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New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 761, 19 February 1954, Page 25

(; FORGE MITCHELL, who started the radio vogue for choirs and glee clubs, is a tall, thin, bespectacled man who could easily be mistaken for an accountant. His appearance is not deceptive; he WAS an accountant, and it was only during war service in the Army that he thought of organising a choir "just for the fun of it." Towards the end of the year, says the "Radio Times,’ a BBC producer heard about Mitchell’s Royal Army Pay Corps Swing Choir, and invited the leader and his 12 choristers-in-uniform to go to London for an audition. "At the end of the war I was asked to provide a choir for a programme called "Cabin in the Cotton,’ Mitchell recalls, "and after the first few broadcasts I began to receive offers to take part in other programmes." He decided to give up accountancy in favour of choirmastering, and within a short time had an organisation of nearly 200 singers and was providing choirs, under various titles, for more than two dozen shows. "At that\ time I was working 16 hours a day, seven days a week," he says. "It was too much and I decided to cut down." Now he has a permanent staff of 24 singers and reinforces the nucleus as his contracts demand, Seven of the original 12 members of the R.A.P.C. Swing Choir still work with him. The photograph (above) shows the George Mitchell Choir (left). Paul Fenoulet is conducting the BBC Variety Orchestra, and at the microphone is Elizabeth Welsh.