Two days after Marion Vaughan moved into the Aveo Cherry Tree Grove retirement village she joined its choir, The Cherry Tones.
“I love singing, and anything to do with music,” she said.
Santa, aka resident Bruce Eagle, made an appearance at the Cherry Tones’ Christmas concert at the Aveo Cherry Tree Grove retirement Village in Croydon.Credit: Penny Stephens
The choir was run by fellow resident Mike Lewis.
They discovered both are native Londoners who migrated to Australia in the 1960s. Lewis, who was caring for his sick wife, needed help organising the choir.
“Marion seemed like someone who had a good brain and was willing to help,” he says.
The choir, and their friendship, has been a light in dark times, including the death of Lewis’ wife, Deanne.
After Lewis had quadruple bypass surgery in 2021, Vaughan fed him, played music and talked to him.
“I’m not quite sure what I would have done without it,” he says. “I was very fragile. Having somebody there was just marvellous.
“That’s when we started to get closer together,” he says. Asked what they mean to each other, they both answer “everything”.
They are still joint conveners of the Cherry Tones, which Vaughan regards as a second family. When she was sick recently, choristers sent her lemons, honey and kind messages.
On Sunday, the choir held its annual Christmas concert in the newly renovated community centre at the village in Croydon.
Marion Vaughan and Mike Lewis from The Cherry Tones.Credit: Penny Stephens
Wearing tinselled tiaras, flashing-light necklaces and sequinned T-shirts, the choir sang festive classics including Do You Hear What I Hear? and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
Santa, aka resident Bruce Eagle, handed out chocolates.
Another resident, Keith Quibell, played saxophone versions of Jingle Bells and Santa Claus is Coming to Town, backed by the choir’s musical director, Michael King, on piano.
King, a teacher at Yarra Valley Grammar in Ringwood, has been volunteering at the village since 2018 when the then manager, a friend of King’s wife, asked him to fill in.
“I get as much out of it as, I think, the choristers get from me, just seeing the joy they have, the genuine friendship and appreciation,” he says. “For some of them, terrible things are happening, in terms of health, or people passing away in their lives, and they come along to rehearsal, and they get to escape that for an hour or two a week.”
Sometimes King is reminded of his students when choristers are “talking when they should be listening”.
Said Lewis: “We’re worse than children because we don’t always shut up when the teacher says so. But when you get a group of old people together, they do like to talk, at every opportunity.”
Patricia Harrison, 91, a Cherry Tones soprano for 11 years, made a friend in the choir, Elaine Tanner, 90, and says she rarely misses a practice session.
The choir performing at the Christmas concert on Sunday.Credit: Penny Stephens
Harrison loved taking part in a joint concert the Cherry Tones gave in October with Yarra Valley Grammar students at the school.
The seniors and kids sang five songs together, ranging from Hallelujah to a Mary Poppins medley.
Harrison remembers that as she sang a student looked up at her and smiled.
“That was just lovely,” she said. “Music is just so healing. And it brings out the best in people, I think.”
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