'MEN OF BRITAIN, HEIRS OF GLORY' op.237 (October 1976)

Published by: Highbridge Music Ltd
Commissioned by: Chappells
Instrumentation: Tenor, chorus and orchestra

[Key to Abbreviations]
Note on Lyrics: Shelley(Lloyd Fonville - see note)
Duration: 5 mins

Notes

 Howard was  commissioned to write a 'patriotic song', suitable to the times, for a concert to be given by young people in the presence of  Her Majesty the Queen on the occasion her 25th Jubilee, April 1977.

There was not much time to create it and the song was, perhaps rather belatedly, submitted to conductor Sir David Willcocks for approval, and in the event it was not accepted and therefore not performed. 

However, six years later, in 1983, Howard was working in the Chateau Marmont, Hollywood on an 'all-American' re-write of the score of the military film 'The Lords of Discipline'. It was directed by Frank Roddam and produced by Jeff Katzenberg for Paramount. He was requested, in a very short time, to produce what would sound like a patriotic school song. For this he was introduced to the screenwriter of the movie, writer Lloyd Fonville, to whom he played the melody of 'Heirs of Britain'.  Lloyd was delighted to put his own words to it, súitable as a school-song for what was meant to be The Citadel, a military school in South Carolina. Lloyd wrote a lyric starting: 'Carolina keep us faithful' which was sung complete in the film by the entire cast of military students in the hallowed precincts of the old school hall.

Lyrics

(excerpt from the lyric)
'Men of Britain heirs of glory
Heroes of unwritten story
Children of one mighty mother
Hopes of her and one another
Rise like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number
Shake your chains to earth like dew
We are many - they are few.'

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