Dippy

Today

On Facebook yesterday Becky had posted some pictures of a day trip to the Natural History Museum. "What a wonderful building this is!" I enthused. Just to walk in the doors inspires awe and wonder which primes you for the natural wonders you are about to see.

In My Day


Visits to the Cromwell Road museums were a regular part of my childhood and something that I continued as long as I lived in London. The amazing displays and fascinating collections never lost their wonders and it seemed as though  the possibilities were inexhaustible.  

My last visit to the NHM was for a rather different reason. One of our regular conductors in the Laetare Singers was a man named John Thackray. He was with the group from 1986 and always brought new insights to our music. He had, I always felt, a dancing spirit and would sometimes do the morning warm-up at Cropthorne by having us walk around the lawns singing "The Silver Swan" without music, and another time he had a small group of us serenade the others at the start of dinner with Tallis's "Non Nobis Domine" as grace.

So, it was with sadness that we heard of his death, aged only fifty, from cancer back in 1999. Soon after, his widow asked us to take part in a memorial performance of the Brahms Requiem. This was to be performed at the Natural History Museum, where, we learnt, John had been chief archivist for many years, as well as president of the Society for the History of Natural History. 

We joined forces with other musical groups with which he'd been involved. After a long rehearsal in a church in Prince Consort Road we performed to a selected audience in the great hall at the museum. What an amazing way to be remembered!

The choir was arranged on the stairs at the back with orchestra and soloists in front and the music echoed dramatically among the great Byzantine arches. The audience sat in the main part on either side of the great diplodocus (Dippy), who, I hope, found the work uplifting.

Earlier this year the NHM announced that Dippy had to go, to be replaced by a blue whale skeleton. Dippy, however, is still there, because, it would appear from browsing the museum website, that they can't find another museum big enough who'll give him houseroom!