Curia

In his summing up Dr. Bunney observed that the singers seemed much happier in larger groups, attributing this to safety in numbers. He did, however, stress the importance of a cheerful face when singing a cheerful passage. In the unison songs, he said, the narrative made it essential for the singers to get the words over to the audience, and this made enunciation of the first importance here. Regarding the conducting, Dr. Bunney pointed out that a good conductor should have the score in his head, rather than his head in the score. The effect of good conducting was very noticeable, particularly in the unison songs. In his final assessment of the competition, Queen's was placed first with Temple a very close second.

In an account of such a competition, it is very easy to mention the mistakes made by each team in its own particular songs. Mistakes there were indeed, but the stress should really be on achievement, for the evening represented the climax of a very worthwhile effort by all Houses, winner and losers alike. Many members of the House teams had probably never sung in public before, and their efforts were valuable to them and enjoyable to the audience. In a concluding speech, the Head Master observed that there had been 141 boys taking part in the competition. He warmly thanked Dr. Bunney, not only for the adjudicating, but for the good advice he had given to the singers. E.S.J.

THE CURIA

At the usual preliminary meeting T. M. Jenkinson was elected Chairman, T. D. J. Layfield was elected Secretary, and J. A. Bygate was invited to become a member of the Society.

At the second meeting T. M. Jenkinson gave a talk on Switzerland, which he illustrated with eighty excellent colour slides. The beauty of the Swiss countryside was known to many of us, and this talk did full justice to it. At the same time the speaker amusingly embellished it with stories from his own experience of the holiday which the slides illustrated. After this Jenkinson gave us a short talk on Yarn.

The third meeting took the form of a visit to Linton Aerodrome. We saw the Vampire jet fighters, used by the Flying School there, and were given a demonstration of safety equipment. To round this meeting off, Lieutenant Madel, a pupil, gave us a talk on Aircraft Carriers. We must thank Flight Lieutenant Williams for making this enjoyable visit possible.

At the fourth meeting Mr. Hart gave us a talk on his interests in the sphere of Art. He explained how water-colour painting became his hobby, and showed us many excellent paintings, at the same time illustrating his talk with amusing anecdotes from his own experiences. We thank him very much for this interesting talk, and wish him well in the future in New Zealand.

Finally we thank the domestic staff for providing refreshments at our meetings. T.D.J.L. 41