tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7780182174577095197.post5072329631481702894..comments2024-03-25T09:56:16.164+00:00Comments on An Awfully Big Blog Adventure: 'And the knights are no more, and the dragons are dead' by Steve GladwinUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7780182174577095197.post-64584768653445284252017-01-23T18:23:19.908+00:002017-01-23T18:23:19.908+00:00My sister learned Handsome John Brown at junior sc...My sister learned Handsome John Brown at junior school - and I've never seen the words before! She used to sing the descant to Sing Choirs of Angels, too!<br />When A Knight Won His Spurs was one of my favourites, along with Lord of the Dance.Eigonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11368838188678418192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7780182174577095197.post-71866903188869005372017-01-23T18:04:44.963+00:002017-01-23T18:04:44.963+00:00I really hoped that this would be a post which peo...I really hoped that this would be a post which people would enjoy and comment on so I;m so glad it has been. Thanks all not just for your enthusiastic responses, but for sharing your precious memories. I'm glad you've confirmed that last line Lynne - it works so much better and is the one in my memory. Sue that's a tongue twister which might well cure my insomnia, when I have it. Impressive! A fund of stuff to think about and back up there Penny, thanks. It's lovely to hear a bit of the background to my unique era of education! And Anne I'm so glads someone else loves the descant as much as I do!Steve Gladwinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01809330248051701869noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7780182174577095197.post-71468059158424858392017-01-23T16:04:15.184+00:002017-01-23T16:04:15.184+00:00Steve, this post had such a lot of resonance for m...Steve, this post had such a lot of resonance for me! Just before Christmas I was reciting (admittedly with the words to hand) Wordsworth's Daffodils at my mother's funeral. And on Christmas Eve I was at a carol concert at the Royal Albert Hall where the audience was encouraged to stand up and participate, and I knew all the words and sang the descant Sing Choirs of Angels that I remembered from school choir. I know all the songs and poems you mentioned except the last one. And What to Look for in Summer and What to Look for in Winter are sitting on my office shelves and often used for quick seasonal reference. I was at school in the 1950s and we regularly had to learn poems by heart. I was lucky because I found that easy, but not everyone did, so perhaps it was a mixed blessing. A more relaxed place to learn was at home. Ann Turnbullhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06484265041343702129noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7780182174577095197.post-24646185332956864452017-01-23T11:30:41.250+00:002017-01-23T11:30:41.250+00:00My earliest learned poem, though? A muddle of nurs...My earliest learned poem, though? A muddle of nursery rhymes, and the A.A. Milne verses my mother read to me at night. I can recall reciting the whole of "The Falls of Lodore" at junior school - of which I can barely recall a word now. It's the inner re-telling & re-singing that keeps the words in the mind.Penny Dolanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16386668303428008498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7780182174577095197.post-64758911107924356712017-01-23T11:25:05.624+00:002017-01-23T11:25:05.624+00:00Steve, I never learned "The Lost Doll" b...Steve, I never learned "The Lost Doll" but remember reading it years ago. The poem has always struck me as unbearably haunting and tragic and (later) as about something far more adult than a lost toy, convenient though that title was for editors of children's anthologies.<br /><br />The rhythm and rhyme of these old but familiar poems make them into a kind of music, and as Lynne said, were often known as songs and hymns in school assemblies. Oh, I have suddenly noticed that you're using them as half-lullabies too, aren't you, Steve? Repetition, whether aloud or in the head, embeds the lines deep in the memory, and your descriptions of literature work with Alzheimers patients lifts the heart right now.<br /><br />One of my grand-mothers quite often recited a particularly sentimental poem("Fair daffodils, we weep to see thee . . ." by Robert Herrick) well into her old age, despite years of mental illness, delusions and forgetfulness. The poem had obviously been her party piece for family gatherings, parish shows and similar events before broadcast media took over. <br /><br />Changes in educational ideas and the rise of more socially relevant poetry took many such verses out of everyday school practice - let alone the time needed fr teachers to hear the recitals - so such "rote learning" is probably only found in Elocution and Drama classes now and private schools, despite the urging of various modern poets such as Tony Mitton and more. Also worth noting is the organisation POETRY BY HEART, which runs annual competitions, and lots of details online.<br /><br />A small historic point. As I was reading Kate Summerscale's THE WICKED BOY recently (a biography of a child murderer) I discovered that being able to recite several lines of a piece of poetry was -around 1894 - one of the standards a child was supposed to be able to achieve by the end of elementary education. Was that pattern the root of the early to mid 20C state-school poetry learning? Mental and spoken ability was surely being tested by this task, but I'm glad that the decades of poems brought a sense of joy and accomplishment to many children (and now-grown children)too.<br />Penny Dolanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16386668303428008498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7780182174577095197.post-81669658254472084012017-01-23T10:43:20.701+00:002017-01-23T10:43:20.701+00:00Yes, I can remember singing 'Glad That I Live ...Yes, I can remember singing 'Glad That I Live Am I' and 'When A Knight Won His Spurs' at school. The knight was my favourite because, as Lynne says, it had knights and dragons in it.<br />I think the first rhyme I ever learned was:<br /><br />The common cormorant, or shag,<br />Lays eggs inside a paper bag.<br />The reason, as you'll see, no doubt,<br />Is to keep the lightening out.<br />But what this unobservant bird<br />Does not notice is that herds<br />Of wandering bears will come with buns<br />And steal the bags to hold the crumbs.<br /><br />I still love those unobservant birds and those tidy bears.<br /><br />Here's one which was keeping me awake last night:<br /><br />A fly and a flea in a flue,<br />Said, "We're trapped! What shall we do?"<br />Said the fly,"Let us flee!"<br />Said the flea, "Let us fly!"<br />So they flew through a flaw in the flue.Susan Pricehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07738737493756183909noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7780182174577095197.post-73222005641810568172017-01-23T10:19:37.143+00:002017-01-23T10:19:37.143+00:00Fascinating blog, Steve, and one which brought bac...Fascinating blog, Steve, and one which brought back many memories for me too! With regard to "Glad that I live am I" (last line was definitely "Nearer the sky"!) and "When a Knight won his spurs", you'll be glad to know that when I was last teaching, a few years ago now, admittedly, both were regular hymns in Assembly, and the latter was always the children's favourite - probably because of the wonderful pictures it conjured up! Similarly, Malcolm Saville was one of my favourite authors when I was 11 up - and "Seven White Gates" was the first of the Lone Pine series that I came across, when my class teacher read it to us in the first year of the Grammar school. I loved it, and subsequently borrowed all the others in the series from the library.<br />As to "The Little Doll", yes, I remember that one too, though I can't remember where or when I heard it, and when I was in a choir at college we sang "The Handsome Butcher".<br />You made a very good point about Altzeimers patients too, which is all the more reason for getting our children/grandchildren used to learning favourite poems/songs so they will have plenty in their memory store for future reference.<br />Thanks again for a great blog! (And good luck with the sleeping!)Lynne Bentonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14412874594191347503noreply@blogger.com