Music - Debbie Young's Writing Life

cover of Death at the Village Christmas Fair against snowy background

Music to my Ears

Posted on August 18, 2025August 17, 2025 by Debbie Young

This week’s post is literally about music – but another kind of music to my ears is readers’ early reactions to my new novel, launched last Saturday, and now available in ebook, paperback, hardback and audiobook.

Death at the Village Christmas Fair is the third in the Cotswold Curiosity Shop cosy mystery series, a festive edition launching in midsummer, because that’s the way the publishing industry works – operating a season ahead of reality, just like the fashion industry!

I’m delighted by how many readers are already getting stuck into this story when the weather in the northern hemisphere, where I am, is far from wintry! Some readers have told me they prefer reading wintry books in hot weather to cool them down. So maybe Death at the Village Christmas Fair, with its snowy cover, is really the perfect beach read

Here’s the blurb for the book to whet your appetite:

It’s been a busy year for Alice Carroll, with her Curiosity Shop opening for business, and not one but two murders shaking things up in her quaint Cotswold village. She’s looking forward to her first countryside Christmas, complete with traditional Christmas Fair and Santa Run.

But her hopes for innocent festive fun are thwarted when one of the Santa Runners steals something from her mum’s knitting stall. His festive outfit makes him hard to spot, until he’s found fatally injured outside the village hall with the stolen item.

Despite what the police say, Alice suspects there’s more to his murder than meets the eye. She’s determined to solve the mystery – including why, once more, a stranger thought something from her Curiosity Shop was worth killing for.

With the help of her charming neighbour Robert Praed, can Alice find the killer before the bells ring out this Christmas?

Perfect for fans of Fiona Leitch, Faith Martin and Agatha Christie.

Here is what early reviewers have said about it so far:

‘A nice easily enjoyable cosy crime story with a smashing ending’ – Alyson Reads
‘A cosy mystery full of mystery and intrigue, and is my favourite of the series’ – StaceyWH100
‘A brilliant page-turner readers will devour in a single sitting’ – Bookish Jottings

To order your copy online now, click here.

Now onto a different kind of music to my ears: Caroline Sanderson’s new memoir, Listen with Father: How I Learned to Love Classical Music…

For the Love of Music

The photo of the vintage reel-to-reel tape recorder on the cover of Caroline Sanderson’s new memoir, Listen with Father, made me realise how much our access to recorded music has changed during my lifetime.

My first memory of listening to records is via a wind-up record player when I was three years old. I’m not as ancient as that suggests, but the previous owner of the house we moved into had left it behind, and my brother and sister and I were allowed to treat it as a toy.

Then came a reel-to-reel tape player, like the one on Caroline’s book, followed by a fancy radiogram, housing an analogue radio and a turntable in a classic mid-century design, its wide, low cabinet on spindly legs. Its turntable had three speeds: 33rpm for LPs (long-playing records), 45rpm for singles, and 78rpm for any discs left over from the days of wind-up gramophones.

Not long after I started secondary school, compact cassette players were on my friends’ Christmas wish lists. Others favoured 8-track cartridge players, with the figure-of-eight set-up of the tape allowing non-stop music.

By the end of the Seventies, many music buffs aspired to a sleek stacking hi-fi system, with separate layers for records, cassettes and radio tuners. My university friend Tim was proud of his shiny new hi-fi until his confession that he had only two records, one of which was Supertramp, cued merciless teasing.

My stereo at this time was much more modest – a tiny turntable and diminutive speakers encased in bright orange plastic. Well, it was the Seventies.

By the time I was earning my living, the Sony Walkman, first for cassettes, then with newfangled CDs, was every commuter’s must-have accessory. These compact devices look huge and unwieldy compared to their successor: the tiny, lightweight iPods with no moving parts.

Now that we all stream music on our smartphones and smart speakers—and in my husband’s case, to his hearing aids – our family’s old iPods, in seaside-rock pink and vivid lime green, look like museum pieces.

Whatever next? Tiny receiver chips embedded in our heads? Douglas Adams’ Babel fish—a live fish dropped into the ear to act as an instant translator—seems less fantastical now than when it first appeared in The Hitchhiker’s’ Guide to the Galaxy, published in 1978 (the year I bought my orange stereo).

While afficionados argue the case for which recording format produces the better listening experience, to my mind none of them beats hearing music live.

Although a live performance lacks studio edits and polish, no recording can reproduce the excitement of watching a musician physically present, complete with body language, facial expressions, and emotions.

That’s one reason why it’s been such a joy to attend this summer’s Badminton Benefice Music Festival events – three down…

two still to come…

The immediacy adds an extra dimension, as does the glorious setting of our ancient Cotswold parish churches.

Plus, the concerts are free to attend, with free parking and complimentary refreshments, so no-one is priced out of the pleasure.

That includes families with children or grandchildren. The concerts provide the perfect way to enthuse young people about live music. They may even encourage them to take up an instrument or singing lessons themselves—or to do more practice, if they’re already learning. In an age where young people’s opportunities to learn and play music are diminishing, we’re lucky to have access to so many live, free music events on our home turf.

So, let’s turn off the tech for what’s left of the summer, and enjoy the original source of all music: the human being, in real life, in real time.

(This article first appeared in the August 2025 edition of the Hawkesbury Parish News.)

WHAT I’VE READ THIS WEEK

As you may know, I’m a course tutor for Jericho Writers. and I try to read as many of my students books as possible. This one was a real treat-to-self – and the first in Kalyn’s series was a great read too.

For the Love of Mark Twain: A Cozy Academia Friends-to-Lovers Story by Kalyn Gensic
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What a great read for back-to-school time! I very much enjoyed reading this gentle, slow-burn romance between likeable characters on the staff of a small American university, a setting I wasn’t familiar with, so that added extra interest and enjoyment for me. Well written, witty, and engaging, with a cast of well-drawn and endearing supporting characters, this is a cosy read to linger over and make it last. Highly recommended.

Family, Personal life, Writing

Inspired by the Badminton Benefice Festival of Music

Posted on June 6, 2025 by Debbie Young

“If you want something done, ask a busy person.”

That may be one reason that I’ve found myself helping behind the scenes with a wonderful new music event founded by Badminton Benefice Music Director Ben Humphries. Badminton Benefice – part of the Diocese of Gloucester – contains ten ancient and beautiful rural churches, each in an idyllic, timeless setting. Sharing one vicar between them, the Reverend Richard Thomson, there is a limit to how many church services they can host each month.

One of the aims of the Festival is to provide occasions for more people to visit the churches and to enjoy these historically significant settings which are such a rich part of our local heritage. The other aim is to create live, accessible music events to the local community. All of the events are free to attend, but donations towards the maintenance of the churches and to the music charity Youth Music, which gives young people the chance to transform their lives through the power of music.

Each event will be different, resulting in a glorious mixture of musical offerings, some with art and/or flowers, and always refreshments, to be held on Sunday afternoons, one each month, from May to September. The event poster provides a handy summary of the programme:

The charming line drawings of each church are by Gillian Dawson, a former member of Hawkesbury Choir.

My role in the Festival has been as part of a small team behind the scenes, helping to raise awareness of the concert series and to attract an audience. I sang in the first event, which took place last month at my home church of St Mary’s, Hawkesbury.

photo of St Mary the Virgin Hawkesbury in its idyllic rural setting — The Church of St Mary the Virgin, photographed in its gorgeous ancient rural setting one Easter Sunday, viewed from Hawkesbury Knoll

The Come & Sing! event, directed by the brilliant singing teacher Amy Garry of Voices Together, also inspired me to write the following article for the May issue of the Hawkesbury Parish News. Even though the event has happened now, I thought you might still like to read it.

For the Love of Singing

One of the highlights of primary school for me was the daily assembly, in which we’d all sing together in the school hall.

Days Lane Primary School, in Sidcup, Kent, was actually two schools in one, a single-storey brick quadrangle built in the 1920s. The infants were in one half, the juniors in the other, each with their own school hall and head teacher.

The daily assembly included two hymns from the pale blue Songs of Praise book and a few thoughtful words to inspire us. Every Tuesday, the Juniors stayed on after assembly while the teachers went back to their classroom (or maybe to drink coffee and smoke in the staffroom), leaving our jovial headmaster, Mr Bowering, to lead the whole school in hymn practice. From his lectern on the stage, accompanied by a pianist, he taught us new hymns. He also insisted on a rousing weekly rendition of ‘Jerusalem’. I still remember the words and numbers of my favourite hymns.

Cover of the Songs of Praise hymnbook — The Songs of Praise hymnbook – the soundtrack for my childhood

I loved this vibrant act of community – the only occasion that all the pupils were engaged in the same activity. How Mr Bowering must have enjoyed conducting our singing in one roof-raising voice as we gazed up at him.

I also loved the sense of place. A simple map of the globe hung above the stage, making us feel like citizens of the world. Tiny lightbulbs picked out the capital cities of the most important countries. Mr Bowering controlled them from a box of switches beneath his lectern. When he lit up a city, we’d have to shout its name.

I miss those Tuesday mornings. That’s one reason I joined Hawkesbury Choir. Like those school hymn practices, weekly choir practices have become an important fixture in my calendar. I count them as an act of self-care, good for my well-being mentally and physically. I even managed to persuade my GP they count as exercise. (He gave me another tick for bell ringing practice.) I’ve been lucky enough to sing with Hawkesbury Choir not only in our own ancient parish church, but also in the beautiful parish churches of Badminton, Cirencester, Didmarton, and Leighterton.

photo of choir outside Badminton Chiurch — Hawkesbury Choir with guest singers after singing at the Badminton Horse Trials Morning Prayer service earlier this year (I’m fourth from the right)

While community singing can make everyone feel better, hymns aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. So, it’s great news that a fun, free, secular singing event, COME & SING, will take place on Sunday 18^th May at St Mary’s Hawkesbury, and it’s open to all ages from 9 to 109. Although it’ll take place in the church, we’ll be singing popular contemporary music rather than hymns. Think ‘Mamma Mia’ rather than ‘Ave Maria’, although I can’t promise Abba will be on the agenda.

From 1pm, there’ll be a singing workshop led by professional singing teacher Amy Garry of Voices Together, accompanied by Ben Humphries, Badminton Benefice Music Director.
At 4pm, the singers will perform an informal concert for anyone who cares to attend. Light refreshments will be provided.

All of this is free of charge, although donations will be welcome. Any profit will be shared between St Mary’s PCC and the music charity Youth Music.

To join the workshop, please register at badmintonbenefice.com.
To attend the concert, no booking is necessary – just turn up.

COME & SING! is the first in a series of musical events in the new Badminton Benefice Festival of Music to be held this summer in churches throughout the Benefice. All of the events will be free to attend, apart from the grand finale at Great Badminton in November featuring the newly restored organ. More information and dates will be shared on the Benefice website as details are confirmed.

In the meantime, you know what to do… COME & SING!

(This article first appeared in the May 2025 issue of the Hawkesbury Parish News.)

NEXT EVENT IN THE BADMINTON BENEFICE FESTIVAL OF MUSIC: Young Musicians at St Mary the Virgin, Sopworth on Sunday 22nd June

While it’s too late for you to join in the COME & SING! event described above, if you’re within striking distance of the Badminton Benefice, you might like to come along to our June event, an uplifting recital by students of Westonbirt School at Sopworth’s Church of St Mary the Virgin. (In all, five of the Benefice churches are St Mary’s!) It will take place on Sunday 22nd June, starting at 2.45pm. Yes, that is an unusual starting time, but it’s carefully chosen to fit in between the students’ Sundy lunch and their rehearsals later in the day for the school’s annual musical production!

For more information about the Badminton Benefice Music Festival, visit its website page at www.badmintonbenefice.om/festival-of-music

IN OTHER NEWS

cover of Listen with Father by Caroline Sanderson — To be published on 3rd July by Unbound

Yesterday I met my friend Caroline Sanderson, author and books journalist, for lunch, and I was delighted to hear all about her plans for the launch of her new book, which is on a musical theme.

The title, Listen with Father, is a nod towards those of us old enough to remember the daily children’s BBC Radio programme, Listen with Mother, heralded each week by the delightful theme tune, the Berceuse from Fauré’s “Dolly Suite“. However, the subtitle, How I Learned to Love Classical Music, alludes to Caroline’s father’s legacy – a lasting love ot the classics. Caroline’s publisher, Unbound, describes her book as follows:

Listen with Father is a book about the transformative power of listening, and about how we remember those we have loved and lost.

At four years old, Caroline Sanderson fell in love with the music of Mozart after listening to it with her father. At eight, she fell even harder for the songs of David Bowie. Her dad made many gentle attempts to persuade her back to his world of classical music, but it wasn’t until after he died that she returned to it, in memory of him.

In a beguiling blend of memoir and biography, we follow Sanderson as she set out to listen, with great care and attention, to the music her dad loved, to work out why he so appreciated it and whether she could too. From hearing Mozart recitals in Salzburg to visiting Sibelius’s house near Helsinki and playing Robert Schumann at home on the piano, this is a beautifully touching and absorbing story of a beloved father, told through the classical music he cherished.

Order your copy in paperback or ebook from the publisher’s website here.

Meanwhile, there is lots of pending news about my books, but some of it’s embargoed until next week, so watch this space!

Personal life

Singing Together: Musical Memories from Primary School

Posted on May 15, 2024May 14, 2024 by Debbie Young

Isn’t it odd how snippets of song lyrics lurk in our memories decades after we learned them? I may not be able to remember where I parked my car at Yate Shopping Centre, but I’m still word perfect on songs I learned at primary school.

So, when my author friend Stefania Hartley told me about Ride Like a Gaucho, Tetbury young farmer Sophia Ashe’s memoir of her gap year in Argentina, I was transported not to South America, but to my Year 3 classroom in a Terrapin hut of Days Lane Primary School, Sidcup, and our weekly Singing Together lesson. In my head I immediately started singing:

“See the gaucho, ride the pampas, Ride the pampas, green and wide…”

cover of Sophia Ashe's book, Ride Like a Gaucho — Sophia Ashe’s book taught me so much more about gauchos!

Singing Together was a weekly BBC radio programme for schools, broadcast nationwide from 1939 until 2004. In the days before audio streaming and BBC Sounds, all the schools taking part had to tune in to the live broadcast. We sang along with the show’s hosts and their backing choir, and sometimes we played our recorders too.

There was something very exciting about knowing we were singing the same songs at the same time as thousands of children all over the country.

Each term we learned a mix of folk songs from around the world, set down in printed booklets, which the schools had to buy. The songs ranged from lilting melodies to rousing calypsos to nonsense songs. We thought it great fun, not realising the many educational benefits we were absorbing in the process: learning to read music, improving our literacy skills, working as a team, and building our awareness of other cultures. Gaucho! Pampas! Such exotic words!

Singing Together was also very levelling. We weren’t marked or judged on their performance, and the subject didn’t feature in our school report. We simply enjoyed ourselves.

In those days we sat in neat rows at old-fashioned single wooden desks with lift-up lids. For Singing Together, we had to move our desks together in pairs, because there were only enough booklets for one between two. At the end of term, we were allowed to buy the booklets for sixpence each, on a first-come, first-served basis. Throughout primary school, I went to my grandma’s for school dinners. I remember cadging sixpence off her at the end of each term and running back to school as soon as we’d finished eating to secure my copy. The songs we learned are still very special to me.

Sadly, I don’t still have my copies of those booklets – but you can click here to see the BBC’s gallery of Singing Together booklet covers.

It’s unfortunate that few of the live radio programmes were recorded, and almost all have been lost. Whether or not you remember taking part in Singing Together, you might enjoy listening to a wonderful radio documentary by Jarvis Cocker, which you can catch on BBC Sounds here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04stc6c

I bet you can’t listen without joining in at some point! If the programme makes you hanker after a grown-up equivalent of Singing Together, try joining your local choir (Hawkesbury Choir, in my case) – it ticks all the same boxes for me!

photo of Hawkesbury Choir outside Great Badminton Church — Singing with my village choir is a source of great joy and camaraderie to me now. We’re pictured here outside Great Badminton church, after singing there during the Badminton Horse Trials. I’m in the front row on the left. (Choir photos by Sir Ian Macfadyen)

This article first appeared in the May 2024 edition of the Hawkesbury Parish News

Photo of Port of Bristol Sea Shanty Crew in front of a ship

Writing

Set Sail for St Mary’s

Posted on July 14, 2023August 8, 2023 by Debbie Young

This week on my blog, I’m looking forward to a jolly local event at my parish church, St Mary’s Hawkesbury. The active community life in my home village of Hawkesbury Upton provides me with an endless supply of story ideas for my light-hearted, humorous fiction set in the Cotswolds.

When Colin Dixon told me he’d booked the Port of Bristol Shanty Crew to sing at Church Farm House on Sunday 23^rd July as part of the Friends of St Mary’s Summer Weekend, my first thought was, “But Hawkesbury is landlocked”.

My second thought was, “What exactly is a sea shanty anyway?”

Continue reading “Set Sail for St Mary’s” →

through the gate to St Mary's Tetbury by night

Events, Family, Personal life

Just Keep Singing

Posted on December 30, 2022 by Debbie Young

Tight writing deadlines in the last few months have meant I’ve got way behind on my blog – so please excuse me if I now have a quick catch-up to shoehorn in two articles I wrote for the Tetbury Advertiser in November and December, before I run out of 2022! This article was written for the November 2022 issue of the Tetbury Advertiser. I’ll post the December one tomorrow.

A recent free concert at St Mary’s, Tetbury by the St Cecilia’s Singers provided a lightning tour of four hundred years of Anglican choral music, from Tallis to Tavener. Listening to the music, I gazed up at the soaring windows and ceiling, remembering from school history lessons that Gothic architecture was designed to draw the eye heavenward. St Mary’s high box pews reminded me, as box pews always do, of earthly coffins. Memento mori all round, then.

Continue reading “Just Keep Singing” →