Your appeal immediately brings to mind a concert for the Queen Mother the Rhodesian Senior Schools presented in the Bulawayo City Hall under the baton of Mr Sibson. It was the Royal visit for the opening of the Federation of Rhod & Nyasaland Exhibition held in Centenary Park – probably 1953. I do have the programme somewhere and will look up the details if you don’t have them, and are interested
As well as performing Morris/Scottish dances on stage the combined choirs sang a number of items, one of them a specially written anthem entitled RHODESIA – it began:
‘To thee Rhodesia on this day
Honour, glory pay….”
I don’t have the words unfortunately but can remember some of the very rousing tune. I attempted to research it at the time we were looking for an anthem for Independent Rhodesia but no-one seemed interested. I might say I think it would have been better than the ‘Ode to Joy’ thing we ended up with even tho’ we all became very attached to that and it still invokes a modicum of nostalgia.
We also did a rendering of Shenandoah – with Reg Furber (Milton – about 16 yrs old) doing an absolutely magnificent solo which brought the house down.
– JB