However, the singing this term has not been limited to chapel and the touch line. The well-being and community benefits of singing are widely recognised. We have tried to capture these benefits by increasing the number of opportunities for the school to sing together. A whole school rehearsal of the school song Floreat Domus led by Mr Mann our new Director of Music, the Year 7 massed choir in the Gala Concert at Butterworth Hall, and most recently the whole school singing Amazing Grace in last week’s assembly.

There are over 3,000 known recordings of Amazing Grace, artists including Johnny Cash, Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, Elvis Presley and Diana Ross have recorded their own interpretations. The hymn was sung at the funeral of Ronald Reagen and the inauguration of Bill Clinton. By one estimate it is sung in public 10 million times every year. It was introduced to the school by Head of History Mr O’Brien (to whom this blog owes a heavy debt) retelling the remarkable story of the life of its writer John Newton.

Amazing Grace is song about redemption and forgiveness inspired by slavery. Slavery may be an historic crime but Britain’s role within it and our modern-day response permeates our politics and in October was placed front and centre following the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa. There are no simple answers to this debate, but an exploration of the life of Newton and Amazing Grace feels particularly pertinent in this context.

Newton’s mother died young, and his sailor father was absent for large parts of his formative years. This tough childhood undoubtedly contributed to his disagreeable nature. Newton was a moaner, rude and argumentative. He was capable of being so unpleasant that having followed his father’s footsteps to a life at sea he was marooned on the coast of Africa by his shipmates and enslaved by the man he was supposed to be working for. He was starved and manacled and chained up in the hot African sun as a punishment. Once he was freed Newton set himself up as a slave agent purchasing enslaved peoples in the interior and bringing them to the coast.  He enjoyed the wealth and power this lifestyle afforded. He was licentious and revelled in the drinking and the parties, and even indulged in witchcraft.

Evetually Newton boarded a ship home but one morning during the year long journey the ship was caught in a brutal storm off the coast of Ireland. Sure, he would die Newton had his damascene conversion.

Whilst this moment marked his spiritual conversion, back in England and in need of a job Newton took a position as the captain of a slave ship. A decision that to our 21^st century eyes seem at odds with his newfound Christian faith, but in 1750 the horror of buying and selling people as property was barely even a moral consideration.

Newton continued trading in slaves until 1754 or 1755 when at the age of 40 he has travelled half the world, been both a slave and a slaver and has committed acts which today would undoubtedly be considered crimes.

Fast forward to December 1772, John Newton is now a member of the Anglican clergy, and he writes the hymn Amazing Grace as a deeply personal cry of thanks for his own redemption from darkness. The hymn goes on to become one of the anthems of the civil rights movement in the mid-20^th century.

That an anthem of the civil rights movement was written by a slave trader seems deeply ironic, but Newton’s story does not end in 1755. Newton does not simply write about the possibility of forgiveness through the grace of God, he commits to redeeming himself for his past actions and begins working to bring about an end to slavery.

In 1785 Newton meets the 26-year-old William Wilberforce, MP. A man he would go on to mentor, guide and become friends with. Wilberforce is a committed abolitionist who for the next 22 years leads the battle to abolish slavery. In 1796 he was close to achieving his goal, when his bill lost by 17 votes in the House of Commons. At this point, Wilberforce was ready to give up. It was now that Newton made his great intervention in the story of abolition. Wilberforce was at a low ebb, ready to give up. Newton gave him private encouragement and then emerged as a public campaigner for abolition. Newton used his popularity and ability as a speaker to further the cause of abolition. He denounced the moral corruption that he himself experienced as a slave trader. He sent a copy of his Thoughts on the slave trade to every Member of Parliament. He was also completely honest. Recounting the butcheries and atrocities of the slave trade. In doing so he drove forward the cause of abolition. Nine months before his death at the age of 82 the slave trade was abolished.

John Newton’s story is remarkable. A sailor, who became enslaved himself, then became a slave trader before finishing his career as a radical abolitionist. His life asks a pertinent question, do Newton’s actions as an abolitionist, which undoubtedly help to bring about an end to slavery, redeem his earlier sins?

And this is not just his story. This is the story of our nation, whose wealth is partly built on imperialism and slavery. It is also the story of our school. One of our six houses is named after the Greville family. One of the Grevilles, owned two slave plantations. But another of the Grevilles was intimately involved in the abolitionist movement.

It is also a question particularly pertinent to this time of year. The Bible is packed with redemption stories. In fact, it is possible to argue that the entire Bible is a redemption story about the broken relationship between God and humankind. The cycle of redemption happens over and over in the growth of the Israelite nation, and then in the New Testament, in which Christians believe that Christ redeemed us all by his sacrifice.

This is a difficult question, to which there are no definitive answers but what is certain to my mind is that redemption and forgiveness require a recognition of past sins and a commitment to making good the ill consequences of these actions. This applies to current debate about slavery, just as it applies to the life of John Newton and our own more personal short comings. The exact nature of these redemptive actions remains a topic for debate but at Christmas when we come together to celebrate a tail of redemption, like Newton let us at least acknowledge our responsibility to recognise the sins of the past and take action to build a better world.