REACH into your pocket and pull out a sticky toffee.”

The kind that’s been buried in a corner waiting for a moment when you have time to peel off the bits of paper and pop it into your mouth. Preferably when no-one’s looking.

There’s a delicious hit of sweetness and flavour before the inevitable. You get a bit jammed up against a tooth and remember why they are called sticky toffees.

By now almost 700 children in Huddersfield Town Hall are glued. No, not to toffee, but to the voice of inspirational singing teacher Sally Egan.

She was the one telling them to reach into their pockets for their favourite sweets. Hers, she confided, were caramel and vanilla.

But before we all think, hang on, what do sticky toffees, singing and the town hall stage have to do with each other?

The answer is, quite a lot. If you use a little imagination. And there was heaps of that on view at a singing workshop held in the hall as part of this year’s Mrs Sunderland Music Festival.

Who could have asked for a better way to spend a wet and windy morning than in the company of a whole team of musicians and singers determined to lift the roof of the town hall? Though most of us quite hoped they didn’t!

Children from 18 junior schools from across Kirklees trooped into the seats and up on to the rises in front of the organ, filling the air with excited chatter.

But Sally soon had them shedding their coats, shaking arms, legs and shoulders and making their necks disappear!

We had a quick giggle switching from slouching like rag dolls to standing-up straight like singers and then skipped through a whole series of exercises including seeing who could touch their nose with their tongue. No cheating now.

And then you could hear jaws drop as everyone thought of something really really shocking!

The toffees were a bonus. We were all encouraged to dig into our imaginations and come up with our very own favourite sweet. And then chew it!

Don’t try this when anyone’s watching, but it’s a great way of getting your facial muscles moving.

I guarantee that most of the children loved Sally even more when she told them that they could spit out that imaginary sticky toffee, wrap it up and put it back in their pocket for later!

Has anyone ever had so much fun and not even a note sung yet?

But after all those warm up workouts, when the singing did begin, how the Town Hall shimmered with hundreds of voices pulled together with lots of hard work and a big helping of inspiration.

The festival organisers certainly got the A team on board when they decided to repeat the workshop idea that was such a success for them and for Huddersfield Choral Society when they held similar events last year.

Sally Egan is key as is the preparation done in schools where teachers have been working with children for months. And the children had learned lessons well. They were word perfect.

Bouncing about the stage in a snappy black and cream dress and trendy boots, Sally crackles with energy and ideas, running seamlessly through exercises and songs.

She barely seems to pause for breath as she switches effortlessly, re-running a bar or two here, a bit of phrasing or lazy delivery there.

“Hold your noses and sing like witches and wizards,” she says, getting the children to feel the sound buzzing in their faces.

Behind Sally is a 12 piece band of young musicians from the University of Huddersfield Big Band. She swiftly does the introductions both of players and instruments.

It’s a great way to see and hear alto and tenor saxophones, get a close up view of a clarinet and remind yourself why trombone players always seem to be having so much fun.

If the children on stage and in the hall thought the band were pretty cool, they thought Mr Miller was even better.

And though coincidentally, the Big Band’s director, lecturer Sean Miller was enjoying the workshop with his young daughters, it was an altogether different band leader who wowed the children.

The music of Glenn Miller might not be expected to get today’s children singing but it did. Not only that, there was some serious hand-jiving going on as they sang Hey Mr Miller and very nearly brought the house down.

Earlier, the same youngsters had sat spell-bound, fascinated by the beautiful thread of sound woven by the university’s Chamber Choir who sang with the clarity you would expect from singers tutored by Joseph Cullen, chorusmaster of Huddersfield Choral Society.

This is how to get children singing, how to introduce them to something that may well stay with them for the rest of their lives.

It’s also how to bring the town’s biggest music festival, its university and its next generation of young singers and musicians together to make music and have fun.

Imagination, cooperation and the future – that’s what it’s about.