Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

No - not the name of a band.

I was wondering whether any of you ever ventured into the seldom-visited lofts of the old houseblocks at CH Horsham. I was always rather amazed by the fact that whilst Tubing was relatively commonplace, exploring the lofts was apparently unknown.

Standing on someone's shoulders, I once raised the loft hatch in my junior house (which I think was situated in the ceiling of the top landing of the fire stairs) and stared in.....I remember a general gloom penetrated by slivers of light (from airbricks?) and some serious Hollywood-gothic cobwebs that would've done the Munsters fine.

Did anyone ever venture further? If so, did they fall through the loft floor into the dormitories.....or were the lofts boarded? If boarded, were they used for storage ever? Or indeed for anything at all? (I'm guessing the height of the Water Tower was such that no water tanks existed in the houseblock lofts.)

And were there mountains of bat guano up there?

Anyone?

Chrissie Boy wrote: I was wondering whether any of you ever ventured into the seldom-visited lofts of the old houseblocks at CH Horsham. I was always rather amazed by the fact that whilst Tubing was relatively commonplace, exploring the lofts was apparently unknown.

General's Inspection (of the CCF), Summer 1960 and 1961. Our unit's demonstration for the inspecting officer was lowering a casualty from a height down to earth. (Casualty was tied onto a stretcher and a "rescuer" had to go down with him to guide the stretcher).

This was done from the roof of the main stairs of Lamb A (down the outside of the building) with access from the loft. Being downstairs with the OC I personally didn't inspect the access.

Apart from that I never heard of anyone going up there.

I never even thought about the fact that houses might have had lofts. The intrigue was more underground in the tube.

They were used for purposes which delicacy prevents me from recounting. I shall not reveal the names of my credible first-hand sources, one became a SG.

Oh, but Michael... there are loads of indelicate Forum memories of Horsham; so fascinating to a Hertford girl educated in restraint and purity... do tell...

Angela Woodford wrote:Oh, but Michael... there are loads of indelicate Forum memories of Horsham; so fascinating to a Hertford girl educated in restraint and purity... do tell...

I soon lost that when I went to University

Like cj - I didn't even realise the lofts existed. In fact the fire-escape stairs were strictly out of bounds unless in an emergency.

Therefore, unlike Michael, I never heard of them beig used for nefarious purposes !

Angela, this is not a pornographic site, so I'm afraid you'll have to use your imagination. But you're a big girl now...

Actually, it is said that in the whole of Jane Austen, there is not a single conversation between two men where no women were present, because JA didn't trust herself to report accurately what men might say to each other in such circumstances. A fortiori, I suppose girls might not know, or even be able to imagine, what adolescent boys get up to in the total absence of girls. You'll have to ask an unembarrassable male acquaintance of a certain age who went to a boys' boarding school.

cj wrote:I never even thought about the fact that houses might have had lofts. The intrigue was more underground in the tube.

Same here - I never gave it a thought.

Delicate? One of my friends used to scrounge ciggies from one of the stokers. We never did find out how she paid for them!

Do I detect this thread getting rather interesting ?

One can always hope,John


Maggie

michael scuffil wrote:Angela, this is not a pornographic site, so I'm afraid you'll have to use your imagination. But you're a big girl now...

Actually, it is said that in the whole of Jane Austen, there is not a single conversation between two men where no women were present, because JA didn't trust herself to report accurately what men might say to each other in such circumstances. A fortiori, I suppose girls might not know, or even be able to imagine, what adolescent boys get up to in the total absence of girls. You'll have to ask an unembarrassable male acquaintance of a certain age who went to a boys' boarding school.

I think we can, especially those of us with brothers (well I can, but then I've always had a fairly imaginative, and at times blue, mind despite the convent and CH Hertford education). And also vice versa. Most boys/men I've known have often been shocked at the topics and lurid-ness/-ity of conversations between girls/women.

cj wrote: I think we can, especially those of us with brothers (well I can, but then I've always had a fairly imaginative, and at times blue, mind despite the convent and CH Hertford education). And also vice versa. Most boys/men I've known have often been shocked at the topics and lurid-ness/-ity of conversations between girls/women.

Now we are getting to the nub of the matter.

As someone of advancing years and having worked in many different types of environment with both men AND women, I can honestly say that some of the conversations I have heard between women on varying sexual matters are far more graphic than those between men.

Men tend to use the 'Nudge, nudge-Wink-wink' forms of description, where women, especially more mature women tend to get right down to the nitty-gritty !

michael scuffil says:

"...I shall not reveal the names of my credible first-hand sources..."

Possibly an unfortunate choice of words, given the circumstancers!?