DESCRIPTION:
What a beautiful voice this boy had.
The photo is from Stephen R Beet's book "The Better Land - in search of the lost boy sopranos". The audio is from his "The Better Land" series.

Born in North London in 1930, Derek Barsham was an only child of musical parents. Froman early age Derek has sung with local church choirs but in 1942 he joined the1st Enfield company of the Boy's Brigade. One Sunday in bible class during the singing of the brigade hymn "father who hast made us brothers" Derek's voice could be heard above the others and Dr. Ridge, who had long wished to discover a boy soprano of the calibre of Ernest Lough, asked it he could take him to see Percy Jackson, a well known local singing teacher. So it was that Derek began his musical training and in September 1943 Dr. Ridge wrote to "Aunty Elizabeth", the assistant director of the BBC children's hour asking if she would hear him. Shortly afterward, Derek McCulloch ("Uncle Mac") asked Derek to record three carols.

From Stephen:
My connection playing up in Siberia, Hugh. Great you are posting
Derek: he's none too well at the moment. He's had to give up work and
driving too. I was going to add the following to your latest:

This was Derek's first commercial record, the recording of which was
disrupted by the V2 raids. Important to say that Derek's voice was
completely untrained. He just took lessons in breathing. Surely a
lessons to today's singing teachers! I have his original BBC test
recording (as yet unpublished) and is testament to true natural
singing.
The record you hear was the 8th take. Not because Derek got it wrong,
but because the V2's were over the hall all day!

--
Stephen
Стефан