Datchelor carols in the heart of London

Those of my regular blog readers will remember that some years ago I attended the 125th anniversary of my old school's old girls club in London. It was such a lavish occasion held at the Clothworker's Hall in London. If you missed that post this is the link

My wonderful old school sadly shut its doors forever in 1981 and every year since then there has been an annual carol service held at St. Olave's Church in London. This article is a lovely write up of my old school.  

Every year I have tried to make the service and every year something has come up or the weather has been awful (last year it snowed) but this year I was finally able to make it. I was originally going with my Mum and my BF Karen (both fellow Datchlelor old girls). Sadly both had to pull out but I was determined to go anyway so I set off on Sunday afternoon to make the journey to St.Olave's church.

This amazing medieval church is nestle between modern skyscrapers round the block from Tower Hill tube.

This road name had me giggling to myself.

How unassuming is the entrance to the church yard.....but how cool are those skulls! Charles Dickens described this as "The churchyard of St. Ghastly grim!"

I did study a bit of Latin but even my husband who has an excellent command of Latin struggled to translate this. Google came to the rescue and it means"For me to live is Christ, to die is gain". The date is 1658 when the church yard was rebuilt. Samuel Pepys walked though this gateway into the tiny churchyard, with his wife on his way to the Sunday service. It is an incredible hidden gem in London and the church is thought to date from 1056 however the original building was wooden. It was rebuilt in 1450 in stone and survived the great fire of London in 1666. 300 plague victims were buried here which is why the South entrance is below ground level. The church was severely damaged by bombing in the 2nd world war but enough survived to restore it to full glory in the 1950s. This is now a listed building. 

 Samuel Pepys and his wife are buried in the church. 

He even has a street named after him

This was the entrance I took to the church

a lovely Christmas tree greeted me in the porch

and then the glorious interior was revealed.

We sung some wonderful carols and yes us Datchelor girls do sing rather tunefully.

Sadly Moira got stuck in a traffic jam so wasn't able to lead the service but in true resourceful Datchelor spirit the organizers stepped in and lead a wonderful service.
The opening carol was one of my Datchelor favourites, "Hills of the North rejoice" and our voices lifted into the air of this medieval wonder of a church.
There were Christmas readings, prayers, Hosanna was sung by the Old girls' choir, a fun prize giving (I won a little prize for attending for the first time) and we finished the service with the rousing "O come all ye faithful".

It really was the most splendid way to spend the 2nd Sunday in advent afternoon. It brought back so many fond memories of my Christmas years at Mary Datchelor from 1972-1979. Memories of Dorcas Day (a charity day where we filled boxes for good causes), knitting squares for blankets, copying carols into our Christmas Carol books, decorating our form rooms (which usually involved lots of tinsel), having a "post box" in every form room to put our Christmas cards, singing such wonderful carols and the piece de resistance; Christmas dinner when the Boar's Head carol was sung during a procession through the dining room. Datchelor girls have very good singing voices!

After the service there was welcome tea and mince pies and lots of chat. I didn't see anyone there from my year but it was fun to exchange memories with several lovely old girls and old teachers I spoke to.

As I stepped out of the church to come home, the church yard looked even more beautiful to me in the crisp darkness.

As I made my way back to Tower Hill tube London was looking her usual stunning self.

 The Shard was lit up on the skyline.

Looking across to the Tower of London made me feel so proud to be a part of this wonderful city.

 There is just so much history here.

Even the tube entrance was warm and inviting on a crisp December evening.

So my card today just had to be one to remember such a joyful occasion.

The image is one of my old Nicecrane (sadly no longer trading) digis. I thought the joy die, carol sheet of O come all ye faithful and the deers (or harts as deer were known in medieval times and Hart Street is where St.Olave's is situated) were very appropriate. The red and green colour scheme reminds me of the trees inside the church.
This card is up for sale at Dotty's Teahouse, Carshalton High Street, SM5 2AE

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;

Card Mania 4/5 Christmas
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas anything goes
ABC Christmas 3/3 Y is for your favourite things mine just has to be the joy of Christmas.
Crafty Catz 2/3  anything goes
Moving along with the times 2/3 anything Christmas
Crimbo crackers 3/3 anything goes
Winter wonderland 3/3 anything goes
Alphabet challenge 1/3 s is for season's greetings
Time out 1/3 Joyful

I would like to thank the organizers for rekindling my Datchelor Christmas school memories again. I really hope to make the service again next year.

Thanks for stopping by today,

Billy my cat has managed to finish typing up his annual Christmas post which I know you all enjoy. He will be here tomorrow to share the mayhem of the annual arrival of the Christmas trees 😼

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Celebrating memories of Mary Datchelor Girls' school

Welcome to any first time visitors who have arrived here via the MDGS old girls' club on FB. To my regular blogging friends I hope you will excuse this extra long post and if you are just visiting to see my card challenge please scroll down to the end.

 I had a wonderful day on Friday celebrating the 125th Anniversary of my old school's old girls' club...you might need to read that twice. During the 1970s I was a fortunate to be a pupil at very special school, Mary Datchelor Girls' School (MDGS) in Camberwell, South London. Sadly it closed its doors for the last time 33 years ago. My Mum was also a pupil and I really had hoped that one day my own daughter might get the chance to attend. Sadly that was not to be. I will not get into politics here but let's just say that a change in government in the mid 1970s led to the closing of most of the grammar schools in England. MDGS was a very small school (just 90 pupils in each year) and could not have existed in its location as a comprehensive. Rather than change the whole character and ethos of the school the governors decided to close it in 1981.

Mary Datchelor  founded her school in 1877 to educate girls from poor backgrounds. Some years after it opened it found itself in financial trouble. The Clothworkers' Company (one of the ancient London livery companies) stepped in to become a benefactor and took over the management of the school. There is a link to it here . It played a very large role in the life of the school.  Despite the school closing so many years ago the Old Girls' club is flourishing with new members joining each year. It now has over 850 members. That is quite extraordinary for a school which no longer exists.

On Friday 180 old girls plus some distinguished guests gathered for an afternoon tea at the Clothworkers' Hall in London.  Our old school buildings in Camberwell were turned into luxury flats many years ago.  The Clothworkers' Hall is a beautiful building near the Monument, a really interesting part of the city where ancient buildings meet modern ones and all seem to coexist perfectly well.
The photo below is the court where the hall is situated. It has been rebuilt on this site 9 times, the last time it was damaged was after extensive bombing during the 2nd World War. The coat of arms is very interesting as it is also seen on our school badge. Our school motto was also the same, "My trust is in God alone". We were to spot this theme many times during out visit. The last time I visited the hall was in 1977 when the 6th form were invited to celebrate the schools' centenary. The only memory of the building I have from this time was of the stone staircase inside.

Just around the corner is The Monument where the Great Fire of London is remembered

and these new buildings are all nearby.

 The tallest building of the moment, the Shard, is a five minute walk away as is the River Thames.

I have digressed...so back to the Clothworkers' Hall......we were greeted at the entrance

 and went inside to collect our name badges. There were also commemorative mugs which had been commissioned for us to buy.

 Can you see the same crest and motto as the Clothworkers ?

At 2 pm we made our way up the stairs to the reception rooms. This was the staircase I remember from 1977 with lovely tapestry wall hangings.

 I went to the afternoon tea with my best friend Karen. We also attended the 1977 school centenary celebrations together. We met during our first term at MDGS and we have been inseparable since. I don't have a sister but I think I could have not a better friend "sister" than her. She is my rock and we have chartered the waters of life together and shared every peak and trough. Karen is on the right wearing a jacket.

Before the tea there was a little exhibition and we smiled at some of the objects on show including our old school blazer. Yes it was that bright; navy blue with yellow/gold stripes. We were very visible in a crowd. The blazer badge also has the crest and motto.

The surroundings were exquisite

with stained glass windows everywhere

A cake had been specially made for the occasion

Here is our Motto again or should I say that of the Clothworkers!

At 2.45 pm full afternoon tea was served in the main hall...what a beautiful room this was.

We all sat at tables with ladies from all eras of the school.
We enjoyed sweet and savoury delicacies.

 Special MDGS serviettes had been printed

even the seats have the motto in gold...

We had a delightful musical interlude at 3.30pm which included us singing Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring and He shall feed the sheep from the Messiah. MDGS was such a musical school. The current  president of our Old School Club (a former opera singer) treated us to a rendition of "I'm tone deaf", which she certainly isn't. Every year at the end of the summer term when we were at school we either sung The Messiah or Elijah. I used to play the trumpet, piano and I sang in the junior choir.  I still enjoy playing  the piano, even now.

Our old Head of music, Miss Seldon was a guest and  played the piano and led us. It was very emotional hearing us all sing. It brought back memories of summer days in the 1970s. If I say so myself we still sounded very tuneful indeed.

Time, as always, was not on our side and before we knew it was 5.30pm and  time for us to make our way home after the most extraordinary afternoon. I would really like to thank the organizers again for all their hard work in bringing this event to life. I now have some wonderful new school memories to treasure and it was so appropriate l that I shared my day with my dearest friend Karen.

For my card challenge today I decided to make an inspirational tag of the day, bringing together some of my memories and based on a very thought provoking Tim Holtz quote stamp......here is a sneak peak

I wanted to use the colours of my old school blazer so I blended  Blue Sapphire, Squeezed Lemonade and Scattered Straw Distress Inks to make my background on a tag. I added a little spritz of water. I then inked through the TH clocks stencil with some Pumice Stone DI and added some  prose using a Visible Ink stamp called Bronte script. You can see this lovely script showing up on the yellow ink below.

I also added some remnant rubs, music seemed the perfect choice,

I die cut a Cheery Lynn butterfly which I inked. I thought a TH ink nib would be perfect here....yes the day I started school we still had wooden desks which had ink wells filled with ink for our fountain pens. I still use a fountain pen to this day to write with at work. I added some appropriate chit chat words and a ticket. "Trust" was the perfect one to use as it is part of my school motto.

Below is my tag in its entirety. I photographed it on the pages of my favourite book of piano music from my days in the 6th form at school; Scott Joplin's Piano Rags. My piano teacher and I used to also play duets of this, happy days. I still play "The Entertainer" even now.

The black and the yellow ribbons are special too as Karen and I won some notelets for being the youngest old girls there. They were tied with these ribbons.  I added some blue just to bring the colours together

So now I also have a memory tag to put in my Journal. When I look at it I will be able to transport myself back to the afternoon of Friday 9 May 2014............................................................................................
......................... and hear laughter............................
........................................................ and music.

I would like to enter my tag into the following challenges;

                                                     A Vintage Journey fond memories

Country View Nature's Glories

Natalie and Amy Rubber stamping

Visible Image Anything Goes 

Crafting Musketeers Anything but square

Penny Black and More anything goes

Stamping Sensations anything goes

Totally Gorjuss don't be square

Pan Pastel UK colour palette I have used the colour palette of my school uniform ie navy,yellow/gold

I hope you enjoyed my little piece of history I have shared here today. Thanks for visiting.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x