Family

UNEARTHED Josh White, aged 11

The Gryphon School

After seeing their plight on the local news, Josh had the idea of fundraising for Dartmoor Zoo. The zoo reported how they had needed to close due to coronavirus and would be in desperate need of funds. Otherwise, they may have to close permanently and look to give their animals a new home or, even worse, potentially have to put them down.

Josh loves animals and didn’t want to see this happen, so he decided to fundraise and having been inspired by someone on YouTube climbing the equivalent of Mount Everest on his stairs, thought he could do the same. So, with the help of his parents, Josh worked out that he had to climb the stairs at home 3,400 times to complete the challenge. He did 200 climbs on weekend days and 100 a day in the weekdays so that he could fit in his schoolwork.

He appeared on numerous news channels during the challenge and couldn’t believe the overwhelming support and generosity from all over the world including Canada, Australia, America etc. It took him about 3 weeks to complete the challenge and finished on VE Day in May. In the end, he raised over £20,000 and became a lot fitter for it! Josh's family, friends and teachers are all really proud of him and what he has achieved. We are sure his fundraising efforts have not finished yet…

gryphon.dorset.sch.uk

KATHARINE DAVIES PHOTOGRAPHY

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Children’s Book Review Elizabeth P, Year 6, Leweston School

Burn by Patrick Ness (Walker Books) £12.99 Sherborne Times Reader Offer Price of £11.99 from Winstone’s Books

This book is about a girl called Sarah Dewhurst who, along with her father, lives in a different world to ours where there are dragons. Her dad hires a Russian blue dragon to help out on the farm that they own. The book keeps switching to different people’s thinking, until they all join up together. It contains a prophecy, a goddess, a satellite and a power that could destroy the world. On some pages, it makes me gasp; on some, it makes me want to hide under the covers. It is a totally amazing book. I’m looking forward to the next one, for it ends on a cliff hanger. I recommend this book for 9-year olds and over. 5 stars!!

‘How does the world end? It ends in fire.’

'Independent Bookseller of the Year 2016’

School's out! Books are in!

BEING KIND Aneurin & Ottokar Denham, aged 14, Sherborne School

The idea behind the Being Kind project is to show how communities pull together and how the human spirit thrives in difficult times. We hope to show the kind and selfless things people have done in their everyday lives during the Covid-19 lockdown.

For simplicity, we asked people the same two questions about acts of kindness and gathered responses to explore how they are coping and in what ways their community has helped each other:

What single act of kindness have you received during the coronavirus crisis that has made a big difference to you?

Please give an act of kindness that you have given during the coronavirus crisis that you believe made a difference.

Anon, 40, Dorset

I am a teacher and received letters from pupils asking of my wellbeing; a lovely gesture and goes to show that young people can be just as kind and thoughtful as others.

Our local park was closed and an elderly gentleman was unable to go to his usual spot to draw wildlife. I’m fortunate to have a garden, so invited him to spend a couple of hours continuing his hobby.

Brendon, 42, Southsea, Portsmouth

After starting to exercise again, I achieved my goal of running 5k. I posted about making positive changes to your lifestyle and a few days later, on my housemate’s birthday, one of his friends delivered a present for him, but also for me. It was Meditations by Marcus Aurelius - when I thanked him, he said that he didn’t want my efforts to go unnoticed.

I’ve looked out for two vulnerable people in my life every day of the crisis. My mum - who is 80 years old with multiple conditions; I phoned her every day and gathered her supplies. An ex-girlfriend - who suffers from many mental health issues; I messaged each day, but I also bought her kettlebells, so she could exercise in absence of the gym.

Christine, 67, London

My allotment neighbour heard that I couldn’t get flour and yeast, so he went to a shop he knew - miles away -

Image: Katharine Davies

and arrived at my house with a huge box of food far exceeding the flour and yeast! I tried to pay him to no avail.

For my neighbour’s birthday I cooked her an Indian meal, put it in a carrier bag ‘a la takeaway’ and left it with a cake on her doorstep; she cried!

Dan, 43, Hampshire

A small gesture that gave me a sense of community spirit related to my daughter’s soya intolerance. Most shopbought bread contains soya. Our usual brand became impossible to get. My wife wanted to make her own bread - so did the entire country! An SOS on Facebook resulted in 3 separate deliveries of yeast to our front door!

An act of kindness that I hope made a difference was a financial donation to our local food bank.

Margaret & Suresh, 70+, Sherborne

After working hard in our fairly large garden during lockdown, we filled many bags of garden waste; our very kind neighbour, Pete, generously took them to the tip when it reopened, plus left us some of his own

vegetable plants.

We’ve regularly informed elderly neighbours of new projects within the local community. We alerted one to the ‘Community Kitchen’ and they now get a cooked meal delivered daily.

Marie, 35, Portsmouth, Hampshire

During the first few weeks, our neighbour gave her daughter’s old picnic/sand table to our young sons. It’s provided daily entertainment and they especially love it as it’s similar to the one at their nana’s house, who they miss.

My husband and I designed some pages for a colouring book which went out to families in need of extra support during the pandemic. Along with colouring pens and pencils, it was distributed to 2500+ households and schools with food parcels. These pages were then shared in windows of peoples’ homes. We hope our contribution made a small impact.

Michael, Isle of Wight

My wife kindly bought me a 1,000-piece jigsaw in case I got bored!

We donated gardening equipment to a nearby friend. Her garden was becoming overgrown and she didn’t have the right tools; she was very happy and has spent many hours in the garden crafting her outdoor space.

Olly, Hampshire

It’s been nice speaking more to people who live nearby, who we might have seen now and then, but not often. One left some toys on our doorstep for our daughter, which entertained her a lot.

It feels a bit awkward talking about one’s own kindness, especially since many have shown generosity. One gesture was sending a note to someone who we were concerned wouldn’t be able to shop for themselves.

We’d like to thank all the participants of our project for their time and effort.

These are just a sample of the replies received. To read more, please visit parentingsoundly.co.uk/beingkind

HOME FRONT Jemma Dempsey

The one thing I’ve noticed about our home during lockdown is that everyone has been very vocal about everything. And while I’d like to think we are a fairly loving bunch, it’s also true to say there have been moments when I could have gleefully wielded an axe and happily been led away to the funny farm by the men in white coats. This has not been an easy experience. The initial euphoria at school closing soon gave way to the sad reality of not being able to physically see friends, the husband’s relief at not having a hideous commute soon melted away as the endless headphone meetings consumed his every waking minute. And I have really missed silence; simple silence to just sit with the dog and a coffee for a few minutes doing absolutely nothing.

Speaking of the dog, I’ve noticed she’s been ignoring me. To be honest, I can’t say I blame her, with everything going on I’d ignore me too. Her life has been turned upside down just as much as ours. And she’s always had a tendency to go off in a huff if she doesn’t get her own way or if the food on offer is not to her liking.

‘The dog is not right,’ I say to the husband, one evening.

‘She’s never been right,’ he responds unhelpfully, to which I roll my eyes and begin to flounce off, saying that I’m going to take her to the vet.

‘Hang on a minute,’ he says putting his iPad down.

I knew that would have the desired effect. The thought of a hefty investigative vet’s bill which doesn’t result in a definitive answer soon gives me his undivided attention. ‘She’s not listening to me anymore,’ I cry, ‘she just, well, she just ignores me.’ The husband guffaws and there follows an attempt to see who can get the dog’s attention in a she-loves-me-more-than-you competition. ‘She is almost 14, but she still acts like she’s 6 months old,’ the husband laughs as he plays tugof-war with her and an old moccasin slipper, which she had in her crate when we flew over from New Zealand on a gruelling 26-hour non-stop flight.

‘That slipper is revolting, it should still be in quarantine!’ I squawk, but I know I am beaten when they both look at me with their puppy dog eyes. I shake my head and storm off into the kitchen. ‘Don’t talk to me, I am going to be selectively deaf,’ I say, pouring myself a large glass of wine, pretending not to hear the husband mutter,

‘Hmmm, you’ve been doing that for years.’

The deafness revelation has made me realise we need to adjust our dog etiquette around the house and transform our walking regime. It’s no good just hollering her name anymore and waiting for a flurry of fur to arrive at our feet. What to do when your dog goes deaf? I plug into my search engine and I am met with a myriad of results, from vibrating collars to clapping tests, designed to establish the degree of disability. I realise we’re on the verge of moving into a new era - after raising this beast from puppyhood and watching her playfully grow with our two-legged children, we’re now faced with tending to her creaking, arthritic needs as she moves into her slightly stinky dotage. I switch my gaze from the computer screen and its googled offerings to the dog who’s sat at my feet, her gaze alternating back and forth between me and the treat cupboard. I decide deafness makes no difference here, I know perfectly well what she wants. She is still my dog, our family dog, and has been for 14 years. Deaf or not, we love every hair on her head and every other bit of her shaggy, scruffy body. But I’m still taking her to the vet, just to be absolutely sure.

MEASURING SUCCESS Nick Folland, Headmaster, Sherborne Prep

The end of the summer term at Sherborne Prep School finishes with an annual prize-giving where we award some of our children with end of year prizes. This usually takes place in a marquee and the children come up to the stage in front of 500 people, all clapping. Speeches are made and we always have a guest speaker. This year was rather different because we were unable to hold a mass gathering. The children were all back in school but events such as prize-giving were obviously not permitted under the Government lockdown restrictions. However, we did not want to miss the opportunity to recognise all the hard work of the children throughout the year. Always trying to find solutions to conundrums such as this in the best interests of the children, we went online instead. We created a prize-giving film, where one of the highlights was the recorded delivery of our top prizes to the winners at their own homes in a safe and socially-distanced manner.

Each year, we invite interesting guest speakers to talk to the children at prize-giving and this year, we had the best role model possible record a message for the children. Dr Susie Imber was the winner of the BBC2 programme Astronaut: do you have what it takes? She is a planetary scientist and the Pro Vice Chancellor of the University of Leicester as well as being the only female British member of NASA. Susie spoke wonderfully and inspirationally. She made it clear that, when at school, she was academically a middle-of-the-road pupil, not a so called ‘high-flier.’

Her words resonated with all that we try to engender in our pupils. Be curious, do not let opportunities pass you by, be kind to yourself and to others around you, aim high, challenge yourself, learn new skills, work on your weaknesses as much as your strengths, part of the fun of the journey is seeing where you end up.

We try to be very clear at Sherborne Prep that

one will not always succeed. Much is gained from failing and, in fact, failing is often more important than succeeding. Children need to push outside of their comfort zones. Sometimes this ends in failure but they should learn from it and try to enjoy the experience anyway. I often state that, although we may have a few future world champions in our midst, there will not be many. That means there is usually somebody that little bit better than us, or luckier or

indeed harder working. The latter is something which we can control, and work ethic is key to success.

Children today do have a very good time in school for the most part. Life at the Prep is very different to the culture of my school days. We try to create an atmosphere of fun and positivity here. At the same time, it cannot all be happiness, loveliness and constant reward and success. That is not real, and we are preparing children for the real world. Children need to learn resilience and dig deep at times. There will be tough times and not everyone can win a prize. For those who have achieved success this year, whether or not it has been recognised with a prize, well done! For those who have not quite got there, try again next year, work that little bit harder, dig that little bit deeper and be brave enough to stand out from the crowd.

REMOTE CONTROL James Henderson, Director of Music Sherborne School & Sherborne Abbey

Image: Josie Sturgess-Mills

The plight of freelance musicians during the lockdown has, like that of many other professionals, engendered sympathy: those whose careers depended upon concert performances, and indeed anything ‘live’, found themselves instantly and overnight without work and of course, a previously ‘freelance’ existence at least initially meant that being furloughed was not a possibility.

In schools, it was important to find a solution that did not leave the young without the ability to be part of ensemble music-making, to see their friends, and without the ability to recreate some sort of sense of team, whilst at the same time to continue developing musically. Remember that, for those who enjoy music-making, being without it is as difficult as a lack of exercise.

The earliest days of the lockdown coincided with the holiday over the Easter break, but they also coincided with Holy Week and the full gamut of Easter services that would ordinarily have taken place in the Abbey. So, a solution needed to be found quickly — and, as with so many other aspects of life, it presented itself in Zoom. Whilst the Prime Minister spoke to us, on Zoom, just hours after returning from hospital after his own spell of COVID-19, the Abbey choristers were meeting on Zoom prior to making solo recordings to be compiled on the wondrous Apple software ‘Logic Pro X’. Think of it as electronic Sellotape for sticking together a limitless number of recording tracks.

Individual instrumental music lessons were quickly discovered to be more straightforward: the latency (which has improved as Zoom has been upgraded), and inevitable occasional internet glitches, has generally not prohibited pupil enjoyment of music taught online — and of course the freelance musicians who had been used to teaching by day were relieved to discover that at least one part of their professional life was to continue.

Ensembles and large choirs were altogether more complicated because, for all its virtues, Zoom cannot successfully enable more than one voice or instrument at a time — at its heart it is conference software for situations in which you do not want more than one person to speak at a time! As with the Abbey Choir, therefore, the boys at Sherborne School become accustomed to the idea that they had become ‘overnight recording stars’ by virtue of the ‘Voice Memo’ app on their mobile phones — which have remarkably sophisticated microphones built into them, whether on the ubiquitous iPhone or any other model. There is nonetheless a vast difference between rehearsing in a wind band with seventy of your friends and having to meet on Zoom for about ten minutes of social interaction before recording your own musical part and then submitting it by email to a teacher. Plus, family members didn’t always enjoy having to listen to the tenth recording attempt!

Some young musicians thought that they were wise to the fact that, in effect, the weekly recordings were starting to act as re-auditions (something to which even the adult ‘back rows’ of the Abbey Choir jokingly referred with reference to their weekly recordings) — but in reality, the recording tracks genuinely weren’t auditions: the process of compiling recordings is one which involves a fair degree of editing and there simply isn’t time to ‘judge’ the individual performance. For the young, of course, it is all about taking part and then being able to listen to their performances — in some cases several weeks after the recordings — but the snag is that a three-minute performance by twenty instrumentalists or singers can take up to six hours to compile. If it is the case that the pupils became overnight recording stars, the music staff certainly became overnight record producers — and Music Technology became, by necessity, every music teacher’s specialism.

Probably the biggest issue arose with those pupils who, whether ordinarily playing an instrument at near beginner level, or perhaps singing happily amongst eighty or so other singers, suddenly found themselves without anybody else to lead and encourage them, and therefore became initially reluctant to record. The solution was to provide ‘guide tracks’ — fresh recordings of the music by the teacher-conductor, with the pupil’s instrumental or vocal part played onto the recording at an audibly greater volume. And then there were also the ‘conducting videos’ - short videos made by the music staff of themselves conducting the recordings - so that the pupils were able to follow the beat and get one step closer to the real experience (yet with the ability to rewind several times and have second, third and even fourth attempts at recording the music). That process became faster for the teachers every bit as much as it did for the pupils but, certainly in the earliest days, making a video that involved animatedly conducting an empty space at home was certainly extraordinary — and the number of re-takes and renewed attempts at the videos probably reflected the identical number of re-takes that the pupils were creating on their instrument or voice.

Early this month, the end-of-year celebrations known as ‘Commem’ – like all academic lessons, music lessons, and even Sports Day – had to be ‘virtual’. Countless hours went into the production of performances for the annual Gala Concert (which is available for viewing on Facebook and YouTube) by the chamber orchestra, swing band, chamber music trios, wind band, barbershop and close harmony – all of which started and ended their performances remotely, at home, individually, and probably in their third or fourth version when emailed.

And so, to the future. Churches have not yet reopened fully, and it looks as if singing is not going to be permitted for a while yet — so the Abbey Choir will continue to individually record music for the online services on YouTube. When ‘normal’ does eventually resume — and the hope is that by September all of the boarding pupils will return — it is perfectly possible that we may well retain some of the musical practices that we have established online. For example, if our lead trumpeter and future Head of School, Jonathan Post, finds himself unable to attend a rehearsal because he is away with a rugby team or perhaps attending a university interview, rather than miss the rehearsal altogether — which would have had to be the case throughout history — he will be able to catch up online at some other time in the day or evening. It will be more work for the teachers and the musical-directors because rehearsals — quite possibly like lessons — will always need to be recreated in the ‘virtual world’, or at the very least will always need to be recorded, but the advantages are obvious and they hugely override the disadvantages. ‘May I please miss next week’s rehearsal?’ could well become ‘May I please attend the online rehearsal over the weekend?’

PLACES AVAILABLE FOR SEPTEMBER

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DESIGNER

We are all ready to take on the glamorous world again Weddings may be smaller but they’re back on!

We are taking bookings now for reinstated events in August and September, with a great new collection and fantastic hats to compliment

We are all prepared for fittings. We will ask you to bring a mask, and if not we will provide one. We have adjusted studio space to allow for social distancing and fittings.

We are also taking bookings now for weddings that have been postponed until next year, and we are booking as far ahead as June 2021.

Don’t forget we still have our wonderful linen tops, palazzos and amazing jeans!

We look forward to welcoming you back safely With Best Wishes from all at Perri Ashby

Half Moon Street, Sherborne l www.perriashby.co.uk 01935 812927 l perriashby@aol.com