This week pupils across England and Wales will return to school. It is an exciting time, full of promise and opportunity. This is certainly the case for our family, which has moved up to Stonyhurst from London over the summer. I have taken up my new role as director of strategy. My wife, Victoria, soon starts at her new practice as a country GP and our two young boys are ready to start school together for the first time.
Henry, 5, could not be more excited. He has quizzed the headmasters of both the big and the prep school and they have not been found wanting. We have explored much of Stonyhurst’s 1,000 acres. The territorial waterfowl that patrol the school’s famous long drive have been dubbed “the ducks of war” by the boys. George, 3, has had years of waving goodbye to his brother at the gate. Now he wants in.
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Given the importance of the move for our family we had high hopes for a memorable soundtrack for the car on the first day. We all agree that “oboe” is a funny name for an instrument, so perhaps a vote for England and Vaughan Williams’s Concerto for Oboe and Strings? Stonyhurst has deep connections to continental Europe, so why not the baroque of Marcello’s Oboe Concerto? If that is too much, we could always agree on Morricone’s obvious but wonderful Gabriel’s Oboe.
We should not have bothered. The boys refuse to drive anywhere at the moment without Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger roaring at high volume. I am to blame for this, and in truth I could not be more delighted.
They are excited and why shouldn’t they be? Stonyhurst pupils spend their schooldays surrounded by and immersed in stupendously rich treasures. This term English and drama pupils will have access to a First Folio of Shakespeare and manuscript poetry by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Art students will work alongside pieces by Dürer, Rembrandt and Turner. Historians and theologians will encounter a cope and chasuble commissioned by Henry VII.
This magazine is published on September 7, the birthday of Elizabeth I, and there are plenty of things in the school’s collections that she might have recognised, such as the prayer book of her grandmother, Elizabeth of York.
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Rather more Jacobite than Tudor, the college girls’ uniform is based on the tartan of Bonnie Prince Charlie known as “Lady Borrodale’s gift” – a fragment of a tartan outfit provided by the practical Lady Borrodale in August 1746 to allow the prince “to pass for one of the country” on his flight from Culloden. This is now kept among the Stuart relics at the college. It is a very cheerful tartan – the current Earl of Wessex is said to have had a rather wonderful pair of trousers made from it.
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The choir has returned early to rehearse for the first Mass of term. They will sing Elgar’s Ave Verum Corpus as the Communion motet and lead the singing of hymns including At the Name of Jesus, which is also sung by leavers at their final Mass.
New joiners will begin to learn some of the music which makes this school unique: the Missa de Angelis appears frequently, and Gounod’s Domine salvum fac regem, a prayer for the Queen, is sung on holy days. They are also learning the Stonyhurst Chorus, which – much to the chagrin of the college in the 1920s – is sung to the tune of The Red Flag.
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The chaplaincy team has returned from the annual pilgrimage to Lourdes, which the school undertakes with the Catholic Association. Around 20 pupils give a week of service to 100 elderly pilgrims associated with the Stonyhurst family, including intensive care to bed-bound pilgrims in the Accueil. Some of these pupils will be inducted as Eucharistic ministers.
Amid all this I have managed to do some work: I have spoken to our partners in Malaysia regarding the international school we are building in Penang. We have advanced fundraising and development plans. But the progress has been very satisfactory and the diversions have been many.
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What will we miss from London? Absent friends and mobile phone reception will be the most obvious struggles, though the latter has its own comic charm. Reception is measured by statue here: St Aloysius is regarded as having the strongest signal. People are forever traipsing outside to stand next to him. Cordless earphones make it hard to tell the difference between a phone call and ambulatory prayers.
We will no doubt miss other things. I have tried to write a serious list, but I am struggling. This must be a good sign. Interesting times ahead.
Stephen Withnell is director of strategy at Stonyhurst and a governor of Westminster Cathedral Choir School. Follow him on Twitter: @WithnellStephen
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