Nymphs, indeed!

When you’re young, moving from one district to another has a certain excitement about it. My seventh birthday had come and gone some three or so months past, and while I did enjoy the change in surroundings in the street where we went to live, starting at a new school was another story.

It was a cold blustery winter’s day in 1988 when I stood again on the pavement opposite the school. The school still stands three-quarters of the way up Berry Lane in a village called Londgridge, seven miles from the industrial town of Preston, Lancashire. It still looked the same as it had 50 years ago; an impressive building of stone, with an air of strength and permanence about it. My camera captured it, I’m pleased to say, as progress had already obliterated too many other scenes from my past to lose this one too.

For once, though, I was disappointed that the doors were closed; they never had been closed when I was a schoolboy there. The classrooms, I remembered, were large with high ceilings and dark, varnished woodwork adding a somewhat sombre feeling to my first days there. Sea shells, coloured and smooth, were placed before me to perform some simple calculation, which I couldn’t figure out how to start, and which grew more hateful the more confused I became that day. Somehow I survived; we do, don’t we? The elasticity that comes with youth thankfully enables us to ride these daily ups and downs of life, and we move on.

Some weeks before I moved to the ‘big’ school next door, Miss Cranford the Head Mistress, poor soul, had an idea which involved our class in particular. It was around that time that pupils in Manchester a few miles away from us became popular for their rendering of a song called: ‘Nymphs and shepherds’. I’d never heard of nymphs before that time, had you? Despite what follows, I still enjoy hearing children sing that song, which is quite amazing really, when you consider what I have to tell you.

It was like this you see: Miss Cranford began to appear in our classrooms more often than previously and seemed anxious to improve the way we spoke. It was at this point that she encountered the first barrier to her scheme. A tall elegant woman, I felt she had a point, and listened carefully to what she had to say, trying hard to talk nicely with disastrous results. The first time I spoke using ‘The Cranford Improved Speaking Approach’, or CISA for short, my friends dissolved in laughter and wanted to hear more. At first it was a bit of fun but later as I continued my efforts they began to shun and ignore me, saying that I was becoming too ‘stuck up’ and ‘talking too posh’ to mix with them and to:

‘Tek t’ plum out of me gob and talk reet’.

It became too much when they mentioned Coventry. I didn’t want to be sent there, where-ever it was.
I guess pupils in other schools discovered the folly of the CISA method and joined all the others in silent and sullen action; Miss Cranford’s efforts were resisted, bringing a temporary lull in the engagement. I say temporary, for Miss Cranford was made of sterner stuff and was merely taking time off to marshal her resources. As it turned out, she would need them, every last one of them, bless her.

We had a few days to recuperate and our vocal chords appreciated the rest. The tension eased, laughter was heard again and smiles appeared on children’s faces… well, where else would they appear? Then Miss Cranford returned, with a smile that was not really a smile on her face, and I sensed the inevitable clash of minds. In a way I felt sorry for her, she meant well and there was no doubt that many of us would have benefitted greatly from learning to speak clearly and more distinctly. (As a matter of fact I did so myself, and am grateful for it.)

Now we come to the second barrier. Our Miss Cranford had an ulterior motive; if we could learn to speak more clearly we might just possible learn to sing also, with the same clear, pristine quality as the school children from Manchester. Those children, innocent thought they might have been, have more to answer for than they ever realised. I wonder how many other schools throughout the land were being put through the same tortuous, mind-bending, voice-straining, third-degree session as we were? Day after day, the words of ‘Nymphs and Shepherds’ were pinned up at the front of the class for us to follow.

“Nymphs and Shepherds come away,

In the Groves let's sport and play,

For this, this is Flora’s Holy day.

Sacred to ease and happy Love,

to Dancing, to Musick, and to Poetry:

Your Flocks may now securely rove,

whilst you express your Jollity.”

(Lyrics by Thomas Shadwell, music by Henry Purcell)

A teacher, pressed into service, sat hunched over the piano keys; the conductor, who else but Miss Cranford, stepped into the arena, ruler gripped tightly in her fist, the smile that wasn’t a smile hovering around the corners of her tightly-pressed lips. Gradually the conditioning process took over.

We would rise on signal, hardly a foot daring to shuffle, desk to creak or cough to even threaten the silence of that dreaded moment when her hand would come down for the first note of yet another encounter.

We sang, oh how we sang for you Miss Cranford, like angels attempting to soar to the same majestic heights as those blasted kids from Manchester. Blood would have been shed in large quantities had we ever met them. ‘Let’s sport and play’ went the words of the song, sport and play indeed; and surely ‘Flora’ could have had her holiday without all that damned fuss! And who was she anyway? It was fortunate that no pupil from our school was named Flora, I can tell you.

As time went on, we played merry havoc with those words in the playground, creating our own version. Had it been possible for Thomas Shadwell to have heard what we did to those verses he had hatched from his creative mind, he would no doubt have wished he’d written something quite different, thus denying us the opportunity to be somewhat creative ourselves. Miss Cranford went distinctly red in the face during those last few sessions and it crossed my mind that perhaps she heard our revised version and was trying desperately to block it from her mind.

The intense tuition took its toll; Miss Cranford’s hair lost its sheen; her elegant form slumped around the middle and the smile-that-wasn’t resembled more of a grimace as the last session ended. One had to admire the manner in which she left the classroom that day; maybe she’d had a snifter or two of some drink, liberally laced with a single lady’s pick-me-up before making that last supreme effort to draw from our class the clear, pure, dulcet tones she had so set her heart on.

Never mind, Miss Cranford, you did your best, and as I said earlier, I still enjoy Nymphs and Shepherds as sung by those delightful children from Manchester. I have the record you see and can play it whenever I wish. Sometimes when the mood takes me, when I’m feeling a bit naughty like, I put the record on and just as those smarty kids reach the first note they are to sing, I switch if off and have a damned good, throat-clearing cough and laugh, both together. Nymphs, indeed!

Dennis Crompton © 1996
(first published www.denniscrompton.wordpress.com 2013)