When a Knight won his Spurs

Words: Jan Struther.
Tune: Stowey , from an English traditional melody.

When a knight won his spurs, in the stories of old,
He was gentle and brave, he was gallant and bold;
With a shield on his arm and a lance in his hand
For God and for valour he rode through the land.

No charger have I, and no sword by my side,
Yet still to adventure and battle I ride,
Though back into storyland giants have fled,
And the knights are no more and the dragons are dead.

Let faith be my shield and let joy be my steed
‘Gainst the dragons of anger, the ogres of greed;
And let me set free, with the sword of my youth,
From the castle of darkness the power of the truth.

This was a bit more like it. I enjoyed singing this; and once again a traditional melody. I don’t think I believed in dragons and stuff, but I liked the idea of the battle. It may be one of the messages imprinting in my subconscious leading me to the conclusion that a struggle for justice, and standing up for truth, is something worth doing in order to make the world a better place.

For years I assumed Jan Struther was a man, and probably German or Austrian. Then I discovered that it was a pseudonym for J. Anstruther. And the J was Joyce. She was Joyce Anstruther, then Joyce Maxtone Graham, and finally Joyce Placzek. She died in the United States in 1953, aged only 52. Her granddaughter is Ysende Maxtone Graham, a writer whose works include the very perceptive, funny and accurate portrait of the Church of England and English religious expression “The Church Hesistant”, which sits here on my bookshelf. She was also the great aunt of Ian Maxtone Graham, former executive producer of my favourite cartoon series, “The Simpsons”.

Sing a Song of Sixpence

Most of the nursery rhymes my parents sang me were the old traditional ones. The tunes are super when they are played as they were meant to be played, with gusto, for dancing or unrestrained singing. The tunes often crop up attached to other songs. You can for example hear this tune sung to “The Sheepstealer” by Martin Carthy on his album “Rigs of Time”, which is a very different type of song! By the time my own children were born, many of these rhymes were not being sung any more and we were into things like “The Wheels on the Bus go Round and Round and Round”. I bought an LP of folk rock versions of nursery rhymes by Tim Hart, who used to play with Steeleye Span in the seventies. They enjoyed it and it’s still worth a listen today.

The Rocking Carol

Trad. Czech, arranged by Percy Dearmer

Little Jesus, sweetly sleep, do not stir;
We will lend a coat of fur,
We will rock you, rock you, rock you,
We will rock you, rock you, rock you:
See the fur to keep you warm,
Snugly round your tiny form.

Mary’s little baby, sleep, sweetly sleep,
Sleep in comfort, slumber deep;
We will rock you, rock you, rock you,
We will rock you, rock you, rock you:
We will serve you all we can,
Darling, darling little man.

I include this because I found it indigestibly sugary as a child, and don’t feel any better about it all these years later. It just seems to epitomize that whole “Gentle Jesus meek and mild” thing that, even as a child, held little attraction. I’ve never liked “Away in a Manger” for similar reasons. I wasn’t a rough, tough sort of a lad – far from it – but this did nothing for me. Fortunately I did not attend Sunday School or church, so it was only at Christmas that I ran into this sort of stuff. Oh yes, I did have one piece of religious art as a child – perhaps given by a godparent? It was a mawkish Victorian thing with this blonde, blue eyed child with a yellow halo and a white nightie, standing in a meadow with fluffy animals. It stayed in a drawer.

Noddy and Big Ears

He’s very non-PC now, but I loved Noddy. He was always in trouble of course, and did not take the advice of his wise friend Big Ears. I was probably quite a lot like Big Ears; sensible, and able to predict the consequences of dangerous or prohibited courses of action. I would have liked to be more like Noddy and get into trouble. I like the fact that these stories have contributed a word to modern slang. Every time I see the crooks on a TV show jump in the car when the cops arrive and drive off at great speed shouting “It’s Plod!” I think of Noddy. One of the first great anti-heroes.

Dick and Dora, Nip and Fluff

My mother may or may not have taught me how to pray, but she did a great deal of other preparation prior to my going to school. There were no nursery schools or pre-school provision in those days, at least not where we lived. On the other hand, very few mothers went out to work. Consequently, my mother spent a lot of time with my sister and I, teaching us to read and write, reading stories to us, and cooking delicious food. As a result, when I started school I could read quite well, and write my name – with both hands. I remained ambidextrous for some time, until finally settling on a preference for my left hand for writing and most purposes, but well able later in life to learn how to do new things, such as playing the guitar, right-handedly.

The Happy Venture series of reading books were used widely in schools from the fifties until as late as 1970 in some areas. Once again, the life that these two children and their delightful pets enjoyed was very different to our own. I don’t even remember knowing anyone who had a pet dog or a cat in our street. The fields and woods where Dick and Dora played, and the seaside with blue sea and sky where they took their holidays, seemed very far from our experience.

Thank you for the world so sweet

Thank you for the world so sweet
Thank you for the food we eat
Thank you for the birds that sing
Thank you God for everything!

This was sung in primary school class, at least once, possibly twice each day. Again, I can remember the tune and can sing it now. Once again, it is based on pastoral images that did not relate to the life I lived in the grey back to back streets of houses under the smoke of the steelworks.

I think it was used as a grace before meals at lunchtime, even though I, and most of us, went home for lunch. Then it may have been sung again at the end of the school day, when we had put our chairs on our desks before going home. The school was not a church school, but these simple hymns were part of the very fabric of our days. I had no other early experience of religious observance, as far as I can remember. Prayer – “hands together, eyes closed” – was something that happened at school, not at home. I don’t remember ever going inside a church, though I suppose I must have, at least for my sister’s baptism.

Daisies are Our Silver

Tune: Glenfinlas by K. G. Finlay.

Daisies are our silver,
Buttercups our gold:
This is all the treasure
   We can have or hold.

Raindrops are our diamonds
And the morning dew;
While for shining sapphires
   We’ve the speedwell blue.

These shall be our emeralds-
 Leaves so new and green;
Roses make the reddest
   Rubies ever seen.

God, who gave these treasures
   To your children small,
Teach us how to love them
   And grow like them all.

Make us bright as silver:
   Make us good as gold;
Warm as summer roses
   Let our hearts unfold.

Gay as leaves in April,
   Clear as drops of dew-
God, who made the speedwell,
   Keep us true to you.

This hymn was sung regularly at primary school assemblies. I remember it well, from earliest days at school in the fifties and can sing it now. I grew up in a terraced house in Middlesbrough. Without front or back gardens, without even a grass verge to the streets, the daisies and buttercups of the hymn were only known to us from Sunday afternoon walks to the park. On the annual fortnight’s holiday to my father’s relatives, a long train journey away in a warm, sunny, foreign land called Kent, the lines of the hymn began to make sense as we played in the fields through long summer  days, collecting wild flowers and catching butterflies. My father insisted on painting our front door a bright grass green, to remind him of his own childhood. It was many years before I saw or really appreciated the vivid blue of the speedwell.

How this will work

This is my first blog with WordPress, so I’m getting used to how it all works. I’m also working on how to organise the blog and the posts. I’ve already written some of the posts, and plan to transfer them across, and hope that it will follow chronologically, with the books and stuff remembered from childhood first, and then moving on. I am sure, though, that I’ll remember other stuff later, so it might not always be in strict order. So every now and then, I’ll put in one of these explanatory posts, so that you, the reader, and I, the author, can follow what’s going on! Actually, I can use the categories to organise them into childhood, teens, etc. so that will make it easier. And there may be only one post every week or so, so don’t get too excited.

Hello everyone!

Hello everyone! This is My Anthology. I plan to post regularly on some of the books, comics, magazines, song lyrics and other stuff that have shaped my life for the past nearly sixty years. Hope you enjoy it!