Last Post

The AGM is over and Chris Darnell (M 1965) has been duly elected as President and the medal handed over. He will be a great President for the school's 150th anniversary and we all wish him well. Meanwhile hearty congratulations are due also to Catherine MacLeod-Smith (Alb & L 1979), who has become the Chairman of the Trustees of the Society, the first woman to hold this office, as she was the first woman President. The President Elect for 2013 is Jane Everard (Alb & L 1976). Joe Davis, the Master, was elected an honorary member of the Society, as was Paul Wilkinson, the Bursar. Both have been great supporters.

This will be the last regular post on the blog now that the Presidency has been handed on. I hope you have enjoyed the miscellany of things. There are some posts which never quite made it, and I still have ideas, but 301 posts (including this one) in sixteen months has been quite busy. Of course the quality has been variable, and sometimes just a picture has had to do. The original idea was to post once a month or so, but I got enthusiastic and it has been much more than that. Sometimes I have had time to post daily, whereas over last summer the rate dropped down to less than once a week for a while.

Readers have come from all the continents except Antarctica, and at the time of writing there have been just under 25,000 page views. The busiest month was February 2011 with 1,645 page views from 1,020 unique visitors. People have stayed on the site too. At any one time according to the tracking software about 15% of my readers stay on the blog for more than 20 minutes, which is a long time for a website.

My family will be pleased that will not be forever taking pictures of Haileybury related things to put up on the blog. I have a set of pictures which did not get used for a series on 'nooks and crannies,' which was rather scorned by a friend who, seeing a photo of the urinal at the back of the pavilion on Lower Pavilion on my phone wondered whether people really want posts on 'places where I urinated when I was a teenager.'

Thank you all for reading. I shall leave the blog on the internet, and you can use the links on the right of the page to read the old posts. I am investigating how to make Haileyburiana available as a book using Print on Demand and will put up a notice if that can be done.

Finally, the Master said in his address to the AGM that in the 150th year he would ask the Director of Music to teach the school the Vivat, which has not, I think been sung at Haileybury for 20 years (the hymn Lift up Your Hearts, having largley taken its place). Here is an attempt at a Sesquicentennial verse:

Now we've been here thrice fifty years

Vivat Haileyburia!

Living out our hopes and fears

Vivat Haileyburia!

Girls have come to join the boys,

In other lands they share our joys,

And still this song our tongue employs

Vivat Haileyburia!

I fear it is not as good as AG Butler's original:

Then close your ranks and lift your song!

Vivat Haileyburia!

That life is short, but love is long;

Vivat Haileyburia!

And all through life, where'er we be

School of our hearts, we'll think of thee

And drink the toast with three times three

Vivat Haileyburia!

Is this the best view in the school?

Some older OHs will remember the third verse of the Vivat! (It is like the National Anthem - even those who know the first verse seldom remember the second or third).

And sweet was then the victor's crown,

Vivat Haileyburia!

But friendship's joy struck deeper down,

Vivat Haileyburia!

And though our distant feet may roam

Our hearts will ne'er forget the home

The dear old school beneath the dome

Vivat Haileyburia!

The one is not new this term No 1 son, who has moved into a room looking out from Lawrence over the Quad, with a fine view of the 'school beneath the dome.'

Is this the best view in the school?

They Built a Road Down to this Place 2

What a contrast life can be. This afternoon I was in Tottenham and took this picture of the other end of Ermine Street as it makes its way to Hertford Heath.

This morning was the 300th anniversary of S Paul's Cathedral. I am there for about half a second 23 seconds in. What a difference a few miles and a few hours can make.

They Built A Road Down To This Place

I am not sure I had ever been to the Roman Road before. It is now called Elbow Lane. Strange to think that  Ermine Street has not changed in a couple of thousand years.

Vivat!

No one in the Lower or Middle Schools can be without his or her Prep Diary for very long. Ring bound A5 size books they contain the time table and a daily diaru in which preps are noted and from which they are ticked off. They don't quite serve the purpose of the termly Red Book known to older generations of Haileyburians, but now abolished. The red book had the class lists and the phone numbers of the Housemasters and other such information. Some of this is now printed in the first pages of the school calendar. 

The Red Book also had the verses of the Vivat printed in the back. No one sings it any more at school - at least in England. In Kazakhstan it is very much alive. 

For those who do not know it here are the words:

The Romans were a knowig race

Vivat Haileyburia!

They made a road down to this place

Vivat Haileyburia!

Romans came and passed away

Normans followed; where are they?

But we are here and here we stay!

Vivat Haileyburia!

Then shout five hundred voices all,

Vivat Haileyburia!

Our days of old we first recall,

Vivat Haileyburia!

But whatsoe'er their fame of yore

We've yet a mind to make it more

Our age of god still lies before

Vivat Haileyburia!

Then vivat, vivat round the board,
Vivat Haileyburia!
And yet once more with louder chord
Vivat Haileyburia!
For we've been boys and men together,
Have weilded bat and hunted leather,
When life was bliss in summer weather.
Vivat Haileyburia!

And sweet was then the victor's crown,

Vivat Haileyburia!

But friendship's joy struck deeper down,

Vivat Haileyburia!

And though our distant feet may roam

Our hearts will ne'er forget the home

The dear old school beneath the dome

Vivat Haileyburia!

Then close your ranks and lift your song,

Vivat Haileyburia!

That life is short, but love is long;

Vivat Haileyburia!

And all through life, where'ere we be,

School of our hearts we'll think of thee,

And drink the toast to three times three,

Vivat Haileyburia!

Things OHs get up to!

Dom Joly (BF 1981) recently visited Haileybury Almaty. There is a splendid description of his assembly here on the blog of Dan Maurice, a teacher in Almaty.

Dom Joly himself wrote about the experience in the Mail on Sunday. He says that there weren't yellow and blue tickets (for good behaviour) in his day. There were certainly yellow ones for academics, but I think the blue ones for thoughtfulness and politeness beyond what is usually expected may be a relatively recent innovation. He suggests a new verse for the Khazakh Vivat:

The Mongols were a vicious race
Vivat Haileyburia!
They raped and pillaged down to this place
Vivat Haileyburia!

I thought this video of Dom Joly's snail stunt might bring a midweek smile.

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…

Haileybury Almaty

The new Haileybury in Kazakhstan is building a significant reputation. Here is a clip from You Tube




If you can lip read you will see that at 1.05 the Vivat is being sung