rambles with a camera: I just have to share this story......................................The Military Wives

I have just read a lovely story about the soloist of the Military Wives Choir.

This is her story.

Soloist: Samantha Stevenson star of BBC Two series The Choir.
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I owe Gareth Malone so much because he brought the confidence out in me and got me singing again,” Stevenson said.

When Malone approached her, she was living a lonely existence on the Royal Marines base in Chivenor, Devon.
Her husband, Lance Corporal John Stevenson of 24 Commando Regiment, Royal Engineers, was about to embark upon his first tour of duty in Afghanistan and she was left to bring up their two children, Elliv, 17 months, and Brodie, seven, who suffers from an autistic spectrum disorder.
A member of a junior choir in Perth, Scotland from the ages of 12 to 17, she won a place to study music at Edinburgh University but gave it up for love. “I planned to go but then I got other priorities - I met my husband,” she said.
“I was 17, and when you’re that age you don’t think about careers, you just think, ‘I’ve got a boyfriend, that’s more important’. I went for an audition at Edinburgh and was offered a place, and then just didn’t bother going. Then I got married and singing went on the back burner.”
Her husband, also 28, worked in a hairdressing salon when they first met but joined the Army six years ago.
The couple moved to Cambridge, but Stevenson’s attempt to join a local church choir was met with rejection when they deemed her voice “too big”.
“I didn’t have a lot of confidence, and when the church choir didn’t want me it made me feel even lower,” she recalled.
She signed up for Malone’s choir as a way of making new friends while her husband was away, and says that the experience has changed her life.
“We knew people were going to watch the programme but we didn’t know how big it was going to be. Never in a million years did we think people would be backing us for the Christmas number one. It’s wonderful,” she said.
“When I first joined Gareth’s choir, I thought it was fantastic but I still felt he was going to pick up on my voice and ask me to leave. I just had no self worth.
“Now people stop me in the street and say how fantastic the choir is - it’s quite overwhelming. And my husband says I’m a lot more confident than I was. He had never heard me sing properly until he watched the programme.”

When the choir performed at the Remembrance Day service at the Royal Albert Hall, Stevenson wore an evening gown but has no plans for a glamorous image change. She said: “I’ve got my tattoos and I’m not going to wear stuff that isn’t me - I am who I am.”