For those new to the Choir, or members who are unaware of the Choir roots, it was founded on August 1st 1998.  James and I got together in the March of that year. I entered St James’ Church for the first time at their Good Friday service where James was Organist and Choir Master, I then joined the St. James’ Church Choir where the late Diane Sutton, Lyn Rendle, and the late Janet Martin (Eric Griffiths’ sister) were members. I was warmly welcomed and

James and I decided to hold a Prom Concert later that year. The ‘St James’ Concert Choir’ sometimes called ‘St James Festival Choir’ was formed. This was the start of our road to 'Music is Life'. Music had always been a big part of James’ life but for me, apart from a short spell as choir boy at Yapton Church, singing or attempting to was a completely new adventure.

The ‘Prom Concert’ with guest's and the ‘ Hanover Band’ was a huge success and led to our first Christmas Concert in St James’ Church hall, that was where Eva Costa made her guest debut, singing a solo. We are today still using the printed Christmas song sheets which were typed out for us by Janet Martin who also printed the tickets and programmes. These song sheets will get continual use as one of our many fond memories of Janet. 

 In 1999 we repeated the success of the year before by holding a Prom and Christmas Concert. We even took the Prom Concert with Orchestra on tour to ‘Rose Green, Bognor Regis. The Prom Concert included many songs from the Musicals. Joe Costa and I were the only men in the Choir and had much fun performing songs from South Pacific.  Sally Griffiths (now Redgrave) and members of Eva & Joe's other choir joined us along with Marie Stoneham and Bridget Power. 

In those two years we raised money for St James’ Church (Sound System £1300, Choir Robes £1300 and a small donation towards the new Chapel. From these early beginnings all other types of Concerts and events followed. In the October my mother died and money raised at her funeral at St James’ was used to open our first Choir bank account, which was then under the umbrella of the church PCC. We were able to buy new hymn books for the Church. In that same year I persuaded James to play in a 12 hour ‘Orgonathon’ for ‘Children in Need’. On the night of our ‘Remembrance Concert, which started at 7.30pm, James continued to play all through the night until 7.30am and didn’t rest until he had played at the Sunday Morning Service, so as you can see nothing much has changed with our fund raising events. The main thing is that we enjoy it in the hope that others do too. 

The Choir continued to grow and in the spring of 2004 we held our first AGM on the 21st April. Because of the connection with the Church and his name we wanted to retain ‘James’ in the title of the Choir and we decided to add his middle name ‘Edwin’ to form ‘The Edwin James Festival Choir’ (not forgetting our fantastic Orchestra) . We also wrote our Mission Statement: ‘ The Choir's aim is to promote the Art Form 'Music is Life' involving local people in the Choir and Orchestra, bringing a wide range of Music to the Arun area by local people for local people' 

A committee was formed and David Barker who was a member of St James’ Church was our first Chairman. David and Susan Dyball were at that time our ‘Honorary Patrons’ and Doris Fitzgerald, one of our longest serving supporters became one of our earliest Patrons. (David Barker, David and Susan Dyball are currently Choir patrons). 

Our thanks to everyone including our Patrons who have become part of our Choir over the years. Our Choir is a family of friends who love to come together to sing and that will never change, regardless of how large the Choir might become. James and I have a trunk load of memories and a life full of your love. Long may we sing!