"And on earth peace, good will toward men”

"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger”. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, good will toward men”.

So say the mighty words of the Bible (Luke 2:8-14) telling of the birth of Christ two millennia ago and whether one is a Christian, a Muslim, a Jew, a Hindu…….or of no faith at all, it would be pretty difficult to disagree with the sentiment – that there be peace on Earth and all men living with good will and harmony. Sadly, our 2025 world is far from peaceful or filled with good will or harmony: war in Ukraine, Gaza lying in ruins, starvation running wild in many places, once great nations like America and even our own UK riven with discord, division, inequality, racism, hatred and violence; and running through our society, our cultures and our politics the so called “culture wars” setting one man against another…………. We live in not only perilous times where “good tidings” – good news – is in short measure and where, in these last days of 2025, many are unable to “fear not” as the angels commanded the shepherds at the first Christmas.

Nineteen years ago, almost to the day, Pat and I stood in the sun looking out over a peaceful and happy Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia (see pics). We watched people enjoying the sun, the sand, and the sea - swimming, surfing, eating picnics and playing games. We laughed when we noticed several young men and women in their shorts and bikinis playing beach cricket all dressed in Santa costumes, complete with long white beards. We were at the beginning of a lovely, once in a life time holiday after my retirement and had already spent time en-route in Singapore before arriving in Oz to take in Sydney, Adelaide, Alice Springs, Ularu, Queensland, and Cairns, to swim at the Great Barrier Reef, and then on to the magic of Tokyo and Japan.

It was a holiday of so many precious memories: we met wonderful people, saw marvellous things, visited welcoming countries and were overwhelmed by the kindness and cultures that we experienced; and we both thought of this yesterday as we watched the dreadful pictures and followed the news broadcasts of the atrocities on that beautiful beach where so many lost their lives or where injured by two gunmen who clearly had no “goodwill towards men”. And I asked myself, as I seem to do so often nowadays, “What is happening to people, what’s going on in the hearts and minds of so many, why is it that so many seem willing, able, or want to say or do things that once upon a time they would have been ashamed to think or say let alone do?"

Of course, we might say that the events yesterday in Sydney were a “one off”, so extreme that they do not fit a pattern and will not be repeated, but the reality is that as we know to our cost extreme violence born of a perverted mindset is becoming more and more common and worryingly normalised; the reasons or “excuses” to justify or seek to “explain” the event might vary but the end result is the same: Bondi Beach, Southport, the Manchester Synagogue attack, mass shootings in America, extreme, perverted and violent events in France, Germany, and a host of other places………………...are becoming more everyday and as they do so we cease to be horrified or offended; we say “It is what it is”, and we “move on”, “get over it” – until the next one occurs.

Sadly these once, “one-off,” extreme, events, now almost weekly news are no longer perpetrated by people so extreme or inhuman as to make them “one-offs”. Events such as those at Bondi Beach or the ruination of Gaza and its people or the Southport murders of three innocent little girls do not occur in a vacuum; they are part of the whole, both part, and a reflection of, the world that we have created and in which we live. What was once unthinkable for ordinary people is now accepted as “modern life”. Look at any bit of social media and you will be horrified at what people will now proudly put down in print – and be unashamed to add their name to it, taking a pride in broadcasting their obscenities, their perverted rhetoric and warped minds to everyone on the planet. And a trend I have noticed in recent months and years compounds the distress; click on one of these posts and you will often discover it is posted by some ordinary, "nice" person with a nice family, a nice house, a pillar of the community who might live next door to you - not some ill mannered, ill educated "thug" who might be excused his or her lack of shame or the obscene language and content of their post. I'm often minded to reply to one of these posts by saying "Does your mother know that you have written this" - but I never have, I am afraid that I might be further disheartened by an equally obscene/violent/shameful reply from the poster's mother. There is no embarrassment, shame or fear felt by these people as they post their crude, ill thought and often violent messages, and in being so this creates a digital and wider world where violent words, obscene comment and extremist views are not only tolerated but become accepted, normal, alright, legitimate. And anyone is fair game: the girl next door, the Prime Minister, the family seeking asylum, the single mother, the gay couple living down the street, the local school and it's teachers, the out of form footballer who is perceived to be letting the side down, the Muslim or Jewish worshippers going to pray at the local mosque or synagogue, the local town councillor who has not resolved some problem, the shopkeeper who put up his prices......anyone and everyone who has "offended" the senses or the beliefs of the herd can be, or is, "othered" in the angry world that is 2025. Against this background those of an extreme and perverted mindset see those who are vilified and "othered" by the media or by people of influence and power as legitimate targets for their venom and violence, making in their warped minds their hateful plans credible and their horrifying actions justified; and, so, innocent people become fair game, potential victims fully deserving of their fate. Ninety years ago the owner of the Daily Mail, Lord Northcliffe, when asked in Parliament to explain the popularity of his newspaper replied: "I give my readers a daily hate". The Daily Mail has not changed, it still spouts its daily hatred of all things and all men but in 2025 it is insignificant when one compares it to the vast opportunities for the spread - and with it the popularity - of hate, of othering, of vitriol, of obscenity, and of violent thought and action available on social media and the wider internet.

Words have consequences and social media and the 24 hour global news cycle under which we now all live multiplies this many times to generate profound and terrible consequences. When Donald Trump last week referred to Somali immigrants as “garbage” and suggested that they were unfit for America…. that “they come from hell and they complain and do nothing but bitch, we don’t want them in their country. Let them go back to where they come from and fix it,” his bigoted tirade was not said in private but in front of the world’s press. His comments were not a “one off” or something he later regretted but built upon his previous statement: ”Why is it we only take people from shithole countries, right?' Why can’t we have some people from Norway, Sweden, just a few? Let us have a few from Denmark. Do you mind sending us a few people? Do you mind?'" How can comments like that not impact upon the hearts and minds of others – either for good or ill; they give licence to those disposed to act against Somalians and create an atmosphere fear and antagonism amongst the people at whom Trump’s comments were aimed. Last week, our own King Charles made an announcement about the progress of his cancer treatment. Whilst the majority of responses on social media were supportive and wished the King well a significant number of others were filled with venom and obscene comment. I’m no great supporter of the monarchy but, I ask, what has happened to the Christmas imperative of “good will toward men”? In recent weeks here in the UK Reform Party leader Nigel Farage has faced a barrage of criticism from across the political spectrum because of extreme racist comments he made in his teenage years. He has not denied these or apologised – and the reason? He knows that he doesn’t need to because he also knows full well that in the hearts and minds of millions there is a large measure of agreement with his crude and hate filled views; in the couple of weeks since the allegations were made his ratings have soared across the UK. Hatred is very much alive and well in contemporary England; we should not be surprised, therefore, when events like the Manchester Synagogue tragedy or the Southport killings occur - we are reaping what is being sown. This is not about being "woke" - it is about common decency and humanity, and both those attributes are, in my view, in retreat; those that Hilary Clinton once called "a basket of deplorables" are in the ascendency across the world, in our towns and in our streets, in positions of power and in their social media posts.

Experience has taught me to take care when posting on social media. Comment upon anything that does not “follow the herd” and it’s a sure recipe for receiving hate filled, obscene, or even threatening replies to one’s post – and the consequence of that is that the thread inevitably becomes more extreme; it becomes self fulfilling. Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, Benjamin Netanyahu, and a billion other “influencers” in the media and on social media know this well and it is against this backdrop that those who eventually act out that hatred generated through the media gain their credibility and justification for their actions. The innocent victims on Bondi Beach or in the rubble of Gaza or in a dancing studio in Southport or outside a Jewish Synagogue in Manchester are, in my view as much victims of the world’s increasing use of hate filled rhetoric on social media and much of mankind's declining desire to ensure “peace on Earth and good will towards men" as they are victims of the deluded and evil mind of the perpetrator himself.

When I led school assemblies I very occasionally read a particular poem to the assembled children, and asked for their thoughts on what it meant. I haven’t thought of the verse for many years, although I can still repeat its words by heart. It was written in 1834 by Leigh Hunt, an English writer, poet and academic and I first learned it from my mother, who often quoted its words. When I remembered it today I thought how, in 2025, it sounds so old fashioned and twee - and that very fact tells me how far we have declined as a society in the past twenty or so years. But, I then followed this up with the sadder thought that perhaps today’s brash media using society and its children would find it a little incomprehensible, out of their understanding, because it is filled with ideas, mental pictures and feelings that have become alien to many in our contemporary world. And then, more worryingly, I reflected further, that if I was standing in front of the assembled school today and read the poem to the children would I tomorrow receive harsh criticism, obscene comment, Facebook posts and hate mail from Reform Party supporters, Tommy Robinson adherents, or the other "basket of deplorables" who fill social media with their hate and expletive filled rhetoric accusing me, perhaps threatening me of promoting Islam, enforcing “un-British values” or “indoctrinating” young minds. I hope not, but I fear it might be so. And that is what is so worrying about the world we now live in; common decency, good intention, simple kindnesses, and humanitarian action is being side lined by brutal and brutish hate mongers across the world; the good people of Sydney and wider Australia know this all too well. We would all be well advised to ponder Leigh Hunt's little verse:

 

Abou Ben Adhem

"Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)

Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,

And saw, within the moonlight in his room,

Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,

An angel writing in a book of gold:—

Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,

And to the presence in the room he said,

"What writest thou?"—The vision raised its head,

And with a look made of all sweet accord,

Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."

"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"

Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,

But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee, then,

Write me as one that loves his fellow men."

The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night

It came again with a great wakening light,

And showed the names whom love of God had blest,

And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest".

A happy Christmas and “Peace on Earth and good will toward men.”

A School Christmas Nativity by Torchlight!

 

Our local junior school, St Peter’s, here in Ruddington is in the middle of a minor catastrophe. Earlier this week the Headteacher sent out an urgent message to all parents to say that the school was having to close with immediate effect because a building’s inspection had discovered that there were serious structural issues at the school which potentially made the building unsafe. He went on to say that this would mean the school being closed for a significant period until the repairs can be attended to. In the meantime the 350 or so pupils are to be taught in other local schools until Christmas and then after Christmas will be housed in temporary accommodation - I presume Portakabins.

It brought back memories of my own teaching career. About 10 years before I retired my own school suffered a fire which destroyed half of the building. Fortunately, the blaze occurred over a weekend so there was no-one on site but, it meant that within days we were all accommodated in Portakabins on what had once been the playground. We lived in this temporary accommodation for almost two years until the new school was built – so when I read of the problems at St Peter’s it brought back a lot of memories and perhaps a small understanding of what the children and staff at St Peter’s are facing at the moment. I don’t envy them and wish them well.

But there is another reason that this local news chimed. Pat and I both began our teaching careers at St Peter’s in the long gone 1960’s – and a few years later, when we had our own family, our own two children, Kate & John were both pupils at the School. St Peter’s has been very much part of our lives and our family and when I heard of the School’s problems this week, it brought back many memories. The Headteacher’s announcement, of course, had a special resonance given that we are fast approaching Christmas when St Peter’s like just about every school in the country would have been “winding up” for Christmas with thoughts of parties, end of term sing-songs, decorating classrooms and perhaps the school Christmas tree. I don’t know what the School’s plans were this year but perhaps they had a nativity, a concert or a pantomime planned to entertain parents – and it was this thought that leapt to the forefront of my mind when I heard the news.

My mind went back to Christmas 1969 (see the Christmas party pictures of my Year 5 class at the time!). St Peter’s School was in the midst of Christmas preparations, decorating classrooms and rehearsing for the Christmas Nativity, and in the middle of it all the Headteacher, Jack Gregory, announced that we would be receiving a visit from the local School Inspector – Mr Tucker. This was in the days before OFSTED – and to me, a fairly newly qualified teacher, it was a daunting thought; what would he, an HMI (Her Majesty’s Inspector) think of my classroom and my teaching? Should I be doing something very clever and profound with the children to impress him when he came to “inspect” my class and my teaching? In the end I need not have worried – he turned up just as we were busy making Christmas decorations – Christmas mobiles using wire coat-hangers to hang in the classroom. He introduced himself, and warmly asked what we were doing, and then wandered around the room sitting with the children and chatting to them, asking what they were doing and how they were coping with it. I nervously watched, hoping that no disaster or crisis would occur in his time with us. After about twenty minutes he took me to one side and thanked me for my time, generously congratulated me on how busy and engaged the children were and asked if I had thought of making asymmetrical mobiles with the class rather than the simple symmetrical ones that we were making. I had to confess that I hadn’t and he then launched into an explanation of how that might be springboard some interesting maths – and with that he was gone.

My first experience of an HMI – and I never forgot it, but from that point in my classroom career, whenever we made Christmas mobiles I always ensured that asymmetrical mobiles were part of our decorations! Over the years I met Mr Tucker several times until he retired - and he was right; asymmetrical mobiles were indeed a good way of introducing some interesting and testing maths investigations and introducing simple algebra to 10 and 11 year olds. Mr Tucker was from the "old school" of HMI who sought to improve, schools, teaching and teachers by educating, advising, and example. They were the teacher's teachers - a far cry from the modern inspection format created by successive governments and their much criticised and educationally bankrupt offspring, OFSTED - an organisation whose remit is to improve schools by harassment, endless assessment against ill thought criteria and ultimately by naming and shaming schools and teachers who fail meet their often random and subjective but always irrelevant "standards". Where Mr Tucker and the old HMI were concerned with schools as being about people - children and teachers - OFSTED with its often arrogant and always bureaucratic inspectors and reporting system is about tick boxes and the corporate image it has created for itself.

But that 1969 Christmas held another memory. The School were to perform their Nativity play in St Peter’s Church in the village. We had been rehearsing for weeks, visiting the Church often as the day of the performance loomed. The teacher who was producing the performance, Barbara Fisher, was a keen local drama specialist and filled with wonderful ideas, whereas I, as a young teacher, just did as I was told! The evening of the performance approached and the weather in the area deteriorated – bitterly cold and often very foggy – and to make things very much worse the country was increasingly experiencing power cuts as a result of coal miners across the country staging strikes - a precursor to the widespread strikes of the early 1970s. And, with an awful inevitability in the afternoon before the performance we learned on the local news that there might well be power cuts in our south Nottinghamshire area. What to do? Should we call the whole thing off? Barbara Fisher, however, was adamant, in true old trouper, thespian style she announced that the show must and would go on, so all the children and parents were told that when they came to the performance that night they should bring torches and anything that might provide light if we did experience a power cut.

When, at about half past six, we arrived at the Church, a dense fog swirling Ruddington’s streets, the lights had already gone out and we all assembled - parents in the pews, the children gathered with their teachers ready to perform, all of us clutching torches, some having brought oil filled storm lanterns. The Church itself was lit by candles on the window ledges; it took on the aura of a mediaeval nativity scene – magical. I spent the evening standing at the back with all the performers waiting to make their entrances – Mary & Joseph, the Shepherds, the Kings etc. - a script in one hand my torch in the other, giving each group of children the silent signal to make their way down the aisle to perform in front of the parents. Flickering candles and torches lit the vast Church but this didn’t detract – it brought a very special atmosphere and a mysterious wonder to the occasion. And, then, as the Nativity scene reached its climax, Mary & Joseph sitting by the crib, the Shepherds and the Kings kneeling in homage and all the other performers gathered around, Bryan George, the Deputy Head and pianist, struck up the opening bars of “O Come All Ye faithful”……...and then, as if by order from some heavenly presence above and to an intake of breath and exclamation of delight from the audience, the lights suddenly came on, the Nativity scene bathed in light; it was perfect, a never to be forgotten moment. I don’t think I have ever heard “O Come All Ye Faithful” sung so joyfully and lustily – a real celebration; I was not, I believe the only one that night to think that someone somewhere was watching over us!

Little did I know that night that in my future career I would write and produce many Christmas performances in the schools that I worked – every time remembering that first performance and Barbara Fisher’s insistence that the show must go on. And one thing in particular stood out in my memory. Bryan George, the Deputy Head, someone I became good friends with, looked up to and learned from, taught the oldest children in the school and during the performance a group from his class stood and recited Sir John Betjeman’s great poem “Christmas”. I didn’t then know the poem, and as I stood in the dark Church in the flickering candle and torch light, its words carried to me at the back, the performers waiting to make their entrances surrounding me - and Betjeman's words spoke to me. I was carried away with its beauty, its simple truths, its meaning and its exquisite use of language; it seemed to me then, as now, almost sixty years later, to sum up what Christmas is all about. A few years later when our son John was a pupil at St Peter’s he had a verse from the poem to recite in the Christmas performance that year – I sat in the audience both entranced and proud. In the years afterwards, at every Christmas production I wrote or was responsible for in the schools where I worked, Betjeman’s poem was an ever present. All the children knew, that this was Mr Beale’s non-negotiable “special bit” – and the competition in the auditions keen to decide who would be given the opportunity to recite a verse in the final performance?

And today, twenty years after I retired, it is still my “special bit” – something that says it all about Christmas and should be part of everyone’s Christmas season and greetings. It contains the very essence of Christmas as what it is - a Christian festival. It is, on the one hand, a simple acknowledgement of the Christmas story and of our Christmas traditions – the giving of gifts, the decoration of our homes and the like - and yet, as Betjeman tells us it is the most profound insight into the Christian faith and into mankind’s relationship with his God. In an age where in the minds of many the grotesque, sometimes the obscene and, too often, the trivial, the crass and the commercial capture and portray Christmas, Betjeman’s mighty poem is a reminder to all of the true meaning of this greatest of all festivals:

CHRISTMAS

The bells of waiting Advent ring,

The Tortoise stove is lit again

And lamp-oil light across the night

Has caught the streaks of winter rain

In many a stained-glass window sheen

From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green.

The holly in the windy hedge

And round the Manor House the yew

Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,

The altar, font and arch and pew,

So that the villagers can say

'The church looks nice' on Christmas Day.

Provincial Public Houses blaze,

Corporation tramcars clang,

On lighted tenements I gaze,

Where paper decorations hang,

And bunting in the red Town Hall

Says 'Merry Christmas to you all'.

And London shops on Christmas Eve

Are strung with silver bells and flowers

As hurrying clerks the City leave

To pigeon-haunted classic towers,

And marbled clouds go scudding by

The many-steepled London sky.

And girls in slacks remember Dad,

And oafish louts remember Mum,

And sleepless children's hearts are glad.

And Christmas-morning bells say 'Come!'

Even to shining ones who dwell

Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.

And is it true? And is it true,

This most tremendous tale of all,

Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,

A Baby in an ox's stall ?

The Maker of the stars and sea

Become a Child on earth for me ?

And is it true ? For if it is,

No loving fingers tying strings

Around those tissued fripperies,

The sweet and silly Christmas things,

Bath salts and inexpensive scent

And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,

No carolling in frosty air,

Nor all the steeple-shaking bells

Can with this single Truth compare -

That God was man in Palestine

And lives today in Bread and Wine.

John Betjeman

"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.