By Roger Lytollis

Last updated 05:13, Friday, 28 November 2008

Christmas is a season of mixed emotions for Mark and Sarah Le Brocq. As they celebrate at home near Carlisle, love for the family around them mingles with regret for the family who are no longer there. Mark and Sarah each lost someone special at this time of year and their memories burn bright under the Christmas lights. Mark grew up in Eastbourne, East Sussex, and he and Sarah moved to Cumbria six years ago, to Sarah’s parents’ house, with Flynn, Hannah, 10, and Megan, seven.

Home front: Mark and Sarah Le Brocq at their house near Carlisle. Mark’s brother John died 28 years ago while Sarah lost his sister Jane in 2002 following a fall. This year Mark and his son Flynn have recorded a Christmas CD to raise money for the brain-injuries support charity Headway

One November night 28 years ago, Mark’s brother John complained of a headache. “The doctor came and saw him,” recalls Mark. “John never really woke up. He’d suffered a brain aneurysm. He was kept breathing for a while in the hospital but effectively he was brain dead. He was 16. I was 14.”

Mark remembers his older brother this way: “He was very intelligent, very sporty, due to be going to Cambridge. We’d just got through that stage of being at loggerheads all the time and started to appreciate each other for more than just being brothers.

“If someone asks if I’ve got brothers and sisters I always say yes, I’ve got a brother and two sisters.

“There’s always certain things that set off memories. We are a close family. When we get together we always know that there’s one less than there should be.”

Tragically for Mark, his wife Sarah, and their family, there are now two less. Shortly after Christmas 2002, Sarah’s sister Jane suffered head injuries after falling downstairs. She died several days later, leaving a husband and a young son and daughter.

“Jane was lovely,” says Mark. “Very kind and thoughtful. Very keen on family. It’s terrifying the way these things can happen. It’s hard to comprehend. It doesn’t seem right.”

For Mark, 42, the only thread of consolation has been the change in his own life inspired by those he has lost.

“Living for the day is an important thing. If there’s an opportunity to do something you should definitely try to do it. It might not be there again, or you might not be there the next time it comes around.”

Sometimes Mark creates his own opportunities, often to try to spare others the pain he and his family have endured.

Mark is an opera singer and in the past six years his annual concerts at Carlisle’s St Cuthbert’s Church have raised £25,000 for brain-injuries support charity Headway North Cumbria, of which Mark is patron.

The latest fundraising project involves his 13-year-old son Flynn. Backed by a string quartet and an organist, the tenor and treble have recorded a Christmas CD. £1 from every copy of The Spirit of Christmas sold will go to Headway.

Father and son have performed together several times, including concerts at Theatre by the Lake and Carlisle Cathedral. Their first collaboration occurred at Ripon Cathedral, where Mark found his professional and personal lives colliding.

“We got through rehearsal but I felt quite emotional. To see this little blond thing that’s been around for the last 13 years, singing his heart out. I couldn’t really listen to him because I knew I would get caught up. When we did it, I ended up jamming my thumb nail into the palm of my hand. Sarah said ‘Did Flynn sing well?’ I had to tell her I had no idea.”

Flynn is currently a music scholar at Uppingham School in Leicestershire and the choral world anxiously awaits his transformation from treble to tenor.

It is a journey which led Flynn’s father to some of the most prestigious stages in the world. As a former principal with English National Opera and now a freelance singer, Mark has performed Mozart’s Requiem in Salzburg and Verdi operas with Montserrat Caballe. He has sung at St Paul’s Cathedral, the Royal Albert Hall during the Proms and across the USA, Europe and the Middle East.

Sarah used to be a teacher and is now taking a fine art degree. For her husband work is a cocktail of operas and one-off concerts. Opera demands much of its stars’ time and talents: six weeks of rehearsal, three or four weeks of performances, in a world bursting with ego and neurosis.

“There’s a huge mix of characters. Most are just people trying to get on and enjoy performing. Some people, if they hear someone cough in a room three houses away, they’re off. I had a friend with two kids. If they got a cold he’d move out of the house. The problem is that you spend your life with your instrument attached to you.

“There are an awful lot of faddy singers. Someone says, ‘I’ve given up wheat.’ Suddenly a huge anti-wheat thing spreads through the vocal world. It’s quite funny.”

Mark’s weapons are daily doses of vitamin C and echinacea, and a feet-on-the-ground approach to an art form he loves but refuses to be consumed by.

“Opera is exhausting, vocally and mentally. I know several singers who are physically sick before they go on stage. The first day of rehearsals, you’re in a room of strangers. They’re all wanting to hear what you sound like. You’re standing there thinking, I’m going to open myself up to look a fool. You just have to go for it.”

He is currently going for it on behalf of Opera North in Hansel and Gretel, a touring production which includes local children in the chorus and the audience. This meets with Mark’s approval as a necessary means of making opera more accessible.

“Just because opera seems like a lavish thing on stage, I don’t think you should need a lavish income to see it. People think opera’s posh so they don’t go. Hopefully, these children and their parents see that opera isn’t just about dressing up and picnics at Glyndebourne. The children love it. They just listen to the tunes. The fact that it’s opera doesn’t mean anything to them.”

Mark sees the medium as “an extraordinarily powerful and emotional experience; visual and aural. A combination of music and acting and drama. It’s the opportunity to create a role, to sing some extraordinarily beautiful music. You’ve got a room full of people all having a great time and you’re part of creating that. To be paid to sing Mozart is ridiculous really.”

He knows opera will never be as embedded in British culture as it is across Europe. Audiences tend to be more vocal abroad. Here they’ll clap but they won’t get carried away, unlike some directors. Mark recalls a production in Spain which saw him wearing a leopard-skin ballgown and full make-up.

“You find yourself standing on stage thinking ‘This is a slightly strange way to make a living.’ I had a show where I wore a moustache. Halfway through, the glue started to come off. Every time I said a consonant it blew forward. You could see the cast’s eyes starting to go down there. By the end it was hard for anyone to sing.

“There’s normally a couple of gigglers. The worst kind are the people who pull a face at you when the audience can’t see, generally when you’re about to hit a high note. If you try to do it back, you invariably come up against someone better than you.”

Mark pauses. “But that doesn’t happen all the time,” he says, still smiling. “It’s a terribly serious art form and all that.”

The Spirit of Christmas costs £10. It is available from Bookcase, Castle Street, Carlisle; by calling 07723524046; or at www.markandflynn.com