New Year's Eve

The year turns once more. There is a lot planned for 2011. The Society website has a calendar here. There are to be events in Bath, Exeter, Cambridge, Oxford, Haileybury, London, and at the National Memorial Arboretum in the first few months of the year.

The extraordinary diary of Geoffrey Burnaby (BF 1908) arose as the result of a bet between two brothers, when John (BF 1905) bet his brother 6d that he could not keep a diary every day for a year. Geoffrey produced a note and often a drawing for the whole of 1912. It was published in facsimile in 1994. A bit like an early 20th century blog. Though I would not have won my 6d as I do not manage a post every day!

Here is the entry for new year's eve 1912.

Happy New Year to one and all.

Streets Called Haileybury

This is not exactly a street called Haileybury, so much as a road through Haileybury - Ontario. Highway 11 is a major route through Ontario, and runs through the town founded in 1889 by Charles Cobbold Farr, (Tr 1864) which is now part or a municipality called Temiskaming.

Highway 11 in Downtown Haileybury

Here is a video of the journey along the road made by a biker.


Highway 11B through Latchford, Cobalt, Haileybury and New Liskeard from MCC CMC on Vimeo.

Lift Up Your Hearts

Bishop NS Talbot (Th 1893) wrote a book on suffering called "The Riddle of Life." In the first chapter he argues that suffering can and does sometimes bring good, and that there is a nobility which comes to some souls through bearing suffering. 

The Christmas story is packed round with tinsel and fairy lights, but despite all that it is the same story. The joy which comes to a mother suffering in child birth; the happiness granted to a family who are homeless and destitute, the vision of angels granted to poor mean shepherds on the look out for wolves and afraid for their lives. 

Here is Talbot's first chapter's closing paragraph, and the opening of the Gospel for Midnight Mass. 

We have reached no 'explanation' of why there is a problem of evil. That a night of darkness can come upon men remains still and inexplicable mystery. Yet it is true that light does spring up in the darkness, welling up from within it, spreading through and suffusing it, making it to glow. And this is real light, not a false light or ignis fatuus of self-deception or make-believe. It is light deeper than the darkness, un-overwhelmed by it. It makes, so to say, the very darkness to serve for its fuel.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Season's Greetings

Season's Greetings is a play by Sir Alan Ayckbourn (Tr 1952) which is on at the National Theatre this Christmas. It has been well reviewed, including by Quentin Letts (Ha 1976).

Two writers of different kinds both schooled by the same English department, and possibly both taught by Jack Thomas (staff 1954) - who famously, and possibly apocryphally, said that Ayckbourn would never amount to much if he tried a career in writing. Ayckbourn cut the original form for Season's Greetings from three acts in three hours by a third, and Lett's review is an example of journalistic brevity. The suburban characters


use intrinsically English expressions, enjoying nothing better than discussing power tools, preferably in the wife-free zone of a shed or pub.

"Great set" say Quentin Letts

When Neville is asked if there is any ginger wine in the house, he doesn’t just say, ‘yes’. He says, truculently, that ‘we are awash’ in the stuff. …

David Troughton’s Uncle Harvey has the gait and neck tweaks of a former chief pety officer. 


Brevity is a virtue in a preacher as well - but one more difficult to attain than it seems. I think it was Churchill who once wrote  I am sorry to have written you a long letter. I did not have time to write a short one."

Reports

The end of term reports arrived today. Or rather an e-mail arrived to say they can be found on the 'Parent Portal' of the school website. It seems a world away when the little booklets of reports came by post at the end of each term. As a child I never imagined that the purpose of the Master reading all the reports was as much to check up on the staff as it was on me. One Summer term I received a report which I hardly noted at the time, except for its brevity. Scrawled across the center of the page in purple felt tip pen it said simply 'A fair term's work,' and the initials of the Beak. Years later I discovered that this was a final act of rebellion by a man who was retiring. He handed in his reports after it was too late to do anything about it and they all had to go out as they were. I was told they all said the same! I may still have it somewhere and if it turns up in our impending move I shall scan it and put it up.

Lift up Your Hearts

For the fourth Sunday in Advent, as the church considers the imminence of the birth of the Christ, part of the Invocacio ad Mariam from the Second Nun's Prologue of the Canterbury Tales, translated by Neville Coghill (Tr 1913).

Image of the Mother and Child in the Haileybury Chapel

Thou maid and mother, daughter of thy Son,

Thou well of mercy, balm to sinful nature,

In whom God chose His dwelling, as in one

Humblest and highest over every creature,

Who gav'st such nobleness to human feature

That God had no disdain to clothe and wind

His Son in flesh and blood of human kind.

Within the blissful cloister of thy womb

There took man's shape the eternal love and peace,

Lord and guide of the trinal circle, whom

The heavens and earth and sea shall never cease

To glorify, pure virgin the increase

Of whose fair body, never by man mated,

was the Creator of all things created.

Off Topic

I cannot find a way to link this to Haileybury unless to note that wherever young people are there is a digital life, and that is certainly true round College. Anyway, I thought it was fun and worth the link.

Where is Bobs?

It was the end of term today and I have made the journey yet again up the A10. I was late because of the traffic. My spy in Lawrence told me about a bit of nomenclature I did not know. "I was waiting for you at Bobs."

Given what seems the inexorable decline of Haileybury slang I was quite pleased to hear that new words are developing after all.

Where is Bobs? Scroll down for the answer.

Not sure whether Bobs should have an apostrophe… 

Bobs "Back of Big School."

Garden House

When Dr Henley, first Principal of the East India College, retired the Company refused to 'buy in' his effects. Despite his stipend of £1,000 Henley was hard up and he sold some of his things. Specifically he sold a 'Garden House' to Professor Malthus, who erected it in the Hailey Garden. The garden is described in a letter quoted by Patricia James in her biography of Malthus, and maybe as the weather gets colder again now we can take heart from the beautiful description of Spring in the Hailey Garden:

The House is in a cluster of tall shrubs and young trees, with a little bit of smooth lawn sloping to a bright pond, in which old weeping willows are dipping their hair, and rows of young pear trees admiring their blooming faces… There are young horse-chestnuts with flowers half a yard long, fresh full-clustered white lilacs, tall Guelder roses, broad spreading pear and cherry trees, low thickets off blooming sloe, and crowds of juicy looking detached thorns, quite covered with their blooming May flowers, half open like ivory filigree, and half shut like Indian pears… and resounding with nightingales, and thrushes, and sky-larks, shrilling high up, overhead, among dazzling slow sailing clouds.

No wonder Malthus liked to be outside, and the tradition is that in the 'garden house' he worked through his great theories of population.

Generations of Haileybury swimmers will know the garden house as the "Wings Hut" at the shallow end of the old pool. There it still stands, sadly dilapidated. There is talk of trying to get it fixed up, which would be a good thing. But where then to put it? The Hailey Garden is now mainly lawn and the ponds are gone. Maybe it should go back to the Master and be placed near the Moorhen Pond where still the willows dip their hair in the still waters.

Cloaca

The eldest son having to go to the orthodontist this morning and the Council meeting on Friday together with an ordinary pick up on Saturday means that I feel as though I have been living on the A10 over the last few days. I was pleased at the Haileybury end of one of the trips that the Bradby was open so that I could answer the call of nature.

Not the least shock of going round the new Hailey after the refurbishment to make the House ready for girls was to discover that my former study has been turned into a toilet. I always thought that the infamous White City (demolished in 1961) was just a well intentioned Edwardian mistake. It was built during the rule of Wynne Wilson to remove the need for earth closets in the dormitories. It seems however that even Old Haileybury brought communality to what we moderns think of as a private activity. There were twelve water closets in Wilkin's design, as accepted. The architect had provided for thirty - in three rows of ten. This was positively Roman. I learnt about Roman toilets from a splendid book I was persuaded to buy by my scatological sons (well, it did not take much persuasion in fact) on a trip to Verulamium this year. Latrinae et Foricae, Toilets in the Roman World by Barry Hobson. (See here.)

Latrine on Hadrian's Wall: a Roman White City?

Lift up Your Hearts

We went scrumping in Goldings Wood today (with permission - is that possible?) today for holly to decorate the church. We have a Victorian Carol service tomorrow. (I know, I know, it is still only Advent 3…) We have masses of ivy in the garden here, but very little holly.

Holly in Goldings - taken a bit earlier in the Autumn when things were warmer!

The linkage of Holly with the passion of Christ is found in a number of ancient carols. It is thought that evergreen decorations were used in pre-christian times for midwinter festivals. The church has always been very good at appropriating symbolism. Placing Christian festivals on the same days as pagan ones forced people to choose: you could not celebrate both things.

This is called the Sans Day Carol. The Music is here.

Now the holly bears a berry as white as the milk,
and Mary bore Jesus, all wrapped up in silk:

And Mary bore Jesus our Saviour for to be,
and the first tree in the greenwood, it was the holly
Holly! Holly!

Now the holly bears a berry as green as the grass,
And mary bore Jesus who died on the cross:

Now the holly bears a berry as black as the coal,
and Mary bore Jesus who died for us all:

Now the holly bears a berry, as blood is it red
Then trust we our Saviour who rose from the dead.

I didn't know that

The sale of the land on which Haileybury was to be built was completed on 23rd October 1805. It was the day of the battle of Trafalgar.

Dreaming Spires

Blogging has been light as things have been busy, but I think we are close to fixing a dinner in Oxford on March 4th. I'll post details as soon as possible, but pencil it in your diary for now.

Streets Called Haileybury 5

Liverpool boasts not only a Haileybury Road, but also Haileybury Avenue, L10, right next to the Aintree race course. By and large the Avenues are named after schools running at right angles to drives named after Oxford Colleges. 

Lift up Your Hearts

Advent - when the church prepares to celebrate the Incarnation by looking not back to Bethlehem but forward to the Second Coming. What follows is from John Burnaby's (B Fr 1905) study of the Nicene Creed, The Belief of Christendom.

Prophets and Apostles alike know that "The Lord is King" - and that, not in spite of what they see happening in the world, but because of it. The story they tell of the coming Kingdom is not a compensation for its present failure, but a corollary of its present reality. As the prophets see in the death of the sinful kingdoms of Israel and Judah at the hands of Assyria and Babylon not a disproof but a vindication of the sovereignty of the Lord, so S Paul finds the righteousness of God supremely triumphant in the Cross of Jesus, the sinless King of the Jews. In the prophets' story, God's unrevoked choice of Israel to be the place in which His sovereignty shall be revealed is pictured in the figure of the anointed Son of David who will rule in righteousness by the Spirit of the Lord. In the Apostles' story the same figure is central - but with the difference that while for the prophets there had been only one that should come, for the Apostles He is one who has come already. …


The Church's belief that Christ will come again in glory is the faith that in that same Jesus … we may hope to see the glory of God. 

ISC

Browsing for Haileybury things I found a site giving some history of the ISC including pictures of the buildings and the redevelopment of the site. The link is on the bar to the right of the blog.

There are pictures of the unveiling of a statue of "ambition," 'believed to be in the possession of Haileybury School.' I wonder if anyone knows where that is?

Neologisms

The Daily Telegraph has run an article congratulating itself on coining 251 new words. The newspaper appeals to the authority of the Oxford English Dictionary which of course provides the first instance in print of a neologism. The Haileyburian is given by the OED as the first source of the term Old Boy to describe a former (male) pupil of a school. Now that we are proudly coeducational we don't speak of Old Boys as much, and we are thankful that the foresighted founders of the Haileybury Society provided us with an androgynous term. "Haileyburian" is also usefully asexual. For a while the development department of my university college would send letters addressed rather cumbersomely to "Dear Alumni and Alumnae." Now their database and mail merge is clever enough to write to "Dear Mr Miller." That is pretty good, especially as the address on the envelope is to "Father L J MIller MA." (Not strictly correct to put the letters after using 'Father', but coping with clerical titles is a lifetime's study.) To return to the Telegraph and its neologisms, one which they claim is 'astroturf,' now a trademark. You may be aware that the development department at Haileybury is appealing to parents and alumni and alumnae all Haileyburians to try to raise funds for a second astroturf pitch at school. There is a blog about it, and you can contribute here. Thinking about it, given that there are people in Canada and Australia who call themselves Haileyburians, that word itself should perhaps be in the next OED.

Snow!

There are some nice pictures of Haileybury in the snow on the school website, here.

More Magenta

In cooking up a plan for a possible dinner in Oxford next term (details soon if it can be pulled off) some discussion of OH blazers has been instigated. Since I don't get to wear ties very much in my state of clerical life I am plotting to retrieve the blazer I had made as an undergraduate from the back of the wardrobe. (I can still get into it - it was a generous fit!) It has only been worn in recent years at the church fete, but could become a 'signature' item. There are those who would like the Society to have some more of the blazer material made and this may happen. But for those who cannot wait, the new school uniform blazer could be an answer. It has a bright magenta lining and maybe that would manage if turned inside out…

Snow Golf

Rudyard Kipling (USC 1878) is credited with the invention of Snow Golf.

Lift up Your Hearts

As winter comes I am reminded of a very snowy end of term in about 1982 or 3 when there were heavy drifts all over the Heath and the school closed early for fear that we would otherwise be snowed in for Easter.

He gives snow like wool; He scatters hoarfrost like ashes. He casts forth His ice like morsels; who can stand before His cold? He sends forth His word, and melts them; He makes His wind blow, and the waters flow Psalm 147: 16-18

Anglo Catholics

"Are you Anglo-Catholic?" I was once asked by a lady in my first parish as she gazed with horrified fascination at my rosary. "Horribly." was my reply. Public school religion is famously (except in the Woodard Foundation) not Anglo-Catholic. But Haileybury has made its contribution to the catholic revival in the Church of England. Fr Basil Jellicoe (BFr 1912) is rightly remembered for his heroic labours in Somers Town and his invention of Housing Associations, but he was also a contributor to the Anglo Catholic Congress movement of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Sir Edwyn Hoskyns (Tr 1897) was a Cambridge theologian and New Testament scholar whose contribution to a volume of essays edited by E G Selwyn Essays Catholic and Critical had a seminal effect on Biblical studies. There is an article on his life and work in the journal of the Catholic League, here.

The Report of the Anglo Catholic Congress of 1927 contains contributions by Hoskyns on The Eucharist in the New Testament and Neville Coghill (Tr 1913), famous for his versification of the Canterbury Tales into modern English for Penguin Classics, who submitted a paper on Sacraments and the Presence of God in Nature.

Bishop Sir Edwyn Hoskyns Bt

Hoskyns' Father, also Sir Edwyn, (Tr 1865.1) was President of the Old Haileyburian Society in 1902 - 3, the year before he was consecrated Bishop of Southwell. Given that it was only in 1885 that Bishop King of Lincoln had reintroduced the Mitre into the Church of England, the Bishop of Southwell was presumably like his son, quite 'advanced', his photograph showing him in cope, mitre and coloured stole.

Raise a Glass

I was very sorry to miss the Pub Event tonight. Duty called at the Sea Cadets where I am Chaplain, and was committed to being on parade. It is difficult to get there very often, so I make it a 'must' to go once a month, usually on the evening of the formal inspection, when there is also a "church parade" at which I officiate.

Chaplain's Cap Badge

The Pub evenings are a splendid idea. I have been once to one, and it gathered a large number of OHs and a wide cross section of ages and backgrounds. The informality and the opportunity to drop in and out works.

Splice the Mainbrace!

Although not at the pub event I did raise a glass in the wardroom of the Unit after parade - it fell to me to ring the bell and splice the mainbrace following my new appointment.

Recycling

Tuesday evenings are busy in the parish, especially when, as this evening, one of the clergy is away. The youngest section of the Boys Brigade meets at 6pm and there is an "opening service," a short talk and a prayer to lead. Then at 6.45 the church needs to be opened and we say the Rosary. Tonight I slipped out to lead the opening service for the older section of the Boys Brigade at 7pm and back to church in time for Evening Prayer. Then Mass at 7.30 and Bible study from 8.15 until 9pm. Then Rubbish. It is bin night and the wheelie bins have to go down the end of our long drive and also the green recycling tubs. It always feels a bit like the last straw!

Recycling has reached Haileybury in a big way. There are recycling points everywhere. A sign of the modern world.

Magenta

Main Street, Magenta

"What is that man wearing on his feet?" My wife had to admit to her neighbour at speech day that she did know me as I sat on the stage and my OH socks were suddenly on view to the audience below. 

Magenta is a striking colour; not exactly subtle. It got its name from a town in Italy where a battle in 1859 caused the ground to be dyed with the blood of the fallen. Haileybury uses a particular shade, about which more on another occasion, but for now here are some pictures of the town whose sanguinary history gave the name to the colour we wear.

Once bloody battlefield

Memorial to those whose blood coloured the ground

Lift Up Your Hearts

Mighty Oaks from little acorns grow. 

The Sanitary condition of Haileybury College

The quality of water at Haileybury was the subject of lengthy correspondence in the British Medical Journal of 1888. The reserved frisson of Victorian insult flew across the pages of that professional journal: 

"Sir, you state in your comments of Dr Stevenson's last analysis of the well-water ... that you have no desire to impugn the quality of the Haileybury water. Your sincerity will allow me space to point out that in the course of those comments you do indeed "impugn"it - unfoundedly I venture to think - through misapprehension and incorrect statement of actual facts, and consequent confusion of the inference drawn from them." 

Despite the detailed refutation of the assertion that the water was bad a solution (no pun intended!) was found by setting up the water tower; one on the Heath and one on the corner of the Quad between Red House and the Lawrence Housemaster's House. 

Now the mains bring fresh water, and the water tower in the College grounds is long gone. But you can share a little piece of Haileybury history if you have just over £1/2m to spare to buy the water tower on the Heath as your new home. 

Royal Couple

Congratulations to the Royal couple. The re-use of the engagement ring recalls another jewel. When the Duke and Duchess of York opened the Hall in 1932 they had been married for nine years. Imogen Thomas relates that the key which the Duchess (later Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother) used to open the hall for the first time had a decorated fob designed to be removed and worn as a brooch. I wonder what happened to it. 

The Duke and Duchess of York with the Master & Mrs Talbot

Royal Couple

Congratulations to the Royal couple. The re-use of the engagement ring recalls another jewel. When the Duke and Duchess of York opened the Hall in 1932 they had been married for nine years. Imogen Thomas relates that the key which the Duchess (later Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother) used to open the hall for the first time had a decorated fob designed to be removed and worn as a brooch. I wonder what happened to it. 

The Duke and Duchess of York with the Master & Mrs Talbot

This House Believes

On Thursdays at lunchtime I run a debating club for the Year 6 (10 - 11 year old) children at the local Primary School. Last week there was much excitement as the result of a parcel I had received from the school office. It was a gavel, sent by Peter Blair, the Master in Charge of debating at Haileybury.

Our group has no one in it who has English as a first language. We are truly polyglot - the group of eighteen has over a dozen mother tongues; some of the children from francophone Africa are working in their third language when they debate in English. Even so we don't do badly. I had mentioned to Mr Blair that we had debated the Olympics recently and he said his groups had done the same. Last week the poor Year 6 group was under a bit of pressure as we debated the motion "This House believes there is no point doing mental maths" while their maths teacher was sitting in a corner of the class room marking maths papers. Not even the proposers of the motion dared vote for it - though they did come up with some reasonable arguments.

The gavel is a symbol of how links between institutions and communities can be forged. Although not to debate, groups from Haileybury have come here in the past. Once a confirmation class came to Mass and then went off to lunch with some of our parishioners before a tour of the area and then tea at the Vicarage. It was a great day on all sides. I hope it might be possible for me to take my debating club to a debate at Haileybury. In these days of measuring public benefit and quantifying what good charities do we run the risk of forgetting the mutual support to the education of the young that these small links contribute.

AGM

Honour the past; bring Energy to the Present; prepare for the future. Three aims for my year as President of the Haileybury Society.

The Society is one of the key places where our past is remembered and the continuity of the institution of the school is safeguarded. Together with others (the Archivist and the Editors of the Haileyburian spring to mind), the Society brings the corporate memory alive so that the ethos of the school, that fragile intangible but crucial thing, can be upheld and develop. In his report to the AGM on Saturday the Master mentioned small children in Kazakhstan singing the school song. Modern English Haileyburians do not sing the Vivat - but they do share the ethos of the place, such that we have a continuity with them. Our links with oneanother and our shared memories help that to be the case.

There is so much going on in the life of the Society. George Staple told us in the report of his year how he had traveled the world, and how in Australia a suggestion to the local secretary of a meet for a drink became a formal dinner in the space of a couple of days. This energy is a hallmark of the Society, and I hope that I can contribute to it. There are plans for the reunion at the National Memorial Arboretum and hopefully there can be a dinner in Oxford next term. Meanwhile OHs are gathering in pubs and on touch lines; contributing to careers fairs and concerts; organizing fund-raising activities and supporting initiatives such as the Haileybury Youth Trust. There will be much more this year as the energy of Haileyburians makes things happen.

It was pointed out as I was nominated, that I am a parent of children at the school and a member of Council. I hope that these links will help to contribute to the work which George Staple has begun, and which he will carry forward, to review for the first time in its fifty three years, the life and work of the Haileybury Society. How does this alumni organization relate to other parts of the Haileybury community? Can or should we do more or do differently? This leads us into the future and will be perhaps even more important in its long term ramifications than the other work of this year, which will be to look to the Society's contribution to the 150th anniversary of the school in 2012.

I am immensely honoured to be your President and thank those whose confidence in me has been shown by this election. George's shoes - and those of his distinguished predecessors - will be very hard to fill. I am looking forward to the attempt.

Lift up Your Hearts

Haileybury's memorial to the fallen of the First World War was the Hall. The inscription reads:

To the Glory of God and in proud remembrance of 577 Haileyburians who served in the Great War and were faithful unto death this hall was built by their comrades in arms and others who loved the school.
Ye who come after them forget not their sacrifice. Claim as your heritage a portion of their spirit and in peace or in war take up their sword of service. So shall the living and the dead be for all time bound in one fellowship. 


The Greek inscription translates as "We lift up our hearts on our hands to the Lord."

A long time ago I heard a sermon in which the preacher enjoined us to understand that Christianity challenges a world which exalts the the survival of the fittest with the example of the sacrifice of the Best. It is all too easy to romanticize the suffering of war, which is so often in general and in particular an exercise of the survival of the fittest. Yet for all that, the example of self sacrifice so often shines out of it, cauterizing the wounds of conflict with the fire of love.

Steaming Ahead

Hornby have produced a model of the Haileybury Locomotive. I have blogged about that before, but it s featured heavily in this month's Collectors' Club newsletter.

We will Remember Them

In 1979 ITV televised Remembrance Sunday from the chapel, live. I was in my first term and was asked to read the Lesson. I remember it was the Beatitudes (Matthew 5). I was placed at the end of the row, but had told no one in House about it as I was afraid no one would believe me and that I would get it for showing off. The result was that as I stood up to go to the lectern there was consternation and one of the DPs tried to pull me back into my seat.

The whole experience made me think deeply about the young men who had gone to war. At that time the photos of the House teams from the early 1900s were up on the walls of the DC. One could see chaps in cricket whites and rugger caps and then read the same names on the memorial board on the end wall of the room. My family, luckily has no one who has been killed in war; not so for my wife's, whose grandmother lost a brother in the Great War and a son in the Second World War. The sense of immediacy which comes from that is one that I only have at second hand through the community of the school - and specifically of Hailey. For my sons it is actual relatives. For us all remembering helps us to live and work for peace today.

At Al Hadra Cemetery, Alexandria, at the grave of his Great  Uncle