LATEST GUILD AND ST PAUL'S NEWS CAN NOW BE FOUND ON THE LINKED GUILD BLOG:
In Quires and Places:
('Reverberation around St Paul's...')
The next Guild Dinner and AGM will be held on Saturday 29 January, 2011. Details and invitations were sent out in early December to all current Guild members. Contact the Secretary for further details.
News prior to June 2009:
• The St Paul's Cathedral website has been redesigned and relaunched. Click here to view it.
• Lay Canon of St Paul's, Peter Chapman, a former chorister retires from his position on June 19 2009. As Vice Chairman of the St Paul's Cathedral Foundation, the main fundraising trust of the Cathedral, he has been instrumental in raising a magnificent amount of funding for the restoration of the Cathedral over recent years.
Peter spent his career in the accounting profession and retired in 1998 as a senior partner of what is now PricewaterhouseCoopers. Having left the firm he was appointed a Senior Adviser to the Bank of England in Banking Supervision and in 2000 he moved to the Financial Services Authority and retired from there in January 2006.
Peter has had a long association with St Paul's. He was admitted to the choir in 1951, sang at the Coronation service in 1953 and became Head Chorister in 1956. He was a member of the Court of Advisers from 1981 to 1998, formed part of Dean John Moses Development Group in 1997 and was a member of the Cathedral's Transitional Council in 1999. He was appointed the Cathedral's first Lay Canon in 2000. He also acts as Treasurer of the St Paul's Cathedral School Foundation which provides bursaries to parents of choristers who need financial help.
May 2009:
The new headmaster of St Paul's Cathedral School, Neil Chippington, takes up his position for the new school year in September 2009. His former post was as a senior Housemaster at Winchester College. So, here's a little ditty to celebrate his appointment:
Song of Paul's Children
by Henry Scott Holland
First published in the (St. Paul's) Choristers' Magazine, June 1892.
Sung to the tune of Johann A P Schulz's traditional tune Wir pflügen for We Plough the Fields (NEH 262):
Though far away we scatter
In years that are to come,
And tread the land of strangers,
Across the ocean foam;
Yet still our hearts will travel
Back to the ancient home,
And sing the songs of childhood
Beneath the big blue Dome!
Home again! Home again! Be-
neath the big blue Dome again!
Ah I would we ne'er might roam again
But sing the songs of home again
(repeat last line of tune)
- Under the blessed Dome.
That is the egg that hatched us,
Hung up there in the sky;
We were the happy blackbirds
Baked in the big blue pie!
We hummed away and buzzed there,
Like bees in a blue hive,
And honey we shall find there
As long as we shall live.
And oh! to be at Home again!
Beneath the blessed Dome again!
And suck the honeycomb again,
And buzz and hum at home again,
(repeat last line of tune)
- Under the big blue dome.
They sing their 'Dulce Domum'
At a younger school than ours,
Where clear and white, the chalk streams
Run fast by Wickham's towers;
But we, too, in black London,
Sing a chorus of our own,
Of Domum, Dulce Domum,
Our Dome and Home in one.
So Dome again and Home again!
Our Dulce Dulce Dome again,
The Dome that is our own again,
Our very very own again!
(repeat last three lines of tune)
Oh! sweet to feel at home again,
And in and out to roam again,
About the dear old Dome.
We sit on scruffy stools now,
And grind at office sums,
But still around the old Dome
The noise of London hums;
And other chicks are hatched there,
And sing, so fair and fine,
The songs that once we sang there
In days of 'Auld Lang Syne.'
And oh! that we were home again!
Beneath the blessed Dome again!
And never more might roam again,
But each might have his own again,
(repeat last three lines of tune)
And find his happy home again,
- Home again! Home again
- Under the big blue Dome.
January 2009:
• Read the news summaries from earlier years here.
• The 2009 AGM and Annual Dinner Reunion was held on 24th January 2009.
• You Tube video (6min 41sec): Hubert Parry's I Was Glad from the Queen's Golden Jubilee service in 2002.
• New school website.
