FEBRUARY 6, 1952. Young Malcolm Tanner was playing football at his Bristol school. In the far distance,' he recalls, 'a teacher was making his way slowly towards us. He had words with our games master, who then came over and said: "Sorry boys, we've got to go in. The King's died." I have to say we were very annoyed at having to stop playing.'
At Westminster Abbey Choir School, James Wilkinson was in a Latin lesson when 'we noticed the flag on Victoria Tower in the Palace of Westminster was at half mast. Then the headmaster informed us the King had died. My first reaction was one of excitement that there'd be new postage stamps and coins to collect.'
David Driscoll attended the King's lying-instate, making the pilgrimage to Westminster Hall together with fellow choristers from St Paul's Cathedral. 'I remember the solemn sight of soldiers stationed around the catafalque, heads bowed-and the silence. Extraordinary, with so many members of the public filing through.
Each of these then choristers was to sing at the 1953 coronation, together with about 180 other boys, some selected from cathedral, chapel and church choirs that were affiliated to the Royal School of Church Music (RSCM), including Mr Tanner and Dennis Whitehead, then at St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral in Edinburgh. Mr Whitehead still treasures his letter of invitation. 'My parents were over the moon.'
News of selection often turned choristers into local celebrities, but Graham Neal's good tidings had to be kept under wraps. 'My mother couldn't wait to tell the world, but it all had to be very hush-hush,' relates the member of All Saints Church, Eastleigh, Hampshire. 'I was at an age when my voice might have broken by the time of the coronation. What an anti-climax that would have been!'
Denne historien er fra May 25, 2022-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra May 25, 2022-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
