FINDING it hard to get together for their weekly sing-song, a dales choir have been digitally coordinated by their conductor into a crowdfunding video.

Established five years ago by Debbie Allenby, the Dales Community Pop Choir has 50 members from all backgrounds. Many of the choir are key workers, including in the NHS, farming or as carers.

Specialising in pop music from all decades and contemporary show tunes, they sing in four parts accompanied by musician Paul Sowden.

Due to the current circumstances, they are unable to hold weekly rehearsals, but in common with many others they come together, of sorts, through the magic of video conferencing.

A real favourite of the choir is the song is ELO’s Mr Blue Sky and now Leyburn GP, Dr Julia Brown, a choir member, has re-written the lyrics to reflect the importance of social distancing.

She said: “I wanted to do something to help and support key workers and get the message out there that social distancing is helping to reduce Covid-19 spread.

“Mr Blue Sky one of the choir’s favourite songs, so it seemed a good choice to slightly alter the words to get that message across.”

Each member recorded their singing part or musical accompaniment and the task of painstakingly editing the track befell to their conductor Debbie Allenby.

After spending many hours, she has now produced a five-minute track, which is linked to a Just Giving page crowdfunding for the NHS. It has been shared across Australia, the USA and Europe and amassed more than 14,000 views.

Mrs Allenby said: “We plan on doing a choir lockdown playlist. Each week, we will record one of our favourite songs at home and then I'll pull the tracks together for release, although it will be mainly audio as making the video was really difficult for me and took days.

“Each song will be linked to our Just Giving page to encourage donations for the NHS.”

For more information, see the Dales Pop Choir Facebook page.