The carol-singing at the Haberdashers’ School, Acton is an annual function always enjoyed by the girls themselves, and their parents and friends.
This extract from an article in Middlesex County Times of 15 December 1915 demonstrates how important the Carol Service has always been to our school throughout our 150 year history.
Habs Girls held its first ever Carol Service at St Martin-in-the-Fields on 15 December 1969 and has returned every year since, except for 2015 when the service was held in Prevett Hall due to the increased terrorist threat in London in the aftermath of the Bataclan terrorist attack in Paris. In 2020, a choir of seven and congregation of four came to St Martin’s for the Carol Service at the height of the COVID pandemic.
On Wednesday 18 December we again relocated to this famous church for our annual Carol Service – it is an occasion of which we are very proud and we thank St Martin-in-the-Fields for allowing us to continue this most special of school traditions.
The music at the service included traditional carols and choral items sung by St Catherine Singers, Senior Choir, Cantabile and Middle School Choir. Special items with a link to our history included Sir Richard Rodney Bennett’s Dormi Jesu, dedicated to Margaret Watts, who was Head of Music at Habs Girls from 1949 to 1969. Dormi Jesu was composed in 1963 and performed at the Carol Service in the same year. Liana Di Casale (OH 1965) remembered:
Thank you again to St Martin’s for hosting our service and we look forward to returning again next year.
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