Last week my mum
presented Mr Shoestring with this old song book, which she suggested he could
cut up and paper walls with. It is full
of old imperialist and traditional airs, and I can remember singing some of
them at school. We didn’t think overly
hard about the lyrics of the songs in our school singing sessions and some of
them are rather questionable by today’s standards. But it did give us a sense of enjoyment and pleasure in singing.
As a family we used
to sing a lot as we drove around in the car. We
were a family of three sisters and in between slapping each other and
squabbling over who got the horrible position of having to sit in the middle of
the back seat (the "window" seats were always the favourites), we had a lot of
singing sessions. In fact as soon as we
got into the car we seemed to begin singing and our songs included roundelays
and harmonies.
I can’t say that
any of us were great singers, but it helped to pass the time and we enjoyed
ourselves.
When my own children
were young I would try in vain to get them to sing, but they always seemed
embarrassed and said their voices were terrible, which wasn't the
point from my perspective, but they would not be moved. I figured most people can enjoy singing but
there I was wrong. For instance, Mr
Shoestring tells me that he was a foundation member of one school and because
the roll was so small all pupils had to be members of the school choir – except
Mr Shoestring and two other boys. The
leader of the choir told them to mouth the words to the songs, but on no
account to utter a sound! Apparently
their voices were so flat as to be a positive hindrance rather than a help in
the choir. Poor things, wouldn’t that
scar you for life? Perhaps our children
inherited Mr Shoestring’s fear of singing after hearing this, who knows. Whatever the reason, singing has died out in
our family except as a strange private idiosyncrasy, which is a pity. I suspect it is the same for many families,
perhaps we need to attempt a revival but there would be strong resistance from
the non-singers among us.
Mrs Shoestring, you will be pleased to know that the merry art of minstrelsy is alive and well in the household of La Famille Bibiliotheque - on motorcar excursions, both long and short, not only some of the old favourites (Green and Yellow, anyone?)but many new and hastily -if not skilfully- rhymed compositions are given hilarious airing, much to the long-sufferance of M. La Bibliotheque, who prefers to concentrate on traffic conditions...
ReplyDeleteWell, what a relief to know that I am not alone in my desire for musical merriment in the car! M. La Bibliotheque no doubt a worthy and sensible fellow; after all, someone has to be the sensible one, take the wheel, be the leader, set a good example and so on and so forth. (Just be thankful it does not always need to be One!)
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