Fri 18 Dec 2020 02.00 EST
Nine-year-old Elijah Versteeg is sad about his Christmas choral concert this year. Instead of singing carols with his friends in a tinsel-strewn Inverness church with his family and friends in the audience, he’ll sit down in his living room, mute his computer, don headphones and sing into the void.
Battered by shifting and complex Covid restrictions, children’s choirs across the country have tried to come up with alternatives to their traditional Christmas concerts. Some have triumphed but others say they are exhausted, “hanging by a thread” after nine months of restrictions and at risk of closure.