Stretford Grammar School Song
up to circa 1962 - Gaudeamus Igitur

This was the Stretford Grammar School for Boys song, up to about 1962 when there was a change of Headmaster. The new Head wanted a clean sweep - away with the Latin and in with Blake's dreams and Harold Wilson's White Heat of Technology with George Brown at the Department of Economic Affairs (Hic, Haec????, Hoc) - well certainly a couple of bottles of hock!

Actually, this little story is untrue. The school song was changed to "Forty Years On" (when afar and asunder, parted are those who are singing today...." Song - still in the same league as Blake but this time hankering after the "public school values" of fags, jolly hockey sticks and people who you really could not stand! Who on earth would want to meet then 40 years on .... well maybe a select, precious few (especially if they play a mean bass guitar or can sing like Elvis).

Music teacher circa 1961 - nickname Pedro!

Gaudeamus Igitur - Martyn Arnold's Stand Grammar School page.

Martyn - wonderfully - has included his midi piano version of Gaudeamus which (Java enabled) downloads and plays automatically. ..... enjoy !!!

Gaudeamus igitur,
Iuvenes dum sumus;
Post iucundam iuventutem,
Post molestam senectutem
Nos habebit humus,
Nos habebit humus.


Vivat academia,
Vivant professores,
Vivat membrum quod libet,
Vivant membra quae libet;
Semper sint in flore,
Semper sint in flore.


Vivat et respublica
Et qui illam regit,
Vivat nostra civitas,
Maecenatum caritas,
Quae nos hic protegit.

More verses .... cannot remember!!! There is a verse which begins "Vivant omnes virgines", which we probably omitted deliberately. The idea of 800 sex mad boys hailing "all virgins" and wishing them long-life - presumably in their prime condition - would have just been to risky a commitment in an all boys school.

Forty Years On

Forty years on when afar and asunder
Parted are those who are singing today
When you look back and forgetfully wonder
What you are like in your work and your play.
Then it may be there will often come o'er you
Glimpses of notes like catch of a song,
Visions of boyhood shall float then before you,
Echoes of dreamland shall bear them along.

Chorus

Follow up! Follow up! Follow up! Follow up! Follow up!
Till the field rings again and again
With the tramp of the thirty true men
Follow up! Follow up!

Forty years on, growing older and older
Shorter in wind as in memory long,
Feeble of foot, and rheumatic of shoulder,
What will it help you that once you were strong?
God gives us bases to guard or beleaguer,
Games to play out, whether earnest or fun;
Fights for the fearless, and goals for the eager,
Twenty, and thirty, and forty years on!

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