I commend
to you the excellent article – ‘From holy day to holiday’ – by Fergus
Butler Gallie in the Church Times, 30
August 2024, in which he refers to a video of the Southwark Diocesan conference
held at Butlin’s, Bognor Regis in 1961. Here’s the video:
https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/36378/
There
are also some outtakes (not referred to by Fergus), not to be missed:
https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/36391/
(the first ten minutes).
, , ,
and here’s the full article:
Enjoy!
This
article in The Guardian on the
appointment of Errollyn Wallen as Master of the King’s Music is a hopeful sign
for the future of music education in schools:
I’m
not a great fan of Norman Lebrecht, but he has written an excellent article in
the latest issue of The Critic:
https://thecritic.co.uk/defend-the-arts-before-its-too-late/
Incidentally,
have we heard anything from the new
culture minister, Lisa Nandy?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th-OVpcr_jE
‘The arts are being systematically undermined and devalued and
incompetently treated. That's where we are. That's the sort of country we are
at the moment. And it's a disgrace.’
Responding to a newly-published Campaign for the Arts report, Melvyn Bragg calls on the UK to address the languishing state of the arts
as a matter of urgency.
Read the State of the Arts
report by the Campaign for the Arts and the University of Warwick here: https://www.campaignforthearts.org/reports/the-state-of-the-arts/
Apologies for another long pause between posts on this site,
partly owing to having been in Intensive Care in Ipswich Hospital for eleven
days followed by necessary convalescence, which is proceeding as hoped for, with
no expected long-term consequences.
As for the General Election: It is a shame that the election of the excellent Carla Denyer for the Greens in Bristol Central has knocked out Thangam Debbonaire, who would have been Culture Secretary in the new Government. A cellist, educated at Chets and the RCM, she would have been just the person to encourage recovery in this sector, though the PM apparently plays the flute, recorder, violin and piano, was a junior exhibitioner at Guildhall and has declared that playing in an orchestra gave him 'life skills'. Improbably, even deputy PM Angela Rayner is said to be an opera enthusiast! So perhaps there is some cause for mild optimism, though their minds will no doubt be on more 'important' matters, at least initially. The actual new Culture Secretary is Lisa Nandy, whose biography reveals no special interest or involvement in the Arts in general or music in particular, so we will have to wait and see what happens.
Amazing,
isn’t it, that in Victorian times, without the benefit of modern technology,
when people wrote letters by the score, it was possible to write to your wife
in the morning to say that you would be late home from work that evening and
the letter would be delivered in the afternoon.
Now,
with all the technology currently at our disposal, and (apparently) far fewer
letters now written, Royal Mail is proposing that second-class letters will in
future be delivered only every other working day – which, in some areas, will
actually be an improvement, I understand!
In Victorian London there were up to twelve deliveries a day, six days a week. Even during my childhood, two daily deliveries and, at Christmas, cards were delivered as soon as a deliverable quantity had accumulated at the Post Office – again, in far greater numbers than today.
Progress?
