Our anniversary season ended on 18th July 2007 with a special celebratory presentation on key moments in recorded history by the BBC's Mark Lowther, followed by a champagne toast by the capacity audience to the Society's 60 years proposed by Chairman Roger Hard.

SOME EARLY MEMORIES OF WHAT IS NOW GRMS

These are provided by our longest serving member, who has asked to remain anonymous, although his prediliction for Bach cantatas is well known!

My earliest recollection is of a musical appreciation group affiliated to the educational unit of the Co-Operative Society. The group was organised by a Co-Op employee Mr Bill Bailey and met weekly in an upstairs room at the old Co-Op building in North Street, Guildford not far from the repertory theatre.

Our equipment consisted of an electrical gramophone with a single large loudspeaker mounted on the stage at one end of the hall. It played 78rpm shellac records which meant using up to six double-sided 12" discs for a standard symphony.

The programmes comprised mostly pieces chosen by members. Our staple diet was Mozart, Beethoven and Mendelssohn etc but on one occasion we were contacted by a guest presenter who suggested we might like to hear a programme of music by Webern which did not go down very well. I don't think anyone rushed out to buy the records!

Because few people in those days could afford big record collections of their own, some of the records had to be ordered by post from a public library in London although they were not always in a very good condition. The packages which arrived were not only fragile but very heavy and after use they all had to be repacked and returned to the library by the due date.

One member collected a small subscription each week to cover running costs such as library fees, postage, interval refreshments etc although I don't think we paid anything for the hall. Overall the organisation was very informal with no Officers or Committee, Annual General Meetings or minutes etc. My recollection of the number of people who attended each week is hazy but I guess we had about twenty at most meetings.

Subsequently, the Society has met at the Guildford Institute in Ward Street, Bishop Reindorp School (from 1989 to 2001), and since 2001 at the Park Barn Centre.