Rev W Cochrane. (Corks!)

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eucsgmrc
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Re: Rev W Cochrane. (Corks!)

Post by eucsgmrc »

postwarblue wrote:Anything modern like jazz was verboten.
I don't actually remember any such absolute policy, but perhaps Col A was less rigorous about such things because Kit knew very little about music.

In my time - 54 to 62 - there was a "house wireless" kept in the dayroom, and switched on quite a lot of the time, tuned mostly to the Light Programme. There were one or two other elderly valve radios, usually in the changing rooms. Later on there was a record player as well, and eventually Peter Hitchcock and Ian Packington (I think) built a huge mono hifi speaker embedded in an old beer barrel.

Radio Luxembourg was strongly disapproved of by the Authorities. That wasn't what stopped us listening, though. It was the dreadful reception. There was also an attempt to ban rock'n'roll when that burst into our consciousness in 1956. However, apart from that, we could listen to all kinds of popular and classical music, including jazz, and we did.

Musicians - people who actually played instruments - may have felt more restrictions than that. If so, I suggest it was because there was nowhere to keep instruments, or play them, apart from the music school. I don't remember anybody having an instrument in the house - no guitar, no clarinet, no fiddle, not even a mouth organ. So playing music had to be done right under the noses of the music staff.
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Re: Rev W Cochrane. (Corks!)

Post by sejintenej »

eucsgmrc wrote:
postwarblue wrote:Anything modern like jazz was verboten.
I don't actually remember any such absolute policy, but perhaps Col A was less rigorous about such things because Kit knew very little about music..
I think that a) you don't miss what you have never had and b) the pops fraternity kept the radios tuned to their own specialities whenever possible so jazz freaks didn't have a chance. My introduction to any form of jazz was the top US names playing in London in 1963 and onwards and not anything at CH.
eucsgmrc wrote:In my time - 54 to 62 - there was a "house wireless" kept in the dayroom, and switched on quite a lot of the time, tuned mostly to the Light Programme. There were one or two other elderly valve radios, usually in the changing rooms. Later on there was a record player as well, and eventually Peter Hitchcock and Ian Packington (I think) built a huge mono hifi speaker embedded in an old beer barrel.

Radio Luxembourg was strongly disapproved of by the Authorities. That wasn't what stopped us listening, though. It was the dreadful reception. There was also an attempt to ban rock'n'roll when that burst into our consciousness in 1956. However, apart from that, we could listen to all kinds of popular and classical music, including jazz, and we did.
.
Radio Luxembourg was, at the time, the only radio station broadcasting "modern" music consistently. It was of course later emulated by the "pirate" ships like Caroline. You are, of course, right about the ban on unapproved music records; hence the absolute ban on unapproved vinyl (records / 66's, 45's etc) and the front page headline in the Daily Sketch "The School which bans the Pops".

In Col A we were troubled by music blaring out of one of the senior monitors' studies as I was trying to deal with quadratics and more abstruce calculus during prep but I understood that it was a school-wide ban. There has been a suggestion on the forum that "they" brought the ban in at the gequest of house grecians. .
.
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Re: Rev W Cochrane. (Corks!)

Post by DavidRawlins »

I think that Terence Bate, Col A 1945- c1950, had quite a lot to do with Radio Caroline. I do not think that he was musical at school. He presumably had good management skills. If you look up Terry Bate on the internet there is a lot about his career at this time.
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Re: Rev W Cochrane. (Corks!)

Post by Kit Bartlett »

I recall that in the Prep in 1941-42 a boy had a 78 recording of Deanna Durbin singing "Yes My Darling Daughter " and "Dolores" which he played continuously on a wind up gramophone until we all got fed up with it. Happy days !
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Re: Rev W Cochrane. (Corks!)

Post by keibat »

Hadn't looked in on the Forum for a while and was delighted to find this thread – but quite surprised at some of the comments. It all goes to show how personal and subjective our memories are, I suppose. In particular, I was surprised at the dissing of the music and art teaching, or supervision, or direction, whatever it should be called.

In my time at CH (exactly parallel to Dr Scuffil's) I feel that I got a very solid grounding in singing – under Corks, until he left – and in my mid-teen years I found in the Art School and in Nell Todd's company and quiet encouragement a place of refuge from some of my teenage demons. One of the great things about the Art School was the open doors – just to be able to go there when one wanted to, and try doing what one felt like trying, and being made to feel welcome. Maybe it's true that we didn't get much *instruction* from Nell – that wasn't her way – tho' I do remember learning about J M W Turner from the other art teacher, Mr Vaughan, which came back vividly to mind when watching the recent biopic 'Mr Turner'.

But with Nell, I got to experiment with watercolours and gouache, and with oils, too – I remember getting very excited about the paintings that John Bratby did for the film version of Joyce Carey's 'The Horse's Mouth', with their very heavy, thick swirls of oil paint, and trying to achieve something similar with a picture of the late Clive Perdue's back drying off after a shower, that I suppose ended up with Clive.

I also powerfully recall listening to Jacqueline du Pré, who was Nell's goddaughter maybe?, practising on the cello on the balcony of Nell's flat upstairs in the Art School - 'powerful' is the right word.

But the music – I never had enough self-discipline to learn to play an instrument properly, to my chagrin later, so don't feel competent to comment on that side (the Band was of course outstanding, but that was under different management) – but for singers, there was the Chapel Choir, and the Big School choir, and the Madrigal Choir. I currently sing in the local church's 'better' choir, which recruits from across a swathe of the county, and things I learnt in the CH Chapel Choir over fifty years ago still stand me in good stead: lots of good Anglican settings of the Magnificat and Te Deum and so on, but also gems like Vaughan Williams' 'Mr Valiant-for-Truth', which I can still sing from memory today. In the Big School Choir we sang Walton's 'Belshazzar's Feast', and Constant Lambert's 'Rio Grande', as well as more conventional works.

It was certainly my understanding at the time that Corks was dismissed by Seaman for unbecoming conduct of one kind or another, or both, and it was great that he then got the position at St Paul's. Fairly soon after he'd left, he invited a group of us to do a lunchtime concert in one of the City churches – it must have been on breaking-up day at the end of term, I suppose – which also involved a visit to The Rising Sun. Some of the comments on this thread about how he could hold his drink miss the point, perhaps, that some alcoholics do in fact cope with the intoxication remarkably well – but it's a feature of their alcoholism, and I think once he was at St Paul's and no longer in a school environment, he probably let go more, and the alcohol took over. That he was gay was also perfectly obvious, but not surprising.

Good memories.
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Re: Rev W Cochrane. (Corks!)and Jazz

Post by John Saunders »

I remember Steve Race giving a lecture on"Jazz" sometime in the early 50s. We had heard of him but only on the wireless! Certain monitors were allowed to stay up late to listen to classical concerts. I thought that I would try the same stunt one night with JHP. He refused on the usual grounds of the unsuitability of the genre.
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Re: Rev W Cochrane. (Corks!)

Post by Kit Bartlett »

Cecil Cochrane after he left his post at St. Paul's went a living at Southminster Essex.
does any one have details as to how long he remained there ?
I believe that he spent the last few years of his life living in the Horsham area.
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Re: Rev W Cochrane. (Corks!)

Post by michael scuffil »

Dr Battarbee above recalls good hours spent in the Art School, and for many I'm sure that it fulfilled the same sort of function that Kirby's lab fulfilled for others. It was a refuge. But Dr B. was already a talented painter (I have one of his gouaches hanging in my house -- if anyone knows where the other five are, I'd love to know -- scenes of CH and surroundings, in orange, green and black). I was not a talented painter, and I recall one exchange with Nell Todd that went something like this (I'd just done a picture of Trafalgar Sq.):
NT: Why have you painted the square grey?
me: Because it is grey.
NT: Wouldn't it better if it were pink, or yellow?
Now having become fairly knowledgeable about painting in the meantime, and translated a book about Gustave Caillebotte, who was a master of this sort of thing, I can see what she meant. But we were simply asked to paint a London scene (or something). 12-year-olds will, mostly, not spontaneously paint pink or yellow asphalt.
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Re: Rev W Cochrane. (Corks!)

Post by postwarblue »

Latterly I used Vol Art on Sunday afternoons as a means to avoid HOOB (House out of Bounds). NT let me paint what I chose, but on one occasion she looked at a tree I had put in my picture and asked if I had ever seen a tree, and sent me out to the Quarter Mile to sketch one.
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Re: Rev W Cochrane. (Corks!)

Post by rockfreak »

michael scuffil wrote:Dr Battarbee above recalls good hours spent in the Art School, and for many I'm sure that it fulfilled the same sort of function that Kirby's lab fulfilled for others. It was a refuge. But Dr B. was already a talented painter (I have one of his gouaches hanging in my house -- if anyone knows where the other five are, I'd love to know -- scenes of CH and surroundings, in orange, green and black). I was not a talented painter, and I recall one exchange with Nell Todd that went something like this (I'd just done a picture of Trafalgar Sq.):
NT: Why have you painted the square grey?
me: Because it is grey.
NT: Wouldn't it better if it were pink, or yellow?
Now having become fairly knowledgeable about painting in the meantime, and translated a book about Gustave Caillebotte, who was a master of this sort of thing, I can see what she meant. But we were simply asked to paint a London scene (or something). 12-year-olds will, mostly, not spontaneously paint pink or yellow asphalt.
I was reminded of a tele-doc on David Hockney who had just painted those massive rural scenes of his native Yorkshire and was exhorting the viewer to look hard at a patch of grey muddy footpath and see all the colours in it. I looked hard but could still see only a grey muddy footpath. I guess one needs the artistic sensibility. But I do remember her having us in for a slide show on impressionism and modern art and being the first person to say to me: "It doesn't have to be like a photograph". She was certainly a welcome, tolerant and bohemian alternative to the unremittingly grey atmosphere of life in general and CH in particular in those years. And those hats in chapel...
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Re: Rev W Cochrane. (Corks!)

Post by J.R. »

Somewhere in my massive collection of old photos, I have one taken by my late Mum of NT striding through the quad on speech day, skirt flowing and a massve Ascot type hat.
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Re: Rev W Cochrane. (Corks!)

Post by DavidRawlins »

In about 1948 or 9 Coleridge produced 'Trial by Jury'. This was in Cork's time. I do not know what his reaction was as I was not involved at all.
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Re: Rev W Cochrane. (Corks!)

Post by furry »

michael scuffil wrote: Thu Feb 05, 2015 12:02 pm Some thoughts on art and music...

CH was probably no different from most schools at the time. Flecker once said to Colin Davies that he'd give him a cap for the pennies.

I remember a spontaneous jazz group called the Housey Hot Five: they were quite good, but of course severely discouraged.

While the band was excellent and the chapel choir quite good, the school orchestra was painful to listen to (but then so are most school orchestras).

There was a music teacher called Alan Wilkinson (still alive, I believe) who was a good violinist himself and got Andrew Porter into the National Youth Orchestra as a violinist.

As for art: I cannot remember any art 'teaching'. In terms of mathematics teaching, it was as if the teacher had said: 'Here's an idea for a few sums. Get on with it.' There were one or two 'art grecians' like Ben Rubbra and Conrad Clark -- I don't know how much they were actually taught.

I don't know when this attitude came in: clearly the Art School was not a mere afterthought in the mind either of the architect or the people who approved the designs.
I'm sorry that Michael Scuffil has such a jaundiced view of the schhol orchestra compared with the Chapel choir and band. The band rehearsed every weekday before lunch, the chapel choir only once a week, and the orchestra twice a week. The band repeated many of its tunes again and again so they should have been good (and were). The chapel choir, which I joined in my first term at CH, produced the first LP of Christmas Carols under Corks' direction as well as a constant supply of Choral Scholars for Oxbridge. As to the orchestra, I was its leader during my last two years at CH. Andrew Porter followed as leader after I left. Curiously we both met years later when we both occupied Professorial Chairs at King's College London. Most of the string players in the orchestra had achieved Grade 6 or better (out of 8). Only the best woodwind and brass players in the Band were invited to play. Alan Wilkinson was my violin teacher following "Chimpy" Southward who died suddently in my second year and I remember well him giving a performance of the Beethoven Violin Concerto (with the orchestra's support). I remember the performance particularly as my A string snapped between the first and second movements and Andy took over as leader until I returned with the string replaced. I don't think that Alan noticed at all as he was so immersed in what he was playing.
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Re: Rev W Cochrane. (Corks!)

Post by sejintenej »

Reference the previous comment by Furry and extraction I am forced to go along with the condemnation of NT's failure to teach anything. A total waste of time and having time now I wish that she had taken some interest in the pupils entrusted to her (non)care.

I didn't hear much of the orchestra, thank goodness. A do remember dirges from the cellos - why in tarnation didn't they play decent music like Hauser (cello!!!! - just listen to his Benedictus and cry) and Yanni's orchestra. As for ancient stuff I can cope with and enjoy Smetana, Shostakovich, Khatachurian, Ketelbey (just) von Stade,and some others giving a wide choice but those seem to have been considered by CH as criminal as jazz.

Just try to compare the orchestra you were with to other youth orchestras such as Gimnazija Kranj. Not speaking about quality but the simple variation used by Primož Zevnik and Nejc Bečan. (As for musical enjoyment just watch the chorus, woodwind and harpist in YMCA!!!!)

I don't know how many of you were "taught" with a club by Daddy Dors but I would not expect any of his pupils to sing another note in their lives - I suspect none of the choir were in the Prep - after that I cannot think to sing even 60 years later..

Band; yes, excellent and I especially remember them countermarching using the entire quad; not only good music but quality control.
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