Music
Listen for
somebody
else
Catherine's biography in strings, breath, mistakes and beginnings.
1986
Thirty-eight pounds
The second-hand guitar came from a shop near Camden Road. Catherine labelled the strings with masking tape, sang too loudly and carried it on buses without learning how to close the case properly.
The children's choir
No auditions
She asked who wanted to come on Thursday.
Confident singers stood at the edges so quieter children heard support without feeling watched.
Before Mass she reminded them that the congregation was not an audience and they were not performing at people.
Rehearsal room · 1998
A beginner’s guitar lesson
Christmas · 2012
The Christmas rehearsal
Playground · 2021
Voices in the playground
The object remembered
A silver star by the handle
Ruby placed the sticker there at five and said the case looked lonely.
Catherine kept it through repairs, performances and hundreds of Thursday rehearsals.
The guitar now stands at school beside the Music Fund register—not as a sacred object, but as a working promise.
“If you lose the note, listen for somebody else.
That is why there are several of us.”
A note in Catherine's rehearsal book · 2012
