Military Wives

The Military Wives Choir are a registered charity and network of 75 choirs in British military bases across the UK and overseas, bringing women in the military community closer together through singing. With over 2,200 members, the MWC network is tri-service (Royal Navy, Royal Marines, British Army, Royal Air Force) and any woman with a military connection can join including those currently serving, veterans, mothers, sisters and daughters, empowering women from across the military community. The organisation is also a subsidiary charity of SSAFA. History The first choir held their first rehearsal in April 2010 in Catterick Garrison. It was the idea of two Scots Guards wives who decided, whilst their husbands were deployed in Afghanistan in 2009, to put up posters at the Garrison to actively encourage and look for women interested in singing together, to help support and give the wives a focus whilst their husbands deployed. They engaged a well-known local music teacher and set about putting together a choir made up of wives, girlfriends and servicewomen and so the first choir was formed. A letter was written to choirmaster Gareth Malone looking for help and support with the choir; at that time he was receiving acclaim for his BBC television programme The Choir and felt that this was an idea that could be replicated. Malone then went to RMB Chivenor to start another choir there. Following the success at Chivenor, Malone, as part of the series, formed another choir at the Royal Citadel, Plymouth. Following the broadcast of the series and the release of the single Wherever You Are, more choirs were added at CTCRM, Lympstone and HMNB Portsmouth. The five choirs of Catterick, Chivenor, Plymouth, Portsmouth and Lympstone were invited to contribute to the album In My Dreams under the name Military Wives. The Choir: Military Wives The Military Wives Choir formed by Gareth Malone at the Royal Marines Base Chivenor, as part of the fourth series of the BBC/Twenty Twenty television series The Choir, entitled The Choir: Military Wives. The aim of the choir was to help the wives and girlfriends of servicemen currently deployed to Afghanistan express themselves through song.