Lift Up Your Hearts

Last week the church of which a friend of mine is the Vicar was in the news when Beryl Bainbridge's funeral was held there. S Silas Kentish Town keeps its patronal festival on or about 17th July each year and I was there last weekend for the festivities. Their first Vicar was a hymn writer and he wrote a hymn for the patronal festival which has been part of the calendar of the Church of England in North London since the late 19th century.

Like a church that rises glorious

Far above some teeming street

So our hearts mount up victorious

"Sursum Corda" we repeat.

With his children gladly singing,

Stands their patron Saint today

And the courts of heaven are ringing

With the prisioners' festive lay.

The tune is Deerhurst

The reference to prisoners is drawn from the account of the miraculous release of Paul and Silas from prison. Acts 16:16-40. The rest of the hymn is to be found here. (Scroll down the page)

Streets Called Haileybury

There are quite a lot of roads named after Haileybury.

Nearest to me is Haileybury Avenue in Enfield.

The Phoenix

There are many who deprecate the demise of the Vivat! It was relatively late on the scene however. This song by FW Bordillion was published in the Haileyburian on March 13th 1872 and reprinted in the Haileybury Song Book. It plays on the idea of the school rising from the ashes of the East India College.

The tune is given as "So hurrah for the pipe so rich and ripe." I wonder if anyone knows that song and its tune?

The Phoenix

A Bird there was in days of old,

(Each one the story knows),

Who birth did claim form a nest in flame,

And a dying mother's throes.

And we are like that bird of yore,

And we like her were born;

We drew life-breath form a parent's death,

Left alone but not forlorn.

So here's to all whose deeds have won

For Haileybury glory!

Ours be the aim to uphold their fame,

And prove the Phoenix story. 

We boast no kingly founder's name,
We boast no royal clan,

Of a sterner mould were those of old

Our glory who began.

We train no dainty sons of wealth

To dance with luxury's daughters:

In the torrid zone our name is known,

Where Ganges rolls his waters.  

So here's to all whose deeds have won…

Then let us for our motto each
Our "Sursum Corda" take,

And upward still with a sturdy will

Our path to honour make.

We will not shrink from danger's call,

We will not turn from toil,

Till a nobler fame shall crown our name,

Where'er is British soil, 

So here's to all whose deeds have won…

The Few and the Many

There is talk this 70th summer since the Battle of Britain of a memorial to the Spitfire. The Hurricane, more numerous and chalking up more victories never caught the public's imagination in the same way. The last Hurricane built is flown by the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight and is known as "The last of the Many."

One of the Few - the fighter pilots who fought above Southern England in the Summer of 1940 - was Sqn Leader Peter Townsend, (L 1928.1) officer commanding 85 Squadron. He later became very well known through his association with Princess Margaret. Here he is seen clambering into his Hurricane during the Battle.

The picture is from the site of the Cambridge Bomber and Fighter Society which collects a number of memories of Peter Townsend which is well worth a visit.

The following text is from this site:

Peter Townsend was posted from 43 Squadron to 85 Squadron in May 1940 to take command at Debden and to proceed with the task of reforming the squadron and bringing it up to operational efficiency. Townsend did many operational sorties and one timely escape from a canon shell which went through glycol tank and exploded in the cockpit, injuring his left foot. He survived the Battle of Britain and was doing operational duties as a night fighter. Later on, 17 July 1941, he married Rosemary and the reception was held at the Lordship's Pub in Much Hadham, Bishops Stortford. He is well-known for his post-war life when he became equiry to King George VI in 1944 and spent eight years in the royal household. His name became synonymous with the association of Princess Margaret.

Football

There was a frisson when the word went round that Arséne Wenger was coming to open the Modern Languages Centre. There are numbers of Arsenal supporters around the school, but they seem to my observation to be fewer than those who support Spurs. Mr Wenger cancelled his appearance at Haileybury.  The local Spurs fans will be a bit green with envy for their opposite numbers in Almaty. The England team met young people from the school and the Almaty Oblast orphanage at the Dinamo Stadium in Almaty in June last year. Here is a picture of Peter Crouch of Spurs signing a ball for a Haileyburian.

The Evolution of Dormitories 3

The first signs of a move away from the long dormitories and back to something more like the privacy enjoyed by the Guvnor's of the East India College came with he conversion of the Sanatorium into Alban's for girls in 1973.

This is from the Haileybury Prospectus of 1983. How much more comfortable Albans seems than Trevelyan!

Note the heroic attempt to make the 'relative individuality' of the compart comparable!