Singing

Music has been an exceptional strength of Haileybury for many years. I have just got back from a three day parish pilgrimage to Walsingham. We had an afternoon out at Wells-next-the-Sea and I found in the second hand bookshop there a small volume published in 1889 called Songs Sung at Haileybury. The content is interesting, more on that another time; but the use is presumably that described in Random Recollections of Haileybury: 'Another use of Big School which has lapsed (1953) was "Upper School Singing" on Saturday nights, when the School collected with the old Haileybury Song Book to let off steam with community singing. To this sophisticated age such an entertainment may well savour of "Eric or Little by Little." But then, the cacophonous jazz records one now hears from study windows had not yet vitiated the standard of taste or or enjoyment.'

Hugo Bagnall-Oakeley (Ha 51.1-55.2) wrote today to remark on another musical entry in Random Recollections in which Ashcroft referred to "the exceptionally high standard of the 1954 house unison singing competition. I only realised later that this was the year Hailey won the competition and I was the director and conductor. The regulations provided that the entire house must take part—i.e. not just the good singers--- but I instructed those who couldn’t sing in tune to mime the words without making a sound. Incidentally our housemaster Killer Cook was distinctly unimpressed as he regarded musicians as long haired, limp wrested nancy boys but I managed to convince him that this was, after all, a team event so he grudgingly agreed to have the cup in Hailey, although he would much rather have won cock house rugger!"

What would Mr Cook have thought of Haileybury winning the BBC Choir of the year competition in 2005?


(PS you can buy one of the CDs by clicking here or on the picture of the Haileybury Coat of Arms at the bottom of the blog home page.)