Nostalgia trip for friends reunited by Seventh-Day Adventist Church anniversary

Weekend of events to celebrate 30 years of worship

GOSPEL singers who first sang together as children were reunited to celebrate their church’s 30th anniversary.

The Hackney Youth Group saw each other for the first time in years to celebrate 30 years of Hackney Seventh-Day Adventist Church at a concert at The Bridge Academy school, Laburnum Street, Hackney, on Saturday (November 20), which around 400 people attended.

One member Patsy Reid, 47, said: “It went really well. We sang quite a few of the old songs that we haven’t performed together for 15 years.

“A lot of people have died since the church was founded so we had their pictures up all over the wall and we remembered them – it was touching.”

Another group The Golden Chords also reunited. Both were joined by current acts including Hackney Pathfinders Drum Corps, Testimony, solo singer Dylan and other gospel groups from Lewisham and Brixton.

Church elder Curtis Booth, 70, who lives in Stepney, was instrumental in setting up the church, and said: “It was madness, it was great,” he said. “People who left to go abroad came back to celebrate, everything went really well.

“When we started the church we thought it would last this long, we expected it to flourish but it exceeded our expectations.”

The concert was part of a weekend of events, which the church, based in Haggerston Road, Haggerston, called Back to the Future.