This choir of around 30 ladies was formed in 1970 in response to demand from employees of what was then the English China Clay Company, which was supporting several male voice choirs. Starting as the John Keay House Ladies Choir, under the leadership of Joan Richards, and later led by John Richards, it grew in numbers and excellence, becoming the ECC Ladies Choir and winning many prestigious prizes in local and national festivals. The choir was directed by Ann Fleet from 1994-2013, in that time the company became part of the Imerys Group, hence another name change and with it a change of style, introducing a wider and lighter range of music. Heather Vaughan has been the Musical Director since 2014. The Singers perform as requested by any organisation seeking to raise funds and also at weddings and other occasions. Every Christmas they perform for their own charity, Cornwall Hospice Care. (From the Imerys Singers website: https://imeryssingers.wixsite.com/choir/about_us

“I first got the job of accompanying Imerys Singers in the same Summer that I left school. I think it was before my 16th birthday and I was delighted to be earning £10 for a 2 hour rehearsal, more than double the hourly rate that some of my friends earned working in a local shop. Ann Fleet was the musical director and had contacted David Hendry (then head of music at Fowey Community College) to ask if he knew of any young pianists who might be able to take on the role of accompanist. I’d already done quite a bit of accompanying with various singers and instrumentalists and Ann, as an accompanist and piano teacher, was able to give me plenty of guidance as well as passing me more accompanying work.

My mum sang with St Blazey Ladies Choir but later joined Imerys Singers (after I’d been playing for them for quite a few years). The requirement for Choir members to have a connection to the company had long since been removed but she would’ve qualified as my Dad worked in Landscape at Imerys for a long time.

The choir was still known as ECC Ladies in 2001 (even though the company had already changed to Imerys) and rehearsed at John Keay House until the site was sold to Cornwall College in 2002. Imerys then provided a rehearsal space at Burngullow, which we used for a while but the choir later decided to hire Carclaze Sunday School for rehearsals.

There haven’t been any national competitions or international trips since I joined but we try to fit in a trip to Southampton every other year and somewhere else on the alternate years. Our trip to Pembrokeshire and performing in St Davids Cathedral was a highlight.

There were lots of local music festival performances in my early years with the choir, with St Austell being the most regular one. We used to compete in the Advanced Ladies Choirs Class then the winner of that class would compete against the winners of the Advanced Male Voice Choirs Class (usually one of the Imerys Male Choirs) for the Championship title. There also used to be a class specifically for Clay Choirs. The standard in the ladies choir classes was always very high and we used to lament the fact that, in spite of this, ladies’ choirs have always struggled to attract the audience numbers that the male voice choirs do.

One of the most memorable (or sometimes not!) of our engagements used to be the ECC Pensioners’ Dinner where there would be performances from all of the Imerys choirs and a brass band, lots of free food and even more free drink.

In 2020, the choir planned to celebrate its 50th anniversary but a global pandemic meant that no concerts or social gatherings could take place so it wasn’t until July 2022 that we managed to mark the occasion with a celebratory afternoon tea in Par. I think we’re the only clay choir still in existence to have reached this milestone so it was definitely worth celebrating.” (Hannah Hawken)