Billericay's citizen of musicians...

This year's Billericay Citizen of the Year is a softly spoken Scotsman from Fife.

Not only was John Stevenson not born or brought up in the town, he doesn't even live there.

So what made Billericay Mayflower Rotary Club choose him for this rare honour?

"His outstanding contribution to the community of Billericay and his inspiration of young people to enable them, through music, to be ambassadors for the town," according to Rotarian Peter Owen, ex-chairman of governors at Billericay School where John has been head of music for the past 12 years.

John devotes hours of his own out-of-school time to the Billericay School Studio Orchestra, a group of around 80 young musicians and singers who travel round the world taking the good name of Billericay with them.

When in England the group are in demand, not just for school fetes and fund-raising, but for programmes such as the BBC's children's flagship Blue Peter.

So what is it about the studio orchestra that sets them apart from other school bands? Apart from the high standard of musicianship, and the pure joy that emanates from them as they perform, it is the music. The band from Billericay plays pop.

When John left school he was due to go to music college. Then he was offered the chance to join a band that had a record in the top 20 --college was forgotten as the band toured San Tropez.

After that he moved south to take over from the legendary Rick Wakeman in a band called Spinning Wheel.

However it became clear that the band wasn't going to follow in Rick's gargantuan footsteps, and it was time to move on again. The move came by a strange chance.

"We used to play every weekend in the same place," remembered John. "I was chatting to a girl about leaving school one night --saying that I always wanted to teach music.

The next week she asked: 'Were you serious about teaching music? I've got you an appointment with my headteacher tomorrow morning at 9.30am'."

And so John's school teaching career began, training as he taught.

He settled into Chase Cross School, Romford and lived nearby with his wife Mairianne and their children Gemma and Craig. All was fine, the music department thrived and John ran a school big band which played the sort of music favoured by Glenn Miller's and his brass players.

Then he heard about a school in Billericay with a music department that had run right down. In the style of Lenny Henry's Hope and Glory, it needed a knight in shining armour -- or at very least a decent musician with a bit of charisma.

Eventually John "took it on as a challenge". He sold his home, moved his young family to South Woodham Ferrers and took up the reins in the new school.

It was to be more of a challenge than he could have possibly imagined.

Three weeks after starting, his son, then only three-and-a-half, ran out in front of a car. He survived, but remains in a wheelchair and now attends a special school.

"He was unconscious for two months," remembers John. "My life became an endless round of teaching, rushing to Oldchurch Hospital, then rushing back to teach privately to help meet the bills."

His plans for the music department were put on hold as he took on an extra 30 hours of private music lessons a week to help meet the new financial strain imposed by the 50-mile round trips he and his wife were making.

He felt he had let the children in the school's music department down. "It was coming up to an open evening and we should have been doing something.

"I went to the kids and said: 'I'm sorry' because we should have been meeting to rehearse. But they said 'We've been meeting and rehearsing'.

"Then I felt terrible because I knew the music they had was totally unsuitable -- Beethoven's 5th or something. I asked: 'What have we got?' and the answer was two girl singers, a bass guitar and a drummer.

"So, we did two songs and it worked out quite well. Some of the parents were a bit 'What is this?' because they were expecting a traditional orchestra. It was a matter of looking at what we had."

There has been criticism of the type of music that the orchestra perform, particularly in the early days when John found himself having to defend the youngsters from those who felt they were not playing proper music.

"It was a way of inspiring pupils," he explained. "By the next year we had an orchestra that was 80 strong."

John organised an evening with the orchestra at school, but decided to enter the youngsters for a London Weekend Television Arts competition first to help ward off any criticism.

"We had five minutes to set up and three minutes to play. We won the region and second place overall."

Under John's guidance the orchestra has gone from strength to strength, playing the music that youngsters like best. They have performed in Disneyland Paris, America, Poland, London, and of course, Billericay.

"People have to understand," says John with that charismatic twinkle in his eyes, "that we strive for the same excellence as a traditional orchestra."

They achieve it too, with arrangements carefully written by him that help the newest musicians play beside the most experienced.

Billericay School has almost twice the national average of students learning, and more importantly enjoying, musical instruments. "It can be very embarrassing for a youngster to get onto a bus with a violin case -- but if they can say: 'I played on Blue Peter', then others look up to them instead of taking the mickey," says John warmly.

Now parents from as far away as Romford go to appeal to get their musical children into Billericay school from outside the area.

"Just recently," he says with a knowing smile, "the orchestra was playing at the Brentwood Centre. A member of staff heard someone say: 'Are they miming?' and she was able to tell them "No, they're playing."

The award is, he says: "A great privilege. It's not given lightly. I was very surprised when I heard. Really pleased. It was a validation of everything we do."

Note worthy - Teacher John Stevenson who replaced keyboard wizard Rick Wakeman in the band Spinning Wheel has put Billericay School firmly on the musical map

Picture: NICK ANSELL

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.