Criminal beauty

“Oh not HIM again!’ I said to Jane. ‘Haven’t we seen more than enough of him by now? It’ll just be the same old thing - again.” I was talking about Gareth Malone and “The Choir”. Same old formula, I thought. Goes to a bunch of uninterested kids/women/workers, and magically transforms them into a choir that brings tears to everyone’s eyes. The first series was at a West London comprehensive of rough kids. Then he went to a housing estate, military wives, hospital, factory and ferry workers, a school right next to Grenfell Tower - and now he was off to Aylesbury Prison, a secure unit for the worst male young offenders. Here we go again… the same magic touch and we’ll see the teenagers transformed into a Welsh male voice choir, or more likely a swinging gospel choir.

How wrong I was! You may have seen it. We watched the two programmes on catch-up, and they were moving, largely because Gareth didn’t succeed - well, not like elsewhere. He had underestimated the scale of the mountain he and the inmates had to climb. For one thing, they weren’t petty criminals. They were there for long sentences, for crimes like armed robbery, stabbing, drug-dealing. They were violent. They formed themselves into gangs even in prison and so there were fights and injuries several times a week. Many of them were struggling with mental and personality disorders. At every point, it seemed, they and any visitors were searched for weapons. Getting a group together was impossible. The most he managed was three. “This is the hardest situation I’ve ever faced,” he said and he almost admitted defeat.

And yet, he didn’t give up. He always saw possibilities in the offenders, even though society and they themselves had written them off. Their world and their music were totally different from his. They could lose their cool at any moment and walk out. But he told them when they had “done good”; he recognised and affirmed their talents. And in the end, in an empty wing of the prison, a handful of them gave performances of work they’d written themselves to their parents, staff and visitors. It was a huge achievement for them; they realised they weren’t lost causes. Happily, although Gareth’s time there ended, the impressive female governor was going to continue a music programme building on his foundations.

However this isn’t just a story about a handful of young criminals. It’s about seeing the good in others, even when we think there isn’t any - because there IS. In everybody. We’re all made “in the image of God”, and whatever that means it must be good. Jesus called himself the Light of the World and one thing light does is reveal beauty. In those young people there was music and poetry, and a longing to be better. It’s easy to write people off. God never does. He sees beauty - and hope.

(First appeared in Grove Community News March 2020)