FOR these children, it was an opportunity to raise the roof.

Young singers from all over Oxfordshire were taking part in the four-day Oxford Festival of Voices, a chance for most of them to showcase their talents in public for the first time.

About 2,000 primary school pupils from all corners of the county had been recruited to join in.

They were divided into four massed choirs of about 500, and one group sang each evening in the Nicholas Tingewick Hall at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Headington, to packed audiences of parents, friends and other concertgoers. This picture above, taken at the fourth festival in 1987, shows some of the children in full voice at rehearsal.

Organiser and conductor Jeremy Rowe said at the time: “It started four years ago as a two-day event and now it’s grown to four days. It has always been a great success and very enjoyable.”

The concerts featured a variety of music, from classical works to pop and rock songs as well as a variety of film and stage show numbers. Mr Rowe, deputy head of St Andrew’s School in London Road, Headington, said: “The children have been learning songs in their individual schools for six months.

“They come together for the first time the day on which they are due to sing together.

“We have a rehearsal in the hall at the hospital in the afternoon, then have a big picnic at St Nicholas School, Old Marston, before heading back to the hall for the performance.”

The children were joined every evening by a choir of high school teenagers from Detroit in the United States, who called themselves the Ambassadors for Peace.

The Oxford festival, which had been sponsored by the National Association for Primary Education, had been so successful that it had spawned a national event.

A National Festival of Voices was planned for the first time at the Royal Albert Hall in London, in the presence of Princess Michael of Kent.

About 1,800 youngsters, including 400 from Oxfordshire, were to repeat the programme from the Oxford festival two weeks later.