hymns

[staffslad]

Re: hymns

At secondary school (1973-78) we had an assembly every morning for the whole school that lasted about 15-20 minutes. The headmaster would often lead the assembly with hymns, prayers, notices and short speeches. The teachers would stand around the hall keeping an eye on their classes. The only pupil who didn't attend assembly in my class was a girl who was a Jehovah's Witness or something similar. Popular hymns were:

O Jesus I have Promised to a quite jaunty tune

Lord of the Dance

Fight the Good Fight

Onward, Christian Soldiers

Immortal, Invisible

All Things Bright and Beautiful

[nimrod]

Re: hymns

When I was at primary/Junior school in the early 1950s we had assembly every morning, with hymns and prayers led nationally by the BBC schools service which used every morning, the music: Sheep May Safely Graze by JS Bach as its introduction allowing time to get into assembly before beginning.

I still sing some of these hymns today and remember them with great affection,

[zabadak]

Re: hymns

Anyone else notice that the title of the hymn was pretty much always the first line?

[Arran]

Re: hymns

Hymns were never part of my childhood so I don't recognise many of them. How did hymns die out in schools? Were they squeezed out by the National Curriculum or was it a result of an increasing number of teachers no longer being religious or attending church?

[Richard1978]

Re: hymns

Our infant/
We sang similar songs to those already mentioned, although I remember when we sang "Sing Hosanna" there was always one kid who would mess up the end of the chorus, which irked me at the time.

It was:

Sing hosanna, sing hosanna
Sing hosanna to the King of Kings
Sing hosanna, sing hosanna
Sing hosanna to the King.

They'd always add "and kings" to the end of the fourth line....

I used to do that, & try to hit some very high notes on Lord Of The Dance.

The whole school used to add "bum bum bum..." to A Word Is Alive.

Some didn't bother to sing & mouthed along, leading a teacher to call them a load of goldfish.

[Mulletino]

Re: hymns

Our infant/juniors all sat in assembly together. Our Hymns were on an overhead projector, hand written in clear film things. Each "slide" would be swapped as you got to it.

We sang similar songs to those already mentioned, although I remember when we sang "Sing Hosanna" there was always one kid who would mess up the end of the chorus, which irked me at the time.

It was:

Sing hosanna, sing hosanna
Sing hosanna to the King of Kings
Sing hosanna, sing hosanna
Sing hosanna to the King.

They'd always add "and kings" to the end of the fourth line....

[George 1978]

Re: hymns

All Things Bright and Beautiful was one of my Infant headteacher's favourites. I am certain that we sung it every Wednesday morning.

[Arran]

Re: hymns

A friend had a Welsh teacher at his school that the kids called Taffy who used to regularly give long boring lectures to kids in assembly about their bad behaviour. Whenever he was happy he got the kids to sing Cwm Rhondda in assembly and whenever he was unhappy he got the kids to sing Onward Christian Soldiers. The friend made up his own version called Onward Taffy's Lectures. One day Taffy said something about leaving out the last verse but the friend wasn't listening. At the end of the penultimate verse the piano stopped and everybody shut up but the friend yelled out Taffy's lectures and everybody heard it. Taffy had no idea why he yelled out Taffy's lectures then started to question him about whether he wanted to hear a long lecture or not.

[Clare]

Re: hymns

When I was at junior school, I used to wonder why the lack of a city wall was a significant detail about the green hill far away. Some years later, I twigged that "without" can also mean "outside"!

Re: hymns

we used to have hymn books, then they bought a projector and started to use that. i loved the morning assemblys.

[Danniella]

Re: hymns

I went to a Catholic school and hymns were sung every morning, we'd say prayers too before our dinner, i think we were even told we'd go to hell if we didn't eat all of our dinner, i remember some kids wouldn't eat the garden peas as they thought little men were inside them!

[Arran]

Re: hymns

They didn't have hymns at my primary or secondary schools. The kids at the local C of E school used to sing hymns in assembly every week. They had an overhead projector with slides rather than hymn books. There was a cynical theory that it served a double purpose in helping to identify kids that needed to wear glasses.

[wispa lover]

Re: hymns

I was cold I was naked, were you there? (Sorry, couldn't resist)
Give my joy in my heart, keep me surfing(?) OK, I know it's 'serving'.
There was one we used to sing called 'Dance in the sun', one line went something like: 'all the children who are gay are singing'.

[darren]

Re: hymns

i cant remember singing hymms certainly in secondary school this would have been between 86 and 88 where id have been 11 to 13.

but no i cant remember ever singing hymms.

in primary school we might have cant quite remember now we had assembly followed by a prayer.

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.

[Lonsdale.lady]

Re: hymns

Were they the ones with the swirly blue and green lines on the front? If so, that's what we used from about 1969 to 1973/4. I recently discovered something very similar, (trying to recall the title) in a local church and a slight thrill went through me.

Otherwise, especially when singing more modern hymns, it was the overhead projector. The words were usually handwritten. (Bit different to the downloading and interactive whiteboards we have in the school where I work at the moment!)

On Friday mornings we had hymn practise for the hymns we would be singing the following week. At the end there was usually time for requests. I think 'When a Knight Won his Spurs' was favourite, with 'Lord of the Dance' coming a close second. I also recall 'Oh Jesus I have Promised' - to the modern bouncy tune, and 'As Jacob with Travel'.

The hymn books were called With Cheerful Voice.