I recently had the opportunity to examine Charles K. Pattinson's Memoire of a Choir School, a personal recollection of his time at the Durham Chorister School from 1913 to 1920. Written in 1959, the manuscript is made up of around thirty typewritten pages with assorted errata attached and is stored in the Special Collections at the Palace Green library. Pattinson was an alumni of both the Chorister and Durham Schools, and from 1948 would be the Precentor at the Cathedral. In his reminiscences, however, he talks about his time as a Chorister, and paints a very interesting picture of the combative rivalry between Headmaster Frederick Dennett and Master of the Choristers Arnold Culley.

Arnold Culley had been the Precentor of Durham Cathedral since 1903, but was elected to the position of Master of the Choristers in 1907. Pattinson described him as "a small man, who would not have been singled out for being good-looking." He "was almost musically infallible", however, and was extremely talented at both playing the organ and training the Choir. "In his time the Choir of Durham Cathedral was recognised as one of the best in the country, and was probably more efficient than any, though not so artistic." Pattinson also characterises him as "somewhat of a tartar with his Choir, but extremely kind when kindness was required". He would keep a small black book wherein he would write all of the choir's mistakes, which he would later use to correct the unlucky chorister. Later headmaster Canon Ganderton, with whom Culley had a good relationship, recalled that he "was a man of almost tireless energy, a terror to the indolent and careless" but who nevertheless wrote several musical pieces "of great originality and beauty".

Headmaster Frederick S. Dennett, meanwhile, was almost entirely different. He was appointed to the position in February 1914, and quickly gained a variety of nicknames by the students: 'Freddie', 'F.S.D.', 'Dammit'. Pattinson recalled that "he ruled with a rod of iron (perhaps more literally several canes and a broken golf club which had parted company with its business end!) He had little or no idea of what went on in the school (or else deliberately ignored it which seems unlikely). Apt himself to be a bully, inclined more than little to favouritism, he had an ungovernable and unpredictable temper." He was a lover of games, having played cricket while back in Staffordshire. His fondness for food and propensity for Johnnie Walker whisky (a decanter of which he kept on the lunch table) meant that towards the end of his school career he had put on some weight. "A game of soccer was as remarkable for his elephantine lumbering as for anything else. Rugger and hockey had been abandoned when he became Headmaster. Curiously enough he was a bad loser – woe to the Umpire who gave him "out" L.B.W.! Many of us under his tuition and with his encouragement became keen chess players during such few leisure moments as we had."

Perhaps inevitably, the two disliked each other.

Dennett was not on speaking terms with Culley. Ganderton would later state that he believed "that the attendance of the boys at so many Services, which for them were apt to become little more than musical exercises, held special dangers, which needed to be guarded against with particular vigilance." He had no real interest in religion or any musical ability; Pattinson describes his voice as "harsh and penetrating". Culley's attempts to prevent Dennett from singing during services, and ruining his careful compositions led to a war of attrition. He forbade any copies of the music to be supplied to Dennett; not to be deterred, the organist secretly began buying his own. Eventually, the Chapter stepped in, and decreed that no-one was allowed to take part in the singing unless they had attended the rehearsal first.

Another initiative of Culley's was to introduce the pupils to new lyrics by first singing them over to a familiar tune; for example, he might introduce his original composition, 'Thou Wilt Keep Him In Perfect Peace', by singing it over 'Abide With Me'. Everyone would follow along, "all except F.S.D. who kept the flag flying by singing loudly what he called 'the proper words.'"

To further quote from the Pattinson memoir: "That Dennett should invariably speak of Culley – and that before the boys – in scabrous and opprobrious terms was regrettable. The head boy who naturally had close dealings with both, had to act as go-between, and it was often a matter of great difficulty and sometimes of complete impossibility to preserve one's loyalty to both. One became almost Jesuitical in prevarication, and one's accumulation of euphemisms was invaluable later on. One acquired tact, if nothing else. Culley never retaliated in kind – at any rate before his boys. Still, it was a painful and unedifying business, and marred the 'beauty of holiness' which, I think, most of us felt our music implied, though we might not have been able to put our thoughts into words."

Whether this animosity was caused by Dennett's dislike of music, disinterest in religion, or (as former Chorister Chris Abbey suggested) jealousy that the boys like Culley more, it could hardly have been a pleasant environment for the Chorister School students. A final example of this comes with the singing of the Litany, which was always sung on Wednesdays and Fridays by two Minor Canons kneeling at Bishop Cosin's litany desk. When it came for Culley and Dennett to perform this tradition, rather than sing in harmony they would turn competitive, trying to out-do the other "alike in pace and volume". One instinctively feels that this would not have done much for the sacral nature of the service.

The above photograph was taken by Peter Elfelt, and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license via Wikimedia Commons.