allsorts

I’ve just come back from an extraordinary event. You can see details here. To put it briefly, P6 and 7 pupils from schools across the Borders came together to perform songs that they have been learning separately, with an orchestra (Scottish Borders Community Orchestra in which I played). The songs, about Borders culture and life, were written and composed by Lin Marsh. In addition to this massive undertaking, four 6th year pupils (my 17 year old son among them) got together over a number of weeks with composer Stephen Deazley to arrange the songs for the orchestra and write their own composition together to be performed by the orchestra. The whole thing came together tonight when about 200 primary kids sang their hearts out for just over an hour, demonstrating not only their own skill and enthusiasm, but also Stephen’s considerable charisma. I’ve participated with many groups in music making and I have never seen so many eyes constantly trained on a conductor.

The songs themselves were full of character. And though of course I am biased, each arrangement was very well suited to the tone of the song it had started with whether about horses, weaving, the Eyemouth fishing disaster or Technochild.

The only sour note was from the SBC councillor who shall remain nameless, who came forward to do the thanks at the end and all he had to say to the children was that he had noticed one or two of them fidgeting! And he had just watched 200 kids giving their all - focus, concentration and vocal quality for over an hour!

There’s another performance tomorrow, and I’ll be keeping an eye on him, to see if he manages to sit without a fidget throughout.

Or perhaps I’ll forget his stupidity and pay attention instead to the truly inspiring faces of the young people on the stage.

This week I’m on a placement at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. I’m part of a small group of teachers helping to freshen up the Teacher Packs on Romans and Vikings. Today we toured the Early People Gallery with Dr Andy Heald, a curator. What a lot I learned from this very knowledgeable man who is clearly passionate about his job and has an ability to communicate his enthusiasm in an engaging way.

I am going to enjoy this week.

More about the Hunterston Brooch in the image above here.

I haven’t been able to post for a while, but I’ve been thinking just the same.

I’ve been struck by the way in which Neil’s Bebo is used by his friends to maintain the link with each other and with Neil. They still, 3 weeks after his death, post messages to him, recounting their feelings of loss and grief and telling him about things that are happening for them in the world they shared. To me this is extraordinary and a really powerful use of social media that I could never have imagined. (Apart from the fact that the situation is almost unimagineable anyway)

Reading their posts makes me cry - with yearning for the old normality with Neil in it obviously - but also with appreciation of the very evident goodness and firm faith in the power of personal relationships that is in these young people. They have been faced with a terrible event which will affect the rest of their lives.They are using the powerful medium to share their grief, remember Neil, and to support each other.

I can’t help worrying though.This medium is so ephemeral. Like all of us, sadly it won’t last forever. I expect that posts to Neil’s Bebo will gradually reduce in quantity and frequency, though I’m sure, as with blogs, many more people read than post and will continue to do so. But if it were suddenly to disappear…