The music group, End of the Track, has been raising the roof at retirement homes across Wiltshire to raise money for Julia’s House children’s hospice.
The all-male singing group recently donated £2,000 to support our care, bringing their total fundraising amount for Julia's House to more than £13,000 since 2019.
End of the Track members reflect the audiences they entertain, with the age range spanning from “youngsters’” in their sixties up to the eldest member, Ron Dolman, who recently turned 90 years old.
Sharing the joy of music
Group leader Keith Clifford, from Chippenham, said, “We’re all doing it for the enjoyment of singing together and we’re happy to pass on that enjoyment to the people we’re performing for.
“It’s a difficult time for everyone and small senior groups don’t have a lot of funds, so we intentionally keep our minimum booking fees low and people can donate more if they’d like to,” the 72-year-old said. “It’s wonderful that we’re able to raise money for Julia’s House and make a difference for seriously ill children and their families in our community.”
End of the Track, which currently has 10 members from Chippenham and surrounding villages, performs songs from the 1960s for audiences in residential homes and community groups across Wiltshire. The group was founded in 2009 and all of the members are existing or previous members of the Chippenham Male Voice Choir.
“We recently performed in a care home in Swindon and they had a fantastic time, singing along to their favourites,” said Keith. “We were told afterwards that the residents were all talking about it the next day, including the dementia residents who wouldn’t normally be able to remember it. When you hear that it makes us so glad that we’re doing what we do.”
They'll do most songs, but they won't do that...
Led by the group’s musical director and lead guitarist, Phil Hall, End of the Track has an active repertoire of more than 140 songs – including the Beatles, The Hollies, Elvis Presley and Cliff Richard.
“We’ll cover most artists and groups from the 1960s. We try to keep close to how they sounded at the time, but we also add our own harmonies,” Keith said. “People love singing along to Sweet Caroline and Is This The Way To Amarillo, but we try to choose different songs each time, especially if we’re making return appearances. It is sometimes difficult for us to remember all the lyrics, so we take these with us.”
He said, “Our percussionist moved to North Somerset, so we had to replace him with an electronic black-box, which I pre-program to accompany the songs we’ll be singing. It means we’re not able to offer ‘requests’ on the day, but people can ask us for their favourites in advance.”
“There are only a few artists we won’t do,” added Keith. “We’ve never done a Rolling Stones song and we gave up on Meatloaf. They just didn’t suit our style.”
Every song makes a difference
Julia’s House Fundraiser, Claudia Hickin, said, “We have been privileged to enjoy performances from End of the Track at our Devizes hospice – more recently at our Volunteer Tea Party last summer. We are hugely grateful to all the members for generously sharing their incredible talent to raise vital funds and awareness for Julia’s House. We rely almost entirely on donations to provide our lifeline of care for local families, so every pound donated makes a difference.”
End of the Track has been performing and raising funds for charity since 2009. Prior to fundraising for Julia’s House, members raised nearly £19,000 for the former North Wilts Holiday Club – a charity, which helped children and young adults with special needs in Chippenham. As well as raising funds by performing, the singing group has made five CD recordings over the last 10 years and sales of those recordings have boosted the funds donated to charity.
On 24th June, End of the Track will perform with the Corsham and Colerne Military Wives Choir at St Andrew’s Parish Church in Chippenham to raise funds for Julia’s House and the Wiltshire Bobby Van Trust.
More information can be found at www.eott.co.uk and enquiries can be emailed to endofthetrack@gmail.com, or by calling Keith on 01249 653251.