Songs from Primary School

What a lovely thread! So many memories.

Yes, Wheniwasyourage, Paul’s little hen did come to a sad end. I remember it well. Here it is, lodged firmly in my memory:-

Paul’s little hen flew away from the farmyard,
Ran down the hillside and into the dale.
Paul hurried after, but down in the brambles,
There sat a Fox with a big bushy tail.
“Cluck, cluck, cluck” cried the poor little creature,
“Cluck, cluck, cluck,” but she cried in vain.
Paul made a spring but could not save her.
Now he shall never take her home again.
As a grandma, I now think it a bit of an odd choice for little, primary children (as many of us shed a few tears for both the little hen, and for Paul) but I suppose it must have been intended as a cautionary tale about children straying too far from home, alone!

@gingster
I remember that line....and fa la the dower diddy bow wow wow....lol

Hi Gingster, There was a little drummer and he loved a one eyed cook, he loved and he loved her though she had a cock eyed look with her one eye on the pot and the other up the chimney with a bow wow wow, fa la a dow a diddy, bow wow a do a diddy now wow wow. There’s three more verses. In the last one they go to be married but “her one eye killed the parson and the other stopped the clock” ??? Probably not PC now!!

Oh my goodness - what a memory nudge - -
‘The Mermaid’? - Friday morn...ship not far from land
There espied....
Comb and glass in hand
................sank to the bottom of the sea...

‘Dirty old town’ - LOVED as I lived in a dirty Steel and Mining ( in those days) area.
‘The Ash Grove’
‘When lamps were lighted in the town the boats sail out to sea.....’
‘3. 3 the rye oh.
2. 2 lillywhite boys dressed up all in greenoh.
1 is 1 and all alone and ever more shall be so’
And I remember some Swiss yodel song about a cuckoo.
It had a chorus Ho Lee Ha Holaro ha hea. Holaro cuck cuck.
It was taught on one of those radio programmes for schools.

MaggieMaybe and Mollyplop - the last verse of 'When a Knight won his spurs' gets my tears flowing .
'And let me set free with the sword of my youth,
From the castle of darkness, the power of the truth'.
Those piping little voices and that powerful hope for their future - does it for me every time. What a lovely thread - I have been in tears several times.!!!

One of my Primary school teachers was keen on teaching us French. She taught us to sing some French songs...one of which I still remember 50 odd years later. Of course I learned it phonetically and only know vaguely what I'm singing....but I did sing it to a French friend once and although she laughed at some of the words I sang, she did recognise it as an old French folk song, lol.

I belonged from the age of six to one of the many London Co-operative Society children’s choirs. We sang once a week with Mr Jones our choir master and once a year we all came together, choirs from Peckham and Plaistow and many other suburbs I had never heard of and sang at the Central Hall Westminster under Cyril Gill, a quite famous conductor. We filled the hall. I loved it, once having a solo in a local concert singing a verse in ‘Who Killed Cock Robin’ and was so proud.

I remember from school a song about cats. The first line was ‘ in Hans old mill were three black cats who watched the bins for the thieving rats’ anyone remember that?
Still singing in our local community choir.

Itsy bitsy spider, Old McDonald's Farm and The Farmer's In His Den comes to mind.
Some interesting ditties here...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gyd8D-9B_4U
might help children with eating vegetables!

Thank you Paddyanne for finding the hymn?it’s really the only one that meant anything for me as a child.
I associate it with Summer and flowers.

I love Bring Flowers of the Rarest at my Catholic School.
The Skye Boat Song.
The Ash Grove
Do they still teach songs in Schools these days?

I think I still have a 'Singing Together' book in the loft somewhere, with my school recorder. It had the music to the songs and we learned to play some of them, so I kept the book. I must see if I can find it!
Talking of naughty words, does anyone remember singing 'Auntie Mary had a canary, up the leg of her drawers. When she farted, down it darted, bashed its head on the floor' to the one of the country dancing tunes? I think it was the Gay Gordon's.

Many of the hymns mentioned I associate with church, not school, and some are still sung regularly.

And some like Donkey riding, Land of the silver birch were guide campfire songs.

Another I remember singing at primary school is Boney was a warrior, about napolian I think

Sweet lass of Richmond hill
Sweet Polly Oliver - very up to date theme!
Did anyone see the play written by Victoria Wood and starring Imelda Staunton and (I think) Michael Ball all about remembering the day in the 1950’s when Manchester children all come together to sing and record ‘Nymphs and shepherds come away (for today is Flora’s holiday)?

Onward Christian Soldiers, Dance to your daddy, so many are flooding back

Little Yellow Sunbeam dancing in the air, I remember singing this in the Infants. Oh Lemongrove, that's brought back happy memories , Green Grow the Rushes oh, is another one.

Anniebach I can remember all those songs except the welsh one. I love calon lan.
Two more from primary. Bobby Shafto and Michael finnegan.
One which we sang at secondary school was called ”lovely moon” it went
Lovely moon my heart goes wandering, to a dreamland far away. Oh I wish that I could follow you guided by your silver ray.
Chorus: oh I wish that yes I wish that oh I wish that I could follow you guided by your silver ray.
It was a beautiful song but everyone I speak to simply cannot remember it. I think I’m going mad. Please someone say that you can remember it as I feel I’m going insane lol.

Someone else has probably posted these already for BradfordLass73, but in case not here are both verses of both songs!
Sing a song of Maytime
Sing a song of spring.
Flowers are in their beauty
Birds are on the wing.
Maytime, playtime
God has given us Maytime
Praise him for his gifts of love
Sing a song of Spring.

Blossom on the hedgerows
Sunshine on the hills
Oh the happy Maytime
All my being fills
Maytime, playtime
God has given us Maytime
Praise him for his gifts of love
Sing a song of Spring.

At Easter-time the lilies fair
And lovely blossoms bloom’ d everywhere
At Easter-time, at Easter-time,
How glad was the world at Easter-time

At Easter-time the angels said
That Christ had risen from the dead
At Easter-time, at Easter-time,
How glad was the world at Easter-time

My 8 year granddaughter is learning about Aesop's fables at school at the moment and has lots of lovely songs to share about the Hare and the Tortoise. A few weeks ago she was singing ,'What shall we do with the drunken sailor?' including the verse 'put him in bed with the captain's daughter'!

How lovely for you * Wharfedalegran*

We didn’t listen to the schools broadcasts at my little independent school, but our holidays were longer than those of the state schools, so I listened to the schools broadcasts at home in the holidays, or if I was ill. I absolutely loved them, going right back to Nursery Sing-song and Music and Movement.

My grandfather, who came to live with us when I was eight, had been a good singer himself, and a headmaster who taught singing at his school. He loved to hear me singing about the house - just as well, because I rarely stopped! He called me the Upton Nightingale. I dare say he was biased, but I enjoyed the praise.

I remember the Skye Boat song being my favourite, oh and "on Ilkley moor ba t'at" sung with great enthusiasm on school coach trips. Very special now as, after years of living all over the place, West Indies, France, etc, I'm now back home in Yorkshire and I look out to Ilkley moor from my bedroom window ?

Does anyone remember the Oxford song books? We had a series of them at school.

Does anyone remember a song about Paul's little hen? All I remember is that she ran away from the farmyard and down the hill. Paul hurried after, but the hen came to a sticky end, I think.

What about camp fire songs!!!!!Scouts and Girl Guides

This is a lovely thread. So many memories of Singing Together on the radio. Lavender's Blue Dilly Dilly, brought a tear to my eye, as I sang it in a concert in infants school with my brother, both of us on stage. He died fifty years ago. I love to hear children singing and am off to google some of these now (the ones I haven't heard of!

Singing at primary school was something that had a profound influence on the whole of my life. One day we were all doing class singing with the teacher playing the piano when she told us to keep singing, got up from the piano and walked around us, stopped by me and said: "You can sing - you must sing." What followed was private singing lessons and a lifetime of singing - solos, in choirs and choral societies, with the City of Birmingham Choir and Three Choirs Festival, running singing workshops and a choir of my own, conducting 250 singers at Three Choirs Festivals, running an arts festival..........

It has brought me such joy; and I am very lucky that I have had opportunities to share that joy with others. I am also a primary school governor and have been able to ginger up the musical content of the curriculum there so that every child plays and instrument from day one and learns to read music - the only truly international language.

It is lovely for me to read how singing in primary schools stays with people. A lifelong gift.