Between the ages of 15 and 17 I had a secret. Every Monday night I’d gulp down dinner before rushing out to the scrubby patch of ground just past the playing fields, where a car would be waiting. Hours later — long after the ceremonial nightly locking of the boarding house — I’d sneak back, knocking softly on a window to be let in.
Alexandra Coghlan
How we became a nation of choirs and carollers
The roots of the English choral tradition lie in our alehouses as much as our cathedrals

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