SCHOOL RULES BOOK

[Kit Bartlett]

Is there still such a publication issued? Copies used to be displayed in Day Rooms and other prominent places in the school. One of the rules related to the owning and driving of motor vehicles by pupils which believe it or not was permitted in the nineteen thirties and forties.
I do not think it was allowed on the MIle.
A boy named Dannreuther in Peele B owned one or at any rate drove one. Another rule related to walking outside the ring fence which was forbidden without special permission from one's House Master.
Chris Bartlett

[LongGone]

I don’t remember ever seeing such a book. I think we operated under the old general rule that “anything not mandatory was forbidden”

[sejintenej]

Is there still such a publication issued? Copies used to be displayed in Day Rooms and other prominent places in the school. One of the rules related to the owning and driving of motor vehicles by pupils which believe it or not was permitted in the nineteen thirties and forties.
I do not think it was allowed on the MIle.
A boy named Dannreuther in Peele B owned one or at any rate drove one. Another rule related to walking outside the ring fence which was forbidden without special permission from one's House Master.
Chris Bartlett

I never saw nor heard of a rules book - rules were what the monitors dreamed up (mea culpa) or were passed down over the ages, probably being distorted in the telling. I never heard of any specific rule about motorised transport of any type but there were strict restrictions about having bicycles at school.
We were prohibited from going outside the school premises (including the ring fence along St Edwards Road) without specific permission or implied permission (visiting a master at home, house cross country runs, CCF exercises, swimming ..... I can't remember getting permission to cross the Peele Bridge on a Sunday but so what?) Sunday afternoon bike rides by monitors had to be approved in advance though I can't remember ever giving a route or destination. In Col A Kit seemed to be "flexible" about older boys going outside the ring fence and unfazed by consequential injuries***.

Occasionally cars would appear for leavers on the penultimate gay of their time at CH but I don't recall any at other times. I remember seeing an AC Ace (the not so little brother of the hairy AC Cobra) behind Coleridge in July 1960 but its legal ownership is not known.


*** That reminds me that in those days illnesses and injuries requiring medical treatment were never reported to parents / guardians. Plus ça change.

[jhopgood]

"the penultimate gay of their time at CH"

I know this isn't what you meant but it raises all kinds of questions and thoughts.

[J.R.]

"the penultimate gay of their time at CH"

I know this isn't what you meant but it raises all kinds of questions and thoughts.

Lipstick and high-heels compulsory, John ??

[icomefromalanddownunder]

"the penultimate gay of their time at CH"

I know this isn't what you meant but it raises all kinds of questions and thoughts.

Lipstick and high-heels compulsory, John ??

Dear JR

Cross dressers/transexuals wear lipstick and heels.

Gays usually do not.

[michael scuffil]

A School Rules booklet was introduced in about 1957. A revised edition (of which I have a copy) was produced in January 1961 (date on front cover). It was about 4 x 3 inches in size, and had 36 pages. The cover was light blue. It was printed, of course, by The Springfield Press in Horsham. Possession of one was compulsory, as it states in the Foreword: "Every boy must possess a copy of this book. In the event of loss, a new one must be bought from the Tuck Shop." They were issued free, but the 'new one' cost 6d (that's 2.5p for you youngsters, the price then of a bar of chocolate).

Before 1957, there was a set of school rules on typewritten sheets in a ring-binder. In Thornton B it was kept outside the housemaster's study, but in many houses seems not to have been publicly accessible. Once senior and junior houses came in, in 1964, the rule book would have been out of date, as there would of course have been separate rules for each half of the school. And I suppose the arrival of the girls at Horsham necessitated certain additions...

The rule book in this form was one of Seaman's innovations. And in its pedantry, it bore the stamp of Seaman, too. The rules on dress are extraordinarily detailed, and sometimes strange. "Seniors may not wear Football Clothes in summer" (Rule E 4 (i) (b)). Rule G 5 states: "Boys may not practise golf strokes on Big Side or on House Cricket Squares." (Until this rule came in, no one had realized this was a pressing issue.)

The 1961 edition had two major changes: private radios and gramophones were restricted for the first time to grecians and deps (Rule I 2) (at the same time, though not in the rule book, the ban on pop records was lifted); and boys were allowed to go to the cinema with their parents in wet weather (Rule F (visits) .

There was a useful 'term needing definition': Juniors: all non-Seniors (p. 33).

[Chrissie Boy]

I remember there was a School Rules folder in the Quiet Room of my junior house in the mid-70s. It was seen as an object of ridicule by one and all.

One thing that surprised me was that The Lag (real name Sparrow Copse) was actually Out Of Bounds to all CH pupils, though no explanation was given and I can't remember the rule ever being enforced, not even by staff residing at Stammerham who presumably often encountered boys heading into and out of the wood.

I do recall that it was believed by CH pupils of my day that only the Senior Grecian was allowed to grow a moustache, get married and drive a pony and trap through the grounds, though I don't remember this being in the School Rules folder. I dimly recall Paul Minchin growing a moustache of sorts when he was a School Monitor (but not Senior Grecian) and subsequently shedding it, but whether he was told to shave it off because he wasn't Senior Grecian or whether it simply blew off in the wind I have no idea.

[NEILL THE NOTORIOUS]

I do not believe that such a book existed in my time (The 40s), cerainly there existed the apochryphal tradidions of the School Captain being married, driving a car etc. etc. --- but I never saw either. Petrol was rationed, and private cars were rare'
Boys on the Farm ("Excused Sports") were allowed bikes, and I seem to remember, on another Topic, the practice of riding with the coat tucked into the Girdle.

I agree that most Rules were by tradition -- "We don't DO that !" and of course the "Grecian's Path" and crossing the Quad Grass !!!!!!
(I STILL have qualms about that, on OBs Day !!!)

[Kit Bartlett]

Does the Grecians' Path embargo still apply? On my first day at CH I remember in my innocence
walking back along it with my mother from Preparatory A to the Dining Hall before saying goodbye to her. Boys used to take short cuts across the Quad grass during the war at night time after
choir practice. The Coleridge A House Captain , one P.C. Clarke, berated this practice saying that it was a heinous crime ( not his actual words I am sure) to take advantage of the blackout in this way. On the School Rule Book I know there was one published in the late nineteen thirties.
Chris Bartlett

[wurzel]

Masters path was for masters and monitors only in the 80's.

I once saw a school rule book very old and dog eared - it specifically stated pupils were not allowed to ride pillion on any motorcycle

[michael scuffil]

Masters path was for masters and monitors only in the 80's.

I once saw a school rule book very old and dog eared - it specifically stated pupils were not allowed to ride pillion on any motorcycle

Indeed it did. It also said that no boy was to drive a car in bounds, and out of bounds only when accompanied by parent or guardian.

Juniors had to wear the grey sunhat "unadorned and in its proper shape".

One was allowed to wear HHD (half housey dress, i.e. without the coat) for asphalt games between morning school and dinner, but 'blazers need not, and yellow stockings must not, be worn'.

Snowballing was forbidden between the quarter-mile and the back road.

The book is full of gems.