Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Horsham in the fifties allowed one bath a week, though showers after sports were common. Truth is, that was probably more than I got at home. The building I lived in had just one bath for four flats, in an unheated room, so not much incentive in the winter. I agree, I just accepted everything as nor...

“I still dislike most meat but enjoy bacon for breakfast.” Ahhh, bacon: the gateway drug for vegans and vegetarians.

Tunnel running (crawling) was a lot of fun. I think we found all the accessible areas others have mentioned, plus there were a couple of storage rooms that were full of junk. As it happened, many years later I worked at The Rockefeller University in NYC, and it also had an extensive tunnel system an...

As others have pointed out, in the 50s sports were elevated to an almost religious level. So, for people like me, it didn't work out so well. I was the classic 'weed': I couldn't run, had no coordination, was very weak and really disliked getting hit. So, it quickly became apparent that I was of no ...

I would point out that ‘jargon’, academic or otherwise; is usually intended for internal use by a group that often use it either as shorthand for a complex concept or as a precise term. As such, jargon often becomes abused and misunderstood when used outside its intended area. As a geneticist I am a...

My brother-in-law is an avid ham radio user and wonders if David WICKS (born 1953) was at CH, and maybe active in signals. If anyone from the 64-71 era recognizes the name.

We have device that learns spam numbers and blocks them (including entire county and area codes)

My view is almost identical to Michael's above. Our CH dates being very similar. There was only one master who ever raised a slight suspicion in my mind. His name hasn't appeared on these threads, so I won't elaborate. . Also in the same time period. I certainly was unaware of any 'goings on', but ...

The fagging system is quite similar to the "prison bitch" system. Once you strip away all the pretentious layers of "culture" and "tradition", you realize there isn't much difference, it's all mindless and brutal protection rackets and petty psychological tricks. I was a swab for 5 terms and did it...

Were there cases of senior boys who, for whatever reason, were never appointed as a monitor?

Here in Connecticut we are in the second week of 85-95 degree days, over 10 inches of rain and a minor tornado. Heading to Vancouver Island for a couple of weeks to cool off though probably not dry off.

I don’t remember any phones. On the other hand no family had a phone at home, so it was no loss.

By heck, when I were a lad doing Maths A level with Ivor McConnell, there was an arrangement with Imperial College who allowed us computer time. We could write programs in something called Fortran 4 and put them onto punchcards using a small bodkin to push out perforated chads. The cards would go o...

We suffered (Oh, how we suffered!) with attempts at home-made beer and wine; even distilled liquors. We had neither the money or opportunity to buy the real stuff. Probably my worst memory was a ginger-infused concoction that was the accompaniment to a wild mushroom and bird egg omelet, cooked in a ...

This has probably been covered before but here we go. Talking to JR on Friday, he is a throwback to the old prep days whereas I was a pupil of the 70s. When I started boys usually joined at 11 and went through to 18. The first three years were spent at the junior end (11-14) and the rest of the tim...