Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Just watched The Guns of Navarone, does anyone else remember the special treat (!) of being allowed to watch this in the school hall at Hertford?
I also have vague memory of having an abridged version of Tess of The D'Urbervilles read to us whilst we had to do something worthy like sewing. It seemed a strange book to choose, because having removed anything considered unsuitable for eleven year olds automatically rendered the story line unintelligible.

You are a year younger than I am but I remember Tess of the Dooby Doos (this year's A level text BTW) read by DR, or perhaps Fanny if you were in 2's.

Welcome to the forum, check it all out as there is a thread called Hertford Memories which is full of stuff like this.

daffers wrote:does anyone else remember the special treat (!) of being allowed to watch this in the school hall at Hertford?

Yes - we watched Grease in the school hall back in 1981/1982

englishangel wrote:Tess of the Dooby Doos (this year's A level text BTW)

I did it for A level too in 1988. Have to say I loved it - was a million times better than one of the other books we had to do - Bleak House. We were told we should read it at least twice but I only just managed to read it once.

Tess of the dooby doos, thats great! I have no idea why but it has me chuckling away.

Thank you for the welcome, as you have noticed it's taken me a year to actually post something (and almost as long to work out how to reduce an image to the avatar size)
I don't understand what to do if you change the content of your post. For example I am seeing someone next week who is going to sit the CH exam and I wanted to be able to tell her what you can take to school if she gets in, as in personal objects (we were only allowed five objects on our locker tops and one teddy bear, which incidentally had it's pads slashed!) Also any other stuff that would be important to an eleven year old.
I can't remember much about 2's although Fanny does strike some distant chord, was she slim and scary with glasses? Looking back I don't think we had much interaction with other houses although I did have a friend in 2's called Catherine Lennox (Lenny) I think she came from Morpeth and left before sixth form.

Should that have been three different posts?

Forgot to attach signature

daffers wrote:Thank you for the welcome, as you have noticed it's taken me a year to actually post something (and almost as long to work out how to reduce an image to the avatar size)
I don't understand what to do if you change the content of your post. For example I am seeing someone next week who is going to sit the CH exam and I wanted to be able to tell her what you can take to school if she gets in, as in personal objects (we were only allowed five objects on our locker tops and one teddy bear, which incidentally had it's pads slashed!) Also any other stuff that would be important to an eleven year old.
I can't remember much about 2's although Fanny does strike some distant chord, was she slim and scary with glasses? Looking back I don't think we had much interaction with other houses although I did have a friend in 2's called Catherine Lennox (Lenny) I think she came from Morpeth and left before sixth form.

Should that have been three different posts?

That's the woman. Catherine Lennox was the year below me in 2's, along with Pat, Sheila, Linda, and Amanda

The first school film I saw was the original version of Oliver. It was so old I was sure that they had dubbed a silent movie.
I also remember the Italian Job being a school film. I don't remember many others though.

They can't have been that good

Scone Lover wrote:The first school film I saw was the original version of Oliver. It was so old I was sure that they had dubbed a silent movie.
I also remember the Italian Job being a school film. I don't remember many others though.

They can't have been that good

Grease?? The Italian Job????????????????? The latter, incidently, being one of my all time favourites. I love the closing scene, where Michael Caine, refusing to give up hope, shouts 'Wait! I've got an idea'. Reminds me of my Nan, who would always say 'Now, Caroline, there is no such word as 'can't'.

Back to topic: I remember that we were shown Romeo and Juliet. Some ancient version with Olivier?. Years before the Polanski version.
Anyway, the reel containing the bedroom scene was not shown

School films at Horsham were in Big School when I started. Focus was often a problem, as were blown projector bulbs and other "pauses". They could also be hard to hear clearly. Things improved with the building of the Theater, with it's brand new projector and better sound. Settin g up for a film was then a quick thing to do (baring one of DNP's specials already being set up in the place). This allowed for a variety of films to be shown, from school films to Grecian's films (and did the Art's Centre also have some as a film club for outsiders to come to??), some of these were more advanced....

AndrewH wrote:Settin g up for a film was then a quick thing to do (baring one of DNP's specials

Golly! .... that must have been quite something!

I well remember the Saturday 'treats' of films in Big School.

On a slightly different note, but not really going off topic, when I was at Horsham, D.H. Lawrence's "Lady Chatterly" was enduring its famous obscenity case in the Law courts.

I seem to remember that when the case was thrown out and the book deemed a classic and not worthy of censorship, (quite rightly so), it was IMPLIED that any student found with an unexpurgated (?) copy would experience the wrath of the school.

Our Illustrious OB editor, (JH), might be able to shed some light, as we were there together at the time !

J.R. wrote:I well remember the Saturday 'treats' of films in Big School.

On a slightly different note, but not really going off topic, when I was at Horsham, D.H. Lawrence's "Lady Chatterly" was enduring its famous obscenity case in the Law courts.

"Women in Love" was shown in the theater at one point, can't remember who the intended audience was though (Grecians, Arts Centre??)

The one that still sticks in my mind was "Little Lord Fauntleroy". It was silent, but only because the sound track bit broke after the first 10 minutes. We had to sit through 2 reels (no high falutin' twin projectors for Hertford in those days) an d God help any poor girl who giggled or actually dared to SPEAK. I must admit there was a lot of whispering, and our version of the dialogue was probably more interesting!