There’s a saying in our family, usually accompanied by gales of laughter. It’s “The fairies punished me!”
When we were very young our mother would say “If you do the wrong thing the fairies will punish you.” We found that if we tried to be crafty about something it would always come unstuck. It was those damn fairies!
At thirteen I was sent to boarding school in Melbourne. I had persuaded my parents that it would be counterproductive for me to learn French, as the rest of the class might be years ahead of me. Mission accomplished. During the French lessons I had a free period.
But the fairies caught up with me on their day of reckoning, “July 14th, Bastille Day”.
At school assembly, we were given a song sheets for “The Marseillaise”, the bloodthirsty song of the French Revolution. It was written in French. The whole school, minus one, started to sing. The headmistress intervened. “There is one girl who is not singing. Everyone else will sit down. She will start again and sing the first verse by herself.” In those days children did not argue with those in authority. Everyone sat down again, except me.
I had never heard of The Marseillaise. Faced with a tune I didn’t know and a song sheet in a language that I couldn’t speak or pronounce, there was no time for the horror that I initially felt. I knew I would have to follow the music. If I didn’t keep up with the piano, I would have to sing it again!
The pianist triumphantly thumped out the introduction to “La Marseillaise,” I am not a singer. In a weak voice I mispronounced every French word, but I managed to follow the melody, courtesy of a former singing teacher with a tuning fork who had made us sing boring exercises up and down the scale every week.
When I finished, my classmates who knew that I didn’t speak French, stood up and nearly raised the roof with the rest of the French National Anthem!
Now, I have a fondness for the rousing music of “La Marseillaise.” At an early age it taught me that we can handle the most difficult of life’s challenges.
When we were very young our mother would say “If you do the wrong thing the fairies will punish you.” We found that if we tried to be crafty about something it would always come unstuck. It was those damn fairies!
At thirteen I was sent to boarding school in Melbourne. I had persuaded my parents that it would be counterproductive for me to learn French, as the rest of the class might be years ahead of me. Mission accomplished. During the French lessons I had a free period.
But the fairies caught up with me on their day of reckoning, “July 14th, Bastille Day”.
At school assembly, we were given a song sheets for “The Marseillaise”, the bloodthirsty song of the French Revolution. It was written in French. The whole school, minus one, started to sing. The headmistress intervened. “There is one girl who is not singing. Everyone else will sit down. She will start again and sing the first verse by herself.” In those days children did not argue with those in authority. Everyone sat down again, except me.
I had never heard of The Marseillaise. Faced with a tune I didn’t know and a song sheet in a language that I couldn’t speak or pronounce, there was no time for the horror that I initially felt. I knew I would have to follow the music. If I didn’t keep up with the piano, I would have to sing it again!
The pianist triumphantly thumped out the introduction to “La Marseillaise,” I am not a singer. In a weak voice I mispronounced every French word, but I managed to follow the melody, courtesy of a former singing teacher with a tuning fork who had made us sing boring exercises up and down the scale every week.
When I finished, my classmates who knew that I didn’t speak French, stood up and nearly raised the roof with the rest of the French National Anthem!
Now, I have a fondness for the rousing music of “La Marseillaise.” At an early age it taught me that we can handle the most difficult of life’s challenges.
Bev Morton
Bev Morton
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