|
Huang Chen Ya wrote:
I found this song "40 Years On" which you might remember singing
in 1957. Might find it quite fitting now. Maybe someone can
write it up as fifty years on. Regards.
Chia Chee Yoong wrote:
If I recall, Chen Ya, Earnest Lau introduced
this song in 1956 when he was fresh back from Oxford. We were
all in Secondary IV, a year before the Cambridge exams.
Albert Chan wrote:
"40 years on " was first taught to us by Ernest Lau. I still
remember the first stanza...it's stirring and nostalgic at the
same time. Hope to find the entire lyrics on the internet.
Regards to everyone who still remembers me.
Cheong Kun Lum aka Mac wrote:
Well, Chee Yoong, I must say that you have a
great memory in your tender years to remember E. Lau teaching us
"40 yrs" If I remember anything of E. Lau, it would be English
Literature like "She Stoops To Conquer" and midshipman Horatio
Hornblower. So now I have something else to thank E. Lau for.
Thanks, Ernest.
Chia Chee Yoong wrote:
Kun Lum, yes, I remember how Earnest
emphatically pronounced "stoops" when he enunciated the title
"She stoops to conquer". I still bump into him once in a while
and he has a fantastic memory, calling me by name (despite not
being the naughtiest or the top 20% of the class to have him
remember my name). He hasn't changed!
Norman Wee wrote:
Hi, I read through the words and so much I could relate to. For
some insight of this song, go to:
www.harrowschool.org.uk/html/tradition/song/#download
We are fast approaching the 1/2 century. Let's do something
about meeting again.
Winston Choo wrote:
I guess that this surge of emails on Ernest Lau must mean that
he has really made a tremendous impact on our lives. I too share
this sentiment. I have always remembered him as a proper English
gentleman, never without a tie (tartan design with a frayed
edge) on his short sleeve shirt. He was responsible for
inspiring me to play rugby – early start in Pre-U One and went
on to play rugby in military college and in the army. Met him
recently in a book store in Holland Village, only to be told
that he was happy to see me in a book shop as in all the years
in school he could not get me to read. Great Guy!!
Chia Chee Yoong wrote:
Earnest was one of a handful of teachers in my life that came
across as a friend, then a teacher. He wasn't a punishing
teacher in my mind! In his days I am sure he was looked at by
his peers as being too much a liberal. That's OK with me - I
benefited. |
|
[Click
here to hear the song sung]
Forty years on, when afar and asunder
Parted are those who are singing today,
When you look back, and forgetfully wonder
What you were like in your work and your play,
Then, it may be, there will often come o'er you,
Glimpses of notes like the catch of a song -
Visions of boyhood shall float them before you,
Echoes of dreamland shall bear them along,
Chorus
Follow up! Follow up! Follow up! Follow up! Follow up!
Till the field ring again and again,
With the tramp of the twenty-two men.
Follow up! Follow up!
Routs and discomfitures, rushes and rallies,
Bases attempted, and rescued, and won,
Strife without anger, and art without malice, -
How will it seem to you, forty years on?
Then, you will say, not a feverish minute
Strained the weak heart and the wavering knee,
Never the battle raged hottest, but in it,
Neither the last nor the faintest, were we!
Chorus
O the great days, in the distance enchanted,
Days of fresh air, in the rain and the sun,
How we rejoiced as we struggled and panted -
Hardly believable, forty years on!
How we discoursed of them, one with another,
Auguring triumph, or balancing fate,
Loved the ally with the heart of a brother,
Hated the foe with a playing at hate!
Chorus
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 give 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!
Chorus |
|
