hymns

[battyrat]

Re: hymns

In primary I used to sing along but by secondary I had began to question if it was right or wrong that a school or somebody else try to force on us something we did not feel for. So I started to either mumble or near the end of my time in secondary just standing there silent. It was the time I started to question my own being with my own belief system shifting in another direction with what the school and then state wanted and I felt I did not fit the mold so in a way by standing silent I rebelled.

[Powdered toast man]

Re: hymns

I used to sing 'dance settee' as well. I used to giggle at the mental image of Jesus jumping all over the furniture.

[screamqueen]

Re: hymns

Ahh I loved the songs we used to sing in assembly, from a blue "Come and Praise" book - the ones I can remember are:

When I Needed a Neighbour (we all giggled during the "I was cold, I was naked" part)
Autumn Days(?)
Lord of the Dance
Kumbayah
He's Got the Whole World In His Hands

looooads more that I can't remember now! And I loved Christmas time, we had a different book and just sang carols...aaah, magical!!

My school had all of these and I HATED "Autumn Days!" I deliberately kept quiet whenever asked to sing it. Even as a little girl I refused to be thankful for cold weather, rain, slimy leaf mulch, and the return to school!

I remember that when I first started school I misheard "I am the Lord of the Dance, said He" as "I am the dance of the dance settee" and wondered what Jesus had to do with furniture ...

[Trickyvee]

Re: hymns

Thanks to ebay I am now leafing through the 'Come and Praise' book for the first time in 27 years! What has struck me is not how many hymns I remember but how many I don't! I'm sure some would come back to me if I heard the tune again but I'm pretty sure there are many that we just never sang.

Strange how you don't really think about these things as a child. Just go and sing every morning for four years and never wonder why some were never chosen. I'm also struck by just how religious it is. It shouldn't really be a surprise to me but it somehow seems wrong that we had that blanket of faith forced upon us. That said, at that age the songs were pretty meaningless to me. I knew the words were about Jesus and that but it was really all about enjoying a good sing for me. I turned out athiest!

The copy I have was printed in 1986 and I remember my school getting a delivery of them in that very year, all clean and new with lovely shiney covers, unlike the tatty older editions with dull covers that had been in the school for years. I had an old one that wasn't deemed tatty enough to be replaced You don't know how much I wanted a new one! Well now I have one *claps with glee*

[Trickyvee]

Re: hymns

Perhaps those kids never existed. Rather than being a photograph of actual kids, it might have been an abstract painting or drawing by an artist.

naaa I reckon they are real, big 70's collars, funny hair cuts and all.

[Marillion]

Re: hymns

I was thinking today about a hymn a teacher taught us - Hills of the North Rejoice. The last line of the first verse says:

He judgement brings and victory.

This makes no sense at all - it sounds like a very bad translation from another language. And it definitely does say that - I've just looked it up.

[Star Attraction]

Re: hymns

Well here's a well known parody of While Shepherds Watched...

While Shepherds washed their socks by night
A-watching ITV
The angel of the lord came down
And switched to BBC

Stupid time paradox really because TV didn't exist when Jesus was born.

[tulip]

Re: hymns

All I remember is "We three kings of Orient are,2 in a taxi,one in a car.One on a scooter,blowing his hooter......

Yes,I see that makes 4,but hey ho!

tulip

[Richard1978]

Re: hymns

I might have mentioned before that one of the teachers at my primary school used to complain that people were (badly) mouthing along rather than singing, "like a tank full of goldfish" was her description.

[tonyfinster]

Re: hymns

my infant and junior school had a huge, thick and very old flip chart thing that was hoisted up on high with a pulley and rope system,
My secondary school had these books that they gave you as you filed into the hall. They had a blue cover, were falling apart and had a peculiar smell that all old books seem to have.
It was quite a battle holding a fist full of paper and string binding together whilst searching for the hymn chosen by the headmaster. Most of the time i used to mouth the words so when the teachers scanned the hall i wouldnt get hauled out afterwards and given the usual standing outside the heads office punishment for such a transgression.
Christmas carols were always sung with great gusto, including all the new words we also typically substituted, the worst thing we had to sing was the school song.
It was partly in latin and the words where slightly longer than the music allowed so it was quite unpopular and awkward to sing
Floreat scholas Almondburiensis was its name, i think that says it all.

[Star Attraction]

Re: hymns

Perhaps those kids never existed. Rather than being a photograph of actual kids, it might have been an abstract painting or drawing by an artist.

[Trickyvee]

Re: hymns

Those kids on the front of the Come and Praise book are permanently etched into my memory thanks to the many hours of staring at them during boring assemblies. The funny looking one in the middle with the weird eyebrows, the one that is asleep, the one with a propellar for a nose, the smug smiley one at the front and the one with his gob open lol. I wonder where they are now?

[Marillion]

Re: hymns

We weren't given the words at all - we were expected to just learn them by heart. Hymn practice was to me always a chore. I never sang along with the others, I just mimed the words - I thought it was silly to sing in a crowd.

And people think it's just my old age that makes me cynical.

[Jamo]

Re: hymns

Our hymns were on huge dangling books or pads that were suspended high up on both sides of the assembly hall in my primary school. Tatty-edged, they seemed so archaic. I can't recall if I ever saw how they turned over the pages. Maybe with a hook and pole. Perhaps it was a prefect's job.

Then, around 1979 or 1980, the future arrived in the form of an overhead projector. Hymns were hand-written (by teachers I expect) onto clear plastic sheets in coloured felt-tips. We vied for the job of overhead projector operator but it was given to the smallest boy in class. This was so his head wouldn't get in the way and cause a shadow.

[ericthecavalier]

Re: hymns

A reference to a post on here from last year; I found this picture:



But I still can't find a picture of the smaller books with green and blue wavey lines on the cover.

God that takes me back - but I always thought the kids looked like yobs