Go to http://www.beaumont-union.co.uk/index.html and then click the arrow under "Beaumont Cine film collection". As an Old Boy, but not I'm afraid a very assiduous one, I found this film footage from the 1960s extraordinarily moving, almost heartbreaking. Why should this be so? Partly, in my view, for the beautiful piano arrangements (Angels we Have Heard on High? etc), and partly because of course Beaumont has long since vanished - along with most of those who went there!
I was particularly impressed by the way footage of the Beaumont Centenary Mass was followed seamlessly by shots of a military band going through its paces. As the Duke of Wellington once said in a different context: "I don't know what effect they have on the enemy but they scare the life out of me".
I was not in all honesty very happy at Beaumont but that was not especially the point of school in those days, and I was not miserable either. In any event, I defy any OB to remain unmoved by this glimpse into the past. Whatever else might be said, we were young at the time, blithely unaware that we were "only on this earth for a short while".
Many congratulations to all those involved in this fine endeavour.
Greetings Barnaby
ReplyDeleteI agree!
If circumstances had turned out differently you would never have gone to Beaumont because our father also had not been happy there. But anyway, as you say "happiness" rated very low in those days!
ReplyDeleteIt's being young that we look back on with nostalgia, and the fact that youth seems to have taken up at least half of a lifetime. Very strange, this. All the rest seems to have passed in a speedy whistle-stop tour of fleeting snapshots. Even now I can have a strong reminder - from the smell of a plant first encountered in the school gardens, from the smell of newly cut grass, even (oh God) the dreaded aroma of boiled cod on Fridays.
Personally I think youth and schooldays are totally wasted on the young - but have a sneaking suspicion someone else said this first!
I wonder which school I would have been sent to: Downside, Ampleforth, Blackpool, Cleethorpes?
DeleteI totally agree with your remarks. The funny thing is that I even felt the nostalgia you mention while I was actually AT SCHOOL! Incidentally, I see that Beaumont is now a posh hotel. Trip Advisor is impressed by the wonderful setting but not by the food. Some things never change!