"None Other than the Glory of God & the Refreshment of the Soul"

 Johann Sebastian Bach famously said "The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul". And can there be a more fitting illustration of Bach's words and faith than this glorious cantata from his sublime and deeply reverential Christmas Oratorio.

Christmas time in Leipzig in 1734 was bursting with music. Not only was Bach’s great Christmas Oratorio performed for the first time as a completed cycle, but everywhere in the town you would hear Christmas songs and the ringing of bells. This booming chorus, celebrating the birth of Jesus in the stable, proclaims: “Ruler of heaven, hear our inarticulate speech, let our faint songs please you.” But it's anything but faint or inarticulate, as Bach pulls out all the stops with drum rolls and trumpet blasts; these, and the words, emphasise Bach's profound belief that human music - like mankind himself - can only be a pale shadow of God’s glory. This is cantata 3 from the Oratorio and the words are those of the simple shepherds arriving in Bethlehem and telling of the events and visions they had experienced on the hillsides around the town.

The Oratorio, first performed in Leipzig as a whole at Christmas 1734, comprises of six cantatas - this one being the third. Bach had written each of these cantatas separately at varying times between 1723 and 1728 - this third one being first performed in Leipzig's Thomaskirche exactly three hundred years ago this Christmas - Christmas 1725.

This exquisite performance is by the wonderful Netherlands Bach Society and is played on period instruments - just as the citizens of Leipzig would have heard it three centuries ago. It brings back many memories of one of our several trips to that lovely city some years ago to enjoy the Christmas Market and see this work performed in Bach's place of work and worship, the Thomaskirche - a place that, I freely admit, brings me to tears each time I step inside, such is the glory and the profound reverence of the place and, of course, its wonderful musical historical links with Johann Sebastian Bach.

Precious and Priceless Christmas Memories

 

Yesterday, Pat and I put up our Christmas tree and a selection of the decorations and baubles that we have amassed over the past fifty six Christmases of our marriage. Not so many decorations this year - my bad back and the passing of time makes it more difficult to climb on chairs and put up these little treasured memories of bygone Christmases. For the first time for many, many years our two strings of little pottery angels will not decorate our chimney breast - they were gifts from our dear and good German friends, Ursula and Klaus, from Stuttgart, who we met on holiday a lifetime ago. The angels are now held together with instant glue and Blu-Tack and still much treasured, but this year they will stay in their box - I can't safely climb the steps to hang them!

And, as each year, we decorated our house I thought back to past Christmases - my own childhood Christmases and our own family affairs as our children Kate and John grew up. So many memories: the young Kate and John and me singing Christmas carols at the tops of our voices as we walked Max our lovely retriever along the disused train lines here in Ruddington - while Pat beavered away in the kitchen at home baking for Christmas; my much loved auntie Nenny standing in our kitchen at teatime on Christmas Day, buttering bread and mixing a bowl of tinned salmon for our salmon sandwich tea, laughing, swearing and cursing in equal measure as she did every year while we fell about with laughter at her light hearted grumbles; all of our family - about twelve of us - returning at midnight from our annual New Year's Eve trip to the theatre in London's West End and Pat's (then elderly!) mother - still, almost twenty years after her death, much loved and missed by us all - climbing into a shopping trolley as we, collapsing in giggles, pushed her along through the silent streets of Petts Wood. Every one, and thousands more a mundane, silly, trivial even, event but also a very precious and priceless memory reminding us of good times, of the spirit of Christmas and most of all of much loved people and places. Where did the years go?

And as I think of these times and look back over the years I am reminded of the wonderful writing of Welsh poet and author Dylan Thomas. His short prose piece "A Child's Christmas in Wales" - a true literary and magical masterpiece, this - captures to perfection the magic of Christmas for children and families. As I read it again this morning it reminded me of why this is such a special time. I wonder if children today with their hi-tech games, fashion conscious outlook on life, mobile phones, social media and the like will, when they are as old as me look back to their past Christmases with the simple fondness that Dylan Thomas does - and I do - in this short extract from his lovely celebration of Christmas?

".....There were the Useful Presents: engulfing mufflers of the old coach days, and mittens made for giant sloths; zebra scarfs of a substance like silky gum that could be tug-o'-warred down to the galoshes; blinding tam-o'-shanters like patchwork tea cozies and bunny-suited busbies and balaclavas for victims of head-shrinking tribes; from aunts who always wore wool next to the skin there were moustached and rasping vests that made you wonder why the aunts had any skin left at all; and once I had a little crocheted nose bag from an aunt now, alas, no longer whinnying with us. And pictureless books in which small boys, though warned with quotations not to, would skate on Farmer Giles' pond and did and drowned; and books that told me everything about the wasp, except why……….

…..There were bags of moist and many-coloured jelly babies and a folded flag and a false nose and a tram-conductor's cap and a machine that punched tickets and rang a bell; never a catapult; once, by mistake that no one could explain, a little hatchet; and a celluloid duck that made, when you pressed it, a most unducklike sound, a mewing moo that an ambitious cat might make who wished to be a cow; and a painting book in which I could make the grass, the trees, the sea and the animals any colour I pleased, and still the dazzling sky-blue sheep are grazing in the red field under the rainbow-billed and pea-green birds. Hardboileds, toffee, fudge and allsorts, crunches, cracknels, humbugs, glaciers, marzipan, and butterwelsh for the Welsh. And troops of bright tin soldiers who, if they could not fight, could always run. And Snakes-and-Families and Happy Ladders. And Easy Hobbi-Games for Little Engineers, complete with instructions. Oh, easy for Leonardo! And a whistle to make the dogs bark to wake up the old man next door to make him beat on the wall with his stick to shake our picture off the wall. And a packet of cigarettes: you put one in your mouth and you stood at the corner of the street and you waited for hours, in vain, for an old lady to scold you for smoking a cigarette, and then with a smirk you ate it. And then it was breakfast under the balloons……..

…...And there were always Uncles at Christmas. The same Uncles. And on Christmas morning, with dog-disturbing whistle and sugar fags, I would scour the swatched town for the news of the little world, and find always a dead bird by the Post Office or by the white deserted swings; perhaps a robin, all but one of his fires out. Men and women wading or scooping back from chapel, with taproom noses and wind-bussed cheeks, all albinos, huddles their stiff black jarring feathers against the irreligious snow. Mistletoe hung from the gas brackets in all the front parlours; there was sherry and walnuts and bottled beer and crackers by the dessertspoons; and cats in their fur-abouts watched the fires; and the high-heaped fire spat, all ready for the chestnuts and the mulling pokers. Some few large men sat in the front parlours, without their collars, Uncles almost certainly, trying their new cigars, holding them out judiciously at arms' length, returning them to their mouths, coughing, then holding them out again as though waiting for the explosion; and some few small aunts, not wanted in the kitchen, nor anywhere else for that matter, sat on the very edge of their chairs, poised and brittle, afraid to break, like faded cups and saucers…….."

Come & Praise: Saying thankyou for the mundane.

 

When, in the early 1950s, I was a child and a pupil at St Matthew’s Junior School in Preston we were taken regularly into the adjoining St Matthew’s Church to listen to the Vicar, sing hymns, and if it coincided with one of the Christian festivals – Easter, Christmas, Ash Wednesday, Whitsuntide etc. - to mark the festival in question. St Matthew’s was a very traditional school of its time where children were expected to speak when spoken to, listen and obey adults without question, and where corporal punishment was, whilst not the norm, certainly not unusual. So, on these Church visits we would walk into the cold and huge Gothic church in total silence and sit on the hard pews gazing around the at the stained glass, the altar, the great brass cross and the pulpit in some kind of unknowing wonder. St Matthew’s was a “split” school with a boys’ section and a girls’ section, so these church visits were one of the few times when we actually saw any of the girls who attended the school. A high wall separated the two playgrounds so to see all these girls sitting on the opposite side of the Church aisle to we boys was a cause of mirth, some little embarrassment, and whispered school boy comment! We were all, children of the post war generation, the sons and daughters of factory workers, weavers, labourers, lorry drivers and the like, and lived in the narrow streets around the school and the Church; if there was one thing that united us it was our poverty. The tiny two up two down, no bathroom or hot running water, outside lavatory terraced houses in which we all lived were our shared experience and within that context, school and our occasional visits to the Church was something that broadened our limited horizons. Our classrooms were not the bright, colourfully decorated places that children enjoy today or that I spent my own teaching career working in, but intentionally or otherwise our teachers, in their different ways, seemed – at least to me – to offer something different and new; a life beyond the mean streets of a Lancashire mill town.

My parents were not church goers – not because of any great lack of belief or strongly held principle. My Mother could sing many of the well known hymns but attendance at Church was just not part of our weekly timetable; long hours working in the factory or my Dad driving his lorry across the length and breadth of the country meant that the weekends were for other things. And, as I sat on those hard pews in St Matthew’s surrounded by my school friends I can remember vividly gazing around trying to make sense of it all and conscious that churches, schools, vicars and teachers represented a different world from the one that I was growing up into, but a world I wanted to know more about.

In particular I can remember the hymns that we sang. In the weeks leading up to a church visit we would practice in class the words of the hymns that were to be sung on the day and so we would make a success of the event. The practice was something to be got through, usually on pain of punishment from the fierce Headmaster, Mr Roberts, who would walk amongst us with his cane in his hand as we warbled the words. But when the day came and we stood together in the Church singing these hymns – nearly always, what I would call, the great hymns of the Church not children’s simpler stuff – I sang my heart out, carried away by the occasion, gazing around me in awe at the place I was in and sensing that this was about something bigger than me, something that mattered and was worthy and that I should understand. I can remember listening to the Vicar reading from the Bible and being drawn into the words, savouring them without understanding them. This was in the days before editions like the New English Bible were available with its more “accessible” (dumbed down?) vocabulary, grammar and syntax so we were listening to the wonderfully rich and beautiful language of the 17th century King James Bible – even today I couldn’t countenance a Bible reading from anything other that the King James. And when we sang a hymn I can still today feel the same emotions and feelings of awe and wonder at the language used. I didn’t necessarily understand it but I knew how it made me feel. The words of hymns like “Immortal, invisible, God only wise” mesmerised me as I sang them and looked around the Church:

“Immortal, invisible, God only wise,

in light inaccessible hid from our eyes,

most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,

almighty, victorious, thy great name we praise.

Unresting, unhasting, and silent as light,

nor wanting, nor wasting, thou rulest in might;

thy justice like mountains high soaring above

thy clouds, which are fountains of goodness and love….”

And when Christmas approached and we sang some of the great Christmas carols and hymns like “Hark the herald angels sing” I can remember (and still do) having wonderful pictures conjured up I my mind:

“Hark! the herald angels sing,

"Glory to the newborn King:

peace on earth, and mercy mild,

God and sinners reconciled!"

Joyful, all ye nations, rise,

join the triumph of the skies;

with th'angelic hosts proclaim,

"Christ is born in Bethlehem”!

Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!

Hail the Sun of Righteousness!

Light and life to all he brings,

risen with healing in his wings.

Mild he lays his glory by,

born that we no more may die,

born to raise us from the earth,

born to give us second birth.”

What I felt was not a religious experience. It was, I suppose a combination of the occasion and the place in much the same way that one might get “swept along” at a great sporting event when the crowd are cheering their heroes or a great musical ”gig” where one’s favourite orchestra or pop group are performing. Indeed, I have had not dissimilar feelings when at a concert and listening it Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony or, sitting as we did many years ago with 13000 others at the Sheffield Arena, watching the group Dire Straits pound out Sultans of Swing; it is the feeling that one is so very small in the great sweep of history and mankind, it reminds one of one’s place in scheme of things. It reminds us that we are human and important but it also tells us that there are greater things – be they ideas, people, places or beliefs – that we need to understand and recognise.

We humans are not omnipotent; as Shakespeare reminded us in his verse from Cymbeline, “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun”:

“…….Golden lads and girls all must,

As chimney-sweepers, come to dust……”

All of which brings me to the present. Last night Pat and I enjoyed a short programme on TV: “The Big School Assembly Sing Along” (If you haven’t seen it then you can watch it via BBC i-Player). It was, as the name suggests, a sing-a-long of school assembly hymns voted for by people across the country – a sort of school hymn top twenty. It was a delight. I’m not a huge fan of Aled Jones who was the compère for the show but leaving that aside it was a joyful romp through twenty hymns that I knew the words to and as each one was sung by the audience of children, parents and teachers I was taken back to my own teaching career, leading school assemblies, taking the weekly hymn practice and singing all these lovely songs of praise. When the intro to one of the first songs began I turned to Pat and said – "This was always the one that the children chose to end our weekly hymn practice – whatever the season." It was called “Autumn Days” I wondered as I listened and joined in how many of my past pupils remembered it:

“Autumn days when the grass is jewelled

And the silk inside a chestnut shell.

Jet planes meeting in the air to be refuelled.

All these thing I love so well

So I mustn't forget

No, I mustn't forget.

To say a great big

Thank You

I mustn't forget

Clouds that look like familiar faces

And the winters moon with frosted rings.

Smell of bacon as I fasten up my laces

And the song the milkman sings

So I mustn't forget

No, I mustn't forget.

To say a great big

Thank You

I mustn't forget

Whipped-up spray that is rainbow-scattered

And a swallow curving in the sky

Shoes so comfy though they're worn out and they're battered

And the taste of apple pie.

So I mustn't forget

No, I mustn't forget

To say a great big thank you

I mustn't forget.

Scent of gardens when the rain's been falling

And a minnow darting down a stream

Picked-up engine that's been stuttering and stalling

And a win for my home team.

So I mustn't forget

No, I mustn't forget

To say a great big thank you

I mustn't forget.”

Now, it’s true, Autumn Days does not have the magisterial words or ideas that some of the great hymns that I sang as a child in St Matthew’s Church; it’s of a different time and intended for young children. I could be grumpy and say it’s “dumbed down” – and maybe it is – but its message is the same. That the little things of life that we enjoy and look forward to are what make us human but at the same time there is something bigger that demands that we acknowledge it and say thank you. That is exactly what happens when we sing in Autumn Days “Smell of bacon as I fasten up my laces” or “And a minnow darting down a stream” we are reminding ourselves of the simple pleasures of humanity and why we should be thankful for them. Whether that be thankful to a God or just an idea is irrelevant – it simply places us in the great scheme of things. And to see the enthusiasm and the gusto as the children sang this in our school assemblies was not just gratifying but humbling – in small way it was speaking to them.

It was the same story with all the other songs of praise that were sung during the programme, to name but three: “Lord of the Dance, When a knight won his spurs, or One more step……………..”

“One more step along the world I go

One more step along the world I go

From the old things to the new

Keep me travelling along with you

And it's from the old I travel to the new

Keep me travelling along with you

'Round the corners of the world I turn

More and more about the world I learn

And the new things that I see

You'll be looking at along with me

And it's from the old I travel to the new

Keep me travelling along with you

As I travel through the bad and good

Keep me travelling the way I should

Where I see no way to go

You'll be telling me the way, I know

And it's from the old I travel to the new

Keep me travelling along with you

Give me courage when the world is rough

Keep me loving though the world is tough

Leap and sing in all I do

Keep me travelling along with you

And it's from the old I travel to the new

Keep me travelling along with you

You are older than the world can be

You are younger than the life in me

Ever old and ever new

Keep me travelling along with you

And it's from the old I travel to the new

Keep me travelling along with you.“

All of the songs were from the excellent BBC “Come & Praise” song books that were introduced in primary schools in the late 1970s. Come and Praise was a “spin off” from the excellent BBC weekly morning service for primary schools that had been aired for many years. The gentleman that led the weekly service was the late Geoffrey Wheeler a broadcaster with the knack and voice of keeping children engaged for the twenty or so minutes that the service lasted each Thursday morning. He didn’t patronise or talk down to children, and neither did he dumb down and the children loved him for it. Each week’s assembly started with a brief piece of music serving as an intro, a way in, to whatever the service was about. I vividly recall one Thursday morning sitting at the front of the assembled school waiting for the assembly to begin, our ears glued to the school hall’s loudspeaker system. The BBC 9 o’clock “pips” (remember those!) sounded and then the glorious sound of the third movement of Bach’s “Brandenburg Concerto Number 5” spilled from the loudspeakers. Not only did my face light up at this favourite of mine but as the children listened they too smiled and began to move, wave their hands in time with the music. When the music faded away a couple of minutes later Geoffrey Wheeler’s voice broke in saying “This morning, children, we are going to think about being joyful, and can you think of anything more full of joy than that piece of music you have just heard.” There were smiles and nods from 250 heads all around the hall - and from me at the front – as Wheeler went on to say a few words about JS Bach and his music. This was school broadcasting at its very best and an event that got our school day off to a good and happy, joyful, start – what an assembly or a hymn should do, reminding us of out place in the great scheme of things and of the very essence of what it is to be human.

Most of the songs in Come & Praise were fairly recently written in the 1970s but others such as “He who would valiant be” were older, indeed that hymn was the school hymn at my own secondary school in Preston in the late 1950s. We sang it in assembly almost daily. The words of that hymn and all the ones I enjoyed in the TV programme have stayed with me and I’m obviously not alone given the audience response on the programme and the results of the national survey.

Today, my grandchildren tell me that school assemblies seem to be at best infrequent and the singing of hymns or songs of praise largely side-lined in favour of other “stuff”. I find this both worrying and, more importantly, desperately sad. I understand the issues – a multifaith society, time pressure on the curriculum, school space to host an assembly – the reasons and problems are both understandable and real. But they are misplaced. The religious element, if there be one, is the least important – although, whatever anyone else suggests I believe that the human awareness gained from experiencing an act of worship of any faith is of consummate value for the young; whether non-believers like it or not, faith and worship of various kinds are an intrinsic part of all human societies. To deny them is a failure if we are in the business of educating educating. Education is not only about knowing dates in history, mathematical formulae or how to recognise or use a fronted adverbial; to have experienced one’s own faith or the faith of others is a vital part of our humanity – and has been so for as long as mankind has gathered. And, I might add, it is only by experiencing it that one can come to an informed judgement as to its worth and value to oneself.

But more important than any faith based or religious aspect are the cultural and educational ones. Religion and all its trappings are fundamental parts of our culture and history – of the nation’s story and our own stories as members of that society. You might know the “facts” that are important in, say, the story of the gunpowder plot or the voyage of the Pilgrim Fathers to America but it's doubtful you would truly understand it unless you have experienced the profound feelings and emotions inherent in the right to worship which was at the root of these events for those involved. You cannot truly understand the checks and balances of our system of government unless you are aware of the historical and religious background and turmoil over the centuries that produced our current system. Similarly, the values espoused in religious stories and hymns are almost entirely positive and embrace all faiths: loving one’s neighbour, taking care of the vulnerable, standing up for what is right, obeying the rules of life and the law ………….the list is endless; all of them the sort of values that any school, any teacher, any society should and must be passing onto their charges each and every day. And, finally – although I could go on at length on this – the ideas and songs that Pat and I enjoyed last night or that I experienced as a child 70 plus years ago in St Matthew’s are both part of our musical and social tradition and vital in developing children as what I can only describe as fully paid up members of our national community, humanity and race. Singing those songs and hymns require us to put ourselves in the shoes of someone other than ourselves, to think in metaphors. When, in school assemblies, we sang “When a knight won his spurs” and the line “Let faith be my shield and let joy be my steed, ‘Gainst the dragons of anger , the ogres of greed” or when we sing the glorious opening line of Autumn Days “Autumn days when the grass is jewelled…..” we were using language at its best, widening vocabulary, lifting language from the mundane of everyday shopping lists, using metaphors, developing linguistic imagery - all things that children (and adults!) need to experience and understand if they are to develop complex language and thus complex thought. We think in words; language is the root our thought system. It is what separates us from the animal kingdom; it allows us to think ahead, reflect back on times past, forecast, analyse, The more complex our language, the more complex our thoughts. It’s as simple as that. And there is more. Learning the words to a song, a hymn, a poem, a quotation from a book etc. is not time wasted. By doing it we experience and learn the cadence of language and the beauty of our language – and this, too, aids the development of thought processes; if all we experience is simple, shopping list prose – the sort seen in bucket loads on social media and in the tabloid press then that is how we learn to think: simply, in black and white, no nuance, no depth, no reflection.

One of the songs not sung in the programme was a favourite in my school - "Cross over the road" - its words loosely based on the parable of the Good Samaritan. As I thought of this last night I sadly pondered how it would fare today in our divided, Reform Party ravaged, England where loving one's neighbour is for many now dependent upon the colour of their skin, their place of birth or their language. Certainly many in contemporary England would give short shrift to Jesus and his parable of loving one's neighbour - whoever they might be. I don't think it would be sung by many of the jingoistic flag waving thugs outside the asylum hostels, hotels or the reception centres of Essex and other places dotted about the nation. Nor, I would hazard would it be countenanced or acknowledged in the council chambers of Nottinghamshire where I live and where the bigots of the Reform Party hold sway - which probably says much, none of it good, about our contemporary society. In an England where compassion, empathy and nuance seem to have given way to aggressive and obscene self righteous selfishness I wonder, as I think of this assembly favourite what today's children would make of it when on their TVs they see foul mouthed, flag waving thugs threatening those asking for our help or, indeed, those giving it. The words of the song say it all:

"Would you walk by on the other side

When someone called for aid?

Would you walk by on the other side

And would you be afraid?

Cross over the road my friend,

Ask the lord his strength to lend,

His compassion has no end -

Cross over the road.

Would you walk by on the other side

When you saw a loved one stray?

Would you walk by on the other side

Or would you watch and pray?

Cross over the road"

Would you walk by on the other side

When starving children cried?

Would you walk by on the other side

And would you not provide?

Cross over the road"

I fear that we are creating a culturally impoverished society as we deny our children the opportunity of knowing or at least experiencing the songs, stories, events of our shared culture and history. To know the great songs/prayers/stories of worship; to have experienced (learned?) the verse of Kipling, Betjeman, or Auden; to have learned the great songs of our culture: The Vicar of Bray, The British Grenadiers, the Skye Boat Song, or Blow the wind southerly; to have a smattering of some of Shakespeare’s great lines and stories; to at least know the story lines of our culture's great books and authors: Dickens, Hardy, or Orwell – all these and so many more are not to be dismissed as “trivia”, useful to win a game of Trivial Pursuits or win a free pint at the pub quiz evening. They are what make us fully paid up members of both humanity and our own history and culture. They allow us to think about and experience things outside our immediate world and understanding; they lift us and give magic to the mundane. That is what happened to me all those years ago in St Matthew’s Church as I sang and marvelled at the glorious language of “Immortal, invisible, God only wise……” They allowed me to think and dream about what President John Kennedy termed “things that never were……….”; they are what has allowed mankind to develop ever more complex creative and wonderful thoughts and solutions, to advance and develop, to understand the world and our fellow men and women. We deny our children these experiences at our peril. As great empires and civilisations have discovered to their cost before us, deny or marginalise your history and your culture and you deny and marginalise your present and your future.

A Musical Journey Back in Time

 One of the unintended, but wonderful, consequences of music of any kind – be it classical, heavy metal, pop, jazz or any other genre – is that it takes one back in time, to another place, another time. And so it was last night when Pat and I went along to the ancient and lovely St Mary’s Church in Clifton Village, on the outskirts of Nottingham to enjoy a lovely concert by the Nottingham Chamber Orchestra.

In fact the memories started before the concert even began! St Mary’s lies behind what was once the teacher training college (now part of Nottingham Trent University) and overlooks the Trent from the steep sided Clifton Grove. When Pat and I were courting – both trainee teachers at the College – it was where 60 years ago we used to go for walks, hand in hand, through the woodland looking down on the Trent far below us. Last night we both laughed, remembering vividly, one evening when walking through the Grove it had seemed a good idea to scramble down the steep slope to the river - it was the sort of daft thing one does as a twenty year old. We got down alright but getting back up was another matter; I just managed it but poor Pat was struggling. I had visions of calling out the fire brigade but as the last light of the day faded and the city of Nottingham lit up in the distance we somehow managed to extract Pat. We didn’t try it again, but the memory lived on - a mixture of mirth and embarrassment! A few minutes later we entered the ancient and exquisite little Church of St Mary the Virgin. The last time I had been there was, I think, in 1965 when as a history student at Clifton our group had gone to the Church as part of our “History Method” course – teaching us how and when to use historical places and artifacts in the classroom to teach children history. As I sat in St Mary’s last night I reflected that 60 years ago - a life time – neither Pat or I could have ever imagined that we would be here again as 80 year olds with our own grown up children and grandchildren. As Pat said, a lot of water – the Trent – has passed by since then!

And so to the concert. The four works brought, each in their different ways, wonderful memories. The first work, Joseph Haydn’s Symphony 99 was a rousing start to the evening. Papa Haydn knew a good tune when he composed it and all his works are filled with splendid tunes; if you feel a bit low at the start of a Haydn work (even a solemn Mass) you will be feeling much better by the time the last notes fade away! As I sat entranced, the Orchestra giving a lively and lyrical rendering of Papa Haydn’s composition I was taken back a few years to one of the most magical and memorable days of my life. Pat and I were in Austria on holiday and we visited the small town of Eisenstadt where Haydn spent most of his working life composing, conducting and making music at the Esterházy Palace, home of the Princes of Esterházy one of the great and powerful families of Europe. I had stood, moved, in the Great Hall where Haydn would have stood to conduct his orchestras and later visited his rooms in the Palace to see the things that he would have known. It was a glorious, Austrian summers day and we sat eating a very deliciously decadent Sachertorte and drinking a deliciously strong Austrian coffee in the sun.

After the Haydn we went to France to enjoy Gabriel Fauré’s suite Masques et bergamasques. This was a work that I didn’t know but enjoyed enormously. Written as a theatrical entertainment commissioned for Albert I, Prince of Monaco in 1919 it is one of Fauré’s most popular work and for me captured exactly the feeling of France: bright, sunny, light hearted – all the ingredients of the many French holidays that Pat and I have enjoyed in that wonderful country over the years. It was just the sort of jolly and bright music that we all needed having just experienced Storm Claudia in Nottingham, two days of continuous heavy rain and strong winds, and the Orchestra carried it off to perfection.

A pleasant short interval (including for Pat a piece of excellent walnut and coffee cake!) was followed by one of my all time favourites Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Violins. This is one of the twelve concerti for string instruments that comprise L'estro armonico (The Harmonic Inspiration). Described by musicologists as "perhaps the most influential collection of instrumental music to appear during the whole of the eighteenth century” and is an absolute joy. I often listen to this on a hot summer’s afternoon as I stand over the BBQ – it takes me back to perhaps my favourite place on the planet – Venice. Last night as the rain fell on Nottingham I was transported to far away, to La Serenissima; when I closed my eyes I could hear the water lapping on the Grand Canal, see the soft pastel colours and stone, and feel the warm Venetian sun on my back as the two violins beautifully harmonised and wove their charms with the rest of the strings.

And so to the final work, Mendelssohn’s Symphony No 4 (the Italian). A truly well known work that I guess many could hum along to without knowing what it was called. Mendelssohn, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s favourite composer, like Haydn fifty plus years before knew a good tune when he composed it and this work is no exception. Written during, and after, he travelled to Italy in 1831 Mendelssohn wrote to his father: “ This is Italy! And now has begun what I have always thought ... to be the supreme joy in life. And I am loving it…... The Italian symphony is making great progress. It will be the jolliest piece I have ever done, especially the last movement. I have not found anything for the slow movement yet, and I think that I will save that for Naples.” Mendelssohn was not wrong; Pat and I love Italy and the Italians, from the first time we visited many, many years ago we both felt completely at home. To just sit and listen to Italians talking (and without my understanding a word) I am entranced by the beauty of the language and the obvious love of life that it portrays.

It was indeed a jolly piece to round of a splendid evening – it brought back so many happy memories of times past and places visited. It was just right for a stormy East Midlands night and for me, as 80 year old with very painful sciatica it was a real tonic! Under the excellent, energetic, enthusiastic and baton of Andrew Foxley the Chamber Orchestra gave us a night to remember. Lively, bright, jolly and above all musical I don’t think anyone could have left St Mary’s not feeling better and with a spring in their step – even my sciatic pain seemed a little less severe! There is nothing quite like live music and especially so when performed by an enthusiastic and talented group of musically adept and mature musicians in the intimate atmosphere of a place like St Mary’s, it has an added vibrancy and warmth that CDs, streaming and the great concert halls can never replicate. It was both gratifying and heart warming, too, to see so many young people as members of the Orchestra – and in the audience; clearly, despite the efforts of our political masters and “educational” (I use the term loosely) institutions like Nottingham University to limit or discontinue music and arts courses and concentrate upon STEM curriculum subjects not every youngster is getting their Philistine message.

St Mary's in Clifton Village has been a place of worship and community focus since the early 13th century. It has seen mankind in all his and her manifestations and iterations over the centuries; it is part of local Nottingham history and the grand sweep of English history but, I suggest, last night's couple of hours will have been up there with some of the most joyous and rewarding of the thousands of events witnessed by those ancient walls. Thank you Nottingham Chamber Orchestra for an excellent evening; for the music, the good company and for me the memories.

“ A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life........." (Goethe)

In the new film “The Choral”, Ralph Fiennes, who plays the lead part of the choirmaster in Alan Bennett's Great War tale, tells the little provincial Yorkshire choir he leads that “ A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul". These words by the great 18th century German writer and polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe were fitting for this beautifully observed, wonderfully acted and sympathetically told story. Full of gentle Yorkshire humour, irony and at times touching sorrow it is every bit a work of art as the things that Goethe was describing.

As I sat in the darkness of the Broadway cinema in Nottingham, entranced by the story, the images and the acting it crossed my mind that Herr Goethe would have got short shrift in England in 2025 where places like Nottingham University (shame on you Nottingham) are closing down their music studies courses, and successive governments of all persuasions appear to take great pleasure in squeezing music and other arts subjects out of the school curriculum in favour “hard” subjects: science, maths and business courses with only one aim – namely making money, for the individual, big business, or the country - or preferably all three. We live in an increasingly Philistine world. Unlike many European nations we in England are bent upon Philistinism even refusing to take the advice of two of the greatest of English minds and towering world economists: John Stuart Mill and John Maynard Keynes. Mill famously told us us that 'The idea is essentially repulsive of a society held together only by the relations and feelings arising out of pecuniary interest’ and Keynes was just as clear: 'Once we allow ourselves to be disobedient to the test of an accountant’s profit, we have begun to change our civilisation and all mankind for the better". Clearly these wise and important words have not been heard in the Nottingham University Senior Common Room or office of the Vice Chancellor, nor have they pricked the conscience or entered the mindset of our political masters.

But, “The Choral” is a clarion call, a timely reminder of the importance of the “arts” in everyday life - whether it be classical music, heavy metal, a Rembrandt portrait, a Henry Moore sculpture, ballet, line dancing or any other art form; they, and other "arts", are what make life worth living and worth fighting for and without them life would be barren indeed. Every few months I get, as an ex-student, a “begging letter” from Nottingham University asking for my financial support – make a donation or set up a Direct Debit to support students at the University. I did this for many years; I felt it was right and proper – but no more. I read the glossy brochure explaining why I should dig deep the day after the news broke that the University would be cutting its music courses and was reminded of Winston Churchill’s words in 1950. Churchill was in favour of a huge expansion of university education, he knew that the country needed a highly skilled and talented workforce. But he had an important caveat, saying: “The first duty of the university is to teach wisdom, not a trade; character, not technicalities. We want a lot of engineers in the modern world, but we do not want a world of engineers.” Quite: when a university (or a school or any other educational establishment or government) decide that “the arts” are not important enough to fund and develop then I know with absolute certainty that there is something terribly wrong with both our institutions and our society. In short, Beethoven's mighty Choral Symphony, Bach's B Minor Mass, a Caravaggio or Vermeer painting, a performance of King Lear, the ballet The Nutcracker, a Shakespeare's Sonnet, Betjeman's verse or John Donne's love poems and a thousand other works of art are things I would die to protect and preserve, go into battle for. But the attraction of the accountant's ledger, the financial "glories" of the City of London, Silicon Valley or the fate of the Jaguar Rover car plant to name but four leave me cold. They are necessary evils but not things to love or fight for; they might sustain us physically, even put food in our bellies, but they do not nourish us spiritually, emotionally, or mentally; they are not food for our souls.

But back to the film. Pat and I were at the cinema for 11.30 – the film beginning at 1.15pm so just time to eat a delicious lunch in the Broadway Cafe (plus a free cup of tea and 10% off thrown in because today was the weekly “silver screen” showing). “Silver Screen” is a once a week afternoon at Broadway when one can get a cheap seat (£7.00!) plus all the little “extras” – the name says it all, the theatre was filled with oldies silver haired like us!

“The Choral” tells the tale of a provincial Yorkshire choral society in 1916. The town, like all others at the time had lost many of its menfolk, who had gone off to France to fight in the Great War so the choir numbers were dwindling. Even the choirmaster had joined up and they had to find someone else to take on the role. It is a bitter sweet tale as the choir rehearse and eventually perform Elgar's "Dream of Gerontius" whilst individually and collectively they face up to the realities of 1916 war time England: telegrams informing wives and mothers of the death of their loved ones, anti-German feeling, propaganda, local rivalries (social, emotional and political), deeply held convictions which to our modern eyes might seem old fashioned but in those days were only too real and important. As always with Alan Bennett it is filled with beautifully observed human moments, droll Yorkshire humour and acutely observed political and social commentary. It is Bennett at his best. The last words spoken in the film are arrow like and classic Alan Bennett. In those last few moments we see a train leaving the station filled with newly enlisted young men going off to France and being waved off by their loved ones. Someone shouts “Don’t worry lads, you’ll be home by Christmas’ (if ever there can be a more fatuous, sad and wrong forecast surely it is that?). And as the train pulls out one of the tale’s main characters, Mr Duxbury who owns the mill where all the town folk work and whose money keeps the choir going shakes his head sadly. His own son had gone off to war in 1914 and didn’t return and Mr Duxbury reflects, wryly and angrily, that when his son Arnold went off to France, and the war was “new” there were brass bands, a bishop, and the Lord Mayor on the platform to send the young men off. But today, three years into the war, there were no brass bands, no Lord Mayor and ”even the bloody curate didn’t turn up.” And the train disappears into the distance, three young choir members leaning out of the window waving to their loved ones, leaving us to ponder if they will return. The greatest of the Great War poets, Wilfred Owen, would have understood Mr Duxbury's words and all that they conveyed both spoken and unspoken; it was what Owen termed so sorrowfully and eloquently "the pity of war". And that was why the film is more than just a nice story, it deals with the important things of life: death, life, love, regret, hate, fear, joy, sorrow, honour, truth, lies, hopes, dreams, goodness, and all the other things that separate mankind from the animal kingdom and make us human.

But for me there were other little touches that made it all so real and poignant: Bennett’s beautiful use of language, all with a Yorkshire accent – this was 1916 Yorkshire Shakespeare - it was a joy as was the acting. This was the cream of the English theatre at the top of their game, doing something that brash, shallow, Hollywood could never equal; it could never reach the emotional depths in the manner that Bennet and this wonderful cast does. And one point out of many that chimed and brought a small tear to my eye was when the choirmaster visited the local convalescent home where wounded soldiers were patients. He was trying to enlist men with good voices for the choir and as he walked into the ward the men where all wearing their “blues” – the blue uniforms that wounded men had to wear when they were recovering to show that they were not deserters. I have photographs of my grandad and great uncle wearing their blues in 1916 when they were injured on the Somme. It was a poignant moment and very touching detail.

If you get the chance to see “The Choral” take the opportunity. As always with Alan Bennett it’s a jolly good story to simply sit back and enjoy, but its more, much more. It’s about people and what is important to make us what we are as human beings. It should be made compulsory viewing in the ivory towers of Nottingham University, in every other Philistine university senior common room, and in the corridors of power in London. And, I would add, Goethe's great words and Wilfred Owen's biting critique of war and those who would make war in his poem "Dulce et Decorum est" should be inscribed on the wall of every classroom, university and public building in the country.

Decency, Ethical Action & the Common Good in Donald Trump's Morally Bankrupt Anomic Wasteland

In these years of populist politics and of power mad men and their mindless rabble rousing followers stamping their jack boots on the face of humanity we are witnessing a breakdown in the once accepted accepted standards of decency, democracy and integrity. Whether it be Trump, Netanyahu, Putin on the world stage, or Farage, Tommy Robinson, the Reform Party and great swathes of the old Tory Party in the UK (and, sadly, many who should know better in the English Labour Party) the big political questions being asked are no longer whether this policy or that initiative is good, decent, worthy, morally right or even just – the only question asked and criterion for action is “Will it get us what we want?”; the world is turning its back upon integrity and ethical action in favour of zero sum politics where the end justifies the means. That is what underpins all Trump’s “deals” - whether they be in Gaza, Ukraine or in the USA with his attacks on various groups, his side lining of the American Constitution and the US justice system and his abandonment of not only the accepted norms of political and social behaviour but also the common good. And we in the UK are well along the same path; "Does it get me what I want", not "Is it right or is it wrong" has become the solipsistic question to ask in contemporary society, commerce and politics. It is the route to a society rapidly losing its moral compass and dissolving into an anomic wasteland.

For many, like me there is a deep sense that all is not well with our world and I have found myself increasingly turning to the writing of the late Tony Judt – historian, political scientist, political philosopher - for both solace and understanding; his books not only trace how easily we can get to this point but give us signposts as to the sort of world that we should be aiming for.

Judt died in 2010. In 2008, he began to suffer from aggressive amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. He soon became paralysed from the neck down and died in August 2010 aged 62. Born in London to a Jewish family he was regarded as one of the brightest of his generation and became internationally known as an expert in 20th century European history and from the 1990s served as the Director of the Erich Maria Remarque Institute Professor and European Studies at New York University. The Remarque Institute focuses its research on Europe and the contemporary world. It was founded in 1995 and named after the German writer Erich Maria Remarque. His widow made a $20 million donation to NYU. Its aims being "to support and promote the study and debate on Europe, and to encourage and facilitate communication between Americans and Europeans". Erich Maria Remarque was the author of the great German1st World War novel "All Quiet on the Western Front", published in 1928 which was strongly anti-war. Remarque was hounded by Hitler as anti-German and forced to flee Germany. He became a naturalised American citizen.

I have most of Judt’s wonderful books on my shelves; they are not just informative history books but inspiring and thought provoking analyses of political events, movements and, above all, ideas and one of them, Judt's "Ill fares the land", is one I return to again and again. It's a thin volume that can be read in a couple of nights but for me and many of my generation and viewpoint it "speaks" - its sub heading is "A treatise on our present discontents" - which says it all. The title of the book is a quote from Oliver Goldsmith’s 18th century poem “The deserted village”, a biting commentary on the great inequalities of his day: ".....Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay......."

In October 2010 Tony Judt gave his last public lecture. In that lecture (click on the video link below) he covers many of the points and issues that one can read about in “Ill fares the land”. Judt’s last lecture was his greatest gift to us. For almost 2 hours he sketches, details and gives voice what many like me feel. He was only a few months from his own death, paralysed from the neck down and having to breath with the help of a machine. Incredibly, he spoke without notes. His words are and must be a clarion call to all right thinking people across the western world.

Judt died before the advent of Trump and the other right wing/populist/fascist rabble rousers that are now in ascendancy in our capitals and on the streets of the western world and other places across the planet; he would be horrified at what we have allowed to happen. Sadly he is not here to guide us, but his words and this lecture remain; we should heed what he says. This video should be broadcast across every public building and his little book “Ill fares the land” on the shelves of every library, every school, every university and every government facility – because it speaks of decency, ethical action, society's moral compass and the common good.

Poor Law to NHS: "Dreaming of things that never were".

Occasionality – and sometimes unexpectedly - one comes across something which really grabs your attention, that perhaps thrills you or, to coin a phrase “makes your day”. I’ve had such an occurrence in the past 24 hours.

In the years leading up to and since my retirement two decades ago I have slowly built up an extensive library – my office shelves strain under the weight of hundreds of books; philosophy, politics, history, society……. many of the great works of the world’s learning and fiction. And over the years I have read almost every one (many of them several times) – the only outstanding ones being my most recent purchases, all waiting for me to open their covers. And yesterday I began reading one of my latest acquisitions, a book given to me by my daughter Kate on my 80th birthday a few months ago because, as she said at the time, "I think it might appeal to you”. How right she was.

From the minute I read the first couple of pages I was hooked.

Kate had come across the book almost by accident - it was written by the father of one of her friends in Manchester where Kate lives. It is called “Park Hospital Davyhulme: Birthplace of the NHS” by Edmund Hoare & Michael Billington and it tells the story of that Manchester hospital from before its setting up and up to the present day.

The hospital in question is not famous as one of the great hospitals of the land: Barts, King’s College, Papworth, the John Radcliffe, or Great Ormond Street to name but a few. Indeed it is, many might say, just an ordinary, everyday provincial hospital like so many others throughout the country. But that would be doing it a great disservice for it is anything but ordinary and everyday – it has a unique history and that history is part of the very fabric of the nation’s social, political, and medical landscape; in short it is about us as a people, it is part of our cultural heritage.

Park Hospital began its life in the late 1920s when it was the last hospital to be built in this country as a result of the ancient (dating back to Tudor times) Poor Laws - indeed its concept and establishment was under the supervision of the local Poor Law Guardians. During the war it became a military hospital for troops from the UK, France and America and then shortly after the War it became an NHS hospital. Some might say this was its finest hour when on July 5th 1948 the Park Hospital was chosen to be the place where the new NHS was launched. On that day the great founder of the NHS, Nye Bevan, came with other dignitaries to the Park to officially launch the NHS – and in doing so changed this country for ever and for the better. Today, as Trafford General Hospital, it would be quite unrecognisable to that which opened in 1929 as Park Hospital, born out of the ancient Poor Law but that is a testament to the endeavour, commitment, ideals, far sightedness and altruism of so many for almost a century and up to the present day.

The book is the story of this hospital and its unique and great history and its contribution to the locality and the wider nation. It is full of anecdotes, interesting details, memories, documents and all manner of resources written by people who experienced both the everyday, humdrum moments in the life of the hospital but also its finest moments when it became a beacon in the life of the nation. Filled with pictures, facts and lively commentary it is not a dry and dusty history book but a volume that oozes life and passion. And for me, it makes me proud of what this country can and did do in our long history - even in the most trying of times. It’s not about battles won or kings being crowned or flags being mindlessly waved in faux patriotic pride but about ordinary people who, in the times that they lived – whether it was in the dark days of the Poor Law, or in the age of the much dreaded workhouse, or in the inspirational days of the infant NHS – did what they could and more to make the world a better place both for themselves and their families and for future generations. It makes real the social contract that binds together successive generations; I pay my taxes to make my own world a better place, but in doing so I am also making things better for those yet to be born for they will be born into a world with the hospitals, schools, roads, parks, public services and the rest that makes their world and their lives better. And I, and others like me, have in a small way helped to provide all that; it is our legacy to those yet to be born - people that we will never know, given freely and with love; a maxim which perhaps sums up the tale told in this wonderful book. I was born in 1945, a child of Attlee and Bevan’s “New Jerusalem”, a child of the NHS and I (and my family) am a direct beneficiary of what my parents’ and grandparents’ generations did in their times. And that is why the book is more than just a nice informative read – it’s about our responsibilities as citizens of today and and our responsibilities to each other both now and to the citizens of the future.

Beautifully written and illustrated it’s a treasure trove of information and comment. It’s a social history and a testament to the ingenuity and ambition of both ordinary people and the great men and women of our nation. On the one hand we live, today, in age of increasing homelessness and deteriorating housing stock, of a constantly under pressure health service, of potholes blighting our roads, of under resourced schools, of growing inequality and all the other ills that contemporary society bears witness; and on the other hand our contemporary politicians of every hue appear timid, lacking both vision and the courage of their convictions to take the necessary ambitious steps to improve things. This book is a timely and important reminder of what can be done if the will is there. It’s not just about Nye Bevan and the birth of the NHS but a testament to people through the ages who, to use President John F Kennedy’s words, knew that “The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by sceptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were.” Bevan, Attlee and those involved in the founding of this hospital were such people, but they weren't just dreamers, they dreamt of things that many in their times thought were quite unimaginable and unattainable, and they acted. They were people who made dreams come true - and this lovely book is their testament.

If you get the chance, have a read of this splendid and inspiring book and, like those people of past generations, dream of things that never were.