We celebrate the recent double century by England's Alastair Cook during the first test match of the Ashes (235 not out to be exact). All the more interesting that he was once a Chorister at St Paul's.
Here are some of the things the press have been saying:
From the Independent.
"What I have is the ability to grind out runs. I don't know fully where it comes from but I think it might be the music, being eight years old and being away from home and having to be disciplined. I think it has a massive influence. I don't really like talking about it but I have managed to score runs at every level."
The music is, of course, a reference to Cook's time as a chorister at St Paul's Cathedral between the ages of eight and 13. It taught him discipline and independence and it might have taught him how to open the batting for England. "They were probably the hardest five years you could ever expect an eight-to-13-year-old to go through," he has said.
"It teaches you to be independent. It was bloody hard work, 24 hours a week singing, eight to nine in the morning at choir practice, then school, then four to six for a service and more practice. It wasn't Mickey Mouse, it was proper stuff and we were the best choir in the world. The concentration was the best thing about it, you couldn't make a mistake."
From the Guardian.
"Cook arrived at Bedford School on a music scholarship aged 13, having spent the previous five years at the St Paul's Cathedral Choir School in London – singing as a treble in Holland, Brazil and once with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa. But he quickly changed his priorities.
"You could see as soon as you saw him batting, and how quickly he saw the ball, that he was a natural," said Randall. "At that age they're learning technically, and I could only take him so far as a young boy. He was never one of those flamboyant players. But there was one time before he'd even played for the first team that he scored a century against them – for the MCC, when they'd turned up one player short."
From the Telegraph
Cook's success at cricket was all the more surprising in that he arrived at Bedford on a music scholarship from St Paul's Cathedral Choir School in London, where academic work - and certainly sport - for choristers would often take second place to rehearsing and performing music. Cook appeared as a soloist on a CD of 18th-century music by Blow, Boyce and Handel.
Andrew Morris, head of Bedford music, recalled that Cook arrived as an expert chorister and showed clear ability on the clarinet, piano and, later, the saxophone. He said: "I am happy to report that he made progress in all these areas and showed himself to be an innate musician, possessing a natural gift for phrasing and nuance.
"Indeed, it is my view that, were it not for his huge strength in cricket, he could have been a successful professional musician."
Talking to the current sports master and head of boarding, he says that the choristers often make the best cricketers in the school as, during the spring and summer, they can spend all their free time out in the playground batting, bowling and just playing.
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