Fanfare for Penge & West Beckenham 7th July 2012

Concert Notes by Cliff Watkins

Introduction

Thank you for purchasing this Companion Booklet to the Programme for the Fanfare for Penge & Beckenham Concert in Penge Congregational Church on July 7th 2012. Net proceeds will be used to defray the expenses of those taking part – three choirs, a band and several soloists – some 120 performers.

As the Concert was to be in Penge, last year I commissioned Gordon Carr to compose the ‘Fanfare for Penge’ for brass band. However, when planning the concert this year I found that many of the people, places and events in Penge had common roots with neighbours in nearby Beckenham. Thus the title of tonight’s concert was changed to include West Beckenham.

Inside the booklet, there is a four page insert that gives the full details of all the music: name, composer and performers. The booklet pages describe and illustrate the historical aspects of each musical moment numbered to match the order of the programme.

1. FANFARE for PENGE

The composer Gordon Carr is a member of the famous Salvationist family which lived in The Drive, Beckenham and who were familiar faces in Penge. On Sundays, Gordon’s father, Arthur Carr – who became Chief of Staff of the UK Salvation Army from 1974 to 1977 - ‘marched’ his family along Beckenham Road and Penge High Street to pray in the Citadel in Maple Road. Gordon left Dulwich College to study for a career in music. During this period he help the Beckenham & County School orchestra whose leader was his younger brother, Howard. After a long career as a professional horn player, Gordon is now a music teacher and composer.

2. BANANAS IN PYJAMAS TRIO (Bananas, Luxurious Shoe Horn, Sing a Song of Science)

These three songs by Carey Blyton first appeared in his book of seventeen nonsense verses with hilarious illustrations entitled Bananas in Pyjamas. When published in 1972 it became a success with children of all ages. Forty years on, we will – as far as I know – hear for the first time in a public concert two of the other songs.

This year happens to be the 20th Anniversary of the first TV appearance of the Bananas on Australia’s ABC TV network. From then on their popularity spread worldwide and down under they became national icons. In the closing ceremony of the 2000 Olympic Games Sydney, the Bananas had their own float. With the London games starting in a few weeks it is a good time to recall Carey’s contribution to the Olympic movement as 2012 is the 80th Anniversary of his birth.

Carey lived in The Drive, and elsewhere in Beckenham from 1932 to 1965. In the late 1940’s his first gigs took place in the hall of Elm Road Baptist Church – the ‘headquarters’ of the Beckenham Junior Choir and Youth Voices. Carey’s secondary education was in the Beckenham & Penge County School in Penge where his first performances with professional artists took place in the Grand Hall of the school.

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3. THE HAPPY WANDERER

In this series of ‘famous concerts’ it is usual to include some of the pieces chosen by or related to the performers and The Happy Wanderer is the choice of choice of the Beckenham Junior Choir. In singalong, their latest Newsletter it shows that in the 12 months to 1st December this year, they will have performed in six different venues - happy wanderers indeed.

4. MARCHING STRINGS

TV viewers today can enjoy a dozen or more quiz programmes ranging from University Challenge to Eggheads. But in the 1940’s and 1950’s, before television became available, the longest radio quiz programmes was Top of The Form. The questions were set by a T.W. (Tom) Williams a master at the Beckenham & Penge County School. The signature tune – which will be familiar to older members of the audience - was Marching Strings, to be performed this evening on the organ by Christian Strover.

5. DRIVING IN THE PARK WITH YOU

Taken from Lehar’s opera, The Merry Widow, this duet is the first of two songs chosen to celebrate the 90th Anniversary of the Beckenham Festival, one of the largest amateur competitive performing arts festivals in the south-east of England. It is held in November every year and there are around 500 classes in Music, Dancing and Speech & Drama, with specialist adjudicators in all sections. This year the Festival will be held at Marian Vian Primary School, Beckenham; Harris Academy Beckenham (formerly Kelsey Park School); St. George’s Church, Beckenham; and St. James’ Church, Elmers End.

Driving in the Park this evening is performed by three Festival people - baritone Paul Allen, Soprano Jean Low, and their piano accompanist, Christian Strover. Between them they have chalked up over a century of involvement as competitors and/or administrators. This can be very rewarding as they get to know competitors who go on to great success in their chosen career.

For example, the Beckenham Festival Musician of the Year 2011 (current) - Laura van der Heijden (Cello) won the recent BBC Young Musician 2012. And the Festival Musician of the Year 2009 and 2010 (and also a finalist in 2011) - Charlotte Barbour-Condini (Recorder) was also one of the three finalists in the BBC Young Musician 2012.

6. HORNPIPE HUMOURESQUE

To mark the centenary of the Penge Congregational Church this year, Christian Strover is playing the hugely entertaining piece by Noel Rawsthorne. As something of a tour de force, it will allow Christian to demonstrate the versatility of the Church’s organ. The church acoustics are superb and it is appropriate that in this much used concert venue there is a fine stained glass window depicting St Cecilia, the patron saint of music.

The church building has been described as Romanesque in style and its elevated situation and tower dominate Penge High Street. During its 100 year history the Church has been at the centre of the Penge community. This role was reinforced from 1929 when the Beckenham & Penge County School for Boys moved into a brand new building opposite. Major school services, concerts and other 4

gathering s took place in the church. The history of the school tells of ‘a most spectacular choral performance of the singing of Handel's anthem "Zadok the Priest" at the Coronation service held in the Church on May 28th, 1953. This was sung by a choir of 250 first and second trebles, 100 altos, 50 baritones and 300 bases, and a recording was made and sold as a souvenir.’

7. SWEET & SOUR RAG

This very popular piece by Carey Blyton has been performed in public many times, including the Beckenham’s Famous Concert 2008 concert in Christ Church, Beckenham. It was also included Carey’s official 80th Anniversary Concert, in The Warehouse, by Waterloo Station on May 19th this year.

8. 7 DAYS A WEEK

This is the choice of the children of the Royston Primary School Choir for their solo number. In preparing to take part in this evening’s concert the children have discovered Carey Blyton and the legacy past down to them by the other notable pupils and teachers of the Beckenham & Penge County School for whom the school was built in 1929. The County School moved to Langley Park in 1969.

9. TOP HAT, WHITE TIE AND TAILS

Irving Berlin’s music for the for the 1935 film Top Hat , played by the Crystal Palace band celebrates the renowned team of ballroom dancers that Frank & Peggy Spencer trained in their Ballroom in Royston Road, Penge. The music was selected by Peggy Spencer in memory of her late husband, Frank who often wore a white tie to associate himself with Fred Astaire who starred in the film, recently adapted for the stage – see advert for the show at the Aldwych Theatre in London.

Peggy and Frank (a musician and a top-class dancer in pre-war days) ran the Royston Ballroom for decades. Peggy was a regular TV dance commentator and a leading coach for competitive Latin dancers. Her formation team twice danced for the Queen at Buckingham Palace and for 40 years her teams appeared in the Come Dancing TV programme.

10. THREE MOODS Op 13

Carey Blyton composed this violin music for one of his mentors at the Boys County School, Hugh Bean. Carey accompanied Hugh in the first performance in the 2nd Beckenham Salon Concert, room in the Old Council Offices, by the Beckenham Public Hall in 1952. This evening we shall hear the third movement Poco Allegro-Gajo.

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11. DOWNTOWN

The composer Tony Hatch lived in Shortlands Road, Beckenham for six years and knew Beckenham well. He worked closely with Petula Clark (a frequent visitor to the concert halls hereabouts in the 1940s) who made the first recording of Downtown. Many of the words of the song evoke the time and place of both Penge and Beckenham in the 1960s.

12. ENGLAND SWINGS

This is another tribute to Petula Clark (see photo). It is her 80th Anniversary this year. Though not resident of our area, Petula (pictured) starred in films made by Beckenham’s Betty Box, including Don't Ever Leave Me in 1949.

Now we are in the GLA area we are all Londoners, so the title and opening words of this number are very appropriate: England swings like a pendulum do Bobbies on bicycles, two by two Westminster Abbey, the tower of Big Ben

13. FRANKENSTEIN

Frankenstein is the third in Carey Blyton’s trilogy of Victorian style melodramas. The BJC/YV have performed the other two: Dracula – in costume in St George’s Church in 2002 and Sweeney Todd (in this church in 2008).

The BYV allowed Frankenstein’s monster to return from the frozen Arctic wastes when they gave their first performance of Frankenstein in a snow covered Holy Trinity Church, Lennard Road earlier this year. We left the monster trying unsuccessfully to assemble a sibling to keep him company. Will he succeed in this evening’s performance? It will be a difficult task as Carey Blyton describes in the following song:

Animal Biology and Medical Psychology; Comparative Anatomy and also Physiology; And Cerebral Cytology and Genito-Urology: I'm finding out just how the body ticks, body ticks, Oh, I'm finding out just how the body ticks - BODY TICKS!

First I gave life to a spider, then I gave life to a fly; After a bit couldn't find it, although I think I know why. Next I gave life to a goldfish, then I gave life to a toad; Then I gave life to a lizard, who helped the toad cross the road.

Next I gave life to a tadpole, then I gave life to a frog; Then I gave life to a dog-fish, and it barked just like a dog. Now I'll give life to a human, now I'll give life to a man! Pity it's proving so tricky, but I'll succeed if I can.

Carey’s original work, including a lot of narrative and optional sound effects, lasted some 50 minutes. This evening after some delicate editing by guest Narrator, Paul Allen, and John Webber, the work has been reduced to 30 minutes, performed in two parts either side of the interval.

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14. OUT OF THE BLUE

A close friend of the Beckenham author, Pat Manning, the TV and radio sports presenter Rob Bonnet, pictured, grew up in Beckenham. I asked him to suggest music suitable for celebrating the London Olympic Games this year. Here is his reply:

’What about "Out of the Blue" by Hubert Bath? It's the longstanding theme tune to BBC Radio's Saturday five o'clock show Sports Report. It's perfect for a brass band and has a resonance for me which goes way back beyond the time in the early to mid-eighties when I worked on the programme as a producer and occasional football reporter.

It conjures up memories of Saturday winter evenings in the pavilion at the old National Provincial Bank (later National Westminster) sports ground in Copers Cope Road in the 1950/60s. The players would be coming up from the changing rooms to the dining area for their tea, the air would be heavy with the smell of beer and cigarettes (!!), the windows dripping with condensation and there'd be the sound of maybe as many as 200 sportsmen (and a few women hockey players!) all clamouring for their food and discussing their afternoon's performances..

But then the theme tune for Sports Report would strike up on the radio and the room would fall silent in order to hear the classified results from places as far afield as Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle which were just mysterious and even exotic (!) locations on a map to a young 10 year old’.

After the war, many sporting heroes lived and played in Beckenham, including famous cricketers (see notes about Derek Underwood). Beckenham Cricket & Tennis Club was famous for hosting the pre-Wimbledon week when international players attended to prepare themselves for playing on grass rather than hard courts. Between 1948 and 1993, some twenty Wimbledon champions played at Beckenham.

The 1948 Open Golf Champion, Henry Cotton, went to Alleyn’s School in Dulwich and was the professional at Langley Park Golf Club. Sydney Wooderson was an English athletic champion who lived in Beckenham.

Since the war, the Beckenham Swimming Club has supplied seventeen members of the British Olympic teams, including, for example, Duncan Goodhew, Christopher Walkden, Zara Long and Margaret Hohmann.

15. CAMP FIRE SONGS

These two songs celebrate the Boy Scout and Girl Guide movement and in particular two young sisters who lived in Bromley Road, Beckenham who made history in 1909 when they gate crashed a Scout rally in Crystal Palace. They interrupted Chief Scout Lord Baden Powell who was addressing his boy scouts and demanded ‘What about girl scouts?’

The General, who had held out successfully against the Boers for 217 days, from October 1899 to May 1900 during the Siege of Mafeking in 1899, surrendered almost 7

immediately to the demands of Ethel and Debbie Fowle, aged 14 and 13 respectively. Within a year the world’s first Girl Guide company was formed in April 1910. This was the 1st Beckenham Guides, see photo .

16. COMING ROUND THE MOUNTAIN

This is another song heard round the camp fires but this one was important in the life of another Beckenham girl some 50 years later. Floella Benjamin arrived in Britain from Trinidad in 1960, living in Penge before moving to Mackenzie Road in Beckenham.

In her book Coming to England, published in 1995 Floella recalled a Christmas concert in her school – Rock Hills in Anerley - when ‘dressed as a rootin’ tootin’ hillbilly’ she sung Coming Round the Mountain to rapturous applause, receiving the congratulations of her visionary Head mistress, Miss Bowles.

That performance was the defining moment in her life. With new found confidence she went on to become an accomplished musician, actress and the presenter of the TV children’s shows Play School and Play Away. Shortly after being made Baroness of Beckenham, Floella (accompanied by Humpty from Play School) spoke about her life to a meeting in Christ Church Hall in November, 2010 organised by the CCARA.

17. JE NE SAIS PAS

This song was first song by Brigitte Bardot in the film at Sea. The cover of the score shows the names of three local people: the actor/composer Hubert Gregg, the film producer Betty Box, and the film star, James Robertson Justice. The film also starred the much loved Beckenham actor Maurice Denham. Betty Box was born in Ravenscroft Road, Beckenham in 1915 and in 1942 she joined her brother Sydney and his wife Muriel in Verity Films helping to produce over 200 wartime propaganda shorts. James Denham lived in Overbury Road and was very well known through his support for local groups including BADs (the Beckenham Amateur Dramatic Society).

Born in 1914, Hubert Gregg grew up on the Beckenham/Lower Sydenham border. During the war, home on leave from his regiment, he witnessed the doodlebug raids. The blitz had failed to break London’s spirits and now he saw for himself how people stuck together. This inspired him to compose Maybe It’s because I’m a Londoner. After Bud Flanagan sung it in 1947, it became London’s anthem. Educated at St Dunstan’s College, Gregg could turn his hand to almost anything – Shakespearean actor, theatre director, author, composer and film star. In 1955 he appeared in Doctor At Sea during the making of which he composed the song Je ne sais pas for Brigitte Bardot to sing to ship’s doctor, .

18. LORD OF THE DANCE

As well as music for her late husband, I asked Peggy Spencer to suggest a piece indicative of the spirit of the people of Penge. This is the second of Peggy Spencer’s choices: the music composed by Ronan Hardiman for Michael Flatly’s music and dance show Lord of the Dance.

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19. AND THIS IS MY BELOVED

And this is my Beloved has been chosen by Jean Low who for some years has been singing in the Beckenham Festival. The Festival’s history is studded with celebrities, among whom the following are being celebrated in the concert: Tom Williams, , Carey Blyton, Maurice Denham, and Frank and Peggy Spencer. Just after the war, they brought their original Formation Dance Team to perform and a Ballroom section in the Festival was established and run by Peggy Spencer until the 1980s.

20. THE CRICKETEERS OF HAMBLEDON

This song by Peter Warlock celebrated the village of Hambledon in Hampshire where cricket began and it is appropriate that in turn we use it to celebrate Beckenham’s most famous cricketer, ‘Deadly’ Derek Underwood. Born in Beckenham in 1945, Derek attended the County School opposite where a master told him that he should not make a career in cricket as there was no money in the game.

Wisely, Derek ignored this advice. By the age of 14 to 15, he was already a Kent colt and played for the 1st X1 of Beckenham Cricket Club at weekends. He made his first-class debut for Kent against Yorkshire aged 17 in 1963 and his deadly spin bowling enabled him to take 100 wickets in a season ten times. He played for Kent until 1987 and played in 86 Test matches taking 297 wickets.

He kept in touch and in 2000, age 55, he returned to play at Beckenham where his glorious, easy action was still evident to all.

21. MY HEART WILL GO ON

In this year of anniversaries, two in particular have created international attention. On 3rd June Queen Elizabeth began her Diamond Jubilee at the head of a Thames Pageant involving a fleet of 1000 boats.

Two months earlier was a grimmer affair: April 15th was the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic with a loss of 1,514 lives. One of the surviving heroes of that disaster was the Titanic’s second radio officer Harold Bride. He continued sending out distress calls until minutes before the vessel sank, and survived the near frozen waters of the North Atlantic after being washed overboard.

Bride attended the Technical Institute, the campus of which included the first home of the Beckenham County School before it moved to the building opposite our concert venue this evening. Langley Park Boys School traces its origins back to the Tech. and it marked the anniversary by arranging a talk by a great- nephew of Harold Bride - George Sinclair a former Finance Director of Muirheads in Elmers End. This evening, the Youth Voices will sing the Celine Dion chart busting song from the 1997 film Titanic. 9

22. PALATIONS

This is the signature tune of the Crystal Palace Band and was composed to mark to mark the band’s centenary in 2001 by Steve Walkeley. Steve was a professional trombonist and member of the band. The music is resplendent of the band’s history which began in Victorian England’s greatest music hall inside the Crystal Palace building. This was built in 1854 built on land jointly within both Penge and Beckenham. And the music reflects the fact that both towns have been part of London since 1965.

23. CHERRY PINK & APPLE BLOSSOM WHITE

24. A NIGHTINGALE SANG IN BERKELEY SQUARE

These have been two of the Choirs’ most popular songs for some while and it will be a great delight for them to be accompanied by the Crystal Palace Band on this occasion. The music also enables us to see how the soloists Bonnie and Charlie have broadened their musicianship during the ten years they have been with the choirs.

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