The new concert season for Pembroke and District Male Voice Choir began appropriately close to home - returning to Pembroke Town Hall for the third year in a row to support the local Ladies Lifeboat Guild to mark St David’s Day.

A ‘full house’ greeted musical director Christine Lloyd and the choristers on a very wet evening. They were welcomed on behalf of the RNLI Ladies by Daphne Bush.

In keeping with the very Welsh occasion, the choir included several items in ‘the language of Heaven’ - and second bass Meurig Rees was called up to provide a pronunciation tutorial for the audience who joined in the ever popular ‘Ar Hyd Y Nos’ among others.

With the RNLI’s many lifesaving roles in mind, ‘Home From The Sea’ was included with solo verses by Dean Maiden, Matthew John and Chris Rooker.

Regular soloist Alyson Griffiths chose a medley of Welsh tunes on flute and was warmly applauded. Carole Rees was choir accompanist.

MC Phil Lloyd was in fine form, but instead of digging into his store of stories and jokes, he sprang a surprise. Phil - a second tenor - took solo spot in the second half with the eight-verse ‘Tenors’ Chorus’, aimed especially at the high-noting first tenors. He had audience and choir colleague in stitches with the adapted words, sung to the Irish folk tune ‘Wild Rover’, with everyone joining in the choruses.

At the interval the hard-working RNLI Ladies catered for well over 100 people with piping hot cawl, cheese and Welsh cakes, setting everyone up for the second half.

Before the National Anthem concluded a memorable Welsh evening, conductor Christine Lloyd called up Dean Maiden and presented him with a certificate marking 20 years as a choir member - one of many long serving choristers in the ranks today.

This was not the first engagement for the choir this year. Earlier in the week several members had taken up an invitation to sing informally at Portfield Special School, Haverfordwest, to both junior and senior classes. This was a first visit and the choir will be very pleased to return again.