Chorus began as "SWEET 'n LOW" (Sheffield Ladies Barbershop Harmony Club). The Sweet 'n Low name came from a well-known low calorie sweetener product wrapper!

October 3rd, 1978 marked our beginning, when a group of only 9 ladies, together with Tony Hill, our Musical Director, started out on the Barbershop scene. Tony was a member of the Sheffield male barbershop chorus "Hallmark of Harmony", with whom our group has had close links for some twenty years.   Tony put in a tremendous amount of effort and was rewarded when, by then a group of 22 ladies,  we were asked to "mike warm" at our very first convention, at Manchester, in 1980. In these early days we had not become members of Sweet Adelines but we were in the Ladies Association of British Barbershop Singers (LABBS for short!). At the following year's convention we were proud to receive the the Novice Chorus Award. It hadn't taken us long to become well-known on the local music scene ... our scrapbook of those times had cuttings from the newspapers and programmes from various events at which we performed.

By April 1980 we had grown to a total of some 25 ladies and were given a half page write up (with photograph) in the "Star", our local newspaper. The article describes us as a group of ordinary (!) girls, housewives, nurses, secretaries, shop assistants and others (but not one ladies hairdresser!). In those days our popular songs included 'Down by the River Side' and 'Just a Song at Twilight'. As today, we were giving public performances at local clubs and hospitals, often for charity.

Our first competition entry was a local one, the "Leader Entertainer of the Year", sponsored by a local paper on the 19th July, 1980  We were immensely proud to win this competition and received a Silver Cup as a result.

By 1981 we had grown to some 39 ladies, with ages ranging from 16 years upwards. In that year we were back in Manchester for the LABBS Convention and there we won the Novice Chorus Trophy. We were also were placed 9th out of 22 in the overall chorus listings..... not a bad effort for so young a group! These results once again got us some very favourable publicity in our local newspaper.

In 1982 we reached 6th overall position when the LABBS Convention was held in Loughborough

1983 saw us grow to 42 members and qualify for the national ladies barbershop finals in Exeter. We were delighted to reach 4th place out of sixteen chorus entries. A newspaper report in December of that year contains an amusing item. The reporter interviewed one of our ladies, Pauline, looked at her lapel badge which said 'Pauline Bari' and said to her, " Bari, that's an unusual name." .... "No, you fool", was her reply, "that's what I sing. It's short for baritone" ! Needless to say the reporter was extremely impressed with our singing and thanked both us and our male counterparts for ending his ignorance of this musical art form!

For some time, a famous local comedian and TV star, Bobby Knutt, had been our President. He kindly hosted The Northern Preliminary Chorus Championships here in Sheffield in 1983. As host club we were not among the competitors. The event was won by Liverpool.

In December 1983 we we extremely pleased and pround to be asked to sing at the Annual Dinner of the City of  Sheffield Chamber of Trade. This was held at the Cutlers' Hall in the centre of town. Sheffield has hundreds of years of tradition in the steel and cutlery industries.

By 1988 we had firmly established ourselves on the UK Ladies barbershop "scene".  Northern Preliminaries saw is reach a very creditable third place among 22 entries. It is interesting to note that our group numbered a modest 26 singers in this competition, the winners having a powerful 45 on stage!

The 1990's saw a few changes in our organisation. We had lost Tony as our MD  and our numbers had declined somewhat to 26 ladies. Pam Teasdale stepped into the breach and led the Chorus for some time until, in 1991, the local newspaper of 10th August  reported our eventual discovery of a new Musical Director... Neville Roe, husband of our member Sylvia. A former club entertainer and now a local business man, he had never worked with barbershop singers before (he is now a member of Hallmark of Harmony!). By this time we had moved our rehearsal rooms to the present location, the Salvation Army Hall in Duke Street. 

Under Neville's leadership we continued to build our numbers, give fine performances at a variety of  venues and reach commendably high placings in competitions.

In the most recent years, Neville relinquished the MD position to our present leader, Pam Teasdale.  We have also given up our LABBS affilations and have instead joined Sweet Adelines International.

In 1997 and 98  we were delighted to take part in the National Sweet Adelines Convention at Derby. Even more enjoyable for us was to see our quartet 'Magic' take second place (Silver) in the 1998 competitions.

As we moved into the 21st Century, our numbers declined to just 19 but we continued to take a full part in local events and the national competitions. In the 2003 National Convention, held at Glasgow in May, we were delighted to receive the award for the Most Improved Chorus. This delighted our new Director, Russ, as well as the whole chorus.

By 2003 we began to see our numbers growing again as people found us on the Internet. In April 2004 we reached a total of 31 members with a couple of others on the horizon.

Our future will be to develop our repertoire and performance to make a real good impression at the SweetAds Conventions! We are still, as always. Looking to enlarge our numbers (which barbershop group is not?). We are sure you will enjoy yourself.

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