Harrow School Churchill Songs

at

The Royal Albert Hall



Last night was spectacular and made me feel very proud to be an Old Harrovian. I think that in today's society, where one has to play down everything, having gone to an old fashioned public school is very hush hush. I was thrilled last night, not by the grandeur or the pomp and pageantry, but by the familial way my old school looks after its old pupils and by the brilliant new headmaster's speech, which stressed that education is not all about grades in academic exams but a way of building on one's own God given talents, whatever they may be. The fact that the evening was compered by actor Benedict Cumberbatch (or Benedict Scamblesbitch, as mispronounced by Field Marshall Lord Guthrie), who shared the stage with said Army giant and OH astronaut, Dr Nicholas Patrick, showed off the school's variety. While one can spot an Old Etonian a mile off, Harrovians are a more mixed bag. I was allowed to do so much, may be too much, music and architectural study at Harrow, but now, as a professional singer and an architectural historian, I am supremely glad of that...

                        Bagpipers in the rain

The evening started with Walton's 'Crown Imperial'. The school orchestra was brilliant and the roof was literally lifted when the organ thundered in on the last phrase. I was sat very high up, so the view of the arena was wonderful. Lady Soames, Churchill's daughter, glowed in emerald green in the box below. Five and a half thousand Harrovians!! Most people's nightmare, I imagine, but what a sight AND sound, for it was Songs we were there to sing. Our school prides itself on these songs and really there is nothing quite like them. People often say they rose tint the Old Harrovian's specs but, whether this is true or not, they sing of old fashioned and good values, courage and faith in the face of adversity and the regret of Youth's passing. For the two hours in which we were all under the cavernous dome of the Royal Albert Hall the modern World stopped for a little and many of us were taken way back beyond our own childhoods at the school and in to comfortable and heady realms of history and nostalgia.

The arena filling up before songs

Benedict Cumberbatch did a very good job of MC. He managed to combine being down with the kids with keeping the grandees in laughs. He managed to confuse swinging with singing a couple of times and he was wearing the wrong sort of tie, but apart from that he was perfect for the job.

From the imperial grandeur of 'Stet Fortuna Domus' to 'Good Night', there was something for everyone at Songs, which is why these rose-tinted secular hymns are as bewitching today as ever.

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                      All images in this blog are under the copyright ownership of Oliver Gerrish