The Yorkshire Post says: Music to the ears. A Whitsun tradition is revived

Some 32,000 children were somehow crammed in for the simple pleasure of community singing, and although such numbers would have today’s health and safety police cancelling all leave, the resurrection of the tradition is welcome.

This is the first Whitsun since the hall reopened after its £19m regeneration, and it will, fittingly, reverberate to the sound of 1,000 children from 20 local schools performing a selection of numbers they have written themselves.

Their imagination is admirable: one lyric tells of a thief who ran from Halifax to escape the gibbet; another of the tightrope walker Charles Blondin traversing the courtyard in 1861.

In an age in which community participation is almost a lost art, it is music to one’s ears to know that the Piece Hall’s rebirth has given Halifax so much to sing about.