Now, yesterday a little bit of my past bounced back into my life in the form pf a program and a folk concert ticket.
And what follows is less a bit of vanity and more just a comment on how exciting it was to be at one of our big three comprehensives in the late 1960s.
The three were Crown Woods, Eltham Green and Kidbrook, and I went to Crown Woods.
And in the December of 1967 along with some close friends and lots of other people, I took part in two performances of “all that life can afford” at the Ranger’s House in Blackheath.
The house dates from the 1720s and was a fitting venue for a performance of selected verse, prose and music from the 18th century.
The show lasted for two nights, and drew on the writings of Daniel Defoe, James Boswell, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope and John Wesley, along with Voltaire, Bernard de Mandeville and the duc de Liancourt.
And dominating the evening was Samuel Johnson, whose throwaway comment that “He that is tired of London is tired of life, for there is in London all that life can afford”, provided the title for the show.
The sequence was in two parts, the first offering up “pictures of the streets [with] gin drinking, poverty and crime and punishment”, and the second exploring “the intellectual and religious life, as well as entertaining in high society, the military and naval activities of Blackheath and Greenwich and the famous Greenwich Fair.” *
The night concluded with the sonnet Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 by William Wordsworth, which is near you will get to the perfect piece of praise for the city of London.
I remember I had been less than willing to participate and had a long conversation with Mr. Marland who was Head of English and put forward a series of reasons why I couldn’t take part, each of which was more desperate and unconvincing than the one before.
When finally, I gave in, and agreed, Mr. Marland gave me the script with my name at the top and the part I was to play already identified.
The two nights were a great success but were only one of a number of different performances which the school had offered up.
These included, The Causian Chalk Circle by Bertolt Brecht, An Enemy of the People by Ibsen, Billy Liar, Antigone, The Peterloo Massacre, and the sixteenth century play Gammer Gurton’s Needle along with other dramatic and musical anthologies.
All of which sat beside regular evenings of poetry, prose and music performed by the staff and students of the English Department.
Now I fully accept that similar events went on at Eltham Green and Kidbrook, and I do remember the annual Sixth Form Conferences attended by schools from across the capital which featured some of the best figures from the sciences and the arts who were invited to speak.
The point is that these were put on by comprehensive schools, and not grammar or public schools and in doing so were proudly asserting that they were the equal and perhaps superior to the older and established “places of education”.
Nor did it stop there, because Crown Woods gave us the opportunity to act independently.
In the winter of 1967 Dave Hatch and I were allowed to do our own radio show, featuring folk music, which went out on the internal radio system.
And a little later, when I asked if I could run a series of folk concerts with local singers in the school library, the answer was yes.
I long ago forgot the details and had just a vague memory of who performed, but here Dave came to my rescue again, by telling me “you said that you couldn't remember many details.
The names of two performers stuck in my mind; Gordon Giltrap, who you recruited one Friday night at the Tigers Head, and Terry Yarnell, who worked with Anne's father in Silvertown at International Paints”.
All these opportunities could be replicated by countless others, but I think there was something special in being at one of the “big three” in Eltham and Kidbrook back then.
Pictures; Crown Woods School in “……. all that life can afford”, the folk concert ticket, and the picture of some of the class of ’68, program courtesy of Anne Davey who kept them in her scrap book and Dave hatch for sending them up to me
*Crown Woods School in “……. all that life can afford”.
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| '....... all that life can afford', 1967 |
The three were Crown Woods, Eltham Green and Kidbrook, and I went to Crown Woods.
And in the December of 1967 along with some close friends and lots of other people, I took part in two performances of “all that life can afford” at the Ranger’s House in Blackheath.
The house dates from the 1720s and was a fitting venue for a performance of selected verse, prose and music from the 18th century.
The show lasted for two nights, and drew on the writings of Daniel Defoe, James Boswell, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope and John Wesley, along with Voltaire, Bernard de Mandeville and the duc de Liancourt.
 |
| From the program, cast, writers and researcher, 1967 |
The sequence was in two parts, the first offering up “pictures of the streets [with] gin drinking, poverty and crime and punishment”, and the second exploring “the intellectual and religious life, as well as entertaining in high society, the military and naval activities of Blackheath and Greenwich and the famous Greenwich Fair.” *
The night concluded with the sonnet Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 by William Wordsworth, which is near you will get to the perfect piece of praise for the city of London.
I remember I had been less than willing to participate and had a long conversation with Mr. Marland who was Head of English and put forward a series of reasons why I couldn’t take part, each of which was more desperate and unconvincing than the one before.
When finally, I gave in, and agreed, Mr. Marland gave me the script with my name at the top and the part I was to play already identified.
 |
| Some of the class of '68, 1968 |
These included, The Causian Chalk Circle by Bertolt Brecht, An Enemy of the People by Ibsen, Billy Liar, Antigone, The Peterloo Massacre, and the sixteenth century play Gammer Gurton’s Needle along with other dramatic and musical anthologies.
All of which sat beside regular evenings of poetry, prose and music performed by the staff and students of the English Department.
 |
| Ranger's House and Samuel Johnson, 1967 |
The point is that these were put on by comprehensive schools, and not grammar or public schools and in doing so were proudly asserting that they were the equal and perhaps superior to the older and established “places of education”.
Nor did it stop there, because Crown Woods gave us the opportunity to act independently.
In the winter of 1967 Dave Hatch and I were allowed to do our own radio show, featuring folk music, which went out on the internal radio system.
And a little later, when I asked if I could run a series of folk concerts with local singers in the school library, the answer was yes.
 |
| Folk at Crown Woods, 1968 |
The names of two performers stuck in my mind; Gordon Giltrap, who you recruited one Friday night at the Tigers Head, and Terry Yarnell, who worked with Anne's father in Silvertown at International Paints”.
All these opportunities could be replicated by countless others, but I think there was something special in being at one of the “big three” in Eltham and Kidbrook back then.
Pictures; Crown Woods School in “……. all that life can afford”, the folk concert ticket, and the picture of some of the class of ’68, program courtesy of Anne Davey who kept them in her scrap book and Dave hatch for sending them up to me
*Crown Woods School in “……. all that life can afford”.
Gosh I remember being in the Peterloo Massacre.
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