A\u00a0Farmer\u00a0is celebrating after a choir he sings with won\u00a0Britain\u2019s Got Talent.<\/p>\n
Ted Howard-Jones, 63, who is secretary of the Nettlebed Farming Club and runs Cholsey Farm in Ibstone, described Hawkstone Farmers\u2019 Choir\u2019s success at the finals on Saturday as \u201cunbelievable\u201d.<\/p>\n
Receiving 28.72 per cent of the votes, far ahead of the second-placed act which had 13.36 per cent, the choir\u2019s singers erupted with joy after their performance of\u00a0This is Home, a song which was specially written for the choir.<\/p>\n
Mr Howard-Jones said: \u201cIt just meant so much to us. I first heard it back in February. It really talks to the rural community and our sense that our farms are our home.<\/p>\n
\u201cI suppose that rings true for everyone \u2014 but for farmers in particular. It\u2019s often generational, they are guardians of the land. We are custodians of that piece of ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it just brought us joy and that came through to the audience both in the theatre and on television.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cWe obviously took a risk in singing a song no one had ever heard before. But it was a very catchy tune and we found that after a couple of rehearsals, the cameramen were humming along.\u201d<\/p>\n
The choir, consisting of 34 singers, was founded by Jeremy Clarkson as part of an advertising campaign for his brewing firm in May last year. It is made up of those who work in farming, with singers selected last year out of 500 farmers who auditioned.<\/p>\n
The choir stayed together and was invited to compete in\u00a0Britain\u2019s Got Talent, travelling to Birmingham Hippodrome in October for the auditions.<\/p>\n
Clarkson visited the choir at the Apollo Theatre before their performance on Saturday and was in the audience alongside the farmers\u2019 friends and family members.<\/p>\n
The group are, as Mr Howard-Jones describes, \u201ca true bunch of amateurs\u201d.<\/p>\n
He explained: \u201cWe weren\u2019t manicured or groomed to the nth degree\u2026 I think that sort of struck a chord as a genuine act. We probably weren\u2019t as \u2018professional\u2019 as some of the others but I think that worked in our favour.\u201d<\/p>\n
The group will be awarded a cash prize of \u00a3250,000 for their win, much of which they plan to donate to mental health charities supporting those in the farming sector.<\/p>\n
They have also won a spot to perform at the Royal Variety Show in November.<\/p>\n
Mr Howard-Jones said: \u201cWe knew that within the rural community, we were going to get quite good support but we didn\u2019t know whether that would matter against popular acts.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cStrangely, I didn\u2019t have the same butterflies as last time. The crowd reaction was so positive and we knew the song so well. We were so pleased just to be there. We didn\u2019t really mind whether we won, we were having fun.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat was much more tense was waiting for the results, 10 times more tense than actually going on stage.\u201d They celebrated with a trip to the pub. Mr Howard-Jones said: \u201cI had to leave rather earlier than some as I had a flight the next morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs I was leaving the hotel at four in the morning with my cases and having had an hour or two of sleep, they were all coming in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amanda Holden, one of the four judges, had given the choir her \u201cgolden buzzer\u201d which fast-forwarded them from their auditions in October through to the semi-finals, bypassing other selection rounds.<\/p>\n
After the performance on Saturday, she said: \u201cWhat an incredible song. An amazing performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am incredibly proud of all of you. The harmonising was out of this world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fellow judge Simon Cowell said: \u201cI thought that was absolutely stunning, heartfelt, joyous\u2026\u00a0Britain\u2019s Got Talent\u00a0is about celebrating talent and tonight that was absolutely on the money.\u201d<\/p>\n
The group hopes to reunite for a celebratory lunch or dinner but most are focused on working on their farms, which many left for more than a week to rehearse and perform.<\/p>\n
In the days following their win, Mr Howard-Jones joked that his phone had \u201cpractically melted\u201d from all of the messages of congratulations he had received.<\/p>\n
He is certain the group will stay together and continue performing in the future, describing it as \u201clike family\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A\u00a0Farmer\u00a0is celebrating after a choir he sings with won\u00a0Britain\u2019s Got Talent. Ted Howard-Jones, 63, who is secretary of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,1692],"class_list":["post-57062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-britain","tag-britain","tag-farming"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116699509900368164","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}