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)
