Singing has been a part of Janice Fryett’s for as long as she can remember.

In fact one of her clearest memories as a child is entertaining her mother while she did the housework by warbling My Boy Lollipop and a variety of other popular numbers.

Half a century later and Janice, from Newton, is still  hitting those notes.

She has made music and singing an integral part of her life and career, although funnily enough, her audiences have changed slightly.

After a varied career teaching RE in a number of Cheshire schools and working professionally as a guest artiste with male voice choirs, Janice  now works primarily as a voice coach on the stage or in her own studio.

Along the way she’s worked as a  professional guest artiste with male  voice choirs, sung in community productions including the recent Chester  Mystery Plays, and has trained thousands of teachers to lead singing with  children for the government initiative  Sing Up.

But it’s not all been plain sailing for Janice. During the last decade, she suddenly  had to  stop performing because she  simply lost her nerve for singing.

Janice remembers: “Acting and comedy were fine but I preferred to sing comedy songs so I could hide  behind them.

“I figured if people were laughing at the words and physicality then they wouldn’t be criticising my singing.”

“It all started when I was singing in a  professional three soprano line-up in  Newcastle and, when the promoter  was told that I wrote the scripts for our shows as well as  doing the comedy songs, he turned to  me and said, “Oh, so you’re the brains  and they’re the voice.

“My fragile confidence just  crumbled,” she remembers.

After that, although Janice  was still  singing with children and training  reluctant teachers to lead singing with  children, she wouldn’t sing in public  and lost touch with her own voice.

“Two things happened to get me  back into performing,” recalls Janice.

“One was being asked by Matt Baker to sing in theatre in the Quarter’s production of James in 2010  and the other was learning more about  how the voice works by going on an  Estill Voice course.

“I remember being really excited  about the first rehearsal for James and  also telling Matt not to give me any  solos to do as I had lost my nerve.

“I sat there trying to blend in, but ended up helping less confident singers to learn the music and  even started a choir with my husband  in our home so those people had some  singing to do when James had finished.

“The Estill Voice course taught me  so much about vocal mechanisms and  which parts of our vocal apparatus do  what.

“This knowledge enabled me to  make better aesthetic choices when  singing in different genres but, most  importantly for me at the time, it  taught me what to do when I was  nervous so that my voice would not  come out as a strangulated shriek or  disappear altogether.”

Janice added: “After that I was able to climb back  on the stage with confidence in further  theatre in the Quarter productions like A Christmas Carol, where I was  one of two sopranos in a small group, and Chester Mystery Plays  where I sang in a group of three at the burial of Jesus which was  featured on Songs of Praise recently!”

Things are easier now Janice’s confidence has returned, and she is  thrilled to be able to impart her wisdom on to others and make a real  difference to them.

“What’s been brilliant is passing on  my knowledge, whether to private students or  large groups such as the  Mystery Play cast, choirs and trainee  teachers,” she adds.

“When choir singers come to me and  say they have not become hoarse once since I taught them how to sing  without constriction, I know that sharing my knowledge has really made a  difference.”