ONE of my favourite scenes in movie history is in Zulu where the brave Welsh defenders of Rourke’s Drift face off the Zulu hordes and sing ‘Men of Harlech’ in defiance.

Then the Zulus line up on a hill top and sing a song of tribute to ‘brave warriors’. On the downside it probably didn’t happen. 

Whilst versions of ‘Men of Harlech’ had been going around since the mid-Victorian days and even a lyric sheet similar to the one sang by Ivor Emanuel in the film ‘could’ possibly have been on the lips of the largely Welsh regiment, for sure the Zulu song was definitely right out.

The brilliant Yorkshire composer John Barry had basically reused one of his old guitar-based instrumental pieces from his ‘John Barry 7’ days , a jazzy beat combo gigging around the clubs and coffee bars of Leeds and York, and called it ‘Zulu Stomp’ .

Worse still the ‘Welsh Regiment’ at the time was a Warwickshire Regiment, with a lot of Welsh soldiers in it mind, but their regimental song was ‘The Warwickshire lad’.

They might as well have used ‘Funky Moped’ by Jasper Carrot.

So singing to your enemies might not be all it’s cracked up to be in films, but this last week Bridgwater has been playing its part.

For the best part of 20 years I’ve been taking the Bridgwater and wider Somerset area ‘Voice of the People’ choir of Yvette Staelens on a European tour a year.

This year it was our twin town Priverno in Italy. Yvette’s singers meet a local choir from a different country, and do a concert. Simple, but effective.

And what a sense of one-world unity and solidarity that is. Yvette is thinking that this year might be her last. Let's hope not.

The Voice of the People choir was created in the Bridgwater Arts Centre and Bridgwater singers have travelled since then to France, Italy, the Czech Republic, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Montenegro, and Cornwall.

It's not Zulu, but nor is it ‘Oh What a Lovely War’ either. But it's another Bridgwater triumph!