THOUSANDS of vinyl records regularly change hands at the Prospect Hospice charity shop in Swindon town centre but an unusual new arrival has left staff intrigued and keen to discover more about its origins.

Turning up amidst a large batch of assorted pop singles from the sixties and seventies was a local curiosity – a 45 recorded by The Orchestra and Girls’ Choir of Park Senior High School in Swindon.

The seven-inch single appears on a Bristol record label called SAYDISC which, since its inception in 1965, has specialised in a vast range of music and the recorded word from Chinese folk and carol singing to exotic instrumentals and humour.

But the Swindon disc has long since dropped off its radar and is not listed in its huge back catalogue or known by staff there today.

The single comes in a smart picture sleeve featuring, among other images, a Brunel-like figure in a stovepipe hat.

It comprises four tracks including Verdi’s Grand March from the opera Aida, arranged by David Stone and played by the school orchestra led by Phillip Musselwhite and conducted by Miss L Thatcher.

The girls’ choir also has a spirited bash at Old Mother Hubbard, again conducted by Miss Thatcher which it has now been established, was the school music teacher.

Side Two begins with Praise Ye The Father, sung by the girls’ choir before the disc winds up with Behold The Lord High Executioner from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado, arranged by Joy Bell and played by the school orchestra.

Park Senior High School opened in Marlowe Avenue in the Sixties before becoming a grammar school and then being absorbed into Oakfield School, which was closed by the council in 2000. Today the building is home to a “special education school called The Oakfield Project”.

Assistant manager of the Prospect shop in Commercial Road Martin Roche, who is also its vinyl specialist, said: “We’d love to know more about this record. There is no year on the label but I’m pretty sure it’s from the Sixties or Seventies.”

A vinyl collector for more than 50 years, Martin, 67, went on: “There must be people in Swindon who were on the record, singers or musicians, who could tell us a bit more about it.”

One clue is that the original owner’s name ‘J Jefferies’ is written on the sleeve – suggesting that it once belonged to well-known Swindon character, campaigner and book collector Joan Jefferies (1908-1998.) The Prospect – which cares for terminally-ill patients and their families in the Swindon area –stocks around 2,000 records as well as books, CDs, DVDs and other items at its shop.

Anyone with information on the record – who perhaps even performed on it – is urged to kindly contact us at: leightonbarry@ymail.com