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Haileyburiana is a miscellany of things I got up to as President of the Haileybury Society in 2010 - 2011 and random musings on things to do with Haileybury. Whether you are an OH, a current pupil or parent, a teacher or other friend of the school I hope you will find something interesting here. The blog is no longer regularly updated, but there may still be occasional posts.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Lift Up your Hearts

Here is the school hymn with a sixth verse not usually sung.



“Lift up your hearts!” We lift them, Lord, to Thee;
Here at Thy feet none other may we see;
“Lift up your hearts!” E’en so, with one accord,
We lift them up, we lift them to the Lord.
Above the level of the former years,
The mire of sin, the weight of guilty fears,
The mist of doubt, the blight of love’s decay,
O Lord of Light, lift all our hearts today!
Above the swamps of subterfuge and shame,
The deeds, the thoughts, that honor may not name,
The halting tongue that dares not tell the whole,
O Lord of Truth, lift every Christian soul!
Above the storms that vex this lower state,
Pride, jealousy, and envy, rage, and hate,
And cold mistrust that holds e’en friends apart,
O Lord of Love, lift every brother’s heart!
Lift every gift that Thou Thyself hast given;
Low lies the best till lifted up to heaven;
Low lie the bounding heart, the teeming brain,
Till, sent from God, they mount to God again.
Then, as the trumpet call, in after years,
“Lift up your hearts!” rings pealing in our ears,
Still shall those hearts respond, with full accord
“We lift them up, we lift them to the Lord!”

Friday, January 7, 2011

Baggy Green

As England close in on victory in the final test and not only retain the Ashes but win a series in Australia the headline in one paper was "Saggy Green," a reference to the famous Baggy Green caps worn by the Australian national team.



A Baggy Green cap was on display or a in the Pavilion for a few years. It was not any old cap, but one awarded to Sir Donald Bradman, that greatest of Australian cricketers in his last season, playing in England in 1948.

Bradman used to give his caps away and this one was given to Owen Truscott, an Australian who had helped him with his banking arrangements. The cap came to Truscott's son, Kevin (K 1944) who loaned it to Haileybury. In the 1990s another Bradman cap was sold for a great deal of money and it was felt that the school could no longer provide a safe home if the cap were to be displayed. Arrangements were made for it to be sent to the Bradman collection in the South Australia State Library. They were delighted, especially as it had been thought that there had only been one cap issued for that series and the existence of the second Baggy Green was unsuspected. The full story is narrated here.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Pursuit of Knowledge


This medal was awarded as the Sanskrit prize at Old Haileybury. The inscription reads, in Sanskrit, "The pursuit of knowledge is better than the pursuit of gold."

You need gold to win the medal today though. The opening bid for it is at least US$5,700. You can bid for it here.

The description says:

East India College Haileybury, England. Gold Sanskrit Prize Medal. Unsigned by Conrad Heinrich Kuchler, ND (Circa 1806-1810, Possibly made after his death in July 1810). Struck at the Soho Mint.
37 mm; Puddester-948.1.2. Goddess 'India' walking right, flower right, alter left; Rev: In Sanskirt: Pursuit of Knowledge is better than the pursuit of gold. EXTREMELY RARE. Mounted in a broach as a spinner with original jewelry box.


Kuchler made a number of commemorative medals including for the execution of Marie Antionette

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Narbs

Did you have lots to eat over the holiday? I learnt a new Haileybury word for good food: Narbs. My spy in the Removes was unaware that it was not current thirty years ago. 


"Good narbs" is a good nosh. "Got any narbs?' asks whether you have any tuck (a word which is still current). 

Do you know when narbs was coined?

Network Aware Resource Broker
As to the etymology, there are various possibilities. 

NARB is an acronym for Night/Day Angle Rate Bombing System or for "Network aware resource broker." I am not sure what that mans but there is an explanation here, which I have not tried to fathom. Staying in the world of IT, Narbs is also a term meaning 'narrative bits,' units of information used to build a presence on a social network site. See here. There is someone with a twitter account who is @narbs.

Narb is also an online art catalogue for which you can get an app for your iphone. 

Care might be needed as narb seems to be a 'street word.' It has two definitions here - warning, one of them is a bit rude, and the singular (a narb) has nothing to do with food and cannot be defined on a family blog. 

None of this seems to have anything to do with food, and is all narb and not narbs. Help us out anyone?