”.
Up to this point, the Bieldside choir had been for membership by boys only, but that deficit was addressed in 1980 by the formation of a girls’ choir, called St Cecilia’s, with Dr Iain Marr (another chemist) and a member of the male choir as its conductor. Although it never attained the numbers of the boys’ and men’s choir, St Cecilia’s was still of a significant size, and it too achieved local prominence with the quality of its performances. At the Aberdeen and North-East Music Festival, held in June 1983, the St Cecilia choir won the Paterson gold medal for the best female choir aged 18 and under. Indeed, most of the St Cecilia girls were well under this upper age limit. By 1985 the girls’ choir had its own newsletter.
The growth of the choir through its expanding programme of
activities could surely not have been reached without an input of
resource. Although it was not publicly
known at the time, a fund had been raised to support the St Devenick’s choir
which had a balance of about £5,500 by 1983.
A substantial part of that sum appears to have been a donation by
Malcolm Love himself.
The profile of the choir continued to rise during the
following year. A magazine for and about
the choir “Ruff Stuff” started appearing and the singers based in Bieldside attracted
bookings to perform at weddings. Summer
tours and camps were introduced. By the
time of the production of their LP record, the choir had sung in York Minster, Beverley
Minster, Pluscarden Abbey and St Andrew’s Cathedral, Aberdeen. The record sleeve sported a photograph of the
boys and men of the choir, with red gowns and white ruffs. By that time the membership had grown to over
50. Surely, none of this rise to
prominence would have happened without the drive, inspiration and musical
acumen of the choir’s conductor. The
following year, 1982, saw a continuation of this upward trend and the singers
appeared in further churches around Aberdeen which either did not possess
choirs or whose local choral efforts were minimal, including St Peter’s
Episcopal Church, Torry and a joint evensong involving four local Episcopal
churches, with the singing led by the choir of St Devenick’s. In mid-November, the choristers put on a
concert in St Mary’s Church, Carden Place, Aberdeen. Thus, the choir, although based on St
Devenick’s in Bieldside was being welcomed in a significant number of Episcopal
churches throughout Aberdeen. Further,
its existence and rise to prominence was a matter of great pride to most of the
congregation and to the parents of the choristers who formed a strong supportive
network, partly overlapping with church members. Greater success, bringing further kudos to
this small suburban church, seemed inevitable.
What could possibly go wrong?
Saint Devenick's Choir magazine.
The sacking of Malcolm Love.
In the 11 March 1983 edition of the Aberdeen Evening Express
a major development in the internal affairs of St Devenick’s Church, Bieldside
was reported to the public. Dr Malcolm
Love, choirmaster of the St Devenick’s Choir had been dismissed. The news of this dramatic development burst
like a fiery munition over Aberdeen. The
story and its aftermath would feature in the local press, not just for days and
weeks, but for months and years to come.
Why had this driving force behind the choir, which had attracted so many
young people to the church and engendered so much pride and praise in the
community, been removed from office? Had
he been guilty of some unspeakable offence which made his removal both necessary
and inevitable? Surely the truth would
out? Not so. No valid reason was given by the officials at
St Devenick’s for Malcolm Love’s dismissal, either at the time or since, which
left Malcolm’s reputation open to question for many months. It seems likely that a fundamental
contributory factor was actually stated by Iain Marr, who told a representative
of the Evening Express at this time that there had been a “serious personality
conflict”, which had been simmering below the surface for some months. It appeared that Malcolm Love and Canon
Kenneth Gordon could not get along together.
“One person closely involved with the choir” revealed that
there had been an unpublicised meeting involving the choirmaster, the two
clergy and two churchwardens on 21 December 1982, when Malcolm Love was
“grilled” on several subjects, including his attitude to church policy. Basically, he was put on notice. The managerial hierarchy was not happy with the
high church, traditional musical direction that the choir was following, which
clashed with its own view (ie that of Canon Gordon) who wanted to see a more
informal, less traditional style of worship evolve at his charge. If the choir did not change direction, then
it would be “without a choirmaster”.
Subsequently, Malcolm Love would claim that “The rector has not always
welcomed the choir’s role in divine service, and gradually the choir’s
contribution to the worship has grown less”.
It later emerged that Malcolm Love had tape recorded the
proceedings of the 21 December meeting surreptitiously. This was certainly an underhand act, though
one he subsequently sought to justify by stating that he lacked trust in the
openness, and perhaps even the veracity of his inquisitors. “No minutes were kept, the rest of the vestry
did not know in advance that such a meeting was to be held, and since the
rector had told me that the organist was not to be present, and had refused to
tell me the agenda, I feared that the meeting, or my response to it, might be
misrepresented. Though nobody at the
meeting knew I was taping it, I subsequently made no secret of what I had
done. I did it for my own protection”. There was no supporter of Malcolm and the
choir present at the meeting with the church representatives to witness what
was said. Without such independent
corroboration and/or agreed minutes of the meeting, any account that Malcolm
gave subsequently would have been deniable by the others who were present. Malcolm Love claimed subsequently that at the
meeting he had been conciliatory. “Some
points raised were unexceptionable but to comply totally would have ruined
eight years of work”. “I was however,
prepared to solve the problems in ways that would have satisfied everybody and
would not have caused decline”.
Malcolm Love also described the letter sent to him following
the meeting on 21 December 1982 as “the rudest letter I have ever received”. He sought the help of congregation members to
get the letter withdrawn, another crime in the eyes of the church authorities,
presumably because it was seen as a challenge to church authority. It was also claimed that he had used material
from his tape recording in a statement he sent to the congregation and that
this was “contrary to the stated wish of the bishop”. The issue of the tape recording clearly
rankled with Love’s opponents though he denied that he had disobeyed the
bishop. “The bishop had accepted it had
to go out. At the bishop’s request it
first went to the vestry as constituted prior to the sacking, then with his
permission to choir parents and only then to the rest of the congregation “when
his efforts on our behalf had met with a blank refusal from the vestry”. Justifying his fight back, Malcolm Love
asserted that “Anyone defamed in this country has the right of reply”.
A major rebellion and a split in the congregation.
Following the sacking, there was immediate and substantial
collateral damage inflicted on the church and its congregation by the
uncompromising approach of Kenneth Gordon.
Four members of the St Devenick’s vestry, members of the congregation
elected as its representatives in matters relating to church policy,
immediately resigned and were followed by five further St Devenick’s officials
within days, including the organist (Richard Weddel), the treasurer, the
secretary, the lay representative and Dr Iain Marr. A large part of the congregation, too, was
upset, so much so that during the next Sunday service after his dismissal,
Malcolm Love found it necessary to leave the building, apparently in distress,
and at the end of worship, some attendees declined to shake the hand of the
rector at the church door, making clear their unhappiness with his actions. The following day, a meeting was held of both
adult singers and parents of the boys and girls at which overwhelming support
was expressed for the former choirmaster.
This reaction to his authoritarian style did not cause the
rector to re-evaluate his strategy. In
January 1983, the intransigent Canon Gordon sent a letter to the former
choirmaster with his requirements, if the two were to co-exist at St
Devenick’s. The choir must become smaller,
and all recruitment immediately stopped, the choir fund was to become the
property of the church and the permission of the vestry would be required
before Dr Love could have access to it.
In effect, Malcolm Love was being required to dismantle his creation and
reform it as a small unit dedicated to supporting worship in St Devenick’s,
turning its back on aspirations to sing complex works by the great masters of
choral and church music. After all the
hard work and dedication, by adults and boys alike, no one associated with the
choir could agree to reformation and decline.
The choir would stay in existence, pursuing its aim of yet higher
musical achievement. Although hoping for
reconciliation and return, it would, if necessary, break away from St
Devenick’s church and become independent, taking responsibility for its own
direction and fate. But there was no
desire to sever its links to the Episcopal movement and tradition. If St Devenick’s would not accommodate them,
other churches within the Episcopal family probably would, not to mention the
welcome they might receive from other Christian faiths.
Hopes for reconciliation and compromise.
Suddenly, everyone associated with St Devenick’s realised
that their church community had been split from end to end and entrenched
positions adopted by the protagonists.
People on both sides of the divide hoped that accommodation and
compromise might still be possible but that to achieve reconciliation a period
of silence and reflection would be needed.
There were calls for an end to the public discussion of the dispute. Vestry member Michael Partridge said: “I wish
everybody would say nothing”. A reporter
called at Malcolm Love’s home and a lady (probably Muriel Love, Malcolm’s wife)
said, “At this stage there is no comment.
It’s not worth bothering about”. Canon
Gordon, too, was tight-lipped, “No comment.
I am sorry”. An appeal was made
to the Diocesan Bishop, Fred Darwent, to intervene and it appears that he spoke
to both sides privately, though his only public comment at this delicate stage was
that he was “dealing with an internal matter”.
Not all followed this path of self-restraint. In March of 1983, the Evening Express
reported comments by “a leading member of the congregation” who had held membership
for 30 years. “My husband and I know of
a number of families who have left the church and have cancelled their
covenants and tithes. If the rector
remains, the membership will continue to drop.
He said that we were no longer to say the Lord’s Prayer and when some
members of the congregation objected, he said that if we didn’t follow him, it
showed how well the devil had been doing his work”. Canon Gordon was “far too intense and tried
to impose his will on others”. These
opinions were put to the canon, but he declined the opportunity to respond. The comments are very informative because
they illustrate that the cause of the split in St Devenick’s church community
did not just centre of the choirmaster and his numerous charges but also
related to fundamental issues concerning the form and style of worship too.
At some stage early in the dispute, Canon Kenneth Gordon had
written to the congregational parents of choir members telling them that not
only had Malcolm Love been sacked but the choir had also been disbanded. Boys who had been members of the choir could
in future sit with the congregation.
This must have appeared as a poor substitute for this gang of lads who,
while relishing the challenge of singing complex choral works, also looked
forward to the rough and tumble of horsing around with their mates.
The Deeside Choristers are born.
On Monday 14 March 1983, there was another meeting of
singers and parents which confirmed that a new choir, to be called “The Deeside
Choristers” with the same membership as its predecessor had been formed and which
would be totally independent of St Devenick’s church. After the meeting, Malcolm Love confirmed
that rehearsals would resume the following Thursday, that the planned tour of
Ripon Cathedral and Hexham Abbey in summer of that year would go ahead and that
invitations had already been received by the choir to sing locally. “We are determined to carry on”, he said. “St Devenick’s choir must not be allowed to
die”. Well, in truth, it was already
dead, having been summarily terminated.
But, like the phoenix, it would arise from the ashes of its
progenitor. At this stage, the exiles
still hoped for a reconciliation but had recognised that, while they hoped for
the best, they must plan for the worst.
Positions harden and Dr Iain Marr leaves the congregation.
There was a congregational meeting held on Monday 30 May
1983 to consider its collective attitude to the reinstatement of Dr Love and the
return of the choir to the St Devenick’s fold. Before the meeting could begin,
an attempt was made to remove Dr Iain Marr from the meeting. Although he had been a member of the choir
for eight years and had formed the girls’ choir and acted as its conductor for
the past three years, he was not a communicant and that was the gripe of some
of those present. He refused to leave
the meeting without a vote of those present supporting such a move but accepted
that he could not speak or vote. After a four-hour debate, during which the
rector was asked four times to state the reasons for Dr Love’s dismissal but
declined to reveal that information, a motion was passed by 85 votes to 59
calling for the erstwhile choirmaster to be invited back to his previous post. While this was a substantial majority in
favour of reinstatement it also demonstrated that there was a significant minority
who did not support the move, perhaps because they agreed with their rector, or
because they felt that their first loyalty must be to him. In any case, the Episcopal church was not a
democratic organisation but a consultative one, where the masses would be asked
for their opinion, but that their view could be disregarded if the hierarchy
felt so inclined. In this case the
decision on reinstatement rested, not with the congregation but with the vestry
and the clergy, which group was due to meet on Monday 13 June. When it did meet, in its usual covert fashion,
it considered offering Dr Love his job back, took a decision, prepared a
statement and then withheld it until Kenneth Gordon had met with Bishop Fred
Darwent. When the decision became
public, it was in the negative and the claim was made that the decision had
followed “12 months of difficulty concerning the function of the choir and the
authority of the clergy and vestry”. So,
perhaps Kenneth Gordon felt his role was being usurped by Malcolm Love?
His treatment at the congregational meeting at the end of
May was deeply upsetting for Iain Marr, who was a sensitive man. After the closure of the conclave, he said,
plaintively, “Is this the Christian welcome one would expect having been
attached to a congregation and having given so much time and effort over the
years”? He was not the only one to note
that Christian charity was at times lacking during this protracted dispute. Unsurprisingly, Dr Marr decided he could
never return to St Devenick’s while Kenneth Gordon was in post. He further remarked, ironically, following
the rector’s unresponsiveness, that “we concluded that his (Malcolm Love’s)
sins were having attracted too many young people into the church, having run
the choir and subsidised its camps and tours without having asked the church
for financial assistance”.
Malcolm Love’s character is called into question.
The decision by the vestry not to re-employ Dr Love was
deplored by his many supporters, especially since it still gave no reason for
his removal from office, or the reasons for not reinstating him. Clearly, Canon Gordon felt no obligation to
be open about the actions of the vestry, in effect actions which likely were
proposed by him personally. The canon
was asserting that he was the incumbent in the parish, that he had the power to
do as he pleased and without public justification. However, he later wrote to the congregational
parents of choir members, giving an assertion as to the decision, but without
factual back-up. Reinstatement of Dr
Love would generate “alarm and disquiet” which might reverberate throughout the
diocese and even spread to the whole of the Episcopal communion. Further, re-employment “would not be in the
best interests of St Devenick’s” and Canon Gordon did not believe that any
assurance given by Malcolm Love in the future would be kept.
Such vague, but damning, generalisations caused much anger
among Malcolm Love’s supporters. Mrs
Lindy Cheyne, the mother of three choir members, expressed herself
forcefully. “My blood boiled when I read
the canon’s letter (dated 14 June 1983) in which he manages to portray a
picture of injured innocence and which damages Dr Love’s name. Dr Love is a man of total kindness and
generosity and the things said about him could not be further from the truth”. “The sad thing is that there were between 60
and 70 young people in the choir and many of them now don’t want to have
anything to do with St Devenick’s”.
The choirs expand their musical programmes.
Meanwhile, aside
from all the adult wrangling, the choirs got on with their practice and
performance, largely unaware of the implications of the events they were
witnessing but not fully understanding. On 25 June 1983, the Deeside
Choristers and the St Cecilia Choir mounted a concert in the theatre at the
Deeside Community Centre, Aboyne, which included a performance of “Above him
stood the seraphim” by the Tudor composer Richard Dering (1580 – 1630).
The treble soloists were Andrew Fox, Deputy Head Chorister and son of the
author of this story, and Marcus Marr, son of Dr Iain Marr. Further, the
choirs had a full programme of performances booked through to Christmas.
However, being cut off from St Devenick’s church had immediately exposed the
choirs to a new set of practical problems. They now lacked robes in which
to perform, the St Devenick’s-owned robes having been returned. During
their summer tour in the North of England they had worn borrowed garments, but
that could not continue. A new set of robes would cost about £3,000. Later,
through the good offices of a supportive vestry, the Deeside Choristers were
allowed to borrow the St Devenick’s robes.
Although a substantial amount of money had been raised during their
existence at the choir of the Bieldside church, they no longer had access to
those funds. They also lacked a convenient practice venue, but that
problem was overcome by the Loves throwing open the doors of their house, East
Silverburn, to the boys and girls, although the conditions were a bit
cramped. Malcolm’s irrepressible optimism refused to be punctured.
In August 1983 he sought to recruit three new boy choristers aged eight to
ten. “They would be joining the finest youth club they have ever dreamed
of”, he said. His personal motto could well have been “Where there’s a
will, there’s a way”.
Congregational meeting November 1983.
The congregation of St Devenick’s met annually in late
November to elect members to the vestry.
The 1982 meeting took place before the furore over Malcolm Love’s
sacking broke. Thus the 1983 meeting was
sure to be dominated by this divisive affair which had consumed so much time
and energy in the intervening year and led to deeply entrenched positions being
adopted. Perhaps diplomatically, Canon
Kenneth Gordon was away in Edinburgh on that day. The continuing support for the displaced
choirmaster was clear when there was a motion presented calling for the
existing vestry to resign en masse and eight of Malcolm’s supporters
were subsequently elected to the newly constituted vestry. The optimists hoped that this shift of
loyalties would enhance the chances of a mutually acceptable solution to the
dispute, but they were to be disappointed.
A forced apology from the Reverend Gordon.
As a result of receiving the letter of 14 June 1983 from
Canon Gordon, Malcolm Love took professional advice, and his legal representatives
communicated with the church accusing that body of defaming their client. This caused Canon Gordon to write to the 230
members of his church making an apology concerning Malcolm Love. “I regret if any members of the congregation
have construed any part of the letter of 14th June as an attack on
the character or integrity of Dr Love.
No such attack was intended. I apologise
to Dr Love if any part of the letter caused him distress and for any harm that
may have been occasioned to his reputation.
I wish to repeat that the healing of relationships requires time and
patience and that it is my sincere wish that there be no continuing dispute
between myself and Dr Love”. But therein
lay the basis of Canon Gordon’s strategy, delay and obfuscation. Malcolm Love remained sacked and there was no
hint of when, or even if, he might be reinstated. When asked for his comments, Canon Gordon
would only say that the matter was now closed.
Clearly, there could be no reconciliation without capitulation as far as
he was concerned.
Malcolm Love was relieved that his character had been
vindicated. “Life has been made very
difficult for us this past year. But
choir members and parents, many members of our congregation and the clergy from
several churches have given us support and understanding when we most needed
it. Now that my name has at last been
cleared, I hope they will feel that their trust was justified and offer my
warmest thanks”. One of the local
Episcopal churches which had been most steadfast in its support of the former
St Devenick’s choirmaster had been St John’s Church in Crown Terrace in the
centre of Aberdeen and in May 1984, there was a recital of Devotional Music by
the Deeside Choristers at this venue.
Iain Marr got on with planning the programme of activities for the St
Cecilia Choir, which included a visit to Denmark between 4 and 13 August 1984,
followed by a reciprocal visit by a Danish girls’ choir to Aberdeen.
The stalemate continues.
By August 1984 there had been no forward movement in the
dispute and its resolution seemed as far away as ever. The frustration engendered by this seeming
impasse caused four of the supporters of Dr Love to write an open letter to the
diocesan bishop, Fred Darwent, urging him to raise the matter at the General
Synod, a sort of parliament for the whole of the Episcopal church, which opened
on 1 September in Perth. The authors of
the letter were PJ Sambrook Gower, Dr Iain Marr, Brenda Parsons and Mary
Robertson and in their open letter they claimed that all attempts to achieve a
reconciliation had been thwarted. One
newspaper report, which appeared in the Scotsman, on the content of this letter
ran under the title, ““Church action group tries to have rector removed”. This brought forth an objection from the
authors that the statement was untrue and that the only way a clergyman could
be unseated was for an accusation to be made and sustained. They had not taken such action and would not
do so.
However, Bishop Darwent declined the request to have the
letter discussed at Synod. Fred
Darwent’s softly, softly, behind the scenes approach, where he seemed to be
sitting on the fence with one foot on either side, gently leaning one way then
the other, had achieved precisely nothing.
Perhaps initially he thought he could engineer a compromise, but he
either could not, or perhaps even would not, lean on the intransigent Kenneth
Gordon to offer some measure of accommodation with Malcolm Love. It is even possible that the then status
quo was what Darwent eventually backed as the least bad option. That way, the choir survived with Malcolm in
charge, it would be welcomed to perform at other Episcopal churches within his
bishopric and he did not need to pressure the recalcitrant Kenneth Gordon, thus
risking a further split in the Bieldside congregation. Eventually hostile feelings on both sides might
die down, the confrontations and harsh words of the past would gradually be
forgotten, and calm should eventually return to the Bieldside congregation.
Congregational meeting 1984.
The annual meeting of the St Devenick’s congregation was
held, as usual, at the end of November 1984 when a motion to establish a
working party representing the diverse views of the congregation on Dr Love and
the choirs was passed by a vote of 42 to 17.
This was the next initiative whose aim was to find a compromise
acceptable to all sides. However, for
some reason which has not been uncovered, this working party never functioned,
and the well-meaning initiative was still-born.
Another apology to Dr Love, but not from Kenneth Gordon.
The reinstatement of Malcolm Love’s reputation, if not his
position as choirmaster at St Devenick’s church, was further enhanced when he
received a letter of apology from the vestry, as constituted in March 1985, ie
one still dominated by his supporters.
The missive was addressed to both Malcolm and his son, Ian. It stated that there had been no allegation
of wrongdoing and no real reason for his dismissal and that Love had suffered
injustice at the hands of vestry in March and May 1983. He had specifically been accused of taking
actions which were inconsistent with his responsibilities as choirmaster, of
breaking the terms of his contract, that he had pursued a campaign against the
rector, curate and wardens which might have forced the resignation of the
rector and that he had used his son’s name to write to members of the
congregation in spite of the bishop asking him not to do so. All these claims were withdrawn. Malcolm Love was both delighted and relieved
to receive this apology, though he realised that the actions had not been those
of the present vestry. Ominously, Canon
Gordon dissociated himself from the letter.
He was immovable on reinstatement, having previously indicated that the
Deeside Choristers “could not in any way have a place in the life and worship
of St Devenick’s”, though individuals were still welcome to worship at the
church.
A successful appeal to the Episcopal Synod.
Most problems in life do not spontaneously resolve
themselves. Instead, if left to fester they
tend to return and bite someone on the bum.
This was the case with the imbroglio surrounding the dismissal of
Dr Love and the forced dissolution of the St Devenick’s choir. Malcolm Love’s supporters were not prepared
to give up the fight but instead formed themselves into the St Devenick’s
Action Group for reform and reconciliation.
There were about 20 active members in this informal association with
George Patterson, a lecturer in jurisprudence at Aberdeen University and a
Cults resident in the chair. Their main
beef was that Canon Gordon had not taken account of the views of the
congregation before instituting changes to the form of worship and to other
reforms. The vestry also still contained
a substantial number of Malcolm Love’s supporters and it, too, was still being
thwarted by Canon Gordon. It had tried
to gain access to the register of baptised members and adherents at St
Devenicks, but Gordon refused that request citing confidentiality as his
reason. An appeal was made to Bishop
Darwent, but he supported the rector’s position. The vestry then took the matter to a higher level
and made a further appeal to the Episcopal Synod, who again supported the
decision of the rector and imposed a charge of £300 in costs on the vestry,
which, in turn, refused to cough up the cash!
As usual, when asked, Canon Gordon declined to comment but his wife
Jessica could not resist a revealing remark.
She said that the people making “the noise and the headlines” were
rarely attenders at worship in St Devenick’s.
Reconciliation abandoned.
By late 1985, it was generally accepted by Malcolm Love’s
supporters that their hopes of reconciliation had been dashed and the Deeside
Choristers and the St Cecilia Choir would have to continue independently and
without the support of their local Episcopal church, though Bishop Fred Darwent
had become a patron of the Deeside Choristers.
In the two years which had passed since the fracture, both choirs had
gone from strength to strength. Numbers
were up, the standard of singing, in Malcolm’s opinion, had also improved. The programme of activities was still
expanding, and the choirs were booked for months into the future. In summer 1985 they had sung choral evensong
in York Minster, surely a true mark of their artistry. In late September, the 63-strong male choir
and the 20-strong girls’ choir performed, in unison, a concert of works by
Monteverdi, Palestrina, Handel and other composers in St John’s, Crown Terrace,
Aberdeen, the church which had stood by them consistently in their time of
need. Indeed, St John’s became the
church of choice for worship by many of the refugees from St Devenick’s.
Saint John's Crown Terrace, Aberdeen.
At the end of June 1986, Dr Iain Marr was forced to resign
as the director of the girls’ choir due to pressure of work. This faithful servant in the cause of church
music on Deeside last appeared with the girls of St Cecilia’s on Sunday 23
June at Glenmuick church. He had
initiated the girls’ choir and been its director and conductor for eight
years. Malcolm Love, as ever the willing
horse, stood in as a replacement for Iain on a temporary basis.
Another set-back for Kenneth Gordon.
Canon Kenneth Gordon’s high-handed behaviour did not
ameliorate. In late 1986, he imposed a
voting ban on three members of the congregation at St Devenick’s, Mrs Kay
Carmichael and Mr and Mrs Stephen Mills, all supporters of Malcolm Love,
preventing them from participating in the annual meeting of communicants at
which vestry representation was decided.
A close vote resulted in supporters of Canon Gordon being elected to the
vestry. This dubious manoeuvre had the
taint of sharp practice about it. The disenfranchised
members did not take Rev Gordon’s decision lying down and appealed to Bishop
Fred Darwent to rescind the verdict. He confirmed
Kenneth Gordon’s decision, which left the appellants only one course of action,
to take a new appeal to the Synod of Bishops, the highest court in the
Episcopalian Church, against the refusal of Bishop Fred to rescind Rev Gordon’s
decision. This appeal was backed by 24
members of the congregation, led by lawyer George Patterson, who presented
their case at the Synod. Canon Gordon
too was legally represented at the hearing.
The appeal was sustained, which called into question the validity of elections
made at the last annual meeting of communicants and the legitimacy of the
composition of the resulting vestry. It
must also have been a considerable embarrassment to both Fred Darwent and Kenneth
Gordon, though the latter’s steely carapace remained in place. When asked to comment on the result of the
appeal, he simply said that the matter was now settled, and he hoped everyone
would now work together for the good of their church. There was no mention of re-running the vote,
so he retained control of the vestry for the coming year.
The dispute over choir funds re-emerges.
During 1987, the thorny question of the choir fund returned
to prominence. This money had largely
been raised by Malcolm Love while he was still choirmaster at St Devenicks and
included a dominant donation from his own resources. In the interim, the money had been held in
trust by the diocese, but legal advice confirmed the formal position that the
fund belonged to St Devenick’s church, and it was duly transferred to that
body. At that time, it contained about
£8,000. A meeting of the congregation
was held, as usual, in late 1987 when there was a substantial debate about the
use of the choir fund. After the removal
of Malcolm Love in 1983, a new musical director had been appointed at the
Bieldside church, but she resigned in February 1987, though she did not demit
her position until June. There had been
no replacement appointed and so St Devenick’s choir had for the present ceased
to exist. This caused questions to be
raised about the expenditure of £649 from the choir fund during the past
year. While accepting the legal
position, that the monies in the choir fund belonged to St Devenick’s there
were concerns expressed by attendees about the morality of holding on to the
money and denying the Deeside Choristers access to its benefits. Bishop Fred Darwent, in usual compromise
mode, seeking to support both sides and satisfying neither, took the position
that part of the money should go to the Deeside Choristers. A motion, proposed by Ian Nicholson, was put
to the meeting and it was passed by a voting ratio of 2:1. It declared that morally the money belonged
to the Deeside Choristers. But how could
the legal impediment to such transfer be overcome? Malcolm Love, still a communicant at St
Devenick’s, was present at the meeting and he remarked, “I raised more than
half the money myself. It seems immoral
to me that money is now being spent from the fund, but there is no choir. The legal obstacle could be overcome if Canon
Gordon declared that the Deeside Choristers had a connection with St Devenick’s”. Canon Gordon had previously refused to
undertake this action. When he was asked
what his view was on the moral ownership of the fund, he replied that “he had
no view which he wished to publish at all”.
Why was he being so secretive about such an important question? His obfuscation raises the suspicion that his
position would not have been popular with many in his congregation, whose views
on the moral question had been openly declared.
Utter frustration with the intransigence of Kenneth Gordon
caused three members of the St Devenick’s congregation, Edwina Clark, Brenda
Parsons and George Patterson, all supporters of the Deeside Choristers, to
write a letter (published on 11 December 1987) to the Aberdeen Evening Express,
exposing the legal problem with transferring the fund to the choir and pointing
out the very simple action that the rector could take to effect a remedy. They did not spare Kenneth Gordon’s blushes,
if he ever had any, when they wrote, “…and (in spite of the views of his bishop
and the congregation) Canon Gordon has set his face against any form of
reconciliation with the choristers.
Hence the legal obstacles”. This
letter essentially marked the end of the campaign to assert the moral right to
some of the money raised on its behalf and for the reintegration of the Deeside
Choristers with the church that, through the drive of Dr Malcolm Love with his
supporters, had created one of the most successful church choirs that Scotland
had ever seen. It can only be counted as
a tragedy for St Devenick’s church, Bieldside.
The music programme expands.
The programmes of music undertaken by the two choirs went on as before, adding new venues, such as the magnificent Salvation Army Citadel in Aberdeen, the St Margaret of Scotland Episcopal church in Braemar, Cults Academy, the place of education of most of the choristers, the Phoenix Hall in the Camphill Community at Newton Dee, the chapel at Blairs College after it ceased to be a Catholic seminary in 1986 and where an annual service of lessons and carols was held for many years, the Denburn church in Aberdeen, the Church of the Holy Rude in Stirling, and many others to its singing locations. The range of musical offerings also expanded into such productions and works as the “Dracula Spectacular” described in the Press and Journal as “an outrageous send-up of horror movies” and the works of modern composers such as Benjamin Brittan and John Rutter. Overseas visits also occurred from time to time, such as the visit to Clermont Ferrand in France, a twin city of Aberdeen, in 1992.
Salvation Army Citadel, Aberdeen. Blairs College, Maryculter.
But there was one familiar venue amongst the many in and
around Aberdeen to which, as far as I can determine, the Deeside Choristers
never returned. The Episcopal Church of
St Devenick, Bieldside.
St John’s Church, Crown Terrace, Aberdeen.
It has already been noted that St John’s Episcopal Church in
the centre of Aberdeen had made itself a steadfast friend of the Deeside
Choristers. They reciprocated by
appearing at St John’s on many occasions and that pattern continued even after
the death of Malcolm Love and the retirement of Kenneth Gordon. Canon Archie Allan of St John’s became
chaplain to the choir and also assisted at some concerts performed by the
Choristers at venues outside the city.
For individuals previously associated with St Devenick’s and its choir,
St John’s became their default place of worship or commemoration in good times
and bad. In September 1987, there was a
tragic car accident on the North Deeside Road just west of Ballater. Four people were killed, including Steve
Knowles, a computer scientist working for Aberdeen University, and his wife,
Sue. They had previously been members of
the St Devenick’s congregation and one of their sons was a member of the
Deeside Choristers. The service of
thanksgiving for their lives was held at St John’s. I attended that service and found it a very
sombre and moving occasion. Similarly,
when Malcolm Love died in 2006, his funeral service took pace at St John’s,
too. Even in death, there was no
reconciliation with St Devenick’s.
Malcolm Love retires.
In 1987, Malcolm Love reached the age of 60, still the
musical director and active conductor of the Deeside Choristers. But the march of time spares no one. Malcolm continued conducting until at least
the end of 1999. Perhaps the turn of the
millennium was a signal landmark in time for Malcolm to retire from the choir
he had nurtured for the previous 25 years.
By 1990, Neil Cathmore was frequently engaged to play the organ at
services involving the choirs and he also started to conduct the boys’ and girls’
choirs, a role shared with Malcolm Love.
He later assumed the baton when Malcolm stepped down.
Life goes on for the Deeside Choristers – but not forever.
In 2009, the Deeside Choristers were still continuing to
perform at about the same level of intensity as in Malcolm Love’s heyday. In that year, Neil Cathmore described the
choir as follows. “We are an
enthusiastic, friendly choir of over fifty girls, boys and men. Now in our 35th
year, we have broadcast, recorded, sung in many of the great cathedrals, and
toured abroad. Our mission is to teach children to sing from a musical score,
to enable them to learn, appreciate and enjoy choral music of the great masters
and to perform with modesty and dignity”.
Clearly, by this date, the St Cecilia Choir had been amalgamated with
the boys’ choir, perhaps a pragmatic decision to dispense with two
conductors,two separate sets of rehearsals and programmes and, perhaps also, to
accommodate declining participation.
In 2014, the MBC (Milltimber, Bieldside and Cults)
News reported on the Deeside Choristers as follows. “The Deeside Choristers would like to wish
all readers of the MBC News a Happy Easter. Some eight years since the death of
its founder, Dr. Malcolm Love, this local Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass (SATB)
choir continues to flourish and inspire. Our last engagement was on Sunday,
30th March when we sang “Music at 6” at St. Machar’s and our next will be
participating in the Diocesan Choral Festival at St. Andrew’s Cathedral on
Sunday, 11th May. Rehearsals are every Wednesday during term-time, 6.15 to 8pm,
in the Main Hall, Camphill, Murtle Estate, Bieldside. We would like to
encourage all youngsters, (aged 7 and above) who are enthusiastic singers to
consider joining our ranks, especially after the summer holidays. Experienced
Tenors and Basses are also warmly welcome at any time”.
Sadly, by 2018, the Deeside Choristers had ceased to exist
as an active choir and the “Deeside Choristers” registered charity is currently
listed as “inactive”. As far as I can
determine, the choir has not been reactivated to the present (2023).
Why did the relationship between Kenneth Gordon and Malcolm Love break down?
Kenneth Gordon,
when he arrived at St Devenick’s, apparently had an aspiration to make worship
more informal, presumably because he believed that such a change in culture
would be effective in retaining and enhancing the size of the
congregation. A small choir would not be an impediment to such a change
and could play its part, perhaps by singing works which were not too long and
not too highbrow. At the time that Malcolm Love was recruited as the
choirmaster he must have seemed an ideal candidate for the role, given his
background and training. Kenneth Gordon perhaps did not anticipate that
the charismatic Malcolm Love would grow the choir both in its numbers and in
its musical repertoire. Both these aspects were problematic for the move
to more informal worship. Malcolm Love also commented later that during
his period as choirmaster at St Devenick’s he noticed that more and more of the
prayer book was being omitted from services and that only the modern English
Bible was being employed. The success of the choir became an impediment to
Kenneth Gordon’s plans for liturgical reform and he tried to exert his
authority over Malcolm Love both in reducing the size of the choir and in
diminishing its prominence in services. But it was too late. By
late 1982, the choir had become so popular both within the church and outwith
its confines that popular feelings resisted Kenneth Gordon’s modernising
aspirations. For him, the form of worship was dominant over the success
of the choir, while for Malcolm Love, the development of the choir, singing a
classical repertoire and taking part in traditional Anglican services, especially
in the great cathedrals was what, as a committed Christian, drove him
forward. In this case, the success of the classical, ironically, stood in
the way of modernisation!
The Spring 1981
edition of “Ruff Stuff”, the magazine of the St Devenick’s choirs, contains a
contribution by Kenneth Gordon which seems to outline his concerns about the
appropriateness of sophisticated high church music in worship in a small
suburban church such as his. His invited
contribution started by offering “heartfelt thanks” to everyone concerned with
the St Devenick’s choirs but did not mention any individual by name. His contribution continued in an unusual form
in that he simply quoted from the writings of others about the role and form of
church music. Thus, words of criticism
with which he appeared to sympathise were not his own writings. But he would hardly have included such
pointed quotations if he had not meant to send a message to the choirs and
especially the moving force behind them.
Two examples will suffice to make the point. “Does scripture lay down any principles for
the kind of music we should use in worship?
Certainly, the Old Testament holds up to us an ideal of musical excellence. But it was an excellence that was meant to
draw attention to the Lord rather than to itself, and to encourage rather than
inhibit the congregation”. “The choir is
part of the whole people of God, and not some special hybrid group set apart
from both clergy and congregation. It is
the servant of the congregation, leading and supporting the whole body … The
music of worship is not the special preserve of a chosen few but the
inheritance of all the people of God; it is the practical expression of the
priesthood of all believers”.
Later in the same
edition of “Ruff Stuff” there was surely entered a reply to the criticism I
have attributed to Kenneth Gordon. The
author of this rejoinder was not identified but it is difficult to find anyone
other than Malcolm Love as the leading suspect.
“In the late 1950s a Bishop said that poor music uttered with a sincere
heart and voice was just as acceptable in God’s ears as the most finished
performance of a Bach cantata; that God wasn’t a music critic, and that what
music was performed in Church and the manner in which it was performed should
not rest on the value judgements of trained musicians (you might ask “Why
bother to employ them, then?”) The
writer went on with an even more mordant comment. “Might one not say in reply that God isn’t
necessarily tone deaf, and that he has endowed us with the faculty of taste? Many of us would recoil from the thought of
sending to someone we loved or respected a tawdry greetings card containing
doggerel verse, yet it is precisely the musical equivalent of this which
some are eager to inflict on congregations and suggest that the young should
subsist only on such a diet”. (author’s
emphasis).
The incumbent at St
Devenick’s was a determined and uncompromising man who clearly believed that he
was in charge in his church and that his writ was law. On the surface,
Malcolm Love was amiable and affable but underneath this smiling exterior was
an equally steely countenance unwilling to surrender the achievements of eight
years’ hard work. Given such opponents, a disassociation of the choir
from St Devenick’s was probably inevitable, followed by a fracture in the
coherence of the congregation. Such a split might have been mended,
ruffled feelings smoothed, and calm restored had different personalities been
involved. But Kenneth Gordon and his then supportive vestry felt their
authority had been challenged and this hardened their approach.
Compromise to them might have appeared as weakness and loss of authority.
Malcolm Love might have been accommodated by taking his choir to other venues
to sing the more highbrow and traditional compositions, while presenting a
smaller choir at St Devenicks to satisfy the needs of Canon Gordon. But
such compromise could not be entertained by the incumbent. Perhaps for
him the matter had become personal, and he was determined not to work with
Malcolm Love in the future.
Unfortunately,
tactics were employed by both sides which inflamed the tensions. Malcolm
Love secretly recorded the proceedings of the meeting in late 1982 which
presaged his dismissal as choirmaster and that riled the vestry and
clergy. They, on the other hand seemed to adopt the view that the end
(removal of Malcolm Love) justified the means (fabricating
justifications). Accusations were made against the character and
integrity of the ex-choirmaster which were baseless and later had to be
withdrawn, leaving the emperor naked.
There were other
issues, too, which grated with Kenneth Gordon and his loyalists, concerning the
choir and they concerned the population from which the choir recruited its
members. During the 1970s and 1980s, Lower Deeside underwent a major
expansion in housebuilding to accommodate the incomers attracted by the North
Sea oil boom. These incomers were mostly in senior and well-paid
positions, many of them from furth of Scotland, and they were used to both
thinking and acting for themselves. They added to the existing
middleclass population of the area, which was already well represented with
professionals and academics. Such a population was proud of the success
of the St Devenick’s choir and happy to stand up to be counted in its
defence. Not all were regular churchgoers which led to the telling remark
of Kenneth Gordon’s spouse about those making the most noise. Allied to
this irritation was another. The wife of a prominent couple, who had been
members of the congregation for many years, upbraided this author because the
parents of some choristers did not attend church at all, and she expressed the
view that the offspring of such people should not be in a church choir or
singing religious music. There is one further factor which may have been
significant. Kenneth Gordon was a strong supporter of Scottish
Nationalism at a time when this political movement was in its infancy. He
would not have found many amongst the incomers who shared his aspirations for
an independent Scotland, which perhaps bolstered his determination not to be
pushed around by eloquent outsiders.
Most people in
their journey through life will have experienced situations, often at work,
where they observe two colleagues who simply cannot stand the sight of each
other but could not clearly enunciate the reasons why this was so. I saw
such situations several times during my career, exemplified by one acquaintance
who said of another “He lights my fuse”. Perhaps Kenneth Gordon and
Malcolm Love shared such an irrational mutual antagonism?
The death of Kenneth Gordon.
Malcolm Love’s nemesis, Kenneth Gordon, retired as rector of
St Devenick’s in 2001, though in retirement he returned to Bieldside as
Honorary Assistant Priest between 2010 and 2018. He died in 2021, aged 86. A eulogistic obituary of him was published
online. Its author, perhaps wishing not
to speak ill of the dead, or perhaps through ignorance of events from 35 years
ago, made no mention of the Deeside Choristers affair which impinged heavily on
Kenneth Gordon’s life between 1982 and 1987.
The obituary summed up his character as follows. “We
will all miss Ken for his intelligent and incisive contributions to discussions
and for his humanity and shining faith”.
His friends may remember him that way, but there were many on Deeside
who saw him differently.
The death of
Malcolm Love.
Malcolm Love died, aged 79, on 16 April 2006 at his home of
many years, East Silverburn, Kingswells.
The funeral notice, posted online, read as follows. “LOVE. R. Malcolm Love DSc, Fisheries Scientist, late
of Torry Research Station, founder of the Deeside Choristers, died peacefully
at home, on Easter Morning. Much loved husband of Muriel, loving father of
Andrew, Ian and Timothy, proud grandpa to his ten grandchildren. Friends and
colleagues are invited to the funeral at St. John's Church, Crown Terrace,
Aberdeen, on Thursday, April 20, at 12.30 p.m., interment thereafter in Skene
Cemetery”.
Although he is memorialised in Skene kirkyard, Malcolm
Love’s true memorial lies partly in his published scientific work, but
especially in the achievements of his magnificent but ephemeral creation, the
Deeside Choristers.
Don Fox
20231230
donaldpfox@gmail.com
