There was a TV show called 'How It Is' broadcast around teatime on UK tv in the late sixties. John Peel the influential DJ was involved in presenting some shows, although it could have been in the second series which was shown later and called 'How Late It Is'. Anyway, one of them featured a brief floorshow from some artists dressed like public schoolboys, complete with boaters, and singing a song called 'We Were Happy There'. I was quite taken with it, but it was a few years later that I found my first copy of this album from which the song was taken.It feels like a show, but whether it was ever performed or only appeared as this record I haven't been able to find out. The record is a mix of songs written by Carl Davis, who went on to be a prominent composer, and George Howe, who doesn't seem to have left a trail, and readings of poems and prose extracts by John Gielgud, the well known actor of the time.
This never seems to get mentioned in articles about Davis and has never been released since in any form.
I made this rip a few years ago and there is a little hum and a few pops, but not enough to spoil it too much. I now have an unplayed copy and may do another rip sometime but, meanwhile, I hope you enjoy this extremely rare recording.
Download
'We Were Happy There' was a spin-off from the stage play 'Forty years On' by Alan Bennett first perofrmed in about 1968. The stage play was a satire about Britain in the 20th Century which used a public school, Albion House, as a metaphor for Britain in the 1960s. The retiring headmaster (played by John Gielgud) is handing over to a new young master (Paul Eddington, later to star in 'The Good Life' and 'Yes! Minister') and they symbolise the transition from the old Tory party of Macmillan and Home to the Labour government of Harold Wilson. The play was revived in the late 1980s with Paul Eddington taking the Gielgud part. George Howe played one of the Sixth Formers in the original production and Carl Davis was the Musical Director amd the album was the result of backstage jamming in between rehearsals.
ReplyDeleteAs a teenager I bought the album after I heard an article about it on the BBC Radio 4 programme 'Today' which was then fronted by Jack De Manio. I recall it cost 30 shillings (£1.50)and I bought it in a record shop in Inverness, Scotland while on holiday with my parents. I played the First World War section as part of a house assembly at my school on Remembrance Day together with Country Joe and The Fish's 'Feel Like I'm Fixing To Die' anti-Vietnam War protest song from the Woodstock album and was beaten by my house-master for disrespect!
My original copy disappeared with one of my ex-girlfriends and I've never seen it in a British second-hand record shop but a couple of years ago I bought the American release that you have pictured on Ebay and it's still as fresh as the first time I heard it. The British edition included an insert sheet with an article by Alan Bennett which is in the American version but the reverse of the sheet included pictures and a short biography of, amongst others, George Howe and Carl Davis, but in the American release this side has been replaced by a black and white version of the album's front cover.
I saw 'Forty Years On' as a sixth-former in Bristol in about 1970 and together with 'Oh What A Lovely War' and the film 'If' it was responsible for my career path which led me to become a university drama lecturer. I'm in the process of using Microsoft Movie Maker to attach videos and images to the album soundtrack and may publish it on YouTube or the like, but it was great to find someone else who knows the album.
Ed Lewis
Here's person number three who remembers this album. I listened to it obsessively as a boy on Long Island (New York) in the 70s. My dad had picked it up as what in the States, at least, we called a cut-out--that is, a remainder. I guess it's possible that he bought it in the U.S., but I have this memory of our finding really cheap LP's at the local supermarket in London circa 1972. Hm. I guess it must have been the U.S. version, since it was Decca and didn't have the photos that Ed Lewis mentioned. Maybe he got it really cheap at Sam Goody's.
ReplyDeleteThis was the closest thing to a rock album I had until I bought a used copy of "Abbey Road" at the distressingly late age of 12, in 1978. There are one or two songs in the rock idiom, but lots of pastiches of other twentieth-century styles. Also, it might be noted that Gielgud reads passages from, among others, the historian A. J. P. Taylor. I still get a thrill reading certain passages from Taylor because I can recall Gielgud's delivery, building up to a song.
I'm so grateful to Smordina for posting this (I imagine my mom still has the LP, but I'm not in the vinyl world at the moment)--and to Ed Lewis for telling me that Alan Bennett, whom I'm now a huge fan of but who, as a boy, I didn't know from Adam, was the author of the play. I'll be ordering it ASAP.
(And I'm glad to see that "Oh What a Lovely War" is finally on DVD. It was unavailable when last I checked, a few years ago.)
Uh, is there a passphrase to open this rar file? Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the interesting comments! Password for all downloads is iwantedtoseeangels.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteGeorge Howe is the real name of George Fenton who switched from acting to composing. Google him - he wrote the scores for Gandhi, Shadowlands, The History Boys, The Madness of King George, (both of these also by Alan Bennett), Memphis Belle, The Fisher King, Groundhog Day, The wind That Shakes The Barley and loads more. There are mentions of him in both of Alan Bennett's books of memoirs, "Writing Home" and "Untold Stories". In the first Bennett tells of hearing the final and title song on the album sung to him by Fenton (Howe) and Anthony Andrews while in Manchester in 1968 during the preview run of "40 Years On". Anthony Andrews went on, of course, to play Sebastain Flyte in the Granada Televison production of "Brideshead Revisited". I often wonder if we can hear Andrews' voice harmonising with Fenton's on the record - no other singers or musicians are credited on my MCA copy of the record. If anyone has a scan of the oriinal British insert I'd be most grateful for a copy.
ReplyDeleteJohn McCartney (johnjamesmccartney@gmail.com)
Is it possible that the password has changed? I tried iwantedtoseeangels.blogspot.com , but was told this was incorrect. Many thanks.
ReplyDeleteI was there when the song, ' we were happy there'
ReplyDeletewas created, late at night in a house on Dickinson Road, Manchester, where some of us boys in the cast of 40 years on were lodging, George, myself (Roger), Colin (Reese) Andrew (Branch)
Anthony (Andrews), that would have been late 1968,
George went on to create the album, also released 'Maxwells Silver Hammer' as a single
and currently in Australia, conducting the Blue Planet and Planet Earth in Sydney with my sister in the orchestra
happy memories of that period, great people and a lot of fun
I bought the US LP as a cut-out in 1969 or 1970 and fell in love with it. Fortunately I still have it, and bring it out occasionally to enjoy it again. The MP3 file above is apparently no longer there, but I'd love to have it. Are there any links still extant? I do think this would make a marvelous short stage musical.
ReplyDeleteBought on a whim in 1968 or 69, loved it, lost it, found it again last year. Still love it.
ReplyDelete