The performances were leisurely: some compared them most favourably with Aldeburgh’s great tradition. Flushed with success we could not wait to do another opera, so we commissioned Christopher Bowers Broadbent who played the organ in Noyes Fludde to write one. This was the Pied Piper of Hamyln which we rehearsed in the gardens of St James' Church as it was summer and performed in Holland Park Open Air Theatre. After that we decided that two operas in one year was excessive, so the decision was taken to commission John Gardner to write one for Christmas 1973.

This was Bel and the Dragon the apocryphal story of Daniel. I remember a journey to London Zoo at 7:00 am to record 90 seconds of lion-roar. When it came to that moment in the opera our lions sounded far more terrifying than they looked. By this time we had more children in the group than we could properly cope with - but as always a solution was found. Our dragon had approximately 40 tiny pattering feet.

It was about this time that most schools were putting on Joseph and His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat and as we had no composer to turn to, we opted for it the following year, in the full West End version, rock band and all. This introduced electric guitars and rock percussion to West 11 Opera which pushed the decibels up to a level hitherto unknown in the church. Fears of drowning the singing were expressed passionately but when it came to it the children, unbelievably, found even more power in their lungs.