An operatic education

sir – In the 1960s I went to a very eccentric prep school run by two brothers and their sister.

On Thursday evenings the younger brother, who was the more artistic, played operas to a number of the boys on his Pye Black Box gramophone (Letters, January 21). We were given the libretti and scores to follow. This took place in a splendidly decorated drawing room, and before we entered our hands were inspected to make sure they weren’t sticky.

This gave me a lifelong love and knowledge of opera. However, the biscuits we were given after the music had finished were the real incentive for attending at the time.

Simon Playle

London SW6

sir – At Merchant Taylors’ School in the early 1980s, the organist frequently played Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor as assembly started.

So familiar were the boys with this that on occasion the entire school would hum along as the masters looked on furiously.

Dr Mark Rookledge

Hellidon, Northamptonshire

sir – At Putney High School we had weekly singing classes, working our way through the Oxford Song Book.

Early in my first term I was told not to join in, as my voice “spoilt the harmony”. Sixty years on I can still recite the words but cannot sing them. Erica Barrett

Buckingham