On a visit to his country home, Philip Luard, a young and idealistic Anglican curate working in London, a fan of cricket and church music, discovers that a local boy called Teddy Faircloth has a beautiful singing voice. Luard quickly develops a chaste but intensely romantic affection for Teddy and whisks him away to London where he supports the boy’s enrollment in a choir school. Teddy’s talents are nurtured in this new school and the young country boy suddenly finds himself with prospects which stretch far beyond the life of an agricultural labourer.



The Romance of a Choir Boy follows the progress of this relationship through all its highs and lows, through moments both touching and awkward. Nicholson also presents what Andrew May describes in his introduction as “an achingly nostalgic portrait of England” and rural life in particular, which is made all the more poignant by the fact that the author and his characters have no idea that this entire way of life is shortly to be swept away by the violence of war and the onward march of technology.