Having the opportunity to sing is a blessing for me.  I joined my first Choral Society when I was 14 and this was the oratorio that I sang in, as a soprano, next to my mum.  But I soon joined my godmother in the altos.  The book itself was published in 1903, and has my grandfather's signature on it but it probably came from his father who was a singing teacher.  Several people on my mum's side of the family are/were singers, and my dad too.  Nowadays I only get to sing in Church but I do feel uplifted when it's a hymn I know and one that doesn't go too high!