Ancient Musical History

Here we have Gledhow Primary School Orchestra, circa 1966 - and don't they all look so smart in their school uniforms? (I hate bloody school uniforms). Very rare for a primary school to have an orchestra, granted - and Mr. Allen - conducting - was a very charismatic music teacher - - unlike the others I encountered.

Let's zoom in a bit, shall we?

Now then. Just above Mr. Allen's left hand is a girl blowing the clarinet as hard as is humanly possible, and that is me. I didn't like my hairstyle then, and I don't like it now. The photo must have been taken just before a concert because I never wore school uniform usually: I hated it, (did I mention that I still hate it?) and it wasn't compulsory, thank goodness. I particularly hated wearing the tie - and when this photo was taken, I had another seven or eight years of tie-wearing to look forward to, O lucky girl!

The other thing I hated about school uniform was wearing a long-sleeved blouse under a cardigan - it made me feel as though I had both arms in plaster. Anyone else feel like that? Perhaps it was just me, but I had a childhood which involved a lot of Playing Out and I didn't like clothes that were constricting (and I still don't).

The keen-looking boy with the cello between his knees is the famous Gareth Price, mentioned in my post of a few days ago as being The Most Musical Child In The School.

I don't know what happened to him, but on the far right is a small girl who is holding a violin like a person who knew what to do with it, and indeed she did, for that is my friend Jo Bloom - still my friend now - and she became a violinist in the Halle Orchestra.

If only I had given up playing in orchestras then, and not continued when I started secondary school, I might have been left with fonder memories, because Mr. Allen was good fun. It's odd how I can look at faces I haven't seen for years and years and go "oh, look, Pat Tompkins, she's the blonde girl to my right - -"

But - just to labour the point - I think the photograph would have been more interesting if we were all wearing our own clothes. The idea of dressing a lot of small children identically seemed ridiculous to me then - and it still does. And yet, since that photograph was taken, schools - even primary schools - have become ever keener on school uniform. In this respect at least, the times they aren't a-changin'.