The Battle Song of St. Trinians - updated

YouTube link. 

After watching one of the original St. Trinians movies I could NOT get the theme song out of my head, and thought perhaps if I post it here and someone else will listen to it, it might jump into your head and out of mine.

Maidens of St Trinian's, gird your armour on.

Grab the nearest weapon; never mind which one.

The battle's to the strongest; might is always right.

Trample on the weakest; glory in their plight.

St Trinian's! St Trinian's! Our battle cry.

St Trinian's! St Trinian's! Will never die.

Stride towards your fortune boldly on your way,

Never once forgetting there's one born every day.

Let our motto be broadcast: "get your blow in first!"

She who draws the sword last always comes off worst.

Reposted from 2010 to commemorate the recent death of Ronald Searle, who created the iconic illustrations of St. Trinian's.

The first two or three films from the 1950s and 60s, starring Alastair Sim, Joyce Grenfell, and George Cole, were memorable components of my childhood cinema education (the later remakes were eminently forgettable). Cartoon via Fictions.  Ronald Searle tribute blog here.

Addendum:  Reblogged from 2012 because of a report in The Telegraph that the school which served as the inspiration for St. Trinian's will now be admitting... boys.

From 2014, they will be allowed at Perse Girls' junior school, part of the Stephen Perse Foundation - a group of independent schools in Cambridge...

The new system will see girls and boys aged 10 to 16 taught alongside each other in creative subjects and sports but separately in other lessons. They will however, also share facilities such as libraries and eating areas.

Tricia Kelleher, principal of the foundation, said this would allow the school to "remain true to its single sex roots" while at the same time, embracing the "best of all worlds".

She said the move was in response to requests from parents and would go some of the way to redressing the deficit of places for boys in Cambridge schools, adding it was not fair that girls "should have all the fun"...

Mr Searle, a sketch artist for the Cambridge Daily News, now the Cambridge News, said that as a teenager attending Boys' Central School in Cambridge, he would see the girls on the way home from school. 

In a letter to the school he said Perse Girls was a "positive source of inspiration" and added: "But I hope the school won't hold that against me, so many years after the crime." 

I don't dare play the video this morning, or else I'll have an earworm all day.