Of vicars choral

It was by accident I came upon the name of Faithful Tadpole. According to Barra Boydell, in his history of music at Christ Church Cathedral Dublin, Faithful and his brother John, sons of John senior, had been choristers in Christ Church in 1639. They had also, with their father, been paid by St Anne's Guild (the last chantry to survive the Reformation) to sing at service in St Audoen's church. During the Commonwealth the cathedral and its music ceased to function; John senior survived as parish clerk in St John the Evangelist's Church. At the Restoration in 1661 the choir was re-established. John senior was countertenor vicar choral, Faithful and John junior, bass vicar choral and stipendiary, respectively. Both brothers took Holy Orders, and as was customary at the time, both served in the choirs of the two Dublin cathedrals. Faithful rose to the illustrious rank of Succentor of St Patrick's, and he and John died in December 1669. They were buried within a few days of each other in the graveyard of St John's, near Christ Church, where the Civic Offices now stand. Tradition says this was also the burial place of Molly Malone, she of "Cockles and Mussels" fame.

I find a certain fellow-feeling with Faithful. I too grew up in this part of Dublin. My late father had attended St John's parish school, I presume in the late 1930s - 40s, when he lived in Castle Street. I entered the strange world of the Dublin cathedrals when our parish clergyman in St Luke's, The Coombe, The Revd Jerram Burrows, encouraged me to audition as a chorister of St Patrick's. I was nearly 11 years old (very late for a boy chorister) when Sydney Greig accepted me, and I was admitted a chorister on St Michael and All Angels' Day, 29th September 1974. It was the beginning of a long association, very formative for my later life.

Jerram Burrows came of a notable clerical family. He was tall and thin, with a very educated, clear, rather harsh voice. He had been headmaster of Cork Grammar School (now Ashton Comprehensive); returning to Dublin in semi-retirement he was in charge of St Luke's (which was closed in 1975), and also Succentor of St Patrick's. Traditionally that office had a connection with the cathedral schools; and Jerram loved to teach. I remember him as the one who gave me my first pay-packet as a chorister; 5 pence, the weekly stipend for a beginner, neatly enclosed in a little brown envelope. I also remember one Matins, when I had had a fit of giggling during the psalm; after service he reprimanded me and asked to know what had been so funny. I didn't feel I could tell him. The previous evening my mother and I had watched "The Agony and the Ecstasy" on the television - the film about Michaelangelo - in it the Pope had worn a very long cloak that covered his horse's rear-quarters, and my mother had speculated as to the likely outcome... The thought returned during Matins, but I didn't feel I could let my mother down.

Mr Burrows was a kindly man. His shape and reserve earned him the general nickname of "Poker". In our house, my aunt named him "The Lodger", after one Christmas season when he was very often at our table, in the course of some pastoral work with which my father was assisting him. He was married to Rachel, a very flamboyant, plump, actress; who scandalised everyone by never coming to church; when their grandchildren would come to stay at the Rectory on the South Circular Road, my sister and I might be asked to keep them company.

I remember too that he taught me how to pronounce the list of territories in the Epistle for Whitsunday - to this day I think of him when I hear "Parthians, Medes and Elamites". He was never afraid to discipline, he had a natural authority. When he discovered that I might be thinking of ordination, he tried to teach me ancient Greek, until he discovered that I didn't know any Latin.

He was well in his nineties when he died, having written my mother a letter of condolence on the death of my father in 1999, courteous to the last. It was a matter of great pride to me when, in 2007, I was installed as Succentor of St Patrick's, successor both to George Henry Jerram Burrows and to the Reverend Faithful Tadpole.