Music in school

The highlight of my Infant's school time was taking part in a class percussion performance in a real theatre, where the audience, although shrouded in darkness applauded very loudly indeed, as we marched off the big stage. But I have no idea where this was. All I have is a vague memory of wearing my best green dress with the wide shiny sash, and having to travel by bus to get there, but that is all.
How I had longed to play one of the drums or even a nice jangly tambourine, but instead I was landed with the sticks. Yes, just sticks, which i had to hit together to make the required noise. I was so disappointed. And we had what seemed like absolutely hours of rehearsals too. Woe betide us if we dropped anything for we were not allowed to pick it up. Playing with two sticks was bad enough, but playing with one was well nigh impossible, so on one occasion, after the offending slippery stick had clattered on to the wooden floor, I just had to stand there, mute and incapacitated.
Our teacher at that time was a dark and lively lady with frilly petticoats and a foreign name beginningwith Z. Among other things she taught the 'top table' which was 'TheRoses' how to count in French up to six. It was quite easy, 'Under twa cat sank the sea' We chanted, giving our own slant on the unfamiliar French vowels and consonants. That would be my one and only encounter with foreign languages for the next six years, apart from sometimes hearing the Greek Cypriot kids who lived upstairs next door, rattle away in their own language. Societywas pretty homogeneous in those days, even in central London.
During my primary school time, there were two occasions where the person in charge had to give us all a little talking to before the child arrived, during which we were urged not to stare or make unkind remarks. The first time was when a little African girl arrived in our Brownie Pack. Her name was Bommie, or something like that, and we all found her tight curls and dark complexion absolutely fascinating. Actually, it didn't occur to us seven year olds to be unkind, but she was a novelty nevertheless.
The second time was years later, when an enormously fat girl was put in our class. I remember, she had a lovely singing voice, and she was one of the ten of us were chosen to take part in a Christmas Carol Concert. I enjoyed the rehearsals tremendously, and learned for the first time lovely carols like 'O come O come Emmanuel' and 'Il est ne, le petit enfant' (another brief flurry into French which I had forgotten about) But all these rehearsals involved walking about a mile down York Way to reach Kings Cross. Poor fat Rhona could not keep up. Perspiration would be running down her face and her breathing sounded positively alarming. I have forgotten what happened, but she only attempted the walk on that one occasion. Fat children were a rarity in those days. Rhona was by far the fattest in the school, and the cleverest, I hasten to add. She could beat us all hand down in every subject except anything which involved physical activity. But unfortunately, she was too young to take the eleven plus with the rest of us so she had to stay down a year. I didn't really hear much about her after that.