Ssssh!

This is an unbelievable story! Just imagine if this happened to your school choir!

First the shopping centre security guard stepped in. Then it was the turn of a police officer.
But it wasn't drunken youths or shoplifters who required their attention. It was a group of enthusiastic carol singers from a local primary school. The children, aged between six and 11, were told they were singing too loudly. Parents and many of the shoppers who had enjoyed the carols were astonished by the intervention.

"They were a small group singing to raise money and they were singing beautifully," said their headmaster Ian Jones yesterday. "After a bit a security guard came over and said we had only meant to be singing for one hour and could we please stop. I just said 'No', because I knew we were allowed to sing between 11am and 3pm. He said he had complaints from tenants that we were too loud. " just asked how he proposed to stop children singing. In the end he said we would have to stop or he would call the police."

The 29 pupils from Ysgol San Sior school, aged between six and 11, had permission to sing at the Victoria Centre in Llandudno, North Wales, last Saturday to raise funds for the school. "I couldn't believe what they were saying," added Mr Jones. "Some of the parents were incredulous. A member of the public came over and said she thought the singing was fantastic."
Then a Police Community Support Officer arrived and shortly afterwards Mr Jones decided he and his pupils should pack up.

Organiser Debbie Ankers, whose nine-year-old daughter was singing, said: "To begin with, I thought it was a joke - it was just ridiculous. They were asking us to leave but we couldn't just leave when we had children there with parents coming later to pick them up."

Sue Nash, manager of the Victoria Centre, admitted last night that security staff should not have intervened. "It was quite loud apparently, and we have had problems with acoustics in the centre whenever we have had live music here," she said. "It was a misunderstanding but it has all been sorted now. Mistakes do happen."

The pupils will be allowed to return to perform their carols at the centre this weekend - and will not be required to sing quietly.