Prim, the magical choir and music teacher in The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir, has caused quite a stir with her great black cloak and frizz of white hair, her otherworldliness, and her spirituality. I am often asked if she was based on someone, and what is the key to that student-teacher magic. As a teenager, I had a very inspiring music teacher, the formidable Miss Newing, and Prim is very loosely based on her. The irony is that for such a magnificent and imposing woman, she was s