I WONDER what number of readers remember those small bottles, containing one third of a pint of milk, which — way back in time — were provided by the federal government for each schoolchild. I loved them, even when, within the depths of winter, they got here half- frozen and were difficult to drink. Less so in the peak of summer, once they were tepid, having stood out within the morning sun before we unruly schoolboys descended on them.
Free milk and faculty meals for schoolchildren were among the many provisions of the 1944 Education Act, one in all the nice pieces of laws of the past century. This 12 months marks 80 years since its passing, although its implementation — delayed by the war — got here only in April 1947. It was an Act that enjoyed wide support across all political parties, and located favour with most of the people, too. Grammar, secondary modern, and secondary technical schools were established under a Ministry (formerly a Board) of Education.
I’m one in all those hundreds who benefited massively from the Act’s many provisions. For a start, when it got here to my leaving primary school, my parents didn’t need to pay for me to go on to secondary education. And I assume that my love of milk — I can drink a glass of it at any time and revel in it — stems from that provision within the Act.
BUT probably the most profound impact on me, as I look back on those days — aside from the primary-school legacy, that I do know my times tables as much as 14, what a subordinate clause is, and what number of chains there are in a mile — got here from the duty, under the Act, for each state-funded school to start the day with a non-denominational Christian prayer, conducted as the entire school met together.
I don’t know if my schools were different from those elsewhere, but we went further than a prayer: at each primary and secondary level, we also had a hymn, and a few type of reading, either from the Bible or one other source. And, to complete, the inevitable notices— in regards to the school clubs that were meeting that day, some sports results, and reminders to set an example.
If memory serves, the day — actually at primary school — also closed, as we put our chairs on top of the desks, with a prayer. All this in a state school! For our Christmas carol concert at primary school, in Junior 3 and Junior 4 (now Years 5 and 6), we as a category learned to recite from memory, to the mums and dads down there within the seats (we were on the stage), verses 1 to 12 of Chapter 2 of Matthew’s Gospel, within the Authorised Version. I can still deliver most of it today without prompting: “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea, in the times of Herod the king, there got here sensible men from the East. . .”
I COULD not, on the time, have told you what effect these religious provisions of the Act had on me, aside from giving me a love of singing, and a reasonably wide knowledge of traditional or middle-of-the-road hymns, all present in my 4in.-by-3in. edition of Songs of Praise (eighth edition, 1955). It was a hymn book very much of its time, originally published in 1931 — and, by that eighth edition, its Englishness, its rural comforts, and the seasonal round were looking dated.
But I still have my pocket edition, and take a look at it nostalgically now and again. Thanks to Ralph Vaughan Williams and Percy Dearmer, the editors of Songs of Praise, I can challenge you to recollect the words to “Glad that I live am I”, “Now the day is over”, “When a knight won his spurs”, and more, which we way back sang without embarrassment, although possibly also without understanding. And I’ll wager that not a couple of of you can sing all three now without an excessive amount of help.
But, 60 and more years later, what I take from this immersion at school worship is greater than just singing. Daily worship and each day exposure to the Bible and to learning and each day reciting the Lord’s Prayer gave me — and what number of others? — my first encounters with the life and teachings of Jesus, and left a deposit of uncluttered faith, which later proved foundational to more taxing undergraduate and subsequent ordination studies. They also influenced personal devotion: the each day habit of prayer and scripture became a part of who I’m from that early practice at college.
THE days of the 1944 Education Act are long gone. Many will remember the 1971 furore over the axing of free school milk for over-seven-year-olds. The MP for Finchley (and, then, Education Secretary) was “Thatcher, Thatcher, milk snatcher” long before she became “The Iron Lady”. (The Labour government had cut milk from secondary schools in 1968.)
Governments cannot resist dabbling in education, and, steadily, the 1944 Act was overhauled or repealed in order that, by the start of the brand new century, it was long dead and buried. And Songs of Praise has very much had its day: I take a look at the hymns now and fail to recognise most of them. Anyone remember number 214, “Virtue supreme, thy mighty stream”? I believed not.
But, all these years later, let’s not dismiss “assembly” out of hand. I believe that there are, on this country, a lot of an older generation who, prefer it or not, can dredge up from their memory at the very least a number of the words of hymns they sang at college. I’m wondering what number of conversations on the drop-in centre, the friendship group on the village hall, and the like, have centred on the hymns and prayers we knew at college?
I’m wondering, too, if this transient article has set hares running within the minds of older readers about how a non-denominational prayer, conducted as the entire school met together, influenced you — for good or in poor health.
For me, I give due to God for the 1944 Education Act: actually for opening up the chance for me to go to grammar school, but in addition for a big repertoire of hymns, an introduction to scripture and prayer, and, not least, my love of milk.
The Revd Roy Shaw is a retired priest within the diocese of York.
