Gareth Malone, the choirmaster and broadcaster known for The Choir and the Military Wives choir, has spoken about his difficult school years, his passion for music, and the sudden fame that followed a Christmas No 1 single.
In a recent interview, Malone looked back at a photograph of himself aged 15, taken at a party at his parents' house in Bournemouth. He recalled that school had been hard after his family moved from Wimbledon when he was 10. Attending an all-boys grammar school in a new area was an "aggressive gear shift", and he struggled to make friends.
"There was no physical bullying, but it was a sustained period of ostracisation that went on for the first three years of secondary school and dribbled on into year 10," he said. "It wasn't ever discussed." Malone found his escape in music and theatre, spending time in the school music studio with synthesisers, which sparked a lifelong passion for production.
Finding his path
After studying drama at the University of East Anglia and music at the Royal Academy of Music, Malone returned to Bournemouth, where he sold ice-cream while sending out CVs. A friend suggested he apply for a youth work role in Poole, working with children on an estate with high deprivation. That experience, he said, was where his passion for giving everyone opportunities through music came from.
He learned that to gain trust, he had to be himself. "The kids could smell the middle-classness on me, so any pretending to be cool and aloof wouldn't work," he said.
TV fame and its impact
Malone first appeared on TV in 2006's The Choir, after producers saw that the choir he ran with the London Symphony Orchestra had a high Google rating. He admitted to feeling nervous and "dithering quite a lot" in front of the camera, but applied the same authenticity he had learned working with the youth group.
When the Military Wives choir reached No 1 with "Wherever You Are", Malone found himself thrust into a new level of celebrity. "I was meeting Simon Cowell, having tea with Gary Barlow and dinner with Andrew Lloyd Webber," he said. "None of the bells and whistles has ever distracted me from the reason I got into this industry in the first place 20 years ago."
Reflecting on the loss of a friend earlier this year, Malone said the friend told him: "We never did go for that pint." He added: "The telly, the degrees – all of those achievements are wonderful. But it's not the main thing. People and community are."
Malone lives in London with his wife and three children. His new live show, Sing-A-Long-A-Gareth: At the Movies, is on tour across the UK this autumn.
