John Mellor

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John is now in his second spell as accompanist with the Male Voice Choir and Grenoside Singers.

 

"I started learning to play the piano soon after my sixth birthday, whilst living in Cornwall during the war. My mother, being one of seven sisters, did not have the chance of learning a musical instrument, although she was a keen choir member and wanted to give her children the opportunity she had missed.

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I began organ lessons at the age of 14, an instrument I have always immensely enjoyed. I was the organist at two churches in Huddersfield before gaining a scholarship to study chemistry at St. Peter's College, Oxford, where I sometimes deputised for the organ scholar, George Pratt, who later became a professor of music at Huddersfield University.

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After our marriage in August 1965, my wife Margaret and I travelled to Africa and taught at two schools run by the Methodist Church in Zimbabwe, and returned to the UK in 1978, moving to Sheffield in the following year. I was accompanist for the Grenoside Male Voice Choir for 14 years when John Shaw was its conductor and am the organist at St Peter's Church, Ellesmere.

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A few years ago I did a part-time music and worship course at Cliff College and am particularly interested in the use of music as an aid to worship."