Friday night is writing night

[nineveh_uk]

I really need to buy that thesaurus. Still, with some effort I have managed to come up with sufficient synonyms for "terror".

I wish that those five years of daily primary school assemblies followed by four years of middle school thrice a week ones had been a bit less parables and 1980s school hymns*, and a bit more Book of Common Prayer so that I didn't have to hope that the quotations dictionary*** would contain something suitable for my fic purposes. It did, and the fic proceedeth towards its end. Fortunately the question of "was this vampire count Orthodox or Catholic during his life" can be left for another occasion.****

*Of the ten, we did eight of these, "Kum ba yah" cropped up in other singing, and I know a bit of "Colours of day" because my sisters' middle school did it. The effect on my spirituality can be summed up in that the most sincere observance of ritual I engaged in was to make sure to tidy the money tray before lunch on any day in winter that we sang "When I Needed a Neighbour" as in combination this was an unfailing spell to make it rain and let us stay in at dinner time.** I do occasionally sing some of them in the shower, though.

**Whereas "Have you heard the raindrops" was just a song about rain, and the chorus was invariably flat.

***My The New Penguin Dictionary of Quotations is absolutely indispensable for Wimseyfic, though this is not the genre in question this evening.

****Though I expect to go for Catholic should it be necessary to specify, it's simpler. Fascinating as the Unitarian Church of Transylvania is to read about, and the period is right, I think I'll leave that one out of it.

Comments

[caulkhead]

Eight out of ten here, too (and we had three of them at the wedding I went to on Saturday).

[white_hart]

I think we had seven, though we might have had "Raindrops drumming on the roof" and I've just forgotten it.

I have to admit to being rather fond of "One more step along the world I go".

[nineveh_uk]

School assembly memories are tremendously useful for weddings.

[white_hart]

I got terribly confused by PLF's explanations of the religious background - there seemed to be at the very least Catholic, Orthodox and something halfway between the two that I didn't quite understand before you even *got* to the Reformation.

I am very much looking forward to the fic!

[nineveh_uk]

It is confusing. I think I shall just avoid detail as much as possible.

I have just finished the fic! Now I just have to sort all the bits where I have gone [like this] in order not to spend time thinking of the right words, do the bit of framing device editorial material to accompany it, and come up with a title... I am resisting 'Death Twixt Wind and Water', which is clearly the Harriet Vane crossover.

[ankaret]

I don't recognise the post apocalyptic hymn and only know When A Knight Won His Spurs because it shows up on a Blyth Power album. I would substitute the resolutely anodyne 'Autumn Days' which rather oddly suggests that while God is hanging about in the sky being ineffable he fills in his time by refuelling planes, and the uncharitable and scripturally odd dirge 'Said Judas To Mary'.

[nineveh_uk]

I had never consciously thought of "Think of a World" as post-apocalypic before, but the author is right. It was very depressing. I was spared both of yours - I know the tune to the latter, but only the words of the infamous line in the former. Clearly we went to different sects of primary schools.

When a Knight Won His Spurs was at least enjoyable, and also gave me a vague idea of the concept of faith militant which was useful because it enabled me to ask someone about it when doing Anglo-Saxon at university and there were a lot of metaphors.

[legionseagle]

When a Knight Won His Spurs is Jan Struther, author of Mrs Miniver and, I believe, atheist or at least agnostic but she needed the money.

[antisoppist]

My CofE primary school had an extra half hour of assembly every Thursday devoted to Hymn Practice in which we were drilled line by line in the bits of Hymns Ancient and Modern that we were not singing to the satisfaction of the head.* I recall one session on "Lo he comes with clouds descending" where we were not released until all 300 of us had got all the syllable breaks right. Lord of the Dance is the only one on that list I'd heard of until I had children, apart from Kum ba yah, which was Brownies.

*He spent one assembly teaching us how to cross ourselves and I told my mother and then had to stop her Having Words with him about dreadful High Church practices.

ETA. I realise this makes me sound about 50 years older than everyone else on your reading list but it is not that, it is a maximum of about ten years and that I grew up in a time-warp. Which accounts for a lot.

[nineveh_uk]

I have never understood the appeal of "Lo he comes with clouds descending". It is such a dirge. Sung by 300 primary school pupils it must be unbearable regardless of where the syllable breaks are.

Mrs Green did once keep my class after assembly to tell us all off massively for not singing the hymn. It was then pointed out to her that we had not been present the previous day when it had been learned (I have no idea why we weren't there, that wasn't the memorable bit). In fairness, not words I often use of Mrs Green, she did subsequently issue a handsome apology. But I learned how to cross myself from Nuns on the Run.

[clanwilliam]

Yeah, but you're a huge comfort to me, because rural Ireland was also a timewarp and some of my childhood practices predate even yours.

[perennialanna]

We had outbreaks of the English Hymnal when the vicar came in to lead assemblies, which I enjoyed far more than the school-issued Blue Hymn Books (BBC Come and Praise) and Yellow Hymn Books (Scripture Union Sing To God, even worse). Nobody else seemed to though. He also let us loose on real Bibles instead of picture books of Bible stories, and took me seriously when I told him I was an agnostic. Mrs A just said she doubted I could spell it, which was a dreadful accusation because I could spell it and had moreover spent quite some time thinking about whether I was an agnostic or an atheist.

That was the kind of eight year old I was. Whatever I have to deal with from my own children is nothing more or less than I deserve.

[clanwilliam]

I'm in Transylvania next weekend if you need me to look at anything for you!

[nineveh_uk]

That is very generous, but to be honest I think that this is so much Transylvania-by-osmosis anyway that a little more osmosis won't harm it! But I'll be very interested to hear what you make of the place, and whether it really is fun of spiky mountains, dark forests and castles. Are you going there for fun or work?

[perennialanna]

Not that When A Knight Won His Spurs is 1980s. It's from Songs of Praise (controversial 1930s hymn book, not the television programme) and is by Jan Strutter as in Mrs Miniver.

[nineveh_uk]

All the best things were written in the 1930s.

[tree_and_leaf]

I used to think the chorus of "Have you heard the raindrops" went "There's Water, Water of Leith", which I suppose is explicable given that (a) I grew up near Edinburgh and (b) it took parents and school a surprisingly long time to notice how shortsighted I was.

[nineveh_uk]

That sounds an entirely reasonable mondegreen under the circumstances.

My relatives live near the Water of Leith, which has got a lot more exciting since I learned that there are otters living on it!

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

We never actually had When A Knight Won His Spurs, and I've never heard of Colours of the Mind. The others are great though. I once sang all we could rememember with my housemates on a v long car journey, which was an effort because one of us had been to a v religious school and not had the glory of Come and Praise books.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

A childhood without When A Knight Won His Spurs deprivation!

It's amazing how they seem to have stuck with so many people for so long. Someone's probably written an academic paper about it somewhere.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

I sang nine out of those ten hymns in primary school in the 90s (secondary school was, thankfully, free of them. I believe when we got put into Special Measures after our OFSTED inspection when I was in Year 8 or 9, one of the criticisms was the fact that we didn't have an act of collective worship; admittedly, this is the law, but I always assumed it was more honoured in the breach than the observance). I think we drew mainly from the Come And Praise songbook, although everything was disseminated using transparencies and the overhead projector.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

My secondary school also blithely ignored the collective worship requirements in the early 90s. Possibly OFSTED used to care less and then it caught people ought when they started to bother.

We had to memorise everything at primary school! Middle school's OHP was a luxury.

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

I had a Catholic education, so some of the hymns I would have learned are different. But I do remember Colours of Day. There was also Here I Am, Lord, the naffest one ever. 'Give me oil in my lamp'was 'Give me joy in my heart' at our school, but yes we did have that 'king' issue.

[auntyros.livejournal.com]

That's right, Give Me Joy In My Heart!

[auntyros.livejournal.com]

My primary schools was a proper Catholic convent one and we sang only three of those: Lord of the Dance, When I Needed a Neighbour and Kum by Yah. We also sang something to the tune of Give me Oil In My Lamp, but with different words, I think.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Lord of the Dance was probably my favourite of the lot.

[philomytha.livejournal.com]

We never sang Kum by Yah or the raindrops one at school, but all the others are familiar. And so many rather grim ones, I remember one that got your Monday off to a fantastic start with 'Sad puzzled eyes of small hungry children, thin weary bodies tending the ground' and just got more dismal from there on. But I did like all the harvest ones, Michaelmas Daisies and Autumn Days (honourable mention for including jet planes in a hymn) and the rest of that lot.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

'Sad puzzled eyes of small hungry children, thin weary bodies tending the ground'

I can see that would have been depressing. I liked the harvest ones; not only were they pleasant in themselves, but they had the charm of novelty. I'm glad we didn't have Autumn Days, though, I'm not sure I could have withstood the jet planes.

[aunty_marion]

I found 'When a Knight Won His Spurs' in (I think) Songs of Praise, when I was trying to teach myself to play piano, and quite liked it, but I don't remember singing it at school. We had Kum By Yah in Guides, but not in school, and I don't think I recognise any of the rest. But then, I am Old, and our official school hymn at junior school was 'Who Would True Valour See' (also known as Who Would a Pilgrim Be in some circles, I gather). The unofficial one was Jerusalem (though we also enjoyed Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory... on frequent occasions). Our headmaster was an excellent pianist and organist, and insisted on us holding the last note in Jerusalem to the correct length; also on breaking lines at the right places (We plough the fields ------ And scatter the good seed on the land... being one of the ones that has stuck with me to this day).

(The School Song at grammar school had been written by an Old Girl, and was in Latin, so we had to memorise it in our first year, as we didn't start 'doing' Latin till the second year. Nunc canendum, nunc laetandum, illos nunc laudemus...)

Nunc canendum, nunc laetandum, illos nunc laudemus,

[(Anonymous)]

Did you go to a school in Staffordshire? This was my school song too. I was just reciting it to my husband, much to his dismay.... as I am going out with 3 "Old Girls" tonight for a special birthday celebration.

[(Anonymous)]

Nunc canendum
Nunc laetandum
Ills nunc laud emus
Qui dederunt conserwanda
Semper floreamus

Rome girls