Singing Competition

Share your memories and stories from the Hertford Christ's Hospital School, which closed in 1985, when the two schools integrated to the Horsham site....

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Katharine
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Singing Competition

Post by Katharine »

Do you remember the House Singing Competition each Spring term? We had to sing a psalm, unaccompanied and a part song. I was/am tone deaf. The first year the girl in charge was very tactful, but did not think of the future. Firstly she told me that it was the duty of the youngest in the House (me) to turn the pages for the pianist for the song. However she was still faced with me in the psalm, she took me aside and told me that a CH voice was a very special voice, and mine wasn't quite there yet, so would I mind mouthing.
The following year, the then youngest was playing the piano (Alex Szantyr - later head organ girl) - so as the previous youngest I still had to turn.

This came back to me this morning in church, we had one of the psalms we had to learn one year.
Katharine Dobson (Hills) 6.14, 1959 - 1965
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Re: Singing Competition

Post by englishangel »

Katharine wrote:Do you remember the House Singing Competition each Spring term? We had to sing a psalm, unaccompanied and a part song. I was/am tone deaf. The first year the girl in charge was very tactful, but did not think of the future. Firstly she told me that it was the duty of the youngest in the House (me) to turn the pages for the pianist for the song. However she was still faced with me in the psalm, she took me aside and told me that a CH voice was a very special voice, and mine wasn't quite there yet, so would I mind mouthing.
The following year, the then youngest was playing the piano (Alex Szantyr - later head organ girl) - so as the previous youngest I still had to turn.

This came back to me this morning in church, we had one of the psalms we had to learn one year.
I do remember having to learn 'Nymphs and Shepherds' one year.

We also had a recitation competition every year. apiece of poetry or prose which we could choose ourselves. this was an individual competition rather than house.

My second year the girl before me forgot her words. she was normally very confident and the way she went to pices really put me off. I started my poem very confidently (I can still remember it) I got half way throught the second verse and blanked, I mentally turned the page for the next line and could see nothing.

The four people after me all forgot their words as well.

This did not go down at all well.
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Post by UserRemovedAccount »

englishangel wrote:My second year the girl before me forgot her words. she was normally very confident and the way she went to pices really put me off. I started my poem very confidently (I can still remember it) I got half way throught the second verse and blanked. I mentally turned the page for the next line and could see nothing.
What's this - Englishangel at a loss for words?? Surely not!
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Post by Katharine »

Yes I remember the poetry competition too. My friend Anne-Marie Kelly won her class one year. She was so disgusted with the actual prize she got on prize day, the front page was torn, that she did not enter the following year. DR was not amused.

It had a wonderful name - was it the Wood Latimer Recitation Prize? I won the Thomas Firmin prize for maths a couple of times and even looked him up on the net - seems he was a good bloke, a button maker in the 1670s. I could not see why a maths or science prize should be named after him. Perhaps the one I found was the wrong merchant of the City of London?
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Post by englishangel »

I remember Anne-Marie Kelly (3's), tall with long blonde hair and glasses.

I didn't ever get any prizes for academic work, I was too lazy, did enough but never shone. I got the Robertson Gift for service to the school in the end.

And yes petard, I am somtimes lost for words, you should meet my daughter, there are a lot of legless donkeys round here.
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Post by Euterpe13 »

I won the junior recitation prize my first year , entered several times later in the school, but never won again...the first time was obviously a fluke !

The singing competition was a nightmare - getting 35 girls to sing unaccompanied through a psalm and actually end in in tune was pure utopia ! If you were only half a tone out at the end, you considered you were doing very well...

Must say, though, that it is a pity psalms are not chanted in church services any more - I used to enjoy them .
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Post by Katharine »

englishangel wrote:I remember Anne-Marie Kelly (3's), tall with long blonde hair and glasses.
Sorry, another 6s, long blonde hair but no glasses! I sat next to her for many a meal from Upper IV through to S VI, same house, same year. we left on the same day and even went to the same University!
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Post by englishangel »

Obviously getting two people mixed together
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Singing Contest

Post by Alexandra Thrift »

I loved the singing contest .I was very competitive and loved singing. Alexandra Szantyr,mentioned by Katharine , was our Director/Conductor
the year sixes WON.We sang "Rolling Down to Rio" ( I've never seen a jaguar, nor yet an armadillo, dilloing in his armour , and I hope I never will") and the Zingari Wedding? Song ( well known Romany violin tune) plus a psalm. Alex was brilliant( by then Lower Sixth) and we sang our hearts out.I was thrilled.

Later I was Choir Leader.Of all the activities and studies at CH, my favourite, by far and away, was singing. Miss Taverner was great. My great regret is that I didn't take it further after leaving. My nephew just passed Grade 8 singing with distinction but I don't remember ever being offered the possibility to study singing at CH.It had to be an instrument .

I now know that my late mother's mother ( Rosie Costa ) sang in the London music halls notably the Hackney Empire. She knew Marie Lloyd and my Uncle ( now deceased) remembered that she ( Ms Lloyd) used to come back to the family house in Hackney.
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Post by Alexandra Thrift »

Re: the year that Sixes won the singing contest....actually the director of our songs was ?? Titmuss ( Denise? ) not Alex. Szantyr, but Alex may have played piano.
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singing competition

Post by Liz Jay »

The singing competition was great fun even for the tone deaf and tuneless ones like me! I still can't sing but good at remembering the words. Didn't we do the Pied Piper one year? And I remember Diane Kimmins? - Kimmings? - Kimmons? coaching us and conducting. She pronounced her name DeeAnn for some reason.
There were some unusual names around, I remember Janessa, and wasn't Ros Bush spelt Rosalynde, very pretty.
Ros was another with beautiful hair, long, thick and a remarkable light chestnut colour --- but didn't she once get an interrogation about tinting it after returning from home from holidays? I remember the tears but seem to think it was a totally unfounded accusation.
And with hindsight what did it matter anyway????
So easy it was to do wrong. No wonder I was forever in trouble. Me, Alex and Siobhan Kierans were just sooooo naughty (mostly without trying so what the hell?)

Liz (6's '66 to '68 )
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Post by Alexandra Thrift »

It's weird that the subject area (above) on these posts seems fairly irrelevent and comes up in really small writing...so I don't think I'll bother with it.

Yes,Diane may have coached us one year for the singing comp.

We did "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" in our school year group ( not house)
with Miss Cordery for the School Concert. I was The Pied Piper.

"Hamelin's Towns in Brunswick,
by famous Hanover City
The River Weser deep and wide
washes it's walls on the southern side
A pleasanter spot you never spied
But when begins this ditty?
Almost 500 years ago.......

Parts of that and of course "Hiawatha" are ingrained in my brain forever.

"Hidden in the alder bushes
There he waited 'til the deer came....."

Its like a terrible affliction....LOL!
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Post by Liz Jay »

"....to see the townsfolk suffer so
From vermin
'TWAS a pity..." etc etc etc I could go on, as you say indelibly ingrained in the brain for ever more. No wonder my short term memory is so bad when stuff like this is there clogging up the memory banks.

Funny I can't remember the long graces, yet must have heard them enough times for them to be equally unforgettable!

Liz (was Plummer ex 6's '66 - '68 )
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Post by Alexandra Thrift »

Before:

Give us thankful hearts O Lord God
For the table which thou hast spread for us
Bless thy good creatures to our use
And us to thy service.

After:

Blessed Lord,
We yield thee hearty praise and thanksgiving
for our Founder and Benefactors
By whose charitable benevolence
Thou hast refreshed our bodies at this time.
So season and refresh our souls
with thy heavenly spirit,
that we may live to thy honour and glory.
Protect thy Church,the Queen and all the Royal Family,
and preserve us in peace and truth,
through Christ our Saviour.

:D
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Post by Liz Jay »

Oh right, I do remember the before, and the first three lines of after...but not the bit about the Royal Family at all. It's rather a nice grace apart from that bit which sounds a bit ingratiating and must have been written in for some esoteric reason.
Did we all leap to our feet to the sound of a hammer? No wonder I ended up so twitchy about sudden loud noises!!!!
Was it just me or we were really cold and hungry most of the time? I got thinner and paler with each passing term, yet seem to remember some buxom comely wenches ...wherever did they obtain sufficient calories to look so healthy???

Liz (ex 6's '66 - '68 )
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