IN your issue of the Crediton Courier of March 2 you intimated on page five that the school song “Schola Kyrtonensis” was long since forgotten.

This is not the case. The Crediton Town Band has a march composed by me, “Black and Gold” (the Crediton colours), which incorporates “Schola Kyrtonensis” and was even sung by Paul Evans and others during a Town Band concert in the Town Square last summer.

There are still four members of the band who were taught, and remember the song when at the school in their earlier lives.

I believe the song was still in use until the time the three Crediton schools were combined to form the comprehensive school that we know today.

The song seemed to have lapsed for some years until Ronald Smith was appointed as Head of the Arts Faculty.

He was a brilliant pianist and music teacher and having found an old piano copy of the song, decided to teach it to all new pupils as they entered the school for their first year of secondary education.

Thus the song was given a new lease of life, but I believe it is now no longer being used at the school, more is the pity.

Ron and I both taught music together at Queen Elizabeth’s School from 1974 for some years until he left a little before me, and I retired in 1985.

The school celebrated its 450th Anniversary of its founding with a service at the Church of the Holy Cross on March 16, 1997, at which the Town Band were asked to play the school song.

Unfortunately I did not have a piano copy to use to make an arrangement for the band to play and the congregation to sing, but luckily Ron visited me beforehand and I told him my problem.

He replied: “Give me a piece of manuscript paper and I will write it out.”

He did this sitting on my settee and from memory.

The words I knew from my schooldays there from 1945 - 1949, so I was “home and dry”.

Thus the Town Band had my arrangement for the congregation to sing, which they did with great gusto!

It was not until much later that I decided to compose a march which would incorporate “Schola Kyrtonensis” and keep the song alive for a few more years.

It was given its first public outing at a Town Band concert in May 2014 at the church, and has been played a number of times since.

I hope last summer’s rendition won’t be the last!

John Glanfield

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