General Chat

In 1964, yes, fifty-five years ago, I started at grammar school.We had to learn our school song which was the Kipling poem "Sussex", or some of the verses anyway.

It is a brilliant poem and I love it but one of the verses has the line "or one the palm groves droned lament before Levukas trade" and I wondered what it might mean.

So, last year, after somebody read out part of the poem at the Harvest Festival, I finally looked it up (must have had burning curiosity!).

Levuka was, it would appear, the old capital of Fiji and I still have no idea what the trade was.Ah well.

Kipling was referring to the trade winds which blow across the islands.
Levuka is a wonderful place for a holiday.

I'm not sure our Grammar School had a song - or poem.

The primary school in Mevagissey had one - we sang it every morning -
Trelawney! :-D :-D
A good sword and a trusty hand!
A merry heart and true!
King James's men shall understand
What Cornish lads can do!
And have they fixed the where and when?
And shall Trelawny die?
Here's twenty thousand Cornish men
Will know the reason why!

etc. etc.

At a school in Gunnislake, our school hymn was 'Hills of the North Rejoice'.

Maggie.... Every morning ? I wonder how many years that lasted.


Our grammar school always sang the same hymn on special occasions, so I suppose one could say it was the school hymn, but was never referred to that way.

"Now girls, we will sing hymn number 626, Praise to the Lord the Almighty, the king of creation"

Our school hymn was the predictable Jerusalem.

Gwyn - definitely every morning I was there :-D
Not much beats a gentle Rebellion song first thing in the morning! :-D :-D :-D

Sharron

I think we used to just accept rather than question words, which hopefully would be explained nowadays.

We used to listen to Singing Together on the radio, when in primary school and cheerfully sang about...' Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,' without understanding all the words.

Not to mention the dirty British coaster with the salt caked smoke-stack.

Rollo once found a John Masefield recording of 'Cargoes'. I was deeply disappointed; our teacher emphasised the chug-chug rhythm of that verse. Masefield read it in a slow, sombrous voice. :-(

Rollo's school song was "Cwm Rhondda" which I rather liked and still do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5NOVcefEYU

Beth sydd imi mwy a wnelwyf
Ag eilunod gwael y llawr?
Tystio 'r wyf nad yw eu cwmni
I'w gymharu a'm Iesu Mawr.
O! am aros
Yn Ei gariad ddyddiau f'oes.
Yn Ei gariad ddyddiau f'oes.

Another song sung at Mevagissey - along with 'Trelawney' was 'When Lamps are Lighted in the Town'.
This tended to be sung in Winter, when the weather was stormy.

I left Grammar before you started, Sharron, and as far as I am aware our school song was completely made up for our school, as was our school motto. I can only remember the last two lines of the song, so memorable was it!

We had assembly every morning with prayers, hymns and anything the Head wanted to enlighten us about.

At the start of each term we sang 'Morning has broken'. On the last day of each term we had an afternoon assembly at which we sang 'Now the day is over'.

I like 'Hills', Maggie.

Trelawney was sometimes part of singing along with schools radio broadcast when I was in primary school, as was John Peel, The Skye Boat Song, The British Grenadier and Scarborough Fair ... and a few more.

I like yours too, Gwyn and Rollo.

I knew a lot of poetry before I started senior school, courtesy of Dad who could recite a huge number of poems - a wonderful legacy of his schooldays in the 1920s. In fact, I can still recite the very first poem I learned at school in the 1940s - Someone.

Just happened to be reading this thread, and decided to search again for a poem I had learned at school but could not find when last I did a googlesearch. I could do the first verse and an approximation of the last line of the second verse, but a hole in the middle.
No problem finding it this time.

Red in Autumn
by Elizabeth Gould

https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/red-autumn

Think I just liked the sound of 'Tipperty toes'

We had to learn and write out on Friday morning the poem of the week, at age of 7??

The hymns and music in general was dominated by Mr Healey.

Nick named Sneb because of his nose.

He was the first yo play the Clarion at Newcastle's Civic Centre, talented.