School Matters 36

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The third and final tour was from Mari, the Cathedral Librarian. We started in the Thomas à Becket chapel and learned that two pilgrimages to St Davids were equivalent to one to Rome, and three was equivalent to a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. We then explored the cathedral treasury, before ascending a treacherous spiral staircase to the oldest ecclesiastical library in Wales. There, we were able to view and handle original copies of Thomas Tomkins’s music. The next day, we returned to the adventure centre for coasteering. Coasteering is the frankly mad cross between swimming, rock climbing, tombstoning and cliff-diving, and our excursion proved to be a truly formative lesson in resilience. A popular refrain in the build-up to the activity was “I can’t do...” or “I’m scared of...”. All pupils pushed themselves to do things of which they genuinely did not believe that they would be capable, whether that was

havoc and attempt to teach our motley crew some traditional dancing. The band was led by a delightful, if chaotic, caller called Julian, who seemed only to give instructions in riddles. It was hilarious fun and left the pupils begging for sleep come 10.30pm. At our final rehearsal we were able to get a head start on the repertoire for the upcoming Autumn Concert. We tackled an arrangement of the famous Welsh folk song, ‘Calon Lan’ . While the choir took to the melody very quickly, the Welsh text presented more of a challenge. We quickly polished the lyrics as best we could and made a recording for posterity. The pupils were fantastic company, and dealt marvellously with all musical, logistical, and aquatic challenges. Thank you to our hosts, our partners, our instructors, to my exceptional colleagues, Mr Walker, Mr Gorrie, Mr Price, Ms Sanderson and Miss Bennison, and an especial thank you to the pupils who made this tour a truly happy and hilarious one. Mr James Bartlett, Director of Music

sight once past the gatehouse and into the valley. We were exceptionally lucky to have been given the run of the cathedral for the afternoon, starting with a 30-minute recital in the Nave, then dividing into three groups for a carousel of tours. The cathedral’s Education Officer, Janet Ingram, took the first group around the building, enjoying showing off the nave, the quire, the organ, the font, and the high altar. It was an interactive tour which combined an appreciation for celtic misericords with aspects of scavenger hunts and escape rooms. Genuinely fascinating and engaging. The second tour involved an introduction to medieval plainsong and psalmody from the cathedral’s choral scholars. Pupil tackled a responsorial Nunc Dimittis and encountered the music of Thomas Tomkins, a renaissance composer who had come from St Davids, and original copies of whose music reside in the cathedral.

somersaulting off a stack of rocks, or simply getting into the water. We were ably supported by expert guides, who were able to provide extra instruction in matters such as marine biology, conservation and foraging. After a jaunt to the Victorian seaside town of Tenby, our final evening activity was a Twmpath: a kind of Welsh ceilidh. We welcomed a four-piece band to wreak