School assembly in the good old days and singing hymns! Anyone remember the 'Come and Praise' books!

[ErlingHaalandsManBun]

I was thinking earlier about being a kid in the 70's/80's and how we would have school assembly. All lined up and then would have to walk in and sit on the floor cross legged in rows.

Then we would sing hymns from the book 'Come and Praise'.

I was trying to remember some of them. One was called Autumn Days and it went something like this:

Autumn Days when the grass is jewelled
And the silk inside a chestnut shell
Jetplanes meeting in the air to be refuelled
All these things I love so well

No I mustn't forget
To say a great big thank you
I mustn't forget.

Anyone else remember this book and the hymns within it.

I bloody loved singing these in school assembly!! 😂

Yes I remember that one.

Ah... when I needed a neighbour
And all the sniggering at "I was cold I was naked were you there? Were you there? I was cold I was naked were you there?!"

Autumn days everyone would shout "AND A WIN FOR MY HOME TEAM" and I mustn't forget.. no I mustn't forget...: to say a great big thank you I mustn't forget.

@TelephoneWires My favourite - When a Knight won his Spurs! I didn’t think anyone else ever sang it. Still remember all the words and I’m 70!

It’s Amazing Grace by the way. It was written by John Newton who became the vicar of Olney in Buckinghamshire after working on slave ships. Most people think it’s American.

We liked “For all the Saints” (no Halloween at our school) and all the harvest hymns.

I work in a school and we still use come snd praise and sing every day in assembly! It is glorious!

Oh I love that it is still used!

We've started practising our Christmas hymns now...and some of them give me absolute goose bumps. So evocative

Comedian Russel Howard did a bit about that one 😂

I am an 80s kid, and the book we had was blue. Morning assembly, sat crossed legged on a freezing cold floor. The school receptionist playing the piano.
Later on, we had an overhead projector with the words on.

I am not sure I remember Come and Praise books or not, but my favourite hymns were Lord of the Dance and There is a Green Hill Far Away.

My first primary school we had the hymns on huge hymn books hanging from the ceiling like giant flip charts. They would be lowered down flipped to the right page by special monitors and then hoisted up again.

Moved to a new modern school with Come and Praise books and some ones on the OHP!

I still love real old school hymns - most have been mentioned And I get cross if they play the 'wrong' tune.

@KimonoQueen yes I remember those giant flip charts.

The brown copy of come snd praise is the teacher copy with the piano music on and the blue ones are the kids copies

We used to have an orange hymn book too...with a flower on the front? Might have been called morning has broken?

This one!

I absolutely remember this one!!

Or the harvest ones....

"See here are bananas for you and me, we eat them to help us grow STRONG!"

My parents have a tape recording of me and my sister singing that. We shouted the 'strong' bit 😂

“He’s got the whole world in his hands.
the whole wide world in his hands…”

we used to cry the one at the end “Think of a world without any flowers, think of a world without any trees. “

Love these. We used junior praise in primary school.

My favourite was "wide wide as the ocean", with the actions when we would enthusiastically fling our arms out and try and make the entire row fall backwards.

I went to the most Catholic of Catholic junior and secondary schools. Assembly was twice a week in the primary school, always with hymns, once a week at secondary, then more hymns again at church on Sunday.

I absolutely loved them all, they were so joyous, and I used to know all the words and hymn numbers; though not much point to the latter as I could probably sing them all off by heart today if the rickety school piano started up now lol

I remember michelmas daisies! was a banger!

Given the season, anyone else remember ‘it was on a starry night’? I loved that one!

What happened to primary school assembly pianists? I like to think they’re all on another astral plane, like king arthur, waiting to return to us in our hour of need 😁

As well as the primary school standards I also have very fond memories of being in chamber choir at secondary school - this time of year always reminds me of the gorgeous alto harmony in Adam Lay Ybounden 😍(if you know, you know - and were probably as cool as I was at school 😁)

We had With Cheerful Voice and then Come and Praise added to the repertoire to be a bit more "go-ey" as my elderly head teacher put it. Although I'm sure she was probably actually younger than I am now.

Jet planes meeting in the air to be refuelled is a bit strange really isn't it? I think that line got stuck in for the rhyme and the scan!!

Even though I wasn’t religious it was good to start the day with a song. Except the day when I threw up everywhere during the prayer

@KnitFastDieWarm Sadky teachers don’t have music skills any more! Well very few. We had the local church organist come in for hymn practice at primary school. CofE but an effort was made to teach the hymns and I went to CofE secondary too and we definitely had a daily act of worship with hymns every day in both schools. My secondary had The Founders’ Prayer every Wednesday praising a variety of Medieval and Tudor era donors and educationalists.

Loved reading all your own memories of the school assembly, sitting crossed legged on the floor in a freezing cold big school hall and singing hymns. Its lovely how many of us share the same memories of this as kids and how even today, many years on, we still remember those hymns.

I think if someone cranked up a piano I would happily belt some out now, although sitting cross legged on the floor is not something I can so easily do now 😂

It was Songs of Praise at my school, from the age of 5.
It was very exciting to be given your own hymn book, because you didn’t get one until they thought you could read well enough to use it. Until then we were told to ‘sing it to la’.

I still love so many of the old hymns, and in my case it has nothing to do with being at all religious.

At my school you didn’t get a hymn book until year 3 but the younger children read the words from a big coloured piece of paper held up at the front with the words in marker pen. Not sure how that was supposed to be easier - maybe the teacher pointed to the lines. I suppose you didn’t have to find the page either.