Dorothy C. Maguire, nee Coles, recalls Favourite Hymns

ONE of my earliest memories is of singing: ‘Jesus wants me for a sunbeam’ at Sunday School. In those early years I had fair, curly hair, and I was sure this song was meant for me to shine!

Then during the war years at Arnside National School we used to sing patriotic, rousing songs. ‘My Eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord’, with its chorus ‘Glory, glory Alleluya’, and ‘I vow to Thee my Country’, were sang at least weekly.

An old hymn, rarely sung nowadays, being too militaristic, was ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’, which was sung enthusiastically in assembly quite often.

One very snowy morning, after I had pioneered my way through Brigsteer Woods, I finally made Underbarrow School for 9 o’clock in a snow blizzard.

We were singing that hymn in assembly when the Kendal office rang to say the school should be closed, and all the children sent home. It took the strength of four of the fathers to lift my car and turn it round for my return to Arnside. Unbelievably there was no snow there!

Another favourite hymn with the most memories was ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’. I seem to have been singing it most of my life, on both happy and sad occasions.

When Underbarrow School closed in 1985 the hymn was sung at our closing service, recorded by Border TV. I don’t know who was the most nervous – me playing the piano or the children singing!

Do children these days ever learn our National Anthem? In my school days, during the war, we used to regularly sing, all three verses. Today I sometimes feel ashamed at the ‘lacklustre’ rendition at sports events.