Singing to a champagne audience at the St Paul’s Church square, where Henry Higgins first meets Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, and getting invited to Lion King by the musical’s director herself…

Homes alumnus Lady Sedhar Ball, now a film and TV actor, seated in the first row and crying through the entire concert at St Andrew’s Church, Oxford …

Performing at Dr Graham’s Greyfriars Church and breaking into an impromptu gig inside the hallowed portals of Edinburg Castle, which has hosted Elton John and Justine Timberlake…

For the choir of Dr Graham’s Homes, Kalimpong, founded by Rev. J.A. Graham in 1900, the whistle-stop fund-raiser concert tour of the UK earlier this year was about raising the bar further, after Calcutta provided the launch pad.

“Calcutta first gave us the platform to express ourselves and over the years, injected us with the confidence to hold our own in front of large audiences. This stood us in good stead on our maiden tour abroad,” says choirmaster Shane Saviel, who was sent to the UK in the winter of 2004-05 to prepare for this summer’s trip.

Organised by the Homes’ UK committee, the ‘Children’s City in Concert’ tour was supported by a trust formed with the £200,000 raised by the UK benefactors after The Daily Telegraph in London carried the Homes story as a Christmas Appeal article seven years ago. About 50 per cent of the school’s children are supported by donations.

There was no denying the butterflies in their stomachs when the tour kicked off at Covent Garden. “But by the time we launched into Circle of Life, which has become our signature tune, at the Cawdor Church in Inverness, the choir was in its element,” recalls Saviel.

There was not a dry eye in the full house, but Inverness was special to the kids for something else as well. “The old boys of Rannock School, who had put the money from the sale of their school premises in a trust to support the Homes, also donated the stained-glass panels to our school,” adds M.J. Robertson, president and chairman, board of management of the Homes.

The students of Barassie Primary School in Troon supported the Homes by putting a penny each in the piggybank every Friday for many months. “The most concrete gain from this tour has been the tremendous awareness of our efforts in Kalimpong. Following the success of our BPO academy, we are preparing to expand the Homes into a college with a focus on the emerging service sectors,” promises Robertson.

While the school management is trying to work out similar fund-raising tours to Canada and Australia, right now it’s time for the Calcutta concerts. The first show, focused on pop music, comes off at the racecourse on Sunday, December 2, in partnership with The Telegraph (6.30pm), followed by the carol concert at St Paul’s cathedral on December 3.