Roy Edwin Terry

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sejintenej
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Re: Roy Edwin Terry

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PeteC wrote:Well this Pop/Jazz ban has shattered some of my fond illusions. I look back on my time at CH as having been spent in a moderately liberal environment. How was it policed? What were the parameters? I mean lots of serious 20th Century music was profoundly influenced by jazz, from Debussy & Ravel onwards (and of course numerous American composers). Was Debussy's "Golliwog's Cake-Walk" allowed? (I suppose nowadays it would be more likely to fall foul of the Political Correctness people!). Amazing.
I can only speak for Col A: you will have realised that each house was different.
It was effectively the monitors who ran the house, backed up when necessary by Kit Aitken. There are two parts to the music control; someone(s) persuaded the powers that be that pop music was distracting the boys from their duty to bring home the record for Oxbridge scholarships and O levels and in Col A we had a monitor who felt that he could play pop music not only in free time (when it was often appreciated) but also during prep when others were trying to work.
Given that the boy concerned was one of the more senior monitors there was little any other boy could do so it needed a command from on high.
I left shortly after but in that intervening period the music volume fell to almost inaudible. John W left a year later and reports that the noise returned to higher levels (because, I suspect, the boys allowed it to). I'm not sure exactly what music would have been allowed because during the period I was affected nothing was approved (I suggested earlier that the National Anthem would take so to approve that Queen would become King ---and require new approval?)
What happens if a politician drowns in a river? That is pollution.
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sejintenej
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Re: Roy Edwin Terry

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Martin wrote: There is an existing video tape about Gene Simmons' Teaching. It may also be available in DVD form, but I cannot give any further information about it. Perhaps the BBC can supply it, for it seems to be based on the above website's Series 1.
YouTube: Specify 'Gene Simmons Rock School'. In theory it is blocked in the UK (no reason given) but ....... There are actually two different schools with the fillums on YouTube- CH was the first
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What happens if all of them drown? That is solution!!!
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Re: Roy Edwin Terry

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About 1952 there was a pop number called 'The Thing' (the tune was a burlesque of the Lincolnshire Poacher). As the chorus goes 'BOOM de BOOM' everybody stamped. This was banned in case we brought Big School down. Bu this was before teenagers were invented.
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Re: Roy Edwin Terry

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Returning to the original theme of RE Terry, I remember him for a particular reason. When I first joined the Upper School I started to learn the piano with him. It quickly became apparent that I had no musical talent whatsoever but what caused me to cease persevering was that he smoked like a chimney and in those tiny practice rooms in the Music School the smell of stale cigarette tobacco was awful.
Concerning censorship I was not into the music scene (talentless, see above) but I do remember that all comics were banned until the arrival of the 'Eagle' - Dan Dare (English gentleman but with a bit more get-up-and-go), the Mekon (all green and sitting on a sort of floating lifeboat), Harris Tweed (a touch of humour), and those wonderful centre-page cutaway drawings. Plus, of course, it was edited by a "Rev" (Morris?) so it had to be OK.
Films in Big School. The sound may have been poor, but how they relieved the monotony! I vividly recall the final scene of "Lost Horizon" (horrible, haunts me to this day); a woman called Pauline who kept on being tied to railway lines so that she could be rescued microseconds before being mashed up by an approaching express (she must have been quite exhausting to know); and Chips Rafferty, forever heading for the wild, blue (Australian) horizon. But for the film of the Coronation we marched into Horsham to a proper cinema, and back again afterwards - seemed like a gentle afternoon stroll in those days!
David :shock:
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Re: Roy Edwin Terry

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We marched in to Horsham to the cinema in about 1950 to see the film 'Henry 5th' with Lawrence Olivier. We then marched back.
On another occasion we went to see a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta at the thearte in Horsham, in the evening, so it would have been dangerous to march. Not the whole school went. How we got there I can not remember.
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Re: Roy Edwin Terry

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What a splendid trip down Memory Lane this Forum is! I only joined recently but I'm loving it.
Yes, marching into Horsham for Cinema showings of films. I remember very clearly Laurence Olivier's Hamlet, in Black & White (the lovely Jean Simmons as Ophelia foating down a river...), also the 1948 Olympics film. And later, Olivier in Richard III. We saw the John Hunt Everest film in 1953, but I don't remember a Coronation film.
And the dreadful film evenings in Big School: "The Perils of Pauline"; "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"; various Ealing Comedies; "Lost Horizon": although I can't remember how it ended, the mountain scenery made a profound impression.
Returning to Terry: I don't remember the smoking (after all, one accepted it as a normal part of adult behaviour in those days) but I remember in the early days he was often singing to his own piano accompaniment when I turned up for my piano lesson, (very loud, it seemed, quite frightening to a little boy!) He sang Tenor solo in the Kodaly Missa Brevis ("Miserere, Mister Terry"). The singing gradually faded out over the years. Perhaps it was the smoking.
Korks's rather splendid Bass-baritone gradually faded, too, didn't it, but in his case it was more likely the booze.
Peter Cockshott. Prep A/Peele A 1948-1956
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Re: Roy Edwin Terry

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Foureyes wrote: Films in Big School. The sound may have been poor, but how they relieved the monotony! I vividly recall the final scene of "Lost Horizon" (horrible, haunts me to this day); a woman called Pauline who kept on being tied to railway lines so that she could be rescued microseconds before being mashed up by an approaching express (she must have been quite exhausting to know); and Chips Rafferty, forever heading for the wild, blue (Australian) horizon. But for the film of the Coronation we marched into Horsham to a proper cinema, and back again afterwards - seemed like a gentle afternoon stroll in those days!
David :shock:
My mother always felt Richard Fry looked like Chips Rafferty and went rather wobbly in his presence.

One of the strangest films I remember was about the origin of the Harlem globetrotters. Since basketball was pretty much unknown, much of the film was a complete mystery, as was the entire background plot of racial segregation in the Sates.
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Re: Roy Edwin Terry

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LongGone wrote:One of the strangest films I remember was about the origin of the Harlem globetrotters. Since basketball was pretty much unknown, much of the film was a complete mystery, as was the entire background plot of racial segregation in the Sates.
Yes, they had this white team of stooges who always lost to the HG at the last minute.
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Re: Roy Edwin Terry

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LongGone wrote:One of the strangest films I remember was about the origin of the Harlem globetrotters. Since basketball was pretty much unknown, much of the film was a complete mystery, as was the entire background plot of racial segregation in the Sates.
I don't remember the fillum but in 1960 we had a US exchange student who introduced / reintroduced basketball to CH. It seemed to become a mass hit and in my lazy opinion was about the best sport around.
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What happens if all of them drown? That is solution!!!
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Re: Roy Edwin Terry

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PeteC wrote:Well this Pop/Jazz ban has shattered some of my fond illusions. I look back on my time at CH as having been spent in a moderately liberal environment. How was it policed? What were the parameters? I mean lots of serious 20th Century music was profoundly influenced by jazz, from Debussy & Ravel onwards (and of course numerous American composers). Was Debussy's "Golliwog's Cake-Walk" allowed? (I suppose nowadays it would be more likely to fall foul of the Political Correctness people!). Amazing.
I don't think there was a jazz ban because there was a flourishing jazz club at CH at the time. What happened (if my memory serves) was that in the late 1950s Clarence ME Seaman sent round a note banning "pop slush". And I think this just applied to records rather than the radio (which always seemed to be on in Col B). As it happened this was the period when the best of rock n' roll had gone but before the Beatles had happened, so there was a lot of commercial pop which wasn't a massive loss and traditional jazz rather flourished in the vacuum. I wonder what happened then in the early 60s then when r&b shouters came along? Were they considered pop. folk, blues? Were Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee OK but the electric bluesmen not? Ho ho! How did Clarence's cultural police deal with it all?
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Re: Roy Edwin Terry

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The infamous ban on rock'n'roll (or 'rock and roll' as the notice had it) specifically excluded jazz from the list of banned substances. The ban could not of course be applied to radio (though personal radios were later banned for all below Deps). Ah, the joys of listening to Radio Luxembourg fade-outs. (BBC? -- you must be joking.)
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Re: Roy Edwin Terry

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michael scuffil wrote:
LongGone wrote:One of the strangest films I remember was about the origin of the Harlem globetrotters. Since basketball was pretty much unknown, much of the film was a complete mystery, as was the entire background plot of racial segregation in the Sates.
Yes, they had this white team of stooges who always lost to the HG at the last minute.

I actually went to see the HG at Wembley in the very late 60's early 70's on a coach with a friend on his dads works outing.

We arrived very early, and some of the 'Trotters' were outside the hall getting some air.

I got Curly Neal's autograph, the bald star of the side at the time.(God knows where it is now). Having said that, he was a really nice guy and we chatted for a good ten minutes with him asking me many questions about England, and London in particular.

The programme listed his height at well over 6 ft. RUBBISH ! I'm 6ft-2", and he was at least 4" shorter than me. Having said that, even though it's technically an exhibition match, they were absoulyely brilliant, especially Curly Neal.

However, I digress and may get accused of drifting off topic !!

PS. Just found this short clip of him on 'YouTube'.

http://uk.ask.com/youtube?q=Curly+Neal+ ... M&qsrc=472
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Re: Roy Edwin Terry

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On a general level at school, I remember him well - and the enrichment his talents brought. I arrived as a music illiterate - but with parental support should I wish to learn an instrument. Music had I think about an hour a week in the standard curriculum; I spent that hour during my first year at the mercy of Pip Dore, whom I found incomprehensible and terrifying. This put paid to any prospect of a change in my literacy and, consequently, of personal contact with any of the music staff.
Some 20 years after I left CH we took our two youngest daughters to start at St George's Harpenden and, lo and behold, who should be their housemaster? We got on very well with Roy and his wife; however, the musical fortunes of the next generation were to be mixed. Two or three years later we were living quite close by and used to collect the girls for weekends at home. On one Friday collection, Roy asked my wife if middle daughter Jan could please give up piano lessons; this was hard on the heels of a letter from Jan saying: 'Please can I stop paino (sic)'. Youngest daughter - coincidentally? a bit more of a free spirit - took to it and did very creditably in her music exams.
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Re: Roy Edwin Terry

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tub wrote:On a general level at school, I remember him well - and the enrichment his talents brought. I arrived as a music illiterate - but with parental support should I wish to learn an instrument. Music had I think about an hour a week in the standard curriculum; I spent that hour during my first year at the mercy of Pip Dore, whom I found incomprehensible and terrifying. This put paid to any prospect of a change in my literacy .
Ditto re Dore. In addition he couldn't speak comprehensible English. What's the use of telling a 3 dimensional 9 year old that he is flat - sounds like he is like a bit of paper. I had long left CH before I understood what he was talking about which is condemnation of whomever appointed and monitored him. I still don't know how to convert flat into sharp; does the school have a duty to remedy their omission :( ?
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Re: Roy Edwin Terry

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Oh yes, Pip Pore. Singing lessons on the platform in the Prep School Hall. singing Welsh traditional songs in (probably appalling) translation. It was only half way through the term that we learned how to pronounce "Cymru". People who couldn't sing he called "Crows". And "UP ON THE BENCH!!" if you misbehaved. He was reckoned to be a pretty good organist, hawever, and was replaced by Mr Swale.
Peter Cockshott. Prep A/Peele A 1948-1956
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