“He has not ironed the creases on that uniform right,” says Donna Sutcliffe, wife of a corporal, with an indulgent smile at the cadet. “To us Gareth is a completely ordinary bloke.”
This slight man dressed in fatigues for the photographers is not an ordinary bloke at all. He is Gareth Malone and, quite apart from now being likely to hold the Christmas No 1 slot, he is also the television choirmaster responsible for leading Donna from a simple life as an army wife and a mother of four to a new identity as a second soprano in a popular choir.
“In Tesco a woman came up to me to say she had seen me on the telly,” says Donna. “Not in a million years did we think it would get this big. If we were No 1 at Christmas, it would be the ultimate.”
For Malone, Friday’s news of the soaring pre-sales of the as-yet-unreleased track Wherever You Are, performed by his choir of military wives from north Devon and Plymouth, came as a shock. “Oh God, I am constantly going to be checking the figures now,” he admits. “Although it would be fantastic if we were No 1, I am also a bit worried there will be more adrenaline involved this Christmas than I might have liked.”
Malone has a 15-month-old daughter and had been planning a quiet break with his wife. “My job is so stimulating and so verbal and so people-based that when I am on my own I tend to want to put on a DVD and get under a rug.”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.