Two a Day for Five Years

Two a day for five years. That's a lot of hymns.

At the school I went to, which was a Grammar School for Girls, we had a Proper Assembly every day, with the whole school. A hymn: a reading: a lecture on the errors of our ways: some boring bits about hockey and exams: another hymn and then off to our lessons.

I enjoyed the hymns: they were fun to sing and far better than Domestic Science which was the dull prospect to come. Christian forgiveness did not extend to any sinful girl who had forgotten her cookery apron.

I sang them lustily. Never listened to the words. By the time I left school I had an excellent repertoire of hymns of the more worthy, Victorian kind. I knew nearly all the words, but not quite. And I still do. Here's a medley of the kind of thing:

All glory, laud and honour, To thee, Redeemer, King, To whom the lips of children, Do loud hosannas ring - -

Onward Christian Soldiers, marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before, Christ the royal ba-a-nner, leads against the foe, Forward into ba-a-a-tle see his banners go - -

The rich man at his castle, the poor man at his gate, He made them high or lowly, and ordered their estate

Just the thing for a Communist's daughter to be singing. But, as I said, I never listened to the words anyway, just sang them loudly and enthusiastically and hoped that Assembly would carry on well into the the time that should have been Double Maths or similar.

Did this early exposure to a somewhat Victorian God:

a) establish my high moral values?
b) create a desire to rebel which still remains with me now?
c) instil a natural deviousness whereby false enthusiasm for one thing might get me out of an even duller alternative?
d) act as a kind of brain-dead meditation before I had to switch my brain on and do a bit of Latin?

All of them, I reckon, except for a).

There was, however, one hymn I really liked, for its rousing tune and its sense of peace. I used to sing "Speak through the earthquake, wind and fire, O still small voice of calm" to myself on my way to exams.


Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways!
Re-clothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives thy service find,
In deeper reverence praise.

In simple trust like theirs who heard,
Beside the Syrian sea,
The gracious calling of the Lord,
Let us, like them, without a word
Rise up and follow thee.

O Sabbath rest by Galilee!
O calm of hills above,
Where Jesus knelt to share with thee
The silence of eternity,
Interpreted by love!

Drop thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of thy peace.

Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still small voice of calm!

I still like singing hymns: if one of the old favourites comes on the radio, I'll sing along loudly, to everyone's surprise. I still know most of the words. And I still don't listen to the meaning.