what was I taught at school?

What was the main lesson I was taught at St Mary’s Church of England Elementary School?

I know the answer to that question when applied to the Mercers’ School. That answer came to me just a few days ago, when I was in one of my ‘one single word’ modes of mind. And that single word, for Mercers’, is : Conform!

With St Mary’s it’s more difficult. More elusive. I thought of each day’s classes beginning with Scripture. And that suggested to me : Gentle Jesus, meek and mild / Look upon a little child.  That might have been a factor, but it wasn’t the final solution.

Then it came to me :

The rich man in his castle

The poor man at his gate

He made them high and lowly

And ordered their estate

It’s one of the verses from a well-known hymn we often sang. All things bright and beautiful  by Cecil F Alexander. Written in 1848 and still frequently heard at weddings in the late 20th century when fewer and fewer are aware of any hymns that might be familiar, even to a small proportion of the wedding guests at a ceremony.

When, in the 1950s, I played the organ for the Church of St Barnabas in Pimlico, that verse – although still printed in the hymn books – had to be omitted. Something to do with the political (social?) persuasion of Philip Rowe, Vicar. I wondered why, but chose never to raise the query.

And the first time I went to Palma de Majorca, the Sunday morning sermon at Mass was very much on those lines. We should accept the station we had been born into.

What has brought all this into my mind at the beginning of July in my 85th year? I’ll call it the local Zeitgeist, though that may not be quite the right word. The very real feeling of an inevitably stratified society with an upper layer riddled with some whose interests are limited to themselves and whose care for the serfs at the castle gate never has even a moment’s consideration. I see it every time I watch a political programme on the television. Though there, there is a tinge of concern for the way votes may be cast at the next election. Beyond that : Nothing. Blank incomprehension. ‘You chose us to rule over you. Now just be quiet and let us get on with the job.’ Except that, today, the situation is different. The voices from below are not silent. And today their messages have wings more powerful even than in 1945.

francis cameron, oxford, 2 july 2012

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