Leslie Taylor at City of London School

Peter Wilson (38–48) writes:
This is the first time I have communicated with the Gazette
since I left School in 1948, indeed my first contact with OCs
apart from a couple of dinners years ago at ‘CLS Liverymen’ as
it then was, with my late father Harold Wilson (14–18).
Ian Coombs’ recollections of Marlborough a couple of
issues back [No. 282, Autumn 2004] were correct. He was
commuting on the only convenient train from Dartford to
Blackfriars in 1938, entraining at Hither Green if I recall
correctly with his friend Pooley. The nearer to London, the
more CLS boys, and the higher the decibels.That boy Ian went
on to become an important mandarin in Gilbey Vintners, I
believe.
My own life, quite prosaic, has been spent in the paper and
packaging industry (litter makers!), providing for a wife and
three children. On retirement I took an ego trip in the shape of
an MA in Celto-Roman studies, concentrating on ‘Industry and
Technology in Roman Britain’, but my greatest pride in these
days of the unfashionable nuclear family is to be into our 53rd
year of married life.
A few years ago I wrote a brief commonplace on Music
Director Leslie Taylor and his influence, and I enclose it for
your interest while there are still some of us who regard him
with great affection. Les’s widow is still very much alive and
spry and lives in Huntingdon.
Looking back 60-plus years at my time at CLS, there were four
teachers who had a lasting effect on my life. These were F R
Dale (Headmaster and Classics), H C Oakley and C J Ellingham
(Classics), and Leslie Taylor (Music).These were giants of their
genre, and the influence emanating from their enthusiasm
extended far beyond the bounds of the subjects they taught.
However, by a long chalk the person who most readily appears
before me and whom I often hear talking is Leslie Taylor the
Music Master, for in the 1930s nobody basked in the title
‘Director of This or That’. Indeed a few years ago at Coton Hall
some visitors were looking at an old music manuscript in
puzzlement, and I immediately heard him talking as he quoted
from the past:
‘Why, they are neums. (1) They were the earliest known
form of notation. (2) They were small black squares in
shape. (3) They gave scarcely any idea of time or rhythm.
(4) They only showed roughly the rise and fall of the
tune.’
. . . a sequence that had guaranteed at least four marks in any
test he set.
I first met Leslie Taylor as a nine-year-old in 1938, when the
weekly whole-class music theory lesson was right at the top of
the new building in a room for music and art, where his piano
and a life-size reproduction statue of the discobolus vied for
position.
He was shortish, of what was then known as portly build,
but a quick mover, his academic gown streaming behind him
like a larger edition of Superman’s cloak, and was able to
communicate with boys in a manner that, although it brooked no nonsense, left them wanting more and looking forward to
the next week.
My first actual memory is of his ability for technical
innovation. He had designed and made a holder for five pieces
of chalk, which drew a musical stave on the blackboard with
ease, while for an eraser he used a compact and convenient felt
pad (sometimes dampened) or, if that was not within reach,
very occasionally the cuff of his gown rather than the usual
messy duster.
He was a good disciplinarian, almost entirely by force of
personality, and I do not remember him resorting to corporal
punishment, although there was a cane visible somewhere,
rather like an early nuclear deterrent. However, there was a
fiendish imposition for incessant chatterers, which was doled
out frequently and never in less than three figure doses: the
writing out of ‘Silence is of the Gods, only monkeys chatter.’
This standard penalty encouraged entrepreneurs to maintain a
store of these ‘lines’ for sale, but he was pretty attentive to
handwriting, and often the purchaser of such an indulgence
would find his fingers (metaphorically) burned. Much later in
my schooldays I was required to write out for him 500 times ‘I
must not be vulgar without being funny’, a precept that I have
ever since tried to observe.
His classes learned about the tonic sol-fa, about time
signatures, treble, bass and C clefs, about which notes stood
where on which clef, and about early musical notation, all the
while illustrated by his brilliant piano playing, where he
demonstrated improvisation, sudden transposition, and
decoration of familiar tunes – for instance, how ‘Yes, we have
no bananas’ is really the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s
Messiah. For a treat the class would hear gramophone records
showing the distinctly differing sounds of different instruments,
and I have never heard a bassoon since then without hearing
him say ‘the clown of the orchestra’. The clever ones
recognised the instrument from the particular remembered
tune, which helped achieve a good score in tests, because the
same questions would often reappear, and the repetition of all
these facts ensured that they remain usefully in the mind to
this day.
With World War II in 1939 came evacuation to
Marlborough, with its College, and for four and a half years
everyone lived together in relatively close contact during term
time. I can see now, in my mind’s eye, the style of the man.While
other masters had bicycles, shanks’s pony, or at best an elderly
Ford or Austin, our Leslie had a Vauxhall, a green one, and fairly
new at that, upon whose glove shelf was not a packet, but a tin
– a large one – of Turf cigarettes, whose effect was seemingly
non-deleterious, for he played a pretty fast and mean game of
squash. His new fiefdom was a palatial salon at the top of the
Marlborough College Memorial Hall, built in the shape of an
Ancient Greek theatre, complete with comfortable furniture
and a splendid Bechstein grand piano.This he shared with Mr
Hilton Steward, his Marlborough College opposite number,
although it was by no means clear which of them was the prime
tenant of this ‘desirable residence’.
In this venue, with seamless continuity from Victoria
Embankment Blackfriars to rural Wiltshire, his classes
continued weekly, and progressed to singing simple intervals;
writing down, dictation style, simple tunes on the staves, with middling and variable accuracy; learning about key signatures
(with his marvellous handy diagram, which is still used); and
how to transpose.Towards the end of our time as evacuees he
taught us about basic harmony and how to put it into written
practice.
Extra-murally, because it was a hard task to keep several
hundred boys of various ages and interests occupied and out of
mischief, he started musical appreciation classes. It is from
these, and from his interesting, eminently understandable and
non-patronising running explanations, that many a person of my
generation owes his love of classical music, thanks to Leslie
Taylor’s enthusiastic nurture.
Marlborough College had a school song, and it was decided
that CLS should have one too. Blake’s ‘Jerusalem’ it was, and by
the time he had drilled the entire school in the tune –
dynamics, breathing, holding notes, enunciation, and correctly
timed entry – it made a disciplined and melodious noise,
unbeatable by any Women’s Institute choir.That song, and how
to sing it, has also remained with me all my life, and is put into
practice just so, especially at Prom time to the surprise of
younger generations.
At about this time a perambulator, a quality one, was
regularly seen down Pewsey Road and up to Cherry Orchard,
and there was great rejoicing at the arrival of a young Taylor, but
alas our acquaintance was short-lived. The School governors,
finding that a continuing drop in pupil numbers was rendering
the school unviable, elected to return to London at Easter
1944, just in time for the Doodlebugs (V1 flying bombs), but the
whole school below Higher Certificate and School Certificate
classes was sent home for the summer.This was a blow for me,
as regular music ceased in the Fourth Form, and I saw Leslie
only occasionally, leaning out of the organ loft in the Great Hall
with a wide smile on his face, somewhat reminiscent of the
Lincoln Imp grinning above the cathedral pulpit.
That then was that: but he was a very good teacher indeed,
both liked and respected for himself, and with no need of a
pedestal. Everyone was equal in his eyes, and he had no
favourites, not even the really musical boys, who were more
frequently found in the City of London School than elsewhere,
for it was the favoured education conduit for the Temple
Choristers and the Children of the Chapel Royal. For the most
part the school comprised ordinary youngsters, but there must be many of us now approaching our dotage who are profoundly
grateful for the time spent at Leslie Taylor’s feet and for the
lasting effect he has had.
Therefore the conclusion of this monograph will be
anecdotal with a few well-remembered ‘Taylorisms’.
On note values, minims, crochets etc.:
‘The first note was the Duplex Longa, and was very long by our
standards. The next was “shorta” so they called it Longa, and
followed it by the Brevis, Semibrevis, Minima etc.’
On time signatures and rhythms:
‘Nothing is without rhythm, a beat. For instance if you have all
eaten too much at Christmas [remember, this was wartime and
austerity] and can’t get to sleep, there is a dripping tap. You hear
it drip, drip. Mother who is worried about feeding them
tomorrow hears it drip, drip, drip. And Auntie Mabel, who has
indulged in too much pork pie, groans and hears it drip, drip,
drip, drip.And so you have 2/4, 3 /4 and 4/4 time.’
On cadences and finishing a piece (illustrated as he spoke with
clever and melodious improvisation):
‘I am in church playing the processional and waiting for the vicar
to settle down.Ah, the choir is OK, and here is a plagal cadence
and we can go on again.Yes, the vicar is ready, so I will draw to
a close. Whoops, he’s doing something else, so here’s a half
close and off I go again.Aha,now he is ready, and I can finish with
a full close.Amen!’
On noise:
‘Sound is only there when you hear it. I can go into the chapel,
turn on the organ, pull out all the stops, peg down the keys and
leave.There is no sound in the chapel because no-one is there
to hear.’
On enunciation, using ‘Praise my Soul the King of Heaven’:
‘In Mayfair they don’t sing “Praise him for His grace and favour”,
but “Praise Him for His grease and fever”.’
On discipline:
‘If you are playing with any toy etc. in class and not benefiting
from what I am telling you I shall confiscate it, and unlike with
other masters you will not see it again at the end of the period
but at the end of the term if you are lucky.’ [I never saw him
need to put this threat into practice!]
On my illicit use of the piano in the practice rooms:
‘You aren’t coming to me for piano lessons. You are learning the
fiddle with Mrs Leicht, and you are supposed to be using the
practice room for that. But the point is that you are practising.
Don’t let me catch you again – but there is a baby grand down
there in the last practice room!’
On education:
‘What eloquence can’t persuade through your ears, energy can
probably drive through your backsides.’
On the importance of choice of words (at Marlborough):
‘My alarm goes off and I get up at a quarter to seven. But I
always say six forty-five, it sounds so much earlier!’
[This affectionate tribute was written for and is dedicated to Leslie
Taylor’s widow and daughter, both living in Huntingdon.]