I went to the school between 2003 and 2010. Many of the memories one has of Rugby High School are framed by the annual traditions that took place there (and hopefully still do). Some of these traditions harked back to the history of the school, and although these were generally reviled when you first arrived, by the time you left years later, you were miserable that you would never take part in them again.
The school anthem
The best example of this is the school anthem, originally titled ‘Unto Thee O Lord Do We Give Thanks’. Every year, normally in the autumn term, there would be a school anthem assembly, where we were given a refresh (or a crash course) in singing the anthem to the required degree of harmony.
(Every year we were required to sing it for Foundation Day, a celebration of the school, in front of parents and public, so it couldn’t be too raucous.) For every year I was there, this anthem assembly was given by one of the senior members of staff, who had a penchant for amateur dramatics, and used to generally order us to “use more stomach, girls!”, especially during the line ‘I will go forth/Go forth with the strength of the Lord God’. Every year you got a bit fonder of it. Having left six years ago, it is now the subject of positive adoration.
Comments
I’m pretty sure I still have the piano music for the anthem somewhere buried away.
I was convinced that the line ‘the lot is fallen unto me in a fair ground’ referred to some sort of hideously comical incident with a piano squashing someone in a themepark… o_O
Also we had a tradition of singing the anthem in as many weird and wonderful places – the bottom of Fish River Canyon in Namibia was our most far-flung! I think the baboons were none too impressed…
On the annual trip to Marle Hall, North Wales, for the Year 9 outdoor activities week, a group of girls discovered that the chapel in Beaumaris Castle had a good echo. They squashed in and sang the school anthem (what else?) complete with harmonies. The Welsh men working on scaffolding, repairing the walls of the half ruined castle, climbed down to listen and to ask where we came from as they were so impressed.
In the 1980s a former pupil wrote to Rugby High to ask if she could have a copy of the school anthem and permission to have it sung at a celebration. The request came from a Poor Clare nun who was celebrating the twenty fifth anniversary of having taken her final vows. The then Headmistress replied that she could do better than that and sent the choir up to York to sing the anthem in the chapel for visitors. The nun herself was behind a screen as the Poor Clare’s are an enclosed order.
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