School Orchestra Photos:
^ Firth Park Grammar School Orchestra performing in Sheffield's Victoria Hall - 26 March 1953
Singing at Firth Park 1934 - 41
As mentioned in the section on school history, the school had by 1934 earned a reputation for singing under Dr Desmond MacMahon and the tradition of the annual School Concert was well established. My first concert was also Dr MacMahon's last (I do not think there was a direct connection), and it was held at the Victoria Hall. The choir was large, including all those in the first two years who were able to sing at all, and there was an orchestra, but I don't know which. My recollection is that it was very formal and 'up-market'. There were settings by Dr MacMahon of poems by Mr R C Hartley, one of the English masters, including a poem about the Roman encampment at Navio or Brough, in the Hope Valley. There was also at least one work by Dr MacMahon in which William Morris' poem 'Shameful Death' was spoken by the choir in unison, to the accompaniment of percussion from the orchestra. I do not think this was widely appreciated.
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Three of the "Derbyshire ditties" which were published by the Sheffield Telegraph newspaper at the outrageous price of tuppence ha'penny each! (images kindly provided to the site by R C Hartley's son, Jim) |
In 1935, Dr MacMahon moved on to become, I believe, an Inspector of Schools, and his successor was Norman Frost. Mr Frost was a volatile character, but a very good and stimulating teacher. He occasionally sported a pair of brown 'plus-fours', if anyone remembers nowadays what they were. He and his wife had a pet monkey which was very special whenever it appeared at school; I don’t know what the authorities thought of it! He was unpredictable and would fly into rages which were full of sound and fury rather than of danger. Once, as the date of a concert approached and he was not satisfied with our performance, he kept the whole of the choir (I suppose some 150 of us) rehearsing in the school hall for hours after the end of the day, until parents began to fill the yard and demanded an explanation.
Under Norman Frost, concerts moved to the City Hall and were accompanied by the Sheffield Symphony Orchestra. Part of the concert was generally broadcast on the North Region of the BBC and the songs became rather more acceptable. We introduced an arrangement of 'Rule, Britannia' which was very popular. The first time we sang it, I remember looking up into the circle seats and seeing and elderly member of the audience, probably a grandfather, reading his copy of the 'Star': after it had finished, he was clapping furiously with a big smile on his face. An encore was needed!
Norman Frost also introduced the Special Choir. This was a small group with selected juniors and some seniors and masters, to give trebles, altos, tenors and basses. I started as an alto, because I could already read music, and became a bass after my voice broke.
In 1937, at the time of the Coronation of King George VI, the school was asked to take part in a national broadcast of school choirs, with our contribution coming from the North Region studios in Leeds. I think this must have been a selected group of treble and alto voices. We travelled by train, accompanied by Mr Frost and 'Spike' Johnson, did the broadcast in the late morning, had lunch at a hotel in Leeds, and then went to a cinema where we saw a highly unsuitable film for boys called 'Theodora Goes Wild', before the journey home.
The studio looked from the outside like a converted Wesleyan chapel, with the main studio in what had presumably been the meeting hall. Many years later, when I regularly visited Leeds University as a lecturer and examiner, I realised that the studio was opposite the University, and it is now the base for Radio Leeds. Fifty years after the broadcast, on one of my last visits to the University, I called in and introduced myself. I was welcomed warmly, and one of their DJs took me for a tour of the building and its working. The studio from which we broadcast was still recognisably the same: only the equipment was more modern.
Norman Frost left in 1939, again to become an Inspector of Schools, I believe. He was succeeded by Mr Benoy, a younger man who played the flute. He did not have chance to hold concerts in the City Hall because the war had started. I only remember that he tried to get the Special Choir to sing Gustav Holst's 'Hymns from the Rig Veda', with no great success. By the time I left, a lady had taken over, because young male teachers were called away.
My final recollection is of a small group being organised by 'Spike' Johnson to sing carols at the Nether Chapel in Norfolk Street, of which he was a member, at Christmas 1940. Our rehearsals were interrupted by the air raids on Sheffield in December 1940, and although we rehearsed a few more times in the Music Room, where the ceiling had collapsed, we could not sing the carols because the chapel was too badly damaged to by used.
Starting at school, I have sung in choirs for most of my life, until with great regret I had to give it up a few years ago because I can no longer read music because of eyesight problems.
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School Singers 1938 (click to download the full-sized zipped picture). Photo courtesy of Harold Burton |
Firth Park Secondary School Singers, 1938
I do not know why this should be 'Secondary School' when the school became a grammar school in 1937. I think it must be a mistake.
This must be a photo of the combined Main and Special Choirs. The Special Choir was never as large as this (we used to rehearse in the Music Room at the bottom of the tower), and the Main Choir was formed from the first two years, and did not include more senior boys and some staff as members.
Apart from Mr Padfield, the head, the other staff members here are Mr Frost (Music) and Mr Johnson (History) on his left, and Mr Bell (Biology?) on his right.
Firth Park Secondary School Choir, 1938
"About the photo (below). I assumed
that the chap on the other side of Padfield must be Desmond Macmahon, who
was a great friend of my father's, and to whom Dad was deputy choirmaster
for years. My brother-in-law however, who is 85, and an Old Firparnian
1930-1935, says that Macmahon had left to become director of music for
Birmingham by 1938, and that the fellow in the photo must be his successor.
Does anyone know?
There had been some very impressive concert or festival in the City Hall in
1937 or 38, perhaps connected with the Coronation of George V, in which
Macmahon (?) had conducted the main body of the choir, and Dad had been
ensconced in a choir room above the ceiling situated over the stage whence
he had a narrow view of the conductor through one of the flower decorations
in the ceiling. He controlled the group of singers who formed the ethereal
choir whose voices floated down from nowhere, and must have been very
effective. He used to show us the enormous wooden knitting needle which he
had used as a baton. I wonder if all this is in back numbers of the
Sheffield Telegraph. He described how they had to reach this attic by way of
narrow shaky ladders. Health and Safety, eh ?
I don't know whether it was in connection with the same celebrations, but he
would tell the tale of how the whole school was assembled outside the school
gates in order to welcome the King who was driving in a cavalcade into the
city from the Pitsmoor end. The head had grouped all the boys in house
formation and they had been rehearsed to remove caps, wave them vigorously
in the air as HM passed by, and yell the name of their respective house.
Anyway, the sight of all these tough youths waving red caps and shouting
incomprehensible slogans must have alarmed the security men into thinking
that they had met a young communist demo or something, so that the cavalcade
accelerated from a stately 20 to about 60 mph in the space of a few seconds,
and the king remained invisible!" - Jim Hartley
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School Choir 1938 (click to download the full-sized zipped picture). Photo courtesy of Jim Hartley * |
* Jim Hartley is the son of teacher R C Hartley
