Headmaster, Dean, Governors, Members and Staff of the School,
May I first thank you for inviting me as your guest today and for the way in which you have sung these marvellous Harrow songs. Many of them have long been known to me and have been hummed and sung in my family [often, untunefully, in the bath]. Even that treatment has not reduced my affection for many of the songs you have chosen today.
When Sir Winston visited Harrow on 18 December 1940 for the first of these performances of the Harrow songs, he mentioned that Hitler had described the war as being between those who had been through the Adloph Hitler schools and those who had been at Eton. Sir Winston continued: “Hitler has forgotten Harrow” .
I doubt whether Hitler ever knew of the extent to which Churchill was cheered and strengthened by his annual visits to Harrow, and by the spirit with which the boys of Harrow at that time sang these songs to him in the darkest days of the war.
When I first entered the House of Commons in 1959, Churchill was still a member—by that time no longer Prime Minister a small, rather hunched figure and yet one who overshadowed us all.
When he voted in the division lobbies and passed the tellers who were counting the votes, he would always say his name loudly and firmly. Not because it was necessary—he was unmistakable—but because, great Constitutionalist as he was—he would never take Parliament for granted. [end p1]
I was in the House on the day when he left it for the last time. As he passed from the Chamber, supported by two friends, he turned at the door, paused for a moment, bowed to the Chair and then he was gone. And we all felt a loss that was irreparable.
It is now 18 years since Churchill died—almost exactly the lifetime of the oldest boy now in this school. You are the first post-Churchill generation.
Even in that time the world has changed enormously at Harrow and in the world outside. How novel would be to Churchill the emphasis on computers, on language laboratories on the video resources centre which I understand that you have recently opened at Harrow.
When Churchill was a boy here, he was not given the choice of subjects which is available here today. What, I wonder, would he have chosen for his 3 A levels—assuming that he had got that far which, as his biography shows, is by no means certain? He was what is popularly called a “late developer” .
I am sure that he would have chosen a science, for he recognised science as the key to the future. He was fascinated by the question of how scientific developments would be used to improve the lot of the human race without destroying or enslaving it. It is astonishing to recall that, without any training scientific, he predicted as early as the 1920s the development of the atomic bomb. [end p2]
I think that he would also have chosen history, for his later life showed his fascination with it. He would have subscribed to Napoleon 's dictum: “Above all let my son read history: it is the only true philosophy.”
And he would certainly have chosen English. He himself recalled how, under the tuition of his Harrow teacher, Mr Somervell, he got into his bones “the essential structure of the ordinary English sentence—which is a noble thing” . He said in later life: “Naturally I am biased in favour of boys learning English. I would make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honour and Greek as a treat. But the only thing I would whip them for is not knowing English.”
How Mr Somervell would have rejoiced if he had known to what effect Churchill was to mobilise his early training in the English language and send it to war in the cause of freedom so many years later. What an example of a seed sown by a good teacher bearing fruit a thousand fold.
But whatever has changed in the teaching available at Harrow, Churchill would have rejoiced in the survival of these Harrow songs, which he himself described as “Harrow's greatest treasure” . And he would have done so, as we do today, because they embody values and qualities which have not lost their validity and should not do so—the sense of a long and continuous history; of pride in tradition; of determination not to be awed by the achievements of past generations but to match and, if possible, surpass them. [end p3]
In the last ten days, I have been in the country of another Harrovian statesman to whom the Harrow song meant a great deal—Pandit Nehru, the pioneer and first Prime Minister of independent India. According to his biography he used to sing the Harrow School songs with younger members of his family. I have not asked her but I am sure that his daughter, the present Prime Minister of India, Mrs Gandhi, must have been familiar with them.
While I was in India I reflected that, including Nehru, I know of eight Harrovian Prime Ministers—seven British, one Indian. You can now add to that one Prime Minister who is the mother of an old Harrovian—me—and one Prime Minister who is the daughter of an Harrovian—Mrs Gandhi. However Harrow's record compares with Eton's in producing male Prime Ministers, it is certainly well ahead in its links with female Prime Ministers.
There must be a lesson in this for aspiring politicians—certainly if you're a woman. If you cannot actually go to Harrow yourself—and I gather that you do now include one or two girls—you had better make sure that your father or son comes here.
As for male politicians—well, I am sure that Harrow will produce some more Prime Ministers if and when male Prime Ministers come into fashion again. [end p4]
So thanking you for this concert of Harrow songs, it has been a splendid refreshment between debating with the Commonwealth leaders in Delhi and the struggles which we will have with the heads of the European countries in Athens on Monday and Tuesday.
These are good songs. They have lovely tunes and the words contain ideas which do not grow out of date. They tell us to be proud of our traditions and history but not to rest upon them. They encourage us to reflect on the qualities which made our past achievements possible and to draw strength and confidence from them to tackle the problems of today and tomorrow with vision and resolution.
That, I believe, is the spirit in which Churchill faced the challenges of his time. They apply today. And I have no doubt that they will still apply when the present generation of Harrovians has to tackle the challenges of tomorrow.