Every day at DHS started with the same quite elaborate ritual, the school assembly. This ritual was an arena for moral instruction, sundry announcements, and the enforcement of discipline, and was critical for the tone it set for the school. The photo above shows our headmaster A.W. McIver presiding over an assembly, although in this case it is the Speech Day ceremony for the Class of 1966.

Pupils began to gather inside the assembly hall about ten minutes before the official start of the school day at 8 am.  Each boy carried a book of hymns, unless he had lost his copy or forgotten to bring it.   The third form sat closest to the stage, the fourth and fifth form sat behind them, and the sixth form sat upstairs in the gallery at the rear.  School prefects took up positions inside the hall at the doorways.  By 7.55 am everyone had to be seated. Those who arrived late were liable to be "claimed" by a prefect, and added to the list of boys to be caned by the head prefect later that morning.

However, boys who were considered non-Christian were excluded from this part of the proceedings.  They had to wait outside, in all weathers, at the main entrance at the back of the hall.  In practice this group consisted of the Jewish boys, and I am unaware of anyone else who claimed this exemption on doctrinal grounds.  No doubt there were agnostics and even atheists among us, but the pressure to conform was probably too intense for anyone to draw attention to himself as an infidel.

There was general bustle and chatter in the hall until the head prefect, stationed at the side door, espied the first teacher approaching.  He would then bellow "QUIET!" and all conversation would stop instantly, in mid-sentence. If a prefect saw your lips moving after the head prefect's shout, he could "claim" you, and add your name to the grim list.

The staff entered the hall through the side door.  As  soon as the first teacher set foot in the hall, all the pupils stood up.  We would wait until that teacher took a seat on the stage, and then we would sit down again.  Over the next few minutes more teachers entered and took their seats, until finally the headmaster arrived at 8 am.   At that point all the pupils and staff rose.  The headmaster mounted the stage, greeted his staff, and turned to face us, with a "Good morning".   

Now the religious rituals began.  

The first ritual was a singing from The Public School Hymn Book, a thick, dark blue tome that had gone through several editions since 1903.  The headmaster would announce the hymn number and its title, along with an instruction such as "Sing only the first three verses".  He did not provide a page number, presumably because we might be using different editions of the book, so there was much fumbling as pupils tried to locate the song. Once the rustling subsided, a schoolboy pianist would launch into a vigorous jangle and we would provide boisterous vocals.  Failure to sing enthusiastically enough could also get you "claimed" by a watching prefect.

Most of the hymns were dull and bland, with predictable, well-worn tunes that seemed to have done multiple service in other contexts, perhaps for the national anthem of Mongolia, or for a chant of the Paraguay soccer team.  However there were two hymns that I really liked.  One was William Blake's 1804 poem "Jerusalem",  a vivid lyric about the legend that during his lifetime Jesus had visited Glastonbury in England.  

And did those feet in ancient time,
Walk upon Englands mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On Englands pleasant pastures seen!

And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold:
Bring me my Chariot of fire!

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In Englands green & pleasant Land.

The second song I liked is often called the "Navy hymn", and was written by the poet William Whiting in1860.  It seemed especially appropriate for a harbour town, where we could see ships headed for the horizon just by glancing toward the ocean. 

Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bid'st the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
O hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea.

O Christ, Whose voice the waters heard
And hushed their raging at Thy word,
Who walkedst on the foaming deep,
And calm amidst its rage didst sleep;
O hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea.

The next part of the ritual was a bible reading by a pupil, a task that was rotated from one pupil to another every day.  The pupil read his scripture from a lectern facing us on the left side of the stage.  The readings usually lasted two or three minutes and mostly seemed to be obscure Old Testament passages.  Once in a while a pupil delivered a resounding theatrical performance, but more often than not the reader seemed to wish he was somewhere else, and was barely audible.  Most of us did not have the slightest idea what these readings were about.

Next came the Lord's Prayer.  There are actually several versions of this prayer, translated from the originals in the Bible (Matthew 6:9 and Luke 11.2).  Ours was an ancient version, from the Book of Common Prayer of 1662:

Our Father, which art in heaven,

Hallowed be thy Name.

Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done,

in earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

As we forgive them that trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation;

But deliver us from evil:

[For thine is the kingdom, the power,

and the glory, for ever and ever.

Amen.

But we were still not done.  The headmaster now intoned a final blessing for us, from the traditional Anglican morning service:

O Lord, our heavenly Father, almighty and everlasting God, who hast safely brought us to the beginning of this day: Defend us in the same with thy mighty power; and grant that this day we fall into no sin, neither run into any kind of danger; but that we, being ordered by thy governance, may do always what is righteous in thy sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.   

Only now did the headmaster say, "Please be seated", which we gratefully did. With the religious rituals over, the non-Christians entered the hall at the rear, and the headmaster's announcements began.

McIver's announcements were quite predictable, and we awaited them with a sort of expectant stupefaction. He would declare that he was "amazed" at this, "amazed" at that, and "amazed" at something else.  He might be "amazed", for example, that some parents had made dentist appointments for their sons during school hours,  or he might be "amazed" that some boys had been seen in town without their bashers on their heads.  After that came the items that "must have been taken for safe keeping". Jones of 5LG was missing his fountain pen; it must have been taken for safe keeping, and would whoever took it please return it.  Smith of 4BA was missing his bicycle; it must have been taken for safe keeping, and would whoever took it please return it.

Another frequent announcement was the award of honours for sporting achievements.  One pupil might get half-colours for athletics, another, full colours for swimming.  These announcements were greeted with a prolonged, thunderous, and often thoroughly cynical applause.  Expecially in our junior years we had no idea who most of these pupils were, and we couldn't care less if they got half colours or not.  But the school ran on the assumption that sporting achievements were the only ones that really mattered,  so we made a dutiful show of adulation.

At the end of the announcements the headmaster stepped down from the stage and the whole assembly rose while he walked out, followed by the rest of the teachers.  After the last teacher had left, we sat down again.

Now it was the head prefect's turn.

The head prefect strode down the centre aisle from the back of the hall, but never went all the way to the front. He stopped before the final section containing the seated third formers, turned his back to them, and made his announcements.  Why didn't he go to the front of the hall and address the whole school? I doubt if any of our head prefects knew the origin of this tradition, but there are two possibilities.  One, which seems unlikely, is that successive head prefects could not project their voice to the entire hall from one end of it. The other is that by turning their backs on the third form to address the rest of the school, the head prefects were showing the most junior pupils how worthless they were in the school hierarchy.

Most of the head prefect's announcements consisted of a list of pupils who "must come to the prefects' room at 10.15", which almost inevitably meant that he would cane them there.  The list was longer on Mondays than other days, because there were always some boys who had been "claimed" for appearing in public without their uniform over the weekend.   If the school XV had played a match at the school the previous Saturday, there would also be a number of boys who had been "disloyal" by not showing up to support the team.  Their names were also read out from the list.

There were some other head prefect announcements that the third form soon learned to dread: instructions for some of their classes to show up at the prefects' room, where each pupil would have to recite without error the names of all of the prefects, or all the first XI, or all the first XV.  Failure to get all the names correct could generate a caning and an instruction to appear the next day for a further attempt.

At the end of the head prefect's announcements it was time to leave the hall and go to class. But there was one more obstacle in the way: the hymn book check.  Prefects at the doors would make sure every pupil except the non-Christians was brandishing a hymn book as he left, and those who didn't have one were "claimed" and told to join the line outside the prefects' room at 10.15.

After all that, we arrived in our classrooms and our day's studies began.